This MRI from the study, Chronic Exercise Preserves Lean Muscle Mass in Masters Athletes, says everything you need to know about exercise:

The Scottish accent gives Siri a wee bit of trouble:

Vi Hart finishes up her three-parter on Spirals, Fibonacci, and being a plant: part 1, part 2, and part 3. Great stuff.

Vi Hart’s awesome series on Spirals, Fibonacci, and Being a Plant: part 1 and part 2. Can’t wait for part 3! I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say this changes the way I look at the world.

Radiolab is generally awesome—no news there—but I still have to link this one up because their latest episode, The Bad Show, is a contender for my favorite:

We begin with a chilling statistic: 91% of men, and 84% of women, have fantasized about killing someone. We take a look at one particular fantasy lurking behind these numbers, and wonder what this shadow world might tell us about ourselves and our neighbors. Then, we reconsider what Stanley Milgrim’s famous experiment really revealed about human nature (it’s both better and worse than we thought). Next, we meet a man who scrambles our notions of good and evil: chemist Fritz Haber, who won a Nobel Prize in 1918…around the same time officials in the US were calling him a war criminal. And we end with the story of a man who chased one of the most prolific serial killers in US history, then got a chance to ask him the question that had haunted him for years: why?

The stuff you never hear about the Milgram experiment! The Fritz Haber story! I haven’t gotten to the serial killer part yet, but it’s already so good I don’t need to wait on posting.

Great Planet Money podcast on why lard fell out of favor.

My favorite tower defense game ever, Kingdom Rush, is now out in an iPad version. There’s also Windosill. I actually played the iPad version first, and it totally captivated me and my girls.

Harrison Krix’s Gravity Gun prop is stunningly good, and his detailed build post really shows you what goes in to something like this. As if that weren’t great enough, it sold for $21,000 at a Child’s Play charity dinner in Seattle.

Couple things on comedian-for-our-times Louis CK. First, a theory as to why he holds that title: shame. Second, he recently skipped all middlemen and sold his recent comedy special directly on the Internet. Five dollars, no DRM, do with it what you will. Worked out really well, and he’s being quite awesome about it all:

hi. So it’s been about 12 days since the thing started and yesterday we hit the crazy number. One million dollars. That’s a lot of money. Really too much money. I’ve never had a million dollars all of a sudden. and since we’re all sharing this experience and since it’s really your money, I wanted to let you know what I’m doing with it. People are paying attention to what’s going on with this thing. So I guess I want to set an example of what you can do if you all of a sudden have a million dollars that people just gave to you directly because you told jokes.

Best Table Tennis Shots of 2011. Voted sport most likely to convince me that we all live in The Matrix.

Love this: Hero, Miguel Endara’s portrait of his father composed entirely out of 3.2 million ink dots.

Hyperbole and a Half, Adventures in Depression. I am late in posting this, but for the three of you out there who haven’t seen it already, it’s so good.

I just put this on my pile of favorite xkcd strips: Map Projections.

Quantum Levitation. Totally wild! Bring on the Flash Gordon future.

Here’s an explanation.

Pumped Up Kicks|Dubstep: A dance routine so good it looks fake. Watch the whole thing. Doesn’t really get going until around a minute in:

(via kottke)

Nerve-wracking, queasy-making: Russian Man Climbs Moscow Skyscraper Without Safety Equipment. Good god.

(And let us not forget the late Dan Osman’s insane 400 foot climb.)

(via df)

Tom Banwell’s steampunk gas masks are awesome:

RadioLab’s mind-blowing piece on ragtime pianist Bob Milne:

In this short, a neurologist issues a dare to a ragtime piano player and a famous conductor. When the two men face off in an fMRI machine, the challenge is so unimaginably difficult that one man instantly gives up. But the other achieves a musical feat that ought to be impossible.

Absolutely worth the 20 minute listen.

Great color (!) photographs of life in NYC in the 40s. I find when I think about the past I picture it in black-and-white or otherwise not-like-it-is-now, so I love being jarred out of that thinking.

I would build it up too much if I talked about it, but Wonderputt is a great game that you should definitely play. And it won’t totally destroy your workday because it’s only 18 holes. Even if you’re saying “golf?! no way” you should absolutely still give it a look.

If you are a tower defense fan, then prepare to kiss your workday (or a good night’s sleep) goodbye, Kingdom Rush is a great one. Starts a little slow, but as the variety of enemies and weapons adds up it really gets addictive.

I have been listening to The Moth podcast for a little while now, and I love it. So far these are my favorites:

• Sherman “O.T.” Powell: Cocktails in Attica
• Christian McBride: The Gig
• Matteson Perry & Jeff Simmermon: GrandSLAM Stories
• Anthony Griffith: Best of Times, Worst of Times

Warning: the first three are fun and entertaining but that last one is absolutely heart-rending.

Another totally, totally awesome Danny Macaskill street trials biking video: Industrial Revolutions. The railroad tracks! The flip! The ROPE! Good god.

Fascinating Planet Money podcast on why the Tappan Zee Bridge in NYC is built in the wrong place (over one of the widest points on the Hudson River, at much greater expense than narrower points a few miles south, and to the detriment of the long-term health of the bridge).

This was one of my favorite Listology lists back in the day, and I’ve continued to add to it since. I’m sure I’m missing some, but these are my favorite action scenes. They aren’t all good movies (although many are), but these scenes deliver regardless. One asterisk means it was a tough choice, two means it was damn near impossible.

• 13 Assassins (2010) … the last 45 (!) minutes of the movie
• 15 Minutes (2001) … escape from burning apartment
• 28 Weeks Later (2007) … opening sequence *
• The Abyss (1989) … waiting for the crane to come down from the surface, and then what happens when it does
• Aliens (1986) … locked in with the face-huggers.
• Avatar (2009) … the whole finish
• The Battleship Potemkin (1925) … the Odessa Steps sequence.
• Behind the Sun (2001) … the chase through the woods
• Ben Hur (1959) … the chariot race
• The Boondock Saints (1999) … the toilet *
• The Bourne Identity (2002) … the car chase *
• The Bourne Supremacy (2004) … the car chase *
• The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) … fight with Desh **
• Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001) … trying to trap the beast.
• Brute Force (1947) … breakout, especially on the drainpipe side
• Casino Royale (2006) … foot chase
• Chicken Run (2000) … in the pie machine (with plenty of Raiders references)
• Children of Men (2006) … escaping in the car that won’t start **
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) … shrine fight between Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi
• Dawn of the Dead (2004) … retrieving the dog
• Death Proof (2007) … ship’s mast and all car stuff thereafter
• District 9 (2009) … wearing the suit
• District B13 (2004) … opening foot chase **
• District 13: Ultimatum (2009) … tomaso in drag *
• Duplicity (2009) … executive tarmac brawl
• The Empire Strikes Back (1980) … battle on Hoth
• Equilibrium (2002) … “not without incident” to the end.
• Fearless (2006) … fight on the high platform **
• Fist of Legend (1994) … climactic fight *
• The Four Musketeers (1974) … the convent/cathedral **
• Goldeneye (1995) … tank chase scene
• Hard Boiled (1992) … hospital scene
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire … dragon chase
• Hero (2002) … duel with Sky *
• Jurassic Park (1993) … kitchen scene
• I Am Legend (2007) … the dogs and the ray of sunshine
• Ip Man … “i want to fight 10 men”
• Inception (2010) … rotating-gravity fight scene
• The Incredibles (2004) … Elastigirl and the doors **
• Ink (2009) … the kidnapping
• The Iron Giant (1999) … From the diving catch to the end
• Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) … Go Go Yubari fight (ball and chain)
• Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) … fight with Elle
• King Kong (2005) … the bugs ** (or the stampede, or the t-rexes, or the finale – hot damn)
• Kung Fu Hustle (2004) … two masters vs. the beast **
• Kung Fu Panda (2008) … fighting over the dumplings **
• Legend of Drunken Master (1994) … the axe gang fight
• Let the Right One In (2008) … the pool
• The Little Mermaid (1989) … the kitchen
• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) … escape from the mines of moria
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) … Eowyn and the Witch King *
• The Matrix (1999) … opening sequence **
• The Matrix Reloaded (2003) … the highway chase
• Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) … car chase (especially the golf club)
• Next (2007) … walking out of the casino
• Oldboy (2003) … hammer time
• Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003) … Banderas and Hayek escaping from the hotel room
• Ong-bak (2003) … climactic sequence, possibly highlighted by saw fight **
• Our Hospitality (1923) … the rapids/waterfall scene
• Over the Hedge (2006) … caffeine
• The Princess Bride (1987) … duel between Inigo and the man in black
• Prodigal Son (1983) … attack on sleeping opera company
• The Professional (1994) … police invasion of Leon’s apartment
• Project A (1983) … the bicycle chase through the narrow alleys (what follows with the flagpole and the clock-tower is great too)
• Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) … opening sequence
• Red River (1948) … the stampede
• Rumble in the Bronx (1995) … fight at gang headquarters
• Safety Last! (1923) … the climb
• Sanjuro (1962) … final duel
• Saving Private Ryan (1998) … storming the beach (a rare unfrivilous entry here)
• Shanghai Knights (2003) … singin’ in the rain
• Sin City (2005) … Marv’s apartment escape
• Spider-man 2 (2004) … the train
• So Close (2002) … sword fight (best part of generally good closing sequence)
• Sorcerer (1977) … the trucks over the rope bridges
• Stagecoach (1939) … the chase scene
• Stardust (2007) … voodoo sword fight
• Star Wars: The Revenge of the Sith (2005) … Palpatine vs. Mace Windu
• Strangers on a Train (1951) … the merry-go-round scene
• The Sword of Doom (1966) … the fight in the snow
• Terminator 2 (1991) … hospital breakout
• Thirst (2009) … sunrise
• Three Days of the Condor (1975) … fight with the mailman
• The Three Musketeers (1973) … stealing food
• Throne of Blood (1957) … Washizu’s bitter end
• Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) … car chase via remote control from the backseat
• Troy (2004) … Achilles vs. Hector
• The Twilight Samurai (2002) … steel vs. wood
• The Untouchables (1987) … shootout in Chicago’s Union Station
• X2: X-Men United (2003) … raid on the school **
• Zatoichi (2003) … confronting the gang, highlight being showdown with the bodyguard

A few stragglers; these I need to rewatch before I can pick:

• Die Hard (1988)
• The Fugitive (1993)
• Lethal Weapon (1987)
• The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
• Speed (1994)

Watch at marvel at the Detective Dee trailer. Filled equally with OMG and WTF moments. Kicking the deer in the head is both:

By now, everybody has seen the Policy Changes Under Two Presidents chart, but I also like James Fallows’ comments on it.

Great, politically interesting Fresh Air interview with Fareed Zakaria, What Does A ‘Post-American World’ Look Like?

Greatest pairing of book and reader ever: Go the F**k to Sleep, read by Samuel L. Jackson.

MobilityWOD is the best fitness video weblog I’ve seen in a long time, maybe ever. Kelly Starrett is filming/discussing a mobility workout every day. Engaging speaker, walks the walk, and clearly knows his stuff inside and out.

I love this: The Sad, Beautiful Fact That We’re All Going To Miss Almost Everything:

That’s your moment of understanding that you’ll miss most of the music and the dancing and the art and the books and the films that there have ever been and ever will be, and right now, there’s something being performed somewhere in the world that you’re not seeing that you would love.

It’s sad, but it’s also … great, really. Imagine if you’d seen everything good, or if you knew about everything good. Imagine if you really got to all the recordings and books and movies you’re “supposed to see.” Imagine you got through everybody’s list, until everything you hadn’t read didn’t really need reading. That would imply that all the cultural value the world has managed to produce since a glob of primordial ooze first picked up a violin is so tiny and insignificant that a single human being can gobble all of it in one lifetime. That would make us failures, I think.

Unbelievable videos of quadrotor robots flying around:

• Aggressive Maneuvers for Autonomous Quadrotor Flight
• Aggressive Quadrotor Part II
• Quadrocopter Ball Juggling

Bonus, the first one produced my favorite YouTube comment of all time: “Can’t wait to have twenty of the little bastards chase me around the post apocalyptic wasteland.”

(thx david)

A follow-up to the recent great Wired story, One Man’s Quest to Outrace Wind. Turns out there’s all kinds of Directly Downwind Faster than the Wind information out there, and I love these videos:

• Under the ruler faster than the ruler
• Under the ruler 2: the ground moves
• Under the ruler 3: tilting the ruler

Makes my brain hurt. I don’t understand why the big wheel turns in the direction that it turns. Dunce caps for me and poor hapless George, I guess.

Great story of this fellow who sets out to prove he can build a completely wind-powered vehicle that can travel directly downwind, faster than the wind: One Man’s Quest to Outrace Wind. Dad, read this one.

So good I donated: Everything is a Remix Part 2 (here is part 1).

I know I’ve linked to this before, but Ben Heine keeps adding to his Pencil vs. Camera series, and the results always catch my eye. For example:

Onion awesomeness: Gap Between Rich And Poor Named 8th Wonder Of The World.

Nothing like the joy of endless video game mayhem, which the original Robokill delivered in spades. Paid to register it, feel like I got my $10 worth and then some. Of course I had to give Robokill 2 a go when it came out awhile ago, but at the time it just didn’t take. Too hard to advance, which hampered my joy of blowing stuff up. But I just tried it again, and loved it. I think they rebalanced it since it first came out. Registered and loving it.

Bill Murray gave a great speech introducing Sofia Coppola at the National Board of Review Awards:

“They told me I have two minutes. I’m going to pop this Red Hot [candy, pops in mouth] so I’ll be finished in two minutes [mumbling with candy in mouth]. Why do you give this award? Why? Because you have to throw a party. Because you have to compete with the Golden Globes. [Cheers.] We all asked that question. You’re able to get out tonight, celebrate — without your relatives — you earned, you deserve it.

But why do you give it to Sofia Coppola? Why? Because you want to encourage her, I think. I think that’s the real reason. Look at her. Look at her!

(via kottke)

Great piece: A Day in the Future.

Love the Kanye West Monster Muppet Remix, even if it’s a bit disconcerting to see the Muppets in this light!

I’m a few days late with this, but that doesn’t make it any less hysterical: The Year Kenny Loggins Ruined Christmas. Starts slow, but hang in there until Kenny Loggins shows up.

Just wanted to single out Filmography 2010 as my favorite link from the recent backlog. So good. I just read this interview with Gen Ip, the woman behind the video, and she mentioned being influenced by Kees van Dijkhuizen (e.g. Cinema 2009, keep your eyes peeled for his 2010 version soon) and Matt Shapiro (e.g. 2010: The Cinescape).

Wow, I really like Robert Wechsler’s work. For example:

If that’s not enough to warrant a clickthrough, consider this description of another project:

The steam holes of a working iron were re machined to mirror the iconic aura of the Virgin of Guadalupe. When cloth is scorched by the iron an image of the Virgin appears in the burn. The text on the T-shirts (everything is coming up roses) accompanies the burns and refers to the Virgin of Guadelupe’s first appearance when she caused roses to grown on a barren hillside for the lone peasant Juan Diego.

(via dude craft)

Vi Hart’s Mathematical Doodling videos are fantastic, I’m not sure which one is my favorite. Maybe Snakes and Graphs:

(via waxy)

Great piece by Bruce Schneier on terrorism and fear: Close the Washington Monument:

An empty Washington Monument would serve as a constant reminder to those on Capitol Hill that they are afraid of the terrorists and what they could do. They’re afraid that by speaking honestly about the impossibility of attaining absolute security or the inevitability of terrorism — or that some American ideals are worth maintaining even in the face of adversity — they will be branded as “soft on terror.” And they’re afraid that Americans would vote them out of office if another attack occurred. Perhaps they’re right, but what has happened to leaders who aren’t afraid? What has happened to “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”?

An empty Washington Monument would symbolize our lawmakers’ inability to take that kind of stand — and their inability to truly lead.

Another great take on that awful LeBron Nike commercial, Michael Jordan Responds To Lebron.

Crazy interception, to not only have the awareness to make the attempt, but to also have the athleticism to pull it off:

Also note #85, who kinda watches the whole thing dumbfounded (not that I blame him) and then gets creamed as he stands there pondering. Best view of that is at 0:40.

Ha!

Nobody tell this guy to move the prep counter closer to the cooking surface, that wouldn’t be nearly as much fun. (via kottke)

Remember that great parkour-on-a-bike video, Inspired Bicycles? Danny MacAskill us back with a new also-great video, Way Back Home.

This might be my favorite Hyperbole and a Half so far: Dogs Don’t Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving. Just plain flat out hilarious.

Love this bit from The Trip, with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, This Is How Michael Caine Speaks. That show’s going into the queue.

I should have posted this on Halloween: His Face All Red.

Holy crap, this guy made an SLR camera. From scratch!

My project consists in creating a 24×36mm reflex all by myself – no more, no less. I have had this project in mind for the past 25 years, but I didn’t master the technique nor did I have the knowledge necessary to complete it until now (I’m almost 42).

• The aim is not to use pieces scrapped from existing cameras, except for the shutter curtain fabric, ball bearings and screws; I have already found a solution for manufacturing the mirror, the focusing screen and even the prism.
• This camera will not be a copycat of an existing camera, but a new design that allows me to use my workshop equipped with model-making machine tools. Of course, the design will be drawing from existing solutions, such as the focal-plane shutter of the Leica II.
• I didn’t find anything like this on the web, even on Anglo-Saxon websites, and they do like DIY a lot, I will therefore be facing the teething problems.
• This project does have some difficulties :gratgrat:, this wouldn’t otherwise be interesting. The most hindering issues for me will be the light proofness and the focal-plane shutter. As regard the light proofness, I will be bypassing this issue by drawing from the bottom-loading design of Leica, Zenit 1, Zorki… The only difference is that the bottom plate and the casing will be removable in a single piece. As regards the shutter, I scrutinized a Zenit 1 as well as a Zenit E from every possible angle to understand the operation, I have had some issues understanding it, but it now clear to me.
• Lastly, my camera will have to be reasonably sized in comparison with existing cameras. The technical level will be more or less on par with the one of the 1950s, I don’t think I’ll be able to implement an instant-return mirror, for example, but if one is too greedy from the start, the project fails and end up unfinished in a box.

This is terrific, The True Size of Africa. Here’s just a corner to give you a taste:

The hits just keep on coming from OkTrends, Gay Sex vs. Straight Sex. The data diving has been top notch all the way along, but the commentary is getting funnier. An example, in discussing a “gay curious” U.S. map:

Awesomely, the mountain West lives up to its Brokeback reputation, and Canada is orange nearly coast-to-coast. Even in the yellow and blue areas, you can see pockets of gay curiosity in interesting places: Austin, Madison, Asheville. Anywhere soy milk is served, basically.

I just love the Volpin Props detailed build posts, and the latest is no exception: Ultramarines Bolt Pistol. Also, bonus, he links to this incredible model of the Hellboy Samaritan, also with great build photos, made almost entirely from paper.

You may think, “no way I’m watching a 16-minute woodworking video”, but you’d be wrong. “Mike Jarvi badassedly constructs his signature one-piece, the Jarvi Bench“. One piece! Watched it twice!

The incomparable Jerry Rice on training and his awesome hill workout. He was such a joy to watch.

This is in the running for coolest gift ever: The Reverse Geocache Puzzle Box (”“You are — how you say in English? — a BASTARD!”). Here’s a nice video overview. See also this variation, the Woodpecker Puzzle Cache and these wind-up birds.

Love this: Words. I just started listening to Radiolab, great stuff. (thx avital)

Christopher Hitchens: “In whatever kind of a ‘race’ life may be, I have very abruptly become a finalist.”

I can’t even begin to imagine how much work went into creating Big Bang Big Boom, and incredible piece of large-scale stop-motion animation.

OkTrends, where every post is fascinating: The Big Lies People Tell In Online Dating. For example, guys add 2” inches to their height, which isn’t really surprising, but what is surprising (to me) is that this is true for guys who are already tall. It’s not until they get to 6’8” that the exaggeration stops.

I love these articles that underscore the huge gaps between pros and everyone else (and the gap between bona fide stars and workaday pros): author Nic Brown plays friend and tennis pro Tripp Phillips with the goal of winning a single point in a three-set match (well, two sets, really).

Violence. Spoilers. Genius. Kubrick vs Scorsese. (via kottke)

I’ve only been following the World Cup on my periphery, but after reading The Genius of Messi...

Messi simply does things — little things and big things — that other players here cannot do. He gets a ball in traffic, is surrounded by two or three defenders, and he somehow keeps the ball close even as they jostle him and kick at the ball. He takes long and hard passes up around his eyes and somehow makes the ball drop softly to his feet, like Keanu Reeves making the bullets fall in “The Matrix.” He cuts in and out of traffic — Barry Sanders only with a soccer ball moving with him — sprints through openings that seem only theoretical, races around and between defenders who really are running even if it only looks like they are standing still. He really does seem to make the ball disappear and reappear, like it’s a Vegas act.

… I had to find some video. There’s some real magic in there. The ankle-breaking direction changes look effortless, and all while controlling the ball so precisely. Really, great, even in small screen contextless clips. (via kottke)

Oh my. Travis Pastrana Big Wheel backflip:

From “I can’t see…” to “third attempt”, WTF or FTW? I can’t decide, so I say both! (via kottke)

Amazing play by pitcher Mark Buehrle. Definitely worth sitting through the commercial MLB sticks you with at the beginning. (via kottke)

Sorry, can’t help myself, Strogatz again, this time on getting to pi via infinity (breaking into calculus now).

The economic realities suck, of course, but this article on trucker hobbies makes me happy.

Here’s a sneak peek of content-aware fill, coming to Photoshop. Might as well be magic!

Beautifully done: Nature by Numbers.

This is great, Adam Savage (Mythbusters) on his passion for objects, and his making of two replicas, a dodo skeleton and the Maltese Falcon.

Absolutely hang in there for the whole thing, because the bit about the Chinese newspaper at the end really hammers home his dedication (not that you wouldn’t be convinced of that earlier). I love watching people who love what they do.

Academy Award Winning Movie Trailer is deservedly making the rounds, but just in case you haven’t seen it yet:

Maciej Cegłowski delves deeply into a fascinating question: if scurvy was solved in 1747, why did it plague Robert Falcon Scott’s 1911 expedition to the South Pole?

… in the second half of the nineteenth century, the cure for scurvy was lost. The story of how this happened is a striking demonstration of the problem of induction, and how progress in one field of study can lead to unintended steps backward in another.

An unfortunate series of accidents conspired with advances in technology to discredit the cure for scurvy. What had been a simple dietary deficiency became a subtle and unpredictable disease that could strike without warning. Over the course of fifty years, scurvy would return to torment not just Polar explorers, but thousands of infants born into wealthy European and American homes. And it would only be through blind luck that the actual cause of scurvy would be rediscovered, and vitamin C finally isolated, in 1932.

Steven Strogatz’s series on math started off great and keeps getting better and better. His is the first explanation of imaginary numbers that I can fully relate to and understand. And not just on an abstract level; this is also the first time the real-world application has been apparent to me.

Darkly, darkly awesome: The Skull of Regret. The description of the drive-thru window. The deep-fat fryer as potential suicide implement. The pause before “ex-girlfriend.” All genius.

Great stuff from Roger Ebert that’s not a movie review: The Gathering Storm.

I think Steven Strogatz’s article on division is the best of his excellent “introduction to math” series so far. His series has quickly become one of my favorite reads on the web.

This Conditioning Research handstand tutorial link brought the Bar-barians blog to my attention, which “keeps track of all of the developments in the Bodyweight Scene, with a special focus on all of the pull-up crews in NYC.” A month or two ago they posted two 2009 highlight videos, Top 10 Moves of 2009 and The Top 10 Strongest Moves of 2009, both filled with impressive feats. If you don’t feel like watching all 20 minutes (although I think it’s worth it), here are my favorite parts:

• Cleive: behind the legs clap pushups at 4:48 (1st video).
• Cruz: muscle-up hurdles at 5:33.
• Rick: slow muscle-up with obstacle at 9:16.
• HFK: 1-arm coffin at 5:35 (2nd video).

Pretty sure HFK stands for Hannibal For King, featured in this unbelievable video.

Coincidentally, if you are inspired to improve your pullups, the Jason Ferruggia post, Top 10 Ways to Improve Your Pull Ups also came across my newsreader today. Sound advice.

Everybody is talking about the Esquire feature on Roger Ebert. I haven’t had time to do more than skim a bit, but I’ve printed it out for the bedside. Sure to be excellent.

Update: Ebert’s reaction to the piece.

I may just link to every OkTrends post. Fascinating, as usual. This one is preaching to the choir as far as I’m concerned, but The Case For An Older Woman needs to be made.

Men are idiots!

Jon Stewart: Unusually Large Snowstorm. Love that guy.

Old Spice wins the award for best Super Bowl commercial this year, The Man Your Man Could Smell Like:

Totally insane: we might be living in a giant cosmic hologram. Staggering. Read the whole thing. And I thought the discovery of the quantum physics underlying photosynthesis was mind-blowing.

This is the Only Level. Totally fantastic. It doesn’t look like much, but so addictive. It took me 18 minutes and 14 seconds to complete, with 122 deaths. Don’t read any instructions, just see if you can figure it out.

More fascinating stuff from the OkCupid numbers crunchers: The 4 Big Myths of Profile Pictures. For example, does showing ripped abs help a guy get messages on the dating site? How about boobs for women? And how do those number change with age, and do they change the same way? All kinds of questions like that. Great stuff.

(For the guys, it looks like doing a one-arm handstand in front of the Eiffel Tower while reading Tolstoy with your other hand (and therefore not making eye contact with the viewer), with your washboard abs “accidentally” exposed due to gravity is the way to go. Diminishing returns on the abs as you approach 30 though.)

Genius, 12-section comic, Why I Believe Printers Were Sent From Hell To Make Us Miserable, with each of the 12 sections being both hysterical and the gospel truth.

Fantastic post on terrorism, which opens with a band-beating metaphor:

I’m quite sure I could beat LeBron James in a game of one on one basketball. The game merely needs to feature two special rules: It lasts until I score, and as soon as I score I win. Such a game might last several hours, or even a week or two, and James would probably score hundreds and possibly thousands of points before my ultimate victory, but eventually I’m going to find a way to put the ball in the basket.

So, so good. Read now.

This is old news, but new to me. The folks behind the OkCupid dating site have a weblog where they analyze all kinds of interesting dating data. We all know that looks matter, but their number crunching is still fascinating.

Update: See also Your Race Affects Whether People Write You Back. Heck, just subscribe to the OkTrends weblog and read it all.

Upular: “composed using chords, bass notes and vocal samples from the Disney Pixar film Up.” Totally new and original sounding, yet still capturing the feel of the movie somehow. I love the shift at 1:28.

This one might be the graphic of the year for me. National Geographic has a brilliant visualization of healthcare spending, life expectancy, and doctor visits per country. Here’s a taste, but you gotta click through to the full version to find the US on there (the red line below should give you some idea):

Sigh!

Update: Here’s Andrew Gelman’s version.

Alma is a terrific short film by Pixar animator Rodrigo Blaas, available on Vimeo for a limited time (I don’t know how long, catch it now). (via waxy)

Octopuses continue to climb the ladder of awesomeness. Check out the footage of this fellow who totes around a coconut shell to use as a hiding place.

(via discover)

Wow, very impressive, here’s the “Trinity Help” scene from The Matrix, done in stop-motion with only Legos (although I’d really recommend clicking through and watching the bigger version instead):

The side-by-side comparison is also great. Finally, here’s the LegoMatrix site.

(via kottke)

I will try not to link to every new thing he writes, but David Thorne is too damn funny to resist.

Jon Ronson’s fantastic parenting story starts like so:

My eight-year-old son, Joel, comes into my office to ask if there’s a worse swearword than fuck. “No,” I say.

There’s a silence. “You’re lying,” he says.

“There’s none worse than fuck,” I say.

Joel narrows his eyes. “I know you’re lying,” he says. He leaves the room.

(via tmn)

David Thorne’s correspondence with Blockbuster over late fees is a riot. I’m probably the last person to have heard of this guy though, as apparently he hit it pretty big a year ago with the seven-legged spider exchange (see news stories here and here).

I can’t remember how this came up recently, but Terry Tate Office Linebacker is still the best series of sneaker commercials not made by Nike.

I don’t think anybody has topped this Fannie Farmer waffle recipe from 1896. Light and airy with just the right crisp. Don’t be put off by the fact that you have to make it the night before. It only takes 10 minutes tops, and it’s oh-so-worth-it:

• 1/2 cup warm water
• 1 package active dry yeast
• 1 stick butter
• 2 cups milk
• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1. In a large bowl, put the yeast in the warm water, and let stand for five minutes (or just while you complete steps 2 and 3, roughly the same thing).
2. Melt the butter in a pot.
3. Add the milk to the pot and stir it around until warm.
4. Pour the milk/butter mixture into the yeast/water mixture and add the flour, salt, and sugar to it. Mix it up. It will be kinda watery; don’t worry.
5. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature overnight.
6. In the morning add the eggs and baking soda, stir it up, and get waffling!

P.S. Makes something like 8 or 9 waffles on our round iron.

P.P.S. You can do straight margarine/butter and soy milk/milk substitutes for the dairy allergic. Not quite as good, but still yummy.

Lin-Manuel Miranda performs his Alexander Hamilton rap (as if sung by Aaron Burr) at the White House Poetry Jam:

I had thought Professor James Fzz’s Steam Robot was going to be my favorite Halloween costume, but I Eric Testroete’s Papercraft Self Portrait just snunk in and swiped the title (scroll to the right to see the additional photos and construction details).

Andre Agassi on hating tennis. He had to face the dragon (a souped up ball machine modified by his father that would shoot at 110 mph) at seven (!) years old:

My father has deliberately made the dragon fearsome. He’s given it an extra-long neck of aluminum tubing, and a narrow aluminum head, which recoils like a whip every time the dragon fires. He’s also set the dragon on a base several feet high and moved it flush against the net, so the dragon towers above me. I’m small for my age, but when standing before the dragon, I look tiny. Feel tiny. Helpless.

My father wants the dragon to tower over me not simply to command my attention and respect. He wants balls that shoot from the dragon’s mouth to land at my feet as if dropped from an airplane. The trajectory makes the balls nearly impossible to return in a conventional way: I need to hit every ball on the rise, or else it will bounce over my head. But even that’s not enough for my father. Hit earlier, he yells. Hit earlier.

My father yells everything twice, sometimes three times, sometimes 10. Harder, he says, harder. But what’s the use? No matter how hard I hit a ball, no matter how early, another ball comes back. Every ball I send across the net joins the thousands that already cover the court. Not hundreds. Thousands. They roll toward me in perpetual waves. I have no room to turn, to step, to pivot. I can’t move without stepping on a ball—yet I can’t step on a ball, because my father won’t bear it. Step on one of my father’s tennis balls and he’ll howl as if you stepped on his eyeball.

Holy crap.

A little post-Halloween link: introducing Steam Robot sidekick to last year’s Dr. Steam. I really need to put more (any) work into my Halloween costumes.

Monumentally sad and depressing. Chris Jordan photographs dead albatross chicks, killed because their parents fed them our plastic garbage:

These photographs of albatross chicks were made just a few weeks ago on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.

To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world’s most remote marine sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent.

For example:

We suck. (via josh spear)

So cool, the how and the why of controlling neurons with light. First, the why. Current methods lack precision:

Drugs and implanted electrodes can influence the brain, but they are terribly imprecise: Drugs flood the brain and affect many types of neurons indiscriminately. Electrodes activate every neuron around them.

This is bad for researchers, because practically every square millimeter of the brain contains a mess of different kinds of neurons, each specialized for a particular task. Drugs and electricity set off cascades of unwanted neural activity. Side effects.

It’s bad for patients, too. Cochlear implants, which let the deaf hear by shocking the auditory nerves, produce fuzzy sound because the electricity spreads beyond the neurons it’s aimed at. Deep brain stimulators for Parkinson’s patients allow them to walk and speak but may cause seizures and muscle weakness. Electroshock can help depression but often results in memory loss.

But if you can shine a light on just the section of the brain you want to fire (or not fire) you can get great precision. Of course, neurons are not light sensitive. At all. The solution? Insert genes from plants, which ARE light sensitive, into the neurons. How to do that is yet another cool thing, as is the potential Parkinson’s treatment, but I’ll leave that for the article.

Quang Phuc Dong on the special grammatical weirdness reserved for “fuck.” Even if you don’t want to read the whole thing, at least hang down there until the Lyndon Johnson examples.

Report: Majority Of Newspapers Now Purchased By Kidnappers To Prove Date.

There is a man standing in this picture, not behind anything, hidden only by the paint he has applied to himself:

Here’s more of Liu Bolin’s work. (via tmn)

I love DJ Steve Porter’s Press Hop. “Not a game not a game not a game…”

This is easily the best Ultimate Frisbee highlight reel I’ve seen, all clips collected from 2007 Nationals. (via catch)

This may be old news, since the WSJ piece on yo-yos ran in July, but check out this angiogram of yo-yo pro Dave Schulte’s hand, in particular the lack of circulation in his index finger due to crushed veins:

So I had a look around to see what kind of yo-yoing could wreak such havoc. Looking into competition, my head was turned by two divisions; 4A, where the yo-yo isn’t actually attached to the string (!) and 5A, where you don’t loop the yo-yo around your finger, as it instead has a counterweight on the other end. YouTube has HD video of the 2008 Asia Pacific 4A champion and the 5A champion.

(via tmn)

Inhuman. Usain Bolt breaks the unbreakable record again, by a ton. 19.19 in the 200m. The gap he opens up in this race, oh my.

I’m sure I’m catching this on the tail end of the wave, but Bobby McFerrin’s audience-based demonstration of the pentatonic scale is fantastic.

Inspired Bicycles just vaulted onto my top five Parkour videos list. Having “bicycles” and “Parkour” together doesn’t seem right, but there’s really no better way to explain it. I wouldn’t have imagined some of that stuff was possible. Really great. (via waxy)

I had a couple relatively funny spam subjects in a row containing the word “pants,” so did a quick search of the 3,000+ or so spam GMail caught for me recently. 16 feature “pants”:

• Hold the enormous manfullness in your pants.
• Suddenly you feel that your pants have steel inside them.
• Your pants will be in order all the time.
• If you think that power in your pants is not good enough, check this pill out.
• US senator crapped his pants!
• A big equipment in your pants brings big fruits for hot chicks to pick up.
• You feel like a giant comparing to the midget in your pants?
• Feel your pants expand with the new formula
• The vigor in your pants will be unbreakable.
• More inches in your pants – more attention from female friends.
• Get king-kong in pants
• Change the turmoil in your pants with the blue pill.
• Now you don’t have to turn off the lights when you take off your pants.
• Chicks will be at a loss for words when you take your pants down.
• Unzip your pants knowing that you have a real treasure there.
• Your little friend in your pants is capable only for visiting toilets.
• The hard friend in your pants will look up into the sky.

“Manfullness,” I must work that one into my vocabulary.

“Are your pants in order all the time?” really wants to be a new way of asking somebody if they’ve got their shit together.

“Suddenly you feel that your pants have steel inside them.” Oh no… Can’t. Bend. Knees…

I do NOT want to know what medical condition “turmoil in your pants” alludes to.

At least a couple of these would make for good fortune cookies.

Best Sesame Street outtakes ever: Ricky Gervais and Elmo. Also, from Gervais’s blog:

Did Sesame Street which is possibly the most fun show I’ve ever done. There were loads of outtakes but the producers are worried about releasing them as they may get the show taken off air.

and…

The next day I did my appearance on Sesame Street which I am honestly considering declaring a career high light.

Kevin Clash is amazing. He totally holds his own, and stays in character. Can’t wait for the episode to air!

I know I’m a bit late to the party on this one, but ThruYOU is incredible. Nothing but YouTube videos mixed together to create new (and fantastic) songs. I like to leave it open in another tab while I work because the music is so good.

I’ve only tried the Readability bookmarklet on a couple NYTimes and New Yorker articles, but it works flawlessly so far. A keeper. (via kottke)

I’ve tried to ignore Pixar’s gender problem because their movies are so damn good, but this post makes that pretty much impossible. It’s not about any one movie, but about the body of work as a whole. Consider Finding Nemo:

Father/son bonding film featuring a male clownfish (Marlin) and his son (Nemo). I’m all for movies about fathers and sons and, in fact, this is my favorite of all Pixar movies. Still, Nemo doesn’t put female characters front and center, and it probably shouldn’t, considering the subject matter. If it were only one male-dominated movie in a well-balanced oeuvre, I wouldn’t have a problem. Female characters: Nemo’s dead mom (Coral), Dory, Peach, Deb, Darla.

Ally score: 2/10. Points for having an important female character. Not too many, though, since she is squarely in the selfless helper/moral center role. Should I give points for making 2 of the 8 fish in Nemo’s tank female? Should I just be happy that any are female and not quibble on the 25% issue? Also, the elementary school teacher fish is male. Maybe because he’s a science teacher.

I’m still going to see Up in theaters, and will take my daughters, dammit.

“Great, now I have guilt!”

(via kottke)

Congrats to Kate Winslet on the long overdue win, and more importantly for making this Extras clip even greater in the process.

Every time I hear something about Shaquille O’Neal he just sounds like a fun guy. And as of today, he is responsible for the best Twitter story to date.

I confess, I usually skip the fiction in The New Yorker, but how could I pass up a mere 1,500-word alien invasion?

I happened to remember the expression, “I’m your huckleberry” out of the blue today. Val Kilmer put the expression back on the map doing his Doc Holliday in Tombstone years ago. It didn’t occur to me then to wonder what it meant, but thanks to Google now I know:

“Huckleberry” was commonly used in the 1800’s in conjunction with “persimmon” as a small unit of measure. “I’m a huckleberry over your persimmon” meant “I’m just a bit better than you.” As a result, “huckleberry” came to denote idiomatically two things. First, it denoted a small unit of measure, a “tad,” as it were, and a person who was a huckleberry could be a small, unimportant person—usually expressed ironically in mock self-depreciation. The second and more common usage came to mean, in the words of the “Dictionary of American Slang: Second Supplemented Edition” (Crowell, 1975):

“A man; specif., the exact kind of man needed for a particular purpose.

What a great expression.

Great: Why I’m Happy, Why I’m Not Satisfied.

This couldn’t be much cooler, Josh Silver has come up with an approach to mass-produce glasses for the poor in developing nations, no optician required. Genius.

[ Be sure to read the final update at the end of this post! ]

I've really been enjoying AutoHotkey (AHK), a tool that lets you execute macros, text expansion, custom keyboard shortcuts, etc. My favorite feature is the text expansion, where it watches what you type and when it recognizes an abbreviation you've defined it will expand it automatically, no matter which application you're typing in. So "ttyl" could be automatically expanded to "talk to you later" in an e-mail, instant message, Word document, browser forms, etc. Very handy.

Anyway, you've probably noticed Word has an "AutoCorrect" feature where it corrects common misspellings on the fly. For example, "teh" gets instantly corrected to "the". I was thinking it would be great to use AHK to get that same functionality in any application. I had slowly been adding my own most common typos to an AHK script, and it worked great, but then I thought it would be nice to have a more comprehensive list. Enter Wikipedia, and its lists of common misspellings! I grabbed the machine-readable download, parsed it, commented out the ambiguous entries (see comments in the script), added in my own person gotchas, and loaded it. Cross-application AutoCorrect! Here's a zip file containing the script if you want to give it a try:

• wikipedia_autocorrect.zip See UPDATE 5 below for the script's new home.

You'll need AHK installed, of course. And note the "Hotstring" feature this technique uses is only available on Windows NT/2000/XP or higher.

UPDATE: Adam at Lifehacker linked this up, thanks! He notes I could have compiled this for non-AHK users. I probably should have, but didn't because I just assumed folks would want to add their own common misspellings. But if you just want to run it without installing AHK, Adam has made a compiled version available via his post. Very cool.

UPDATE 2: I updated this script to include Tara Gibb's enhancement (see below) and a few more of my own common misspellings. The enhancement lets you highlight a misspelling and hit WIN+H to easily add the correction to the script (so it's self-updating). A nice way to flesh the script out with your own spelling foibles (another reason to not run the compiled version provided at Lifehacker, as this feature won't work there).

UPDATE 3: Quite excitingly, Chris Mallett, the author of AutoHotKey, found this script and linked it up! He also made a couple improvements, which are now reflected in the script available above. I tossed in a few more of my personal common misspellings while I was at it.

UPDATE 4: Reader Shane submitted a pile of Word AutoCorrect words for inclusion, so I folded those in (after removing duplicates). Thanks Shane! While I was at it I also folded in a bunch more of my personal misspellings. In all, there's probably around 700 more entries in the latest version.

UPDATE 5: Chris Mallet and the AutoHotKey community have taken this script under their wing. Specifically, Dewi Morgan has made some terrific improvements, cleaned up the code, and added many more words. I think that version should be considered the definitive version, and is available at the AHK Other Downloads page. Very cool!