YouTube - Images from The Fourth Part of the World

YouTube - Images from The Fourth Part of the World

Watch the first ~1:45 if nothing else! Wow. Rest fascinating/interesting too!!

Resurgence • Article - SIESTA

Resurgence • Article - SIESTA:

"Dali was a big fan....of sitting in a comfortable armchair and letting an arm fall down one side. The hand of the fallen arm must have a key in it (heavy, iron, old-fashioned kind) and under this hand must lie a china plate. When a delicious loss of consciousness occurs the hand drops the key which then hits the plate briefly, cracking the silence enough to wake the practitioner, who has been able to enjoy for a few seconds the benefit of siesta."

Book TV

One of my favorite TC channels/Shows. Give it a try.

Podcasts - Book TV:

"Book TV's After Words features the author of a recently published hardback non-fiction book interviewed by a guest host with some knowledge, background, or connection to the subject matter of the book. After Words airs on Book TV every Sunday, at 6pm ET."

Other favorite channels? Anything showing sports, History Channel, Discovery, and Bloomberg.

Muscle confusion: Hey biceps, you'll never guess what's next - The Globe and Mail

Does it work or not? Research is mixed.

Muscle confusion: Hey biceps, you'll never guess what's next - The Globe and Mail:

There's plenty of science to support muscle confusion's claims, says Matt Heath, a neuroscientist in the school of kinesiology at the University of Western Ontario.

“It's very, very well established in the cognitive sciences, this idea that practice” he says. “It's not just about muscle strength when you're lifting a weight. It's about the strategy you employ in order to recruit all the different … motor neurons that ultimately go on to fire off and tell the muscle to contract. You tell those motor neurons more efficiently how to fire and that's just communicated to the muscle, and so therefore the muscle can produce more force allowing you to lift more weight.”"

and on the other side:

"You probably have to do the same thing over and over again for probably six to eight weeks before you actually adapt really well to that fitness regimen,” says Robert Vigars, a professor of sports biomechanics at the University of Western Ontario. “If I keep mixing up my routines, so much that I'm only blitzing one particular muscle group periodically, that muscle group's not going to develop that much.”"

Can Ants Count? : NPR

Can Ants Count? : NPR:

"It turns out that all the ants had walked the same number of steps, but because their gaits had been changed (the stilty ants, like Monty Python creatures, walked with giant steps; the stumpy ants walked in baby steps) they went exactly the distances you'd predict if their brains counted the number of steps out to the food and then reversed direction and counted the same number of steps back. In other words, all the ants counted the same number of steps back!

Does that mean ants have something like pedometers that do something like counting?

Says professor James Gould of Princeton, commenting on the experiment: 'These animals are fooled exactly the way you'd expect if they were counting steps.'"

The Roving Runner: Running in the Dark - Well Blog - NYTimes.com

The Roving Runner: Running in the Dark - Well Blog - NYTimes.com:

"Of all the physical changes in New York City over recent decades, few are as dramatic as the transformation of the lower Hudson. Once lined with rotting piers and a crumbling elevated highway, the shoreline is now home to Hudson River Park, a five-mile strip of parkland from the Battery to 59th Street.

The park is only about halfway done, with each section opening as it’s completed, so this year’s construction site is next year’s oasis. (To see what the Greenwich Village section looked like in the mid-1990s, go to the two-minute point in this Alanis Morissette video. Ms. Morissette, by the way, ran two marathons this fall, the Bizz Johnson Trail Marathon in Susanville, Calif., and then New York three weeks later.)"

SSRN-Ultimate 100M World Records through Extreme-Value Theory by John H. J. Einmahl, Sander Smeets

SSRN-Ultimate 100M World Records through Extreme-Value Theory by John H. J. Einmahl, Sander Smeets:

"Using the thus obtained estimate for the extreme-value index, the right endpoint of the speed distribution is estimated. The corresponding time can be interpreted as the estimated ultimate world record: the best possible time that could be run in the near future. We find 9.51 seconds for the 100m men and 10.33 seconds for the women.

"

Real-life rolling stones creep across Death Valley in California - Telegraph

Real-life rolling stones creep across Death Valley in California - Telegraph:

"The rocks...move unaided in bizarre straight line patterns across the ultra-flat surface of the valley.

Scientists believe the pebbly phenomenon is caused by a melting-pot of specific weather conditions.

Studies suggest a combination of 90mph winds, ice formations at night and thin layers of wet clay on the surface of the desert all combine to push them along"

Turning history into art | Charlottesville Daily Progress

Turning history into art | Charlottesville Daily Progress:

"The tulip poplar was considered to be an original tree to Monticello, although the base of the tree was hollow so dating could not be done. Over the years, arborists worked to preserve the tree by cabling it to other large trees.

But once it was determined the tree had to come down, Monticello officials decided to preserve what they could of it. They kept part of the tree to be displayed at a later time and gave the rest of it out to be used to make various items."

Contact lenses to get built-in virtual graphics - tech - 12 November 2009 - New Scientist

Contact lenses to get built-in virtual graphics - tech - 12 November 2009 - New Scientist:

"A contact lens that harvests radio waves to power an LED is paving the way for a new kind of display. The lens is a prototype of a device that could display information beamed from a mobile device.

Realising that display size is increasingly a constraint in mobile devices, Babak Parviz at the University of Washington, in Seattle, hit on the idea of projecting images into the eye from a contact lens."

WOW!!!

YouTube - Feisty Play Mars BYU vs. New Mexico Womens Soccer

WOW. Sad that anyone could "lose it" like this.
YouTube - Feisty Play Mars BYU vs. New Mexico Womens Soccer: "BYU advances in MWC tournament despite multiple dirty plays from New Mexico's Elizabeth Lambert.
BYU advances in MWC tournament despite multiple dirty plays from New Mexico's Elizabeth Lambert."

Will the World End in 2012? - ABC News

ABC News: Will the World End in 2012? - ABC News:

"Thousands of people worldwide seem to be preparing, in one way or another, for the end of days in 2012. Survival groups exist in Europe, Canada and the United States. A simple Google search for '2012' and 'the end of the world' brings up nearly 300,000 hits. And the video-sharing Web site YouTube hosts more than 65,000 clips informing and warning viewers about their fate in 2012."

The guy quit his job over this. Well hats off to him. I sure hope (and think) he is wrong, but I guess time will tell.

Op-Ed Columnist - Trucks, Trains and Trees - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist - Trucks, Trains and Trees - NYTimes.com:

"To save an ecosystem of nature, you need an ecosystem of markets and governance.

“You need a new model of economic development — one that is based on raising people’s standards of living by maintaining their natural capital, not just by converting that natural capital to ranching or industrial farming or logging,” said José María Silva, vice president for South America of Conservation International.

Right now people protecting the rainforest are paid a pittance — compared with those who strip it — even though we now know that the rainforest provides everything from keeping CO2 out of the atmosphere to maintaining the flow of freshwater into rivers."

Appalachian Trail | National Geographic Channel

Appalachian Trail | National Geographic Channel:

"The 2,175 mile journey along the Appalachian Trail offers 'the best of humanity, but also the best in nature'."

New York City Election Results - The Vote for Mayor, Block by Block - Interactive Graphic - NYTimes.com

New York City Election Results - The Vote for Mayor, Block by Block - Interactive Graphic - NYTimes.com:

"Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg won re-election Tuesday, but voters were less enthusiastic about him than the last time he ran in 2005. The mayor did well in high-income white areas of Manhattan and Queens, and also in election districts dominated by immigrants, like Flushing and Brighton Beach. But his vote fell sharply in black
neighborhoods, especially southeast Queens, where the black middle class has been hard-hit by foreclosure."

Fascinating, but how do they have this detailed of data? If I live on one block and vote across the street, how do they know? Clearly section by section (by polling stations) makes sense, but block by block?

Volunteering for Individuals and Society | Newsletter

Volunteering for Individuals and Society | Newsletter: "Volunteering for Individuals and Society"