Post: #26

French Impressionism - as typified by the work of Monet - was due to Monet having dodgy eyes...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1...style.html

Post: #27

Vermeer (a favourite painter of mine) may have used Camera Obscuras in his work:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/emp...a_01.shtml

Post: #28

Each morning - your life increases in expectancy by 6 hours.

http://www.bermanpost.com/2010/04/every-...tancy.html

Which means we are 25% of the way towards achieving immortality - since immortality would just be when the average life expectancy increases by more than 24 hours - every day.

Post: #29

The long term storage of nuclear waste raises interesting problems. Some of the deep geological repositories for nuclear waste will be dangerous to humans for the next 10-25 thousand years.

As such - it is very difficult figuring out how to communicate with people in the future since it is hard to imagine what the world will be like then. Particularly if civilisation has fallen backwards after a nuclear war or natural disaster.

Anyway - this article discusses this problem. Some of the solutions (such as glowing cats - mentioned in the wikipedia page) are incredibly ingenious.

http://www.damninteresting.com/this-plac...-of-honor/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Inter...Task_Force

Post: #30

Similar to the above - was the task of potentially communicating with distant alien civilisations. This was a project which Carl Sagan worked on:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_plaque

Post: #31

If you drop a bullet to the ground from your left hand.

And - at the same time - fire a gun in your right hand.

Both bullets will hit the ground at the same time.

Post: #32

(07-24-2013 12:06 AM)cardguy Wrote:  The long term storage of nulcear waste raises interesting problems. Some of the deep geological repositorys for nuclear waste will be dangerous to humans for the next 10-25 thousand years.

As such - it is very difficult figuring out how to communicate with people in the future since it is hard to imagine what the world will be like then. Particularly if civilisation has fallen backwards after a nuclear war or natural disaster.

Anyway - this article discusses this problem - and some of the solutions (such as glowing cats!) are incredibly ingenious.

http://www.damninteresting.com/this-plac...-of-honor/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Inter...Task_Force

This connects with your previous post. It may be naive, but if we're already making modest progress towards an indefinite lifespan, is it so out of the question that by 10,000 or 25,000 years, mankind might have life expectancies measured in *millenia*. If that's the case, then there won't be any need for any complicated inter-generational communication systems.

This may be well known already, but Hero of Alexandria, a Greek scientist working in the period of ancient Rome, invented the steam engine about 1800 years before people like James Watt ushered in the Industrial Revolution. In other words, its conceivable that the industrial age could have started around the time of Christ:

Quote:Hero described[6] the construction of the aeolipile (a version of which is known as Hero's engine) which was a rocket-like reaction engine and the first-recorded steam engine (although Vitruvius mentioned the aeolipile in De Architectura some 100 years earlier than Hero). It was created almost two millennia before the industrial revolution. Another engine used air from a closed chamber heated by an altar fire to displace water from a sealed vessel; the water was collected and its weight, pulling on a rope, opened temple doors.[7]

Post: #33

Good point. But of course - these projects are planned on the basis that humanity may fall backwards in the future - due to some kind of disaster.

Post: #34

The euthanasia roller coaster:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia_Coaster

Quote:The Euthanasia Coaster is an art concept for a steel roller coaster designed to kill its passengers.

In 2010, it was designed and made into a scale model by Julijonas Urbonas, a PhD candidate at the Royal College of Art in London.

Urbonas, who has worked at an amusement park, stated that the goal of his concept roller coaster is to take lives "with elegance and euphoria".

Post: #35

I had the intuition cardguy would burn up this thread.

Good work!

Post: #36

The word 'Bible' is never mentioned in any of Shakespeare's plays.

Post: #37

My favourite quiz question.

QUESTION ------------- IN THE BIBLE - WHO KILLS ONE QUARTER OF THE WORLD'S POPULATION?

ANSWER -------------- CAIN.

When Cain killed his brother Abel - there were only 4 people (Cain, Abel, Adam and Eve) on the Earth at the time.

Post: #38

(07-24-2013 12:34 AM)cardguy Wrote:  The word 'Bible' is never mentioned in any of Shakespeare's plays.

It's interesting, some scholars argue he came from a Catholic family and was himself a kind of crypto-Catholic... during a time, of course, when they were forced underground. His plays are equivocal as far as I'm concerned. But I should think that the word "bible" would be used more by a Protestant than a Catholic. He could have been an agnostic or atheist, but I always feel that in pre-modern times there needs to be strong evidence for that, considering that it was such an extreme position.

Post: #39

(07-24-2013 12:34 AM)cardguy Wrote:  The word 'Bible' is never mentioned in any of Shakespeare's plays.

Ah, shit I knew I was forgetting a goldmine for writeups!

I took a class in college just about Shakespeare.

Romeo & Juliet, Taming of the Shrew (read it as a red-pill dude, hilarious), Othello (my favorite) and The Merchant of Venice were the plays that jumped out at me.

Oh, and Midsummer Night's Dream.

Good stuff.

Post: #40

Andy Warhol designed the famous logo for the Rolling Stones:

Post: #41

Many Russian universities do not change the questions on their exams for years, including exams for your Master's Degree!!!

You can buy your EGA score (equivalent to SAT).

You can buy admittance to the most prestigious universities in Russia, even with bad test scores.

You can even buy your university education in Russia. Basically, you pay off either your professor or someone who is high-up in the university.

Post: #42

The story behind the Apple logo is quite interesting. Since there was a dark urban myth behind it which many believed.

http://urbanlegends.about.com/b/2012/06/...e-logo.htm

Post: #43

Excellent website here (I have used it for years) which compiles urban myths. And also tries to investigate whether or not the urban myths are true:

http://www.snopes.com/

Post: #44

(07-23-2013 11:25 PM)cardguy Wrote:  Came across this awhile ago. The 50 most interesting articles on wikipedia. It is an excellent collection of stuff worth checking out.

http://copybot.wordpress.com/2009/04/07/...wikipedia/

This is one of the rare cases where disputes in the comments actually consistently add value to the page, looks like a lot more good suggestions.

Post: #45

(07-24-2013 12:22 AM)cardguy Wrote:  The euthanasia roller coaster:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia_Coaster

Quote:The Euthanasia Coaster is an art concept for a steel roller coaster designed to kill its passengers.

In 2010, it was designed and made into a scale model by Julijonas Urbonas, a PhD candidate at the Royal College of Art in London.

Urbonas, who has worked at an amusement park, stated that the goal of his concept roller coaster is to take lives "with elegance and euphoria".

That sounds like a really dismal end. If I'm killing myself, I'd prefer it to be quick and painless rather than being trounced in this ridiculous machine.

Post: #46

(07-24-2013 12:14 AM)cardguy Wrote:  If you drop a bullet to the ground from your left hand.

And - at the same time - fire a gun in your right hand.

Both bullets will hit the ground at the same time.

Not sure I understand this.

Is it because they are both released from equal distances above the ground, so that gravity takes the same amount of time?

Post: #47

Yeah that is correct. I probably didn't explain it clearly enough.

Post: #48

It's impossible to lick your elbow

Post: #49

Dead bodies are used as waypoints for mountaineers climbing Mount Everest.

You can see some of the photos of the bodies still lying around on Mount Everest here.

http://imgur.com/gallery/rkRAk [link contains dead bodies/skeletons - so probably NSFW if you work somewhere boring]

Post: #50

(07-24-2013 12:57 PM)XY. Wrote:  It's impossible to lick your elbow

I can definitely lick my elbow and if you google image search you'll see that it's pretty common to be able to.

I think to make it correct you'd have to change it to "lick your elbow without assistance from your other hand"