12/13/16

12/13/16

News

• Trump picks Exxon chief Rex Tillerson as next U.S. secretary of state
• Cuba Allows Google to Install Servers and Provide faster Internet Access
• Canada should allow people aged 18 and up to buy recreational marijuana through a wide range of retail options, according to a government-commissioned report that lays out groundwork for legalizing the drug

Science

• An aerosol to cool the Earth. Harvard researchers have identified an aerosol that in theory could be injected into the stratosphere to cool the planet from greenhouse gases, while also repairing ozone damage.
• Google teaming up with UK startup Improbable in ambitious attempt to recreate the world in VRTesla completes another microgrid project with Powerpacks – powering an island in North Carolina

Showerthoughts

• If I get up 10 minutes earlier than usual, I treat it like 2 extra hours and end up late for work.
• As a kid my parents taught me to not believe everything I see on TV, now I have to teach them to not believe everything they see on Facebook.
• Every time I watch a scene from a movie of two people in a car I always watch the background to see if they are really driving or not.

Cool Images

• There's treasure everywhere
• Trippy art in London
• Confusing perspective

11/27/16

11/27/16

News

• Six people file complaint after Minneapolis officer shoots into car during downtown brawl
• Switzerland Votes to Keep Nuclear
• Marijuana advocates sceptical about Canada path to legal pot

Science

• Two teenage girls built Africa's first-ever private satellite - In May 2017, Africa will launch its first private satellite into space
• Theory that challenges Einstein's physics could soon be put to the test - Scientists behind a theory that the speed of light is variable - and not constant as Einstein suggested - have made a prediction that could be tested
• As contactless payments are on the rise, the use of cash in Sweden is declining and it is on the brink of becoming the world's first country to use digital only money

Showerthoughts

• There should be a millennial edition of Monopoly where you just walk round the board paying rent, never able to buy anything.
• If Apple owned the ISS it would spell disaster for other spacecraft that wanted to dock with it.
• A person with actual psychic powers would more likely be found working on Wall Street than working as a fortune teller.

Cool Images

• Tilt shift
• Fire fighting from the sky
• Food peeling machines

11/23/16

11/23/16

News

• Porn websites in the UK will be banned from showing a huge range of sex acts under new law
• It's Over: Volkswagen Says It Will Never Sell Another Diesel in the U.S.
• Massive paedophile ring uncovered by police in Norway after arrest of 51 men

Science

• Finland set to become first country to ban coal use for energy
• India aims to build 1 terrawatt of global solar power – four times the current worldwide total – and become a 100% electric vehicle nation by 2030. Those are great ambitions, but they still far short from what is needed for a true energy transformation away from coal
• Tesla powers a whole island with solar to show off its energy chops

Showerthoughts

• What if Socrates was being literal when he said "I know nothing" and the Socratic Method was just him asking questions because he had no idea what was going on?
• My "I'll be home in 5 minutes" and my wife's "I'll be ready in 5 minutes" is the same thing.
• Redbull seems to sponsor the activities you would least likely to get drowsy doing.

Cool Images

• Pipe bender
• Wet cherries collide
• 200mph

11/22/16

11/22/16

News

• No Evidence of Aloe Vera Found in the Aloe Vera at Wal-Mart, CVS: Wal-Mart, Target, CVS sell aloe without appearance of plant
• Turkey's PM withdraws bill that would pardon men who sexually abuse underage girls if they marry the victims
• The richest 1% of Indians now own 58.4% of wealth

Science

• Obama Says Fake News Is Impeding Progress on Climate Change: "There was a baseline of facts that we could all work off of. And now we just don't have that"
• Tired of reading about climate change? Let's solve it...and create 2.8 million jobs.
• Donald Trump Says He Has ‘Open Mind’ on Climate Change Accord

Showerthoughts

• If someone offered to pay for my food and rent for the next 18 years, I'd do anything they ask of me. But I complained every time I took the trash out while living at my parent's house.
• When someone says there may be aliens in other galaxies, I'm inclined to believe them. When someone says they have proof, I think they're full of crap.
• Thinking my cat was simple minded for being entertained by string. Only to realize I was being entertained by a cat playing with a string.

Cool Images

• Perfect demolition
• West Scotland rare white rainbow
• Under the bridge

11/21/16

11/21/16

News

• Police, citing ‘ongoing riot,’ use water cannons on Dakota Access protesters in freezing weather
• 7.3 Magnitude Earthquake hits Fukushima, Japan. 3 Meter Tsunami warning at this time (22 November, 2016, 5:59am)
• UK Government Confirm Move to Force ISPs into Blocking “Adult” Sites

Science

• Tesla officially acquires SolarCity
• Modular Exoskeleton reduces muscle force need for hard labor by 2.5 times, workplace version available now and medical version in early 2018
• Why president Trump can’t squash the innovating, job creating, money saving clean energy industry: "79% of Americans would like to see more emphasis on domestic solar energy production. Over 80 major companies have committed to the goal of 100% renewable energy."

Showerthoughts

• My parents taught me to be kind and humble, honest and hardworking, and to save an unnecessary ton of plastic bags under the sink.
• Parking meters are just a convenient way to pay rent on a small plot of land.
• I spend most of my time at work to pay rent for a place that I hardly see because I'm at work.

Cool Images

• Trippy images
• Stunning Persian architecture
• Dark side of the loom

11/16/16

11/16/16

News

• British woman arrested on 'extra-marital sex' charges after reporting gang rape to police in Dubai as attackers go free
• Researchers And Politicians Slam The War On Drugs As A Failure - " over $100 billion is spent each year on trying to enforce prohibition, but with very little effect. In 2014, around one in 20 adults around the world are thought to have used some sort of illegal drug"
• China websites block searches for 'Fatty Kim the Third'

Science

• Snowden: We are becoming too dependent on Facebook as a news source; "To have one company that has enough power to reshape the way we think, I don’t think I need to describe how dangerous that is"
• Scientists from the National Institutes of Health have identified an antibody from an HIV-infected person that potently neutralized 98% of HIV isolates tested, including 16 of 20 strains resistant to other antibodies of the same class, for development to potentially treat or prevent HIV infection
• What Happens When You Give Basic Income to the Poor? Canada Is About to Find Out

Showerthoughts

• "Smoking or non-smoking" will eventually refer more to marijuana than to cigarettes.
• The speed of light is basically just the fastest the universe can render.
• The craziest prediction that the tv show "The Jetsons" made about life that far in the future was that a man could still support a middle class family of 4 by working in a factory.

Cool Images

• Zipline surfing
• Beauty of nature
• Bad posture

11/15/16

11/15/16

News

• West Virginia official who called 'Michelle Obama an 'Ape in Heels' fired following outcry
• Google will soon ban fake news sites from using its ad network - Cutting off their revenue streams
• China Warns Trump against Abandoning Climate Change Deal, Increases Climate Change Aid to Developing Countries to $ 3.1b

Science

• China will soon trump America: The country is now the global leader in climate change reform
• Florida's Amendment 1 defeat shows why solar won't be stopped, Trump or no Trump
• Michigan becomes the first state to allow driverless cars without a human driver or steering wheel

Showerthoughts

• The 5 second youtube ads are genius, I will watch those and even like what's being advertised. 30 second ones where you can't skip make me hate whatever product is being advertised.
• Monopoly is basically Dungeons and Dragons for accountants.
• Parents used to say 'don't believe everything you read on the internet.' Now if I ask my dad a question his first response is 'google it.'

Cool Images

• Strange painting
• Volcanic eruption and meteorite
• Underwater tiger

11/14/16

11/14/16

News

• Barbed wire stretched across bike path left cyclist having to pull it from around his throat
• Two-thirds of the world's internet users live under government censorship - report: China ranked as the worst abuser of internet freedom for the second consecutive year, followed by Syria and Iran
• Muslim-majority Bangladesh to drop Islam as state religion for strategic reasons 'when time comes': Ruling Awami League leader

Science

• Dan Rather: Now, More Than Ever, We Must Stand Up for Science
• First home-use brain implant allows ALS patient to communicate in everyday life
• Forget Mars, Trump Wants NASA To Visit Jupiter'€™s Moon Europa And Explore The Solar System

Showerthoughts

• Every time I save my game I choose "create new save", thinking I might go back to them at some point, but never do.
• I'm old enough to miss the days when I couldn't be reached at a moments notice.
• We are planning to sustain life on Mars yet we can't even do that in 3rd world country's on Earth.

Cool Images

• NYC at night
• Horsetail falls
• Wavy

11/13/16

11/13/16

News

• Climate change has destroyed half of Japan’s major coral reef
• 108-year-old Cubs fan died six days after celebrating second World Series win
• Powerful 7.4 earthquake strikes near Christchurch, New Zealand

Science

• This Week in Science
• First home brain implant lets ‘locked-in’ woman play games: "A paralysed woman has learned to use a brain implant to communicate by thought alone. It is the first time a brain–computer interface has been used at home in a person’s day-to-day life"
• Britain Says It Will Ditch Coal Power By 2025

Showerthoughts

• A zoo is a really safe place to fart.
• I'm glad dogs can't read the "no dogs allowed" signs so they don't feel sad and left out.
• I feel like every year there is a "the moon only looks like this every 100 years" event.

Cool Images

• Loop rail
• Planet Earth pilot
• Impressive car climb

11/12/16

11/12/16

News

• Judge orders door-to-door water delivery for Flint residents
• South L.A. teacher caught on audio telling students their parents would be deported
• Lego ends advertising with Daily Mail after calls for companies to 'Stop Funding Hate'

Science

• A systematic review of 63 reports confirms that a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and mortality rates are possible by shifting current Western diets to a variety of more sustainable dietary patterns, such as a reduction in animal-based food, finds UK researchers
• China warns Trump against abandoning climate change deal
• Google’s DeepMind AI grasps basic laws of physics

Showerthoughts

• My dad used to say that if I didn't watch any television news, I would be ignorant and uninformed. Now I think my dad is ignorant and uninformed for watching too much television news.
• My clothes have been to countries I haven't.
• Even immortals do not know what it is like to live forever.

Cool Images

• Changing Lincoln
• Amazing street art
• Same pixels, different order.

11/8/16

11/8/16

News

• Orlando to buy Pulse nightclub, turn it into memorial
• Netflix Will Allow Offline Viewing, Just Not For US Customers
• Indian rupee ₹500 and ₹1000 abolished from midnight by India

Science

• Tesla plans to choose location for ‘Gigafactory 2’ in Europe next year, will produce both batteries and cars
• Expert: When an AI Invents Something, It Should be Credited as the Inventor
• Robots are taking more factory jobs than Mexico or China

Showerthoughts

• Whenever there's a hold-up in the drive-thru line I never blame the employees for being slow, I always assume it's the customer's fault for ordering too much or something too complicated for the drive-thru.
• 8 years ago I would not have bought a phone where you couldn't change the ringtone, now I think I've had the same default ringtone for 5 years.
• Millions of people have accidentally made a human, but no one has accidentally made a muffin.

Cool Images

• Flowerbed
• Sea monster
• Big silly birds

11/5/16

11/5/16

News

• US Jewish groups declare support for Standing Rock protest
• Netflix Will Allow Offline Viewing, Just Not For US Customers
• Iceland’s president turns down a monthly pay increase of 5,300 USD

Science

• Elon Musk: The Model 3 Will Incorporate Tesla’s Solar Roof Technology
• Elon Musk thinks we need a 'popular uprising' against fossil fuels
• These New Solar Panels from Tesla are looking slick. They might just even look better than normal shingles.

Showerthoughts

• When people think about travelling to the past, they worry about accidentally changing the present, but no one in the present really thinks they can radically change the future
• Someone should make a documentary where they fly a Flat Earth theory supporter to space station for a couple of days.
• For once I would like to see an action movie where half way through it the hero dies and we get to see what the villain does when he conquers the world.

Cool Images

• Holovect
• Interesting wall
• FlexSys morphing wing

11/3/16

11/3/16

News

• Montana Supreme Court says citizens have a right to trial by jury before the state can take private property in civil forfeiture cases
• Lafayette, LA quietly introduces its tax on solar panel users--$26/month total
• UK government must consult Parliament before triggering Article 50 to leave EU, High Court rules

Science

• Elon Musk Says Advanced A.I. Could Take Down the Internet: "Only a Matter of Time."
• New Alzheimer's Drug Clears Milestone in Human Clinical Trial
• TedX talk making the case for orbital space colonization and speaker made the most detailed space colony simulator ever

Showerthoughts

• '58 was 58 years ago for 58 more days.
• As a kid, 99.9% of the times I cried was due to physical pain. As an adult, 99.9% of the times I have cried was due to emotional pain.
• Aliens finding "Never Gonna Give You Up" on the Voyager Golden Record would have been the greatest rickroll ever.

Cool Images

• Cave cliff jumping
• World's heaviest aerial firework
• This guy predicted the 2016 world series 2 years ago in a tweet

10/31/16

10/31/16

News

• Chicago school cancels 'Christian' haunted house that depicted Pulse nightclub massacre for Halloween
• Mass protest in Seoul against South Korean President
• The South Korean President has been under the control of a Shadow Cabal of 8 oligarchs

Science

• Elon Musk unveils solar roof with textured glass titles that look like traditional roofing tiles
• Newly Developed Transistors Use Such Low Amounts Of Power That They Can Function Without a Battery for Years
• One factory can produce 60 million mosquitoes per week that are genetically engineered to destroy other mosquitoes. Early tests "showed the population of wild Aedes aegypti insects dropped by 90 percent after the mutant mosquitoes were released."

Showerthoughts

• Earth is like a guy who knows exactly where to stand next to a bonfire.
• 10 years ago we all wanted cool ringtones. Now we all just use the standard one.
• Facebook is just a Pokédex for people.

Cool Images

• Nuclear bomb immediately after being detonated
• Frozen pond
• Wiggles

10/29/16

10/29/16

News

• North Dakota pipeline activists say arrested protesters were kept in dog kennels
• Mass protest in Seoul against South Korean President
• The South Korean President has been under the control of a Shadow Cabal of 8 oligarchs

Science

• Elon Musk unveils solar roof with textured glass titles that look like traditional roofing tiles
• Newly Developed Transistors Use Such Low Amounts Of Power That They Can Function Without a Battery for Years
• One factory can produce 60 million mosquitoes per week that are genetically engineered to destroy other mosquitoes. Early tests "showed the population of wild Aedes aegypti insects dropped by 90 percent after the mutant mosquitoes were released."

Showerthoughts

• Earth is like a guy who knows exactly where to stand next to a bonfire.
• 10 years ago we all wanted cool ringtones. Now we all just use the standard one.
• Facebook is just a Pokédex for people.

Cool Images

• Nuclear bomb immediately after being detonated
• Frozen pond
• Wiggles

10/27/16

10/27/16

News

• Texas school district spends $12m in surplus money on football stadium, forgets it needs to build elementary school
• Berkeley protesters form human chain to stop white students from getting to class
• Iran's top Quran reciter to face court over child rapes, "threatened to leak the names of 100 of Iran’s high profile officials also implicated in raping and molesting children"

Science

• A $100m initiative to listen for signals from alien life is targeting a star with an unusual dimming pattern. The Breakthrough Initiative, backed by Prof Stephen Hawking and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, will train a US radio telescope on a target called Tabby's Star
• A desert area of 38 km^2 in inner Mongolia, Chinna was turned into grassland using cyanobacteria. Same method would be tried on Mars for terraforming
• Dutch unveil giant outside vacuum cleaner to filter dirty air: "The system is said to be able to suck in air from a 300m radius – and from up to 7 kms upwards. It could treat some 800,000 cubic metres of air an hour, filtering out 100% of fine particles and 95% of ultra-fine particles"

Showerthoughts

• Coffee should have a "caffeine by volume" rating like alcohol so I can choose how wired I really want to be when I buy coffee.
• If the "Six Million Dollar Man" show were set in the present day, instead of a bionic man it would just be a guy that had two knee replacements.
• Harry Potter would have been amazing if each book got a season in a Netflix series.

Cool Images

• Glacier caving
• Flash flood from above
• Hammer and feather gravity test on the Moon conducted by astronaut David Scott

10/26/16

10/26/16

News

• White House Urges Ban on Non-Compete Agreements
• Iran's top Quran reciter to face court over child rapes, "threatened to leak the names of 100 of Iran’s high profile officials also implicated in raping and molesting children"
• NATO calls for more troops for largest military build-up on Russia's borders since the Cold War

Science

• IBM's Watson was tested on 1,000 cancer diagnoses made by human experts. In 30 percent of the cases, Watson found a treatment option the human doctors missed. Some treatments were based on research papers that the doctors had not read. More than 160,000 cancer research papers are published a year
• New gene-editing technology successfully cures a genetic blood disorder in mice
• Google: Our Assistant Will Trigger the Next Era of AI

Showerthoughts

• Once she hits a certain age, calling a female a "big girl" goes from being a compliment to an insult.
• Why do the ninja turtles wear masks they're the only giant turtles around.
• A doctor is a veterinarian that only has to work on one species.

Cool Images

• If the machine was not spinning the ball would roll off
• 3D printed castle
• Michael van Straaten's Butterfly painting

10/25/16

10/25/16

News

• AT&T Is Spying on Americans for Profit, New Documents Reveal
• At least Four people killed in Horror Dreamworld Ride tragedy in Queensland Australia
• Norway welcomes US Marines amid Russian tensions

Science

• Uber Self-Driving Truck Packed With Budweiser Makes First Delivery in Colorado
• Renewables made up half of net electricity capacity added last year: "The cost of wind dropped by about one third in the last five to six years, and that of solar dropped by 80%"
• Could an Astronaut's Corpse Bring New Life to Another World? Three scientists (a Nobel-winning geneticist, a chemist, and a microbial biologist) agree that a corpse could indeed seed life across the cosmos in two distinct ways

Showerthoughts

• When you catch a leaf falling from a tree, you're holding something that has never touched the ground.
• Most of the time when a pickup line 'works', it was actually just said by a good looking person.
• The person who invented swimming was the first person who didn't drown.

Cool Images

• Stunt plane stabilized camera
• Character creator cup
• Winter in Estonia

10/24/16

10/24/16

News

• Oklahoma shootings: Gunman on loose with AK-47 after killing two people and shooting two police officers
• Ex-CEO of red light camera firm sentenced to 14 months for bribery
• Venezuelan Congress Declares That President Maduro Has Staged a Coup

Science

• Coal will not recover | Coal does not have a regulation problem, as the industry claims. Instead, it has a growing market problem, as other technologies are increasingly able to produce electricity at lower cost. And that trend is unlikely to end
• India’s solar power set to outshine coal
• An artificial intelligence system has correctly predicted the outcomes of hundreds of cases heard at the European Court of Human Rights, researchers have claimed. The AI predicted the verdicts to an accuracy of 79%, according to the scientists involved.

Showerthoughts

• A telephone makes sound travel faster than the speed of sound.
• You could just post a picture of a random object and say it's cake and people would be super impressed.
• Calling yourself a hacker for executing a DDoS is like calling yourself a lock picker because you blew up a door with dynamite.

Cool Images

• 3D kitchen ad
• Two trains on three tracks
• Saw Scaled Viper

10/23/16

10/23/16

News

• Man killed wife's father and sister to lure her to their funeral, then murdered her at the service
• China wants to give all of its citizens a score – and their rating could affect every area of their lives: The Communist Party wants to encourage good behaviour by marking all its people using online data. Those who fall short will be denied basic freedoms like loans or travel
• Chinese gang kidnaps and cripples children, forces them to beg on streets of Malaysia

Science

• Spain aiming for 100 per cent renewable energy: "Enough wind energy is being generated in Spain to power more than 29 million homes every day, according to one of the country's biggest renewable energy companies."
• City banks plan to hoard bitcoins to help them pay cyber ransoms: "Experts say blue chip companies have decided it’s cheaper to deal with extortionists than risk damaging attacks"
• The Little-Known Company That Enables Worldwide Mass Surveillance: "technology that allows its clients to “monitor, intercept and capture 100% of traffic on networks.” The Auckland-based company’s motto is “power to see all” and its logo is an eye."

Showerthoughts

• If a stranger insults me, I'l probably ignore it, as their opinion is meaningless. If a stranger compliments me, I'll probably treasure it, as their opinion is important.
• The last person I would want giving me love and marriage advice during my wedding ceremony is a priest that has lived a life of celibacy.
• The only reason I know about Aleppo is because Gary Johnson didn't.

Cool Images

• Escaping death
• Barkour
• The throne of St. Peter

10/19/16

10/19/16

News

• Record high 60 percent of Americans back legal pot, poll finds
• Feeding cows seaweed could slash global greenhouse gas emissions, researchers say: "They discovered adding a small amount of dried seaweed to a cow's diet can reduce the amount of methane a cow produces by up to 99 per cent"
• Finland is becoming increasingly worried about what it sees as Russian propaganda against it, including Russian questioning about the legality of its 1917 independence. The country shares a 1,340 km (833 mile) border and a difficult and bloody history with Russia, of which it was once a part

Science

• Migraines could be caused by gut bacteria, study suggests: "In the future, the researchers said, it might be possible to “have a magical probiotic mouthwash” that would alter the balance of bacteria to help prevent migraines"
• A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing
• Google has more than 1,000 artificial intelligence projects in the works

Showerthoughts

• Putting soymilk into coffee is putting beanwater into a different kind of beanwater.
• In some countries people are broke and don't even have clean drinking water and in my country we have fountains in public places that spew clean water and people just throw their unwanted money into it.
• Having a video not load after watching an entire ad, is like the equivalent of having a vending machine eat your money.

Cool Images

• Octopus kite
• Front foot of a male diving beetle
• Converging rivers in Geneva, Switzerland