Good Read for the Weekend

Every 48 years, a bamboo forest in northeast India flowers and goes to seed. This is always followed by a plague of rats, which was filmed for the first time in 2008. Watch the NOVA program here. (via Metafilter)

Watch a computer recreation of the Hudson River plane crash, with audio from control-tower dialogue. How they stay so calm, I'll never know.

According to a recent study, people who work more than 55 hours a week have poorer mental skills than those who work a standard working week. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Toyota Wants to Build Car From Seaweed. When the tranny finally gives out, you might make a delicious soup from the remains.

Why is There no Birth Control Pill for Men? There are several reasons that all boil down the difficulty of reconciling "men" and "control".

What happens to belongings left behind when a home is foreclosed? The process is called a "trashout", and it will make you cringe. (via Boing Boing)

X-Rays in the News. I find it amazing what people can live through, and also amazing how we love to see into their bodies.

Most incompetent people don't recognize that they are incompetent. Doesn't that make you just a little nervous?

Boneyard

Nobunny "Boneyard" Video from Owen Cook on Vimeo.
A song by No Bunny. Video by Owen Cook. (via Everlasting Blort)

Fun and Funny Links

The Blowjob. You know you want to check this video out. Believe it or not, SFW.

I'm sure there's been someone in your life like this. If not, then maybe someone wants to put a sign up about you and are just too polite to do it.

Isn't pole dancing supposed to be a, you know, girl thing?

World`s Most Accurate Pencil Sharpener. I bet after all this, the guy writes with an ink pen and chews on his pencil.

Appropriately Named is an entire blog dedicated to nominative determinism. That means the career follows the name.

7 Celebrity Careers That Launched by Accident. Remember that the luckiest people in the world are the ones who take advantage of opportunity when it presents itself.

Mel Gibson vows revenge on chickens in The Colonel. Harland Sanders himself would get a kick out of this.

A cat answers an office phone. This is not animated or manipulated; he just does it.

Information and Good Reads

Ironworkers spray paint the names of children with cancer on construction beams as they build a new hospital. It thrills the kids, and in a fashion immortalizes them. (via Metafilter)

Graphic artist Jonathan Jarvis created a visual rundown of the factors causing the economic meltdown. The two-part animated video is the simplest of the many explanations I've seen.

A cancer victim sells the rights to film her death for a reality TV series. What seems like a bid for attention is her way of providing for the two young sons she'll leave behind.

Where Are They Now: Advertising Icons. The Gerber baby, the Dutch Boy, and Wendy were all real people who went on to excel in very different areas.

How Much Stuff Do You Really Need? If your house was on fire, you'd figure out quickly that you don't need any of it.

Beauty Affects Men's and Women's Brains Differently. While men calculate where to find a thing of beauty, woman sort those things into categories, which may be an evolutionary response.

The Science of Nostalgia. Things were always better back when we didn't remember them so well.

A comparison of cells in the human body and stars in a galaxy. It makes you wonder what amazing patterns are beyond the realm of our understanding. (via Dark Roasted Blend)

Of the 160 or so space launch failures, here are five of the worst.

Whistling Dog

Fun and Funny Links

How to demolish a house in one fell swoop. You need a cannon, some explosives, and lots of friends to celebrate with.

The Arcata Eye Police Log is the best local police blotter on the net. By "best", I mean most entertaining for those of us who have no idea where Arcata is. (via Metafilter)

The new viral video from Samsung is full of cute animals and clever jokes. That's what it takes to get free advertising on the internet.

The goose is after the dog, and it won't stop. Ever. It's the Terminator Goose!

Part Two of the Rocky Horror LOLcats is up! And part three, too!

The Nine Weirdest Public Service Announcements Ever Made. So what, if they get your attention, they've done their work.

Back to the Future: The Alternate Ending. If Doc overshot his target when traveling to the future, something totally unexpected might happen!

Robin Hood's "Oo De Lally," Translated Into 13 Languages. (via mental_floss)

Cat Saves Man from Alcoholism

Hey, whatever works. (via Gigglesugar)

A Day in the Life of Abbey Road

As busy at the road is with everyday traffic, people still pose for pictures to recreate the Beatles' album cover art. (via Neatorama)

Fun Weekend Links

Oscar Links 2009. The Academy Awards are this weekend!

The Arcata Eye Police Log is the best local police blotter on the net. By "best", I mean most entertaining for those of us who have no idea where Arcata is. (via Metafilter)

The new viral video from Samsung is full of cute animals and clever jokes. That's what it takes to get free advertising on the internet.

The goose is after the dog, and it won't stop. Ever. It's the Terminator Goose!

Part Two of the Rocky Horror LOLcats is up!

The Weirdest News Stories of the Week.

Information and News Links

Honeybees: Masters of Utility. These strangest of insects are builders, soldiers, and manufacturers, and our agriculture depends on them.

Presidential Cocktails: History of the White House Wet Bar. Even the president who supported Prohibition had his private stock.

5 Things You Think Will Make You Happy (But Won't). Some honest-to-goodness great information from Cracked. (via Gorilla Mask)

7 Reasons the 21st Century is Making You Miserable. It's all about social connections, and they just aren't the same online.

99 ways to make your PC blazingly fast. Most of these are for Windows users.

8 Popular Pirates Who Were Actually Losers. Despite their romantic reputations, Most pirates lived short, dirty, and unpleasant lives.

Add this to the growing list of reasons humans aren't so special, after all: Monkeys can subtract.

Is Genius Born or Can It Be Learned? Depending on how you define "genius", both nature and nurture may be required.

Le Café

From the French band Oldelaf with Mr. D.

5 New Alternative Meats

Meat consumption usually means beef, pork, or chicken. Mutton and venison are common also. My favorite Indian restaurant avoids both beef and pork for religious reasons, but sometimes offers goat as an alternative to chicken. In the past few years, rising food prices and concerns about the environment are leading people to try new and different sources of meat. Here are five you may have never thought about.

This is a post I wrote for mental_floss.

Image by Flickr user Michael Scheltgen.

Links for Fun

See a growing gallery of cats who have been rudely awakened by their owners. Doing that can get you killed in your sleep.

The guys from Top Gear find out it's not so easy to drive an eighteen-wheeler, especially in the Alps! (via Dark Roasted Blend)

Ten Reasons Facebook Is for Old Fogies. #11. I'm on Facebook.

Escape from City 17 is a story based on the video game Half Life. It was made on a $500 budget, although you 'd never guess by watching.

71 pictures of odd things seen in subways (some NSFW). Aren't camera phones the greatest thing ever invented?

Two musical puns that will make you groan and giggle.

Good Reads for the Day

Is magenta a color, or just something our brains made up? It doesn't exist in the light spectrum, but it exists somewhere.

How the Crash Will Reshape America. You more you know, the better prepared you'll be for the changes ahead. (via Metafilter)

What if life began on earth more than once? Scientists are looking into the possibility that there may be life forms that don't connect with our evolutionary tree at all.

The Voyager probe is carrying a record album of music and sounds away from the solar system. Here are the songs aliens may find someday.

Take a peek at NASA's Constellation program, which will replace the space shuttle. The first test flight will be in July. (via Bad Astronomy Blog)

Klan Economics in Black and White (But Mostly White). For decadess, it operated like a pyramid scheme for bigots.

Traditional media is in trouble, if not dying out already. How will we get our news in the future?

Put some random people in a group, give them a task and soon enough a leader will emerge. Learn how to recognize, or be, that leader.

Fun and Funny Links

LOLcats do The Time Warp.

Ten Fun Facts About Miniature Golf. The sport has come a long way from The Ladies Putting Club. (via Neatorama)

Kittens, Inspired by Kittens has already inspired a remix.

Romance minus the schmaltz: 29 falling-in-love movies we actually believe in. The range of these films leads me to believe nobody has seen all of them.

This animator has my life figured out. It's called Procrastination.

Sebastian's Voodoo is the award-winning story of a voodoo doll come to life. And he's the hero of the story!

The Top 5 Weirdest Mating Calls. I'm a bit disillusioned at the penguin call; I hoped it would be more like this.

Anti-Gravity Quarter Stacking. Is this really possible, or is there some super glue involved?

The Money Song

From Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Injured Storm Trooper

This has never happened before. (via Unreality)

Indochina

A late 19th century film by the Lumiere brothers. Colonialism is illustrated by Asian children picking up rice thrown by two white women, as if they were feeding birds.

Valentine for Perfect Strangers

The most weird, random, and endearing Valentine ever!

Friday the 13th Informational Links

Why is Friday the 13th considered unlucky? Because people will believe anything.

The Top 18 Most Addictive Drugs On Earth. Number one was easy to guess, but some of the others were surprises. (via Interesting Pile)

NASA procedures for cleaning the bathroom on the International Space Station include taking tricorder readings to find fungus and bacteria. Except they call the device LOCAD-PTS.

Executives at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley say they want to repay bailout money quickly. Suddenly, it appears that business is easier without government restrictions.

The science of shark repellants. A lot of different ideas have been tried, but they're really difficult to test. Any volunteers?

Cracking the case of the poison processed peanuts. The process reads like a mystery novel, with more at stake than in any fictional whodunnit.

25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis. It took so many failing so spectacularly to get us into this mess.

The weirdest news stories of the week.