Some cool stuff...

... that I present for your viewing pleasure:

-Wow this is amazing. If this doesn't make you want to go places, then you just don't want to go places.

-Speaking of cool places to go, check out this Chinese mountain trail. And no, you won't ever see me on this thing.

-Oh, as it turns out Gmail has now achieved perfection (it took me awhile to figure out how this was different than mail forwarding...as it turns out, I am an idiot). And in a related note I was finally convinced that Firefox 2.0 was worth it for my home computer (no bugs on my work computer). I was convinced by the ability to browse with some privacy, block ads, have my forcast on the screen at all times, check links for website safety level before clicking, and, oh yeah, Pimpzilla 3.38. Seriously though, if you're still using IE as your main browser, then you need to consider an upgrade.

- The MythBusters rule.

- I haven't read this article and I probably won't. How come? Because it employs the phrase "Darwin's Dilemma", in this case referring to oxygen and large animals. Hello mainstream media. Please stop calling things "Darwin's Dilemma", I've heard this, or a similar phrase, applied to damn near every concept in evolutionary theory. You know what Darwin's real Dilemma was? Worms. Earthworms. The guy was fascinated by them. The little worms used to rise up and wave around in the air for no obvious reason at all. He never figured it out. His best selling book (during his lifetime): About worms.

- Apparently one of the last images taken by a human while standing on a different planet. I can't possibly express how irritated this makes me.

- This is a distribution of families in the U.S. in 1840, 1880, and 1920. Pretty freaking cool. My last name is all over the place, but most densely concentrated in Illinois (of all places). I actually have a friend whose name appears just once in the 1840 distribution, and just 4 times in the 1920 distribution. I'd say that family has a lot of daughters!

- Here's a collection of bizzarre pictures. I actually like these a lot, very creative (assuming most of it is done without photoshop, which seems to be the case).

- Could you give up your computer for 20 days? No. No. No. Seriously. No.

- Publishing negative results. Ahh, so important, yet so hard to do. "So I spent 6 weeks of my summer running an artificial stream experiment. Then I spent 3-4 more weeks running samples. Then I spent another 6-8 months trying to write up a paper that has some level of coherence. As it turns out, dissolved organic matter doesn't influence anything I measured." Now, the next person/idiot that comes along thinking this might be a good thing to try isn't ever going to know that this was done unless it gets published. Not to mention the fact that someone else might find an effect, and then he gets published. But does that mean you did something wrong? Maybe, maybe not.

- Oh, and of course, Jurassic Shrimp. I'm sure it is only a matter of time before these show up as an Iron Chef ingredient.