Working for Your Beer

The Economist has a post comparing how long the average worker in various countries has to work to buy a beer.  It varies from nearly an hour in India to about five minutes in the US.

The Drake Equation

Presumably you are all familiar with the Drake Equation which lets you calculate to probability of intelligent alien life.  The BBC has a webpage that lets you play around with the various figures in the equation and see how many alien civilizations you would end up with.

Video of Mark Twain

Kottke.org has a post with a video of the only known film footage of Mark Twain.

Drivers in France Must Carry Breathalyzers

The Telegraph reports that drivers in France now have to carry two(!) single-use breathalysers in their cars at all times.  I didn't even know there was such a thing as a single-use breathalyser.

Are You Too Old for the Olympics

The Washington Post has an article that will show you which Olympic sports you are still young enough for.

People Used to Sleep Twice As Often

According to the BBC, the idea of sleeping right through the night is a fairly modern one.  Apparently in antiquity people would sleep for a few hours in the early evening then get up for a few hours then go back to bed.

His book At Day's Close: Night in Times Past, published four years later, unearths more than 500 references to a segmented sleeping pattern - in diaries, court records, medical books and literature, from Homer's Odyssey to an anthropological account of modern tribes in Nigeria.

Much like the experience of Wehr's subjects, these references describe a first sleep which began about two hours after dusk, followed by waking period of one or two hours and then a second sleep. 

Words We Don't Have in English

I think I may have blogged about this sort of thing before but I liked this list of foreign words that we don't have in English.

Some favourites:

Arigata-meiwaku (Japanese): An act someone does for you that you didn’t want to have them do and tried to avoid having them do, but they went ahead anyway, determined to do you a favor, and then things went wrong and caused you a lot of trouble, yet in the end social conventions required you to express gratitude

 Ilunga (Tshiluba, Congo): A person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time

 L’esprit de l’escalier (French): usually translated as “staircase wit,” is the act of thinking of a clever comeback when it is too late to deliver it

 Pena ajena (Mexican Spanish): The embarrassment you feel watching someone else’s humiliation

Evolution of Basketball Uniforms

Dubly has an infographic showing the evolution of the proffessional basketball uniform.  Interestingly it has been getting larger since the 1960s'.

via Flowing Data

2011 Census Map

Global News has a Google Map showing newly released information from the 2011 Canadian census.  You can finally find out for example what percentage of people in your neighbourhood are female.

via Google Maps Mania

Photo: A Dog Dressed as Two Pirates

I'm not really sure how to categorise this but on Twitter we have a photo of, well, a dog dressed as two pirates.

The Shadow of an Eclipse

Astronomy Picture of the Day has a photo of the Earth during the recent annular eclipse.  You can see the shadow of the moon quite clearly.

Apple I For Sale

According to Digital Trends, Sotheby's are auctioning off a working Apple I computer.  It is expected to go for more than $120,000.

Guinness-only QR Code

The dieline has a post about a new pint glass from Guinness with a QR code that can only be read when the glass is full of stout.  If the glass is empty or the contents are amber colour then the code is not readable.

via boing-boing

Youth Mortality

The Economist has a chart showing death rates and causes for 10-24 year-olds in various countries around the world.  It is interesting to compare not just the total death rates - twice as high in the US than in Singapore - but also the differences in the causes - the violence and suicide figures vary hugely.

How Hard is that Language?

Not entirely sure of the source here but here is an info-graphic showing the difficulty ratings assigned to various languages (from the point of view of an English speaker) by the US Foreign Service Institute.

via LifeHacker

Maps of Wikipedia

Trace Media has a post with some maps generated by plotting the locations associated with Wikipedia entries.  It is amazing how similar they look to nighttime pictures of the Earth.

via infosthetics

Obit: The Girl in the Wallet Photo

I always find it interesting to read about people who had minor roles in historical events.  In this case the Telegraph has the obituary of Jean Gerard Leigh her picture was used as part of the false identity created during the Second World War for a body placed in the sea for the Germans to find with a set of false invasion plans in a briefcase locked to its wrist.  Operation Mincemeat fooled the Germans into leaving Sicily lightly defended before the Allied invasion.

World Population Density

Derek  Watkins has a neat little page that lets you slide a slider to see which parts of the world have a particular population density.

via Flowing Data

Airship Photo-gallery

The Telegraph has a nice photo gallery in an article about a huge sale of airship memorabilia.

Lego Math Building

An excellent micro-scale Lego model of the Math Building at the University of Waterloo.

via The Brothers Brick