spend at least a couple minutes a day learning random stuff on wikipedia

habit now. I wonder if it’s a strange coincidence or some subconscious activity of mind, in any case, quite often not long after I learn some random fact I run into it in everyday life. It gives me a mixed feeling of awe and pleasure :)

According to this, there are two kinds of lightning: negative and positive.

An average bolt of negative lightning carries a current of 30-to-50 kiloamperes(kA), although some bolts can be up to 120kA, and transfers a charge of 5 coulombs and 500 megajoules (enough to light a 100 watt light bulb for 2 months).

Positive lightning makes up less than 5% of all lightning. It occurs when the leader forms at the positively charged cloud tops, with the consequence that a negatively charged streamer issues from the ground. An average bolt of positive lightning carries a current of up to 300 kiloamperes (about ten times as much current as a bolt of negative lightning), transfers a charge of up to 300 coulombs, has a potential difference up to 1 gigavolt (a billion volts), lasts for hundreds of milliseconds, and dissipates enough energy to light a 100 watt lightbulb for up to 95 years.

I guess his marriage to Marilyn Monroe triggered the whole thing. Anyways, his page on Wikipedia led me to his A visit with Castro piece. It’s an interesting short read narrating his visit to Cuba. I think it qualifies for learning random stuff (about Cuba, Castro, Garcia Marquez, Miller himself, etc).

that Boltzmann committed suicide at the age of 62? I can’t quite comprehend how this could have happenned. He was a great physicist (one of the minds behind statistical mechanics), and scientists are not usually the type that one would expect to take their own life.

Randomly picked from Wikipedia (found it interesting how they reflect, at least partially, people’s state of mind):

India: Truth Alone Triumphs
Bulgaria: Union provides strength
Switzerland: One for all, all for one
Turkey: Peace in the Homeland, Peace in the World
Greece: Liberty or Death
Brazil: Order and Progress
Iraq: God is Great
United States: In God We Trust
Cuba: Homeland and Freedom
Iran: Independence, freedom, the Islamic Republic
Uganda: For God and My Country
Ghana: Freedom and Justice
Czech Republic: Truth prevails
Germany: Unity and Justice and Freedom
Malaysia: Unity Is Strength
France: Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood