Some enterprising scripters have animated the motion graphics described by John Whitney in his book Digital Harmony. No, it didn’t mean anything to me either. But the site says:
In three minutes, the largest dot will travel around the circle once, the next largest dot will travel around the circle twice, the next largest dot three times, and so on.
The dots are arranged to trigger notes on a chromatic scale when they pass the line
The effect is very pleasant and quite mesmerising. I’m sure there are some high level mathematics going on here, I just wish I was smart enough to understand what they were. The site has many variations of scale and harmony, all of which are interesting and delightfully musical. Fascinating stuff!
March 10th, 2008
Ever since I performed a simple experiment, detox footpads have been something of a running theme here at SciencePunk. We’ve seen how pouring water on them will turn them brown (supposedly this colour is from ‘toxins’ in your body). Then me and my 5-yr-old assistant dissected a footpad to discover it was made of kitty litter and powdered wood vinegar. I also showed that Champneys’ “clinical trials” didn’t even measure the detoxification action of their footpads. And the cats over at MockDock did a full-term trial of the detox pads.
A lot of people here have commented that I should have done a proper scientific analysis of the footpads. That’s tough, because I’m not a proper scientist and I don’t have a lab at my disposal. However, other people do, and thanks to Lynne for sending me a link to this, a Study in the Effectiveness of Detoxification Foot Patches. Sweet! A proper scientific analysis at last, published in The Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, Volume 20 Fourth Quarter, 2005 Number 4. They were particularly interested in one of more bizarre claims made by Kinoki detox footpads - that they could remove heavy metals from the body. Say the authors:
A small study of commercially available Detoxification Foot Patches was undertaken to determine if there is evidence of heavy metal detoxification after using the foot patches as instructed by the manufacturer. Three foot patches were used in the experiment: an unused “virgin” foot patch as a control, one that was used by Patient A who’s mineral status showed no heavy metal poisoning, and another used by Patient B, who’s mineral status showed contamination with several heavy metals.
Concluding:
…there was no evidence of any detoxification of heavy metals. More importantly, the experiment revealed the control foot patch contained toxic levels of six heavy metals. For this reason, employing them as a therapeutic method of detoxification may contribute to toxic exposures of heavy metals they are purposed to be detoxifying.
This is the pinnacle of irony - these detox patches actually contain toxic levels of heavy metals! I don’t know what else there is left to say. These pads are not only useless, a scam, and a waste of money - they are a health risk! Read the full scientific report here.
March 10th, 2008
‘Winning the lotto/lottery for everyday players’: This book actually exists. It’s written by ‘Professor Jones’ - that’s not a title. It’s apparently the author’s name.
Says Cracked:
This book contains enough compressed stupidity to erase all science as far back as the middle ages. The title alone proves the retardedness of everyone who’s even touched it three times over:
1) They had to write both Lotto and Lottery on the cover, for fear of missing half their target market. “Dur, this book is for lott-e-ry, dat sounds more fancier than the lotto we simple folk play ’round these parts”
2) The use of “everyday players” make you realize that the target market for this book is a group of folks who think of themselves as mere regular players, while a secret cabal of professionals keeps scooping all the jackpots. Why, if only these everyday players had access to some kind of inside knowledge!
3) Third. Goddamn. Edition. We have no idea what possible refinements to lotto-winning technology the author could be adding each time, short of scribbling “hahaha, oh God this is working–I can’t believe it’s working” all over the proof copy before sending it back to the printers. A third edition of anything hasn’t damaged our faith in humanity so much since the newspapers ran their “Princess Diana–still dead” memorials in 2000.
See the rest of Cracked’s article: “5 Books That Can Actually Make You Stupider“.
March 10th, 2008