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Galactic-Scale Energy (2011)
[ An updated treatment of this material appears in Chapter 1 of the Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet (free) textbook , and also appears as part of an article in Nature Physics in 2022.]
Top posts
Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 4,457 posts.
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The Science of Serif vs Sans Serif Type
Update March 2012 See my expanded critique of Colin Wheildon’s legibility research .
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Flickr reverse engineers the shapes of continents, countries, cities, and neighborhoods.
Almost ninety million, as I write this, and the numbers keep growing especially as nearly every new smart phone released to market has not only a camera but also the ability to capture location information with it.
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The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant (2005)
An allegory against complacency about aging and death.
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Link between health spending and life expectancy: US is an outlier (2017)
Americans have a lower life expectancy than people in other rich countries despite paying much more for healthcare. What factors may explain this?
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When (if ever) did the Sun set on the British Empire?
It hasn't. Yet. But only because of a few dozen people living in an area smaller than Disney World.
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At peak, Spain gets 53% of its energy from wind
Ok, not all the time, but last weekend at 5:50am on Sunday morning (8th Nov) Spain set a new record, hitting 53.7% of its energy requirements being supplied by wind energy. As you can see from the graph above, the amount of electricity being supplied by wind, the light green portion of the graph, doesn’t […]
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Python in the Scientific World
Yesterday I attended a biweekly meeting of an informal a UC Berkeley group devoted to Python in science (Py4Science), organized by Fernando ...
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A Non-Local Revolution
Paul Graham has recently argued for two points: first, that tech startups will continue to collect in Silicon Valley . Second, that startups may represent a new economic phase , replacing the corporate ladder of old . Now he’s suggesting that these two effects combined might lead to a very local economic revolution .
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500 Exabytes per Raindrop
People like to say this is the "information age". But just how much information are we talking about? I recently found a nice source of... umm... information about this question:
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Rutgers Graduate Student Finds New Prime-Generating Formula
Studying prime numbers is like playing the guitar. No, really, let me explain. The guitar is a simple instrument: six strings, some frets,...
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Edward O. Wilson: Marx was right, he had the wrong species
Among many other things, Edward Wilson is a myrmecologist and two times Pulitzer-prize winner. There is a picture taken by him of an ant holding between its mandibles a banner with the words: 'Onward Sociobiolo�gy!'. Following the publication in 1975 of his book Sociobi�ology, the New Synthesis , he became both to…
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The Fourth Quadrant: a Map of the Limits of Statistics (by Nassim Nicholas Taleb)
Statistical and applied probabilistic knowledge is the core of knowledge; statistics is what tells you if something is true, false, or merely anecdotal; it is the "logic of science"; it is the instrument of risk-taking; it is the applied tools of epistemology; you can't be a modern intellectual and not think…
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Dark Flash Photography - UV/IR Flash Instead of Visible Light
Dark Flash Photography To be presented at SIGGRAPH 2009, New Orleans. Download PDF Dilip Krishnan Rob Fergus Vision, Learning and Graphics Group Computer Science Department Courant Institute of Mat…
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Nuclear Reactor Wall Charts
Super Phénix: Creys-Malville Nuclear Power Station, River Rhone (Sur le Rhone) Creys-Malville, Isere, France, Centrale Nucleaire Europeen...
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Researchers Create Gold Aluminum, Black Platinum, Blue Silver
For both new and returning visitors, the University’s News Center is a digital hub for the latest news stories showcasing the research, accomplishments, expertise, and perspectives of the Rochester community. In addition, the News Center features University announcements and updates from newsrooms and publications…
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If You Want to Catch a Liar, Make Him Draw
A man accused of a crime is brought into a police interrogation room and sits down at an empty table. There’s no polygraph equipment in sight, and the typical two-cop questioning team isn’t in the…
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What happens when a basebal goes at nearly the speed of light (what-if.XKCD)
What would happen if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90% the speed of light?
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Visualizing the Fourth Dimension Using Color
Color can be used to indicate position in 4D space