Saturday, November 8, 2008

DON'T PANIC

Apparently, there's a betting pool for the existence of God. Somehow, I don't think that will settle the debate.

The New York Times used 96 pt font to declare Obama's win this past Tuesday. Apparently, this font size is extremely rare in NYT's history (5 confirmed times, at that link). The other times they decided to use that size are interesting... I wonder how people would rank these events in the all-time most important events in history (since the inception of NYT, of course), to see if people would agree with the Times.

In another story about the intelligence of nature, we might be able to learn about traffic congestion from ants, and how to solve traffic jams.

Mr. Feddersen tells us that we shouldn't be worried about the outcomes of elections--they're probably very good, since they represent aggregate knowledge among the voters. Trust the voters? Whether or not I agree with the most recent win of Obama, I don't think Feddersen took into account the past eight years, or media spin.

Speaking of the election, Krugman shows an interesting map of how much more Democratic or Republican the country voted. 

Researchers have made very tiny solar cells--a quarter the size of a grain of rice. It's possible to spray it onto surfaces, or to make a paste out of it and apply it to anything, apparently.