Sunday, March 2, 2008
2000 Census available for free download
"We are pleased to present the complete content, in PDF format, of the recently published Census Atlas of the United States, the first comprehensive atlas of population and housing produced by the Census Bureau since the 1920s. The Census Atlas is a large-format publication about 300 pages long and containing almost 800 maps. Data from decennial censuses prior to 2000 support nearly 150 maps and figures, providing context and an historical perspective for many of the topics presented.
A variety of topics are covered in the Census Atlas, ranging from language and ancestry characteristics to housing patterns and the geographic distribution of the population. A majority of the maps in the Census Atlas present data at the county level, but data also are sometimes mapped by state, census tract (for largest cities and metropolitan areas), and for selected American Indian reservations. The book is modern, colorful, and includes a variety of map styles and data symbolization techniques."
Want to take a guess what this is a picture of?
It's a photo taken in Georgia, a British territory near the Falklands...
There are over 25,000 of them...
The temperature was 5 degrees Fahrenheit...
The brown ones are babies....
Click here to find out
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Sunday, February 24, 2008
What's the loudest thing in the ocean?
Shrimps.Though the blue whale produces the loudest noise of any individual animal in the sea or on land, the loudest natural noise of all is made by shrimps.
The sound of the "shrimp layer" is the only natural noise that can white out a submarine's sonar, deafening the operators through their headphones.
Below the layer they can hear nothing above it and vice versa. Hearing from below can only be accomplished by raising a mast up through it.
The noise of the collected shrimps amounts to an earsplitting 246 decibels, which even adjusting for the fact that sound travels five times faster in water, equates to about 160 decibels in air; considerably louder than a jet taking off (140 dB) or the human threshold of pain. Some observers have compared it to everyone in the world frying bacon at the same time.
The noise is caused by trillions of shrimps snapping their single oversized claw all at once. Snapping shrimps, members of the various Alpheus and Synalpheus species, are found in shallow tropical and subtropical waters.
But it's even more interesting that in sounds. Video shot at 40,000 frames per second shows clearly that the noise occurs 700 microseconds after the claw has snapped shut. The noise comes from burst bubbles, not the shutting of the claw itself, an effect know as cavitation.
It works like this. A small bump on one side of the claw fits neatly into a groove on the other side The claw is shut so rapidly that a jet of water traveling at 62 miles per hour squirts out, fast enough to create expanding bubbles of water vapor When the water slows down and normal pressure is restored, the bubbles collapse, creating intense heat (as high as 20,000 degrees celsuis), a loud pop, and light - this last being a very rare phenomenon called sonoluminescense, where sound generates light.
Shrimps use this noise to stun prey, communicate, and find mates. As well as ruining sonar, the sharp, hot intense noise makes dents in ships' propellers.
Shrimp: The Endless Quest for Pink Gold
--Taken from "THE BOOK OF General Ignorance" by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson. (I got it for Christmas, thanks Chris!)
Friday, February 22, 2008
Eclipse - view from the moon
I go to great lengths to insure your blog viewing satisfaction. The battery on my Olympus went dead right after this picture, so I never got the full eclipse. Sorry - next time.
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap070302.html
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Phillies Pitcher Kyle Kendrick told he is traded to Japan
Phillies Pitcher Kyle Kendrick Punked - Watch more free videos
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Monday, February 18, 2008
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Cable Car and Bay Bridge
A photo by Wiggum03 on Flickr. This is his commentary on it:
"Well, it took me a while but I finally figured this one out… I saw a version of this shot about a month ago and wanted to get my own, so I headed over to California Street one morning and looked all along the cable car line for this view. No luck – there didn’t seem to be a spot where the cable car rose right up like that with the Bay Bridge in the background. I even tried reviewing a map of the cable car system to see where this view might be. Still no luck.
It didn’t dawn on me until this past Sunday that I probably had the right idea, I just didn’t have the right angle. So I went back to California Street, stood on that hill by the Mark Hopkins hotel and drew an imaginary line from the Bay Bridge tower, through the spot I was standing on, all the way back until it hit the spot where I’d have to be to take this photo: the top of the hill at California and Gough.
The catch is that the place where you can take this photo is a long, long way off. So I had to use a serious telephoto lens (400mm + 1.4x extender) and heavily crop the image. It was taken from far enough away that you can really see the atmospheric distortion. To further complicate things the best place to stand to take this shot is in the middle of the road, so you have to time the cable car cresting the hill with a red light on California Street. Glad to finally get this one."
