The Observable Universe
How far can you see? Everything you can see, and everything you could possibly see, right now, assuming your eyes could detect all types of radiations around you -- is the observable universe. In visible light, the farthest we can see comes from the cosmic microwave background, a time 13.8 billion years ago when the universe was opaque like thick fog. Some neutrinos and gravitational waves that surround us come from even farther out, but humanity does not yet have the technology to detect them. The featured image illustrates the observable universe on an increasingly compact scale, with the Earth and Sun at the center surrounded by our Solar System, nearby stars, nearby galaxies, distant galaxies, filaments of early matter, and the cosmic microwave background. Cosmologists typically assume that our observable universe is just the nearby part of a greater entity known as "the universe" where the same physics applies. However, there are several lines of popular but speculative reasoning that assert that even our universe is part of a greater multiverse where either different physical constants occur, different physical laws apply, higher dimensions operate, or slightly different-by-chance versions of our standard universe exist.

The Boston Public Library has digitized their collection of M.C. Escher prints; browse the whole collection here. The level of zoom you can get to with these images is amazing.

Traveling to Spain in 1936, Escher visited the Alhambra for the second time and visited the mosque in Córdoba. The renewed exposure to Arabic design occasioned an important change in his work — he became fascinated with geometry and symmetry and how those abstract design elements could be incorporated into his representations of the natural world. The images in his later prints are created from within his mind rather than representations of the physical world. He explored how to represent people, animals, and objects rising from the flat page and then returning, as well as how to represent the endlessness of infinity.

Browsing through these takes me back to my college days. I don’t know what the situation is now, but when I was in school, it was almost a requirement that 50% of the dorm rooms on any given floor had to have an M.C. Escher poster hanging on the wall. (via @john_overholt/status/992397947471089669)

Tags: art   M.C. Escher

It’s once again time to appreciate the most incompetent teams in the Premier League, from those who throw the ball straight to opposition to goalkeepers who can’t keep goal

Welcome to the Guardian’s fourth annual index of ineptitude, its directory of disappointment and catalogue of clumsiness.

Towards the end of the season, it is traditional to pick out the best the league has had to offer. But the reason those screamers, outrageous assists, and crunching tackles stand out is because, well, how to put this … the rest of the Premier League matchday experience can be rubbish.

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Nestled amongst hundreds of stunning shots of the aurora borealis taken by Finnish photographer Jani Ylinampa is a series of four photos of Kotisaari, showing the island from a drone’s point of view for each of the four seasons (clockwise from upper left): spring, summer, autumn, and winter.

But seriously, go check out Ylinampa’s Instagram account…it’s packed with aurora borealis photos. What a magical place to live, where the sky lights up like that all the time.

Tags: Jani Ylinampa   photography

If you need someone — how they make you feel, what they do for you, how they keep you whole — then you don’t actually love them, you just love the role they play in your life. The further you can push away from that need, the closer you’ll get to loving the human.

(This is an idea from Joko Beck’s Everyday Zen, which I *highly highly highly* recommend for anxious and/or ADD types, but this is true for everyone.)

“"[Someone who] dresses well but not remarkably."”

- Coco Chanel, when asked how she would define a fashionable person. (This post was inspired by The Prophet Pizza)