How big a problem is HIV

If you collected all of the HIV from the world’s 30 million sufferers, it would fit onto a spoon. [source]

Consumption spreads faster today

An interesting graph at this location for the US (no original source given):

I’m not sure I agree fully with the talking title. If anything the radio penetrated households faster than the internet, and washing machines were probably adopted more quickly (World War 2 impact corrected for) than dishwashers. Still, interesting.

Channel Tunnel

A link from a new blog I’ve started following revealed the following details about the Channel Tunnel’s construction:

• Such was the volume of material which was drilled out of the tunnel that the UK has actually been expanded by 90 acres to accommodate the “waste”
• On average the British workers managed to tunnel around 150 m a week whereas the French figure was lower at 110 m a week

Notes here on saving money on Eurostar tickets.

And an excerpt direct from the blog in question, Further or Alternatively, which made me smile:

…the apocryphal story of the indulgent jury or magistrate who, not wanting to ruin the life of a poor young defendant who has made a silly mistake, returns the verdict “Not guilty” – and then adds sternly “but don’t do it again”.

Two sleeps per night

Now we have so much artificial light that after a 1994 earthquake knocked out power, some concerned residents of Los Angeles called the police to report a “giant, silvery cloud” in the sky above them. It was the Milky Way. They had never seen it before.

From an article on how it was once normal to have two sleeps per night:

Before this electrically illuminated age, our ancestors slept in two distinct chunks each night. The so-called first sleep took place not long after the sun went down and lasted until a little after midnight. A person would then wake up for an hour or so before heading back to the so-called second sleep.