The soul is dyed with...

Music for your listening pleasure and purchasing consideration:

• Taylor Deupree's Somi
• POLE by Mastelotto and Reuter
• Strangers by Michael Bernier
• Falling for Ascension by Markus Reuter
• Five by The Security Project

An interesting study of the psychology of music indicates that happy, easy listening music may actually make you more likely to do bad things.

Film instead of music you ask? How about this compilation of every Oscar-winning animated feature film since 2001?

Cartoon Brew opines that Academy voters really don't care about animated films (which may be why Disney has been on such a winning streak). After reading the article, if I reviewed technical papers like the Academy reviewers review animated films I'd be kicked out of my professional society.

Probably not an Oscar candidate, Disney's 1946 film The Story of Menstruation is worth a watch. I learned a lot.

A periodic table of beer.

I'm still a fan of Tom Clancy's fictional universe so it's notable that two new authors will be taking over writing duties for future novels: Marc Cameron for the Jack Ryan Sr. novels and Mike Maden for the Jack Ryan Jr. novels.

I love it. The X-37B remains in orbit for over a year with no plans to land any time soon. Doing what, we can only wonder.

Have you heard about the 8th continent, Zealandia? It's mostly submerged, so...

MapFight lets you compare the relative size of two countries (or U.S. States). Here's Texas versus Japan.

Here's a live webcam showing construction of the Los Angeles Rams' new stadium.

From the Usefulness of Useless Knowledge, "A poem, a symphony, a painting, a mathematical truth, a new scientific fact, all bear in themselves all the justification that universities, colleges, and institutes of research need or require." I may need to add this to my bookshelf next to C.P. Snow's The Two Cultures.

Maps intended to identify this country's "cultural divide" look at things like where TV's Big Bang Theory is most popular. What I immediately see as missing is any indication of population density.

So science does this: venture into a cave 800 meters below ground level where temperatures reach 140 deg. F, discover previously unknown microorganisms living inside huge crystals, and they try to grow them and get them to reproduce. I've seen this horror movie on TV - don't do it.

And up in Canadia, scientists have found perhaps the oldest fossilized microorganisms, 3.77 billion years old. These things ate iron.

Do you really want to know how many gallons of urine are in a swimming pool? Think about that before clicking through.

...the color of its leisure thoughts. ~Dean Inge