The ORIGINAL Illustrated Catalog Of ACME Products

This episode features one ACME Giant Rubber Band, five miles of ACME railroad track, one ACME rocket car, one box ACME bird seed, one can ACME iron pellets, and one ACME Indestructo Steel Ball:

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What if gas cost $10 a gallon?

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Another view:

You can explore the region with this aerial map:

View Larger Map

For more info see:

- Ankor What?

- Angkor Wat

Coffee Drinks Illustrated

See also: How espresso works

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For more info see: How the Tesla Roadster Works

How to Photograph the Space Station

With the naked eye, it looks like a dot:

Here is a full description for how to find the space station:

If you want to go to a little more trouble and use a telescope, you can actually get a pretty good view. For example, this photograph:

Photo of the space station

was taken through a telescope. From spaceweather.com:

On the night of May 11th, the ISS flew over Sonnenbuehl-Genkingen, Germany, where Martin Wagner was waiting with his 10-inch telescope and a Canon 400D. He snapped this picture.

This video was also taken through a “Meade 10″ LX-200 with a Philips ToUCam and home written tracking software”:

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Learning JavaScript Programming Language through Video Lectures

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The Scientific Evidence for Global Warming

From the article:

The objective evidence for global warming is not hard to find. Glaciers are disappearing all over the world. The hottest 22 years on record have occurred since 1980. Over the last 100 years, temperatures at the Earth’s surface increased by an estimated 1.4°F (0.8°C).

This last measure may not seem like much until you consider a tell-tale rise in temperature of the same magnitude and persistence in a human being: it would be cause for attention from a doctor. Like medical science, climate science advances through peer-review. In the U.S. and globally, there is unprecedented unanimity of pinion among scientists about what the accumulating symptoms of warming mean. Here are five stablished conclusions – around which there is no longer any debate – that provide an urgent scientific case for action.

And another more colloquial perspective:

Fibs, Frauds and Whoppers

From the article:

How the debate over global warming ever became an angry partisan affair, I will never know. Somehow it has become a hard right talking point that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by liberals. In reality the theory of global warming and man’s role in it is widely accepted both on the right and the left. It is acknowledged by every reputable scientific organization, government and corporation in the world including the United States where the official position reads: “warming of the climate system is unequivocal”. That’s not a political stance someone was forced into as a vote getting scheme; it’s the government’s official position. The deniers make a lot of noise but they are a dwindling population. What they have succeeded in doing is making enough of a fuss that a lot of lay people throw up their hands and say “how the heck should I know?”

I receive several e-mails a day from people indignant about the fact that I have said the debate over global warming is over. Almost every one of these e-mails mentions one or more factoids that are in fact provably wrong. So I decided to put together a point by point summary of the favorite talking points and why they are wrong…

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1) NASA is getting ready to land its Mars Phoenix Lander in two weeks. They have a really interesting video out called that descibes the mission:

Seven Minutes of Terror

See also this description of the lander’s instruments:

See also: How NASA’s Phoenix Will Land on Mars

2) In order to lower the cost of going to the Moon and Mars and speed up the process, NASA is developing a modular lander platform. This article describes the project and has videos showing the testing process:

Exclusive Video: Meet the Spacecraft That Could Save NASA a Fortune

3) Lots of people were hoping that this announcement would be more monumental (like “ALIEN CRAFT DISCOVERED ON DARK SIDEOF MOON”), but even so it is an interesting announcement:

NASA Announcement of “Success of Long Galactic Hunt”

From the article:

Scientists using a combination of radio and x-rays have found the most recent supernova remnant observed in our galaxy, located about 26,000 light years from here. It’s the youngest, most energetic supernova we know and could shed light on just exactly how the stardust we’re made of — heavier elements and all– gets created. The finding also lends some support to astronomers calculations that there should be about three supernovae in our galaxy per century, although they still need to find dozens more similar supernova remnants to confirm their suspicions.

NNDB is an intelligence aggregator that tracks the activities of people we have determined to be noteworthy, both living and dead. Superficially, it seems much like a “Who’s Who” where a noted person’s curriculum vitae is available (the usual information such as date of birth, a biography, and other essential facts.)

But it mostly exists to document the connections between people, many of which are not always obvious. A person’s otherwise inexplicable behavior is often understood by examining the crowd that person has been associating with.

A friend pointed me to a tool called NNDB Mapper, which lets you visually chart the relationships between these people. It is a fascinating tool to play with, because it quickly uncovers connections that would not otherwise be obvious. For example, if you create a new map and start with Stephen Colbert, you can see the shows he’s worked on. So you click on The Daily Show and see, obviously, Jon Stewart. If you click on him, you discover a girlfriend named Tawny Kitaen. Clicking on her you realize that she also dated Jerry Seinfeld. And as you click a few more times you realize that the comedy community is fairly tight like this. They are all interrelated. Obviously if you start with someone like Hillary Clinton you find many amazing connections. The tool makes it very easy to create detailed maps so that you can easily point out “a person’s otherwise inexplicable behavior.”

If nothing else, it is a well-done idea and tool that is fun to play with. The video on the site will teach you how to use it in a couple of minutes.

How long before a database like this contains every person on the planet?

Postscript - A reader points out another tool that catalogs people and maps interrelationships at least within companies: Cogmap.com.