Via: Erik Wernquist and Carl Sagan
Category Archives: Awesome
Awesome Politics Science Technology Awesome Science Stuff TechnologyThe Black Blood of the Earth
February 12, 2015 – 4:08 pm
When Subject 1’s cup of unadulterated was half empty, he grabbed his water bottle and poured the remainder into his clear glass coffee cup. He looks at it and then puts his hand up because He Needs An Adult. He said with concern, “I added water but it didn’t change color.” We all wandered over to peek into the dark heart of his mug. Even diluted to 50% of the original strength, it is still as black, oily, and potentially lethal as a tar pit.
While accurate, this can’t merely be called Scientific Coffee or even Weapons Grade Coffee. My brain went searching for terms that accurately described this creation. While the tar entity that killed Tasha Yar in ST:TNG came to mind, John Carpenter’s “Big Trouble In Little China” is what stuck. This coffee is the Black Blood Of The Earth (or BBotE for the sake of brevity).
With 145 cups of coffee’s worth of caffeine in 5.7 cups of volume, this is emphatically a beverage not to be trifled with. more importantly, though, it is fantastically delicious. Any comparison to regular coffee is, at best, fraught with peril. This is like comparing apples and bazookas.
Why NORAD tracks Santa
December 25, 2013 – 4:13 pm
One morning that December, U.S. Air Force Col. Harry Shoup, the director of operations at CONAD, the Continental Air Defense Command — NORAD’s predecessor — got a phone call at his Colorado Springs, Colo., office. This was no laughing matter. The call had come in on one of the top secret lines inside CONAD that only rang in the case of a crisis.
Grabbing the phone, Shoup must have expected the worst. Instead, a tiny voice asked, “Is this Santa Claus?
A Christmas tradition is born on the United States strategic defense nuclear hotline.
Desiderata Of Happiness
February 6, 2013 – 12:04 pm
Go placidly amidst the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its shams, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.
The Desiderata of Happiness, by Max Ehrmann
Octopi
October 4, 2012 – 5:26 pm
Octopus are truly the closest thing to alien intelligences that exists on this planet. If we ever do meet creatures from another world, the experience will be less like trying to communicate with someone from another country or even like trying to communicate with an elephant or a dolphin, and much more like trying to get inside the squishy, gelatinous head of an octopus.
from Scientist from an excellent discussion of Octopi.
Millefiori: Ferrofluid mixed with water colors
June 26, 2012 – 2:49 pm
Fabian Oefner creates these arresting images by combining ferrofluids with watercolors. Magnetizing the ferrofluid forms channels along the magnetic field lines, pooling the colors in patterns that look much like psychedelic brains. Find out more about the project at itsnicethat.com.
Minimalist Lego Re-enactments of Classic Sci-Fi Movie Scenes
June 25, 2012 – 3:16 pm
Hermetus Bottle Opener & Resealer
June 24, 2012 – 6:14 pm
Sometimes, after you open a beer bottle, you wish you could reseal it. For those moments, the Hermetus Bottle Opener & Resealer might perfectly suit your purposes.
This is happening now.
June 8, 2012 – 6:08 pm
ten timeframes
June 8, 2012 – 5:59 pm
If we are going to ask people, in the form of our products, in the form of the things we make, to spend their heartbeats—if we are going to ask them to spend their heartbeats on us, on our ideas, how can we be sure, far more sure than we are now, that they spend those heartbeats wisely?
-Paul Ford
Ten Timeframes, an incredible essay on time, measurement, product and the very purpose of our lives. Heartbeats well spent.
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