In this cold and desolate place, all the time zones (24) of the Earth collide, which render them all meaningless. No land and no people can be found in this place. Time is also meaningless in this place, for the sun only shines and sets just once per year here. This place is the North Pole.
So what would happen if a ship containing 100 people from 20 countries goes here where time is irrelevant? It becomes really confusing.
Check out the story of the research vessel Polarstern over at Scientific American.
From more detailed in-game objects to more realistic lighting and shadows, as well as better performance, Direct X 12 Ultimate will surely pave the way towards more immersive experiences in video games. Indeed, Direct X 12 Ultimate is “the new standard for next-gen games.”
In this video, Julian Huguet briefly explains the features offered by the software.
The rapiers of the 17th and 18th Centuries were elegant weapons for a more civilized age. Gentlemen among both the Sith and Jedi would use them in formal duels. To wear one was a mark of distinction, so it is good that Saberforge, a company that manufactures lightsabers, now offers a lightsaber rapier.
I, however, am not a gentleman and would prefer something blunter, like the lightsaber battleaxe. Hack at your enemy when he doesn't expect it.
The first Earth Day was held 50 years ago next month, and student activists at the University of Michigan staged a month-long "teach in" leading up to Earth Day to inform the public on how modern living is imperiling our planet. The activities included a mock trial where a car, specifically a 1959 Ford sedan, was put on trial for the crimes of “murder of the American public, crossing state lines to pollute, inciting traffic jams, creating physical and psychological dependence, and discriminating against the poor.” Yes, they prosecuted a car -in Michigan. While the case for the prosecution was pretty damning, the car had a slate of witnesses for the defense.
“Rob Rockyfeller,” witness for the defense, testified that his (fictional) foundation had found that auto exhaust was only half as toxic as aspirin. His appearance lampooned the various foundations that supported business-friendly policy in the name of general prosperity. Another witness attested to the importance of cars to the American economy. But no witness evoked the country’s car mania more vividly than “Dr. Sigmund Ford,” who sat stiffly on the stand with his head tilted slightly back, looking down his nose at the crowd below him.
“The automobile is essential to the maintenance of the American’s psyche,” Ford shouted, urging the court to consider the emotional security a car gives to the American man. “You can’t take it away from him! How else could he know his power and virility? How can we show our neighbors we’re stronger and more powerful than they are without a Lincoln Continental?”
“But what would actually happen to [Americans] if you took away cars?” asked the prosecutor, wearing a plaid skirt-suit and, of all things, leather driving gloves.
“But you see, cars are very important,” Ford began, dodging the question. “They serve a function—”
“What would be the effect on people?” the prosecutor interjected. Ford couldn’t provide a satisfactory answer. “You just can’t take away their cars,” he shouted. “You can’t take away my car!”
While the scripted trial may seem silly today, it had positive effects on the auto industry, public policy, and the lives of those who participated. Read about the trial of the car at Smithsonian.
Found in New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon is the Pueblo Bonito (Beautiful Town). This town was founded 1,000 years ago by the Ancestral Puebloans who dwelled here for centuries. Eventually, after a long time of staying in this place, the Ancestral Puebloans finally left about 1126 CE.
When they departed, the villagers left behind a wondrous legacy of massive structures that once stood up to five storeys high, filled with hundreds of rooms, and cultural artefacts, including pottery, musical instruments, and tools for use in ancient rituals.
Aside from these magnificent structures and amazing stuff that they abandoned, the Ancestral Puebloans also left this thing behind. This thing was a log of a ponderosa pine, which measured twenty feet long. This lone log had the archaeologists puzzled when they discovered it in 1924.
What was this log for? Scientists of today have some theories about this lone log. Check it out over at Science Alert.
(Image Credit: National Park Service/ Science Alert)
The architecture of the PS5 is finally unveiled by lead system architect Mark Cerny. While the video is very jargon-heavy, it does provide a glimpse into the upcoming Sony console. The promising architecture features and design will seem to provide an improved gaming experience for future titles!
Jay Ethier told his viewers that his girlfriend had been killed by a drunk driver. Ethier is best known as “ImJayStation” on YouTube, with more than 5 million subscribers. After posting a video announcing his girlfriend’s death, Ethier proceeded to post videos about his “dead girlfriend”. In one video, he tried summoning his deceased girlfriend, Alexia Marano with a Ouija board. However, Marano isn’t dead at all; it was just a ruse to lure in more subscribers, as The Washington Post detailed:
“We thought of the idea — actually I thought about the idea — what if we fake your death and then do a skit on YouTube pranking everybody, saying it was just to gain traction on the Dream Team channel,” Ethier, 29, said after deleting the hoax videos. “First we were going to say she died, then we were going to do a Ouija board video, which I did, then we were going to call her at 3 a.m. and we were going to resurrect her. And get more followers on our Dream Team channel.”
Marano surfaced on Tuesday with a video of her own, “ALEXIA IS ALIVE (truth about ImJaystation).” In it, she alleged that Ethier controlled and isolated her and that she went along with the fake death only out of fear.
“I felt sick to my stomach from the minute he posted it,” she said. “I did not want to play with anybody’s emotions. I don’t think it’s a cool stunt to do.”
“We were going to resurrect her in a coffin, I was going to raise her from the dead. That was going to be the last video, and that was the first video that we actually filmed,” Ethier said. “We went and bought a freaking coffin, guys! This is the coffin we bought for that video.”
He asserted that Marano was plotting to steal his YouTube following and that there is “no chance of us ever getting back together, ever.”
The video ended, like so many others, with an appeal to his fans.
“The good thing about this is that a fake person is out of my life, and now I can finally focus on this channel, the channel that you guys love, and keep making banger videos,” he said. “Thank you guys, so much, for all the love.”
With many countries worldwide imposing self-quarantine at homes, some are doing their work from home. Not all live alone, and sometimes, we need to consider other people in the household when we do our work. So what can you do if, say, you and your partner are at home, and need to do your jobs remotely? Slate’s Christina Cauterucci shares some pointers on how couples can maintain their sanity and their relationship while working at home:
Make Optimal Use of Your Space
If you’ve been blessed with a home containing multiple rooms with chairs and tables, carve out a bit of personal workspace for each person, then designate another spot—like a kitchen table or couch—as a common area where you can both work when you want company. If working in separate rooms isn’t an option, give each person a primary working area as a home base, preferably on opposite ends of your space, then switch up as needed.
Get Good Headphones
Almost everyone recommended these, both for background music and to accommodate differing appetites for consuming coronavirus news throughout the day. Here’s a nice budget pair.
Consider Getting a Hotspot if Your Wi-Fi Sucks
Nothing fosters impotent rage like slow Wi-Fi. Is your internet plan too feeble for two full-time workers? Maybe someone’s employer will spring for a hotspot.
Be Honest About Your Work Styles
Do you welcome interruptions or prefer to be left alone? What breaks your concentration, and what constitutes a break-worthy emergency or pleasant opportunity to chat? Set a few boundaries and ground rules. It’s natural to want a few breaks for socializing throughout the day, but it’s unlikely that your working rhythm will always sync up with your partner’s. Find the balance of workday communication that feels right for you.
Share Your Work Schedules
As I told my wife: I wouldn’t have made my soup at 1:30 p.m. if I’d known she’d be unmuted on an important client call at 1:30 p.m.! Most at-home workers have even more phone and video calls on their schedules now than they did before coronavirus made in-person meetings inadvisable or illegal. Start a shared calendar or check in every morning to let your partner know when’s a bad time to enter the living room in a towel and when you’ll need them to stop yelling across the room about the dog’s diarrhea. Even better, take your work calls outside.
Akasha Rabut showcases the different cultures of New Orleans in her photobook, Death Magick Abundance. From people on horseback, to motorbikers burning pink smoke, Rabut’s photographs celebrate the city’s thriving culture. Head to The Guardian to catch some highlights from her photobook!
Tales of a Christian kingdom located deep within the pagan realm of Asia -or maybe Africa- were too good for the Europeans of the 12th century to ignore. After all, people then as now tended to believe what they wanted to believe. But this legend was believed by so many people that it fueled travel, exploration, and even war.
Groundbreaking science fiction films that you know and love have something else in common- many of them are the first film their directors made. Many of these first-time directors were previously authors, screenwriters, editors, special effects artists, or film school students who brought a fresh point of view and made the movie truly innovative. We all know about George Lucas' first film THX 1138, so let's explore some other first-time directors who left a mark on science fiction filmmaking. For example, Silent Running was Douglas Trumbull's directorial debut.
Douglas Trumbull was born into the visual effects biz—his father, Donald Trumbull, worked on 1939's The Wizard of Oz, one of Hollywood’s splashiest early showcases for what was then a new art form. Douglas followed a similar path in his career, bringing his own special effects talents to films like 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Andromeda Strain, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and Blade Runner. He’s only directed a few feature films to date, but his first effort, 1972's Silent Running, stars Bruce Dern as a botanist (solo, save for his robot helpers) tasked with tending a forested outer space bio-dome, intended for future use to restore Earth’s dying plant population. When the isolated world he’s protecting is threatened, he rebels as best he can. Silent Running’s story is simple, but Dern is quietly great—and the special effects, it probably goes without saying, are ahead of their time.
It's lunchtime at Ocean, Inc. and Seagull just wants to eat his lunch in peace and quiet. He's been dealing with whiny and angry customers all day. The boss has been on him all morning about missing TPS reports. Seagull's only relief is half an hour of quiet time when he can eat his fish.
Beluga is that guy at work. All day is playtime, especially lunchtime. Beluga is aggressively social. It's not that he can't take a hint, but simply won't.
All this clip by Jan-Olaf Johansen in Hammerfest, Norway needs is a laugh track.
In the "things could be worse" department, while take precautions against COVID-19, we can also take the opportunity to learn about the horrible pandemics of the past. Plague, smallpox, and Spanish flu destroyed communities and even whole civilizations. We've learned a lot about disease mitigation since then. -via Laughing Squid
Do you sometimes tap your remote with your palm to make it work? It seems that NASA has taken a similar solution to fix their Mars lander. The InSight lander’s digging probe got stuck on Mars’ soil. After a few attempts to get the digging probe out, NASA had to let the machine hit itself with a shovel, as Futurism details:
NASA expected its probe, dubbed “the mole,” to dig its way through sand-like terrain. But because the Martian soil clumped together, the whole apparatus got stuck in place.
Programming InSight’s robotic arm to land down on the mole was a risky, last-resort maneuver, PopSci reports, because it risked damaging fragile power and communication lines that attached nearby. Thankfully, engineers spent a few months practicing in simulations before they made a real attempt.
The motion of the ocean can carry you only so far. In the deep blue sea, female narwhals are on the prowl for males with the biggest tusks. Zackary Graham, a researcher at Arizona State University, and his colleagues recently published their research on tusk size as a factor in sexual selection:
Like walruses and elephants, male narwhals (Monodon monoceros) grow tusks; these are modified teeth. In narwhals, the left tooth erupts from their head, reaching more than 8 feet long in some individuals. The tusk grows out in a spiral pattern, giving the appearance of a sea-dwelling unicorn. [...]
When comparing individuals of the same age, sexually selected traits often exhibit disproportional growth — that is, for a given body size, sexually selected traits are often larger than expected in the largest individuals. Importantly, they compared the growth (or scaling) of the tusk to the scaling relationship between body size and a trait that is unlikely to have sexual functions. To do so, they used the tail of the narwhals, called the fluke.
"We also predicted that if the narwhal tusk is sexually selected, we expect greater variation in tusk length compared to the variation in fluke width," Graham said. This is because many sexual traits are highly sensitive to nutrient and body condition, such that only the biggest and strongest individuals can afford the energy to produce extremely large traits.
