In love, as in gluttony, pleasure is...

You have three choices for this post's soundtrack.  You can stream Brian Eno's new album Drums Between the Bells from Wired (and read about it too).  You can listen to Moby's new album, Destroyed.  Or you can go to Trey Gunn's blog, read about his recent visit to Texas, and hear several of his tunes (and watch a couple videos).  Trey is also featured in a Guitar International article on Modulator, his work with drummer Marco Minnemann.  (My review of Modulator is here.)

A stunning likeness is what you'll get from Turn Your Name Into a Face.  (Yep, that's me.)

I don't know much about this blogger, but after reading these two posts I started following him by RSS.  Parts 1 and 2 of "A Better Business Doctrine" are Assholes are bad for business and Give a shit.

Was Captain Kirk a playboy who traveled the universe hooking up with everyone in a foil mini-skirt? According to the author of The Women of Star Trek, definitely not.

For the person who truly misses the Big Apple, N SKY C is the average color of the New York City sky, updated every 5 minutes.

Newsweek's list of America's best high schools is out and my town's Colleyville Heritage comes in at #305.  Now if we can only get my boys' Grapevine High School up into the top 500.  Forbes magazine thinks Austin (#1) and Dallas (#7) will be two of the top 10 upcoming U.S. boom towns. The University of Texas has a site dedicated to Richard Wagner and his The Ring of the Nibelung.

Veggies sunt bona vobis, proinde vos postulo esse magis spring onion beet greens garlic gram watercress leek lentil.  This paragraph from Veggie Ipsum provides fair and balanced coverage relative to a previous link to Bacon Ipsum.

B-2 bomber over St. Louis.  source

Aviation pr0n: Space Shuttle piggybacking on a 747, Thunderbirds lined up in their F-16s, gallery of Convair's FISH - First Invisible Super Hustler, a CIA-backed reconnaissance aircraft. The F-35 Lightning II has it's own web site at www.f35.com.  Boeing salutes the Space Shuttle with this photo gallery.

Cartoon Brew (rightfully) tears apart Time Magazine's list of the top 25 animated features of all time.  I realize that Chuck Jones' The Dot and The Line is a short subject (winner of an academy award in 1965) but I'd rate it higher than 1979's Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner movie.

Check out Preston Blair's fundamentals of animation drawing.  Or if you prefer something less vintage, here are tips from Lackadaisy.  Here's a twist - an animation fights back.

For my beer friends: the beer archaeologist.  For my programming friends: 10 ways to improve your programming skills.  #1 Learn a new programming language.  For my baseball friends: the physics of cheating in baseball.  I know what you're thinking - "Who's he kidding, he doesn't have any friends."

Do you know what a pizzelle is?   Or even how to pronounce it properly?  One son dislike, other son meh.  Wife and I agreed the brand linked to was pretty good for out of a box.

Here are two stupid music things: APEXvj, Automachine.

Here are two stupid fractal things: fractal eye candy, fractal toys.

Here are two stupid nuclear things: The Atomic Revolution (a comic book from 1957) and The Atomic Energy Lab (a toy lab set from 1951).

These are cool (and for sale).  Portraits of authors done with their own words.  This is William Faulkner done with The Sound and The Fury.

Who better to come up with a snappy insult than an author, especially when that insult is aimed at another author.  For example, Hemingway on Faulkner: “Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?”

Reading books is fun but apparently making books is fun too.  Here's a site dedicated to Shakespeare in American Life.

I haven't read any of the top 3 (and only 4 of the top 10) from the list of the greatest books of all time.  Time to pull Ulysses and Lolita down off the shelf.  Twenty-three authors give tips on writing a book including this: write the book you want to read.

In the wake of my recently satiated lust for post-apocalyptic fiction (A Canticle for Leibowitz), here's a list of 10 great post-apocalyptic novels.  #1 Alas, Babylon.

The Economist has picked their six greatest business books of all time and I've read exactly none of them.  Fortunately, the author of The Innovator's Dilemma will be speaking at The Business of Software conference that I'll be attending this coming October.

These inspiring business ideas from software success Derek Shivers range from the "Hell Yes!" (#17 There's a big difference between being self-employed and being a business owner) to the "Huh?" (#16 When you sign up for a marathon, you don't want a taxi to take you to the finish line.)

Three (count 'em) secrets to awesome presentations.  Tell a story.  Go overboard.  Make your first and last slides the most awesome.

Is this Vincent or Theo Van Gogh?

The Atlantic has a 20 part retrospective on World War II in Photos.  (They're currently up to part 3.)

I'll give you a choice: Gary Busey photoshopped onto war photos or Justin Bieber photoshopped onto just about everything.

Great news: Coordinated Activation of Wnt in Epithelial and Melanocyte Stem Cells Initiates Pigmented Hair Regeneration!  Mr. Science person will now translate: an end to gray hair.

In science of a more dubious quality, a study of the desirable personality traits of robot vacuum cleaners revealed that people want them to be calm, polite, efficient, and systematic.  I would describe my Roomba, Bob, as a guy who just wants to help out wherever he can.  However, he is a little needy and likes a good cleaning every once in a while.  I do not think he's not as artistic as these light-painting Roombas.

Here's an animated explanation of Einstein's theory of time dilation, namely that the speed of light is constant for all observers.

When you think about it, hitting a metal disc with a wooden stick to make music seems kinda odd.  So perhaps you'll enjoy this slo-mo (1,000 fps) film of a cymbal  being struck from the scientific standpoint.

More trigonometry than you can shake a cursor at.

Is everything a remix?  These videos well made, thought provoking, and worth watching.  But honestly, I'm not sure what the point is.  Is he just trying to make shameless, unoriginal copiers like me feel better? Part1, Part 2, Part 3.  (Part 4 is coming.  Visit the website.)

Yes, I am anal-retentive.  Yes, I own (see above) the entire line of Discwasher products to clean my LPs (even though my turntable has been busted for 12 years).  So here's a DIY resource for cleaning LPs, DVDs, and CDs.

What in the bejeebers?!?  Scroll Madness.  You could play all day with this string of beads or these zig-zags.  Guilloche is like a spirograph but on the internet.  AAARRRRGHHH - CLICKISTAN.  I suggest watching the video before you play to prevent frustration.  I know you're probably sick of the Nyan Cat by now, but you may not have seen this Nyan Cat Lego video.

Visualization Insights #9: Visual Journalist.

You should never wear socks with sandals or flip-flops, but is it OK to wear socks that look like flip-flops?

98,000 tweets per minute and other factoids about what happens on teh interwebs every 60 seconds.  Google's going to rebrand this blog's hosting service from Blogger to Google Blogs.  The 3D mouse is pretty cool, but this 5 finger mouse is mind-blowing.  Is your website down or is it just you?  Find out with downorisitjustme.com.  Web humor: microscopicons.

Here's an interesting commentary on open source, GPL, and the OpenFOAM CFD solver from one of the keynote presenters at the recent OpenFOAM Workshop.

A website made out of chocolate?  If you were going to make an edible anus what else would you make it out of besides chocolate?  Videos of animals pooping (really): snake, alligator, frog, rhino.  I think I love this woman.  Enjoy this hilarious blog post about being constipated (really).

Jackson Pollock, Untitled, 1948-49. source  (Note: Pollock insisted that all his paintings included figuration and that's clearly illustrated here.  He was not just throwing paint around.)

I already blogged about this for work but I'll repeat it here.  Harvard scientists describe how Jackson Pollock's paintings reveal his understanding of free fluid jet coiling.  Quoting: "We are all students of nature, and so was Pollock. Often, artists and artisans are far ahead, as they push boundaries in ways that are quite similar to, and yet different from, how scientists and engineers do the same."

Here's a nice interactive timeline of American art courtesy of the Phillips Collection.

An artist who paints with her lips.  Of course she does.  I suppose that's a step up from the artists who made perfume out of their #1 and #2.

Only 2 of 51 Miss USA contestants advocate the teaching of evolution in schools and it appears that all 51 don't know what they're talking about.  Wasn't it better when they kept their mouths shut and we just looked at them in their bikinis?

After all that, I think you need to make everything OK.

...a matter of the utmost precision. ~Italo Calvino