This marvellous little space is going to be something a little different from my other sites.
On here, my aim is to highlight unusual little things that make you step back, stop for a moment and let your mind wander, as you have a chance to ponder aspects of Life, The Universe and Everything that you normally wouldn't even consider during your day.
...In short, a brief web-inspired 'timeout'. Enjoy.
Despite being incredibly popular during his day, now Tesla remains largely overlooked among lists of the greatest inventors and scientists of the modern era. Thomas Edison gets all the glory for discovering the lightbulb, but it was his one-time assistant and life-long arch-nemesis, Nikola Tesla, who made the breakthroughs in alternating-current technology that allowed for people to cheaply use electricity to power appliances and lighting in their homes.
They constantly fought about whether to use alternating or direct-currents (their bitter blood feud resulted in both men being snubbed by the Nobel Prize committee), but ultimately Tesla was the one who delivered the fatal kick-to-the-crotch that ended the battle – at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, his AC generators illuminated the entire experience, marking the first time that an event of that magnitude had ever taken place under the glow of artificial light.
Today, all homes and applicances run on Tesla’s AC current.
Think again… Google also carries a good chunk of the world’s Internet traffic through transit arrangements (it’s one of the reasons why running YouTube costs them so little)… And this is what it looks like when something goes wonky at their end:
Dan Hanna’s spent the past 17 years (and counting) taking a photo of himself. He’s already collated a great deal of the photos into a video (available on YouTube), and he’s not done yet.
Go take a look at his explanation of his camera rig (no, not kidding) and surf around to other related projects. Surprising how many people do the same thing, but Dan’s certainly taken it one step beyond with a rig and spending the best part of 20 years compiling the shots… I considered starting something similar but I just didn’t have the tenacity to keep doing it after a couple of days. Would you?
I love thinking about the intricacies of our own bodies. For example, did you know that the skin covering our bodies is actually composed of three layers (the epidermis, the dermis and the subcutaneous layer) - and in each minute of each day, we lose between 30,000 to 40,000 flakes of dead skin cells, equating to about 4 kilograms every year? KidsHealth has the skinny. (And I’ll get my coat for that last joke.)
While we’re talking about skin, let’s dive down to the molecular level… What holds our skin’s molecules together? Skin, like most of the human body, is composed of oxygen & carbon molecules plus nitrogen-based compounds. But what holds all of this together? Amongst other things, a protein called Laminin, which bonds everything together, adheres cells to each other and is generally ‘the glue of the human body.’ But what dictates Laminin’s subunit composition (or literally, what holds it together), and how did the particular polypeptide chains come to find themselves in harmony with each other producing this wonderful protein?
And all this, just from studying one of the fingers on one of my hands for five minutes earlier today. The human being is one truly amazing machine, and there’s so much going on - even at a sub-atomic level - that we just don’t appreciate because we can’t see it happening, although if it didn’t we would quite literally cease to be.
Which Muppet was your favourite? I always loved Kermit the Frog and Oscar the Grouch, although a special place in my happy memories section is reserved for The Count. I can still be found impersonating him every so often.
The National Post’s also compiled an interactive guide to all of the Muppets, and you can find it on their web site at http://www.nationalpost.com/arts/muppets/index.html. It’s just too large to fit in here! Go waste five/ten minutes and reminisce about your childhood :)
Stephen Fry is one of those people who you have to respect for his ability to eloquently convey a point of view - and aside from the fact he is often entirely correct, you also have to admire his wordsmith abilities. Recently the erudite individual was questioned on the subject of MPs’ expenses (currently whipping major UK media outlets into a frenzy), and he concisely explains just why the issue of expenses is really not that important whatsoever in the grander scheme of things.
This is essential viewing for anybody who’s frustrated and annoyed with the current situation where media outlets are continuing to blanket the nation with a surfeit of coverage on the topic.
(Apologies to those outside of the UK if the video doesn’t play; this is due to rights restrictions the BBC imposes on its video streams and I can’t do anything about it.)
