Science vs. Religion, and a clever graphic

Quote Of The Day

"In physical science a first essential step in the direction of learning any subject is to find principles of numerical reckoning and practicable methods for measuring some quality connected with it. I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about and express it in numbers you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind: it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be. "

--William Thomson, Lord Kelvin

Science vs. Religion, and a clever graphic

Thu, 07/17/2014 - 02:31

I heard today there are some 3 billion internet users in the world. I've heard similar numbers before, but when I heard it today I thought: hey! There's only a bit over 2 billion Christians! Maybe Science is winning this thing after all! Particularly when you consider Christ had a nearly 2000 year head start!

But here's really why I'm writing. Pull up this web page:

http://www.internetlivestats.com/watch/internet-users/

At first sight, it looks like a simple graphic with a counter. But if you hover your cursor over any particular person (icon), you'll see a number. A unique number, in order. Scroll back and forth, and each integer from 1 to almost 3 billion is represented.

Now, it clearly is not loading a page with 3 billion icons on it. It's not a great mystery, of course, but I don't know precisely how they are doing it, and it just struck me as rather clever. In a small way, but clever enough to make me smile.

And perhaps, you will too.

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