This Is So Cool!

This is a map of American English dialects. (h/t to [redacted]) You can even click on various areas and hear the different pronunciations of common words. It's fascinating! Though the creator has clearly never visited Northeastern Pennsylvania. We've got our own thing going on that is completely different from other areas of Pennsylvania and the Northeast in general.

It's funny for me to experiment with this because I lived in so many different places growing up that I picked up bits and pieces of various dialects and ended up with a mishmosh accent. I say "werter" instead of "water" and "wursh" instead of "wash". I got that from Indiana. I do, in all seriousness, say "y'all", which is left over from three years in Texas. I refer to the coastal region of New Jersey as "downashore" from two years in Philadelphia. (The weather reporters will literally say, "The weather downashore this weekend will be . . ." It took me three months to realize that "downashore" is not the name of a town in New Jersey.)

Anyway, have fun!

How the Ancient Israelites Viewed the Universe

I found this amazing depiction of how the Ancient Israelites viewed the universe here. This is the worldview propounded in Genesis that creationists expect us to take literally. Yeah, I'll get right on that.

The artist is Michæl Paukner. Check out his flickr gallery here.

Science Is Cool: Life in a Black Hole

this picture relates to the story in ways I don't entirely understand

Personally, I can't evaluate whether this theory is revolutionary or total crap, but it sure is cool!

Could our universe be located within the interior of a wormhole which itself is part of a black hole that lies within a much larger universe?

. . .

"This condition would be satisfied if our universe were the interior of a black hole existing in a bigger universe," he said. "Because Einstein's general theory of relativity does not choose a time orientation, if a black hole can form from the gravitational collapse of matter through an event horizon in the future then the reverse process is also possible. Such a process would describe an exploding white hole: matter emerging from an event horizon in the past, like the expanding universe."

A white hole is connected to a black hole by an Einstein-Rosen bridge (wormhole) and is hypothetically the time reversal of a black hole. Poplawski's paper suggests that all astrophysical black holes, not just Schwarzschild and Einstein-Rosen black holes, may have Einstein-Rosen bridges, each with a new universe inside that formed simultaneously with the black hole.

"From that it follows that our universe could have itself formed from inside a black hole existing inside another universe," he said.

My mind is officially blown.

Readers from Around the World

Ghana, Romania, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, lijit
I have to share this, because I think it is the coolest thing evah!

According to my Lijit, I have readers in Ghana, Romania, Pakistan, India and Indonesia!

So cool!

Hello to:

Accra, Greater Accra, GH I had a friend in college from Ghana. Her name was NaNa, and she was the nicest and most beautiful person I have ever met.

Tirgu Mures, Mures, RO I also had a friend from Romania in college. Her name was Violeta and she had purple eyes. Truly purple, no lie. And she was like a ray of sunshine.

Islamabad, Islamabad, PK

Navi Mumbai, Maharashta, IN* I had a professor in college from India, and have worked with several people from India. They all made me want to visit their home country. They made it sound beautiful and alive and exciting.

Bandung, Jawa Barat, ID*


*If you live in the US, you read these as Indiana and Idaho.