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ilovecharts:

Literally every goat in the United States

Useful.

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Celebrity attendance, U.S. falconry events, 2013

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched 25 years ago, and to start the celebration, NASA has released a pair of images that actually did make this space nerd's jaw drop. The first is an update of a classic: a much sharper photo of the so-called Pillars of Creation:

Although NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has taken many breathtaking images of the universe, one snapshot stands out from the rest: the iconic view of the so-called "Pillars of Creation." The jaw-dropping photo, taken in 1995, revealed never-before-seen details of three giant columns of cold gas bathed in the scorching ultraviolet light from a cluster of young, massive stars in a small region of the Eagle Nebula, or M16.

The second image isn't so immediately amazing but is my favorite of the two. It's a photo of half of the Andromeda galaxy, the big galaxy closest to our own in distance but also in rough size and shape. Here's a very very scaled-down version of it:

The largest NASA Hubble Space Telescope image ever assembled, this sweeping view of a portion of the Andromeda galaxy (M31) is the sharpest large composite image ever taken of our galactic neighbor. Though the galaxy is over 2 million light-years away, the Hubble telescope is powerful enough to resolve individual stars in a 61,000-light-year-long section of the galaxy's pancake-shaped disk. It's like photographing a beach and resolving individual grains of sand. And, there are lots of stars in this sweeping view -- over 100 million, with some of them in thousands of star clusters seen embedded in the disk.

The original image is 1500 megapixels (1.5 gigapixels!), which is so big that you'd need 600 HD televisions to display the whole thing. But if you take the biggest reasonable size available for download (100 megapixels) and zoom in on it, you get this:

That looks like JPEG compression noise, right? Nope, each one of those dots is a star...some of the 100 million individual stars that can be seen in the full image.

That's right, Keanu. Whoa. For an even closer look, check out this annotated close-up released by NASA:

If you're curious and feel like crashing your browser and/or Photoshop a bunch of times (I did not), the full-res Andromeda images are available here. And Phil Plait writes much more joyfully and knowledgeably about these images than I do...go take a look at his Pillars of Creation and Andromeda posts.

Update: Rob Griffiths took 50+ photos from the Hubble web site and made them into Retina iMac-sized wallpapers. (via @djacobs)

By now you’ve heard about the tragic shooting at the office of cartoon-filled, satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris, leaving 12 dead and 3 suspected gunmen on the loose in an apparent militant Islamist attack. As the world comes to grips with the violent event, people have rallied together in solidarity with the cry of Je suis Charlie (“I am Charlie”), and #JesuisCharlie on Twitter. Most appropriately, cartoonists around the world are picking up their pens and pencils to show support for their slain colleagues. Here is a selection of their heartfelt responses to the ongoing events.

Australian cartoonist David Pope

Can't sleep tonight, thoughts with my French cartooning colleagues, their families and loved ones #CharlieHebdo pic.twitter.com/LqIMRCHPgK

— David Pope (@davpope) January 7, 2015

Posted on an account NOT run by Banksy

RIP

Una foto publicada por Banksy (@banksy) el Ene 1, 2015 a la(s) 3:02 PST

Dutch political cartoonist Ruben L. Oppenheimer

#CharlieHebdo pic.twitter.com/15O4YC2KWg

— Ruben L. Oppenheimer (@RLOppenheimer) January 7, 2015

From Washington Post cartoonist Ann Tenaes. The headline from an actual CharlieHebdo cover reads: “Love is stronger than hate”.

WaPo cartoonist @AnnTelnaes shows support for #CharlieHebdo http://t.co/RyV0pzWmzn pic.twitter.com/8mIMqmqXYY

— Andrew Katz (@katz) January 7, 2015

Brazilian cartoonist Carlos Latuff

Please, RT! #CharlieHebdo attack has another victim! Via @MiddleEastMnt #ParisShooting pic.twitter.com/PNesB88POL

— Carlos Latuff (@LatuffCartoons) January 7, 2015

Dutch cartoonist Joep Bertrams

Charlie Hebdo. Nooit opzij. pic.twitter.com/MJwGKPQ8jU

— Joep Bertrams (@joepbertrams) January 7, 2015

JAMAIS! (Never!) – Dutch illustrator Korneel Jeuken

#Jamais! #cartoon #CharlieHebdo #JeSuisCharlie pic.twitter.com/s0eTnHthRv

— Korneel Jeuken (@KorneelJeuken) January 7, 2015

Qatar-based Sudanese cartoonist Khalid Albaih

Sad Khartoon! I'm Just a Muslim .. From a Muslim #Cartoonist RIP #CharlieHebdo pic.twitter.com/27Vt2RvAGs

— ALBAIH (@khalidalbaih) January 7, 2015

French blogger, Cyprien

C'est un drame pour la France… #CharlieHebdo pic.twitter.com/lGfNUHfQIZ

— Cyprien (@MonsieurDream) January 7, 2015

Cartoonist Jean Jullien

I am devastated by what just happened in France. #CharlieHebdo pic.twitter.com/IxEbScqYFh

— jean jullien (@jean_jullien) January 7, 2015

French cartoonist Maumont

Courage @Charlie_Hebdo_ … pic.twitter.com/RI7tl6LyKh

— MAUMONT (@maumontmaumont) January 7, 2015

Indian cartoonist Satish Acharya

[PHOTOS] 16 Cartoonists Standing Up Against The Paris Massacre With What They Do Best http://t.co/9lj3v1j13O pic.twitter.com/Hk1QHcUqgP

— Latest on SAYS (@saysdotcom) January 8, 2015

(Via aljazeera)

Basically the only Tumblr that matters: Popeye Loops.

You have never been as excited for anything in your life as this cat is about his Christmas tree.

Of all the ways to recycle your old, pine-needle-shedding Christmas tree, this might be the most adorable. A British zoo is letting people donate their trees to the zoo’s lions, who find immense joy in batting the trees around like they’re just beanie bags. The trees, say zoo managers, are like “cat-nip” for the lions, but it looks like the lions have been using them as really effective scratching posts. In a video posted up by the Linton Zoo, what can only be described as a look of pure euphoria passes over the lion’s face as he rolls exuberantly in the needles. This heart-warming lion-tree encounter serves as a reminder that lions, fierce as though they may be, are just big old cats with really excessive hairdos. 

Por Nicolás Valencia, Arquitecto

La Alcaldía de París ha publicado un radical plan gubernamental para detener el proceso de gentrificación que viven los barrios del centro de la capital francesa: a través de un comunicado oficial, el gobierno regional anunció un listado de 257 direcciones -8.021 departamentos- en los cuales el ayuntamiento otorgaría el derecho a rechazar la venta de inmuebles, con tal de convertirlos en viviendas subsidiadas.

Los planes de Anne Hidalgo -la primera mujer a cargo de la Alcaldía de París- apuntan tanto a incrementar las opciones de arriendo subsidiado como a asegurar zonas residenciales de gran conectividad, servicios y equipamiento en el centro histórico a personas de bajos y medios ingresos, evitando su expulsión a la periferia desde barrios progresivamente habitados por grupos de altos ingresos, los llamados ghettos de millonarios.

Conoce en detalle el radical plan después del salto.

De inmediata aplicación desde el miércoles 17 de diciembre, el plan sigue la línea del anterior gobierno parisiense, Bertrand Delanoë -mentor político de Anne Hidalgo-, quien dedicó amplios esfuerzos en atajar el proceso de gentrificación que vive la capital francesa, cartografiado prolíficamente por la geógrafa Anne Clerval en “Las dinámicas espaciales de la gentrificación en París” (Les dynamiques spatiales de la gentrification à Paris). En ese sentido, Frédérique Lahaye, director de Vivienda del gobierno de Delanoë, señaló en 2013 que “todos tienen el derecho a la belleza y a vivir en un bello ambiente y no es sólo el dinero el que debe determinar quien vive (y) dónde”.

Con predominio de barrios antiguamente obreros del norte y este de París -actualmente en proceso de reconversión urbana y social-, el plan se aplicará en ocho distritos (arrondissements) de la capital (2°, 10°, 11°, 12°, 15°, 17°, 18° y 20°), y los edificios escogidos responden a tres criterios: tipo de condominiums, porcentaje de déficit de viviendas sociales en el área y edificios en donde al menos exista un 15% de demanda de vivienda social, según informa Les Echos [francés].

Dinámicas espaciales de la gentrificación en París desde la década de 1960. Imagen © Anne Clerval, 2008

El plan parisiense buscará que cuando algunos de los apartamentos de cualquiera de las 257 direcciones se encuentre en venta, por ley deberán ser ofrecidos al gobierno metropolitano. El apartamentos será vendido a precio de mercado. Sin embargo, el precio ofrecido sería decidido por el ayuntamiento y no el vendedor. Si el propietario no le gusta el ofrecimiento, puede apelar a un juez independiente para su recálculo de precio o bien puede retirar la propiedad del mercado. Eso sí, lo que el propietario no puede hacer es vender el apartamento a otra persona, sin antes haberlo ofrecido a la Alcaldía.

Tal como recoge Citylab, Ian Brossat, funcionario de la Alcaldía, justifica la decisión del gobierno metropolitano:

Optar por diversidad y solidaridad, contra la exclusión, el determinismo social y la lógica centrífuga del mercado (inmobiliario). También ayuda a reducir las desigualdades entre el este y el oeste de París. En particular, en donde el desarrollo de la oferta social es insuficiente.

Agradecimientos a Citylab y Les Echos. Para conocer las 257 direcciones, haz clickacá [francés]

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Want to build a snowman? Great job from Reddit user onijake!

Installing a WiFi antenna in Cameroon. Photo by Flicker user Bill Zimmerman.

This summer, within the space of a few weeks, Coca Cola and Facebook both announced seemingly out-of-left-field projects aimed at bringing internet access to underserved African communities. In the small city of Bushbuckridge and the town of Qunu, Coke is installing new vending machines with free and open-access WiFi, ostensibly to help students and businesspeople work as they enjoy a cold beverage. While Coke hopes to scale up soon, Facebook has it beat in scope, offering free access to Google search, job information sites, UNICEF, weather pages, and women’s health portals for free on any internet-capable phone through local Zambian provider Airtel. These two projects, so close together, are just the latest in a growing movement to bring free internet to Africa that has, after many duds and false starts, taken off over the past year—with the potential to unlock a massive spurt of growth in the continent’s collective economy.

Free WiFi isn’t an entirely new project. Coke may have lifted its idea from a much more limited project by Japanese soft drink giant Asahi, who in 2011 plopped down hundreds of WiFi-equipped vending machines in tourist hubs with a fifty-meter signal and thirty-minute access limit. Nor is it entirely altruistic when corporations lead it. Coke probably hopes that clustering people around its machines will give it a nice PR and sales boost. And Facebook, which is trying to work out deals similar to the Zambia plan in dozens of countries, wants new users worldwide; meanwhile the local service and phone providers who jump on and pay the bills want to entice users to buy access to the rest of the internet, beyond this first taste.

But no matter the motives or origins, these services are extremely useful in Africa, which lags far behind the world averages for internet accessibility. Continent-wide, internet penetration is only 26.5 percent, compared to a 42.3 percent rate worldwide. Given the increasing consensus that the internet is a necessity for competing in the global business and educational world—some even consider accessibility a human right—it’s easy to see how this disparity is only widening the gap between rural and poor Africans and the rest of the world. And it’s even easier to understand why even limited first steps towards greater accessibility are worthwhile. But these two projects only scratch the surface of much more ambitious plans for the net in these communities.

Industrialists and philanthropists have recognized the potential of internet access in Africa for years. As early as 2010, flight search engine kayak.com co-founder Paul English, who’d launched minor accessibility projects in isolated villages, announced that he wanted to link all of Africa to a massive new and free network, although little came of this boast. In 2013, Google jumped onto the global internet connectivity bandwagon by launching Loon, a roving network of blimps, balloons, and satellites beaming internet to everyone, with initial tests run in Cape Town, South Africa. But just last month a sheep herder in South Africa’s Karoo desert found one of the Loon balloons crashed in his pasture (not long after a San Fancisco test balloon crashed in Nevada), suggesting the project’s probably a ways away from solving Africa’s connectivity woes.

Alongside these global projects, a few major programs, like South African telecoms provider BT’s Connecting Africa project, hooked up locations like children’s schools. But for the most part these connections were limited to particular uses or communities rather than, as English and his aspirational ilk envisioned, open to whole communities for varied and individualized uses.

Then along came Project Isizwe. The Xhosa word for a nation and the notion of bringing people together, Isizwe is a South African venture, piloted over the past year across the city of Tshwane, bringing free internet to every public space in the country as a not-for-profit, requiring no login, tying into no advertising, and putting only a light data cap on the connection to deter network hogs. A year into the project, the massive connectivity project appears to be a smashing success, prompting Isizwe to consider expanding its model throughout the country and hopefully beyond.

Many other free internet projects were underway as Isizwe got up and running, like the 2013 Smart Kigali Initiative in Rwanda. But the South African project and its assistance on other connectivity bids, like the free WiFi project in Stellenbosch, South Africa, seem to have galvanized others to move on their own ambitious projects. In early spring of this year, Cape Town introduced free WiFi to four of its suburbs, hoping to launch its own citywide grid. And, soon after, companies like Coke—including Orange mobile and Craigslist-equivalent Gumtree—have rolled out their own programs, likely hoping to earn image points by being a part of the future.

Yet aside from Rwanda, most of these projects have popped up in South Africa, which is hardly representative of the whole continent. Part of this may reflect the nudge Isizwe has given to the movement there, and part of it may reflect the fact that, with the fifth highest African penetration (but still only the ninety-second highest worldwide), South Africa just has better infrastructure to use as a launching pad and testing ground for accessibility systems. A similar program managed by the government in Nakuru County, Kenya this year flopped hard due to technical failures before correcting and re-launching. But the system apparently still suffers from glitches and complaints—and that’s not a particularly disconnected country itself.

But the hope is that, as Isizwe and its successor projects take off, it will lead the way for expansion and imitation elsewhere on the continent using proven, successful models. And with private companies joining in on the frenzy, it’s all the more likely that less than ideal but still useful projects and infrastructure will start popping up in many countries as these businesses look to snare future customers and equate themselves with a new era of connectivity.

If these projects do succeed, they’ll have the power to transform the continent’s economy for the better. World Bank estimates claim that, for every ten percent increase in broadband penetration, a country’s GDP tends to rise by 1.3 percent—a massive jump. And, in a report released this year by McKinsey, the prominent consultancy claims that if internet spreads in Africa as quickly as mobile phones did in the 2000s, this access will bring $300 billion to the continent’s economy.

Educational and informational benefits aside, that’s a massive bump in pure, cold economic terms, and well worth the investment by any company or government. So all the incentives and promises are there. And now that we have good examples of successful projects popping up left and right, hopefully we’ll see that potential realized in a decade’s time. 

In the New York Public Library's Instagram account, Information Architect Morgan Holzer is posting images of 3x5 cards pulled from a shoebox collecting 50 years' worth of weird questions that were posed to the system's reference desks, which were strange and notable enough to warrant addition to the collection. Read the rest

latenightseth:

Uzo Aduba’s mom knew what she was talking about.

What if I made a lava lamp out of real lava? What could I use as a clear medium? How close could I stand to watch it?

Kathy Johnstone, 6th Grade Teacher (via a student)

This is a surprisingly reasonable idea, by What If standards.

I mean, it's not that reasonable. At the very least, I'm guessing you would lose your teaching license, and possibly some of the students in the front row. But you could do it.

Just a warning: I'm going to be linking to a lot of videos of lava flowing and people poking it with sticks, so you may have a hard time getting to the end of the article without getting sidetracked into watching a bunch of them like I did while writing it.

You have a few choices for transparent materials that could hold the lava without rupturing and splattering half the classroom with red-hot droplets. Fused quartz glass would be a great choice. It's the same stuff they use in high-intensity lamp bulbs, the surface of which can easily get up to mid-range lava temperatures.[1]This bulb, for example, can supposedly handle bulb temperatures of up to 1000°C, which is hotter than many types of lava. Another possibility is sapphire, which stays solid up to 2,000°C, and is commonly used as a window into high-temperature chambers.[2]That link wasn't a lava video, but this is.

The question of what to use for the clear medium is trickier. Let's say we find a transparent glass that melts[3]Some people say glass is a liquid that flows very slowly. Other people smugly point out that this is actually wrong. Then another group of people dissects how we know it's wrong, and where this incorrect idea got started. And then at the end of the chain, a Metafilter user steps back and asks some supremely insightful questions about what's really going on here as we variously repeat and debunk these kinds of factoids. at low temperatures. Even if we ignore the impurities from the hot lava that would probably cloud the glass, we're going to have a problem.[4]And later, when the school board finds out, we'll have another.

Molten glass is transparent. So why doesn't it look transparent?[5]Which sounds sorta contradictory. "This music is loud, but it doesn't sound loud." The answer is simple: It glows. Hot objects give off blackbody radiation; molten glass glows just like molten lava does, and for the same reason.

So the problem with a lava lamp is that both halves of it will be equally bright, and it will be hard to see the lava. We could try having nothing in the top half of the lamp—after all, when it's hot enough, lava bubbles pretty well on its own. Unfortunately, the lamp itself would also be in contact with the lava. Sapphire might not melt easily, but it will glow, making it hard to see whatever the lava was doing inside.

Unless you hooked it up to a really bright bulb, this lava lamp would cool down quickly. Just like individual blobs of lava, the lamp would solidify and stop glowing within the first minute, and by the end of the class period you'd probably be able to touch it without being burned.

A solidified lava lamp is just about the most boring thing in the world. But the scenario made me wonder: If making a lamp out of molten lava wouldn't be very exciting, then what about a volcano made of lamps?

This is probably the most useless calculation I've ever done,[6]Ok, there's no way that's true. but ... what if Mount Saint Helens erupted again today, but instead of tephra,[7]The technical term for "whatever crap comes out of a volcano." it spewed compact fluorescent bulbs?

Well, if it did, the mercury released into the atmosphere would be several orders of magnitude larger than all manmade emissions combined.[8]45% of which come from gold mining.

All in all, I think making a lava lamp out of lava would be kind of anticlimactic, and would much rather go find some actual lava and poke it with a stick. I also think that it's probably good that Mount Saint Helens didn't erupt compact fluorescent bulbs. And I think that if I were in Ms. Johnstone's class, I'd try to sit toward the back of the room.

Lastly, for old time's sake, I'd like to share one final link with you: The music video for Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up."

Low-Rated British Crime Shows on Netflix

The first part of this video, the bit with the molten sugar and cooling table, is the most interesting, but the whole thing is worth a watch.

Reminds me of the lettered rock made at Teddy Grays.