It takes courage to grow up and...

Clyfford Still, Untitled, 1957 - I think I like his work as much as Rothko's.

I know this is late but a milestone passed over the past few weeks - the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis (16-28 October 1962, although you can make the case that the crisis extended into December). A couple of online resources worth looking at are Clouds Over Cuba, an interactive documentary (from the JFK library) and Nuclear Order of Battle (chock full of facts).

While we're on the topic of Cold War history, the tale of the Farewell Dossier makes for an interesting read. Farewell was the codename of a Soviet agent within the KGB run by the French. He presented the French with a dossier detailing Soviet industrial and technological espionage. When the French shared this with the CIA the latter ran an operation by which intentionally flawed technology was fed to the  Soviets with the desired deleterious effect.

This is interesting: action paintings from action movies. Jeremy Rotsztain uses sounds of gunfire, car chases and fighting from Hollywood's action films to orchestrate the digital equivalent of abstract action painting.

Only book nerds will appreciate this photo blog of bookshelf porn.

While renovating his chimney and fireplace, an Englishman found the skeleton of a carrier pigeon with a red message capsule with message from WWII. Decoding is underway.

For those seeking summer employment, here's a photo timeline of an unpaid internship. (Please note: unpaid internships are illegal. If you're doing real work they have to pay you. They can only omit pay if it is a training program where you're learning something.)

I didn't know Windows 7 had something called the Reliability Monitor that charts your computer's performance over time and notes any and all incidents.

In what country might these instructions be necessary? source

Got a hankerin' for memories from 'Nam? Check out PTF Nasty, home of the Patrol Torpedo Fast Nasty Class boats.

Do you need images/icons of flags? How about 2,500 of them? Get this free icon flag set from GoSquared.

This reviewer really likes the 40th anniversary edition of King Crimson's Larks' Tongues in Aspic - by comparison Yes' "Tales from Topographic Oceans sounds like Gilbert O'Sullivan."

It was probably inevitable that someone would start coming up with recipes for K-Cup cocktails. (You know K-Cups, those coffee pods for the Keurig machine.)

Caption not required. source

Sure. Let's build a full-scale Millennium Falcon.

The South Koreans done gone and built a robotic super gun that can target a human from 3 km.

Got a Trekkie in your life? Xmas isn't that far away and this ultimate ST:TOS poster would probably keep Kirk-wannabes happy for days. Or for the geometry freak in your family, a poster of shapes including the Reuleaux nonagon.

Perhaps you would prefer an infographic of the 2,000 most important films of all time sorted by genre and suitable for framing.

If 2,000 is too many for you, check out the jazz lovers top 100+ list. (Owning 7 out of 100 is good, right?)

Sometimes I'm just that hungry. source (Going to hell? Yep.)

If you agree that programs are primarily meant to be read by humans and secondarily to be compiled and executed by computers you'll enjoy this article on why coding style matters.

It's Jungian personality test time again. Same song, different verse. Still an ESTJ.

You can also try the Byzantium Security International test (seems to be some sort of Cinemax related project), a unique test that begins with 20 questions with multiple choice pictures for answers. According to it I'm a "troubled individual" with "unique abilities." It also says I'm under substantial stress and anxiety.  The second part of the test says I have an unusually well-realized ability to make confident decisions under pressure.

Uromancy. Just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? Not familiar? It's the practice of using the color, smell, and taste of urine to diagnose diseases with the aid of urine wheels

Know your lobster from your crawfish? Learn about that and 19 other confusing differences.

This makes me sad: William Faulkner's estate is suing Sony Pictures for infringement because Owen Wilson's character quoted a phrase of 10 words from Requiem for a Nun in a Woody Allen film.

Another interesting video: Yuri Gagarin being interviewed by the BBC in 1961.

I'm not sure what to make of SEED, a short live-action, sci-fi film on vimeo.

Sexy Bert - you're doing it wrong. source

I don't think artist Jamie McCartney is having the effect he desired. He claims to be "changing female body perception through art." He does so by creating The Great Wall of Vagina, plaster casts of hundreds of lady bits. Isn't that objectification?

Introducing the honey badger of bridges because at 11 foot 8 it doesn't give a shit how many trucks it catches. And it catches a lot. Watch the video.

I feel safer now that the courts are adjudicating science. A German court ruled that the Large Hadron Collider won't destroy the earth.

...turn out to be who you really are. ~e.e. cummings