xkcd

Relevant map today as North Carolina's redistrcting has been struck down by a Federal judge.

Representatives are 3 Democrats/10 Republicans but it's pretty easy to see that the blue/red ratio on the map is 10/9.

Gee golly gosh, I wonder how such a thing may have happened????

owenneil wrote:I spent a while looking, but I give up. Where's Waldo?

He's the green guy near Tampa, FL that swung that state. Pretty sure those are his brothers in Madison, WI and (presumably) Ann Arbor, MI

Uber potentially allows for strangers to easily kidnap and abduct would-be victims. Why hasn't there been a surge of violent offenders, e.g. serial murderers, serial rapists, etc. taking advantage of these ride sharing apps? I figure if it were the case, they would be shutdown (except of course the...

Hrm, a greater message on Capitalism?

I read Mort soon after it was first published, and enjoyed it immensely; I think I might have read a couple of other Discworld books afterwards, but only one or two. By the time I thought of reading another (I did virtually no reading during my university years), there were so many that I was reluc...

ahecht wrote:

Spoiler:

We're all "proud" now.

Not quite all - the whales are calm. Despite an appreciable brief moment of panic they knew we had it in us.

E-S-A! E-S-A! E-S-A!

orthogon wrote:I'm glad I'm not on a live camera feed while I'm doing my job, is all I can say. That, and Wahayyy!

Great job by the ESA in having representative Euro-wear. I love the sweathshirt, jackets with untucked shirts, nice jeans, etc.

Woohoo!!!!!1

pinkgothic wrote:STATUS
Speed of light: Too slow

Methinks it's radio waves / not light -- but I agree with the sentiment.

There's a lesson to be learned in the calmness of whales

Finally we'll have a data point for if harpoons work on comets

Interesting...I never realized I type 15-20% faster with my right hand than my left, but random online typing tests confirm it. B is a left hand letter for me and Y is right hand.

For what it's worth, I believe that people were fishing 'new world' waters long before Columbus and the knowledge of land was known to him. He knew he was going to hit land because he had secondhand (or maybe even 1st) accounts of people who had sailed west to land. He may not have known exactly wh...

So... Comic about the 'fact' of how Columbus 'knew' the world was round is followed by a forum thread discussion where multiple people explain the 'real facts' of how he just got the math wrong in the size of the world, tricked Ferdinand/Isabella, ran into an undiscovered continent, etc. Well played...

Somehow congratulations doesn't seem quite right....but holy crap, Congratulations!

Instead of conveyors there should be pushing arms at the edge of each shelf that hydraulically slide out of the side of the fridge and push the ingredients along. Same general effect but a much cleaner design and easier maintenance. Otherwise you're gonna end up with something leaking all over the c...

As a bird owner I have a problem with the 1 poop/hour. A budgie poops every 12~15 minutes when awake/active and typically 40-50 times/day. I would suspect the same is true of similar small birds and a quick google search says a large bird like a macaw may poop ~20 times/day. I have no idea what the ...

I feel so... old. I bought an Everyman's Cyclopedia set from 1912 at an estate sale a few years back. It's a fascinating historical perspective: What was important enough to remember 100 years ago? Well, today -100... "the US senate passed the Panama Canal Bill, giving American ships free pass...

This comic makes me think of two recent things I found on the the internets: "Better Hubbles" already exists (but it's ex-military and NASA can't afford to put it in orbit) http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/nasa-gets-military-spy-telescopes-for-astronomy/2012/06/04/gJQA...

I've always felt that if I ever invented a time machine, the first thing I would do is travel to a remote corner of Antartica, on january 17th 1302, at 15:02 hours, where, right on schedule, I would meet myself from the future. My future self would hand me a schematic for an even better time machin...

I'm a big Sperm Whale and emperor penguin fan so those weren't surprising, but the Leatherback turtle boggles my mind. I know they're huge (8'? 10'?) but that's frighteningly deep. Off to google for more info