Brain Pickings. In Hours, Thieves Took $45 Million in A.T.M. Scheme. It was a brazen bank heist, but a 21st-century version in which the criminals never wore ski masks, threatened a teller or set foot in a vault. In two precision operations that involved people in more than two dozen countries acting in close coordination and with surgical precision, thieves stole $45 million from thousands of A.T.M.'s in a matter of hours. In New York City alone, the thieves responsible for A.T.M. withdrawals struck 2,904 machines over 10 hours starting on Feb. 19, withdrawing $2.4 million. The operation included sophisticated computer experts operating in the shadowy world of Internet hacking, manipulating financial information with the stroke of a few keys, as well as common street criminals, who used that information to loot the automated teller machines.
The first to be caught was a street crew operating in New York, their pictures captured as, prosecutors said, they traveled the city withdrawing money and stuffing backpacks with cash. Photo Robert D. 12 Beautiful World Heritage Sites. About The Story Collider. About the Story Collider We podcast one story a week. You can listen here, or subscribe on iTunes, or follow us on SoundCloud.
We host events monthly in New York city, regularly in Boston and occasionally elsewhere. See the list of upcoming shows here. If you'd like to have us organize an event at your University or elsewhere send us a note. Submission info here >> We'll work with you, your university or company. Who we are >> The Story Collider in the press >> Science surrounds us. Mayor Bloomberg’s Geek Squad. Todd Heisler/The New York Times Michael Flowers, right, oversees a small group of tech-savvy and civic-minded statisticians working across from City Hall. The antiquated answer would have been to have the health department send inspectors to restaurants on blocks with backed-up sewers and hope by chance to catch a busboy pouring the contents of a deep fryer into the street.
Enter the city’s Office of Policy and Strategic Planning, a geek squad of civic-minded number-crunchers working from a pair of cluttered cubicles across from City Hall in the Municipal Building. They dug up data from the Business Integrity Commission, an obscure city agency that among other tasks certifies that all local restaurants have a carting service to haul away their grease. With a few quick calculations, comparing restaurants that did not have a carter with geo-spatial data on the sewers, the team was able to hand inspectors a list of statistically likely suspects. While serving in the Green Zone, Mr.
Bayesian statistics. Bayesian statistics is a subset of the field of statistics in which the evidence about the true state of the world is expressed in terms of degrees of belief or, more specifically, Bayesian probabilities. Such an interpretation is only one of a number of interpretations of probability and there are other statistical techniques that are not based on "degrees of belief".
Outline[edit] The general set of statistical techniques can be divided into a number of activities, many of which have special Bayesian versions. Statistical inference[edit] Bayesian inference is an approach to statistical inference, that is distinct from frequentist inference. Statistical modeling[edit] The formulation of statistical models for use in Bayesian statistics has the additional feature, not present with other types of statistical techniques, of requiring the formulation of a set of prior distributions for any unknown parameters.
Design of experiments[edit] Statistical graphics[edit] External links[edit] Mayor Bloomberg’s Geek Squad. Todd Heisler/The New York Times Michael Flowers, right, oversees a small group of tech-savvy and civic-minded statisticians working across from City Hall. The antiquated answer would have been to have the health department send inspectors to restaurants on blocks with backed-up sewers and hope by chance to catch a busboy pouring the contents of a deep fryer into the street. Enter the city’s Office of Policy and Strategic Planning, a geek squad of civic-minded number-crunchers working from a pair of cluttered cubicles across from City Hall in the Municipal Building. They dug up data from the Business Integrity Commission, an obscure city agency that among other tasks certifies that all local restaurants have a carting service to haul away their grease.
With a few quick calculations, comparing restaurants that did not have a carter with geo-spatial data on the sewers, the team was able to hand inspectors a list of statistically likely suspects. While serving in the Green Zone, Mr. Doodles.
Wonder How To » Show & Tell for Creators & Doers. Silver lining (idiom) Under a cloud (with a silver lining) (1920). A cartoon depicting George Lansbury. Captions: Under a cloud (with a golden lining) Comrade Lansbury. "Thanks to my faithful brolski not a drop has touched me. " [Loud crows from "Daily Herald" bird.] Possibly reflecting an allegation of Soviet funding for the Independent Labour Party. Lansbury founded the Daily Herald.[1] A silver lining is a metaphor for optimism in the common English-language idiom "Every cloud has a silver lining.
Proteus syndrome. Proteus syndrome, also known as Wiedemann syndrome (named after the German paediatrician Hans-Rudolf Wiedemann), is a congenital disorder[1]:554 that causes skin overgrowth and atypical bone development, often accompanied by tumors over half the body.[2]:776 Proteus syndrome is highly variable,[3] and is named after the Greek sea-god Proteus, who could change his shape. Presentation[edit] Proteus syndrome causes an overgrowth of skin, bones, muscles, fatty tissues, and blood and lymphatic vessels.
Proteus syndrome is a progressive condition wherein children are usually born without any obvious deformities. Tumors of skin and bone growths appear as they age. The severity and locations of these various asymmetrical growths vary greatly but typically the skull, one or more limbs, and soles of the feet will be affected. Genetics[edit] Proteus syndrome is an overgrowth disorder caused by a rare genetic mosaicism. In 2011 researchers determined the cause of Proteus syndrome. Treatment[edit] Neurofibromatosis type I. Patient with multiple small cutaneous neurofibromas and a 'café au lait spot' (bottom of photo, to the right of centre).
A biopsy has been taken of one of the lesions. Back of an elderly woman with NF-1 Neurofibromatosis type I (NF-1) is a tumor disorder that is caused by the mutation of a gene on chromosome 17 that is responsible for control of cell division. NF-1 causes tumors along the nervous system. Common symptoms of NF-1 include scoliosis (curvature of the spine), learning disabilities, vision disorders, and epilepsy.
NF-1 was formerly known as von Recklinghausen disease after the researcher (Friedrich Daniel von Recklinghausen) who first documented the disorder. Neurofibromatosis type 1 is one of the most common single-gene disorders affecting neurological function in humans.[1] NF-1 is not to be confused with Proteus syndrome.[2] NF-1 is a developmental syndrome caused by germline mutations in neurofibromin, a gene that is involved in the RAS pathway (RASopathy). Cause[edit] Skull. Brain Pickings.
Elliott Erwitt's Hilarious and Heartwarming Photos. With a career that spans over sixty years, Elliott Erwitt has become one of the most celebrated photographers of our time. Famous for taking candid photographs, he has a style that is instantly recognizable. Though he's shot iconic portraits of everyone from Marilyn Monroe to Jackie Kennedy, it's his ability to capture the whimsy of everyday life that sets him apart from the rest. While many of his black and white photos are quite humorous, especially the ones featuring children or dogs, others have a more serious tone to them.
As he's said about his photography, “Some people say my pictures are sad, some think they’re funny. Funny and sad, aren’t they really the same thing?” Like Henri Cartier-Bresson, Erwitt is a master at capturing the “decisive moment" or that creative fraction of a second when one takes a picture. While one can quickly glance at his photos and find the humor or irony in them, Erwitt's photos are meant to be studied or at least given a second look.
List of Latin phrases (full) This page lists direct English translations of common Latin phrases. Some of the phrases are themselves translations of Greek phrases, as Greek rhetoric and literature reached its peak centuries before that of ancient Rome. This list is a combination of the twenty divided "List of Latin phrases" pages, for users who have no trouble loading large pages and prefer a single page to scroll or search through.
The content of the list cannot be edited here, and is kept automatically in sync with the separate lists through the use of transclusion. B2FH paper. The B2FH paper, named after the initials of the authors of the paper, Margaret Burbidge, Geoffrey Burbidge, William Fowler, and Fred Hoyle, is a landmark paper of stellar physics published in Reviews of Modern Physics in 1957.[1] The formal title of the paper is Synthesis of the Elements in Stars, but the article is generally referred to only as "B2FH". The paper comprehensively outlined and analyzed several key processes that might be responsible for the synthesis of elements in nature and their relative abundance, and it is credited with originating what is now the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis. Physics in 1957[edit] At the time of the publication of the B2FH paper, George Gamow advocated a theory of the universe according to which virtually all elements, or atomic nuclei, were synthesized during the big bang.
The implications of Gamow's nucleosynthesis theory (not to be confused with present-day nucleosynthesis theory) is that nuclear abundances in the universe are largely static. Houseidea. History/Myths/Religion. Storytellers | Full Episodes, Photos, Recaps and Show Video. The Complete Story of Sandy: a Timeline of Horror and Recovery. Abraham Van Helsing. Professor Abraham Van Helsing is a character from the 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula. Van Helsing is a Dutch doctor with a wide range of interests and accomplishments, partly attested by the string of letters that follows his name: "M.D., D.Ph., D.Litt., etc. " The character is best known as a vampire hunter and monster hunter, and the archenemy of Count Dracula. Dracula[edit] In the novel, Van Helsing is called in by his former student, Dr.
In the novel, from the annotations of Leonard Wolf, it is mentioned that Van Helsing had a daughter who died. Van Helsing is one of the few characters in the novel who is fully physically described in one place. Van Helsing's personality is described by John Seward, his former student, thus: In the novel Van Helsing is described with what is apparently a thick German accent, in that his English is broken, and he uses various German phrases like, "Mein Gott" (My God). Van Helsing and his band of vampire hunters pursue Dracula back to Transylvania. Arthur Conan Doyle. Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle KStJ, DL (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a Scottish physician and writer who is most noted for his fictional stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered milestones in the field of crime fiction. He is also known for writing the fictional adventures of a second character he invented, Professor Challenger, and for popularising the mystery of the Mary Celeste.[1] He was a prolific writer whose other works include fantasy and science fiction stories, plays, romances, poetry, non-fiction, and historical novels.
Life and career[edit] Early life[edit] Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was born on 22 May 1859 at 11 Picardy Place, Edinburgh, Scotland.[2][3] His father, Charles Altamont Doyle, was born in England of Irish Catholic descent, and his mother, Mary (née Foley), was Irish Catholic. Doyle's father died in 1893, in the Crichton Royal, Dumfries, after many years of psychiatric illness.[13][14] Name[edit] Writing career[edit] Bram Stoker. Abraham "Bram" Stoker (8 November 1847 – 20 April 1912) was an Irish novelist and short story writer, best known today for his 1897 Gothic novel Dracula. During his lifetime, he was better known as personal assistant of actor Henry Irving and business manager of the Lyceum Theatre in London, which Irving owned. Early life[edit] Stoker was born on 8 November 1847 at 15 Marino Crescent, Clontarf, on the northside of Dublin, Ireland.[1] His parents were Abraham Stoker (1799–1876), from Dublin, and Charlotte Mathilda Blake Thornley (1818–1901), who was raised in County Sligo.[2] Stoker was the third of seven children, the eldest of whom was Sir Thornley Stoker, 1st Bt.[3] Abraham and Charlotte were members of the Church of Ireland Parish of Clontarf and attended the parish church with their children, who were baptised there.
Stoker was bedridden with an unknown illness until he started school at the age of seven, when he made a complete recovery. Early career[edit] Lyceum Theatre[edit]