Friday Links!
On a rare somber note to start off Friday Links, Jeremy Connell sent me a link to a story about the bushfires that raged through Victoria, Australia this week. This story is titled How We Cheated Flames of Death, and it's both terrifying and riveting.In a lighter vein, my buddy Mike sent me a link to a hilarious, NSFW (in a text sense only) website: F*** My Life. It's like PostSecret, but much funnier and more profane. I read three pages and it's a permanent bookmark now.
Now, from Sebastian Morgan-Lynch, what is without question the most "spectacular" marketing theory in history. It's a presentation from Pepsi's PR company, and it's the marketing equivalent of auto-erotic asphyxiation. Read it and you'll see what I mean.
From Michael O'Reilly, a link to a fascinating article titled 1709: The Year That Europe Froze. How cold was it? Here's an excerpt:
Derham was the Rector of Upminster, a short ride north-east of London. He had been checking his thermometer and barometer three times a day since 1697. Similarly dedicated observers scattered across Europe did much the same and their records tally remarkably closely. On the night of 5 January, the temperature fell dramatically and kept on falling. On 10 January, Derham logged -12 °C, the lowest temperature he had ever measured. In France, the temperature dipped lower still. In Paris, it sank to -15 °C on 14 January and stayed there for 11 days. After a brief thaw at the end of that month the cold returned with a vengeance and stayed until mid-March.
From Frank Regan, a picture of--believe it or not--the end of the rainbow. Next is a story about a hybrid nuclear reactor that could destroy nuclear waste. And the argument in the comments section is quite geekworthy as well. Finally, a link to virtual autopsies using MRI's and computed tomography.
From Sirius, a link to 15 examples of biomimicry. Oh, and since it's nearly Valentine's day, here's a heartwarming story: sales of pink tasers are way up.
From Tim Jones, here are some absolutely stunning nighttime photographs of factories in Japan.
From Dana Crane, a link to a slide presentation by Sequoia Capital that explains our current financial mess quite well. It's called the 56 Slide Presentation Of Doom.
From DQ reader my wife, a link to a fascinating article about teleportation, and here's an excerpt:
Teleportation is one of nature's most mysterious forms of transport: Quantum information, such as the spin of a particle or the polarization of a photon, is transferred from one place to another, without traveling through any physical medium. It has previously been achieved between photons (a unit, or quantum, of electromagnetic radiation, such as light) over very large distances, between photons and ensembles of atoms, and between two nearby atoms through the intermediary action of a third.
None of those, however, provides a feasible means of holding and managing quantum information over long distances.
Now the JQI team, along with colleagues at the University of Michigan, has succeeded in teleporting a quantum state directly from one atom to another over a meter. That capability is necessary for workable quantum information systems because they will require memory storage at both the sending and receiving ends of the transmission.
From Christopher Buecheler, it's The Top 8 Rejected PS3 Games. I'm quite fond of "Grillzone 2" and "Shadow of the Colostomy."
From the Edwin Garcia Links Machine And Fiancee, it's The Complete Animated History of the Internet. Next, and this is bizarrely compelling, it's a video made by a camera on top of a piece of sushi on a conveyor belt.
From Michael Martin, a link to the Mazda Suitcase Car. It's bizarre, as you would expect.
From Liz Watson, it's a link to the discovery of a prehistoric snake that measured 42 feet long. And would have weighed about 2,500 pounds.
Lastly, but this is extremely interesting, Sean sent in this link to an interactive map of twitter chatter during the Super Bowl.
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