Creepy, yet fascinating: the gestational cycle of the common teddy bear. #

Kottke has a nice roundup of all the old media that's available for free (or cheap) online -- I loves old magazines for reading, and now you don't even have to scrounge up old copies at rummage sales anymore. #

From the New York Times archives, 1880: What if spiders were as large as sheep? #

Tay Zonday, the 'Chocolate Rain' guy, is proving to be something more than a one-hit-wonder by being eloquent and insightful on what the media is and how it relates to the perjoratives "one hit wonder" and "sellout." (via) #

Resistentialism: the philosophical idea that inanimate objects are inherently hostile towards rational beings. It makes sense: if, thinking, artistic humans are productive and working towards creation, it's only logical to connect the unthinking with the destructive. Like the golem, Frankenstein's Monster, and poorly designed cellphone interfaces, our creations are out to destroy us. Don't trust that Mac...despite the cutesy music and friendly interface, it's gonna bash your freakin' face in. #

Blinded in childhood, posessing a law degree, fighting for what is righteous and just? Could be Daredevil, could be New York governor David Patterson...or they could be the same person! #

An adventurous and trusting person left their camera on a park bench, with instructions...and this happened. Similar to this, which uses postal workers for their art. (via) #

The Ludolphine: at the turn of the 17th century, Ludolph van Ceulen calculated an amazing, magical number, which was named in his honor. The Ludolphine number starts 3.14159...and continues out for a total of 35 decimal places. People who remember 7th grade math (or resort to treppanation to avoid manipulation by hasidic jews) may recognize this number as pi, the ratio of diameter to circumference in a circle. The Ludolphine is not pi -- true pi has endless decimal places -- but is mathematically equivalent. van Ceulen's grave has the Ludophine carved into it, a hundred years before pi was ever used as a name for his famous number. #

Speaking of Caturday, this past Fark Caturday I, as my alter-arch-ego-nemesis Azrael Brown, posted a lame, inane post, which it turns out has the most votes as of 3/17/08. Is are kan be posibl 2 win Caturday? I think can be such, and I am that winner. #

Exotic, but I question the practicality of spoons made from bread; I suppose if they were made of something stiff like prezels, they might have enough body to actually support food on the cup end. They look more fun (see last picture here) than anything. #

Awesome forced-perspective art: the Thing runs through the theater. (via) #

I found this researching something for The Infomercantile: A list of popes who were gettin' some. Popes had sex? Who knew? Well, the one pope whose dad was a pope. Ain't no virgin birth going on there. #

Black dog syndrome: anecdotally, a dog stays at a shelter longer (and, eventually is put down) if it's big and black. I find it suprising, since a black lab is (also anecdotally) the friendlist of dogs, easiest to train, and is good with families. The news article has a good explanation, that may be technology-based: under low interior lights or in a photo, an all-black dog is a dark & indistinct shape, which makes it harder to 'latch on' to some cute-factor, and triggers the general instinctive aversion to bright eyes and glinting teeth embedded in massive, indistinct black voids. (via) #

The world's smallest independent country, Nauru, is in need of help: it has no money. At only 8 square miles, the resource-less country has been relying on Australian input to keep their nation moving, but that's ending, and the 10,000 residents will cease to have paychecks and national benefits. If you've got some lottery winnings to burn and want to become a small nation's benefactor, I'll bet they'll be happy to see you on their doorstep! #

tweetronising: cute, sweet, everything-is-great sentiment designed to get you to buy stuff. A portmanteau of 'twee' and 'patronizing', it's used in hipster-bourgeois-commercials to appear grounded and earthy, without any sort of buddhist lifestyle actually embedded. Those new MacBook Air commercials are the perfect example of such a thing, thanks to Yael Naim's "New Soul"; see also Apple's Nano commercial, the Ford Edge, and this Sprint commercial. #

If you ever wanted to see your geeky life plotted out in humorous detail, see the NYT's flowchart, starting with early-life D&D exposure. It seems to overlap, or at least compliment, Lore's Geek Heirarchy. #

A telemarketer has found how much fun it is to hack caller ID. They've been contacting people at all hours of the night, showing up on caller ID as a call from Tommy Tutone's Jenny. While it might seem ideal for a good time, beware calls from numbers you find on bathroom walls. #

The Instructables website is chock full 'o useful information, such as this entertaning and relevant set of insutrction for how to ship a tiger to Canada. It's not too long, and cute enough to have been a children's book. (via) #

Kosovo has proclaimed independence from Serbia, further fragmenting the former Yugoslavia. Not that it means much, unless other nations acknowledge and respect their sovereignty. In a tactic taken from Stephen Colbert, Kosovo has a 'Who's Recognizing My Existence Now?" website called Kosovo Thanks You! #

Last Thursday, one of my coworkers won a free lunch with James and Cori In The Morning for the entire office from FM 105.1 (formerly "Lite Rock 105," but only old people still call it that). We chatted, everyone told embarrassing stories about themselves and each other, I had a tasty tasty sandwich, and we all got our picture taken. That's me, way in the back on the left, with the scruffy beard and black sweater. #

Yesterday, partly due to age and partly due to being beat down by high Infomercantile traffic, the server hit the canvas hard and the paramedics had to be called to the ring. If I had propped him up and growled like a pissed-off Burgess Meredith, the server probably would have gone on fighting for a couple more rounds. I've had replacement servers burning-in over in my server closet since December, so despite not having completely tested everything I hedged my bets that all would go well by swapping machines. Sadly, the new server hadn't gotten a dose of current content in quite a while, resulting in everyone getting old content for around 8 hours yesterday while I troubleshooted copying 10GB of data to the new server without overwriting anything important. If you came here yesterday and were confused by the late-December content, don't worry: you didn't fall through a wormhole nor entered a groundhog-day loop late in the month. It was the replacing of servers. I'm still working out bugs, so brace yourself, in case you see anything crazy happening. #

If you're not sure what to write on your product's label and you don't have some amazing awe-inspiring description to encourage the purchase, just rephrase the definition of the object, but IN ALL CAPS! In case you didn't know, my blog PROVIDES WORDS TO READ WHEN THE LETTERS ARE ASSEMBLED FROM LEFT TO RIGHT, IN ROWS FROM TOP TO BOTTOM, STOPPING AT SPACES AND PUNCTUATION. If you're not partaking in my blog in this fashion, you're doing it wrong. #

Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books, those maddening yet anticlimatic interactive fiction children's books were huge when I was a kid, but I never quite saw the god's-eye-view of what the book's structure looked like. Well, for that matter, I never even thought of what the god's-eye-view would be (I was eleven, for cryin' out loud), but the nerdy grownup in me wants to know -- and I can find out, for "The Mystery of Chimney Rock," CYOA #5. #

Random Hall, who have named a floor after my daughter Destiny at my behest, has turned 40. The building, originally temporary and not meant to be a formal dorm, has stood the test of time and been an internet darling since before the web. Happy birthday, all! #

Now that you've memorized all eleven planets, just be glad that there aren't as many planets out there as we once thought -- like those listed in this 'hypothetical planet' list. #

This has to be the awesomest foodstuff ever: The Big MacChicken. Step one: Replace the buns of the Big Mac with the chicken patties out of three McChickens. Step Two: Enjoy the heavenly bliss. Step three: vomit out your less-useful internal organs; after eating the genius of a Bic MacChicken, you won't need those parts anymore. Oh, my McDonald's tip: Order a McChicken Combo and an extra McChicken: it's cheaper than any of the predesigned 'combos' on the menu, plus it's more food. #

OK, my name's Derek, and my brother is named Simon -- and imagine my surprise when someone has STOLEN our names and developed the Derek & Simon Show at SuperDeluxe. Ever since Bob Odenkirk slept with my wife, I warned the bastard that he better not screw with me anymore. Now this is war. #