And you are here why?

via SMBC

So yeah, heres Skytrax's list of the Best Airports in the World (for 2014 at least) 1 Singapore Changi Airport 2 Incheon International Airport 3 Munich Airport 4 Hong Kong International Airport 5 Amsterdam Schiphol Airport 6 Tokyo International Airport Haneda 7 Beijing Capital International Airport 8 Zurich Airport 9 Vancouver International Airport 10 London Heathrow Airport I don't really disagree with this, though I do  have a soft-spot in my heart for the current Berlin-Tegel - it may be small, but it is  remarkably trivial to get from any gate to any other gate :-) And yeah, the No. 9  up there is in Vancouver , which is a city in Canada , which is not  the 51st state (you knew that, right?)

via Visual.ly

We saw Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart this afternoon in Waiting for Godot . I remember reading the play waaaay back in junior-high, but it really hit home for me in this classic Doonesbury run from 1987 . The McKellan/Stewart version mined a vein of humor, with the classic chorus of Let's go! We can't. Why not? We're waiting for Godot being brought to life alternately by McKellan and Steward, especially in the second act. That said, the humor, surprisingly, only served to emphasize the bleakness and despair inherent in the play, something I hadn't expected. All in all, a wonderful performance...

via Penn Masala Bollywood music has changed immensely over the decades. We've seen legendary singers redefine genres, musical directors pushing the envelope with their arrangements, and the arts and culture of India thrive. Penn Masala was created 18 years ago to celebrate the impact that Bollywood has had on our lives, and to pay tribute to some of the timeless classics that we, our parents, and grandparents love. We hope you like our Evolution of Bollywood Music! The costume-changes really nail it...

spotted online, via Valeri Spetgang Taylor

The above shot comes to you via Oscar Ruiz  and National Geographic .   As he puts it A few years ago when I was working as a helicopter pilot for a local radio station, we were required to fly around all of Mexico City chasing news and traffic. I remember flying up to the highway that connects Mexico City with the neighboring state of Puebla, and on my way back this housing complex that seemed to go on forever caught my attention. I decided to circle around to observe from up close what I later found out was the recently built San Buenaventura complex, which is located in Ixtapaluca, on the eastern outskirts of Mexico City. The exceptional afternoon sun reflecting those thousands of recently painted small homes just looked so beautiful, and the lower I flew the better the angle, so I just got out my camera, opened the sliding window on my Bell helicopter, and snapped a couple of shots.  Pretty unreal no?

via Interfluidity Wouldn’t it be odd to live in a country where, say, bankers individually acknowledge that their industry often behaves destructively, where insiders perceptively describe the conditions that create incentives for people to take bad risks or fleece “ muppets “, but continue to work in those places and do nothing about it? Wouldn’t it be odd to live in a country where doctors privately apologize for the way their services are “ priced “, but nevertheless take home their paychecks and pay AMA dues? Or in a country where economics instructors teach agency costs with case study of textbook pricing, during a course for which students were required to purchase a $180 textbook?  I don’t mean to criticize anyone in particular. (I used to be the economics instructor.) In all of these cases, there really isn’t anything any one individual can do to remedy the bad practices. Making a big issue of them would lead to useless excommunication. Instead we shrug ironically. In...

Drain  1 can of Chickpeas   and rinse the heck out of it to get rid of the 'canned' flavor.  Set aside for the nonce. Use a mortar and pestle to mush together 1/4 tsp salt 1 heaping tbsp smooth peanut butter 2 tbsp olive oil 1 tsp sambal oelek into a smooth paste. k ) Add the juice of 1 large lemon  and keep mushing till its all smooth again. Add 1/4 cup roasted unsalted peanuts , and stir in. This is your peanut sauce. Microwave  2 cups frozen spinach  on high for 2 minutes.  When done, mix in 1/2 tsp samba oelek , 1/4 tsp salt , 1/4 tsp ginger paste , and 1 tbsp peanut sauce  (from above ).   Mix the remaining peanut sauce  with the rinsed chickpeas and put in a bowl. Place the spinach on top of the chickpeas. Top with Ricotta, and a few of the roasted unsalted peanuts Top yet again with your favorite chili sauce. Enjoy! Notes The spinach has the texture of creamed spinach, but is way ta...

"Michael Bay" answers critics of his next movie Easter: The Rise of Jesus  over at  The League   of Ordinary Gentlemen .  This is, for once, a director telling it like it is, leaving no stone unturned, no controversy unaddressed. Casting! To that end, let me first address the so-called “outrage” over our casting decisions.   Neither Universal Studios nor myself, nor anyone else involved with greenlighting the production are fools.  We all knew the casting of Vin Diesel as Jesus would be controversial.  We also knew that, artistically, he was the  only  choice.  Vin was also our first choice.  Rumors that Channing Tatum had initially been inked are just that:  rumors . Apostles! Do I know that the real Jesus chose twelve apostles?  Of course I do.  Did Jesus know that teams of over six don’t focus-group well?  Probably not.  So when you think about it, it’s really a wash. Universal and I decided t...

Sadly, not funny at all... via Matt Smith

Seriously - this is a chrome extension that visualizes your browser history as a stack of favicons As the author - Shan Huang  - puts it I decided to dig deep into my browser history data for my data visualization project. Because I spend so much time online everyday, doing all sorts of things from working to socializing to just aimless wandering, I thought browser history alone could narrate a significant portion of my life and what was on my mind. A plus of using browser history was that the data was nice and easy to obtain. Therefore I could skip the trudge of collecting and cleaning the data and focus on the content itself. The Github repo of the extension is here , and the extension itself is here

Loosely based on  this Cut  1.5lbs of Salmon   into large (2") cubes, and sprinkle with  1tsp salt  and  1tbsp turmeric . Mix it all up till well coated. ( If you use your hands, you'll end up with yellow stains from the tumeric! ) Let this sit in the fridge while you get the gravy done. Use a mixer to grind   3 tbsp mustard seeds 1 tbsp cumin seeds 1 tsp poppy seeds 4 green chillies (serrano should work, but thai are better) 1/4 cup water 1/2 tsp salt You might need to add a little more water to get the whole thing ground into a somewhat fine paste.  This is your  spice mix ( If you have an Indian "mixie" or a "magic bullet", use it, otherwise, well, use a large mortar and pestle, and good luck) Heat  1/4 cup mustard oil  in a pan, and add 1tsp onion seeds.  Let it heat up till it starts sputtering - around 30 seconds at med-hi.   Add the  spice mix , 1tsp turmeric , and 1tsp red c...

You already knew this, but now there is data (w00t!). via Tony Haile , (emphasis mine) A widespread assumption is that the more content is liked or shared, the more engaging it must be, the more willing people are to devote their attention to it. However, the data doesn’t back that up. We looked at 10,000 socially-shared articles and found that there is no relationship whatsoever between the amount a piece of content is shared and the amount of attention an average reader will give that content. When we combined attention and traffic to find the story that had the largest volume of total engaged time, we found that it had fewer than 100 likes and fewer than 50 tweets. Conversely, the story with the largest number of tweets got about 20% of the total engaged time that the most engaging story received. Bottom line, measuring social sharing is great for understanding social sharing, but if you’re using that to understand which content is capturing more of someone’s attention, you’re...

"Noon" should be when the sun is directly overhead, right? Well, not really.  As Stefano Maggiolo  points out , its pretty much almost never  the case that the two align It turns out, there are many places where  the sun rises and sets late in the day , like in Spain, but not a lot where it is very early (highlighted in red and green in the map, respectively). Most of Russia is heavily red, but mostly in zones with very scarce population; the exception is St. Petersburg, with a discrepancy of two hours, but the effect on time is mitigated by the high latitude. The  most extreme  example of Spain-like time is western China: the difference reaches three hours against solar time.  Check out the actual map...

via The Daily Viz . And yes, it do suck.

Starbucks? Dunkin Donuts? Peet's? ("Terrible" may be accurate, but not the response I'm looking for...) /via FlowingData

Simon Rogers shows how it is done - by using CartoDB to pull together an animated 60 second take on all of London's rail and tube systems based on when they opened. ( Heres the detail on how he did it ...) Can’t see this visualisation? Click here

Somethings are inevitable - death, taxes, hangovers, and hoaxes propagating through Facebook. The latest example is Squeez Bacon™a Think Geek  April Fool's joke from 2009 which has achieved new life (yet again) in 2014) (And yes. it is a hoax. Here's Think Geek  themselves admitting that it was frosting in the ads ) But, are you really, really  hankering for squeezable bacon?  Life got you down since The Squeez Has Gone? Never fear.  Norway has you covered, with Kavli Bacon Ost . Bacon! In a Tube! Hurray!

random humor from iFunny

Heres round two, with an awesome  NSA cameo.   Round 1 can be found here

Brilliance - sheer  brilliance CollegeHumor's Favorite Funny Videos

You have to have been hiding under a rock (and a particularly large one at that) to have missed Monday's announcement of the observation of gravitational waves , and the consequent validation of cosmic inflation . However, just in case the whole thing has you somewhat baffled, fear not - New Scientist  has you covered - as they explain the whole thing with that handiest of props - a towel (and an apple) .

And it goes downhill from there :-)

via Carlo Zapponi , this is an attempt to visualize and help to understand how some of the most famous sorting algorithms work. This project provides two standpoints to look at algorithms, one is more  artistic  (apologies to any real artist out there), the other is more  analytical  aiming at explaining algorithm step by step.  This project does not want to teach the theory of sorting algorithms, there are amazing resources, books and courses for this purpose.  SORTING  is for the ones who want to see these algorithms under a different ligth and hopefully appreciate the processing and brain power behind these piece of genius that in many ways have changed the way we live. Go check it out, its beautiful, visually arresting, and eminently understandable .

via WuMo

unlike C-A-D

Bill Holbrook puts it best

The title sez. it all...