Jimmy Fallon Does Impressions (I mean, c'mon, the guy's a genius)

The ... Um ... Safety Dance? (A Dance Movie Mash-up)

Via Purple Clover.

WARNING: Humans Are A Class 1 Biological Threat

Via Miss Cellania.

These are Beautiful

What beautiful execution of a fantastical, far-fetched idea.  Modern art is being (one might say "has been") co-opted by graphic design, which itself has been co-opted by advertising.

Via Boing Boing.

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.