Monthly Archives: November 2015

It’s all relative

Washington Post: This high school student just won $250,000 for his film explaining Einstein’s theory of relativity.

“Ohio high school senior Ryan Chester became the inaugural winner of a new college scholarship on Sunday night, winning $250,000 for his 7-minute film that uses simple props and hand-drawn graphics to explain Einstein’s special theory of relativity.

Besides winning that money for himself, Chester also won $100,000 for a new science lab at his school in the Cleveland suburbs, North Royalton High, and $50,000 for his physics teacher, Richard Nestoff. […]

The scholarship is the newest award in the family of Breakthrough Prizes, which are meant to celebrate the importance of science and recognize brilliance in the fields of math, biology and physics. Founded three years ago by Silicon Valley giants […] the Breakthrough Prize offers awards ranging from $100,000 for promising early-career achievements to $3 million for scientists who have made fundamental discoveries about the world.”

IFL Science: Teenager Wins $400,000 For His Video Explaining Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.

Here’s the video on YouTube: Breakthrough Junior Challenge: Some Cool Ways of Looking at the Special Theory of Relativity, by Ryan Chester.

More than a century

The Washington Post: Meet two amazing women who are still working at the age of 102. Yes, 102. “Everyone asks the centenarians: “What’s your secret?“ The answer is pretty simple: work.”

Of my grandparents, my grandmothers died at ages 88 and 91, one grandfather died in his seventies of diabetes and his unwillingness to take medication for it, and the other grandfather is still alive and quite well at 92, so we’ll see how long I’ll be able to make it. The women in the article are certainly people out of whose book I might take a leaf.

Link via MetaFilter.

Happy 30th Anniversary, Calvin & Hobbes!

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the first Calvin & Hobbes comic by Bill Watterson.

International Business Times: Calvin And Hobbes Anniversary 2015: Best Strips By Bill Watterson, 30 Years Later. (Warning, ad video with sound will automatically start playing.)

ABC 11: ‘Calvin and Hobbes” turns 30! Here’s what you didn’t know about the iconic comic strip.

Time: Calvin and Hobbes First Met 30 Years Ago.

Huffington Post: Calvin And Hobbes Started Adventuring Together 30 Years Ago Today.

If you’re looking for a specific Calvin and Hobbes comic, may I suggest the Calvin and Hobbes Extensive Strip Search: C.H.E.S.S..

Here’s my favorite comic strip about teachers:

Previously on Serendipita.

Ads that use inaudible sound

If this is true, I’m going to knit myself a tinfoil hat. And one for my laptop, and one for my tablet, and one for my cellphone.

Ars Technica: Beware of ads that use inaudible sound to link your phone, TV, tablet, and PC. “Privacy advocates warn feds about surreptitious cross-device tracking.” By Dan Goodin.

“The ultrasonic pitches are embedded into TV commercials or are played when a user encounters an ad displayed in a computer browser. While the sound can’t be heard by the human ear, nearby tablets and smartphones can detect it. When they do, browser cookies can now pair a single user to multiple devices and keep track of what TV commercials the person sees, how long the person watches the ads, and whether the person acts on the ads by doing a Web search or buying a product. Dan Goodin reports for Ars Technica on cross-device tracking software already in use today.”

Link via and discussion over at MetaFilter.

Undisclosed

In the past few days I got sucked into the Undisclosed podcast by Rabia Chaudry, Colin Miller and Susan Simpson, three lawyers. Chaudry is a friend of the Syed family.

“The Undisclosed Podcast is a listening experience that reframes, enhances or otherwise shifts everything you’ve come to know about the State of Maryland’s case against Adnan Syed, especially as you’ve come to know it through listening to Serial. […] Not only will we look at the evidence that was presented in Serial, but we will also provide new evidence that we’ve uncovered in our investigation. We have combed through police and court records that the Serial team did not possess during the podcast, and done much, much more to get to the truth. Accordingly, we aspire to present the best possible version of the events as we believe those events to be.”

I’ve finished the first seven episodes and addenda so far and am curious to hear what comes next.

Tonight I stumbled upon two videos of “The Docket” on MSNBC:

The Science Of ‘Serial’ Part I: Crime Scene, Part II: Autopsy. There is a prior episode as well, ‘Serial’ Podcast Breakdown: The Cellphone Mystery

For previous postings, see here.