Animated shopping
Yeah yeah, I know - Animated shopping doesn't make much sense, but hop over to this page and you'll know what I mean :o)
Bee-yoo-tifullll
I read about it when the company first announced its launch. Ogled at the first photos, read and re-read the first exclusive reviews. Impatiently waited for an official video. Years later, I still sigh when I see it on a magazine cover in the local store. All this, and you'd think I'd be prepared when it pulls up next to me at a signal as I'm waiting to cross the road. But no, like an idiot, I stared wide-eyed till the signal changed and it roared off, the driver no doubt showing off. But then, that's the whole point of having a Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera...
Unfortunately, I can't whip out my phone and take a photograph in 3.8 seconds, which is the time the Gallardo Superleggera takes to go from 0 to 100 km/h. Nevertheless, this is what I'm talking about..
If you want to know more about this beauty, you can find a good read here.
Limericks!
I've got a new craze - writing limericks. Here are two limericks to start with (of course, read at your own risk)...
This is when I offered to write a short poem, and my friends shrieked in protest.
Don't say no to my poem
Or I'll retire to my ashram
There I'll meditate
From morning till late
And emerge with an epic wholesome!
And this one is for my friend who has just arrived in London, and is eagerly waiting to experience a snowfall..
She wishes for it to snow
Just sitting in her condo
So afraid she'll miss it
She's sitting like a dimwit
With her nose to the window
Take her for a spin..
This is without doubt one of the best optical illusions I have ever come across. Look at the girl and see which way, clockwise or anticlockwise (counterclockwise, if you like), she's spinning. It can actually be interpreted in both ways. See how long it takes you to see her go both ways.
Source: this article.
Complications can lead to death, or is it the other way around?
At the 1994 annual awards dinner given by the American Association for Forensic Sciences, AAFS President Don Harper Mills astounded his audience in San Diego with the legal complications of a bizarre death. Here is the story...
On March 23 the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a gunshot wound of the head caused by a shotgun. Investigation to that point had revealed that the decedent had jumped from the top of a ten story building with the intent to commit suicide. (He left a note indicating his despondency.) As he passed the 9th floor on the way down, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast through a window, killing him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the decedent was aware that a safety net had been erected at the 8th floor level to protect some window washers, and that the decedent would not have been able to complete his intent to commit suicide because of this...
Ordinarily a person who starts into motion the events with a suicide intent ultimately commits suicide even though the mechanism might be not what he intended. That he was shot on the way to certain death nine stories below probably would not change his mode of death from suicide to homicide, but the fact that his suicide intent would not have been achieved under any circumstance caused the medical examiner to feel that he had homicide on his hands...
Further investigation led to the discovery that the room on the 9th floor from whence the shotgun blast emanated was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. He was threatening her with the shotgun because of an interspousal spat and became so upset that he could not hold the shotgun straight. Therefore, when he pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife, and the pellets went through the window, striking the decedent.
When one intends to kill subject A, but kills subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject B. The old man was confronted with this conclusion, but both he and his wife were adamant in stating that neither knew that the shotgun was loaded. It was the longtime habit of the old man to threaten his wife with an unloaded shotgun. He had no intent to murder her; therefore, the killing of the decedent appeared then to be accident. That is, the gun had been accidentally loaded...
But further investigation turned up a witness that their son was seen loading the shotgun approximately six weeks prior to the fatal accident. That investigation showed that the mother (the old lady) had cut off her son's financial support, and her son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that the father would shoot his mother. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus...
Further investigation revealed that the son became increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to get his mother murdered. This led him to jump off the ten story building on March 23, only to be killed by a shotgun blast through a 9th story window.
The medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.
Original article here.
100 weird facts about your body
- Your brain uses 20% of the oxygen that enters your bloodstream.
- The fastest growing nail is on the middle finger.
- The acid in your stomach is strong enough to dissolve razorblades.
- The human body is estimated to have 60,000 miles of blood vessels.
- Your left lung is smaller than your right lung to make room for your heart.
- Women blink twice as many times as men do.
- If saliva cannot dissolve something, you cannot taste it.
- Your nose can remember 50,000 different scents.
- Your eyes are always the same size from birth but your nose and ears never stop growing.
- We are about 1 cm taller in the morning than in the evening.
- The width of your armspan stretched out is the length of your whole body.
....and many more facts about the human body that you might or might not have known. Each piece of information is backed up with a brief description/explanation, and overall it makes for a very interesting read. Read the whole article here.
Handy animals
Yup, animal art on a hand. Superbly creative, ain't it? Find many more here...
Not quite there….
0.99999.....(recurring) = 1
EXACTLY. No approximations. No rounding off.
Here's the proof:
(1) Let x = 0.999...
(2) 10x = 9.999...
(3) 10x - x = 9.999... - 0.999...
(4) 9x = 9
(5) x = 1
Steps (2), (3) and (4) might seem dodgy, but they are mathematically impeccable. The confusion (if any) seems to arise because some people tend to think of 0.999... as a r-e-a-l-l-y long series of 9s, rather than an endless series of 9s. The 9s never end. The number doesn't come really close to 1, it IS 1.
To assuage any qualms you might have, let's see another way of approaching the proof:
(1) 1/3 = 0.333... (not an approximation, this is EXACT; try actually dividing)
(2) 3 * 1/3 = 3 * 0.333...
(3) 1 = 0.999...
If you still don't agree, here's something that might set the ball rolling:
0.9, 0.99, 0.999, 0.9999, 0.99999, ...... is an infinite series which approaches 1
0.9999.... is a number (a specific number); it is not almost there, or reaching 1; it is a point, a single number. The dots are just notation.
Very interesting reads on this topic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0.999...
http://polymathematics.typepad.com/polymath/2006/06/no_im_sorry_it_.html
http://www.purplemath.com/modules/howcan1.htm
http://qntm.org/?pointnine
All these articles repeat the same points, but the key is in understanding the recurring decimal :o)
Look into my eyes…
.... so crooned Bryan Adams. Eyes can be beautiful, and to prove this point, here is a portfolio of amazingly colorful eyes. I couldn't find out whether these are actual untouched photographs or otherwise, but they are definitely a real treat for, well, the eyes :o)
Fun physics simulation
I came across this very nice simulation, which allows you to sketch jointed structures, which then fall with gravity in a very realistic way - play with different shapes, there is a LOT to experiment with!
Find the simulation here