The estate at Witley Park in Britain has been a private home and a public facility at different times. What is visible above ground is nice enough, but the secret underground and underwater construction is a treasure. Deep passages lead to the rumored "ballroom under the lake", which, as it turns out, was originally built as a billiard room, but it wasn't the only glassed-in room. Guests can watch fish swim around them -or they could at one time or another. Link -via Metafilter
Also see: more pictures at Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/cybergibbons/sets/72057594107271287/with/128621401/
Stephen put a lot of hard work into studying a "a particular cardiac arrhythmia" for his PhD. He is deservedly proud of achieving his diploma, but wanted something more interesting to display on his wall. This artwork is made up of words from his dissertation. Cool! Link -via reddit
This circa 1939 plan for a robotic dog on Mostly Forbidden Zone piqued my interest. I did a little digging and found an interesting story behind it. The Scottish Terrier, named Sparko, was designed by Westinghouse engineer, Joseph Barnett, to stimulate interest in their electrical products. The dog was the pet of a larger human-type robot named Elektro and was able to sit up, wag his tail and do various other dog tricks on command. Three Sparkos were made but none remain today.
The last confirmed sighting of Sparko was in California in 1957. The dogs were light-followers and legend has it that one of the three dogs was hit by a car and destroyed when it wandered out of an open door at the Westingouse lab.
by Ron E. Hassner, University of California, Berkeley
Figure 1. A specimen of Heliconius erato. The Lorenz butterfly may be a member of this species.
Here is the most complete record yet compiled of the travels of the Lorenz butterfly.
The most famous butterfly in science made its first reported appearance in 1972, in a paper on chaos theory presented by Edward Lorenz to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.1 In the paper, Lorenz presented a cornerstone argument of chaos theory: very small differences in initial conditions can lead to large effects in complex systems. He entitled the paper with an appropriate example, calling it, “Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?”
Lorenz’s butterfly has since appeared in every conceivable reference to chaos theory. Yet despite its meteoric rise to fame, chaos theorists soon lost track of the butterfly’s whereabouts.
Reported Sightings In 1987, James Gleick rediscovered Lorenz’s butterfly and announced triumphantly that “a butterfly stirring the air today in Peking can transform storm systems next month in New York.”2 Gleick could not explain when or why the butterfly had moved to Peking, of all places, why it should suddenly shift its attention from tornadoes in Texas to storm systems in New York, or where it had been in the intervening fifteen years. But in 1992, five years after Gleick’s discovery, the butterfly returned to Brazil—specifically to Rio de Janeiro—where it was spotted by Denny Gulick.3
Figure 2. Global movements of Lorenz’s butterfly.
At this point, the sightings grew more frequent. In 1993, the blockbuster movie Jurassic Park located the insect in Beijing. Two years after that, several scientists reported, in this journal, seeing the subject in Lausanne, Switzerland.4 In 1996, Don Edward Beck and Christopher Cowan found it frolicking in France, and immediately pronounced that “a butterfly flaps its wings in Paris… [which] results in a hurricane in Miamii.”5 The year after that, the butterfly returned to its previous haunt in China. However, as David Campbell and Gottfried Mayer-Kress were to document, it had focused its attention on the weather in San Francisco.6 Peter Smith confirmed the butterfly’s Chinese location in 1998, by which time its flapping was affecting the climate of South England.7 John B. Arden spotted the butterfly in Venezuela that same year.8
Despite its now advanced age, Lorenz’s butterfly continues to be tracked by chaos theorists. In the year 2000, it was spotted in both the Amazon rain forest and Harrisburg, Virginia.9 By 2001, it had moved to California. From there, it flew to Japan, where Grove, Ladas & Grove located it 2004.10 That same year it appeared once more in Brazil and then returned to China in 2006.11
Figure 3. The mathematical pattern known as the Lorenz attractor.
Discussion The longevity and traveling speed of the famed butterfly have occasioned some dispute about its identity. The butterfly is possibly of the species Heliconius erato (also known as the “Red Postman”), famed for its extraordinary longevity (see Figure 3). Common in South America, it has an impressive tornado-inducing wingspan of 2.25 inches.12
Curiously, the pattern of the butterfly’s movements, as plotted on a world map, replicates a pattern that is characteristic of certain systems that exhibit so-called “chaotic” behavior. The tracings in Figure 1 compare easily with those in Figure 3, which shows a mathematical pattern known as the Lorenz attractor. This pattern was named after Edward Lorenz, the very man whose theory had first called attention to this novel branch of lepidoptery. More curiously still, the butterfly shape of the Lorenz attractor resembles none other than the Heliconius erato (compare Figure 3 with Figure 2). The significance or meaning of any of this has yet to be determined.
References 1. The Essence of Chaos, Edward Lorenz, University of Washington Press, 1993, pp. 14–5 and 181–4.
2. Chaos: Making a New Science, James Gleick, Viking, 1987, p. 8.
3. Encounters with Chaos, Denny Gulick, McGraw Hill, 1992, p. 92.
4. “Experimental Evidence of the Butterfly Effect,” D. Inaudi1, X. Colonna de Lega, A. Di Tullio, C. Forno, P. Jacquot, M. Lehmann, Max Monti, and S. Vurpillot, Annals of Improbable Research, vol. 1, no. 6, November–December 1995.
5. Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership and Change, Don Edward Beck and Christopher Cowan, Blackwell, 1996, pp. 156–7.
6. “Chaos and Politics: Application of Nonlinear Dynamics to Social-Political Issues,” David K. Campbell and Gottfried Mayer-Kres, The Impact of Chaos on Science and Society (Celso Grebogi and James A. York, eds.), 1997, p. 41.
7. Explaining Chaos, Peter Smith, Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 1.
8. Science, Theology and Consciousness: The Search for Unity, John Boghosian Arden, Praeger, 1998, p. 23.
9. Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos, Roger Lewin, University of Chicago Press, 2000, p. 11; Conscious Acts and the Politics of Social Change, Robin L. Teske and Mary Ann Tetreault, University of South Carolina Press, 2000, p. 116.
10. Macroshift: Navigating the Transformation to a Sustainable World, Ervin Laszlo, Arthur Charles Clarke and Kay Mikel, Berrett-Koehler, 2001, p. 10; Periodicities in Nonlinear Difference Equations, E. A. Grove, Chapman & Hall, 2004, p. 38.
11. The Heart of Mathematics: An Invitation to Effective Thinking, Edward B. Burger and Michael Starbird, Springer, 2004, p. xxi; Science and Grace: God’s Reign in the Natural Sciences, Tim Morris and Don Petcher, Crossway Books, 2006, p. 332, note 23.
12. “Longevity Studies in a Tropical Conservatory: Are You Getting Your Money’s Worth?”, John R. Watts, Butterfly Pavilion of Westminster, CO, p. 8, table 2; “Schmetterlinge und Brustwarzen,” L. Arazi, Annals of the German Society for Entomology, vol. 8, no. 2, 1994; “Lifespan of Butterflies,” J. A. Scott, Journal of Research on the Lepidoptera, vol. 12, 1973.
When you and I see a crack in the wall, we probably think of grabbing some spackle to fix the eyesore ... but not French artist OakOak, who grabbed some art supply instead. Check out more here: Link
Guys, are you single and ashamed about it? Forget going on pesky dates and the hassle of trying to find a girlfriend ... fake it on Facebook with the help of this new startup:
Relationship status: virtual.
That's what startup Cloud Girlfriend promises, although your friends on Facebook will never know it. The new Internet company helps guys who aren't ready to admit, at least online, that they don't have a significant other.
The new service allows users to create the perfect girlfriend who will write on your Facebook wall and otherwise make her ghostly presence known through social media.
Cloud Girlfriend has yet to officially launch, but the site is already generating overwhelming interest, advising visitors to "register early to get in line."
I love NES "Mike Tyson's Punch Out!!" so I was tickled to find out what happened to all the boxers after all these years. I should've known about Von Kaiser!
Check out this video clip from PMSports: Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - via Have You Seen This ?!
In the world of business, there are great corporate executives, then there are great entrepreneurs. What sets them apart from each other?
University of Virginia's Darden School of Business professor Saras Sarasvathy tested some of America's best minds in business and found that entrepreneurs think differently than corporate execs:
Sarasvathy concluded that master entrepreneurs rely on what she calls effectual reasoning. Brilliant improvisers, the entrepreneurs don't start out with concrete goals. Instead, they constantly assess how to use their personal strengths and whatever resources they have at hand to develop goals on the fly, while creatively reacting to contingencies.
By contrast, corporate executives—those in the study group were also enormously successful in their chosen field—use causal reasoning. They set a goal and diligently seek the best ways to achieve it. Early indications suggest the rookie company founders are spread all across the effectual-to-causal scale. But those who grew up around family businesses will more likely swing effectual, while those with M.B.A.'s display a causal bent. Not surprisingly, angels and seasoned VCs think much more like expert entrepreneurs than do novice investors.
Literature is filled with examples of the pain of heartbreak, but leave it to science to prove that to our brain, the pain of getting dumped and getting burned is actually one and the same:
In a new study using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers have found that the same brain networks that are activated when you're burned by hot coffee also light up when you think about a lover who has spurned you.
In other words, the brain doesn't appear to firmly distinguish between physical pain and intense emotional pain. Heartache and painful breakups are "more than just metaphors," says Ethan Kross, Ph.D., the lead researcher and an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor.
Phil Rosenthal created "Everybody Loves Raymond," one of the funniest and most successful sitcoms of all time. Indeed, here in America, everybody loves Raymond - but in Russia? Now that's a story that only Phil can tell:
Phil Rosenthal created one of the most successful sitcoms of all-time, "Everybody Loves Raymond." He was a bona-fide expert in his craft. And then.... the Russians called. In the hilarious EXPORTING RAYMOND, a genuine fish-out-of-water comedy that could only exist in real life, Phil travels to Russia to help adapt his beloved sitcom for Russian television. The Russians don't share his tastes. They don't seem to share his sense of humor. But what Phil did discover was a real comedy, filled with unique characters and situations that have to be seen to be believed.
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] to see the trailer of Exporting Raymond | Official website
What a brilliant idea! The preparation appears to be fairly straightforward, but you'll need an ice cream scoop to cover the oreos in chocolate chip cookie batter. Or your fingers.
Have you been to NeatoBambino lately? The new Decipher the Doodle contest is up, in which you have a chance to win a t-shirt from the NeatoShop by examining a drawing by a 4-year-old and figuring out what it is supposed to mean. You can win with the first correct interpretation (according to the 4-year-old), or you can win for the most entertaining but wrong answer. Only a portion of the doodle is shown here. Link
