Everything that is beautiful and noble...

From Bruce Mau Design via Chuck Jones' blog (yes, the Bugs Bunny guy) comes the Incomplete Manifesto for Growth. I like the idea in the preamble - one day you're surfing teh interwebs for stories about poo and then you stumble across something truly thought provoking. Some of the more notable ideas include "The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question," "Begin anywhere," and "Laugh."

Also from the advice column, here's the good advice that Wil Wheaton inscribed in a fan's high school yearbook. #4 Work hard.

Speaking of hard, learn to program in C the hard way.

Cornell University has put their entire collection of wildlife sounds online at the Macaulay Library. How about the scaly-breasted wren?

Somewhere around here I still have a PC running Windows 95. But I'm not certain these Windows 95 Tips will be much help.

This past week was the 100th anniversary of the first performance of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. In honor of that, Stephen Malinowski created a video visualization of Part 1, The Adoration of the Earth. This has always been one of my favorite classical works (esp. the recording by Lorin Maazel conducting the Cleveland Orchestra) and you should take 15 minutes to enjoy this video.

What color is a Bach concerto?

And what exactly happens in the brain when you perceive art?

How much would you pay for 100 2-inch paper circles cut from a vintage calculus textbook? I can't judge whether $4 is a fair price. But it seems to me that 4-inch circles might be better suited for use as coasters.

Scan of the Do-17 lying on the sea floor awaiting salvage.

The only known surviving (which is a relative term in this case) Dornier Do-17 bomber from WWII is about to be raised from 60 feet deep in the English Channel where it crashed in 1940.

And for more WWII aviation info here's an article about the firebombing of Japan.

A is for Array, a child's introduction to programming. (book website, on Amazon)

E.lements of Star Wars I, II, and III

If you're going to write a book about the history of swearing, take the asterisk out of the title: Holy Sh*t.

I've posted about this before, but I could watch the 1958 Disney video of 4 artists painting a tree every day. And what I wouldn't give to have those 4 paintings.

Craft brewers, what are you doing? Stop. Stahp. STAHP. A brew made from yeast cultivated from the brewmaster's beard?

News flash: email is not dead. One way I like to look at it is this. I email anyone anything and it doesn't matter which email server or client we're both using. Social media (email's supposed replacement) consists of content silos, each requiring a different client: Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, SnapChat, etc.

You've all heard the joke that sincerity is the easiest emotion to fake. But which emotion is hardest to fake?

All that hard study pays off as engineering majors take 7 of the top 10 spots in this list of top paying majors from the National Association of Colleges and Employers. So what were the other 3? Computer science, MIS, and finance.

The fall of the engineer began with the dropping of the H-bomb [sic] at the end of WWII? I'm tempted to drop an f-bomb, not just for confusing atomic and hydrogen bombs but because this premise is totally lame. It is generally acknowledged that the U.S.'s industrial might was a key to victory in WWII and, therefore, should be praised accordingly. (For example, see Freedom's Forge.) Maybe it's just because I'm currently reading Atlas Shrugged but the fall of the engineer began when some of us started letting dolts call the shots. Oh boo hoo, me engineer, me no like talky to people. Me sad. Wah.

Yep, that pretty much sums it up. Science vs. politics.

24/7 Wall St. brings us this list of brands that will disappear in 2014. For whatever reason, the one that surprised me the most is Volvo (0.3% market share in the U.S.).

Not burgers and fries, not hammer and nails. This Tumblr is Burgers and Nails. (Finger nails, that is.) Makes you wonder what other odd combo photo blogs are out there.

If you like your album covers animated, animated albums is the Tumblr for you. (Old fart alert: I've never heard of 99% of these bands.) If you like your albums melted and warped into a sculpture, check out Jean Shin's Sound Wave 2007.

Wendy, you had me at pretzel. Pretzel Bacon Cheeseburger to debut later this year. Repeating: PRETZEL BACON CHEESEBURGER.

Ever want to remove the background from a photograph? Clipping Magic (currently available online in alpha test format for free use) makes it so easy a monkey can do it. On the other hand, I'm not certain what I'd do with a stencil.

I would totally do this: Drive a Tank.

Mapping cities by smell.

Clock fetish: word clock.

What else can be done with Daft Punk's Get Lucky? How about a fun video montage with a twist?

The video game alphabet.

Everyone seemed to like the superimposed animated GIF of Yu Darvish's pitches so here's one showing how Miguel Cabrera can homer regardless of where the pitch is over the plate. And what about Robert Coello's WTF pitch?

...is the product of reason and calculation. ~Charles Baudelaire