CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2013-05-15 21:38:34 (13 comments, 12 reshares, 25 +1s)

Public service announcement: if you hate having your stream split across N columns, open the "More" menu above and look for "Stream layout."

2013-05-10 16:27:11 (12 comments, 20 reshares, 30 +1s)

"A Thing You Probably Didn't Notice: Riker Sits Down Like A Crazy Person."

Why is this making me laugh so hard?

2013-05-10 05:14:34 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Satellite imagery of South America in a time lapse over the last 30 years. Watch as a shockingly visible amount of green goes bye-bye before your eyes. Kind of terrifying.

http://earthengine.google.org/#intro/Amazon

2013-05-09 23:02:55 (5 comments, 2 reshares, 10 +1s)

2013-05-08 23:26:49 (7 comments, 1 reshares, 11 +1s)

2013-05-08 21:31:41 (4 comments, 2 reshares, 14 +1s)

This is cracking me up. I love it to death. Potty language alert.

source: http://goo.gl/Dr3vy

Sure, I might prefer certain shapes of bodies in certain clothes over others in those same clothes, or whatever. But the idea that my preferences of what I as a man like to see is supposed to translate to your rules of what you as a woman should be allowed to look like is ridiculous.

As the image says, wear whatever the fuck you want!

2013-05-08 11:30:01 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 13 +1s)

Love, love, love the Saul Bass homage on google.com today!

I'm pretty certain I identified at least five of the movies referenced, despite having seen most of them only once each; that's just how distinctive his work was.

2013-04-18 06:25:31 (6 comments, 1 reshares, 3 +1s)

Arizona lawmakers want cities to sell guns from buyback programs

"Arizona lawmakers, stepping into the contentious national gun control debate, approved a controversial measure on Tuesday mandating that cities and counties resell firearms turned in during gun buyback programs rather than melt them down.

"The Republican-controlled Arizona state Senate voted 18-12 to no longer allow firearms to be destroyed by local municipalities, saying it was a waste of taxpayer money. The state House approved the bill in March."

You read that right.

2013-04-18 01:30:32 (6 comments, 4 reshares, 31 +1s)

I never tire of these stories about amazing teens that speak up for themselves and their peers. Can you picture yourself taking a stand like this when you were her age? That takes real character.

I wish the principal really had tried to badmouth her to Wellesley and that I could be there to overhear that conversation. There's just no way that would not have been hilarious.

2013-04-17 02:29:55 (2 comments, 5 reshares, 10 +1s)

I love this article (and its followup) on one man's quest to find the steepest hills in San Francisco!

Surprisingly a bunch of these are very close to the two places in the city where I used to live.

2013-04-13 04:47:59 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

#coversBetterThanTheOriginal

2013-04-05 04:36:04 (0 comments, 6 reshares, 11 +1s)

Of course, everyone is sharing this, but for good reason. You really really want to read it.

2013-04-05 04:20:02 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

"What in the world is a leave of presence? It means I am not going away. My intent is to continue to write selected reviews but to leave the rest to a talented team of writers handpicked and greatly admired by me. What's more, I'll be able at last to do what I've always fantasized about doing: reviewing only the movies I want to review."

God. damn. it. Roger Ebert posted those words just two days ago. The whole post is full of his great plans for the next months (years?) of his life. And then poof, up in smoke... there he goes.

(Actually that's pretty much how it happened; check this out: "We were getting ready to go home today for hospice care, when he looked at us, smiled, and passed away. No struggle, no pain, just a quiet, dignified transition." Dude, the guy even did dying with great style. We should all get to do it that way!)

So... more »

2013-03-26 02:40:43 (10 comments, 2 reshares, 18 +1s)

Before you make fun of Mountain View -- for having a View of what you consider to be not much of a Mountain -- I highly recommend you walk your ass up this thing first. #owwwww  

2013-03-21 18:25:44 (8 comments, 3 reshares, 5 +1s)

Horrific. #triggerwarning  

~~~

She loved the work, she says, but her chief, her direct supervisor, had a combination lock on the inside of his door. She didn't understand why but didn't dare question it.

"There was no reason to have a cipher lock on the inside of the door; obviously you'd have to have a combination to open it," she says. "So any time I'd go in there for my qualifications he would lock that. And every time I needed a qualification signed off he would ask for a sexual favor."

Livingston was later able to join in a successful prosecution of that chief, a rarity among the women we spoke with.

But her troubles didn't end. Livingston was gang-raped by a group of sailors in a dark storage berth. She then decided to join the military police, in part, she says, to help other victims.

"I... more »

2013-03-19 04:25:43 (8 comments, 0 reshares, 14 +1s)

Hey, remember smallpox? Me neither.

Humanity conquered smallpox. Bill Gates, you may have heard, is busily working on doing the same to malaria.

What about AIDS? There, we have a much longer way to go. AIDS today kills more than a million people every year. People who were not finished living their lives.

This disease is no good and simply must go. And my part of that effort is: in June I am going to get on my bike in South San Francisco and pedal it 545 miles, over seven days, to Los Angeles.

Now, I am not an athlete. This is going to be a very difficult challenge for me. So why do it? How does riding my bike have anything to do with eradicating AIDS, anyway?

It's simple: riding my bike helps eradicate AIDS if and only if it successfully inspires my friends and family and others to donate generously to this... more »

2013-03-17 05:32:00 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 11 +1s)

This... is truly amazing.

2013-03-16 07:17:48 (17 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

Aw yeah. 13/13!

2013-03-16 07:12:55 (28 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Survey: what is THE most classic classic rock song?

2013-03-15 15:01:09 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

What you've been looking for: Whedon discusses what the phenomenally successful Veronica Mars kickstarter campaign means for Firefly.

(Declines to mention whether he will be reprising his role as Douglas, Guy At The Car Rental Counter in the VM film.)

2013-03-13 23:54:09 (8 comments, 1 reshares, 5 +1s)

OMIGOD. Even if it's bad it'll be good. (Like the S2 season finale, come to think of it.)

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/559914737/the-veronica-mars-movie-project?ref=live

It's only a kickstarter, but it's actually started by Rob Thomas himself not just crazed fans, so that's something! #VeronicaMars

2013-03-11 15:48:52 (12 comments, 48 reshares, 117 +1s)

A father's love...

"My three year old daughter and I play a lot of old games together. Her favorite is Donkey Kong. Two days ago, she asked me if she could play as the girl and save Mario.... I told her we couldn't in that particular Mario game, she seemed really bummed out by that. So what else am I supposed to do? Now I'm up at midnight hacking the ROM, replacing Mario with Pauline."

Edit: it's not me who did this; I'm sharing the video. Hence the quote marks above.

2013-03-10 20:23:16 (11 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)

Well, I have a "cover photo" now. It's triangles. Hope you like it.

2013-03-09 16:10:08 (13 comments, 8 reshares, 19 +1s)

This is amazing! I've heard of these kinds of things before, but this time they really seem to have done it right! I'm excited. I feel I can somewhat confidently say that no one needs this more than me. :-)

2013-03-08 06:47:00 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 26 +1s)

Auditioning for the back of the box.

2013-03-08 03:53:53 (8 comments, 4 reshares, 10 +1s)

Umm wow... that's quite a cast of musicians they assembled for this dumb video! The "accordion guy" is AMAZING. #postalservice  

2013-03-08 00:43:15 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

National Geographic on de-extinction

A nifty website has gone live, showcasing some of the issues and information around bringing back extinct species.  This is National Geographic’s workup for the TEDxDeExtinction event March 15 in Washington DC.  It’s what I and my wife Ryan Phelan have been working on for the last few months.

2013-03-07 23:38:57 (3 comments, 4 reshares, 13 +1s)

Jupiter and the Sun are the two largest objects in our Solar System, and as they orbit around one another, they create regions where their gravity roughly cancels out. These are the Lagrangian points, created whenever two objects orbit one another: places where gravity is such that another small object can follow along in the orbit without being pulled in or out. And since things aren't getting pulled out of there, they get stuck in there as well: and so we have two large clumps of asteroids (and miscellaneous smaller space debris) in Jupiter's orbit. These are called the Trojan Asteroids; the group ahead of Jupiter is known as the Greek Camp, and the group behind it the Trojan Camp, with the asteroids in each camp being named after famous people in that war. Together, these two camps have as many asteroids as the Asteroid Belt.

Other stable patterns are possible, too: another one is... more »

2013-03-06 17:22:07 (21 comments, 2 reshares, 14 +1s)

Six board games that ruined it for everyone... and what you should play instead! I love this (even if it does predictably plug the most overrated game ever). :7

2013-03-05 04:04:57 (11 comments, 11 reshares, 8 +1s)

This is amazing. I listened to the entire thing.

2013-03-04 00:44:29 (42 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Hey Mountain View area folks. I'm trying to convince myself that I'm a fish eater (as part of my attempt to cut out red meat). Do you have any restaurant recommendations where the fish is so delicious I will actually want to eat it?

(Apologies to everyone non-local, please ignore....)

2013-03-01 07:59:07 (2 comments, 4 reshares, 23 +1s)

This is spreading around the net like wildfire but I have to share it anyway because I think it might be the most adorable letter ever written.

http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/19buna/i_am_a_ranger_in_yosemite_national_park_and/

(Lots of amusing comments in there, too.)

2013-02-27 18:31:35 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Missed this, somehow. Oh yay. 

"Catholic institutions across the nation are merging with secular hospitals, clinics, and even small private practices at an unprecedented rate. Optimists explain that the consolidation and shared infrastructure help reduce costs. Pessimists point out that the aggressive mergers come at a time when Catholic bishops are exerting and expanding their authority. 'I see it as a conscious effort to achieve through the private market what they failed to achieve through the courts or at the ballot box,' says Monica Harrington, a San Juan Island resident who's spent the last year fighting a Catholic hospital in her town."

2013-02-27 18:55:47 (16 comments, 4 reshares, 11 +1s)

Here's a first draft of a simple cryptography activity I've cooked up for my (4th and 5th grade)  #math olympiad kids to try. It could prove to be a disaster. :-) Any thoughts or advice?

2013-02-27 15:13:26 (12 comments, 4 reshares, 13 +1s)

HA! I TOLD EVERYONE THIS WAS THE RIGHT WAY AND NOBODY LISTENED!

2013-02-27 03:59:10 (1 comments, 2 reshares, 9 +1s)

Here's a song that I play and enjoy. #Johnnycash  

2013-02-26 04:23:15 (6 comments, 6 reshares, 36 +1s)

You are either in love with Jennifer Lawrence, or you haven't seen this insanely charming interview yet. There is no third possibility.

2013-02-28 16:50:09 (38 comments, 1 reshares, 19 +1s)

Do we like this "honor society" thing?

I've gotten into a small snafu with my daughters' school principal, in that the principal believed I had agreed to volunteer in tonight's National Honor Society induction (for 5th graders) and I actually hadn't. The problem could be easily resolved by my just agreeing to do it. But what I was unprepared for is the sudden need to hastily figure out how I feel about this whole "honor society" notion.

Because the fact of the matter is: I hate it.

I'm all for recognizing kids for their passion for math, or the creative things they write, or their superior play on the soccer field, their inventive science fair project, heartfelt performance on the violin, or any of a million great things that kids do. But this "honor society" business is something else, isn't it? What are they... more »

2013-02-24 20:53:10 (1 comments, 2 reshares, 9 +1s)

Ode to a Flower

From the 1981 BBC interview with Richard Feynman, 'The Pleasure of Finding Things Out'.

(Watch the whole interview here: Richard Feynman - The Pleasure Of Finding Things Out)

Animation by Fraser Davidson.

Good morning, #ScienceSunday  / +ScienceSunday !

2013-02-24 16:47:52 (2 comments, 5 reshares, 16 +1s)

LEGO popup house

I have build a lot of LEGO constructions in my life, but this is really amazing!

2013-02-24 00:27:30 (15 comments, 4 reshares, 0 +1s)

I've only read 13 of them! (Another 13 were already on my list.)

2013-02-23 06:41:15 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Did you miss today's episode of Sword & Laser? Watch it now! Don't forget to leave your comments about February's book! February Book Club: Bridge of Birds Wrap-Up & Your Feedback!

2013-02-23 06:14:09 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Why yes, this is a ballet based on the Shins' "Oh, Inverted World." Strange as that may sound, I thought it was pretty good!

2013-02-22 22:31:08 (0 comments, 3 reshares, 5 +1s)

Apparently CFA really did stop funding the hate groups!?

2013-02-20 05:09:17 (5 comments, 5 reshares, 3 +1s)

Wow! If you're a Belle & Sebastian fan, drop everything and WATCH THIS NOW.

2013-02-19 04:16:51 (0 comments, 12 reshares, 19 +1s)

Today, +David Archer and +STEM Women on G+ shared some things about Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, the first person to earn a Ph.D. from Radcliffe College, and later the chair of Harvard's department of Astronomy. However, her work is largely unknown today – and having just spent an hour reading through some of it, this is something which needs to be fixed.

Her most critical work was actually her Ph.D. thesis in 1925, in which she calculated the chemical composition of the stars. (http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1925PhDT.........1P/0000001.000.html – thanks to +Rajini Rao for finding the link. Be warned, it's long!) The use of spectroscopy to determine which elements are present in the stars had started in the 1860's (and had led to the discovery of Helium), but figuring out how much of those elements is present was much more complicated. The idea is simple: each element(and e... more »

2013-02-18 21:50:56 (1 comments, 2 reshares, 9 +1s)

2013-02-17 06:06:43 (2 comments, 3 reshares, 6 +1s)

Awesome discussion of love in many forms.

2013-02-16 19:52:08 (1 comments, 4 reshares, 14 +1s)

Love-birds: The poignant pictures that show how penguins fall in love and start a family in a way that's utterly human -http://bit.ly/W1jP5V

2013-02-16 01:33:12 (2 comments, 19 reshares, 38 +1s)

Japanese artist Nagai Hideyuki is a master of fine art illusion who first impressed us with his perspective-based sketches last year. The illustrator has since expanded his collection of clever creations, once again boggling our minds with his skilled illusion techniques. The 3D illustration specialist manages to produce anamorphic illusions across flat surfaces, often by lining up two sketchbooks perpendicular to one another. His playful imagination introduces a cast of creative characters jumping off the page and making their way into the real world.
http://nagaihideyuki.deviantart.com/