rainbowboys shirt design 2010

Jim Carrey's website

Check it out, it's seriously wtf. It loads a little slowly, but there's tons of weird shit to see.

The Mandelbulb: first 'true' 3D image of famous fractal

NewScientist

It may look like a piece of virtuoso knitting, but the makers of an image they call the Mandelbulb (see right) claim it is most accurate three-dimensional representation to date of the most famous fractal equation: the Mandelbrot set.

There have been previous attempts at a 3D Mandelbrot image, but they do not display real fractal behaviour, says Daniel White, an amateur fractal image maker based in Bedford, UK.

Spinning the 2D Mandelbrot fractal like wood on a lathe, raising and lowering certain points, or invoking higher-dimensional mathematics can all produce apparently three-dimensional Mandelbrots. Yet none of these techniques offer the detail and self-similar shapes that White believes represent a true 3D fractal image. Two years ago, he decided to find a "true" 3D version of the Mandelbrot.

Really good write-up on nuclear versus renewable power

I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but this site really has a good summation of why we need nuclear, and how wrong most of the anti-nuclear arguments are. So if you ever find yourself arguing with an eco-tard or just someone who is naive about the truth of nuclear energy you can link them to this page.

Some examples:

Q12. What about the waste?

The waste issue has been solved. Indeed it is not waste. It is ‘once-used-nuclear-fuel’. We’ve used about 1% to 10% of the energy so far. We will use the rest of the energy in the future, by recycling the once-used-nuclear-fuel through Generation IV nuclear power plants. The waste from these plants has a half-life of 30 years and will degrade back down to natural background levels within 300 to 500 years.

Used fuel is stored safely in containers like this:

This is all the ‘once-used-nuclear-fuel’ from 31 years of power generation from a now decommissioned power station.

The amount of used fuel is minuscule compared with the waste from fossil fuel power stations, much of which is far more toxic and lasts forever.

Q15. Is there enough uranium?

Yes.

There is enough uranium to provide all the world’s energy indefinitely. Indeed, we’ve already mined enough uranium to power the whole world using next-generation nuclear power for 700 years!

There is sufficient uranium and thorium in the top 4 km of the Earth’s land areas to supply all the energy needs of 10 billion people at the USA’s current rate of energy consumption for 220 million years. That’s as long as far ahead as the start of the dinosaur era is behind. But actually, the rivers of the world naturally replenish sea water with 30,000 tonnes of uranium each year due to erosion, so we wouldn’t even need to dig this up.

More...

Ukraine No. 1

This is the current number one hit in Ukraine, Okean Elzy with the song "Bilshe Dlja Nas". You can find the complete chart here.

Kepler Spacecraft Finds 750 Exoplanet Candidates

Already a bit old news (June 15th), but somehow I missed it. Pretty exciting stuff.

The Kepler spacecraft has found over 750 candidates for extrasolar planets, and that is just from data collected in the first 43 days of the spacecraft's observations. "This is the biggest release of candidate planets that has ever happened," said William Borucki, Kepler's lead scientist. "The number of candidate planets is actually greater than all the planets that have been discovered in the last 15 years."

This is an astounding amount of potential exoplanets from data taken during such a short period of time, however Borucki added that they expect only about 50% of these candidates to actually turn out to be planets, as some may be eclipsing binary stars or other artifacts in the data. But still, even half would be the biggest group discovery of exoplanets ever.

And the exciting part is that 706 targets from this first data set have viable exoplanet candidates with sizes from as small as Earth to around the size of Jupiter. The team says the majority have radii less than half that of Jupiter.

More...

Video from my new phone

My new phone can record in 720p! Though it isn't super sharp, it is quite good. You do really see that the phone has zero image stabilization though.

Captain Rainbow said...

good morning to me on Stewart Island!

Italian football Team training

Change we can believe in?

NASA Team Captures Hayabusa Spacecraft Reentry

A group of astronomers from NASA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and other organizations had a front row seat to observe the Hayabusa spacecraft's fiery plunge into Earth's atmosphere. The team flew aboard NASA's DC-8 airborne laboratory, packed with cameras and other imaging instruments, to capture the high-speed re-entry over an unpopulated area of central Australia on June 13, 2010. The Japanese spacecraft completed its seven-year, 1.25 billion mile journey to return a sample of the asteroid Itokawa.

Hayabusa @wiki

Nuclear power plant wall test

We've already seen that nuclear casks used in transport are virtually indestructible. Good nuclear power plants are also safe.

Better quality extended version of only the crash from different angles here.

Working Lego sniper rifle

Balkenende kondigt vertrek uit politiek aan

Voor degene die het vertrek van Balkenende uit de politiek gemist hadden:

iFail

Allepeilingen.com

Voor degene die vol spanning op de uitslag wachten is hier een tool waarin je het verloop van de peilingen in de afgelopen 10 jaar kan bekijken. Bubbeltjesgrafieken, staafdiagrammen, een timeline: Wat wil je nog meer. Bekijk dus de ondergang van het CDA, de opkomst van de PVV en de dood van de LPF. Andere leuke site is van Google: Je kan hier het volume van zoekopdrachten naar politieke partijen en lijsttrekkers bekijken. Meer detail kan je vinden bij Google Insights

I feel that I should say: NONSENSE!

An oldie, but ain't nothin' wrong with that!

Stereoscopic boobies

This is an autostereogram, in which you can see a 3D image if you focus correctly. If you can't see it, you may find helpful instructions here.

Jack, drop die beat!

Somt het wel aardig op...

Mr. Hypocrite

source

Godwin's law

"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."

Also see Poe's Law:

"Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing."

OK Go - Rube Goldberg Machine Music Video

The song is "This Too Shall Pass". The video was shot in a single take and is synced to the music. This clip was made to go viral and it did, the official video is here, and is also quite good.

OK Go is best known for their treadmill music video.

Hints of life found on Saturn moon

Two potential signatures of life on Saturn's moon Titan have been found by the Cassini spacecraft. But scientists are quick to point out that non-biological chemical reactions could also be behind the observations.

Titan is much too cold to support liquid water on its surface, but some scientists have suggested that exotic life-forms could live in the lakes of liquid methane or ethane that dot the moon's surface.

In 2005, Chris McKay of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field and Heather R Smith of the International Space University in Strasbourg, France, calculated that such microbes could eke out an existence by breathing in hydrogen gas and eating the organic molecule acetylene, creating methane in the process.

This would result in a lack of acetylene on Titan and a depletion of hydrogen close to the moon's surface, where the microbes would live, they said.

Now, measurements from the Cassini spacecraft have borne out these predictions, hinting that life may be present.

More @ NewScientist

Golf Ball Slow Motion

Meanwhile at Saturn...

The Big Picture has a nice collection of recent images taken by Cassini around Saturn.

Saturn in natural color

The moon Titan in front of Tethys

More...

Politieke Economie van de Verkiezingen 2010 – Bas Jacobs

Bas Jacobs is hoogleraar economie en overheidsfinanciën aan de Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam. Op dit blog staat zijn commentaar op de politieke economie van de verkiezingen 2010. Hij beschrijft geduldig de economische en financiële aspecten van de verkiezingsvoorstellen.

Laatste berichten:

Hogere toptarieven economisch onzinnig

Snoeihard beleid VVD raakt de lage en middeninkomens het meest

Breekpunt hypotheekrenteaftrek CDA lege huls

Eerste lijsttrekkersdebat: waarom?

Breekpunt hypotheekrente: CDA buiten spel en einde loopbaan Balkenende?

Roemer (SP) en de economische werkelijkheid

Hoe kan op een economisch zinnige manier meer dan 50 miljard structureel worden vrijgespeeld?

Politieke partijen willen in 2011 tien keer meer bezuinigen dan in 2006

Economen kraken zichzelf

CPB: zegen voor de democratie

Deze blog verhuist naar Z24.nl

PVV: geen hoop en optimisme maar agressieve ontevredenheid

Griekenland, Odysseus en de Sirenen

Investeringen in HBO: gratis lunches bestaan niet

Verdere vergroening belastingen?

History repeats, failures and all

You may have missed it, but recently there was actually also a spill in Alaska.