Voder-Vocoder

For a case where sunk costs exist, imagine that you are a new person who was just now teleported into this person’s life. Variant: Imagine you were just teleported into this person’s life, and everyone else knows this, and they all expect you to execute sudden changes of course. See what this changes about your thinking, regardless of whether it changes your decision. (source)

“I advocate an empirical politics, an anti-ideological politics. We should find the right questions, then gather the data, then structure society based on what works, according to the data.” —Luke Muehlhauser (source)

“I personally don't buy ebooks with DRM on them, because I actually like to own the books I own.”John Scalzi

I saw the headline “Greek Fires Kill 12 and Threaten Antiquities” and thought it said “Greek Fire Kills 12 and Threatens Antiquities.”

Which would have been equally sad but at the same time, very cool.

58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.

70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.

Most readers do not get past page 18 in a book they have purchased.

(source)

This is from the North American Vexillological Associatino‘s
publication Good Flag, Bad Flag.

Giant elliptical galaxies are probably formed by mergers on a grander scale. In the Local Group, the Milky Way and M31 (the Andromeda Galaxy) are gravitationally bound, and currently approaching each other at high speed. Since we cannot determine the speed of M31 perpendicular to the line from us to it, we do not know if it will collide with the Milky Way. If the two galaxies do meet they will pass through each other, with gravity distorting both galaxies severely and ejecting some gas, dust and stars into intergalactic space. They will travel apart, slow down, and then again be drawn towards each other, and again collide. Eventually both galaxies will have merged completely, streams of gas and dust will be flying through the space near the newly formed giant elliptical galaxy. Out of the gas ejected from the merger, new globular clusters and maybe even new dwarf galaxies may form and become the halo of the elliptical. The globulars from both M31 and the Milky Way will also form part of the halo; globulars are so tightly held together that they are largely immune to large scale galactic interactions. On the stellar scale, little will happen. If anybody is around to watch the merger (“If it is on a collision course, the impact is predicted to occur in about 3 billion years.” (S)], it will be a slow, but magnificent event, with the sight of a distorted M31 spectacularly spanning the entire sky.
(S)

“As of 2005 over six billion tons of concrete are made each year, amounting to the equivalent of one ton for every person on Earth”
(source)

Pangaea was not the first supercontinent. From the evidence available, scientists have reconstructed a predecessor, termed Pannotia, that formed about 600 mya, before dividing again some 50 million years later. Another, Rodinia, apparently formed approximately 1,100 mya and divided 750 mya.
(source)

In comparison, the earth is 4.57 billion years old. Somehow I had thought that Pangaea was the original configuration.

(See also: Supercontinent Cycle)

(source)

If I were Indiana Jones, I would ignore the jewels, arks, and grails, and concentrate on studying mechanisms that can still reliably throw circular-saw blades thousands of years after they were built.

(from)

It had been decided back when the last king died that the kings (or chieftains, or scoutmasters, or whatever the hell they called themselves these days) of Arnor were not the royalty of Gondor.