gnostek1 / 2Line graph illustrating the yields of 30-year US Treasury bonds over 1994. Yields for these bonds rose from 6.17% on January 12 to 8.16% on November 4.
01By 2019, Venezuela's GDP had contracted 65% from its 2013 peak — a collapse deeper than the U.S. Great Depression.
02In 2017, the average Venezuelan lost 11 kg (24 lbs) of body weight due to food scarcity — the 'Maduro diet.'
03Venezuela defaulted on $65 billion in sovereign and PDVSA bonds while maintaining diplomatic flights stocked with luxury goods.
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01'Back to Back' was nominated for Best Rap Album at the 2016 Grammys — the first diss track ever nominated.
02Meek Mill had alleged via Twitter that Drake used ghostwriter Quentin Miller, then released no musical response for weeks.
03Drake performed the song at the OVO Fest with a Meek Mill bobblehead onstage, institutionalizing the humiliation.
gnostek1 / 18Langton's ant after 11,000 steps. A red pixel shows the ant's location.
01The 'highway' pattern — a repeating 104-step diagonal corridor — emerges reliably around step 10,000.
02Christopher Langton described the ant in 1986; the highway emergence remains unproven from first principles.
03The ant is Turing-complete: given an infinite grid, it can simulate any computation.
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01After the beheadings, the 10,000 Greek survivors elected new leaders overnight and marched 1,500 miles home.
02Xenophon, an amateur with no command, stepped up and wrote the entire story himself in the Anabasis.
03Tissaphernes was later executed by his own Persian king — beheaded on orders from Artaxerxes II.
gnostek1 / 4Red Bird – watercolour on paper
01Giuliani threatened to cut $7 million in city funding to the Brooklyn Museum over the painting.
02Ofili, a Catholic, said the dung was a reverent material — he used it in nearly every painting.
03A man entered the museum and smeared white paint over the canvas; he was arrested on-site.
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01The Treasury Department ruled that U.S. lawyers required a special license to legally represent al-Awlaki in court.
02A federal judge dismissed his father's lawsuit to remove him from the kill list, citing lack of standing.
03The Justice Department's legal memo authorizing the killing was classified for three years after his death.
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01Lorz rode in a car for miles 11 through 21, then jogged the final five to the finish line.
02Alice Roosevelt, daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt, had already placed the winner's laurels on Lorz's head.
03The actual winner, Thomas Hicks, was given strychnine and brandy by his handlers during the race as a stimulant.
gnostek1 / 23The National Ignition Facility, located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
01The 192-beam pulse lasts just 20 billionths of a second but briefly exceeds 100 million degrees Celsius.
02In December 2022, NIF produced 3.15 megajoules from a 2.05-megajoule input — the first fusion ignition.
03The target pellet of hydrogen fuel is just 2 millimeters in diameter, smaller than a pea.
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01The Montagnana cello Ma left behind was crafted in Venice in 1733 and is valued at approximately $2.5 million.
02New York's Taxi and Limousine Commission located the cab within one hour using trip records.
03Ma has since performed in conflict zones and refugee camps as part of his Silk Road Ensemble, founded in 1998.