A man growing old...

The pursuit of happiness or the happiness of pursuit? Read a bit about making sense of the mind and its role in making us happy.

Speaking of minds, or the lack thereof, did I mention that Ze Frank has A Show? (Of course I did.) Have you watched yet? "Perfectionism may look good in his shiny shoes but he's a little bit of an asshole and nobody invites him to their pool parties."

Like Hemingway? Like stop-motion animation? Like simple pen on paper drawing? Then watch this video of Old Man and The Sea being sketched. (The background music is distracting so I turned it off.)

Here's a 1971 video from Canadia showing how computers were used to do keyframe animation. Even if you're not a fan of animation, computer geeks should enjoy seeing these vintage graphics. "...a handheld positioner called a mouse."

And finally, I Know That Voice is an upcoming documentary about voice actors in animated films. June Foray, who did Rocky the Flying Squirrel, is included.

Fractal Mondrian via the Truchet pattern. (Yes, I've posted this before.)

Not to dwell on tornadoes but with the 17 here in DFW a couple weeks ago and the potential for more across the country's midsection today, here's a interactive map of U.S. tornadoes from 1950 to 2011. I tried to authenticate a childhood memory of a July 4, 1969 tornado in Cleveland but came up empty.

Something good out of Cleveland. Enterprising undergraduates won a contest for creating reusable pothole filler out of a non-Newtonian fluid. (Flows like a liquid under no stress, rigid like a solid when stressed - i.e. when a car runs over it.) 

The biggest hailstones I've seen here in Texas were about 2.5 or 3.0 inches in diameter. But that's nothing compared to an accumulated 4 feet of hail like happened in Amarillo earlier this week. Yes, piles of hailstones four feet high. So high it closed highways.

For web design geeks only - a sortable color name chart.

There are good memory tricks and there are bad ones. From the latter, here's the periodic table set to music. 

A lot happens behind the scenes before software gets released. (Trust me, you don't want to see the sausage being made.) Facebook's release process, as described in this article from ars technica, poses some very interesting challenges. Notable: the release team maintains a fully stocked bar at the office, the team leader has a 30 inch monitor (OK, not notable, just envy), and developers are given a karma score based on their job performance. "Reverting is for losers."

Rare and unpublished photos from the funeral of John F. Kennedy

HAH! I've been retrained to never put a comma before the "and" at the end of a list. The so-called Oxford Comma plays an important role as demonstrated by JFK, Stalin, and a couple of strippers.

Music lovers: take the tone deaf test to see just how well you can tell whether two passages of music are the same or not. I scored 75% placing me in the 46th percentile of over 60,000 test subjects. Frankly, I was very disappointed with that score.

Seems like a new internet theme is to post writing tips from famous authors. Here are 8 from Kurt Vonnegut. My favorite is #5: Start as close to the end as possible.

Texas Tech students: Lubbock's Fantasy Maid Service offers nude maid services.

For the recently-hired new graduate, 8 steps to succeeding in corporate America. #3 Master Outlook (or whatever your system is for email, contacts, calendar).

Double Tap - .45 ACP Pocket Pistol. 2 rounds loaded, 2 in the grip for quick reloading. 12 oz. in aluminum. 5/8 inch thick.

Science answers the questions that matter. Why do humans have sex? This journal article was published in 2007. WHY AM I ONLY HEARING ABOUT THIS NOW? While "efforts to reduce sexual motivation to a small number of factors are doomed to fail," this particular study produced a taxonomy of reasons in four categories: physical, goal attainment, insecurity (self-esteem boost, duty/pressure, mate guarding), and emotional. The section on gender differences is enlightening.

Web Equation is truly amazing. Write an equation using the mouse and the equivalent markup is produced in MathML or LaTeX or the equation is solved in WolframAlpha. Like I said, amazing. (Truly so if you've ever tried to format equations using MathML by hand.)

The youngest B-52 is 50 years old. Story, images, and video after the link.

The F-16 Living Legacy. "This airplane is really that good." Spend 4:28 with this video.

Recruiters will look at your resume for 6 seconds. So it's important to add the information they want to see in a format that lets them find it. (Best resume joke - Two people are reviewing a stack of resumes. One guy takes half of the pile and throws it in the trash. "Why'd you do that?" asks the other guy. "I don't want to hire anyone who's unlucky.")

What cut of beef is the infographic?

What cut of the beard is the infographic? (huh?)

source

It's wacky Tumblr time: Spock Is Not Impressed.

55 beers with a minimum alcohol content of 10% ABV. Surprisingly, a Sam Adams brew is at the top of the list. While Stone's Double Bastard is included, notably absent is Rogue's Double Dead Guy.

This article got my attention right away. "Children are, in fact, one of the reasons American food got so bad." (Mini rant - Why can't some parents keep their spawn quiet and seated during a meal?) Back on track - what does an economist know about dining out? Apparently a lot.

Now watch the Imax trailer for Ridley Scott's Alien prequel Prometheus. Looks good enough to get me into the theater. But probably not. I'll wait for VOD.

This may be one of the funniest memes I've seen on teh interwebs. source

DO NOT CLICK THIS. (Image of tasteless tattoo referring to the female anatomy. Worst of all - a spelling error.)

When it comes to bodily fluids, pee-pee gets all the notoriety. But there are others as delineated on this list of 12 underappreciated bodily fluids. #10 Female ejaculate. (tee hee)

Not to be outdone, you can do some interesting things with poop as this list shows. (paper?)

...becomes a child again. ~Sophocles