Conus Pennaceus

Hello, Rule 30, didn’t expect to see you there! Thanks, Nature, for making the universe such an amazing place to live.

This is one of the greatest inventions I’ve seen in a long time. Using a charge in the saw blade, if it detects capacitance from human flesh it immediately halts and retracts the spinning blade. When pushing wood through at any reasonable speed, it’s supposed to stop before the blade cuts any deeper than 1/16th an inch. Probably does irreparable damage to the saw’s blade, but at least you keep your fingers.

Not that I have any use for a table saw, but if I did, I’d buy this one.

The second to last shot of the day is the Abby Singer shot. As an assistant director, near the end of a day of shooting, Abby Singer would say “this and one more” so the crew could begin to tear down parts of the set.

Named after Elian Gonzales’ aunt, the Marislasis shot is the third to last, the Maya Angelou shot is the fourth to last shot, and the Lou Nidus shot is the shot before lunch.

This point of view is different from the default position of radical environmentalists and a common opinion that all technology necessarily degrades the environment, and that environmental restoration can therefore occur only with reduced reliance on technology. Technogaians argue that technology gets cleaner and more efficient with time. They would also point to such things as hydrogen fuel cells to demonstrate that developments do not have to come at the environment’s expense. More directly, they argue that such things as nanotechnology and biotechnology can directly reverse environmental degradation. Molecular nanotechnology, for example, could convert garbage in landfills into useful materials and products, while biotechnology could lead to novel microbes that devour hazardous waste. (wikipedia)

Don’t dive too deep; there’s a layer of hydrogen sulfide in the lake 15-20 meters deep. Drink it and you die.

http://maps.yahoo.com/#mvt=s…76111

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTXinF8ZVCo

Heterocephalus glaber

A rodent which lives in colonies underground, digging with its enlarged front teeth. Only one female in a colony breed, and her offspring become workers or soldiers, helping dig the burrows in search of tubers underground. (bbc.com)

Also interesting in this species: they feel no pain!

The skin of naked mole rats lacks a key neurotransmitter called Substance P that is responsible in mammals for sending pain signals to the central nervous system. When naked mole rats are exposed to acid or capsaicin, they feel no pain. (wikipedia.org)

For example, say we have 3 owners of a corporation, two of them with 45% of the shares of the stock, and the third with just 10% of the shares of the stock, each one of them has equal power.

Suppose Alice and Betty vote “Yes” while Clair votes “No”. The result is the decision passes, with 18 votes “Yes” and 2 votes “No”. Had either Alice and Betty voted “No”, the result wouldn’t pass with only 9 votes “Yes”.

Suppose Alice and Clair vote “No” while Betty votes “Yes”. The result is the decision passes, with 11 votes “Yes” and 9 votes “No”. Had either Alice or Clair voted “No”, the result wouldn’t pass, having only 9 or 2 votes “Yes”.

It’s as if all three of them each have 1 vote.

Now suppose the company needs some money, so they issue 8 more shares, and sell them to their friend David.

Now, all a motion needs to pass is Alice and Betty, Betty and David, or David and Alice voting for it. Clair’s vote has no impact on any decision, because in no outcome is it ever critical. She may have a say in every vote, but her vote never has any worthwhile impact.

Why is this cool?

So just because you have less votes doesn’t necessarily mean you’re not important; but it could mean you’re less important than you think.

Mark Livingston at the Computer Science Department at UNC Chapel Hill ran a simulation using 1990 census and electoral college delegate weights, and came up with this:

http://www.cs.unc.edu/~livingst/Banzhaf/usa.out

Showing what everyone knows; the big states of California, New York, Texas, and Pennsylvania are important swing-states. But it’s a double-edged sword. If you look at what I’ll call BPIPC (Banzhaf power index per capita), they may have a relatively low overall power index, but dividing the total power index over every voter in the state shows that each person’s relative power in the overall election is an order of magnitude higher than those of citizens in big states.

In the 18th century and until 1980, Britain defined alcohol content in terms of proof spirit, which was defined as the most dilute spirit that would sustain combustion of gunpowder.[1] The term originated in the 18th century, when payments to British sailors included rations of rum. To ensure that the rum had not been watered down, it was “proved” by dousing gunpowder in it, then testing to see if the gunpowder would ignite. If it did not burn, the rum contained too much water — and was considered to be “under proof”. A “proven” sample of rum was defined to be 100 degrees proof; this was later found to occur at 57.15% alcohol by volume, which is very close to a 4:7 ratio of alcohol to total amount of liquid. Thus, the definition amounted to declaring that:

(4÷7) × 175 = 100 degrees proof spirit

From this it followed that pure, 100% alcohol had (7÷7) × 175 = 175 degrees proof spirit, and that 50% ABV had (3.5÷7) × 175 = 87.5 degrees proof spirit.

The basic idea is that the percentage of alcohol by volume is multiplied by 1.75, which gives the number of degrees proof spirit.

Alcoholic Proof @ Wikipedia

Something to keep in mind.