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He listed the viable projects for determining the longitude at sea. One was proposed in 1713 by William Whiston and Humphry Ditton, involving rockets released at fixed times from ships moored at sea. Newton actively supported both men and met Ditton in March 1714. But in June he told the committee of the scheme's difficulties since it would only help tell navigators their position near the coast. Newton also mentioned the design of a watch to keep exact time, but said such a watch had not yet been made, that two such watches would be needed, and that any watch would have to be checked against astronomical observations. Both rockets and exact clocks could keep longitude once known, not find it from scratch. Only astronomy would. [more inside]
posted by smcg at 12:24 PM PST - 9 comments

From artist Maeve Travis, a lovely fan-made graphic novel adaptation of a collaborative short story posted on tumblr, for the prompt "Temples are built for gods. Knowing this a farmer builds a small temple to see what kind of god turns up." [more inside]
posted by yasaman at 11:45 AM PST - 14 comments

...David Prowse. [more inside]
posted by chavenet at 10:40 AM PST - 69 comments

Google as people · Google as equipment · Google as connections · Google as a physical space · Google as an interface · Google as codes · children 10–14 draw their conceptions of Google (alt link)
posted by XMLicious at 8:39 AM PST - 7 comments

RUSSIAN CYBERPUNK FARM // РУССКАЯ КИБЕРДЕРЕВНЯ They say that Russia is a technically backward country, there are no roads, robotics do not develop, rockets do not fly, and mail goes too long. It’s a bullshit. (SLYT satire from birchpunk)
posted by storybored at 7:42 AM PST - 13 comments

Meet Miri, the newest addition to the house of Maru and Hana. A two-month kitten that was rescued from a gutter, Miri will probably soon join Maru and Hana on their scientific investigations of how many tiers of toilet paper rolls you can jump over, how many plastic balls before a walkway is impossible to cross, and how many litres is a liquid cat. (Maru still isn't sure what to make of her yet.)
posted by Katemonkey at 2:42 AM PST - 18 comments