Heroes
Are Gas Prices Really That High? (Hint: NO.)
This interesting graphic comparing gas prices around the world really makes you think.
04.16.12
Image from Wikimedia Commons.
Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
But I found this and I thought, "Oh, what a vaguely interesting thing." And then I got to the part about the Hubble Space Telescope, and, let me tell you: Mind. Blown.
We've got the set up here, but you have to watch the video for the full effect. It's all the way at the bottom.
Get this: Van Gogh was a pretty cool artist (duh), but as it turns out...
What’s the truth behind when you take off an ear?
...he was also A SCIENTIST!*
*Pretty much.
Here's the story.
While Van Gogh was in an asylum in France, after he mutilated his ear during a psychotic episode*...
(*Or, and I'd like to thank the entire Internet for pointing this out, there's a theory that his friend Paul Gauguin actually cut off his ear, in a drunken sword fight, in the dark. The more you know!)
Animated a thinking one-eared Van Gogh.
All Van Gogh GIFs via TED-Ed.
...he was able to capture one of science's most elusive concepts:
~~~TURBULENCE~~~
Turbulence expressed through art.
Although it's hard to understand with math (like, REALLY HARD), it turns out that art makes it easy to depict how it LOOKS.
So what is turbulence?
Turbulence, or turbulent flow, is a concept of fluid dynamics where fluid movements are "self-similar" when there's an energy cascade — so basically, big eddies make smaller eddies, and those make even smaller ones ... and so on and so forth.
It looks like this:
Pictures explain science.
See? It's easier to look at pictures to understand it.
Thing is, scientists are pretty much *just* starting to figure this stuff out.
Animation of referencing art to science.
Then you've got Van Gogh, 100 years earlier, in his asylum, with a mutilated ear, who totally nailed it!
Science studying Van Gogh.
The folks who noticed Van Gogh's ability to capture turbulence checked to see whether other artists did the same. Most impressionists achieved " luminance" with their art (which is the sort-of *pulsing* you see when you look at their paintings that really shows what light looks like).
But did other artists depict turbulence the way Van Gogh did?
NOPE.
Capturing concepts of nature.
Even in his darkest time, Van Gogh was able to capture — eerily accurately — one of nature's most complex and confusing concepts ... 100 years before scientists had the technology to observe actual star turbulence and realize its similarity to fluid turbulence mathematics as well as Van Gogh's swirling sky. Cool, huh?
Watch the video below to learn even more:
This article originally appeared on November 14, 2014
Is it always best to be honest with friends?
The move towards unique names has caused controversy in families, especially among the parents-to-be and their in-laws. But, as you’ll see in this story, it can cause problems among friends, too.
A Reddit user who was once known as Shayleigh recently shared her conflict with a friend on the AITA forum to see whether she was in the right.
Friends fight over baby names.
“One of my friends found out she was pregnant a few months ago, and she's really excited to be a mother. I'm happy for her and think she'd make a good mom, but there's one problem; she wants her baby's name to be unique and special, but the way she's going about it is terrible,” she wrote.
“What I mean is, the name she plans on using is godawful. If it's a boy, she's going to name him ‘Daynger’ (yes, spelled like that to be unique), and if it's a girl, she's going to name her ‘Tinkerbelle,’” she continued.
This woman not only wanted to be unique by naming her child after a Disney character, but she combined the names of two characters, Tinkerbell from “Peter Pan” and Belle from “Beauty and the Beast.”
The woman formerly known as Shayleigh leveled with her friend, saying her child would get bullied if they were named Daynger or Tinkerbelle. The former Shayleigh wasn’t just a wet blanket, she knew what it was like first-hand to have a unique name. After all, she was bullied for being named Shayleigh by being called “Gayleigh.” She was also the victim of her parents using the “leigh” for “ly” naming convention, which many see as cringeworthy. Her name caused her so much stress that at 19, she had it changed.
According to Stop Bullying, being targeted by bullies can cause anxiety and depression and the effects can lead into adulthood.
The honest remark led to a falling out among the friends.
“She got really upset and told me I was being unsupportive and I was a shi**y friend,” the woman formerly known as Shayleigh wrote. “She's been ignoring my texts ever since, and it's been more than a week. I'm starting to feel kind of guilty over what I said.”
The commenters on the post overwhelmingly supported the poster for being honest with her friend.
"A baby’s name should work for them from birth to school to career to retirement. She’s only thinking of how cute a baby Daynger/Tinkerbelle would be and not thinking of how much her tween will hate her for that name," Regular-Switch454 wrote. "She needs a reality check. She’s naming adults here. Those names won’t set her kids up for their best shot at life and she needs to accept that," Thoughtinspace added.
The good news was that the friends eventually reconciled and had a long talk about the woman’s baby name ideas.
‘“I carefully brought up some of your points, and suggested using the name "Belle’ for a girl, with ‘Tinkerbelle’ as a nickname; she thinks it's cute and liked the idea,” the woman formerly known as Shayleigh wrote. “She did decide to use ‘Daynger’ (still spelled like that) as a middle name, which isn't nearly as bad as using it for a first name. On the bright side, the kid can tell people, ‘Danger is my middle name.’”
Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash
"We are always trying to come up with ... creative new ways to get our shelter dogs out in front of potential adopters," says Karen Hirsch, public relations director at LifeLine Animal Project in Georgia.
Animal Profile created by Mark Wales
Photo from Pixabay
And experimenting with online dating for dogs and cats might just be working.
The harsh world of pet adoption is extremely competitive: About 6.5 million dogs and cats enter U.S. shelters every year, each seeking a good forever home. It's too big a need for shelter operators to just sit back and hope they all get adopted.
That's why you see adorable dogs on display outside the grocery store, partnerships with Uber that will bring puppies directly to you for playtime, and aww-inspiring social media campaigns like dogs in pajamas.
An estimated 50 million people worldwide use Tinder. So LifeLine and other shelters and rescues figure why not give it a shot?
After all, people using online dating apps are already looking for love and companionship — just maybe a slightly different kind.
Hirsch says they recently created profiles for 22 of their dogs and cats.
Animal profiles are also showing up on Bumble, which is home to another 20 million users or so.
Like sweet Duke here.
Animal Profile created by Mark Wales
Original photo from Pixabay
Each pet is assigned to a volunteer who creates the profile and handles the conversations after a match
"In a crowded shelter, pets often get overlooked, but on a dating app, the animal becomes an individual," Hirsch says. "People learn about them and form a 'virtual' attachment."
Plus the witty banter is oodles of fun.
For LifeLine, the experiment is still new. But Hirsch says people are responding to it incredibly well so far.
At the very least, Tinder and Bumble have proven to be great for word-of-mouth awareness-building on the importance of adopting shelter pets. The animals are getting dozens of matches. Hirsch says there have been more than a few online adoption inquiries, as well as people coming into the shelter to meet their "match" in person.
She also notes that one of the matches even became a regular volunteer at LifeLine.
Photo by Eric Ward on UnsplashThis new animal dating idea has another upside for apps — and the people using them, too.
Dating experts are finding that people are getting burned out by online dating. Between "ghosting," "cushioning," "the slow fade," and a bunch more of those annoying slang terms, humans out there are wondering if dating apps are even worth the effort.
For romantic love, who knows?
But now that you might just meet the dog or cat of your dreams, that's not a bad reason to keep on swiping.
This article originally appeared on 01.10.18
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