A few examples from the below site:

• Money that has 'gone missing' from the US State Department
• Daylight Savings Time
• Tea
• Advertisements for prescription drugs

Things That Cost More Than Space Exploration
As a reference for people who think that space exploration costs too much, here’s a list of things…

Originally posted on Google+ · September 27, 2014

But the trend is clear. “It is clear that humans will soon outperform state-of-the-art image classification models only by use of significant effort, expertise, and time,” say Russakovsky and co.

What I find really great about this is that libraries are already available for deep belief networks for us mere mortal programmers.

The Revolutionary Technique That Quietly Changed Machine Vision Forever | MIT Technology Review
Machines are now almost as good as humans at object recognition, and the turning point occurred in 2012, say computer scientists.

Originally posted on Google+ · September 10, 2014

Originally posted on Google+ · September 10, 2014

Neat animated graph of income vs life expectancy for a bunch of countries since 1800.

Click the Play button near the lower left corner to animate it.

http://www.gapminder.org/world/#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly=2003;lb=f;il=t;fs=11;al=30;stl=t;st=t;nsl=t;se=t$wst;tts=C$ts;sp=5.59290322580644;ti=2012$zpv;v=0$inc_x;mmid=XCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj1jiMAkmq1iMg;by=ind$inc_y;mmid=YCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj2tPLxKvvnNPA;by=ind$inc_s;uniValue=8.21;iid=phAwcNAVuyj0XOoBL_n5tAQ;by=ind$inc_c;uniValue=255;gid=CATID0;by=grp$map_x;scale=log;dataMin=283;dataMax=110808$map_y;scale=lin;dataMin=18;dataMax=87$map_s;sma=49;smi=2.65$cd;bd=0$inds=;example=75

Originally posted on Google+ · September 6, 2014

Clarke book, Childhood's End.  

I don't really have any confidence in SyFy to do the book justice, but here's hoping…

Originally posted on Google+ · September 3, 2014

I was just reading this retrospective look at how Hitler invaded Poland and was reminded of the similarities between that invasion and the current situation in Ukraine.  

75 years ago, Hitler invaded Poland. Here’s how it happened.
Looking back at Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, which marked the start of World War II.

Originally posted on Google+ · September 1, 2014

Was the attack on Pearl Harbor brilliantly planned and executed or was it successful in only the loosest sense of the word?

Not only was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor far from brilliant, it also narrowly avoided disaster.

This article makes the case that it was a junk plan and barely worked.

Pearl Harbor
Facts, information and articles about the attack on Pearl Harbor, the first battle of World War II Pearl Harbor Facts Dates December 7, 1941 Location Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Generals/Commanders United States: Husband Kimmel and Walter Short Japanese: Chuichi Nagumo and Isoroku Yamamoto Soldiers Engaged United States: Japanese: Outcome Japanese Victory Casualties United States: 3,700 Japanese: […]

Originally posted on Google+ · August 27, 2014

Population of the United States is moving Southwest. Since 1900 in particular it has really drifted South.

Originally posted on Google+ · August 26, 2014