How does Santa get Down the Chimney? Science!

Christmas is attendant with many mysteries -- like what the hell does it actually have to do with Jesus Christ? (um, nothing) -- but one important question is why does Santa use the chimney and also how does he use it (well, that's two questions) and why is it important that he's so fat (okay, three questions), but they all have one answer: air pressure.

This does not answer the question of how Santa gets back up the chimney, which I believe is not "by lighting a fire under his butt (that would just flood the house with smoke ... and kill Santa) but by being tethered to magic flying reindeer. 

The Banco Sabadell "Flashmob"

This is Incredible

The Story of My Life

Sorting Algorithms with Sound (Because Who Doesn't Love a Good Sorting Algorithm?)

This video shows sped up versions of sorting algorithms with associated sounds from a GNU licensed program called The Sound of Sorting (link to description which contains the program download info).  It was created by Timo Bingmann, a  Ph.D student in the "Institute of Theoretical Informatics, Algorithmics" in Karlsruhe, Germany, to provide much better background (see, e.g.) and more variants than a prior YouTube version created YouTube user andrut.

Andrut is good enough in the about section of his video to describe prior art, and there's even more including an old QBasic sorting program (SLT), as Bingmann points out.  (BTW, on the video above and on Bingmann's program, as well as on the video below, you'll want the sound turned on, way on, since it is integral to the video -- it's called "The Sound of Sorting" for Christssake. On the video of the QBasic program, on the other hand, you'll want the sound off, very, very off, because it will rapidly drive you insane.)

Should you happen to find yourself with a surfeit of time you may also be interested in videos of the "bubble sort" or the "quick sort" treated as a Hungarian folk dances, the "merge sort" as a Transylvanian German folk dance, or the "select sort" as a Gypsy folk dance.

But your time is valuable so here is just andrut's short, very nice video from three years ago:

Today's Menu, Ravioli in a Blanket

From the MIT Media Lab: "inFORM," a Display that Renders Dynamically in 3D

This is a beautiful and simple idea from the MIT media lab: on the input side dimensions and movement are measured, then sent through a network (presumptively the internet), and then output through actuators as the three dimensional shape that was input.

Here's a cool-action video from the MIT Media lab showing it in action:

inFORM - Interacting With a Dynamic Shape Display from Tangible Media Group on Vimeo via Colossal.

With this simple model the empty (negative) space between the top of the object and the floor of the projector is lost -- the top surface/edge is a true image and then the space is filled in below.  To remedy this defect the obvious solution is to use a balloon or other flexible sheet: on the output side the actuators or "pins" run inside the balloon and spread out spherically; on the input side the actuators (which can simply be a means for the computer/input apparatus to measure location in space) are on the outside.  So, for example, let's suppose on the input side one puts on a tight latex glove with markers on it that are read by the machine and translated into spatial coordinates. On the output side, then, the balloon is deformed by the varying pressure of hundreds or thousands of pins and actuators to render a hand.  Here's a very crude sketch I've whipped up in MS Word (yes, really, but I am in a hurry) to give a sense of the output side:

The "Lego Insect Collection" by Seircon and Coral

Over on Flickr there's a really great set of Lego insects made by Sean and Steph May (who go by Seircon and Coral).  A few samples:

Friday Music: Michele Kwan Plays Guzheng Covering Sweet Child O' Mine

Inaugurating a new feature at the absolutely feature packed blog Galileo Feynman, here is our first installment of Friday Music:

"Children and Guns: The Hidden Toll"

I've written before about gun rights issues, and I think this article from The New York Times (yesterday September 28, 2013) adds an important dimension to the discussion. To quote it's first few paragraphs:

The .45-caliber pistol that killed Lucas Heagren, 3, on Memorial Day last year at his Ohio home had been temporarily hidden under the couch by his father. But Lucas found it and shot himself through the right eye. “It’s bad,” his mother told the 911 dispatcher. “It’s really bad.”

A few days later in Georgia, Cassie Culpepper, 11, was riding in the back of a pickup with her 12-year-old brother and two other children. Her brother started playing with a pistol his father had lent him to scare coyotes. Believing he had removed all the bullets, he pointed the pistol at his sister and squeezed the trigger. It fired, and blood poured from Cassie’s mouth.

Just a few weeks earlier, in Houston, a group of youths found a Glock pistol in an apartment closet while searching for snack money. A 15-year-old boy was handling the gun when it went off. Alex Whitfield, who had just turned 11, was struck. A relative found the bullet in his ashes from the funeral home.

     * * *

A New York Times review of hundreds of child firearm deaths found that accidental shootings occurred roughly twice as often as the records indicate, because of idiosyncrasies in how such deaths are classified by the authorities. The killings of Lucas, Cassie and Alex, for instance, were not recorded as accidents. Nor were more than half of the 259 accidental firearm deaths of children under age 15 identified by The Times in eight states where records were available.

There's no gainsaying that the drafters and ratifiers of the second amendment had no idea how easy to misuse and how dangerous weapons would become. But evenso the amendment does not restrict safety devices for guns. The only argument against such safety devices is a policy argument, for they are nowhere in the text or meaning of the amendment, and the argument against them is a terrible policy argument.

Precussive Maintenance

Percussive Maintenance from Duncan Robson on Vimeo and via Colossal. Music by Joel Robson.

The Fountainhead in 5 Seconds

Via Cynical-C.

Improve Everywhere + Carnegie Hall

Our Moon

Via Colossal (specifically, Colossal purveyor Christopher Jobson's twitter account), Kottke, and Yahoo! News blog Geekquinox, this video is made from thousands of high resolution still images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's wide angle camera.  As is somewhat common knowledge, Geekquinox notes:

The moon really does rotate, even though it doesn't look like it from here. Because the moon is 'tidally locked' to the Earth, that means that it always has one face pointed towards us. However, it also means that the time it takes to rotate once is the same as the time it takes to go around the Earth — 27 days.

Mechanical Beauty

The blue gears (on a single axle) turn in a single direction
varying the red gear from clockwise to counterclockwise
depending on whether it is meshing at the time with the
inner or outer blue gear

Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical Movements is a website reproducing each of the mechanical illustrations by Henry T. Brown, first published in 1868 and updated and republished many times since.  The website authors are in the process of animating Brown's illustrations.  The animations are fantastic; they make the function of the gears and other mechanical elements crystal clear (Brown's original drawings not so much, but that can be part of the fun).  If you care about how things work or how to make things work or just the beauty of function, this site is a wonder.

Via BoingBoing and O'Reilly Radar (which, btw, is a great site).

We're Living in the Space Age, Dude

Beginning "I am sick of hearing people say that the Space Age is "over" because we haven't sent humans back to the Moon. Seriously? That's your complaint? ...," Annalee Newitz begins a rant at io9 on the incredible technology we now have in space and the incredible amount of knowledge we've gained.  And, indeed, we knew so little about space even a century ago that we had no concrete knowledge of the size of the universe, the amount of planets, suns, and galaxies in the universe, what in detail composed them, that there might be dark matter and dark energy, or how most of it worked. A century ago Einstein's writings on special relativity and the quantum, which are now fundamental to physics and chemistry, had only recently been published and were barely understood; his theory of general relativity was still a year away. Humans had few large telescopes, had no large rockets, and had never sent anything into space nor had any realistic plans to do so.  We now have a space station -- we've had space stations for several decades now.  Oh how things have changed.

So Newitz's article is an enjoyable rant and right.  No, we are not going today to other star systems.  Really?  Do you think that is going to happen?  This is the space age for the foreseeable future.

Newitz's rant, BTW, seems to borrow heavily in tone from Louis C.K., and he is damn funny (Newitz not so much, though that's not her point), so you should watch this:

Comedy Central

Some Questions for Libertarians

I know a lot of people, which means that, among the many I know, I know a fair number of self-described "libertarians."  These range from a friend of mine who happens to be an auto mechanic and who believes that libertarians have discovered a new form of economics and likes to say "Who is John Galt?" to a friend who is a former Libertarian gubernatorial candidate and notable lawyer and is on the inside of the movement.  I've often been puzzled by the discontinuities in libertarian beliefs -- for instance, I am puzzled by libertarians who rail against "the right to privacy" -- and I know I am not alone in this.  An article by R.J. Eskow published yesterday in Salon (which I saw via Pharyngula) puts it right up front: "11 Questions to See if Libertarians are Hypocrites."

The whole article is worth reading, as Eskow puts the questions into context. Here, though, are his questions:

1. Are unions, political parties, elections, and social movements like Occupy examples of “spontaneous order” [a term used by the Cato Institute to define libertarian thought] —and if not, why not?
2. Is a libertarian willing to admit that production is the result of many forces, each of which should be recognized and rewarded?
3. Is our libertarian willing to acknowledge that workers who bargain for their services, individually and collectively, are also employing market forces?
4. Is our libertarian willing to admit that a “free market” needs regulation?
5. Does our libertarian believe in democracy? If yes, explain what’s wrong with governments that regulate.
6. Does our libertarian use wealth that wouldn’t exist without government in order to preach against the role of government?
7. Does our libertarian reject any and all government protection for his intellectual property?
8. Does our libertarian recognize that democracy is a form of marketplace?
9. Does our libertarian recognize that large corporations are a threat to our freedoms?
10. Does he think that [Ayn] Rand was off the mark on this one, or does he agree that historical figures like King and Gandhi were “parasites”?
11. If you believe in the free market, why weren’t you willing to accept as final the judgment against libertarianism rendered decades ago in the free and unfettered marketplace of ideas?

I have to distance myself a bit from Eskow's questions (even in the context of the article in which they're propounded) as they make a few unfounded leaps and they're not that well phrased, complete, or ordered.  Still, they point up fundamental inconsistencies in libertarian dogmas.

And in so saying I have to point out that I am, as I supposed Eskow is, a strong believer in individual rights.¹ I seek a system which protects those rights and interests -- and provides the opportunity to exercise those rights and interests -- to the maximum extent for the maximum number of citizens. It's that last part that seems to me the too common rub with libertarians: they seem, too often, to seek to maximize rights for a few (usually themselves) to the detriment of everyone else. Yes, I think, democratic republican forms of government are the closest we've come so far to a regime of individual rights; and some government and some regulation, measured for it's reasonability, is necessary to protect our rights and interests.
____________________
¹ Here I have to make a controversial (if correct) comment: individual rights are not "natural rights." They are made by people. That is not a political or philosophical observation; it is a factual one. It is something we cannot change no matter how much we wish it to be different. One would have to be extremely ignorant of history to think that individual rights have existed for many centuries (let alone forever). One would have to be extremely ignorant of the world to think that individual rights exist everywhere. One would have to be extremely ignorant of culture to think that all cultures reflect or even understand western notions of individual rights. One would have to be extremely ignorant of the process of government and lawmaking to think that rights or laws magically exist. That individual rights are not "natural rights" does not mean that individual rights are unimportant; it means their explication and codification is critical.

"40 Maps That Explain the World"

At the Washington Post there was an interesting post a couple of days ago collecting a variety of geopolitical maps that offer insight into the world.  They don't quite "explain the world" -- maps on, say, oil deposits and mineral resources, education levels, locations of armies and missiles, rainfall, etc. -- might offer something more in the way of explanation, but these are fascinating nonetheless.  A few examples via Tim!):

Large image of map below here.

Large image of map below here (different colors).

Large image of map below here.

Large image of map below here.

Large image of map below here.

This May Be the Most Disgusting Reddit Thread I've Ever Seen (And I Thought I Should Share)

The Reddit thread's subject is trypophobia -- supposedly the fear of small holes -- but mostly its lesions and growing things interspersed with pictures of little holes in pancakes, and while that may not seem gross, trust me.  Why would one look at this? How can one turn away?  Via Boing Boing.

Nightmares in the Uncanny Valley

parametric expression from mike pelletier on Vimeo;  a study of quantified emotion; music: Colleen - I Was Deep in A Dream and Didn't Know It. (http://colleenplays.org/)  Via Metafilter.

The Hamburg Firestorm 70 Years Ago

Between July 24 and August 3, 1943, the British and US airforces conducted -- or attempted to conduct, since several of them failed -- a series of massive air raids on Hamburg, then a major port and manufacturing center of Germany. Finally, they got through. Wikipedia's description of " Operation Gomorrah":

On the night of 27 July, shortly before midnight, 739 aircraft attacked Hamburg. The unusually dry and warm weather, the concentration of the bombing in one area and firefighting limitations due to Blockbuster bombs used in the early part of the raid - and the recall of Hannover's firecrews to their own city - culminated in the so-called "Feuersturm" (firestorm). The tornadic fire created a huge inferno with winds of up to 240 km/h (150 mph) reaching temperatures of 800 °C (1,500 °F) and altitudes in excess of 1,000 feet, incinerating more than eight square miles (21 km²) of the city. Asphalt streets burst into flame, and fuel oil from damaged and destroyed ships, barges and storage tanks spilled into the water of the canals and the harbour, causing them to ignite as well. The majority of deaths attributed to Operation 'Gomorrah' occurred on this night. A large number of those killed died seeking safety in bomb shelters and cellars, the firestorm consuming the oxygen in the burning city above. The furious winds created by the firestorm had the power to sweep people up off the streets like dry leaves:

Some people who tried to walk along, they were pulled in by the fire, they all of the sudden disappeared right in front of you (...) You have to save yourself or try to get as far away from the fire, because the draught pulls you in.[9] On the night of 29 July, Hamburg was again attacked by over 700 aircraft. A planned raid on 31 July was cancelled due to thunderstorms over the UK.[10] The last raid of Operation Gomorrah was conducted on 3 August.

Operation Gomorrah killed 42,600 people, left 37,000 wounded and caused some one million German civilians to flee the city.

Here are contemporary German and United States shorts on the bombing:

See, also, this description by a citizen of Hamburg who managed to escape being incinerated or asphyxiated in a bombing shelter (via Word War II Today).  The extraordinary devastation of the raids spread terror among Germany's population.

Although the US film comes off much more as propaganda (to me) than the German film, the firestorm on the night of the 27th was caused by the RAF, not the U.S.  

And finally, as a reference, here are the bombing deaths from Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Tokyo, Dresden, and London and England (though out its bombing) to compare with the ~43,000 killed in Hamburg in the  July 24 and August 3, 1943 raids (most on July 27): Nagasaki 40,000 to 75,000 (August 11, 1945); Hiroshima 70,000 to 80,000 (August 6, 1945);  Tokyo ~100,000 (March 9-10, 1945); Dresden ~25,000 (February 13 to 15, 1945); England ~23,000 (summer and fall 1940).

Don't Mind Me, Just Takin' Care of Some Business ...

Well, that worked out pretty good, let's see what else we've got ...

Via Neatorama.

The Beach Boys Shred I Get Around

Via Tim!

The Landfill Harmonic Orchestra

The World is Now in Color: Calvin & Hobbs

Click for a large image.

Native American Portraits from c. 1905

Below (and after the jump) is a small sampling of a series of great portraits of Native Americans at In Focus, The Atlantic's photography blog.  The full series, posted a few months ago, is worth seeing.

"Lies I've Told My 3 Year Old Recently"

Trees talk to each other at night.
All fish are named either Lorna or Jack.
Before your eyeballs fall out from watching too much TV, they get very loose.
Tiny bears live in drain pipes.
If you are very very quiet you can hear the clouds rub against the sky.
The moon and the sun had a fight a long time ago.
Everyone knows at least one secret language.
When nobody is looking, I can fly.
We are all held together by invisible threads.
Books get lonely too.
Sadness can be eaten.
I will always be there

A poem by Raul Gutierez at the blog Heading East, via Boing Boing.

Russian Landscape Artist Konstantin Kryzhitsky and Knowing the Artist

James Gurney, who writes the great art blog Gurney Journey, asks what a painting can tells us about an artist.  Speculating from the painting Peyzazh 1895 (below) by the Russian painter Konstantin Kryzhitsky,  of whom gurney was unaware (me to), Gurney asserts Kryzhitsky "had a deep soul, a love of mystery, melancholy, and music, and a keen sense of nature's moods that must have come from long walks through the countryside. This painting couldn't have been done by a flippant, urbane, or shallow person."

I'm not sure that so much about an artist can be gleaned from a single painting.  I certainly have my doubts that Kryzhitsky was not urbane.  Assuming the artist is not attempting to mislead about herself or himself -- and is, of course, not a forger or a machine -- still we may know very little of an artist from a work or series of works.  Of course, it depends on the work.  I could say very little about Ellsworth Kelly, for instance, just knowing some of his work.  As to Kryzhitsky, taking the assumption that he puts himself genuinely into his work, and looking at many of his landscapes, I see someone awed by nature both as to its beauty and scale, someone who wanted to show humankind as small in relation to that vastness, someone who had trained as an academic painter and had extraordinary technical skill, and someone who very sensitive and smart.

Peyzazh 1895 is, to my lights, a fantastic painting: from the illusion of smoke from the break in the trees, from the juxtaposition of built and natural world, to the question it raises of whether one is entering or leaving the estate, to the feeling of coldness and sense of place so real (but not slavishly realistic) that I can feel being there.  This last point flows readily across many of his works -- below the break a sample (and final comment):

Sculpting the Aging Process

Peter Han calls himself a designer not an artist.  He is an artist.

In the video below he not only demonstrates his art, but, wittingly or not, gives a clear sense of what makes art, literally and figuratively.

Han's incredible work can be seen on his website and through some screenshots at Colossal.

The Bead Chain Experiment

Our physical world is simply an amazing world.

Via Tim! from 3 Quarks Daily.

Excellent Advice from Galileo Feynman Jezebel

This is not the Dick you're looking for

What with Anthony Weiner's weiner in the news again, Erin Gloria Ryan has come forward with some timely advice at Jezebel in an article entitled "Should You Send a Lady a Dick Pic? A Guide for Men."

The answer appears to be "no." Who knew?

I assure you the article and its comments are worth reading in full.

Having Learned We are Publishing Again ...

Leonardo Sagan is now hastily rushing back. Yep, things are really heating up around here.

The Time Obama Was Mistaken for a Waiter at a Tina Brown Book Party

I thought this note at The Atlantic harking back to a 2008 article by Katie Rosman in The Wall Street Journal -- and accompanied by the perfect picture (from Kevin Lemarque for Reuters) -- expressed the issue of frequent racial assumptions with clarity and brevity:

"In less than six years, Obama has gone from being mistaken for a waiter among the New York media elite, to the president-elect. What a country."
      ...
And yet even as that country elected and then reelected its first black president, the easy assumptions about who black men are have yet to vanish.

(Link from Miss Cellania; interior quote from Rosman's article.)

Winter is Coming Apparently Sometime Far Away from Now

I've been intermittently reading the Game of Thrones (er, I mean A Song of Fire and Ice) series, having watched the HBO drama.  I whole heartedly agree with this review, except for the part about I am not going to read it anymore.  That's because I knew this was nonsense coming in -- it's a soap opera in fantasy trappings -- but it's my damn soap opera and I'm hooked.

And, yes, the majority of the best characters are dead:

Comic-Con 2013: In Memoriam

Exciting Blogging Action Returns

After a short hiatus, I thought I should get back to the blog.  This is, after all, our 1 year anniversary.  Previous calculations about how long we had been publishing have proven to be inaccurate.

This is the Kind of World I Want to Live In

Via Kottke. And, as Kottke points out, there are plenty of crazy thing happen in Russia videos out there; none, though, betray much hope for the world or respect for others as this one does.

Edwardian England and Ireland Circa 1900

The description at YouTube:

This video has been dramatically enhanced in quality, using modern video editing tools. The film has been motion stabilized and the speed has been slowed down to correct speed (from 18 fps to 24 fps) using special frame interpolation software that re-creates missing frames. Upscaling to HD quality was done using video enhancer software.

I have been told that at least part of this film was shot in Cork (Ireland). The music is "Chanson du Soir" and "Arco Noir" from Harvey's Strings of Sorrow album.

I found the video oddly moving -- must be the sentimental music.  Yes, that's it; it was the music ...

Via Miss Cellania.

Wikipedia Live Monitor

Wikipedia Live Monitor is a major event tracking site that takes edit traffic at Wikipedia, concurrently comparing multiple different language versions of the site, and then compares them in "real time" to international social media edits. The information is used to generate notes (lists? posts? ticklers? I'm not sure what to call these) of rapidly emerging stories around the world. In short, it's a news monitoring service.

I used it during the recent Boston Marathon bombing unfolding story to see how well it worked; I think it is sort of meh right now, but could emerge into a great tracking device. I think it would be better, in the short term, for human editors to review and further edit the output -- at least more than they do -- as well as develop a much better output display.

Wikipedia Live Monitor has it genesis in articles on the possibility of using Wikipedia edits as a news alert, an idea that came from the crash of Wikipedia after Michael Jackson died and edit wars erupted.

"False Flags and Roof Terrorists: Your Guide to All the Internet Horseshit"

"Roof Guy"

An article at Gawker a few days ago, "False Flags and Roof Terrorists: Your Guide to All the Internet Horseshit," if fun of short reading of all an example of the crap nonsense people were spouting on the web and social media after the Boston Bombings when few if any of us really knew what was going on. We get a primer of "false flag attacks," "the roof guy," "crisis actors," and the "fact" that the show Family Guy supposedly predicted the attack. Of course, the readers at Reddit and 4chan were also actively trying (and failing) to solve the crime. (As Matt Buchanan said in an article at The New Yorker on the trend, "This moment is, for better or for worse, the shape of things to come.")

It is a brave new world where everybody has ready access to information on how to maim and kill hundreds or thousands and then we can all play FBI together, speculating on who did it.

Magnetic Putty "Eating" A Magnet

Via Miss Cellania.

Hobo Matters: An Important Episode from The American Experience

Conspiracy Caused American Brains to be Replaced with Pudding

Brain of Ted Nugent. Its removal increased his intelligence.

Recent documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that a covert project by the Heritage Foundation and Monsanto secretly turned the brains of millions of Americans into pudding. Most of those affected live in rural areas.

Pudding Brain, or "PB" as it is widely known, is easily detected by examining positive response to triggers like Fox Nation, Rush Limbaugh, and NASCAR racing. Those afflicted with PB also often feel an obsessive need to arm themselves with weapons for no reason whatsoever.

According to scientists, a brain composed of pudding is poor at thinking.

Scientists speculate that PB may have resulted from the ingestion of high amounts of fertilizer laced with hydroxilic acid. Only areas where agricultural supplements are widely used have significant numbers affected with PB.

U.S. counties with the highest number of Pudding Brains are shown in red

The dangers of hydroxilic acid, which also goes by the scientific name μ-oxido dihydrogen, have been well documented for decades. A campaign to ban the substance began in the 1980's but faltered. 

Oddly, those with PB often fear that hydroxilic acid is contaminated with fluoride. According to an unimpeachable source fluoride is a corrosive poison that will produce serious effects on a long range basis.

Hydroxillic acid is also a key ingredient in the manufacture of methamphetamine, a "medicine" popular in areas that also have a high number of Pudding Heads. Scientists have discouraged the use of methamphetamine, however, leading some to believe they are preventing the treatment of those with PB. According to Mehmet Oz, America's rural doctor, rural people should treat themselves with Reiki and berry juice. Dr. Oz was unavailable for comment according to a man behind a curtain, and, indeed, was not even in Kansas anymore.

Nazi Super Weapons -- Some New Details

The Überschwerer Kampfschreitpanzer, also known as "Thor's Hammer" was one of several super weapons that the Nazis unveiled at the end of World War II in a desperate attempt to halt the Allies. Used mostly against the Soviets. their existence was concealed after the war, though they contributed to the USSR's so-called "doomsday device" that threatened the West in the 1960's. New documents reveal that Khrushchev agreed to dismantle Thor's Hammer as part of the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis. In exchange the U.S. agreed to withdraw the  PGM-17 Thor intermediate-range ballistic missiles (the "Hammer killer") it had deployed to the U.K. as part of "Project Emily."

It's Music Wednesday!

As everyone knows, we always begin our Mondays with some uplifitng music! Today's hit:

Today's Our 27th Anniversary!

While it feels like it was only a few short months ago, it's been twenty-seven since we began turning out this we-blog or "weblog" for short. You've come to know and love us today due to the efforts of our main poster boy, Galileo Feynman. To celebrate here's a sneak peek at what goes on behind the screens:

Before any post is published we run a 17,000 amp current through the author "just to test."

The Coming Spring

Flowers Timelapse from Katka Pruskova on Vimeo.

From Wired: "As Math Grows More Complex, Will Computers Reign?"

From an interesting article in Wired from earlier this month:

Computers are now used extensively to discover new conjectures by finding patterns in data or equations, but they cannot conceptualize them within a larger theory, the way humans do. Computers also tend to bypass the theory-building process when proving theorems, said Constantin Teleman, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley who does not use computers in his work. In his opinion, that’s the problem. “Pure mathematics is not just about knowing the answer; it’s about understanding,” Teleman said. “If all you have come up with is ‘the computer checked a million cases,’ then that’s a failure of understanding.”

Zeilberger disagrees. If humans can understand a proof, he says, it must be a trivial one. In the never-ending pursuit of mathematical progress, Zeilberger thinks humanity is losing its edge. Intuitive leaps and an ability to think abstractly gave us an early lead, he argues, but ultimately, the unswerving logic of 1′s and 0′s — guided by human programmers — will far outstrip our conceptual understanding, just as it did in chess. (Computers now consistently beat grandmasters.)

“Most of the things done by humans will be done easily by computers in 20 or 30 years,” Zeilberger said. “It’s already true in some parts of mathematics; a lot of papers published today done by humans are already obsolete and can be done using algorithms. Some of the problems we do today are completely uninteresting but are done because it’s something that humans can do.”

The Making and Breaking of Prince Rupert's Drop

Prince Rupert's Drop is a string of glass with a bulb on the end formed by pouring molten glass into cold water. The glass immediately sets on the outside of the stream, which insulates the inside of the stream causing it to cool more slowly. As a result the bulb on the end is very hard to break but any stress farther up the strong will cause the whole thing to instantly explode. Here it is in ultra-slo-mo (which is very cool):

Imagine a World Without Hate

This moving advertisement for the Anti Defamation League has begun to make the rounds. It's only one minute twenty seconds long and does a lot with that:

Today's Crazy Values In Ceramics

As reported at NBC News (via Miss Celania), a bowl purchased at a garage sale for $3 turned out to be a 1000 year old relic from China. Naturally, following a suitable period sitting on the family fireplace mantel followed by a suitable period for verification, it was off to auction and was sold for $2.2 million.

This stuff never happens to me.

Note: this embedded video is from NBC News, whose embedding sucks, and I am too tight on time to fool with it. You'd think a big media company like that would have a clue, but nooooo ...

Renata Adler Rips The New York Times a New One

A few years ago Renata Adler wrote a book about the decline of The New Yorker at the departure of its long term editor, William Shawn, and happened to quote a letter she had written Shawn declining to review a book about Judge John Sirica, famous from the Watergate scandal. "Contrary to his reputation as a hero," Adler wrote, "Sirica was in fact a corrupt, incompetent, and dishonest figure, with a close connection to Senator Joseph McCarthy and clear ties to organized crime."

This single sentence led to a firestorm, mostly in The New York Times. It published no less than eight pieces critical of Adler and her book and mostly critical of the single sentence quoted above. It also refused to print a letter from Adler defending it. Harpers, however, did publish an essay by Adler. There she discusses the sentence and lays out her substantial support for it and, in the process, demolishes the Times's approach, as well as Sirica. Adler's essay is a masterwork of rhetoric and careful thought.

Conservatives and Sewers (Is One More Full of Shit?)

This short Paul Krugman column from a few days ago is worth quoting in its entirety:

I see that some commenters on my traffic externalities post are speculating what Republicans would say about sewers if they didn’t already exist. Well, we don’t know about Republicans, but we do know what The Economist said, in 1848, about proposals for a London sewer system:

Suffering and evil are nature’s admonitions; they cannot be got rid of; and the impatient efforts of benevolence to banish them from the world by legislation, before benevolence has learned their object and their end, have always been more productive of evil than good.

Sewers are socialism!

It wasn’t until the Great Stink made the Houses of Parliament uninhabitable that the sewer system was created.

(I added the link to "the Great Stink" -- and it's a fun read -- the others are in Krugman's original at The New York Times.)

What Hurts More: AC or DC?

The way to determine this is to to test:

Bottom line: AC hurts a lot more than DC. But they both hurt a lot.

Score 1 for Edison.

Dick Cheney Speaks Candidly About His Memories of the Iraq War

In an exclusive interview given to America's finest News Source, The Onion, Dick Cheney spoke candidly today about his memories of the Iraq war which he started a scant ten years ago today:

Good times, Dick, good times.

The Paintings of KwangHo Shin

From Behance the oil paintings of Korean artist KwangHo Shin (신광호) which I fthink are beautiful, technically smart, and moving:

From the BBC: The Lyndon Johnson Tapes: Richard Nixon's 'Treason'

This, if true, and it is at least partially backed up by tapes, is scandalous: according to the BBC (not always the most reliable source) during the 1968 U.S. presidential campaign Richard Nixon, then a candidate in a very tight race with Hubert Humphrey, scuttled the Paris peace talks the U.S. was engaged in with the North Vietnamese. According to the BBC Nixon used Anna Chennault (born Chen Xiangmei (陳香梅), she was a Republican operative who had a very interesting life) to convince the South Vietnamese to reject an agreement the U.S. and the North Vietnamese had worked out because Nixon claimed the South Vietnamese would be better treated by his administration. Of course, they ultimately were not: South Vietnam fell to the North in 1975 after the additional deaths of more than 100,000 people. If the talks had been successful before the 1968 election it seems likely that the democratic candidate would have one.

And as to who that candidate would be, there's another significant historical note in the BBC story: President Lyndon Johnson wanted to go to the convention and re-enter the race and get the nomination himself. He didn't for several reasons. One, apparently, was that he then knew Nixon had prevented the peace accord, a fact he learned through NSA and other surveillance of Chennault and the ambassador, among others. Johnson called Nixon a traitor and said he had blood on his hands.

The claims in the BBC article have been in the public arena for several years, though they've received scant attention. Both Johnson and his Secretary of Defense, Clark Clifford, claimed it was true and not based on speculation. Numerous writers have claimed it was the case, and it seems to be supported (if by innuendo) by the former South Vietnamese ambassador's own memoir.

Via Kottke.

On Whether Radagast Could Indeed Effectively Mush with Rabbits

In an evidently non-canonical portion of the recent movie of Tolkien's classic The Hobbit, the wizard Radagast the Brown travels about on a sled pulled by rabbits. (Wait! Was that a spoiler I should have warned you about? Well, given that Radagast has the same rhetorical value as Jar Jar Binks, I'm going to go with "no.")

Anyway, over at The One Ring.net, Teanne Byerts, who goes by the handle "swordwhale" and is a recreational musher, actually thinks this is a great idea (also not surprising given that Ms. swordwhale's essay is, in fact, on The One Ring.net).  BUT Peter Jackson et al. nonetheless failed by having Radagast's gangline attached to his brush bow, which, apparently, would surely tear his sled apart. He also rides his sled incorrectly and doesn't have a brake. Horrors! Verisimilitude in Tolkien fantasy movies has simply gone into the toilet. It's no wonder Christopher Tolkien hates the movies.

By the way, should your interest in mushing now have been whetted, there is a great series of photos over at The Big Picture (of The Boston Globe) covering this year's Iditarod Trail Sled Race now ongoing in Alaska.

Will It Blend -- iPhone5 vs. Samsung Galaxy S3

The Blendtec blender man calls it a draw, but if you watch I think it is obvious that the iPhone blends a lot easier than the Samsung -- that is, Samsung wins! (My guess is that the Android operating system had no effect on the outcome.)

The Power of Myth

Bill Moyers has put the audio of his famous series of six interviews with anthropologist ethnographer "mythologist" Joseph Campbell online for free. In the series, which was made 25 years ago, Campbell discusses at length (and with broad appeal for many) his theories on the importance of religious stories and myths in all cultures. Campbell, who was greatly influenced by lay biologist and philosopher Ed Ricketts (who also influenced John Steinbeck, Henry Miller, Bruce Ariss, Adelle Davis Henry Miller, Lincoln Steffens and Francis Whitaker) as well as Carl Jung, modern art, Thomas Mann, Hinduism, and Native American culture, believed that myth was ingrained in the "human psyche" and always centered around the trials of a "hero." There's a lot of pop psychology and loose thinking here, but the series is worth listening to nonetheless for its provocative ideas and lovely delivery.

The Incredible Underwater Photography of Alexander Semenov

Alexander Semenov, a Russian zoologist specializing in squid, started taking underwater photographs a few years ago, and his work has simply taken off. Below a selection of close-ups of coral. His site is worth going through for a full selection of his work (or just see my prior post on his photos -- not not really, go to his site).

Mastectomy Tattoos

This is a lovely idea: women who have had full or partial mastectomies have used tattoos to cover or incorporate their scars, turning what can seem a permanent disfigurement into a source of beauty and self expression.

At Babble.com there's a nice gallery -- likely safe for work unless you're surrounded by conservative nuts or work in North Korea. Via MetaFilter.

Life on the Ol' Wabash

This, I am given to understand, is how people in Indiana spend their time.

Breaking Dawn Part 2 Won Seven (7) Awards Last Night

Of course, the awards Breaking Dawn" Part 2 won were Razzies. Via Miss Celania.

"Our Story in 2 Minutes"

The "our" in "Our Story" is mostly the US (well, that's the intended audience), but whatever; this is still great:

Jerry Seinfeld Accepting the Award at the Show

I thought Jerry Seinfeld's speech was particularly moving:

Via MetaFilter.

Academy Award Preview: Best Actress Nominee Ann Coulter

The best actress category is controversial this year since Ann Coulter's sexual identity is unknown, but nonetheless her attempt to pretend she's not an asshole was touching if ultimately a failure. Being born without a conscience has undoubtedly been quite a handicap, and I expect her to win the sympathy vote here.

Now I know that Michele Bachman made a strong push this year with her crazy comic stylings, but who can forget Sarah Palin's portrayal as a tragically insane woman in 2008 that brought her accolades from all over? The sympathy vote always wins.

Academy Awards Preview: Best Horror Film

Once again, this is another year where the none of the nominees were released this year. Anyway, it's a tight race, but the likely winner is Mary Poppins:

Also nominated:
        Mrs. Doubtfire

        Uncle Buck

        Sleepless in Seattle

Academy Awards Preview: Best Foreign Language Film Nominee Shadow Pico

I often don't understand foreign language films because they aren't filmed in English, but I thought Shadow Pico was a really moving look into the mental health system:

Academy Awards Preview: Best Picture Likely Winner, The Avengers

Also nominated is Prometheus which has the advantage that none of it makes any sense whatsoever:

Academy Awards Preview: Best Romantic Comedy (A New Category this Year)

Likely winner: The Shining:

Also nominated:
        The Shawshank Redemption

One of the things I love about romantic-comedies -- or "rom-coms" as we in the in-crowd call them -- is how the title always gives let's you know they're upbeat. Like "The Shining" or "The Shawshank Redemption." You just know those are going to be happy movies.

Japanese Bridges

Apropos of nothing particular, pulled from various internet locations at unknown times (and so, sorry, references long lost) -- clicking on the image or "read more" brings up the full set: