Reshared post from gwern branwen
Isaac Newton’s occult studies – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Newton’s writings suggest that one of the main goals of his alchemy may have been the discovery of The Philosopher’s Stone (a material believed to turn base metals into gold), and perhaps to a lesser …
Originally posted on Google+ · April 13, 2013
Reshared post from Chris Worth
The Derweze area is rich in natural gas. While drilling in 1971, Soviet geologists tapped into a cavern filled with natural gas.The ground beneath the drilling rig collapsed, leaving a large hole with a diameter of 70 metres (230 ft) at 40°15′10″N 58°26′22″E. To avoid poisonous gas discharge, it was decided the best solution was to burn it off. Geologists had hoped the fire would use all the fuel in a matter of days, but the gas is still burning today. Locals have dubbed the cavern "The Door to Hell".
Full resolution picture here – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Darvasa_gas_crater_panorama.jpg
Originally posted on Google+ · April 13, 2013
She also pays 9.99/month for phone insurance through them. Not a good deal, but if it makes her feel better, I don't care.
The problem with it, is that the insurance and the phone suck. They've repaired/replaced it 4 or 5 times. So while it's good that they take care of fixing it, the problem is that she uses this phone for business (several thousand minutes a month of talk time). It's a huge hassle to use another phone without all her apps and stuff on top of having to drive an hour to the nearest Best Buy to drop the phone off and then drive another hour to pick it up when it's "fixed". I use quotes because the last time she dropped it off, they replaced it with a phone on which the backlights behind the front buttons stopped working within a week so she had to take it back and wait for a replacement again.
When she went back this last time she just asked for a different, better phone model. They told her they can't do anything like that unless the phone is brought in three times for the same problem. So, basically, she can just keep taking this piece of crap back in a bajillion times for different problems and they're just going to keep wasting our time and money and their time and money because their policy says so.
Originally posted on Google+ · April 12, 2013
So, in this study of 330 women over 15 years, they found that the nipples of women who did not wear a bra raised an average of 7mm/year towards the shoulders and their breasts became more firm.
Apparently, wearing a bra weakened the supportive tissue…
Brassiere Support Is A Lie, Say French Scientists
In a 15-year study from the University of Besançon in eastern France, sports science professor Jean-Denis Rouillon found that wearing a bra may not
Originally posted on Google+ · April 11, 2013
To test their hypothesis about the packing tape, the shoemakers decided to send two packages to each of 89 people in the United States. For each recipient, one package featured the Atheist-branded packing tape and one used generic packing tape. All packages were shipped the same day. Yet the Atheist-branded packages took an average of three days longer to reach their destinations. And while only one package from the generic-tape set went missing, nine of the Atheist-branded packages went missing. These (statistically significant) results were recently released on their website.
Atheist Shoemaker Loses Faith In U.S. Mail : NPR
Is there a bias against “Atheist” mail in the United States? A shoemaker in Berlin sees evidence of it after running an experiment that commentator Tania Lombrozo cites as “a great example of citizen science.”
Originally posted on Google+ · April 9, 2013
I'm vindicated! Actually, I just always hated stretching before exercising. I didn't really have any thoughts about whether it was efficacious[1] or not.
One, a study being published this month in The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, concluded that if you stretch before you lift weights, you may find yourself feeling weaker and wobblier than you expect during your workout. Those findings join those of another new study from Croatia, a bogglingly comprehensive re-analysis of data from earlier experiments that was published in The Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports. Together, the studies augment a growing scientific consensus that pre-exercise stretching is generally unnecessary and likely counterproductive.
[1] I love saying efficacious.
Reasons Not to Stretch
Two new studies provide additional reasons not to warm up with a stretch.
Originally posted on Google+ · April 4, 2013
This is the best explanation of how a piece of technology works that I've ever had the privilege of watching.
Originally posted on Google+ · April 3, 2013
Democracy is a poor system of government at best; the only thing that can honestly be said in its favor is that it is eight times as good as any other method the human race has ever tried.
― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
Originally posted on Google+ · April 1, 2013
How exactly did one big rock from space kill dinosaurs on the other side of the planet? Here's an idea:
A paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research reviews the evidence for what its authors consider the most plausible model for global mayhem caused by the impact: its debris lit all the world's forests on fire at once.
Fire, fire, fire!
Dinosaur-killing impact set the world on fire
Researchers argue forcefully that the ensuing heat set off global forest fires.
Originally posted on Google+ · March 28, 2013
Named after the experimental philosopher Joshua Knobe, the Knobe Effect describes the fact that people's moral sense lead to some counter-intuitive judgments.
Knobe asked nearly 100 random people in a Manhattan park a question about the following story.
The vice-president of a company went to the chairman of the board and said, "We are thinking of starting a new program. It will help us increase profits, but it will also harm the environment."
The chairman of the board answered, "I don’t care at all about harming the environment. I just want to make as much profit as I can. Let’s start the new program."
They started the new program. Sure enough, the environment was harmed.
Knobe asked them if the chairman intentionally harmed the environment.
88% of people said yes.
Knobe then asked (different) people a question about the same story except that instead of harming the environment, the new program helped the environment.
77% of the people say the chairman did not intentionally help the environment.
The literature is full of experiments showing weird contradictions like this. It's a wonder the human race gets anything done at all.
The following link is to the original paper describing the experiment.
http://www.unc.edu/~knobe/Side-Effect.pdf
Originally posted on Google+ · March 28, 2013
