Here's a quiz that will separate the Europeans from everyone else! In this quiz, you'll be given an unlabeled map of Europe. Just type in names of cities in any of those countries. Once you get started, you'll be given a unique URL you can bookmark or copy and come back to. So far, I've named 42 cities in about ten minutes without looking any up. You may be surprised at how small a town the quiz will accept- it took Sochi, for example. If it starts to frustrate you, you can try the US version instead (where I named 150 in no time flat). -via Metafilter
In 2013, notable people in the computer science world assembled together to launch a new nonprofit called Code.org. Their goal: to get more computer science students into schools.
People who have contributed a lot in the computer science world, like Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, donated millions of dollars to the nonprofit group. According to Code.org’s last annual report, the nonprofit has spent over $91 million between 2013 and 2018, and of that amount, $6.9 million went for the advocacy of state legislation across the country.
As part of the organization’s mission to “make computer science count” in K-12 education, code.org takes credit for having influenced graduation policies in 42 states. Today, 47 states and the District of Columbia allow computer science classes to count in place of math classes like Algebra 2. Prior to the organization’s work, only a few states allowed computer science to count for math credit.
In addition, 29 states passed legislation allowing computer science to count in place of a science course.
The question is, is this good?
Find out more about this topic over at Ohio State News.
What are your thoughts on this one?
(Image Credit: geralt/ Pixabay)
As a high school student in the 90s, Theodore Kim liked both art and computers. But how can both interests be connected? Kim wasn’t sure how, and then he saw the first “Toy Story” movie, which is one of the earliest films to feature computer animation. That’s when all of the pieces fell into place.
“It wasn’t even a thing before that,” said Kim, associate professor of computer science. “I thought that you couldn’t combine art and engineering in some interesting way, but now it was like ‘Oh, actually you can!’”
Twenty four years after the first Toy Story movie, the 4th film in the franchise is now available on DVD this week, and Kim’s work is featured in this film.
In this case, it includes an innovation of his that gives life to the pull string that provides Woody (the cowboy voiced by Tom Hanks) his catchphrases. For the first three Toy Story movies, it took a lot of arduous work to get the string to move in a way that looked realistically, and even then, it could look a little too stretchy or awkward at times. Strings have what’s known as anisotropic properties - that is, they contain fibers with varying degrees of resistance. It’s what makes things like breaking wood or plants swaying in the wind tricky to animate.
“Usually, the artist has to go in and sculpt everything by hand, so they have to intuit what the physics is supposed to be, and then animate it by hand,” said Kim, formerly a senior research scientist at PixarResearch, who joined the Computer Science department this summer. “This time around, we figured out the physics of the fibers so that animators can use a simulator to see how it should behave.”
Aside from computer animation, Kim’s work can also be applied in the medical and the aeronautical field.
Head over to Yale to know more about Kim’s work.
(Image Credit: Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science)
China launched its Chang’e 4 Project which explores the quality of soil on the moon for growing plants.
In an interview with engineering magazine IEEE Spectrum, project leader for the experiment Xie Gengxin explained more about the challenges of growing plants in the restricted environment. “The weight of the Chang’e-4 probe demanded that the weight [of the experiment] can’t exceed three kilograms,” he said. That’s why it was important to select the biological samples in the experiment carefully.
The team selected five species of biological organisms to send to the moon: cotton seeds, potato seeds, Arabidopsis seeds, yeast, and fruit-fly eggs. Sadly, most of these died quickly except for the cotton seeds. They sprouted and grew with two leaves! The cotton’s life, however, lasted only for one lunar day which is equivalent to two weeks here on Earth due to several atmospheric restraints.
During the lunar night, the temperatures on the moon drop dramatically, and without external heating, the organisms were doomed by the cold. But in order to test whether the equipment could survive, the Chinese scientists continued the experiment for several months.
Originally, the team wanted to include animals in their experiment but did not proceed because of the limited availability of oxygen on the moon. However, the team plans to send more complex organisms for future experiments on the moon.
Photo from the Chongqing University
As moose breeding season approaches, bulls are on the move looking for their mates. In his quest, this young bull happened to find his way into a swimming pool in Bedford, New Hampshire, but sadly couldn’t find his way out.
Fortunately, New Hampshire Fish and Game Department officials arrived at the scene to rescue the moose. They came up with the creative idea of placing a wooden set of stairs underwater to help the moose get out of the pool
In this Facebook video footage, the moose is obviously in distress trying to get out of the water. After several minutes, he finally used the wooden stairs to move out of the pool and ran off into the woods!
Image Credit: NH Fish and Game / Facebook
When athletes become parents, the added responsibility of taking care of their child and training to compete is very difficult to bear, especially for female athletes who would go through a tough recovery period and also have to take care of the child, often signaling the end of their career.
However, with this new game-changing policy that Cricket Australia has introduced, athletes will be given 12 months' parental leave for the primary carer and three weeks for the secondary parent. Furthermore, travel costs and accommodation will be provided for athletes until the child is four years old.
"The announcement is game-changing. Having the security of a contract is a big plus and the ability to transition after having children," wicket-keeper Alyssa Healy said during a panel on Friday.
She reflected on a time when her teammates would be pumping breast milk in the change rooms before making a century (100 runs). But typically, motherhood would signify the end to a woman player's professional career. No longer.
"Originally pregnancy was seen as injury… It's unbelievably cool to think a female cricketer could travel the world and play cricket with a young family."
(Image credit: Cricket Australia)
Quebec City was the place to be this past weekend, as the annual Quebec Comiccon welcomed comic book fans, cosplayers, and various fun-loving folks from all over. Our friends at Geeks Are Sexy were there to take it all in and take some pictures of the best cosplayers.
Check out a gallery of con pictures here, and part two here!
The 1995 film "Waterworld" was a major flop, not least because of all the drama that went into producing the film, not to mention the pretty eccentric storyline.
However, for all that the film failed to do, its Universal Studios stunt show has succeeded in doing, being one of the longest-running shows in Universal Studios. It has outlasted other spectacles such as E.T., Back to the Future, and Terminator. But why has this show become a hit when its inspiration was a disaster?
"It's basic storytelling combined with really great stunts and effects," says initial project manager Norman Kahn. "That, I think, really, is what led to it becoming as successful as it is."
But mention any of this to someone who hasn't been to Universal Studios recently, as I often did while reporting this article, and they react with disbelief: Seriously? Waterworld?
(Image credit: Jason Hoffman/Thrillist)
Instead of giving away candy on Halloween, Jess Huang's grandfather had a different tradition: he would cook some of the dishes he knew by heart and share them with the people he considered family. One of the things that he remembered most about that time were the three pumpkins which his grandfather strapped on at the backseat of their car on their way home.
It was a tradition born out of my grandfather’s love of cooking, and merged with an appreciation for his adopted country’s traditions. And through this custom, he showed me how kindness through food, shared yearly with neighbors who went from not knowing anything about Asian dishes to becoming some of my grandfather’s biggest fans, could tighten the bonds of a once-anonymous suburban neighborhood.
(Image credit: Megan Chong/Thrillist)
Watching over teenagers is, shall we say, a somewhat complicated task. You want to balance trying to protect them from doing risky things and allowing them to venture out on their own and learning things on their own. You can't always tell them what to do; instead you need to find a way to connect with them so that you would earn their respect.
Being a chaperone for a youth pilgrimage gave Andrew Askins a glimpse of what it's like to watch over teenagers. And on the trip, he was able to find peace with the things he was going through in his life at that moment. Read more from Andrew Askins.
(Image credit: Andrew Askins)
Sony's PS4 has seen some really great feedback and responses from gamers and it clearly has a bit of an edge over the Xbox One. However, according to a Metro reader, the PS5 may not have that advantage for long as Project Scarlett seems to have a fighting chance. Here are five reasons why the reader predicts the PS5 will lose to Xbox.
(Image credit: Norbert Levajsics/Unsplash)
The Splash News and Picture Agency has filed a $150,000 lawsuit against Jennifer Lopez for sharing one of their photos in an Instagram Story without their permission two years ago. The photo showed Lopez and her fiance Alex Rodriguez walking in New York City, and according to the lawsuit filed in US District Court for the Central District of California, the singer-actress never had the permission to post the photograph. With the lawsuit being filed two years after the photo was posted, and the huge sum of money involved, the media definitely has it eyes on this lawsuit, as PetaPixel detailed:
The lawsuit does state that Lopez was notified of the infringement “through her representatives” via letter on December 12th, 2017, but since the Instagram story disappeared 24 hours after it was posted, Lopez representatives may not have taken the letter seriously.
“At the time Lopez copied and distributed the photograph, she knew or should have known she did not have authorization or permission to do so,” claims the lawsuit. And since the @jlo account boasts over 100 million followers as of this writing, the agency maintains that “defendant’s unauthorized use harms the existing and future market for the original Photograph” by making the photo “immediately available to Lopez’s tens of millions followers.”
Splash is seeking $150,000 in damages, and an injunction against Lopez and her team stating that they cannot post the photo again.
image credit: IZEmtv via wikimedia commons
When you stage a robbery, make sure you keep an eye to your belongings, or else you’ll be like this guy who was so busy snatching the cash that the brave hotel clerk managed to snatch out his gun from the counter, which caused him to run for the door.
Now that’s an embarrassing way to end the robbery.
In the end, the robber was arrested.
See the video over at the Daily Mail.
(Image Credit: Paducah Police Department)
Schools in Kobe, Japan still persist to stack up their students in the name of athletics.
As the country celebrates “Sports Day” in the month of October, which is the anniversary of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, it is a holiday that inspires everyone to exercise.
Around this time, schools all over the country hold Sports Festivals where they take part in a variety of physical activities from dancing to relay races.
Amidst these many physical activities is a controversial act. Known as gymnastic formation (kumi taiso), the controversial act involves students climbing on top of each other and they balance to create pleasing geometric patterns, the common type of which is the standard human pyramid.
For years now these activities have ignited a firestorm of debate in Japan where the practice is often mandatory, with opponents arguing that it puts children at a great risk of injury for little gain. Supporters, on the other hand, counter those claims with arguments of “Come on,” and “Human pyramids!!!”
In the city of Kobe alone, 51 gymnastic formation-related injuries occurred between January to August of this year, and in the past three years 123 related fractures have been reported. This may lead you to believe that the entire city is being run by the mayor from Jaws who is going to ignore the particular problem until it swims up and bites him in the butt, but actually he has been an active opponent of the sport.
More details of this news over at SoraNews24.
(Video Credit: YouTube)
As the virus exploits dangerous gaps in vaccination coverage, the World Health Organization (WHO) experts stated on Friday that measles may be staging a comeback that will surely be destructive.
The WHO department director Kate O’Brien states that the entire world “is facing an alarming upsurge in measles cases in all regions”.
“The impact of these outbreaks is really devastating,” she said, “causing not only widespread loss of life, but also preventable disability that is affecting family livelihoods and national economies, and straining healthcare systems.”
Latest WHO global data show that reported cases of measles - which is one of the world’s most contagious diseases - rose by 300 percent globally in the first three months of this year compared to the same period in 2018. This follows consecutive increases over the past two years.
There is no specific antiviral treatment for measles, but it can be prevented with two doses of vaccine. The vast majority of cases of infection are in unvaccinated or under-vaccinated people.
Learn more about the disease over at Reuters.
(Image Credit: Tumisu/ Pixabay)
