Good Reads and Information

The new hi-tech racing swimsuits aren’t what you’d call attractive, but they are helping swimmers set records. The LZR Racer was developed with help from NASA.

The Incredible Power of Contentment. Happiness should not be a goal to work toward, but an everyday habit.

The contagion of banality. Another reason Wal*Mart is killing us.

On second look, Orbit Wheel Skates don’t seen like much fun.

9 things to stop worrying about right now. Because, you know, worrying will make your hair turn gray. (via the Presurfer)

In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop. It’s strange to see my life described so well in the New York Times.

The origin of the Olympic torch relay. It’s neither as old nor as benign as you might have thought.

The Nova special The Elegant Universe explains why string theory might hold the key to unifying the four forces of nature. The three hours of video is broken down into 4-10 minute segments linked on one page. (via Dark Roasted Blend)

6 Quirks of Ownership: How Possessions Bend Our Perceptions.
People who want to sell something tend to set the price far above what others think it’s worth. That’s human nature, but it isn’t just greed.

A new study shows taking financial risks stimulates the same areas of the brain that sex does. That explains Las Vegas once and for all.

Bill Nye and Jet Guy

(via Everlasting Blort)

Stupid Game Show Answers

They may be stupid, but they are unbelievably lucky answers. (via Bits and Pieces)

Adorable, Cute, Sappy, Darling, and Aaawww

I tried my best to resist, but this kitten forced me to post its video. Beware, it’s three minutes of overwhelming cuteness.

Fun Links

Translating important information into English is not easy. Especially when no one involved is the least bit fluent in English.

WhizBiz. This ad is too funny!

Geology has a lot of fun and colorful jargon. Some think the terms should be trimmed back, but one Scienceblogger wants to add more poetic terms.

Caught in bed. Read the comments, too. (via Zube Girl)

The Cleveland Indians found the playing field covered with snow on opening day 2007. Grounds crews went to work, and so did Dale Omori with the Cleveland Plain Dealer, who took this time-lapse video. (via Metafilter)

Videos of people eating bugs.

The best name for anyone ever.

OMG Lists details 7 Weird Superheros Who Won't Ever Hit the Silver Screen (But Should). Would you believe Arm-Fall-Off-Boy, whose superpower is that he can pull one arm off withthe other? Or the Chlorophyll Kid, who can stimulate plants to grow fast?

Here’s another weird one. A Night of Crime Fighting With ¡¡¡Tu Pacana Virica!!!

Personal Soundtrack Shirt. Because you need Yakety Sax available when a mugger is chasing you.

The Employee Song

(via YesButNoButYes)

Yellow Submarine

From Wikipedia:
Yellow Submarine is a 1968 animated feature film based on the music of The Beatles. It is also the title for the soundtrack album to the feature film, released as part of The Beatles' music catalogue. The film was directed by Canadian-born animation producer George Dunning, and produced by United Artists and King Features Syndicate. The Beatles themselves appear only in the closing scene of the film, with the Beatles characters in the film voiced by other actors.

Wee Beasties

The recent video of a velvet worm may have given you the creeps, but you’ll love the tiny whimsical paintings of Nathan Mazur!

Wee Beasties is an exhibit of 50 miniature paintings (2” by 2.75”) of insects, worms, and other creepy crawlies. They depict everything from the common cockroach, to the cryptic water bear, all in the artist’s seemingly innocent, saccharine-colored, cartoon style.

The velvet worm is on the left. To the right is (you guessed it) a lightning bug. Most of the miniatures are sold, but you can see them all in Mazur’s online gallery.

Read and Learn Something

Lenore Skenazy writes about her son’s first solo subway and bus trip in the New York Sun. He had been preparing for the chance, and knew how to read a subway map. The 9-year-old made it home just fine, but half the people who heard about it thought it was too dangerous. Neatorama readers have a variety of opinions on this.

Astrologer Isaac Bickerstaff published an almanac predicting the events of the year 1708, including the death of rival astrologer John Partridge on March 29th. On April first, news of Partridge’s death was all over London, and he spent the rest of his life trying to live down the hoax.

Social Versus Financial Thinking. People often work harder to help a friend than for monetary rewards, but only as long as you don’t confuse the two.

Design Proposals for vertical urban agricultural buildings. Someday, “locally grown” might mean right there on your block!

The Ancient Mechanics and How They Thought. Real-world problem solving is much older than the literature that explains it.

Tooth Regeneration May Replace Drill-and-Fill. It may be ten years from reality, but the question is, how much will it hurt?

An animation from the BBC reveals the 4,500 years of history behind Stonehenge. However, it does not show the giants who built it.

Scientists think they've found evidence of the oldest known creatures to engage in sexual reproduction. I’ll skip the obvious punchlines and reveal they were spongelike invertebrates who lived 565 million year ago.

Scientists discover a newborn planet! Well, a few hundred years old is pretty young in astronomical terms.

New York City's GreeNYC campaign has a logo that looks like an apple. But Apple Inc. says it infringes on their trademark.

Helter Skelter X

Libertarian presidential candidate Mike Gravel resurrecting the war protest song. If the images weren’t so horrific, I’d call it “groovy”.

Fafblog Returns!

After a two-year unexplained absence, Fafblog is back! One post on April first does not a comeback make, but a second post convinced me. New design, too. Check out Fafblog.

Fun Links

What do you make of this picture? Please leave captions here.

6 Creepy Mail Order Bride Sites.

Beer is good.

Your Mom wasn’t your Dad’s first.

How to Speak Hip. (via Everlasting Blort)

The Circle of Life.

The new dance craze in Brazil: Dança do Quadrado.

The Elephant Song by Eric Herman is cute and clever. Makes me want to be five years old again!

Al Jaffee’s Fold-ins for Mad magazine, past and present. He doesn’t use a computer, and he doesn’t even work with foldable materials!

The Geekiest LEGOs & Rubik Cubes. A gallery of toys for those with a lot of time and attention to detail.

Innovative Toilet Paper Dispensers

Even if you enjoyed the previous post on Innovative Toilet Paper, you know a major drawback to using toilet paper as a decorating idea is that it runs out. But you can impress guests with a one-time purchase by installing a very different toilet paper dispenser. And there are a lot of them to choose from!

read more | digg story

I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

From the movie Rattle and Hum. (Thanks, Carl!)

The Lost World

From 1925. From Google video:
Explorer Professor Challenger is taking quite a beating in the London press thanks to his claim that living dinosaurs exist in the far reaches of the Amazon. Malone's paper funds an expedition to rescue Maple White, who has been marooned at the top of a high plateau. Joined by renowned hunter John Roxton, and others, the group goes to South America, where they do indeed find a plateau inhabited by pre-historic creatures, one of which they even manage to bring back to London with them.

Informative Links

The sad story of Nim Chimpsky, the chimp who thought he was human. He was raised with humans only, until the funding ran out.

How dead is dead enough? Modern medical advances have blurred the line between life and death, so the criteria for defining death is somewhat arbitrary.

Ganvie, Benin: The Venice Of Africa. The town on the lake was settled to protect residents from slavery, as local religious tradition forbade attacking anyone on the water.

Why You Shouldn't Invest in Your Company's Stock.

John Mayer gets personal about his blog.

Only 13 people alive have pulled more than 2% in a US presidential election and lost. It’s a crushing defeat, but they say they would do it again.

Dean Kamen designed a new prosthetic arm that’s so awesome they named it after Luke Skywalker. If the DARPA grant is renewed, it will go to clinical trials soon.

Cat Behavior Explained. A seriously interesting page.

Scientists at Newcastle University have created part-human, part-cow hybrid embryos for the first time in the UK. They were made from human skin cells and depleted bovine eggs for the purpose of extracting stem cells.

'They're here': The mechanism of poltergeist activity.

Quincy Theme with Lyrics

At one time, Quincy, M.E. was my favorite TV show. It ran from 1976 to 1983. If you’ve never seen it, the new lyrics will explain what it was all about. (via b3ta)

Innovations in Toilet Paper

Most local stores have a selection of toilet paper ranging from cheap white paper to expensive white paper. That's it. At least at your supermarket. But thanks to the internet, we are freed from the tyranny of plain toilet paper!

read more | digg story

April Fools Day Links

Headlines for April First. You decide which ones are real!

The Top 10 Historical Hoaxers. From a British point of view, that is.

Top Ten Harmless Geek Pranks. Some of these can be pulled off at the last minute, so beware!

On the Origin of April Fools Day.

J-Walk Blog goes Canadian!

Finding a clever error 404 page helps to take some of the sting out of not finding what you wanted in the first place. Pingdom shows us 17 Brilliant Error Pages.

Thanks to her amazingly trained dog, this woman never has to get up from her desk. Now if only she could brew coffee...

Five Crazy Japanese Games Shows. The shows where you surrender your dignity for laughs and maybe even prizes!

The name of the game is Ball Buster.

Menstruation explained in simple animation. (via b3ta)

April Fools Day!

I'm surprised there weren't some "accidents" in this prank. Or maybe there were!