Back on topic: this is not "the World's smallest nation". It's a micronation, i.e. it has not been recognized by any sovereign state, ever. There are fishing boats with more people and room than that, and they don't issue passports.

You'll be glad to hear that such attempts actually happened with other micronations, and multiple times.

My favourite was the tiny Pacific island of Minerva (my only grief: they didn't call it 'Aynrandia'), which libertarians with too much money built up by pouring a few boatful of sand on top of the underlying reefs.
But being libertarians, the had no taxes. Having no taxes, they had no security forces. And having no security forces, a patrol boat from Tonga arrived, reclaimed the place, and told them in no uncertain terms to fuck off. The end.

There were other attempts, none as comical, but all of them equally doomed.

206? Ouch.
But my comment was more general: things I think won't make it may skyrocket (HR Giger, scary robot), while others I consider a slam dunk will stutter or tank (Black Sabbeth, Manborg).
Due to The Sift's community size, I suspect a lot of it as more to do with timing than anything else, tho.

Thanks.
...Only took four years!

radx is right.

From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemann_zeta_function
(Emphasis mine)

because of the series definition for zeta when the real part of s is greater than 1, this fact is sometimes (mis)used to state

zeta(-1) = 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ... = -1/12

which is only true in a very informal sense (i.e. this is just an abuse of notation, and the series does not actually converge to this value).

Kind of a bit of a *dupe of:
http://videosift.com/video/The-Effect-of-Islam-on-Science-in-the-Middle-East-9th-12th
http://videosift.com/video/The-God-of-the-Gaps-Neil-deGrasse-Tyson

*nsfw for graphic content (pictures of people shot dead).

Jacob's Ladder features the twin towers. It is actually kind of a goof in the film, in that they're supposed to be there / not there (you need to see the movie to understand).


In reply to this comment by chicchorea:
This may be a interesting reference. However, it is lost on me.

Que?

In reply to this comment by 9547bis:
Have you seen my ladder?

-Jacob.