How do you switch the driving side of the road for an entire nation? Let’s just say it’s quite a process — a process so involved it gets its own logo and name:

Dagen H (H day), today mostly referred to as Högertrafikomläggningen (“The right-hand traffic diversion”), was the day, 3 September 1967, on which traffic in Sweden switched from driving on the left-hand side of the road to the right. The H stands for Högertrafik, the Swedish word for “right-hand traffic”.

(Link via @michael_nielsen)

Nate’s model is thoughtful and interesting and the article is well worth a read. However, as he writes on his blog, the real star is the “Livability Calculator.”

The coolest part, rather, is an interactive applet that allows you to determine for yourself the relative importance you attach to 12 different categories of data (housing cost, housing quality, transit/proximity, crime, schools, green space, food/restaurants, health and wellness, shopping and services, diversity, “creative capital” and nightlife). If you play around with the applet for long enough, you’ll find that it’s fairly easy to slot any of 15 or so neighborhoods into the top position, and any of 40 or so of the 60 that we evaluated into the top ten.

The calculator is a lot of fun to play with. If you’re looking for property (whether to rent or own), this would be a great way to choose neighborhoods to focus on.

Scores of Carlsberg workers walked off their jobs in protest Thursday after the Danish brewer tightened laid-back rules on workplace drinking and removed beer coolers from work sites, a company spokesman said.

It gets better:

Carlsberg’s truck drivers joined the strike in sympathy — even though they are exempt from the new rules, Bekke said. The truck drivers are permitted to bring three beers from the canteen because they often don’t have time to have lunch there.

The trucks have alcohol ignition locks preventing the drivers from driving drunk, he added.

I think I may join them in a sympathy strike.

You can imagine how this feels to conservatives. They’ve already run off the field, sprayed themselves with champagne and taunted the losing team’s fans. And now the other team is saying the game is still on and they have a good chance to win. There may be nothing wrong at all with the process, but it’s certainly going to feel like some kind of crime to the right-wing. The Democrats may not win, but I’m pretty sure they’re going to try. The conservative freakout is going to be something to behold.

Despite his prescience on the bill and the freakout to follow, I doubt he would have predicted just how nasty things would get. The passage of the Health Care Reform Bill has inspired some truly insane and hateful reactions, leading law enforcement to offer at least 10 members of congress additional security.

Did I fall asleep or something? What freakin’ decade is this?

(link via Daring Fireball)

It is expected that early orders for sales to private individuals will commence late 2010. If you would like to register your interest in purchasing a Jetpack for private use, please do so through our contact page. We will note your details and contact you when pre orders are being taken.

While this demo video only shows the product in limited action (flying around a warehouse space), that won’t stop me from imagining what it’d be like to use for transit between NJ and NYC. I could get to the Shake Shack in mere minutes!

(Link via Northtemple)

“One hundred dollars is not going to change anyone’s life,” Martin said. “It’s a small thing. The money is just a framework for people to use their imagination. It’s like a kick in the ass.”

One of the participants had trouble giving away the $100. It seems people are naturally suspicious when you’re being nice to them:

“I will give you $1 for you to give to someone else,” the sign said. Throughout the evening rush, Lockspeiser stood in the station, trying to give away dollar bills.

“Everyone though I was trying to scam them,” he said. “They wanted to know what I was up to. I told them they just had to promise to give the $1 to someone else.”

After three hours, Lockspeiser had managed to give away only $52. One passer-by did not take the $1 but, suspecting that Lockspeiser was down and out, handed him a pair of socks. [emphasis mine]

Read “Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy” at SFGate (via Marginal Revolution)

Praying Mantis by Thomas Shahan

Robber Fly by Thomas Shahan

Phidippus Mystaceus by Thomas Shahan

No, those aren’t 3D renderings. And they’re not dead bugs. Thomas Shahan’s incredible photographs are taken of live insects — usually in their natural environment.

Photo by Sam Martin

His willingness to comb through grasses and turn over logs pays off in a big way. The combination of strange insect features and brilliant, colorful backgrounds creates images so alien they’d make NASA jealous.

Jumping Spider by Thomas Shahan

Tabanus Horse Fly by Thomas Shahan

Check out Thomas’s Flickr photo stream for tons and tons and tons more amazing insect shots and videos (just be prepared to lose a few hours).

Inside the suitcase was the letter from Sir Archibald Nye, vice chief of the Imperial General Staff to Sir Harold Alexander, the British commander in North Africa, which outlined the Allies’ plans to invade Europe from Sardinia, Corsica and Greece. This vital information was rushed to Berlin.

On May 12th, Hitler sent an order: “Measures regarding Sardinia and the Peloponnese take precedence over everything else,” diverting resources away from Sicily, through which the Allied Forces eventually invaded. This was because Germans had fallen for an elaborate deception: Major Martin never existed, and was part of a ruse named, “Operation Mincemeat”.

The ruse was quite successful and had an apparently significant impact on the outcome of the war. The Wikipedia article on the operation is definitely worth a read.

This morning, the penny returned to my thoughts when @linklog pointed to a blog post about the production costs associated with the penny and nickel:

In recent years the penny has cost approximately 1.8 cents and the nickel approximately 9 cents to produce. Costs have exceeded the value of these two coins by over $100 million in prior years.

That quote comes from the 2011 US Budget which includes a directive enabling “the Department of the Treasury to explore, analyze, and approve new, less expensive materials for all circulating coins.” Is this what Obama meant when he promised to deliver “change?” (sorry about that, I couldn’t help myself)

This is a completely, utterly, normal and unexciting ATM dipper. If you’re a regular ATM user, you’ve probably seen hundreds of these. What could be so special about this one?

This one is a thief.

That’s right, this ATM has been fitted with an ATM card skimmer that clones your card data. Once it has the goods, the data is transferred (via a cell phone that’s also been discreetly attached to the ATM) to a crook waiting to go on a shopping spree.

Photo by mikkohypponen on TwitPic

More details: Krebs on Security | Photos via @mikkohypponen

If I then look across the whole list and try to identify factors that seem to explain, in different mixtures, each city’s presence on the list, it seems there are three: age, poverty, and dominant universities (i.e. universities that are large relative to the size of the city).

The top three carless cities (by percentage) are right in my neighborhood:

1. New York, NY (55.7% of households are carless)
2. Newark, NJ (44.17%)
3. Jersey City, NJ (40.67%)

Of the top 30, only San Francisco (28.56%) is west of the Mississippi.

(via Bobulate)

“The Settlers of Catan” may be the most popular game you’ve never heard of. Though more than 15 million copies have been sold worldwide since its release in 1995, it has been slower to catch on in the United States. Americans are coming around in a big way, though. Early last year, Wired ran an article on how the game may be changing the way people in the U.S. think about board games:

Most impressive of all, though, Settlers is actually inducting board-game-averse Americans into the cult of German-style gaming. Last year, Settlers doubled its sales on this side of the Atlantic, moving 200,000 copies in the US and Canada—almost unheard-of performance for a new strategy game with nothing but word-of-mouth marketing. It has become the first German-style title to make the leap from game-geek specialty stores to major retailers like Barnes & Noble and Toys “R” Us.

Settlers is now poised to become the biggest hit in the US since Risk. Along the way, it’s teaching Americans that board games don’t have to be either predictable fluff aimed at kids or competitive, hyperintellectual pastimes for eggheads. Through the complex, artful dance of algorithms and probabilities lurking at its core, Settlers manages to be effortlessly fun, intuitively enjoyable, and still intellectually rewarding, a potent combination that’s changing the American idea of what a board game can be.

If you’re a fan of board games, I definitely recommend picking up a copy of “Settlers” (About 30 bones on Amazon.com) and giving it a shot. And no, you don’t have to dress as one of the tiles to play…

Photo by nickgraywfu

In the first quarter Saturday night, LeBron picked off an errant pass and took off the other way. Standing near midcourt, Eric Gordon turned and started running to protect his basket, only he wasn’t running with nearly enough urgency. In my section, a tortured Clips fan named Jesse screamed “GET BACK!” like he was about to watch someone get killed in a horror movie.

LeBron sniffed it out immediately. Cruised to midcourt, clicked in his nitrous canister like Vin Diesel and whooooooooooooooooooooooooosh! Flew by Gordon like a Beemer going 130 in the fast lane. Needed four strides to go from midcourt to the rim. Took off inside the foul line and ripped home a vicious dunk. “Whoa!!!!!!”

If you’re a sports fan and you’re not familiar with the writings of “The Sports Guy” (that’s Simmons’ nom de plume), I reccomend you spend a few hours reading through his archives. While there are some who consider his diehard Boston fandom and copious pop culture references a put-off, there are many, many more (myself included) who enjoy the way his sports fanaticism infects his writing. In a sports world filled with self-important anchors (see: Rick Reilly) and highlight-less Sportscenter episodes, Simmons’ “everyfan” persona is both welcome and refreshing.

Espresso, Intelligentsia at Vimeo

This is the first in a series of three pieces featuring Intelligentsia Coffee. I’ll be looking forward to the upcoming installments on syphon coffee and cappuccino.

(via @bmazza)

April 23:
Sudden climate change from nagging about the cold to whining about the heat.

The whole series is worth a look.

(via The Morning News)

The Tesla Model S is not the first electric car on the market, but with seating for five and ample cargo space, it may be the most realistic candidate to replace your current gas guzzler. It doesn’t hurt that a quick 45 minute charge (from any power outlet) gets you a range of 300 miles and a top speed of 120mph.

With a price tag set at just under 50k (after a federal tax credit), the Model S could definitely steal more than a few BMW 5 series or Audi A6 customers.

(via Surfstation)

The Lazerian blog has a nice “making of” video which shows the maticulous process of creating a paper dog sculpture. They also sell a kit so you can make your own Gerald at home.

The idea that transmission line corridors or any human-built infrastructure may actually help species is a counterintuitive one in the conservation movement, where the emphasis is often placed on preserving a landscape - usually by leaving it alone or ensuring it remains in some “natural” state to help certain species thrive. But in crowded New England, where people have altered the landscape for so long, saving beloved species may actually take more - not less - human intervention.

This could be especially important as our power infrastructure is expanded over the coming decades:

Now, as thousands of miles of new lines are proposed across the country to move wind and other renewable energy, conservationists are beginning to think about ways the lines can also be used to help the species we want to save. That may include avoiding biological hotspots where endangered species live, ensuring the pathways serve as critical links between larger tracts of forest, and better managing the corridors to entice species that have few other places to go.

It may not be a purist’s view of saving nature. But as the world gets more crowded and true natural lands disappear, it is quickly becoming what conservationists have to work with.

(via The Morning News)

Tony Quan is an LA-based graffiti artist known as TEMPTONE who was diagnosed with ALS (aka Lou Gehrig’s disease) in 2003. Though the disease has left him physically paralyzed, the EyeWriter system enables him to draw graffiti on the computer using only his eyes. His graffiti is then projected onto buildings around Los Angeles.

Read more on the EyeWriter Initiative web site. The five minute documentary is definitely worth watching.

(via Officially Lucky)

At least, that’s what I though before reading Brian Burke’s statistic-laden defense of Belichick:

A conversion on 4th-and-2 would be successful 60 percent of the time. Historically, in a situation with 2:00 left and needing a TD to either win or tie, teams get the TD 53 percent of the time from that field position. … A punt from the 28 typically nets 38 yards, starting the Colts at their 34. Teams historically get the TD 30 percent of the time in that situation.

Statistically, going for it gives the Patriots a 79% likelihood of winning while punting gives them only a 70% chance of winning. Even if you assume the Colts are well above league average in end-of-game situations, he says “it’s pretty hard to come up with a realistic combination of numbers that makes punting the better option.”

Update: Bill Simmons breaks down Belichick’s fourth and wreckless decision and argues that the stats aren’t just wrong — they’re insane:

Inane Angle No. 1: “Statistically, it was the right move”

So we’re saying 55.7 percent, huh? [referring to the NFL 4th and short conversion percentage] That’s the success rate for a road team playing its biggest rival, in a deafeningly loud dome, coming out of a timeout — a timeout that allowed the defense to get a breather and determine exactly how to stop the obvious five-receiver spread that was coming because the offense’s running game sucked — along with that same defense getting extra fired up because it was being disrespected so egregiously/willfully/blatantly/incomprehensibly. I say lower. By a lot.

Once it reaches sexual maturity, Turritopsis looks like a tiny, transparent, many-tentacled parachute (only about 5mm in diameter) that floats freely in warm ocean waters. But when times get tough, Turritopsis can turn into a blob, anchor itself to a surface, and undergo a sort of reverse methamorphosis back to its youthful form as a stalk-like polyp. That’s like a butterfly turning back into a caterpillar. Scientists, who first described this phenomenon in the 1990s, believe Turritopsis can repeat its life cycle indefinitely. [emphasis mine]

Not only can these little guys theoretically live forever — they are spreading. By travelling in the ballast tanks of large ships, Turritopsis have reached waters in Spain, Italy, Japan, and the Atlantic side of Panama.

This has got to be the first wave [awful pun intended] of some kind of alien attack, right?

Dolphins can also use tools to solve problems. Scientists have observed a dolphin coaxing a reluctant moray eel out of its crevice by killing a scorpion fish and using its spiny body to poke at the eel. Off the western coast of Australia, bottlenose dolphins place sponges over their snouts, which protects them from the spines of stonefish and stingrays as they forage over shallow seabeds.

A dolphin’s ability to invent novel behaviours was put to the test in a famous experiment by the renowned dolphin expert Karen Pryor. Two rough-toothed dolphins were rewarded whenever they came up with a new behaviour. It took just a few trials for both dolphins to realise what was required. A similar trial was set up with humans. The humans took about as long to realise what they were being trained to do as did the dolphins. For both the dolphins and the humans, there was a period of frustration (even anger, in the humans) before they “caught on”. Once they figured it out, the humans expressed great relief, whereas the dolphins raced around the tank excitedly, displaying more and more novel behaviours.

The first comment on their post points to an even older article from The (apparently prescient) Onion about Dolphins evolving opposable thumbs:

“I believe I speak for the entire human race when I say, ‘Holy fuck,’” said Oceanographic Institute director Dr. James Aoki, noting that the dolphin has a cranial capacity 40 percent greater than that of humans. “That’s it for us monkeys.”

Of note for those in the NYC area: The public is invited to tour the New York on select days November 4 through November 11.

The smell, said Carmela Di Nardo, undulates sickeningly, a cross between rotten eggs, burned skin and dead animals. You try not to breathe very deeply. You keep your children inside.

Sounds like a job for the PyTec disposal system from yesterday’s post…

One of today’s articles discusses superstitiousness in baseball, claiming that 1 in 1.88 baseball players engages in superstitious behavior. With the World Series starting tonight, it seems we can expect the players will be conjuring up their own brand of victory-assuring Voodoo.

After cocoa beans are roasted, the shell is removed from the bean by a winnowing machine. The collected shells represent the only part of the bean which is not usable in chocolate due to their dry, fibrous texture and an unpleasant taste they bring to the finished chocolate.

While, the shells do make a surprisingly useful garden mulch (they contain nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous), that hasn’t stopped people from experimenting with other potential uses:

Engineers at Public Service of New Hampshire, the state’s largest electric utility, successfully tested a novel fuel mixture for one of its electricity-generating boilers: coal tempered with cocoa-bean shells. Hedonists have long rhapsodised about the seductive power of chocolate; now cocoa power may light homes as well.

Unfortunately, this did not improve the coal burning smell:

State officials, who had previously approved the utility’s conversion of another boiler to burn wood, watched the testing procedure closely. … Observers and neighbours, meanwhile, did a lot of sniffing. But to everyone’s disappointment, coal and cocoa shells burned together do not fill the air with the sweet smell of chocolate.

Note: You will need an account on Economist.com to access the link above (register to receive a 14 day premium pass). The Economist is a wonderful publication and I highly recommend you explore some of their other content while you’re there.

• The first group was “asked to spend three minutes imagining how the chocolate would taste and feel in their mouths.”
• The second group was told to “imagine, as clearly and concretely as possible, odd or novel settings or uses for the chocolate.”
• A control group was given unrelated reading material about South America.

After tasting the chocolate, all of the groups were asked to evaluate its taste and overall enjoyment. The evaluations were lower among those who were instructed to come up with creative uses for the product. So, it seems you may be able to resist chocolate by imagining it as potting soil instead.

I cannot think of a single reason why anyone would do this.

(via Marginal Revolution)