Belgian-born mathematician Jaques Tits passed away on Sunday, December 5th, leaving behind a legacy of research in group theory and geometry. His tendency to name his contributions after himself suggests that he knew his power.
He won the Abel Prize in 2008, an award created in 1899 after a Norwegian mathematician learned that Alfred Nobel would not give out a prize in mathematics. — Read the rest
If only the USA had this compilation during Operation Nifty Package.
— Read the restOperation Nifty Package was a United States Delta and Navy SEAL-operated plan conducted in 1989 designed to capture Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega. When Noriega took refuge in the Apostolic Nunciature of the Holy See (diplomatic quarter), deafening music and other psychological warfare tactics were used to convince him to exit and surrender himself.
The post is a couple of years old, but I can't stop looking at Ritchie Roesch's hand-distressed but otherwise brand-new Fujifilm camera. Other photographers he talked to think he's bonkers, but Roesch explains himself very well, I think. He did a good job of it and if we're being honest with ourselves we all know he could sell the result for a profit. — Read the rest
Food scientist Ann Reardon debunks viral food videos, including content farm click-bait food videos that have misleading thumbnail images, impossible-to-recreate recipes, and narration about murder and child abuse.
She starts the latest episode by trying to replicate a method to toast a marshmallow in a waffle iron but ends up with a hard-to-clean, sticky mess. — Read the rest
When Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes took the stand last week (on trial "for 11 counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud"), she submitted four hand-written pages of notes that included a breathless to-do list more suitable for robots than humans. — Read the rest
It's been a while since I visited Exit Mundi, Maarten Keulemans' collection of darkly amusing apocalypses that might befall humankind, from nuclear war to meteorite impacts. The site is turning 20 years old this year, and many of its scenarios center on millennial-era concerns: peak oil, terrorism, The Greenhouse Effect, the Borg. — Read the rest
Over the last two decades, the city of Los Angeles has averaged about 300 homicides per year, out of population that currently sits just under 4 million. But according to a new study from UCLA, more than five times as many Angelenos died on the city streets during this pandemic (specifically, between March 2020 and July 2021). — Read the rest
