In celebration of Pi Day (3-14), here’s a neat little article on pi, and how it helped Archimedes to develop a method still in use today: Aside from laying the groundwork for calculus, Archimedes taught us the power of approximation and iteration. He bootstrapped a good estimate into a better one, using more and more straight pieces to approximate a curved object with increasing accuracy. More than two millennia later, this strategy matured into the modern field of “numerical analysis.” ...

Twenty strangers meet and kiss on camera for the first time. I’m amazed how intimate some of these get for a first kiss between strangers.

Holy crap, this is a scary theory - a known structural defect on 777s could have slowly caused decompression that disoriented and then left passengers on MH370 unconscious: A structural failure related to the flaw could not only have led to a slow decompression that left the 239 passengers and crew on the missing flight unconscious, it would also have disabled satellite communications, including the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), which transmits data of the plane’s location automatically. ...

The Guardian has an interesting profile of Narendra Modi, the man who looks most likely to be India’s next Prime Minister, the leader of the largest democracy in the world: The BJP believes Modi, one of the most polarising figures to walk the Indian political stage for many years, can lead it to a landslide victory, despite opposition claims that he is a demagogue and a “hatemonger”. After a false start in 1996, the party won real power for the first time two years later, but lost the 2004 elections. Now BJP strategists believe they have an opportunity to end the long decades of Congress dominance for good – and with it the power of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. Insider v outsider, dynast v working-class boy made good, suspected sectarian v secularist: this electoral battle has it all. Some analysts talk of the most significant contest since India won its independence from Britain in 1947. ...

Spoilers for Season 2: Now imagine if these characters had been written by Sorkin instead… Hmm.