kuratkull

Swine flu and auto accidents [Effect Measure]

2009-07-04T12:38:10Z

The number of people who die from seasonal flu every year varies greatly from year to year. No one really knows what it is. The most frequently (mis)quoted figure is 36,000 deaths directly or indirectly, although this figure is a long term seasonal average of excess mortality correlated with flu season. We discussed this in more detail in an earlier post and for the purposes of this one, only the rough order of magnitude is pertinent. Let’s just say it’s in the tens of thousands — roughly. Let’s also agree on the several hundred thousand hospitalizations from flu or flu related illness — on average. It turns out that this is roughly the annual mortality from motor vehicle accidents (41,000) and about half the hospitalizations from car accidents (around 500,000). There are roughly 4 million emergency department visits for motor vehicle related injuries (CDC). So with seasonal flu we are [...]

Original post by revere none@example.com

Tokyo, the Blade Runner City by Thomas Birke

2009-07-04T08:13:18Z

Photo: Thomas Birke
Photographer Thomas Birke went to Japan in 2008 to take photos of "the future" - and he didn’t go away disappointed. Thomas’ large format photography reveals how much Tokyo resembles the dystopian future city in Blade Runner.
Dark Roasted Blend has the exclusive: Link

Original post by Alex

The Money Floor (Alas, Only Pennies)

2009-07-04T08:12:30Z

The Standard Grill in the Standard Hotel in New York has a very unusual floor: it’s made of pennies! I guess if you’re a couple of pennies short on tips, just pry them off the floor!
Link

Original post by Alex

Destino: A Cartoon Short by Disney and Dali

2009-07-03T23:02:46Z

In 1946, famed surrealist artist Salvador Dali and Walt Disney became
unlikely collaborators, and set to work on a short film called Destino.
The project was ultimately abandoned with less than 20 seconds of film shot, but six decades later modern Disney artists
completed the film using Dali’s original storyboards. The result is easily the strangest thing to come out of the Disney studios since… well, probably ever.
Link
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by gregs.

Original post by Queuebot

In defense of hir in a male-dominated environment [Sciencewomen]

2009-07-03T22:20:48Z

After the weekend, I’ll be back with a follow up to the post on my progress towards tenure, and I’ll try to address some of the substantive and thought-provoking comments that you all have raised. But, here in the States, it’s already a holiday weekend, and so for today, I’ll punt and take on a side issue from that comment thread.
Comrade Physioprof commented:
“hir” is a total …abomination! It is so …distracting it totally ruins the flow of reading, because it is NOT A REAL …WORD!
In terms of identifiability of an anonymous individual, how much difference does a factor of two make in the likelihood of identifying the person? And if you really think it makes a difference, for the love of god, just use “his or her”. [Use your imagination to fill in the ellipses.]
Read the rest of this post… | Read the comments on this post…

Original post by ScienceWoman none@example.com

What is a transmon qubit? [The World's Fair]

2009-07-03T20:57:53Z

Somebody recently tweeted the term “transmon qubit” to the Science Scout twitter account, and (for the life of me) I cannot wrap my head around what it is exactly (other than a piece of delicious sounding science jargon).
As far as I can make out, it has something to do with a bit unit in the computation sciences context, which happens to quantum properties. i.e. Not just binary, but more a binary plus this “both, at the same time” option.
Anyway, if anyone can shed some light (a la Bill Nye style) on this term then it would be greatly appreciated.
Read the comments on this post…

Original post by David Ng none@example.com

Ugliest Product of the Year Contest

2009-07-03T17:36:26Z

The Oops Design Awards have taken it upon themselves to do something that should have been done a long time ago -they have created an award for the ugliest, silliest and most useless product designs of the year. As you may have guessed, the lamp above is in the running for ugliest. It is the Oswine Lamp designed by Johanness Hemann. The nominees gallery actually has a few items I like, but for the most part it’s brimming with hillariously hideous items.
Link

Original post by Jill Harness

The Friday Fermentable: Wine Authorities Spread the Gospel of Roséism [Terra Sigillata]

2009-07-03T17:02:42Z

As I agonized over what I’d write about for this week’s installment of The Friday Fermentable, my Wine Authorities newsletter arrived followed by their tweet on their inaugural music video.
Wine Authorities, my local wine merchants and community gods, have been spreading the gospel of rosé wines as a summer alternative to the red wines we enjoy most of the rest of the year. But contrary to the sweet white zinfandels and such that might turn off those who enjoy good wine, there is now a plethora of foreign and domestic wine offerings (and values) that show off red grapes in a lightly-crushed version. (Briefly, by minimizing the amount of time the red grapeskins are incubated with the must, some color and flavor compounds in the skins are extracted without the heavier tannins of a fully-extracted red.)
From the circle of the magnificent rose collection at the Sarah P Duke Gardens, [...]

Original post by Abel Pharmboy none@example.com

Fun With Webcams

2009-07-03T16:23:38Z

(YouTube link)
This is a music video for “Hibi no Neiro” (Tone of everyday) by Sour. The people in it are fans of the band, and the whole thing was shot on webcams all over the world. At first, you think that using fans and webcams would be the cheap and easy way to produce a video, but then you see the result and realize how challenging this must have been to coordinate and edit. -via Metafilter

Original post by Miss Cellania

557,000 Miles

2009-07-03T16:08:18Z

90-year-old Rachel Veitch of Orlando, Florida has been driving the same 1964 Mercury Comet Caliente since it was new. Now she has racked up 557,000 miles on the odometer -and it’s still going great!
Unlike her three husbands, Veitch says, the Mercury has “never lied to me, never cheated on me, and I can always depend on her.”
Veitch is on her seventh Midas muffler, and thank you, gentlemen, for the lifetime warranty. She’s had three sets of Sears shock absorbers, also through a lifetime warranty. And though the number seems high, she claims to have had 16 free batteries, courtesy of J.C. Penney and Firestone.
“She’s demonstrating the perfect way to take care of a car,” says Mike Hardie, director of global quality and productivity for Ford Motor Co., and that’s what makes her a menace.
“If everyone did that,” he says, “we’d never sell another one, so don’t spread it around [...]

Original post by Miss Cellania