Kurt Vonnegut's 8 rules for great writing seem to be very relevant to writing on teh interwebs. For example, #5 Sound Like Yourself (not what your teacher probably required which is that you sound like a century-old English gentleman).
When is a nickel not worth five cents? When it's a rare (only five are known to exist) 1913 Liberty Head Nickel (1913 was the year the Buffalo Nickel began minting). At auction in April someone is probably going to pay in excess of $2.5 million for it.
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| Clyfford Still, 1956-PH 233. Read about this painting and more in an article about the Still Museum's current exhibit. |
Know yer states. Of Matter. Gas, liquid, solid. Oh, don't forget plasma. But hark! What does science bring us? A spin-liquid, a solid with some characteristics of a liquid caused by electrons that can't orient themselves magnetically.
As I sit here sipping my green tea, I'm also reading this list of the advantages of drinking green tea. Reduces stress and depression? Sure, why not.
Music history in animated GIFs is a misnomer. It's more like music the author likes in animated GIFs. Regardless, someone's spent a lot of time on this.
Wanna be smarter? Stop multi-tasking. Imagine smoking a joint and then trying to get work done. Multi-tasking is three times worse. Other tips at the link.
All other reasons for despising the North Korean regime pale in comparison to this: they don't like big boobs.
How do you get everyone onboard for organizational change? Is that more complicated if everyone consists largely of engineers? Would they benefit from a formula? The formula for change says D x V x F > R which cryptically means that for any change to overcome resistance R, the product of the current dissatisfaction D, the vision V, and the first steps F toward the vision have to exceed the resistance to change. Frankly, this is all bullshit as the alphabet soup can't be quantified. But I suppose it provides a framework for thinking about and communicating change.
What has 300% of the Vitamin C of an orange, 50% more calcium than spinach, is chock full of anti-oxidants, and tastes good? The fruit of the African baobo tree. And you might start seeing it in your grocery store soon.
What happens when social media and chemistry get together? You end up with the periodic table of Twitter handles (i.e. Twitter users who use an element name as their handle as in @nitrogen).
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| Why so sad? Wait. WTF? Those buckets are hanging from his eyelids. |
This might keep you busy for hours. Remix of the Century lets you visualize the top Billboard hits of the last century via various criteria (number of weeks on the charts, tempo, key, danceability) and then play a mashup of the resulting tunes.
Just a 360 degree photograph of London taken from 300 meters up.
Technology companies have business incubators so it's only fair that there be an incubator for breweries too.
Speaking of breweries, we're getting another one close to home: Grapevine Craft Brewery.
Science shows us the difference between and ale and a lager.
A pet tortoise survived for 30 years after being lost and forgotten in a storage room. (Sounds like being married.)
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| It's been in the news a lot so I went out and got me a fake girlfriend. Meet Toni VonNostrin, a theology major from Oklahoma Christian University whose favorite place to eat is Rax Restaurants. Courtesy of the Fake Girlfriend Generator. |
Hey, astronomy geeks. Have you seen video of Nova GK Persei that exploded in 1901?
What do astronomy geeks have in common with dung beetles? They both like looking into the night sky. The dung beetle uses stellar navigation to roll his balls of dung in a straight line. No shit.
Yet again, science tackles the tough problems of our day. Up until now (to the best of my knowledge) no one has applied game theory to the issue of leaving the toilet seat up or down. (I will not spoil it for you and tell you who comes out ahead.)
There are places I've visited in Europe where I swear they don't know that we've invented ways to move air. This one airport, despite being crowded with moving people, was stuffy and close, the air like cotton. There have been hotel rooms where you can't turn the heat off. On the other hand, I bet our visitors think we're trying to freeze them out with air conditioning. Here's an article about the concept of comfort and how it's influenced by culture and how those influences are being eroded by internationalization. (One interesting tangent is the siesta and how it's going away. The siesta dovetails nicely with something I linked to a while ago that back in the day it was normal for people to wake up in the middle of the night for a couple of hours before going back for a second sleep.)
When Shakespeare wrote about shuffling off this mortal coil he wasn't referring to DNA. But DNA's thinking of him. Or more precisely, science has encoded all of Shakespeare's sonnets in DNA.
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| I know someone who likes Nintendo and pancakes. Draw your own conclusion. |
How to get hit by a fish. First, the wrong way. Second, the right way. (Kids these days, ruining everything.)
Watch former Disney animator Glen Keane demonstrate how he'd animate a dancer.
These words when strung together seem to make no sense: GANGSTA RIDDIM music video by about:blank track by Roel Funcken. But just watch the video.
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| An opalized (not fossilized) dinosaur tooth. Astonishing. |
After all that, you deserve some time in the thoughts room.
...the more it will incline toward the religion of solitude. ~Aldous Huxley
2 comments:
As usual, more than one visit's worth of good links. I had seen the brain pickings before but saved the link this time, thanks. Is it just me or does the moving graphic look like many breasts?
Great stuff . . .
I'm on the Brain Pickings email list and they usually have something.
Dang, I thought I was the only one with the dirty mind (aka sexy imagination). I see it as a bag of some living creatures writhing around.
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