google maps, video and suggest in beta

Q: What will the clever people at Google think of next?
A: http://maps.google.com/
A: http://video.google.com/
A: http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en

pass the tp

Read these fun facts about toilet paper, including a timeline of important events in toilet paper history.

The flushing toilet was invented in 1596, not by Thomas Crapper as most people think, but by Sir John Harington. Harington, a British nobleman and godson of Queen Elizabeth I, invented a valve that when pulled would release water from a water closet. Sir John recommended flushing the toilet once or twice a day, although with our modern technology, we know that is probably not sufficient.

Via Wacky Neighbor

gay penguins

Nature vs. nurture at its finest, courtesy of PlanetOut:

Outrage from gay and lesbian groups and -- apparently -- the strength of animal amore, have thwarted a German zoo's plans to break up three gay penguin couples. After six male penguins resisted all efforts to mate with, or even relate to, female penguins, keepers at the zoo in Bremerhaven -- a town in Bremen, Germany -- decided to let them stay gay.

we're number 49

America by the numbers makes a few interesting statements. The short of it:

• Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the earth. Seventeen percent believe the earth revolves around the sun once a day
• The leading cause of death of pregnant women in this country is murder
• Forty-three percent of Americans think torture is sometimes justified
• Women are 70 percent more likely to die in childbirth in America than in Europe
• Lack of health insurance coverage causes 18,000 unnecessary American deaths a year. (That's six times the number of people killed on 9/11.)
Via PlanetDan

No. 1?

by Michael Ventura
February 23, 2005

No concept lies more firmly embedded in our national character than the notion that the USA is "No. 1," "the greatest." Our broadcast media are, in essence, continuous advertisements for the brand name "America Is No. 1." Any office seeker saying otherwise would be committing political suicide. In fact, anyone saying otherwise will be labeled "un-American." We're an "empire," ain't we? Sure we are. An empire without a manufacturing base. An empire that must borrow $2 billion a day from its competitors in order to function. Yet the delusion is ineradicable. We're No. 1. Well...this is the country you really live in:

• The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (the New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004).
• The United States ranked 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
• Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the earth. Seventeen percent believe the earth revolves around the sun once a day (The Week, Jan. 7, 2005).
• "The International Adult Literacy Survey...found that Americans with less than nine years of education 'score worse than virtually all of the other countries'" (Jeremy Rifkin's superbly documented book The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream, p.78).
• Our workers are so ignorant and lack so many basic skills that American businesses spend $30 billion a year on remedial training (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). No wonder they relocate elsewhere!
• "The European Union leads the U.S. in...the number of science and engineering graduates; public research and development (R&D) expenditures; and new capital raised" (The European Dream, p.70).
• "Europe surpassed the United States in the mid-1990s as the largest producer of scientific literature" (The European Dream, p.70).
• Nevertheless, Congress cut funds to the National Science Foundation. The agency will issue 1,000 fewer research grants this year (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004).
• Foreign applications to U.S. grad schools declined 28 percent last year. Foreign student enrollment on all levels fell for the first time in three decades, but increased greatly in Europe and China. Last year Chinese grad-school graduates in the U.S. dropped 56 percent, Indians 51 percent, South Koreans 28 percent (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004). We're not the place to be anymore.
• The World Health Organization "ranked the countries of the world in terms of overall health performance, and the U.S. [was]...37th." In the fairness of health care, we're 54th. "The irony is that the United States spends more per capita for health care than any other nation in the world" (The European Dream, pp.79-80). Pay more, get lots, lots less.
• "The U.S. and South Africa are the only two developed countries in the world that do not provide health care for all their citizens" (The European Dream, p.80). Excuse me, but since when is South Africa a "developed" country? Anyway, that's the company we're keeping.
• Lack of health insurance coverage causes 18,000 unnecessary American deaths a year. (That's six times the number of people killed on 9/11.) (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005.)
• "U.S. childhood poverty now ranks 22nd, or second to last, among the developed nations. Only Mexico scores lower" (The European Dream, p.81). Been to Mexico lately? Does it look "developed" to you? Yet it's the only "developed" country to score lower in childhood poverty.
• Twelve million American families--more than 10 percent of all U.S. households--"continue to struggle, and not always successfully, to feed themselves." Families that "had members who actually went hungry at some point last year" numbered 3.9 million (NYT, Nov. 22, 2004).
• The United States is 41st in the world in infant mortality. Cuba scores higher (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).
• Women are 70 percent more likely to die in childbirth in America than in Europe (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).
• The leading cause of death of pregnant women in this country is murder (CNN, Dec. 14, 2004).
• "Of the 20 most developed countries in the world, the U.S. was dead last in the growth rate of total compensation to its workforce in the 1980s.... In the 1990s, the U.S. average compensation growth rate grew only slightly, at an annual rate of about 0.1 percent" (The European Dream, p.39). Yet Americans work longer hours per year than any other industrialized country, and get less vacation time.
• "Sixty-one of the 140 biggest companies on the Global Fortune 500 rankings are European, while only 50 are U.S. companies" (The European Dream, p.66). "In a recent survey of the world's 50 best companies, conducted by Global Finance, all but one were European" (The European Dream, p.69).
• "Fourteen of the 20 largest commercial banks in the world today are European.... In the chemical industry, the European company BASF is the world's leader, and three of the top six players are European. In engineering and construction, three of the top five companies are European.... The two others are Japanese. Not a single American engineering and construction company is included among the world's top nine competitors. In food and consumer products, Nestlé and Unilever, two European giants, rank first and second, respectively, in the world. In the food and drugstore retail trade, two European companies...are first and second, and European companies make up five of the top ten. Only four U.S. companies are on the list" (The European Dream, p.68).
• The United States has lost 1.3 million jobs to China in the last decade (CNN, Jan. 12, 2005).
• U.S. employers eliminated 1 million jobs in 2004 (The Week, Jan. 14, 2005).
• Three million six hundred thousand Americans ran out of unemployment insurance last year; 1.8 million--one in five--unemployed workers are jobless for more than six months (NYT, Jan. 9, 2005).
• Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea hold 40 percent of our government debt. (That's why we talk nice to them.) "By helping keep mortgage rates from rising, China has come to play an enormous and little-noticed role in sustaining the American housing boom" (NYT, Dec. 4, 2004). Read that twice. We owe our housing boom to China, because they want us to keep buying all that stuff they manufacture.
• Sometime in the next 10 years Brazil will probably pass the U.S. as the world's largest agricultural producer. Brazil is now the world's largest exporter of chickens, orange juice, sugar, coffee, and tobacco. Last year, Brazil passed the U.S. as the world's largest beef producer. (Hear that, you poor deluded cowboys?) As a result, while we bear record trade deficits, Brazil boasts a $30 billion trade surplus (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
• As of last June, the U.S. imported more food than it exported (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
• Bush: 62,027,582 votes. Kerry: 59,026,003 votes. Number of eligible voters who didn't show up: 79,279,000 (NYT, Dec. 26, 2004). That's more than a third. Way more. If more than a third of Iraqis don't show for their election, no country in the world will think that election legitimate.
• One-third of all U.S. children are born out of wedlock. One-half of all U.S. children will live in a one-parent house (CNN, Dec. 10, 2004).
• "Americans are now spending more money on gambling than on movies, videos, DVDs, music, and books combined" (The European Dream, p.28).
• "Nearly one out of four Americans [believe] that using violence to get what they want is acceptable" (The European Dream, p.32).
• Forty-three percent of Americans think torture is sometimes justified, according to a PEW Poll (Associated Press, Aug. 19, 2004).
• "Nearly 900,000 children were abused or neglected in 2002, the last year for which such data are available" (USA Today, Dec. 21, 2004).
• "The International Association of Chiefs of Police said that cuts by the [Bush] administration in federal aid to local police agencies have left the nation more vulnerable than ever" (USA Today, Nov. 17, 2004).

No. 1? In most important categories we're not even in the Top 10 anymore. Not even close.

The USA is "No. 1" in nothing but weaponry, consumer spending, debt, and delusion.

Reprinted from the Austin Chronicle.

a colorful past

When I think of old photos, I think of them as being in black and white. But color photography has been around for a long time. Take a look at this site, from 1911 Russia.

Via DDTB

you have got to be kidding

Mistaken U.S. attack wounds Italian journalist
Italian agent killed when troops open fire on car

MSNBC News Services
Updated: 10:18 p.m. ET March 4, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena survived a month of captivity and horror at the hands of Iraqi insurgents, but little could she imagine the terror that lay just ahead: A shrapnel wound when American troops opened fire on the speeding car carrying her to freedom.

One of the Italian intelligence agents who negotiated her release Friday was killed as he threw his body across her when the shooting started.

Via MSNBC

a personal milestone

Today, I celebrated 18 months of being kidney cancer-free.

It's a beautiful feeling.

the party of less government

This post is lifted wholesale from Evan at The Thin Blue Line.

The party of less government wants the government to tell you who you can marry.
The party of less government wants the government to tell a woman what she can do with her own body.
The party of less government wants the government to force religion down your child's throat at school.
The party of less government wants the government to forbid you and your doctor from choosing to use medical marijuana when all other pain medication has failed.
The party of less government wants the government to tell families when they can and when they can not let a dying loved one die.
The party less government wants the government to have the ability to spy on you in the library.
The party of less government wants the government to have unlimited power to throw you in jail and throw away the key without due process.
The party of less government wants the government to be allowed to torture people who have brown skin- or white, if you are one of 'em whites who collaborates with brown people.
The party of less government wants the president to be able to pay journalists to make up news.
The party of less government wants the government to purge minority voters from voter rolls in Florida.
The party of less government wants the government to forbid you from suing corporations that have done you harm, no matter how grave the damage or reckless the act.
The party of less government wants the government to prevent you from buying medication from Canada.

Go figure.

bubba the lobster dies after trip to the zoo

Bubba, left, a 22-pound lobster pulled from the waters off Nantucket, Mass., is shown in a tank next to an average 1.5 pound lobster at Wholey's fish market in Pittsburgh on Tuesday, a day before he died at the Pittsburgh Zoo.

Yesterday, Kevin told me about Bubba, a 22-pound lobster estimated to be 50 years old. (Most lobsters weigh 1.5 pounds. ) PETA had even gotten involved, advocating that Bubba should be released back into the wild.

But here is today's sad ending:

Bubba the lobster dies after trip to the zoo
After years of dodging the boiling pot, 22-pounder done in by move

PITTSBURGH, Pa. - He spent decades dodging lobster pots, but in the end, Bubba was done in by a trip to the zoo.

The 22-pound lobster died yesterday at the Pittsburgh Zoo, about a day after he was moved there from a fish market. Bubba died in a quarantine area of the zoo’s aquarium, where he was being checked out to see if he was healthy enough to travel to a Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum.

Experts will examine Bubba to try to figure out why he died, but the owner of the fish market thinks it had to do with the stress of the move. Bob Wholey says lobsters are “very finicky.”

Bubba had spent about a week at Wholey’s Market after being caught off the coast of Massachusetts.

I wonder how they're disposing of the remains ...

march is kidney cancer awareness month

Like most people, I had never heard of kidney cancer until I was told I had it at age 27. My only symptom was back pain.

Get educated:

Kidney cancer often manifests itself with painless urination of blood. However, blood in the urine can indicate other diseases besides kidney cancer, such as kidney stones. Often, blood in the urine will occur one day and not the next. Whenever it happens, a doctor should evaluate this symptom immediately.

Other common symptoms of kidney cancer include the presence of an abdominal mass or hard lump and/or back pain. Kidney cancer occurs most often in men over the age of 40. Since back pain is common among people over 40 years of age, such pain is often ignored. Kidney cancer often goes undiagnosed or is mis-diagnosed until it has spread (metastasized). As a result, 15-25% of kidney cancer patients have metastatic disease at time of diagnosis.

Renal cell carcinoma symptoms

Symptom	Patients
--------------------------------------------
Blood in the urine	59%
Abdominal mass	45%
Back or flank pain	41%
Weight loss	28%
Low blood counts (anemia)	21%
Tumor calcification on x-ray	13%
Symptoms of metastases	10%
Fever	9%
High calcium in blood	7%
High blood counts	7%

Source: D.F. Paulson, C.A. Perez, T. Anderson, in V.T. DeVita, S. Hellman, S.A. Rosenberg, editors, Principles of Oncology, 2nd Edition, Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1987, Volume 1, Chapter 27, page 896.

this just in: man bites dog

Blind Scotsman accused of biting guide dog
Witness says pooch attacked after it wouldn't help man cross street

Feb. 25, 2005 A blind man has been arrested in Scotland after witnesses reported he sank his teeth into his guide dog’s head and then kicked the Labrador-retriever mix after it apparently wouldn’t help him across a busy street.

rip: hunter s. thompson

“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.” (The beginning of his most famous book, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.")

DENVER - Hunter S. Thompson, the hard-living writer who inserted himself into his accounts of America’s underbelly and popularized a first-person form of journalism in books such as “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” has committed suicide.

Thompson was found dead Sunday in his Aspen-area home of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, sheriff’s officials said. He was 67.

yatta yatta yatta

For those who loved the wtf? and numa numa posts, there's yatta.

numa numa (ma-ia-hii, ma-ia-huu, ma-ia-hoo, ma-ia-haha)

First, watch the Numa Numa dance video, then read on.

Apparently, I've been living under a rock, since even the folks on Good Morning America (and CNN, VH1 and MSNBC) knew about this before me. It is also especially funny because this song, featuring what has been described as Romanian yodeling, was all the rage while I was in France last summer.

In Thursday's "Around the Watercooler," the anchors of "Good Morning America" talked to 19-year-old Gary Brolsma of Saddle Brook, N.J., who has become a sensation on the Internet with an amateur video of himself singing and dancing to a Romanian pop song [Dragostea Din Tei by O-zone]. He calls it the "Numa Numa Dance." [This site has a version with English subtitles]

Note: While I've been studying for the GMAT (t-minus 36 hours, thank God), the rest of the planet has been making their own parodies. See http://www2.aqweb.net/ikari/flash/maiyahi.swf and http://www.newgrounds.com/collections/numanuma.html

Speaking of not studying for the GMAT... here's what WikiPedia has to say on the subject:

"Dragostea Din Tei" (meaning "Love Among the Linden Trees" in Romanian) is the most well-known single of the Moldovan-Romanian band O-Zone. It was released in Romania in late 2003 and in much of the rest of Europe in early 2004. Having topped the singles charts in many European countries, the song could undoubtedly be regarded as one of 2004's most important Summer hits. The song attained cult status among a variety of social groups across the continent, the russ of Norway being a prominent example.

In Italy, the most popular version is from Haiducii (Paula Mitrache). Both O-Zone and Haiducii accuse each other of stealing the song.

Now considered both a dancing anthem and a gay anthem, it also achieved some club success in the US. A collaboration between Dan Balan of O-Zone, and New York DJ Lucas Prata created a version of the same tune in English. This version, renamed "Mai A Hee", is only superficially connected to the original lyrics, with no mention of trees.

The song has received some additional popularity on the Internet through several amateur Flash music videos. One stars a super deformed rendition of Sha Gojyo, a character from the anime and manga series Saiyuki, performing some limited dancing. There is also a video done entirely out of LEGO bricks.

The most recently popular flash video using the song depicts 19-year-old Gary Brolsma, overweight teenage boy from Saddle Brook, New Jersey, lip syncing the words. The video was seemingly taken from the view of a web camera. A version of this video has also appeared with extraneous pictures flashing up at times: a man towering over penguins, known as Penguin God to some, a man looking into the camera known as Yablo the Sexy and a Chinese man inside a doggy bag.

See a video of the boys of O-Zone lip-synching to their own song in an American Bandstand-esque "live" appearance. And a link to the original video.

The lyrics in Romanian and English:

Ma-ia-hii Ma-ia-huu Ma-ia-hoo Ma-ia-haha	[These are just sounds.]
Alo, Salut, sunt eu, un haiduc, Si te rog, iubirea mea, primeste fericirea. Alo, alo, sunt eu Picasso, Ti-am dat beep, si sunt voinic, Dar sa stii nu-ti cer nimic.	Hello [on a cellphone], greetings, it's me, an outlaw, I ask you, my love, to accept happiness. Hello, hello, it's me, Picasso, I sent you a beep [cellphone signal], and I'm brave [or strong], But you should know that I'm not asking for anything from you.
Vrei sa pleci dar nu ma, nu ma iei, Nu ma, nu ma iei, nu ma, nu ma, nu ma iei. Chipul tau si dragostea din tei, Mi-amintesc de ochii tai.	You want to leave but you don't want don't want to take me, don't want don't want to take me, don't want don't want don't want to take me. Your face and the love from the linden trees, And I remember your eyes.
Te sun, sa-ti spun, ce simt acum, Alo, iubirea mea, sunt eu, fericirea. Alo, alo, sunt iarasi eu, Picasso, Ti-am dat beep, si sunt voinic, Dar sa stii nu-ti cer nimic.	I call you, to tell you what I feel right now, Hello, my love, it's me, your happiness. Hello, hello, it's me again, Picasso, I sent you a beep [cellphone signal] and I'm brave [or strong], But you should know that I'm not asking for anything from you.

Translation copyright © 2004 by The Cat-Tea Corner/SB. All rights reserved.

Via Geoff (and Cass)

extracurricular activities

The fun never stops at my alma mater.

It's important to note that Student-Run Television (SRTV) broadcasts to the Preuss School (a K-12 school on campus) and UCSD's Thornton Hospital.

Sometime after 11 p.m. last Thursday night [Feb. 10,2005], as part of the Koala's weekly
TV show, SRTV ran a short clip of hardcore amateur pornography. The video
reportedly showed Steve York, Koala editor, engaged in sex with an unidentified
female.

In May of 2004, SRTV was temporarily shut down for showing similarly indecent material.

My favorite quote from the last time this happened: "Because Thornton patients and employees who found the material offensive have refused to describe it, according to Welch and station manager Jared Lindo, SRTV members have yet to figure out whether the broadcast was part of regular station programming or if a break-in occurred."

Via youcsd.com and the UCSD Guardian

have I mentioned your natural beauty express anteriors lately?

Via Engrish.com

world press photo contest winners

Take a look at some really amazing photos .

Via Jennifer S.

a very NASCAR v-day

Historians think the first valentine was actually poetry sent in the fifteen century by Charles of Orleans whilst he was locked up in the Tower of London. Knowing that makes the following discovery all the more appaling.

I was quietly leafing through the junkmail on Saturday, when I hit upon the Rite Aid circular. Imagine my surprise when I learned that they have NASCAR-themed boxes of chocolate for Valentine's Day.


And there's also this gem: Top Ten NASCAR Valentine's Day Gifts, courtesy of Mistie Bibbee.

Because nothing says "I love you" like NASCAR. Call me a snob, but surely this is a sign that the Apocalypse is upon us and our civilization is doomed I say, doomed!

NoFo's letter to Time magazine

NoFo raises several great points. And I hope his letter gets published.

RE: “The 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America”
February 7, 2005, pp. 34–45

Dear Editors,

Roberta Ahmanson, once linked to advocating the stoning of homosexuals, declares her Evangelical goal to be “improving the lives of human beings.” Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson credits “religious ideas” with achieving “social justice.”

This rhetoric sounds honorable coming from Time’s 25 influential Evangelicals, but it is cruelly meaningless when you consider the millions of families destroyed by divorce and adultery and spouse abuse—all of which are curiously ignored by Evangelicals who are too busy “improving” these families’ lives by attacking the make-believe threat of gay marriage. And where is the “social justice” in denying same-sex partners visitation rights in the hospital or using our relationships as kindling to fuel a bloody culture war?

If Evangelical leaders are as concerned about protecting marriage as your profiles repeatedly suggest, they would abandon their virulent anti-gay marriage crusade and instead focus their tireless energies on making adultery illegal. Adultery is, after all, explicitly banned in their beloved Ten Commandments—where homosexuality isn’t even mentioned. And it’s arguably the most destructive—and most preventable—threat to the institution of marriage. Until then, Evangelicals’ talk of improving lives and achieving social justice is nothing more than a smokescreen to hide their unconscionable campaign to vilify gay people and classify us as second-class citizens—either for the love of fund-raising money or, appallingly, just for sport.

Sincerely,

Jake

photography: Kristianne Koch

Waimea Shorebreak, on a 25' plus day

Reticulated Giraffes, just outside Nairobi

Kristianne Koch does a lot of travel-themed work. I especially enjoy her images from French Polynesia and Africa.

quotable

Billy Wilder’s “Love in the Afternoon” has several memorable lines, including this exchange between Audrey Hepburn and a would-be suitor:

"They're very odd people, you know. When they're young, they have their teeth straightened, their tonsils taken out, and gallons of vitamins pumped into them. Something happens to their insides. They become immunized, mechanized, air conditioned, and hydromatic. I'm not even sure whether he has a heart."

"Is he a creature from outer space?"

"No, he's an American."

he said it was sarcasm, sweet sarcasm

the propaganda remix project

Check out the propaganda remix project. For optimal viewing, click a thumbnail and use the gallery tool.

quotable

"You are what you love, not what loves you."
- Nicolas Cage's character to his brother in the movie "The Orchid Thief"

getting spacier than an astronaut

I'm smitten with this Nada Surf song:

Inside Of Love
watching terrible tv
it kills all thought
getting spacier than
an astronaut
making out with people
i hardly know or like
i can’t believe what i do
late at night

i wanna know what it’s like
on the inside of love
i’m standing at the gates
i see the beauty above

only when we get to see
the aerial view
will the patterns show
we’ll know what to do
i know the last page so well
i can’t see the first
so i just don’t start
it’s getting worse

(chorus)

i can’t find my way in
i try again and again
i’m on the outside of love
always under or above
must be a different view
to be a me with a you
of course i’ll be alright
i just had a bad night

pulp

I would write what I think about this band, but someone else has put it much more succinctly:

The debate in the summer of 1995 centred around the Blur v Oasis debate. The correct answer was Pulp. Unlike Blur or Oasis, Pulp underwent a long gestation period before their instant classic 'Different Class', and their sound on this album reflects the development of a band who had gone through their probationary period and hit exactly the right tone at the right time.

The mid 1990s were marked by the 'St Martin's college' culture -posh kids pretending to slum it. The signature tune on 'Different Class' skewers this custom in a build up of bitterness and class confrontation, deliberately attacking the bourgeoise 'poor' - 'You'll never fail like common people/never watch your life slide out of view'. Puncturing the middle class attitudes of the time is a theme that runs throughout the album - wittily and acidicly too. Take the following lyric from 'I spy' - 'My favourite parks are car parks, grass is something you smoke, birds are something you shag. Take your Year in Provence and shove it up your ass'. Cocker evidently does not suffer pretention gladly.

c'est it isn't so

Apparently, the Eiffel Tower has been copyrighted. That is, night images of the Eiffel Tower taken after 2003.

The Eiffel Tower's likeness had long since been part of the public domain, when in 2003, it was abruptly repossessed by the city of Paris. That's the year that the SNTE, the company charged with maintaining the tower, adorned it with a distinctive lighting display, copyrighted the design, and in one feel swoop, reclaimed the nighttime image and likeness of the most popular monument on earth. In short: they changed the actual likeness of the tower, and then copyrighted that.

As a result, it's no longer legal to publish current photographs of the Eiffel Tower at night without permission. Technically, this applies even to amateurs. When I spoke to the Director of Documentation for SNTE, Stéphane Dieu, via phone last week, he assured me that SNTE wasn't interested in prohibiting the publication of amateur photography on personal Web sites. "It is really just a way to manage commercial use of the image, so that it isn't used in ways we don't approve," said Mr. Dieu.

So while publishing nighttime photos of the Eiffel Tower may now be illegal, it isn't all bad news for tourists; SNTE profits go back to the city of Paris, making it, hopefully, and even nicer place to visit.

Via DDTB

anomalous motion illusion

Rollers appear to rotate.


Concentric gray circles appear to be spirals.

I find Akiyoshi Kitaoka's work fascinating. And that's not just the Chateau Rauzan D'Espagne talking.

pyt

A theoretical Micheal Jackson age progression, sans surgery and vitiligo:

Whoa.

Via PlanetDan

GMAT

This whole GMAT thing is really overrated. But I need to kick serious butt on it if I'm getting into grad school. So that's where I've been/ will be until Feb. 22.