Irish Class, November 24, 2014
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| An capall a phreabas is é a éimhíos | The horse that starts/throbs is the one that squeals | preabann, éimhionn “The one who starts the ruckus makes the most noise.” |
| Paidir chapaill | Prayers of a horse | I.e. on its knees — “slacker” |
The end of the population pyramid
For all of history, humans have lived in societies dominated (in numbers at least) by children. By 2060 children will be barely more numerous than any other age group up to 65. And looking after parents and grandparents will be as big a, or a bigger, social requirement as bringing up children and grandchildren. The year 2015 is, roughly, the halfway point in this astounding transformation.
Irish Class, November 17, 2014
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| Bíonn cosa crua ar chapall iasachta. | It is a hard foot on borrowed horse. | |
| Is minic a bhí droch-chrú faoi chapall gabhann. | There is often a bad shoe on blacksmith’s horse |
Globe Sets Fifth Hottest-Month Record of 2014
NOAA says 2014 likely to be globe’s hottest year despite U.S. cold.
The U.S. is a big country, but it still only covers about 2% of the Earth’s surface area. Our temperatures just don’t make much of a difference on a global scale.
The Mathematical Reason All Hipsters Look the Same
Citing The hipster effect: When anticonformists all look the same
When hipsters are too slow in detecting the trends, they will keep making the same choices and therefore remain correlated as time goes by, while their trend evolves in time as a periodic function.
…two different research groups announced the discovery of the same new particle and redefined how physicists view the universe.
Fundamental Physics Prize Co-Winner Sells No Wine Before Its Time
Brian Schmidt is the world’s only vintner with a Nobel Prize in physics, specializing in pinot noir because the climate and soil (or terroir) is especially well suited for that varietal. He and is wife own a four-star winery called Maipenrai (Thai for “It’s all right”) in Sutton, New South Wales, near Canberra.
From Hilbert Space to Dilbert Space, and beyond 