io9
stuff from the awesome io9 Feb 5
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The battle of Shark vs. Octopus has a shocking ending
This is one of the best pieces of evidence for the supreme intelligence of octopi. Any animal will kill in self defense, but you can count the number of animals that will kill preemptively on your fingers. That's a characteristic normally only attributed to humans. Also, those sharks aren't easy to kill. Dogfish can pump their gills while resting, so they weren't suffocated.
It's not just about what people will complain about, as I'm sure you know. It is absolutely Not Safe for Work. It has nothing to do with art. Having an image of a naked person on one's computer screen can be considered sexual harassment and can get one fired from one's job (sometimes unfairly, sometimes deservedly so). I think it's way better to philosophically dishonor art a little than to risk ruining someone's life.
In the Victorian Age, astronomy and nudity went hand in hand [NSFW]
Eight things you didn’t know you could do with human sperm
Sperm are single-purposed: They're optimized to get to an egg and inseminate it. But that doesn't mean there isn't more to this cell than meets the ovum. Sperm, along with its travelling companion, semen, are surprisingly versatile and adaptable substances. Here are eight unconventional things you can do with human sperm.The Philosophical Roots of Science Fiction
This is a wonderful article, and I think it provides a lot of great insight into what science fiction's role really is. Tangentially, I think it also explains why so many older sci-fi fans are mourning the loss of Golden Age, Big Idea science fiction. As it's gotten older, science fiction has morphed from expansive, overt idea-exploring into more character-driven stories set in the microcosm of people's lives. We're less Asimov and more late-stage Heinlein. It's still exploring these ideas, just in a smaller, more intimate way.
Holy crap wtf News, Videos, Reviews and Gossip - io9
It depends on the age at which each generation reproduces. Assuming a generation every 20 years, which is the standard base assumption, someone born in 1960 would be the correct generation to be the great-great-great-grandchild of someone who had his or her child in 1880. If you up it to 30 years per generation, which is a bit of a stretch but certainly not inconceivable, especially if we're not dealing strictly with first borns, for most of the period under discussion here, you hit three greats with someone born in 2000. So best answer to your question is anywhere between c. 12 and c. 52. 8/02/12 10:58am
I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
Daily 10 News, Videos, Reviews and Gossip - io9
Lawrence Alma-Tadema
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema , OM , RA ( pron.: / ˈ æ l m ə ˈ t æ d ɪ m ə / ; [ 1 ] 8 January 1836 – 25 June 1912) was a Dutch -born, British painter. Born in Dronrijp , the Netherlands, and trained at the Royal Academy of Antwerp , Belgium, he settled in England in 1870 and spent the rest of his life there. A classical-subject painter, he became famous for his depictions of the luxury and decadence of the Roman Empire , with languorous figures set in fabulous marbled interiors or against a backdrop of dazzling blue Mediterranean Sea and sky.
Way to go for the personal attacks. Just because I'm not convinced by what you're arguing doesn't make me a religious zealot. It's not like I'm changing your opinion, so I could really say the same.
Daily 10 News, Videos, Reviews and Gossip - io9
Secret history News, Videos, Reviews and Gossip - io9
This video, known only as "The Reagans Speak Out on Drugs," was released on VHS in 1988. It's an almost seamless re-edit of the the famous "Just Say No" speech given by the Reagans in September of 1986 — except in this version, the President and the First Lady are doing their best to get us all hooked on drugs. The audio version popped up on public radio, and the video became a popular viral meme, passed around from hand to hand long before the internet had made LOLcats a household word. Many people who saw it had no idea where it had come from. It was just a tape that had been copied over and over, like a YouTube video without, well, YouTube. Read…Secret history News, Videos, Reviews and Gossip - io9
I seem to remember seeing somewhere that The Sneetches, who wore stars on their bellies, was actually originally conceived due to the Star of David that Jews were required to wear in Germany during Hitler's reign. Granted, the story of the Sneetches was more about "be happy with who you are, not with what someone else has" than ostracism via having to wear the Star of David. Seeing this makes me want to make a trip up to UCSD's library and see this collection in person, if I can (not a student, not a historian, just someone who's fascinated by the history of pop culture, so I doubt I could get a good look at it). 5/31/12 1:01am <p style="text-align:right;color:#A8A8A8"></p>