“It is true of the Nation, as of the individual, that the greatest doer must also be a great dreamer.”
Theodore Roosevelt . Berkeley, CA, 1911
(via lili-et-lala)
(via waitwhatwhere)
May172012
12PM
“Rooftops in the summer are hot. Cooling down buildings wastes energy. Solution: Painting roofs with energy saving white reflective paint.” The White Roof Project is a nonprofit dedicated to curbing climate change by painting NYC roofs white and then hopefully franchising the volunteering activity out across the United States.
And they’re absolutely onto something. In 2009, Energy Secretary Steven Chu pitched this idea. According to the Wall Street Journal, “white roofs and pavements could mean a one-time reduction of 44 billion tons of carbon dioxide. That… translates to removing all the cars in the world for 18 years.”
Former President Bill Clinton wrote last summer that white rooftops could lower “the utility bill in every apartment house 10 to 20 percent…”
And in the southeastern region of Almeria, Spain, the reflective roofs of their greenhouses (and they’re seriously into greenhouses) are cooling the air temperature in the region “by an average of 0.3 degrees Celsius per decade since 1983. The rest of Spain, however, has experienced temperatures rise 0.5 degrees Celsius.”
Sounds like it might be time to get some white paint and a few ladders. Read more about The White Roof Project, and if you’re in NYC, volunteer!
12PM
Will you put off marriage because of student debt? Have you told your significant other how in debt you are yet? -BdM
11AM
People Are Awesome: The Coffee Shop Where Everyone Pays for Everyone Else's Drinks
A simple, and replicable, bit of generosity is giving people a not-rude-at-all awakening in a tiny coastal coffee shop.
9AM
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Harold Bloom famously dubbed it the “anxiety of influence”: the effect which the literary canon has on writers. Less today than it did in the past, according to a mathematical study which analysed thousands of works written over the last 500 years.
American mathematicians, led by the chair of Dartmouth College mathematics department Professor Daniel Rockmore, set out to investigate “large-scale” trends in literary style. Using digitised works in the Project Gutenberg library, they processed 7,733 works from 537 authors written after the year 1550, were looking for the frequency at which 307 “content-free” words – such as “of”, “at” and “by” – appeared. They called these words the “syntactic glue” of language: “words that carry little meaning on their own but form the bridge between words that convey meaning”, and thus “provide a useful stylistic fingerprint” for authorship.
” Mathematicians explore the quantitative patterns of stylistic influence in the evolution of literature and find the influence of the classics over contemporary authors is declining. (via explore-blog)(Source: , via explore-blog)
May162012
“Recipe receipts” is a rad campaign idea for Hellman’s done by my friends at Ogilvy Brazil in Sao Paulo. They created a special software they installed at cash registers in supermarkets that knew when someone purchased Hellman’s and would spit out a custom recipe based on the other items in their grocery cart. Pretty smooth idea.
2PM
13-Year-Old Girl Develops Cure For Hiccups
At last! And invented by a child genius, no less!
(via)
Awesome and inspiring
9AM
Things I Have Frantically Googled Recently According to My Phone's Search History
My roommate’s bunny does this crazy Gene Kelly heel-clicking leap. We thought he was having a stroke. It turns out it is just a common expression of an ecstatic rabbit called “binking.”
What is the Difference Between Clouds and Fog?
The subject of a heated debate in Dolores Park.
Does Nicki Minaj Have Ass Implants?
A natural question after watching her entire music video canon with Abby and Elizabeth.
Do Streetlights Go Out Around Other People, Too?
Or is it just Elizabeth and me?
Picture of Danzig Buying Kitty Litter
Misfits, they’re Just Like Us.
Feel like letting your head wander through some interesting/entertaining questions? Here you go. If you spend thirty minutes following some crazy Wikipedia path you didn’t expect to go down, let me know where you ended up. I’m reading about the Pauli exclusion principle and Arctic sea smoke.
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