How to Make Heart-Shaped Eggs by DaveHax.

via laughingsquid.

… because it turns out Christians have been sneaking two dinosaurs into their displays this whole time:

(via Richard Wiseman)

Andrea Mitchell, usually well-regarded television journalist, was having a serious discussion with former Congresswoman Jane Harman, when she suddenly stopped the interview to cut-away for breaking news:

That is one of the most embarrassing things I've ever seen on MSNBC…or any other outlet. Just flat-out embarrassing. In a nutshell, it is everything wrong with "traditional" media today.

You know how some anti-LGBT people tend to quote the Bible a whole lot when trying to defend their bigotry? A city councilman in Louisiana pulled that stunt recently when trying to bring down an LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination policy, but one activist put him — and his Bible-thumping hypocrisy — in his place.

Last month, the City Council of Shreveport, Louisiana, passed an ordinance protecting LGBT people from discrimination in matters of housing and employment. The sole dissenting vote was cast by Councilman Ron Webb, who cited the Bible when explaining his decision:

I’ve worked with homosexuals before, and you know I don’t socialize with ‘em. I don’t think that you know that we should. The Bible tells us that we shouldn’t. The Bible even tells you that homosexuals is abomination and that they will not inherit the kingdom of Heaven. And when judgment day comes around, you know that’ll be between them and the good Lord. And it’s not for us to judge. But I agree that when you were born, we’re all born in the image of God, but I believe that we do have the choice to decide what we’re going to do.

Shortly after the council approved the nondiscrimination ordinance, Webb introduced a measure to repeal it. Dozens of people showed up to a City Council meeting last week to denounce Webb’s measure, but none more passionately than Pamela Raintree, a transgender woman who called Webb out for hiding behind the Bible to justify his beliefs. Check out the video:

The moment that speaks loudest is when Raintree challenges Webb to act on his beliefs, pulling out a large stone to prove she’s not kidding around:

Raintree brought the stone with her to the council meeting and stated, “Leviticus 20:13 states, ‘If a man lie also with mankind as he lieth with a woman, they shall surely put him to death.’ I brought the first stone, Mr. Webb, in case that your Bible talk isn’t just a smoke screen for personal prejudices.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. The Bible is a convenient cover-up for personal bigotries for which individuals refuse to take responsibility. If they believed everything they quoted, we’d have loads more people in prison for drive-by stoning attacks.

Oh, and Webb withdrew his repeal measure just minutes later.

Thank you, Ms. Raintree.

The latest Cyanide and Happiness short is one I did the storyboard/animatic for and I did the voice of the soldier in glasses. It was a lot of fun.

CHECK IT OUT —> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2lUPtLc-FU&feature=youtu.be

September 30, 1974 — see The Complete Peanuts 1971-1974

(Click to enlarge)

Get a signed print of this cartoon from the artist; follow Jen on Twitter at @JenSorensen

From Sweets

[Photographs: Robyn Lee]

Ed. Note: When's the last time you tried a new candy—just because? For the SE staff, that time is now. Each day for the two weeks leading up to Halloween, we will try a candy we haven't had before, and tell the tale.

I picked Annabelle's U-No bar as my "candy I've never tried before that I'm going to try now because... HALLOWEEN!" because it reminded me of the "Y U NO" Guy. As for why I'd want to eat a candy bar that makes me visualize a sweaty, bulgy-eyed, grapefruit-shaped rage face, it's because...it makes me laugh. My brain, that's how it works.

But there was no laughter while I ate the candy bar. Because it's terrible.

The wrapper describes the candy bar as "RICH CREAMY CHOCOLATE." Nope. What it should say is "DIET CHOCOLATE-FLAVORED FROSTING." Despite the fact that the bar's first two ingredients are milk chocolate and sugar, it doesn't taste particularly chocolaty or sweet. That flavor (or lack thereof) paired with a light, fluffy, and unpleasantly waxy texture puts the bar in the realm of bland diet food. The filling also contains ground roasted almonds, but I wouldn't have been able to tell if it weren't listed in the ingredients.

The U-No is similar to a 3 Musketeers, but it has a thinner chocolate coating and contains about three times the amount of fat per gram of candy bar. (U-No has 17 grams of fat per 42 gram bar; 3 Musketeers has 7 grams of fat per 54.4 gram bar.) ...And it tastes much worse. But that's just my opinion. U-No has its fans; I just wish I could understand why. No one at SEHQ liked it.

And of course, I've gotta do this:

About the author: Robyn Lee is the editor of A Hamburger Today and takes many of the photos for Serious Eats. She'll also doodle cute stuff when necessary. Read more from Robyn at her personal food blog, The Girl Who Ate Everything.

Have I mentioned lately that we have a facebook group?

This is awesome news for science geeks.

26p53 is a post from: The Adventures of Dr. McNinja Ads by Project Wonderful! Your ad could be here, right now.

26p53 is a post from: The Adventures of Dr. McNinja

Ads by Project Wonderful! Your ad could be here, right now.

I’ll admit that I still do not own GTAV, but it’s the little details like this that does compel me to want to buy the game sooner than later… Okay, I just really want to drive into rebounding bollards.

cah:

A disturbing card idea from horrible fan Marianne. The pubic hair adds a nice realistic touch.

high-fivingamillionangels:

what in the whole fuck is this

Moscow (Voice of Russia) Aug 28, 2013
Russia's Security Council is reportedly considering a ban on supplying the US with powerful RD-180 rocket engines for military communications satellites as Russia focuses on building its own new space launch center, Vostochny, in the Far East. A ban on the rockets supply to the US heavy booster, Atlas V, which delivers weighty military communications satellites and deep space exploration v

Video Link.

[arfmoochikncheez, HT: Joe Sabia]

Orbital Speed

What if a spacecraft slowed down on re-entry to just a few miles per hour using rocket boosters like the Mars-sky-crane? Would it negate the need for a heat shield?

—Brian

Is it possible for a spacecraft to control its reentry in such a way that it avoids the atmospheric compression and thus would not require the expensive (and relatively fragile) heat shield on the outside?

—Christopher Mallow

Could a (small) rocket (with payload) be lifted to a high point in the atmosphere where it would only need a small rocket to get to escape velocity?

—Kenny Van de Maele

The answers to these questions all hinge on the same idea. It's an idea I've touched on in other articles, but today I want to focus on it specifically:

The reason it's hard to get to orbit isn't that space is high up.

It's hard to get to orbit because you have to go so fast.

Space isn't like this:

Space is like this:

Space is about 100 kilometers away. That's far away—I wouldn't want to climb a ladder to get there—but it isn't that far away. If you're in Sacramento, Seattle, Canberra, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Phnom Penh, Cairo, Beijing, central Japan, central Sri Lanka, or Portland, space is closer than the sea.

Getting to space[1]Specifically, low Earth orbit, which is where the International Space Station is and where the shuttles could go. is easy. It's not, like, something you could do in your car, but it's not a huge challenge. You could get a person to space with a small sounding rocket the size of a telephone pole. The X-15 aircraft reached space[2]The X-15 reached 100 km on two occasions, both when flown by Joe Walker. just by going fast and then steering up.[3]Make sure to remember to steer up and not down, or you will have a bad time.

But getting to space is easy. The problem is staying there.

Gravity in low Earth orbit is almost as strong as gravity on the surface. The Space Station hasn't escaped Earth's gravity at all; it's experiencing about 90% the pull that we feel on the surface.

To avoid falling back into the atmosphere, you have to go sideways really, really fast.

The speed you need to stay in orbit is about 8 kilometers per second.[4]It's a little less if you're in the higher region of low Earth orbit. Only a fraction of a rocket's energy is used to lift up out of the atmosphere; the vast majority of it is used to gain orbital (sideways) speed.

This leads us to the central problem of getting into orbit: Reaching orbital speed takes much more fuel than reaching orbital height. Getting a ship up to 8 km/s takes a lot of booster rockets. Reaching orbital speed is hard enough; reaching to orbital speed while carrying enough fuel to slow back down would be completely impractical.[5]This exponential increase is the central problem of rocketry: The fuel required to increase your speed by one km/s multiplies your weight by about 1.4. To get into orbit, you need to increase your speed to 8 km/s, which means you'll need a lot of fuel: $ 1.4\times1.4\times1.4\times1.4\times1.4\times1.4\times1.4\times1.4\approx 15$ times the original weight of your ship.

Using a rocket to slow down carries the same problem: Every 1 km/s decrease in speed multiplies your starting mass by that same factor of 1.4. If you want to slow all the way down to zero—and drop gently into the atmosphere—the fuel requirements multiply your weight by 15 again.

These outrageous fuel requirements are why every spacecraft entering an atmosphere has braked using a heat shield instead of rockets—slamming into the air is the most practical way to slow down. (And to answer Brian's question, the Curiosity rover was no exception to this; although it used small rockets to hover when it was near the surface, it first used air-braking to shed the majority of its speed.)

How fast is 8 km/s, anyway?

I think the reason for a lot of confusion about these issues is that when astronauts are in orbit, it doesn't seem like they're moving that fast; they look like they're drifting slowly over a blue marble.

But 8 km/s is blisteringly fast. When you look at the sky near sunset, you can sometimes see the ISS go past ... and then, 90 minutes later, see it go past again.[6]There are some good apps and online tools to help you spot the station, along with other neat satellites. My favorite is ISS Detector, but if you Google you can find lots of others. In those 90 minutes, it's circled the entire world.

The ISS moves so quickly that if you fired a rifle bullet from one end of a football field,[7]Either kind. the International Space Station could cross the length of the field before the bullet traveled 10 yards.[8]This type of play is legal in Australian rules football.

Let's imagine what it would look like if you were speed-walking across the Earth's surface at 8 km/s.

To get a better sense of the pace at which you're traveling, let's use the beat of a song to mark the passage of time.[9]Using song beats to help measure the passage of time is a technique also used in CPR training, where the song "Stayin' Alive" is used to . suppose you started playing the 1988 song by The Proclaimers, I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles). That song is about 131.9 beats per minute, so imagine that with every beat of the song, you move forward more than two miles.

In the time it took to sing the first line of the chorus, you could walk from the Statue of Liberty all the way to the Bronx:

It would take you about two lines of the chorus (16 beats of the song) to cross the English Channel between London and France.

The song's length leads to an odd coincidence. The interval between the start and the end of I'm Gonna Be is 3 minutes and 30 seconds,[10]Based on timing from the official Youtube video and the ISS is moving is 7.66 km/s.

This means that if an astronaut on the ISS listens to I'm Gonna Be, in the time between the first beat of the song and the final lines ...

... they will have traveled just about exactly 1,000 miles.

Mathematician Hannah Fry is back with another video. She explains why it seems like everyone in your network — on Twitter, Facebook, and in real life — is more popular than you and how we can use this idea to predict the spread of diseases. Fry's understated presentation style totally enhances the interesting subject matter.

Google released a 21-part short video series that introduces R. Most of the videos are about two minutes, with none of them going over six, and each one is a on focused task or concept. So this could be a good way to start. Just open R, start a video, and follow along.

Here's the first video in the series. It shows you how to write a simple script and navigate:

[via Revolutions]

Even if this video is 100% accurate, do you really think it’s going to stop us from buying them at launch? Do you really?