Grab bag of linkiness, mostly

(now, if I'd found some interesting stuff about a toy that walks down stairs, it could be a grab bag of slinkiness....)

Interesting reading: a news article on smile research

Not sure whether I think of this as 'travel writing' or 'humor', but either way, a yummy, funny article that makes me want to go there: Argentina on two steaks a day.

Top wheelchair tennis champ Vergeer chose to have nude photos included in ESPN magazine with those of other athletes.

According to Wikipedia, the history of the hobbit, which is the unit of measurement, of course.

Some totally tasteless, yet strangely compelling, T-shirts (warning: rude, insensitive, possibly offensive, especially for people sensitive to WWII things)

Silly product of the day: pizza π cutter
Also, very cool kitcheware that immediately had me thinking about how I'd use it.

This cute representation of Boston's snow aggregation would be a much stronger graphic representation if

1. "Snowfall this year" were changed to be "Snowfall this season so far" or "Snowfall 2010–2011 so far".
   
2. The data for 2010–2011 and for 1995–996 included the month data as in the average season total (and I'd think it would be much more finadable, really, since the average is, by definition, changeable as more data is collected, but the month totals are what they are, immutable (rather like some of the current snow mountains in the corners of parking lots)).

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"A butterfly flew in a garden for 12 minutes. It touched down on 12 plants. If it stayed on each plant for the same amount of time, how long did it stay on each plant?"

As written, this is indeterminate (well, some value between 0 and 60 seconds, presumably). However, the writers did not let this stop them. They divided 12 by 12, and said that the butterfly was on each plant for 1 minute.

Which of course means that the butterfly didn't fly at all, but teleported.

In a world with teleporting insects, so much is possible....

Bucky

Thanks to a last-minute ticket via Hani, I ended up going to see R. Buckminster Fuller: THE HISTORY (and Mystery) OF THE UNIVERSE at the ART Tuesday night. It was a fabulous show. ( Read more... )

Two thumbs up; worth seeing if you can.

Deep winter share pickup #2

• two and a half pounds of carrots
  
• a bunch of cilantro (given away)
  
• half a pound of really nice salad mix (tiny fresh leaves)
  
• a pound of radishes/daikon (I chose watermelon radishes for me, since I don't seem to get through daikon or black radishes)
  
• two and a half pounds of potatoes (they look yellow; not sure what kind otherwise)
  
• a pound and a half of red beets (I think? for quantity)
  
• a pound and a half of onions (I chose yellow because I still have some red at home)
  
• a big head of green cabbage (the leaves just crinkly enough at the edge to make me think of some Asian variety, even though it's a regular, if slightly flattened, spherical-ish shape)
  
• a head of garlic
  
• a peck bag of Empire apples (IPM)
  
• a dozen brown eggs
  
• a piece of Jersey cheddar cheese (will have to find a taker for this, alas)

And I finally remembered to bring back a half-bushel box I'd gotten from one of the bulk buys earlier this year.

(Reminder to self: I still have two watermelon radishes, a butternut squash, and the shallots from the last distribution.)