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Most hotels have bars, but you're probably not thinking of these ones on the window. The Hotel Het Arresthuis in the Netherlands was actually a jail that was converted into a luxury hotel. Now this is one jailhouse we don't mind checking into! Take a look.
All hail the ampersand. This fantastic logogram represents the wonderful word "and." Now you can pay homage to this meaningful symbol of unity with the And Another Bottle Opener from the NeatoShop. And the best part? The And Another Bottle Opener is functional & fun.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more Barware & Cocktail items.
Photo: Tom Purdy
In 1927, Werner Heisenberg came up with the Uncertainty Principle, a peculiar aspect of quantum mechanics that asserts that the mere act of measuring the position of a particle disturbs its momentum. Therefore, the more precisely you try to measure its position, the less you know about how fast it's moving, and vice versa.
Thus far, the effect of the Uncertainty Principle has been material in very, very small particles (like electrons). Until now:
In recent years, however, physicists have been pushing the limits on which scales the principle appears in. To that end, Purdy and his colleagues created a 0.02-inch-wide (0.5 millimeters) drum made of silicon nitride, a ceramic material used in spaceships, drawn tight across a silicon frame.
They then set the drum between two mirrors, and shined laser light on it. Essentially, the drum is measured when photons bounce off the drum and deflect the mirrors a given amount, and increasing the number of photons boosts the measurement accuracy. But more photons cause greater and greater fluctuations that cause mirrors to shake violently, limiting the measurement accuracy. That extra shaking is the proof of the uncertainty principle in action. The setup was kept ultra-cold to prevent thermal fluctuations from drowning out this quantum effect. [...]
The results of the recent experiment are novel in that they show both classical and quantum mechanics operating on the same scale, said Saurya Das, a theoretical physicist at the University of Lethbridge in Canada, who was not involved in the study.
"Half a millimeter is like something which we can actually hold in our hand," Das told LiveScience. "Obviously classical mechanics is valid, but they make quantum mechanics relevant at that size."
Tia Ghose of LiveScience has the story: Link
This finely-edited compilation of clips by Zapatou is heavy on extreme sports, featuring amazing athleticism and skill, odd POVs, and some heart-stopping moments. Not all of them are real. Don't blink, or you'll miss something crazy! -via Viral Viral Videos
Gizmo, a ringtail lemur kept as a family pet, was taken from his home in Mobile, Alabama, during a burglary in January.
After Gizmo's owner offered a cash reward for the stolen lemur, investigators got a tip from someone who had seen the lemur in Welborn's possession. Investigators say Welborn thought he could ransom the animal, and had contacted its owner with information on Gizmo's whereabouts. But before Welborn's plan could pay off, authorities moved in and made an arrest.
George County police have charged Wellborn with possession of stolen property, and he is awaiting extradition to Mississippi, where other charges are pending against him. Gizmo was returned to his home, where he is doing fine. Link -via Arbroath
(Image credit: George Co. Sheriff's Dept.)
In case you are wondering, this map overlay by redditor boredboarder8 was constructed to show scale, not ownership. However, we were the first to land and plant a flag. But back to scale: the circumference of the moon is 6784 miles and the widest distance in the lower 48 states is 2,892 miles (California to Maine). Incidentally, Pluto is smaller than the Earth's moon. Link -via Geekologie
At about 9:30 this morning in Chelyabinsk, Russia, a big meteor burned up in the sky, close enough to be caught by many of the ubiquitous Russian dash-cams. The fireball caused a sonic boom, and there are reports of many injuries from shattered windows and falls, but no deaths are reported so far. Phil Plait is constantly updating a post at Bad Astronomy regarding the meteor, with links and lots more videos. Link
Origin
of Species - Litographs Poster
Zoomed in view
A picture is worth a thousand words, and if you've got the entire text of a book, you can come up with a pretty stunning image. That's the basic premise of Litographs and Postertext posters from the NeatoShop: to take the text of a classic work of literature and turn it into a readable art you can hang on your wall.
By clever use of negative space and - in case of Litoraphs, colors - these posters depict iconic moments from each book. The text are sharp and legible, and you can read the entire book or select chapters by reading the poster (though you may need youthful eyes or at least a magnifying glass to read).
View more Litographs and Postertext posters from the NeatoShop. It's the perfect gift for book lovers!
Is the secret to improving your kids' grade be as simple as who they're friends with? Maybe so, according to a new study by high school students Deanna Blanksy and friends:
In the grade point study, researchers took to the classroom to see whether academic achievement might be as contagious as obesity. They asked 158 eleventh-graders to go down a class roster and point out their pals. Then they checked everyone’s report cards at the time of the survey, and again a year later.
The researchers found that those students whose friends were outshining them academically tended to improve their grades over the year. Whereas those who were hanging out with academic underachievers let their grades slide.
Computer crashes may soon be a thing of the past, thanks to new research by University College London computer scientists Peter Bentley and Christos Sakellariou. They've created a crash-proof computer by introducing chaos and randomness:
OUT of chaos, comes order. A computer that mimics the apparent randomness found in nature can instantly recover from crashes by repairing corrupted data.
Dubbed a "systemic" computer, the self-repairing machine now operating at University College London (UCL) could keep mission-critical systems working. For instance, it could allow drones to reprogram themselves to cope with combat damage, or help create more realistic models of the human brain.
Everyday computers are ill suited to modelling natural processes such as how neurons work or how bees swarm. This is because they plod along sequentially, executing one instruction at a time. "Nature isn't like that," says UCL computer scientist Peter Bentley. "Its processes are distributed, decentralised and probabilistic. And they are fault tolerant, able to heal themselves. A computer should be able to do that."
Paul Marks of The NewScientist explains how: Link
Happy Singles Awareness Day, Forever Aloners! To help you celebrate, here are some Anti-Valentine's Day Cards!
Someecards has got some of the funniest ones:
In a real-life version of the movie Speed, Frank Lecerf was forced to drive at top speed when his Renault Laguna, which was adapted for disabled drivers, went out of control. While running an errand in his home town of Pont-de-Metz, France, Lecerf found that any tap on his brakes made the car speed up -up to 125 mph!
While uncontrollably speeding through the fast lane as other cars swerved out of his way, he managed to call emergency services who immediately dispatched a platoon of police cars.
Realising Lecerf had no choice but to keep racing along until his petrol ran out, they escorted him at high speed across almost 125 miles of French motorway, past Calais and Dunkirk, and over the Belgian border.
Puzzled motorists gave way as the high-speed convoy approached. Three toll stations were warned to raise their barriers as Lecerf ploughed through. After about an hour, his petrol tank spluttered empty and he managed to swerve into a ditch in Alveringem in Belgium, about 125 miles from his home, in Pont-de-Metz, near the northern French city of Amiens.
"My life flashed before me," he told Le Courrier picard. "I just wanted it to stop." He was unhurt but had two epileptic seizures.
Lecerf was connected to a Renault engineer during the ordeal, but nothing they tried slowed the vehicle. There is no word yet on why the car accelerated out of control. Link
Look around you. Do you trust these idiots to handle your funeral properly? Neither did Jim Gernhart. In 1951, this Colorado farmer planned his own funeral in detail and conducted a full dress reheasal so people would know what to do when he wasn't around to supervise them:
The Rev. S. H. Mahaffey's funeral sermon extolled Jim as a man who had done many kindnesses for individual townspeople without general knowledge (which is true), "Ain't that guy a preaching fool?" whispered Jim. And when the recorded strains of The Old Rugged Cross, one of the musical numbers he had personally selected, blared forth, tears came to Jim's eyes. "Real nice funeral, ain't it?" he sighed contentedly.
Link -via The Oddment Emporium | Photo: Life
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