vinyarb

like, what is legit anymore?

Cryptocurrencies

Jun
21

So, cryptocurrencies have been bubbling at the surface for a while, and appears to be poised to go mainstream and take the world by storm. This after Bitcoin (the first and biggest by market cap) recently surged to S$4,000 per bitcoin!

But some analysts say it isn’t stopping there, and are predicting a USD$1m per bitcoin between 2020 – 2030. If so, Bitcoin’s got quite a ride ahead. So… below’s a real-time graph to chart that meteoric rise!

Bitcoin’s not the only coin around though. They are sprouting like mushrooms at the moment, but the top few cryptocurrencies are:

Bitcoin
Ethereum
LiteCoin
Ripple is also making more than ripples…

So, here are some charts on the top cryptocurrencies. Enjoy!

 

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Wenger snubs Mourinho

Aug
04

Arsenal finally ended a 13 game streak against chelsea without a win, with Saturday’s Community Shield 1-0 triumph courtesy of a power strike from Oxlade Chamberlain.

After the match, Mourinho hung around the stadium, waiting to congratulate the Arsenal players as they filed out onto the field.

However, before he got to Wenger, Wenger did a manoeuvre and ghosted behind Mourinho, snubbing the proud bastard. What a move! Almost as sleek as the goal the Ox scored.

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Hail Hydra

Jul
16

Attention all Pluto Flyby watchers, we finally have Hydra (Pluto’s smallest moon) in our sights. It’s still looking like an 8-bit moon, but this is currently the best view of it so far.

Not much to look at now, but we’ll have clearer images coming in as New Horizons flies past Pluto and farther out to its moons. Since Hydra’s discovery in 2005, it has only been known as a fuzzy dot of uncertain shape, size and reflectivity.

Well, at least it has upgraded from a fuzzy dot to a fuzzy blob! We also now know that it is 28 miles wide by 19 miles long. So there! You can’t hide from us anymore, Hydra!

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Journey to the heart of Pluto

Jul
15

In a hugely impressive journey spanning almost 10 years (New Horizons launched 19 January 2006!), and 5 billion kilometers later, we’re finally going to be able to find out a lot more about this mysterious dwarf planet.

We’ve since had confirmation from New Horizons that everything is working as it should, and we should be receiving packets of information it amassed during the flyby.

Really exciting. Some of the things the mission hopes to find out from this endeavor are:

  • Geology and morphology of Pluto and it’s moon Charon
  • Map atmosphere and chemical compositions of Pluto and Charon’s surfaces
  • Find out if there are aliens

Of course, Pluto, having already anticipated this visit, put out this huge heart of welcome to Earthlings, as seen in the header image.

Did you know, despite it’s small size, Pluto has 5 moons circling it; Charon, Nix, Hydra, Kerberos and Styx.

pluto-charon

Here we see Pluto and it’s main man, Charon.

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Space Internet by Elon Musk

Jan
26

Elon Musk’s SpaceX just got a lot richer, and a lot more interesting. Google and Fidelity Investments have just pumped $1billion into SpaceX, owning roughly 10% of the ambitious company.

Musk plans to use the investment to develop low-Earth orbiting satelites that will bring low cost internet to the world. While low cost internet access is a great thing, that’s just phase I. Phase II involves lining the satelites all the way to Mars, so that when we finally colonise Mars, we’ll have internet access to send back selfies.

Exciting times ahead!

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String Theory Bohemian Rhapsody

Sep
18

Not that I feel like I know a lot more about String Theory or Quantum Physics after watching this video, but I think he’s done a really great job at vocals, editing and sock puppeteering.

So if anyone comes away from this knowing a bit more about the subject, I guess that’s a win!

Lyrics

Is string theory right?
Is it just fantasy?
Caught in the landscape,
Out of touch with reality
Compactified
On S5 or T*S3

Space is a pure void
Why should it be stringy?
Because it’s quantum not classical
Nonrenormalizable
Any way you quantize
You’ll encounter infinity
You see

Quanta
Must interact
Via paths we understand
Using Feynman diagrams
Often, they will just rebound
But now and then they go another way
A quantum
Loooooop
Infinities will make you cry
Unless you can renormalize your model
Of baryons, fermions
And all other states of matter

Curved space:
The graviton
Can be thought of as a field
But these infinities are real
In a many-body
Loop diagram
Our results diverge no matter what we do…
A Quantum Soup (any way you quantize)
Kiss your fields goodbye
Guess Einstein’s theory wasn’t complete at all!

I see extended 1-D objects with no mass
What’s their use? What’s their use? Can they give us quark plasma?
What to minimize?
What functional describes this
String?
Nambu-Goto! (Nambu-Goto)
Nambu-Goto! (Nambu-Goto)
How to quantize I don’t know
Polyakov!
I’m just a worldsheet, please minimize me
He’s just a worldsheet from a string theory
Reperametrized by a Weyl symmetry!

Fermi, Bose, open, closed, orientable?
Vibrations
Modes! They become particles (particles!)
Vibrations
They become particles (particles!)
Vibrations
They become particles (particles!)
Become particles (particles!)
Become particles (many many many many particle…)
Modes modes modes modes modes modes modes!
Oh mamma mia mamma mia,
Such a sea of particles!
A tachyon, with a dilaton and gravity-vity-VITY

(rock out!)

Now we need ten dimensions and I’ll tell you why
(anomaly cancellation!)
So to get down to 4D we compactify!
Oh, Kahler!
(Kahler manifold)
Manifolds must be Kahler!
(Complex Reimannian symplectic form)
If we wanna preserve
Any of our super-symmetry

(Superstrings of type I, IIa and IIb)
(Heterotic O and Heterotic E)
(All are one through S and T duality)
(Thank you Ed Witten for that superstring revolution and your new M-theory!)

(Maldecena!)
(Super-Yang-Mills!)
(Type IIB String!)
Dual! Dual!
(In the AdS/CFT)
(Holography!)

Molecules and atoms
Light and energy
Time and space and matter
All from one united
Theory

Any way you quantize…

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Paypal accidentally credits $92 quadrillion to a man

Jul
18

Imagine receiving a paypal statement saying that your balance reads: $92,233,720,368,547,800.

That was what happened to Chris Reynolds, 56. This made him, temporarily, the richest man in the world by far, 100 times more than the current richest man, Carlos Slim, who only has $73 billion. Pffft.

Check your paypal statements, everyone!

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Reddit and its awesomeness

May
10

Reddit logo

We all know about reddit and its tight community of people all over the world and walks of life, coming to discuss, create and generally, do stuff together.

As with any other platform, you can see it as a weapon. By itself, it’s just a tool. It can be used for good, and sometimes, it can be used to bad effect. Other times, you just have to sit back and go “whoa, that was cool”.

This is one such example:

Two redditors, unknown to each other, both took pictures of the same bolt of lightning from different places.

The top picture was taken by reddit user chordnine from Coors Field stadium of the Colorado Rockies.

This second picture was taken by reddit user Bobo1010 from Cherokee Station, a coal power plant.

credit: reddit user Bobo1010

credit: reddit user Bobo1010

This coincidence and finding of each other would have been awesome in itself. But reddit wasn’t done. Someone suggested that “technically, we should now be able to 3d model this lightning.”

Lo and behold, someone (reddit user cr42yr1ch) who knows a bit of 3d modelling stood up and said “challenge accepted”, and this is the result:

credit: reddit user cr42yr1ch

credit: reddit user cr42yr1ch

For more details on how he modeled it, go to his site.

Now, all that’s left is to go to the actual landing site of the lightning bolt, and see if we can find the Mjolnir.

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