November 2009
249 posts
“There is a reason you don’t have Mexican beer cartels planting fields of hops in...”
– Bruce Merken, Marijuana Policy Project
Intel: Chips in brains will control computers by... →
I work on this topic & think this figure is extremely optimistic for a number of reasons & misleading for others. there’s a reason this was published in computerworld and sourced from Intel. regardless, “chips in brains” are already able to “control computers” today, if by “control” you mean - move a mouse in a 2d plane with reasonable...
Solar System Scale Model →
planets are shown at true average distances - on a 72dpi monitor, that’s more than half a mile wide. (roomthily)
“In species where females swap sex for food, loose females typically eat...”
– Olivia Judson, Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation
(nightmarebrunette)
Semantic satiation →
Semantic satiation (also semantic saturation) is a cognitive neuroscience phenomenon in which repetition causes a word or phrase to temporarily lose meaning for the listener, who can only process the speech as repeated meaningless sounds.
dailymeh:
This is officially a series.
Umberto Eco curates a show dedicated to lists at... →
New theory of Quantum Gravity →
which splits time from space at high temperatures. I’m always up for a new model of reality.
My favorite kind of beauty is jolie laide,... →
“No, jolie laide aims to jog us out of our reflexive habits of looking and assessing by embracing the aesthetic pleasures of the visually off kilter: a bump on the nose, eyes that are set too closely together, a jagged smear of a mouth. It points away from the kittenish, pliant prettiness of Brigitte Bardot toward the tense, smolderingly imperfect allure of Anouk Aimée or Jeanne Moreau. Although...
“Take the dandelion: a single dandelion may produce 2,000 seeds per year,...”
– Cory Doctorow, Think Like a Dandelion (somethingchanged)
Mr. X →
This account was written [by Carl Sagan] in 1969 for publication in Marihuana Reconsidered (1971):
It all began about ten years ago. I had reached a considerably more relaxed period in my life - a time when I had come to feel that there was more to living than science, a time of awakening of my social consciousness and amiability, a time when I was open to new experiences. I had become friendly...
Why dolphins are deep thinkers →
The more we study dolphins, the brighter they turn out to be (givemesomethingtoread)