At first I thought the World Cup had been overrun by swarms of bees, and we had solved the colony collapse conundrum. (and just didn’t notice the tiny Gone to the World Cup signs)
Daily Archives: June 14, 2010
Option B: Call Customer Service
The Oatmeal: Why I’d rather be punched in the testicles than call customer service.
AFAICT, the only step missing is where the disembodied voice tells you to key in your account number, and then when you eventually get a live person, they immediately ask you for your account number. Because the squirrels in the pneumatic-tube message delivery system have delayed the information.
I Get No Kick from Champagne
Or did you mean a real song, like the Camptown Ladies?
Two black holes that are close enough will mutually orbit and eventually spiral inward toward each other, sending off ever-stronger gravitational waves (ripples in spacetime), until they collide and merge into a larger black hole. If the gravitational waves radiate mostly in one direction at the time of the merger, they “kick” the new black hole in the opposite direction. But some simulations have shown an “anti-kick” following the initial kick–the new black hole shoots away but soon slows down. Researchers haven’t had a clear physical explanation for the anti-kick.