Interesting stuff for our brains Created 12 years ago2012-05-13 18:29:53 UTC by Striker

Let me just start off with these youtube channels:

A nice way to keep up with the tons of interesting research projects/movements/causes/discoveries happening throughout the world.

Really cool thread, all thou i cant contribute attm.
Definitely checking out those sites/channels.

I've watched all of Sixty Symbols videos. They keep me motivated enough to go to Uni. Well I actually dropped out of uni about 2 months ago but I'm going back to my study of physics this year or the next. My point is, the channel is great.

http://youtu.be/DSbtkLA3GrY?hd=1

Perception of hip hop

I remember i met a Londoner in Jamaica who introdiced me to Akala. He was singing about how america's perception of england is so skewed. (Welcome to England) Was really deep but i never truly appreciated him - until now.
Im gonna go listen to that song again.

Check out Akala - Find no Enemy as well. It's fantastic.

This is the most amazing banana-instrument I've ever seen.
Here's the instructable for it.

The Mystery Of Empty Space

(I recommend ff to 1:15, to skip the boner intro)

How big is a billion? - Numberphile

That's strange... I always thought that "billionaire" would translate into "milliardaire" in my language. I thought these namings were standardized long before I was born. Good thing there's science.

I watched every video from the first to the last. It fascinates me.

Hahah. I didn't look at all the videos in that series, but I did end up going on a Wiki spree after watching that one. Started with the Sun ended up at interstellar & intergalactic travel about an hour later.

It never ceases to blow my mind. PFWOOOAAAAAAAH!!

Interesting facts about/with water
Water memory, filtering water, how to reduce poop splash... wait. Nevermind... It's an interesting watch though.

Big Think - Dr. Michio Kaku Playlist

@striker: that water memory thingie is very intriguing

What about some philosophy or whatever you call it?

I once came with this thought. What if life, I mean creatures like us that can see, hear and think about the universe would never exist, would the universe still do? Universe is the way we know it because of the way our fucking eyes work. If there wouldn't be anybody to look at it, wouldn't it be just a random mess of particles and waves without any beauty... Or the same as nothing.

@Bruce: If the universe only exists if we are around to observe it then it could never have come in to existence because we have only been around for but a insignificantly small fraction of time. The universe has been doing it's thing for a long time, didn't need us then, doesn't need us now.
That, if anything, proves that the universe is objective.

Yes, but that's not what I mean... If there wouldn't be somebody too see and hear it's beauty, why it would bother to be so beautiful...

Beauty is subjective, so no, it wouldn't have any beauty if there were no humans around to call it beautiful.

Although it would still be the same crazy particles zooming around.

It's like the purpose of the universe was to eventually form into a being that could be proud of itself... Have you ever noticed that the universe and human brain looks exactly the same?

Sounds kind of meaningless if you ask me. If the ultimate purpose is for the universe to be proud of itself, then whom has it got to show it's pride for?
Don't get me wrong though, I don't believe in any meaning or purpose.

Also, you will find that the similarity between the braincell and the universe slowly will fade away as the universe expands and slowly cools, eventually enough to not support life.

I wonder who took that photo of the universe.

That's a supposedly correct supercomputer simulation...

Hubble Ultra Deep Field, this is one of the most popular Universe images.
What you're talking about Bruce(the similarity between our neural network and the Universe) is predicted to happen if humanity will survive and will continue spreading in the Universe.

According to this prediction,

Planet-sized computers are being constructed throughout the Local Group of galaxies, with every available resource going towards their production. All of the "dead" worlds, comets, moons and asteroids considered uninhabitable are being converted into these machines, forming a vast network millions of light years across space. Each computer is capable of instant communications with any other, regardless of distance.

I extracted this paragraph from this site. By the way, that's an interesting read.

If that ever happens, the Universe will practically become "aware" of itself.

Anyway, here's what struck my mind lately. At this moment in time, we possess the technology to overcome Earth's gravity and escape into space. Later it is supposed that we'll have this imagined "Alcubierre" drive, or something similar.
What if in the distant future we'll attain sufficient knowledge to build a device that actually creates space and time fabric? What if using the appropriate technology and devices we would be able to escape this massive bubble that we call "Universe" in our own, artificial space and time fabric, and watch it from the outside? The question is, what would the "outside" be?( it is useless to think of the outside as a relative position to the universe, like for example "being 100 km above the Universe").

There is no such thing as consciousness or awareness. There is the awareness of a man, a monkey or a bee... If the whole universe would become a mind it wouldn't have what to be aware of...

I don't believe in space or time... We invented clocks.

Plan for the U.S.A.

1. make all drugs legal
2. from the tax revenue, build a giant collider
3. more of the important questions about our universe are answered
3a. profit
4. use the leftover change to build a proper space station with gravity, and a colossal ship to explore the solar system.
4a. profit once again
5. first porn movies are shot in space

Imagine if all countries pitched in and made that their top priority! We could have a space station the size of a small moon in no time!

Indeed blitz, and imagine the cool technical innovations that might have been, had we never slowed down and scaled back the space program after the lunar missions.

And what's then? There will never be anything better than Earth... What ur gonna do? Where ur gonna go? Think about it...

Well, I'm pretty sure UFO stuff exists. There can't be that many accounts of it for them to not exist.

In which case you could at least make it to anywhere in the solar system in less than half an hour assuming they go ~speed of light.

The material harvesting would make that pretty worth it methinks.

Meh, theres tons of accounts of Sasquatch and the dude who made that video came out and said it's his buddy in a gorilla suit. That's the dude's natural walk too, he just walks funny.

Its obvious that aliens exist somewhere but I doubt they've made it here.

Why come in the first place? Why not watch from a distance, with no risk of being caught at all? If we can see ourselves from space now, imagine how far alien tech could see us from!

Or maybe they can't see us because they don't have eyes...

Why not watch from a distance, with no risk of being caught

yeah, i bet they would have a predator-type, 3d telescope, or something they can use at a distatnce, but be capable of fully observing us up close. (bigfoot is totally real btw)

Bruce: idk, beyond to satisfy our natural instict to explore, we could perform a manned exploration of all planets and phenomenon in our solar system, and thus gain more insight into the origins of earth, for starters

I wasn't even considering aliens, heh. I'm pretty sure its our people piloting them.

Haha.. Bigfoot is bullshit. Today they are as rare as they were 100 years ago. In such populations any species would extinguish in a few years... People are you so stupid.

ya lol it was a big letdown for me to watch all the loch ness monster deubunking on youtube, and now there is so much evidence that it never existed, it's just really sad. (i mean, giant plesiosaurs existed, just not in the lock in or in our lifespan)

bigfoot on the otherhand is able to evade capture because he's psychic and highly intelligent. (not to be confused with the yeti, which is a whole other thing)

Get out of your little illusionary worlds and there won't be what to be sad about...

Dude wat

Any one can be able to calculate like that, or anything else for that matter if they have a passion for it, or train from a young age.

Stuff like that isnt really that special any more.

Remember, he's not memorizing, and since pi doesn't repeat normal people have to come up with a system to memorize the numbers, when it just comes naturally to him.

It was facinating to watch how he "sees" numbers, e.g., some numbers have movement, others are different colors and shapes, and some appear as bright light, and further their combinations are unique, up to 10,000 or so.

edit
just read the average/normal chinese person knows 6000-8000 distinct characters, so maybe you're right that is pretty comparable. (out of 80k characters total holy bejesus!)

This is called Synesthesia. He's a unique case in that while he apparently has this autistic genius in him, it doesn't get in the way of his life: he can socialize.

So it's like being autistic and not at the same time. Wonderful.

Programmers have difficulties with simple problems...
Link

Only most of them, heh.

Grim's proud because he can tie his shoes.

Nice thought on time Bruce. I feel like all we do is divide eternity mith machines.

It's an interesting thought if we didn't exist to observe our surroundings. I often think if the world would continue to go on if we all decided to quit reproducing and die off. Scientifically you could say it would, but it just seems strange.

Hell yeah I can!

It's funny you mention it though. I recently figured out that I've been tying my shoes incorrectly my entire life. I did the normal shoe tie, but it always ended up lop sided and uneven. It has worked fine, but it does have the tendency of coming untied. I've learned that you can fix it in the wrap-around/pull through phase simply by reversing the direction that you wrap around the loop. Now my shoes strings are balanced on both sides, and they don't come undone.

Seriously, give it a try if you're doing it wrong.

Edit: See http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/slipping.htm with pictures.

The mysteries of the universe of shoelace tying.

Heh, I also watched that episode. My first thought when I saw that creature was: "what a dick". Oh well...

I found an interesting site. It's Datagenics. It features a lot articles with a scientific approach to day-to-day problems. Like this counter-intuitive distribution of digits in statistics: Benford's Law.