Perennial early-adopting Korean teenagers are apparently not using email so much anymore. With the impression that email is an old and formal communication means, they are shunning email for more immediate communications like SMS and mini-homepages (I don’t know what the hell that is either). I use email when I send messages to elders, says one Korean college student. Another uses email only for receiving cellphone and credit card invoices.
What is the proper way to flip burgers? This Wendy’s training video/rap lays it down on how to get a pattie that’s out of site.
Students at MIT have turned an elective class on how to reuse discarded books into an exhibition, A Bibliophile’s Bedroom, which is currently on display at the Boston Public Library. They’ve made a room furnished entirely from furniture made from books.
Police in the town of Craig Alaska have alleged that 16 year-old student Rachelle Waterman plotted to have her mother killed this month. Her last blog entry on her site, My Crappy Life, tells how the cops have taken her computer and she won’t be blogging for a while. Indeed. The entry’s gotten thousands of comments.
Researchers at Hebrew University of Jerusalem have successfully created a genetically-engineered form of spider’s web that is much stronger than silk and could be used to mass produce fibers that are only one-thousandth of a millimeter thick. New applications might be bullet-proof vests, surgical thread and fishing rods and maybe an all-fabric car you could foldup and wear as a hat (okay, that one’s my suggestion).
The goal of the German group Robotlab is to develop an experimental forum in which the public has the opportunity to interact with robots. And to this end the group has developed an Autoportrait Robot which draws portraits of people who sit in front of it. The machine-artist fastens his camera eye on the model’s face, and with striking hand movements, he draws the person’s portrait.
Just so we’re clear about this, my monkey can kick your monkey’s ass.
Another great interactive feature from The New York Times. In The Next Wave: Immigrant Stories, 10 transplanted New Yorkers under 40 tell their own stories of coming to New York in their own voices.
On Saturday the U.S. Congress passed a $388 billion spending bill that including a provision giving two committee chairman and their assistants access to income tax returns without regard to privacy protections. While the bill cut funding for Pell grants, it also set aside funds for a presidential yacht. I’m not making this up.
Apparently there’s a housing shortage– for hermit crabs. Due to pollution and humans’ undying desire to pickup and pocket shells, there currently are not enough shells left on beaches for hermit crabs to use. And the Hand Up Project proposes to manufacture alternative forms of housing, specifically designed for use by land hermit crabs, out of plastic.
Everyone’s favorite search engine has launched Google Scholar, a way to find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web.
The buttock muscles stabilize your trunk as you lean forward to run. A run is like a controlled fall, and the buttocks help to control it, Harvard researcher Daniel Lieberman says in a new study that tries to determine why humans are unique in the animal kingdom for our ability for endurance running. Lieberman says running was crucial to the development of the human species and may be the reason we developed prominent buttocks. Though some say the invention of triple-cream brie may also have contributed.
A few knuckleheads have just finished crossing the U.S. on Segways. We live in a large prosperous nation with a great abundance of leisure.
Once a symbol of how to give Madison Ave. the finger, TiVo will soon become the advertiser’s best friend. An article in the Los Angeles Times says next March Tivo viewers will begin to see “billboards,” or small logos, popping up over TV commercials as they fast-forward through them, offering contest entries, giveaways or links to other ads. And if the viewer “opts in” to ads, their personal info will be sent to that advertiser to contact them directly. By the end of next year TiVo viewers will be able to purchase products and participate in surveys using their remote controls.
Now through November 22 all the books in San Francisco’s Adobe Books will be arranged by color. The 20,000 books were assembled by the San Francisco artist Chris Cobb and done by 20 people pulling an all-nighter. Open ’til 10pm everyday, Adobe’s at 16th & Guerrero.
While the low-carb craze is apparently showing signs of dying out already, big greasy slabs of fat are still going strong for some purveyors of huge food. The latest to flaunt fat as if it were the new lean is Hardee’s Monster Thickburger. With two 1/3 lb. chunks of beef, 4 bacon strips, 3 slices of cheese and dash of mayo, it packs 1,420 calories and 107 grams of fat. Hardee’s chief executive Andrew Puzder said the Monster Thickburger is not a burger for tree-huggers.
The newest remix of Jay-Z’s Black Album is Baker Bros’ The Classical Album. Using 20th Century composers including Stravinsky, Bernstein, Piazolla, Copland, Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Arvo Part, the Baker Bros ask How different are hip-hop and classical in actuality? The album is beautiful at times.
The poshest garden shed you’ve ever seen is the MetroShed, a wood, glass, metal and acrylic outdoor modern structure which is completely customizable to fit your garden. Optional furnishings include Gucci wallpaper and furniture by Phillipe Starck, Le Corbusier, Mies van Der Rohe, Arne Jacobsen and Charles & Ray Eames.