Unconventional Way to Understand Basketball Part 1

Sci-Fi

Solaris (both versions), 2001: A Space Odyssey, Gattaca, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Alien (1979) are featured here for two things. One, all are great sci-fi movies. Second, they are great because their science is right. Right, Mr. Pasyon?

Aerogel

Hurray! A ten year old taught us how to make aerogels. What is aerogel? Hurray, millions of adults survive not knowing what aerogel is. Almost as pathetic as having a partner who has not read a book in years. Actually, I'm happy now. Just reviewed my spam cache and discovered that Mar Roxas had greedily added more media contacts than what is ethically permissible and is now considered a spam in my gmail and automatically enters my spam bin. Great!

Why Tom Hanks Heart Wilson the Volleyball

If you think this is the story of the Filipino referee who was caught taping (with his cellphone) female volleyball players of Ateneo showering, No. But according to my sources, he was not able to send it to his friends. He was a football referee, BTW, so he can not use "I thought they were hiding their pads there" excuse.
This is a about Castaway and why Tom Hanks loved Wilson. The University of Chicago said that lonely people (they brought their subjects to each of the Hundred Islands in Alaminos) tend to look for humanity in nonhuman things. "The team found a correlation between how lonely people felt and their tendency to describe a gadget in terms of humanlike mental states.”
The team is the UC team not the Ateneo female volleyball team. So no excuse for the referee either.

Sleepless in SMS

This is the title of the study: The Effects of 884 MHz GSM Wireless Communication Signals on Self-reported Symptom and Sleep (EEG)- An Experimental Provocation Study
Now, the "TEO884MHZGSMWCSOSSS(EEG)-AEPS for Idiots" : If you don't shut off your cellphone while sleeping, you will not sleep much. Or you will have headaches after. It's not even the messages, it's the signal.

14.8

That's the number of years that the wife should be younger than the husband to maximize the number of living offsprings to reach 18 years. This is Scientific American speaking, man, not FHM or Playboy. So our 1/2 plus 7 rule is even conservative. More details. The study was done in Sweden over two centuries. You can not dispute that! Purists, however, may say that the study was made on one group in Sweden and the records were culled from 16th and 17th century but who cares? He he he

The Tesla Christmas Tree

Our series of interesting Christmas tree leads us to Australia where this Tesla Christmas Tree was made. Tesla coil was of course named after that crazy genius Nikola Tesla and the coil is a combination of two or three coupled resonant electric circuits which shoot the sparks you often watch on sci-fi movies. This particular photo was made in 90 second exposure to complete the Yuletide sparks to outline the post, the tree and the star. It took 50 hours for Santa (the maker in an inflatable costume) to create this Tesla Christmas Tree.

Marie Antoinette

You know the story. Marie Antoinette's hair suddenly went white when she learned that she would be guillotined the next day. Who wouldn't? Well, now Scientific American said that the sudden whiting may have various reasons:

There are at least three possible explanations: She may have suffered from sudden onset of the rare autoimmune disease alopecia areata, which attacks pigmented hairs, causing them to fall out, leaving the white (nonpigmented) strands behind. Or the stress of the situation could have generated a swarm of free radicals in her hair follicles, which traveled along the hair shafts, destroying pigment and creating a bleaching effect. Or maybe she just stopped wearing her wigs—revealing she had gray hair all along.

Also, along the way, the scientists are hinting stress may prematurely make your hair white.

Post-Halloween

India has no Halloween tradition, unless you include those harrowing rides in their autorickshaw I had with Ed General of Sulu. Twice, we were in between two eight-wheelers moving at fast and furious speed on a slippery, bumpy highway. One swerve towards us by the drivers and we're nada. And our driver was drunk daw, acoording to Ed. He even binatukan a Muslim guy while we were buying biryani rice. But anyway, here's a take of two theoretical physicists (One Indian) on ghosts and vampires. The ghosts were questioned on their immaterial walking and the vampires were stabbed by the theory of probability.

Cellphone Law

While getting meat for my story a while back, I called up a source and dialed a wrong number. So somebody else answered and saying sorry and waiting for the angry answer took one minute and one second. Then another call. Another wrong number. When I finally got the right number, a girl answered, "The number you dialed can not be reached." Then later, a busy signal. Then a choppy signal. Oh, I realized I was within the "Law of the Cellphone" which states, If you dial a wrong number, you never get a busy signal.
Other laws, actually corollaries of Murphy's Law, are as follows:

Law of Mechanical Repair: After your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch or you'll have to pee.
Law of the Workshop: Any tool, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible corner, even if it is square.
Law of Visual Probability: The probability of being watched is directly proportional to the stupidity of your act.
Law of the Alibi: If you tell the boss you were late for work because you had a flat tire, the very next morning you will have a flat tire.
Variation Law: If you change traffic lanes, the one you were in will start to move faster than the one you are in now.
Law of the Bath: When the body is fully immersed in water, the telephone rings.
Law of Close Encounters: The probability of meeting someone you know increases when you are with someone you don't want to be seen with.
Law of the Result: When you try to prove to someone that a machine won't work, it will.
Law of Bio-mechanics: The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.
Law of the Theater: At any event, the people whose seats are furthest from the aisle arrive last.
Law of Coffee Temperature: As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, your boss will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold.
Law of Lockers: If there are only two people in a locker room, they will have adjacent lockers.
Law of Rugs/Carpets: The chances of an open-faced jelly sandwich landing face down on a floor covering are directly correlated to the cost of the carpet.
Law of Logical Argument: Anything is possible if you don't know what you are talking about.
Brown's Law: If the shoe fits, it's ugly.
Oliver's Law: A closed mouth gathers no feet.
Wilson's Law: As soon as you find a product that you really like, they will stop making it.
Law of Location: No matter where you go, there you are

Shy Mango

You are shy? It doesn't mean you have slow self-esteem, it's the genes and the anxiety to new situation. LiveScience tells you more. And those with sex drive only smell better than you, so the Axe commercial just might be right.

Aluminum Magic

Remember how you gild your radio or Tv antenna with aluminum foil to get a better reception. You think you passed that stage with your wifi and all? Wrong!
How To Boost Wi-Fi Range With A Homemade Parabolic Reflector - you can also cook pinikpikan this way

Codifying Radiohead

Kunal Anand, another brilliant Indian engineer with too much time on his hands, decided to diagram the song structure of his favorite songs. This is based on the lyrics and what word comes next. Here is Radiohead's Idioteque followed by Beatle's A Day In The Life.

The more complex, the less simplistic the lyrics. It doesn't mean that the bands today are lazier. They are just market-oriented and the people now need less words to karaoke.

Dozen

An Australian mathematician has come up with her own theory of sex and she calls it the 12-bonk rule. The article didn’t say if Dr. Clio Cresswell, a senior lecturer of the University of Sydney is married or not (which doesn’t mean that she is sexually active any way she answers) but she could have made a better name for her rule. Like the Sensual Dozen. Cresswell said that we may be better off taking a more mathematical approach to finding a partner. She suggests we could take a similar approach to the way we compare the qualities of a DVD player or a car before we commit our cash. And this is the best part: the rule says that you have to bonk (their Aussie word as ours would be chugi) 12 people. I mean, reject them all. And the 13 would be a charm. Or the Prince or Princess Charming (not the Shrek kind). This method, will give your relationship a 75 per cent chance of lasting, she said. We need more proofs here, Prof. I also heard that she has a love formula which is similar to the waves in the ocean. That I need to know.

Anger and Decision Making

Angry people were said to be irrational and some of them really are. They get irritated and do some things they would regret the next day. But then some scientists right now are saying that anger can fuel the right decisions. Maybe your brain becomes more focused when you are angry and you tend to become less distracted. Maybe Hulk has a point somewhere. In studies made at the University of California in Sta. Barbara, researchers found that the angry subjects were better at discriminating between strong and weak arguments and were more convinced by the stronger arguments. Those who were not made to feel angry tended to be equally convinced by both arguments, indicating that they were not as analytical in their assessments. The angry students were also better at weighing the arguments appropriately depending on which organization had made them.