Put more trust in nobility of character...

In: T-Rex, Rubber Ducky, Penguin. Out: Boot, Thimble, Wheelbarrow. What? Monopoly.

Would you like JPEGS that are one third smaller? Google has an app for that.

source

Carbon Trifecta is a U.S. tax-exempt organization with a goal to convert CO2 to graphene for use in 3D printing.

If you're spending $45,000 on a wristwatch, why not go all the way and include a drop of the world's oldest whisky, Old Vatted Glenlivet 1862.

The top 50 craft brewers of 2016 includes two in Texas: Gambinus and Real Ale Brewing.

Speaking of maps, the CIA's Flickr page is full of maps.

Woo hoo, we're #77! Colleyville made Bloomberg's list of America's 100 richest places. (Also from Texas, #14 Highland Park, #16 West University Place, #27 University Park, #42 Southlake, #47 Bellaire)

Scruddle is an app for self-curating your news feed. (I know one of the founders.)

A $5,900 desk lets you lie down on the job. But where do you put your coffee mug?

This list of 2017 trends is a bit thin on details but: biomimicry, AI, "learning circles," high-end conferences, and anti-retirement.

Just like the author of this article, I too really enjoy the Blanton Museum at U.T. Austin and it seems a visit is overdue sing they rehung their galleries. (Unfortunately, it appears the museum's website has been hacked.)

New Thelonius Monk album? A soundtrack he did in 1959 for a film will be released later this spring on LP and CD.

...than in an oath. ~Solon

Good advice is something a man gives...

It has been a fertile spring for  new music. One of the new albums I recently bought was Strangers by Michael Benier and Ritchie DeCarlo. Here's Fulcrum from that album. Or you can give a listen to Night by Daniel Lanois and Venetian Snares.

My friends in the UK may be interested in Their Mortal Remains, an audio-visual retrospective of Pink Floyd's career hosted at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Hiroshi Sugimoto, Atlantic Ocean, Newfoundland, 1982. From an article on artists reaching for the sublime I've pulled Sugimoto's photograph which I find simultaneously tranquil and terrifying.

Take your Disney to the beach with Enchanted Bikinis, modeled after Disney princesses.

Hooray us! Fort Worth was ranked 4th in Money magazine's list of top U.S. travel destinations.

Operation Plumbbob, Shot Diablo, 1957. Screen capture from a video of this nuclear test recently posted as part of a playlist by Lawrence Livermore National Lab. These YouTube videos are part of their effort to salvage, restore, and archive thousands of test films.

Going on a trip? You can now check whether you're going to have a bumpy flight with Turbulence Forecast.

A 130 foot long timeline of modern art's evolution at the Tate has been digitized and made interactive.

...when he's too old to set a bad example. ~Francois de La Rochefoucauld

There lives more faith in honest doubt...

By the numbers...

1. Soundtrack: Harmonielehre by John Adams.
2. I swear I have one of these Beanie Babies in a box in the attic. Can I retire now?
3. An animated short film about Crime and Punishment.
4. 10 breakthrough technologies of 2017 includes "paying with your face" (leaving me destitute).
5. I can't keep count of the number of forms of matter and here comes a new one: time crystal. 
6. Prepare for Alien Covenant: Meet Walter.
7. Political correctness originated in the 1970s as "an original ironic invocation of Stalinism. By now we've lost the irony and kept the Stalinism."
8. In the future, cancer may be detected by a blood test.
9. It was only a matter of time: a "fitbit" for your penis.
10. Award winning science images of 2017.
11. Medical marijuana - you've been doing it wrong. You should be shoving it up your ass.

A picture's worth...

Placenta Rainbow. See science images link above.

The Japanese sure know how to make a great raw meat cake.

...than in half the creeds. ~Alfred Lord Tennyson 

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