Electoral College

How the Electoral College works (or doesn't)

Happiness and Advertising

The killer quote:

People who watch a lot of advertisements appear to save less, spend more and use more of their time working to meet their rising material aspirations.

Palestine

A brief history of Palestine

Most American's Prefer Sweden's Income Distribution

92% of American's would prefer a society with far less income disparity than the US currently has.

Women Don't Drown

Turns out only men drown....

Mission Accomplished

Mission Accomplished

Sexperience

A British sex survey of 1000 people

The Doublethink of the CIA

Okay, CIA, I think it was kinda cool that you invented LSD and used hookers to inject their clients. Well, mostly cool. But lately the crap you've been doing is just ridiculous. I just want to call attention to one particular quote from this article mostly:

A spokeswoman for the C.I.A., Jennifer Youngblood, said, “The suggestion that the Central Intelligence Agency has requested redactions on this publication because it doesn’t like the content is ridiculous. The C.I.A.’s pre-publication review process looks solely at the issue of whether information is classified.”

She noted that under the law, “Just because something is in the public domain doesn’t mean it’s been officially released or declassified by the U.S. government.”

So what if the CIA decided to classify the axioms of mathematics? Would all math textbooks have to be redacted?

It's so ridiculous that I can hardly even find the words to explain it. The CIA is claiming the ability to redact anything they want at any point in time simply because they say that it's classified information. Even if it's something that already knows. And apparently they see no contradiction or hypocrisy in the idea that something everyone knows is no longer classified.

Fuck.

The Criminalization of Poverty

This article mostly gets to it at the end (it's somewhat long), but it's really kicks it home by the end. Has a few good points in it about racism, socialism, police insanity and more as well.

"The second — and by far the most reliable — way to be criminalized by poverty is to have the wrong color skin. Indignation runs high when a celebrity professor succumbs to racial profiling, but whole communities are effectively “profiled” for the suspicious combination of being both dark-skinned and poor. Flick a cigarette and you’re “littering”; wear the wrong color T-shirt and you’re displaying gang allegiance. Just strolling around in a dodgy neighborhood can mark you as a potential suspect. And don’t get grumpy about it or you could be “resisting arrest.” "

" “Can you imagine?” asked Eric Sheptock, the homeless advocate (himself a shelter resident) who introduced me to Szekeley. “They arrested a homeless man in a shelter for being homeless?” "

Uneconomic Growth

Nice/short article on what is true growth and what is not:

a better quality of life stems not from consuming more, but from a range of mostly immaterial things

Details of the Debt Ceiling Deal

If you're wondering why your butt hurts right now, it's because you just got screwed by the debt ceiling bullshit.

[This and much more]

Median Net Worth of Households

White people have more money (in their houses) than black people or hispanics....

Why Captcha's Use Real Words

Google is using captcha to decipher text in books in a program called recaptcha.

Visualization of US Debt

A cool way to show how large the US debt actually is.

Life is a Journey, Not a Destination

Buzz Aldrin

If people kept accusing me of not having walked on the moon, I would be annoyed too.

Generation III EPR

A new(ish) nuclear reactor design.

Sunscreen

The infographic

Orlando Police

On the illegality of feeding the homeless

Stuxnet - Computer Virius

Game of the Century

Bottled Water (Stop drinking it)

Battle at Sffet Hill, Libya

Overfishing

It's a huge problem. Here, read this.

Information on College Degrees

Lots of information from the last census. Interesting and well laid out. All kinds of information on pretty much every major.

Customizable OECD Stats

All the good Better Life Index stats in a customizable form that lets you look at what's important to you.
Pretty neat if you ask me.

OK Cupid on Sex

Another awesome OK Cupid survey/study thing.
That is all.

What Would Have Happened to the BP Oil?

The History of MDMA

Open Source

But this time for the real world. Oh shit.

TIL About Oscar Grant

And how the officer who shot him to death was given two years. He was unarmed.

Education Infographic

It's from Waiting for Superman, and is excellent.

Arts and Science

Almost all science Nobel laureates are actively engaged in the arts. They're:

25x more likely than the average scientist to sing, dance or act;

17x more likely to be an artist;

12x more likely to be a writer or poet;

8x more likely to be a craftsman;

4x more likely to be a musician;

2x more likely to be a photographer.

I Think We're Running Out of Land

Americans Decry Power of Lobbyists, Corporations, Banks, and Feds

So why doesn't anything change?

CEO Pay vs Worker Pay

One went up 27-31% the other 2.1%
Guess which is which

How Congress Should Actually Look

A lot different.

Göbekli Tepe

Gobekli Tepe

"The Temple at Gobekli Tepe

In Turkey, there is an empty, uninhabited region overlooked by a ridge of mountains. On a hill at the base of those mountains is a temple unique in human history.

Gobekli Tepe is a series of temples, built on top of each other over time. The oldest of 'layer' of temples is more than 11 000 years old. Do you understand how old that is?

That's not just seven thousand years older than the Pyramids. Five thousand years older than the first cities in the fertile crescent.

It's a thousand years before agriculture. The builders were nomads, living off of herds and foraging.

It's before writing. So the whole thing was built by people whose knowledge had to be learned entirely in their lifetime and committed to memory. Can you imagine building a house with a group of people, when there aren't any diagrams or written instructions on length or weight? And the project took more than just your lifetimes? (Okay, maybe there were measured lengths of rope or something, but still.)

So it existed almost alone on Earth, with no large permanent human settlements. Not in the middle of a city, or even near one, or at a time when our concept of 'cities' even existed. There are barely signs that people even lived at the site. It indicates humans who used it lived in nomadic villages nearby and it stood mostly empty. It was unimaginably unique at the time.

We only think it was a temple because it was full of larger-than-life statues of humans and dozens of different animals. The concept of a bigger-than-life statue indicates respect and reverence, when it was believed that humans weren't sophisticated enough at the time to see themselves as gods, or worthy of worship.

We know that Gobekli Tepe was in continuous use for more than three thousand years, and then buried. Not in an avalanche, not in a fire or storm. By hand. The entire fucking complex was buried by hand. We know from the striations of earth that it was carried in from the land around and dumped. And it wasn't destroyed first, the buildings was intact.

Only 5% has been excavated. It's been picked at for decades because of competing claims on archeological rights. Who knows what else is in there."

2012 Budget Cuts

Do the proposed budget cuts actually do anything?
It would appear not.

History of U.S. Intervention in Iran, 1953 - 2010

Great video detailing the history of U.S. involvement in Iran and other parts of the Middle East.

400 Richest Americans

The 400 Richest Americans have more wealth than the bottom 60% of America.

400 people have more money than 180,000,000 people.

Coal Power is 100 Times MORE Radioactive than Nuclear

Yep. Shocker.
Turns out the ash from coal plants has more radioactive isotopes per unit of energy than nuclear plants. oops.

Source.

Map of Countries That Use the Metric System

Colour me disappointed.

Radiation Chart

Because radiation levels are confusing.
Compare what you hear about Fukushima to this.

If Everyone Knew

5 fantastic facts that you have no excuse not to read. Click on them for more information/sources.

Deaths by TWH for Various Energy Sources

Very informative, lots of sources. Turns out nuclear is the safest, even with Chernobyl and the one confirmed death in Japan at this time. And it really shouldn't change much because of Japan due to the sheer volume of power generated.

Pretty much, Coal and Oil suck all the balls.

R.I.P. Spacebat

Two years ago today, Spacebat made an amazing journey aboard the space shuttle Discovery. Although what happened to him after the launch is unkown, he will always be remembered.

Somalian Piracy

...and why it may be a bit more complicated than it seems at first glance.

(TLDR: We're destroying their fisheries and ocean habitats and Somalia, lacking other viable methods of taxation, turns to piracy, some of whom are just gangsters.)

Music as Data

Finally, what we've all been waiting for! A programming language built around music. And also a website with a sick pun.

Science of kissing.

I'm only posting this for the last line.

Citizens United v. FEC

This is a video on how corporations keep your voice from being heard and why our government sucks.
SPOILER ALERT: Because of corporations.
They had this video a while ago on trash and stuff, watch it, especially if the political angle doesn't get to you.

Amazing Homelessness Study

Just giving homeless people money, a economic counselor, and treating them as a person has a better chance of getting them off the street than just about any other approach. Of the 13 people who agreed to participate, and who had been previously unwilling to get off the street (including one who had been homeless for 45 years), 11 were off the streets by the end of the study, and only 4 had a negative effect. This is still better progress and much cheaper than current efforts to combat homelessness.

Women's Economic Opportunity Indes

State of Wikipedia

A video on wikipedia

Rock Paper Scissors

Is it a winnable game?
Kind of.
If you use some strategies like these, the worst you can do is tie.
The NYT just put out a rock paper scissors playing computer.
You can try to beat it, but most likely you'll lose, at least after a good number of rounds.
I made a script to play against the computer randomly, and after 500 rounds the score was:
180 wins, 140 ties, and 180 losses.
Weird.
After 100 rounds trying to beat the computer, but without any particular strategy in mind, I was able to go
37 - 32 - 31
Still pretty close.
Maybe someone who is "good" at rps can try and tell me what they got, because I'm not convinced that you can be good at rps.
Anywho, enjoy.

Placebos

How Rich are the Super Rich?

This rich. (Many more graphs included)

It's Rich vs. Poor

Tar Sands

Tar Sands are awful.

Why? Read this.
         "making one barrel of oil in the sands generates two barrels of toxic waste"
         "two tons of sand to get a barrel of oil"
         "it emits three times more carbon than conventional oil"


How does this affect America?
They're building a pipeline to pipe the toxic sands from Canada to Texas.
If it leaks, it goes straight into the water supply. And that particular aquifer is used to water 1/3 of all American crops.


Here's an even more detailed site on the pipeline.

Chinese Energy

It looks like they are doing quite well compared to their goals (with the exception of solar), which is good, because 97% of their population wants the government to do more to fight global warming.

State Patty's Day 2011

America Isn't Number One

I already posted something similar, but here it is again, why America isn't that great:

Coal Facts

Could've spent less time on animation and more time on information. oh well. here it is.

What is it Like to be Poor?

Most likely very similar to this.
Czech it out, it's awesome, and it's a game.

You Need To Get Off Facebook

Another Reason the Drug War Must End:

Because it turns $31 worth of marijuana into ten years in prison.

A Visual Study of New Sudan

Well, it's not Sudan and South Sudan, but you can get an overview of quality of life markers at the bottom of this page.

Curveball Lies to Justify War in Iraq

Yes, he admits it. Watch the video.

DataMarket

DataMarket lets you search for data. You can get graphs or just numbers, but it seems pretty cool.

Lottery Scratch-Offs

Turns out it's possible to beat the lottery scratch off tickets with a little bit of math.

Light Questions with Deep Answers

On a first date and you don't want to waste your time, but don't want to make it awkward by outright asking, "Are you expecting me to share my Gmail password with you?" It's cool, the dudes at OKCupid have figured out a way for you to get to the deep stuff with casual questions.

Homeopathic Mecidines

IPv6

The internet ran out of tubes!
Here's a good explanation of the fix and how it affects you, and here's an infographic, cause everyone loves infographics.

Universal Flu Vaccine

Sounds pretty awesome. A vaccine to prevent all strains of flu. Super-virus anyone?

Origin of Country Names

A pretty comprehensive map with country names replaced with their meaning/origin.

Income Inequality as Height

"Jan Pen, a Dutch economist who died last year, came up with a striking way to picture inequality. Imagine people’s height being proportional to their income, so that someone with an average income is of average height. Now imagine that the entire adult population of America is walking past you in a single hour, in ascending order of income.

The first passers-by, the owners of loss-making businesses, are invisible: their heads are below ground. Then come the jobless and the working poor, who are midgets. After half an hour the strollers are still only waist-high, since America’s median income is only half the mean. It takes nearly 45 minutes before normal-sized people appear. But then, in the final minutes, giants thunder by. With six minutes to go they are 12 feet tall. When the 400 highest earners walk by, right at the end, each is more than two miles tall."


It that didn't convince you that there is a problem, read the rest of the article.

Gay Marriage

Astounding.



The Senate latter banned gay marriage and civil unions 62 to 37.

Mexican Drug Cartels

This is some awesome info on the Mexican drug cartels.

Zuckerberg's Facebook Got Hacked

Sweet.

"The message that appeared on Zuckerberg's page under his name read: "Let the hacking begin: If facebook needs money, instead of going to the banks, why doesn't Facebook let its users invest in Facebook in a social way? Why not transform Facebook into a 'social business' the way Nobel Price winner Muhammad Yunus described it? http://bit.ly/fs6rT3 What do you think? #hackercup2011"

If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things:

click for full-size

State of the Internet

Interweb facts!

Public Opinion on State of the Union

Gallup's analysis of what America thinks of the issues presented in the State of the Union address.

Egyptian Protests

College Degrees

This shows college degrees around the country for sex, race, and throughout different time periods.

Smart Grid

The Smart Grid is the best.

Second Amendment

USA! USA! USA!

Aw shit...Turns out we aren't good at anything

Rewrite American Policy

Q: Hey kids, if you could rewrite some American policy to fix some thing that we're terrible at, what would it be and why?

A: Switch to a single-payer health care system so that we can invade countries forever without racking up any debt.

Self Portrait on Drugs

You may have seen the experiment where a guy was put on LSD and told to draw, but this isn't that.
This guy, Bryan Lewis Saunders has been drawing self portraits every day since March 30, 1995. To make it interesting he started to take drugs. Here are the results

Normal Climate Conditions to be Redefined

The NCDC is redefining what "normal" weather conditions are for the US. This change is intended to reflect the climate change that has caused 2000-2010 to be the hottest decade on record. Hooray for Global Warming.

White House White Board on Repealing Healthcare

PepsiCo UK to go Fossil Fuel Free

PepsiCo UK plans to use only renewable energy, have no landfill waste, packaging that is entirely renewable, recyclable, or compostable, and finally, zero water intake. And they plan to finish all of this by 2023.
That's all real awesome.

How to Protest College Tuition Costs

Do what Nic Ramos did. Pay entirely in $1 bills.
$14,309.51 weighs about 33 pounds.

Horoscoped

So you probably know that horoscopes are BS, but these guys went through the process of thoroughly debunking them. The data collection and analysis is awesome, but by far the coolest part was the meta-prediction made from the most common words of the data they collected.

If It Were My Home

This is an amazing tool.
It applies the country ratings to something that is understandable, you.

Definitely check it out.

Debtris

Let's play tetris with debt!



And the UK version:




I think they could have included more data, but hey, whatever.

LBJ Buys Pants

This is actually for real.

Last Suppers

What would you want your last meal to be?
These are some pictures of what other people chose to eat right before they were killed.

Can You Repossess a Country?

The IMF may have to since some countries are not following the guidelines set by their loans.

Poe Toaster

The Poe Toaster is really interesting, you should check it out.

"The Poe Toaster is an unofficial nickname given to a mysterious person (or two persons in succession, possibly father and son) who, from approximately 1949 until 2009, paid an annual tribute to American author Edgar Allan Poe by visiting his grave marker in Baltimore, Maryland in the early hours of January 19, Poe's birthday."

College is for Learning

Right?
Guess not....

7 Billion

This is pretty cool.
Watch in HD, if only for the pictures at the end

Health Among States

Which states have the best health?

Internet Censorship

The internet is being censored.
Here's a website that give some sweet info.

Delete/Keep Fights on Wikipedia: A Visualization!

This is pretty sweet. It visualizes the fights that determine whether an article goes or stays. There's tons of data.

Gadget Sales by Time and Price

Sweet!
Includes, Communication, Computing, Television, Video and Photo, and Audio

How Humans Run the World

An interesting hodge-podge of statistics about human change, growth, destruction, production, consumption, and more.

Cool Video

Keep watching, the end is surprising and makes it worth it.
I wish this was more appreciable on the streets and not just as a video

Net Neutrality

A good explanation by the folks over at LifeHacker.

Standardized Phone Chargers!

In Europe!
Sorry to get your hopes up.

I think this is awesome, my only concern is it will make it much harder to update to more advanced cables for future phones.

Bottled Water

Read this


"When you shell out for bottled water, which costs up to 1,900 times more than tap water, you have a right to know what exactly is inside that pricey plastic bottle.

Most bottled water makers don’t agree. They keep secret some or all the answers to these elementary questions:

• Where does the water come from?
• Is it purified? How?
• Have tests found any contaminants?"

Watch Tapped

Daniel Hernandez

Daniel Hernandez, and intern for Rep. Gabrielle Gifford is credited with saving her life.

"He did, and she survived."

I don't get why assholes think stuff like this is okay.


Notice a few key things in that last link:
1. The fourth name down in the left column
2. The crosshairs
3. It's Sarah Palin's real legit facebook page.

Warrantless Cell Phone Searches in California

A recent court ruling allows police to search your cell phone after you are arrested in California. This law normally applies to all objects on the arrestee's person, for instance a briefcase could be opened and searched. However, the ACLU maintains that the police cannot force you to unlock a password protected phone.

The Voice of God

So this is how radio broadcasters are found!

The Capital Empire

Listen and watch quickly as John Perkins lays out in terms everyone could understand how American capitalism destroys the economies and livelihoods of third world nations and their people.

Bent Objects

Have you ever seen a bottle of nail polish walking two nail clippers as if they were its pet? Now you have. And lots of other clever little ideas, too.

The Algorhythm

Take a number like 32. Reverse its digits and add it to itself. 32 + 23 = 55. 55 is a palindrome. As it turns out, this works for pretty much every number... but not every number. What's the smallest number for which it doesn't work? We think it's 196, but we're not sure.

Why Net Neutrality?

Because companies just don't get the internet.

Berth Defects

It turns out that bombing the shit out of a country with uranium and stuff and leaving the population chronically exposed to heavy metals really screws with the people's health. It's too bad that there weren't any other countries this happened in, where we might have learned from past mistakes...

Oh wai--