Those who are too smart to engage in politics...

Where else would you locate a plumbing museum except Watertown. Read about it in the WSJ (Thomas Crapper did not invent the toilet? Wha..?) Follow their blog, The Water Closet.

One of three designs submitted for toilet of the future. Looks good for #2, not so good for #1.

It's the time of year for "best of lists." Inventing Abstraction is already on my wish list at Amazon so it's nice to see that it's also included in Modern Art Notes' best books of 2013.

And it's the time of year for this too. If you listen to only mashup each year (and that's probably true for a lot of you) make it this one: DJ Earworm's United State of Pop 2013. If you want to listen to a second, check out Pop Danthology 2013 from Daniel Kim.

This review makes the recent Berserk! and InterStatic show in London sound like a really good time.

Chat Noir's next album is due out in 2014 from Rare Noise Records so I'm trying to learn more about this jazz trio from Italy. Here's their SoundCloud page.

Also out next year on Rare Noise (a label I'm really starting to love) is Plymouth, "A deep, entrancing cavalcade into nether realms of psychedelia, avant jazz and rock."

Partitura is a programming language for visualizing music developed by musician Quayola. (Video - must watch.) (Story in Wired - maybe read.)

Barnett Newman, Be I (Second Version), 1970 - The Menil Collection will host an exhibit on Newman's late work during 2014.

Speaking of programming: programming cheat sheets, and a tutorial for learning Haskell.

What does a million lines of code look like?

Do software developers need a standardized code of ethics? Short answer, No. 

Klein's quartic curve. This started to make my brain hurt so tl;dr.

Learn how to make a Gantt chart from a spreadsheet in Google Docs.

Disney's Frozen has gotten some good reviews but this guy really likes the short that proceeds it, Get A Horse!

Amazing. Go inside the U.S. Navy's first Zumwalt-class destroyer courtesy of Popular Science.

Someone shared their photos from the National Air and Space Museum in a Flickr set.

Your guide to military slang including "self licking ice cream cone."

First stupid web page trick. Second stupid web page trick. Third stupid web page trick. (Fractal morphing if you can believe it.)

A toy. Speaking of toys, how about this parent's annotated version of his kid's insane Xmas list?

From the National Geographic Photo Contest 2013. I'm not a huge fan of photography but this photo is breathtaking. See also Part 2.

Sign a petition at whitehouse.gov to keep people off their cellphones during airline flights.

The average individual debt excluding mortgages in Dallas/Fort Worth is $30,022. See this and more on a map of individual debt by state.

Got no time for reading? Try these 40 short novels. How about the top 30 new movies of 2014 (including Dumb and Dumber To).

For an estimated $200,000 to $300,000 you can have Han Solo's DL-44 blaster from the Star Wars movies.

A hexagon rotates around Saturn's north pole.

I will blame it on my upbringing. Even though Texas is one of the five states in which people are less likely to curse when talking to a service rep on the phone, Ohio is numero freakin' uno.

And draw your own conclusions from this list of states sorted by average penis size.

For the ladies, the periodic table of periods. (I suppose it had to be done if for no other reason than the word play.)

Be afraid. Very afraid. The earth is running out of chocolate, bacon and 5 other things.

Uh oh. Sexual frustration decreases life span.

...are punished by being governed by those who are dumber. ~Plato