Happiness by U.S. State
The state-by-state list, from happiest to least cheery:
1. Louisiana; 2. Hawaii; 3. Florida; 4. Tennessee; 5. Arizona; 6. South Carolina; 7. Mississippi; 8. Montana; 9. Alabama; 10. Maine; 11. Wyoming; 12. Alaska; 13. North Carolina; 14. South Dakota; 15. Texas;
16. Idaho; 17. Vermont; 18. Arkansas; 19. Georgia; 20. Utah; 21. Oklahoma; 22. Delaware; 23. Colorado; 24. New Mexico; 25. North Dakota; 26. Minnesota; 27. Virginia; 28. New Hampshire; 29. Wisconsin; 30. Oregon;
31. Iowa; 32. Kansas; 33. Nebraska; 34. West Virginia; 35. Kentucky; 36. Washington; 37. District of Columbia; 38. Missouri; 39. Nevada; 40. Maryland; 41. Pennsylvania; 42. Rhode Island; 43. Ohio; 44. Massachusetts; 45. Illinois; 46. California; 47. New Jersey; 48. Indiana; 49. Michigan; 50. Connecticut; 51. New York.
Grain of salt and all that.
Diamond Trust of London
A strange site that Jason Rohrer (who?) has mentioned recently. Notice the url, “http://diamondtrustgame.com/“. I haven’t deciphered what exactly is going on, but it looks interesting.
the new golden ratio
In four experiments aimed at finding “an ideal facial feature arrangement,” US and Canadian researchers asked students to compare color photographs of the same woman’s face, in which the vertical distance between the eyes and mouth, and horizontal distance between the eyes, had been doctored using Photoshop.
The features — eyes, mouth, nose, contour and hair — remained the same and a woman’s face was only compared to her own, never to another’s.
Students looked at different pictures of the same woman’s face laid out side by side and selected the face they found more attractive.
“Angelina Jolie does not have golden length and width ratios,” he said.
“Elizabeth Hurley gets the golden ratio for length but is different from the width golden ratio by one percent.”
But Canadian country pop musician Shania Twain has “both the length and width ratios.”
unofficial Lamborghini Ankonian Concept by Slavche Tanevski
What it does have is flames that shoot out of the exhaust, and frankly, that’s enough for us.
quote out of context
I confess that I only had time this morning to watch the first 10 minutes, but from that viewing I can safely conclude that this is the best 70-minute video critique of The Phantom Menace that exists in the world.
Richard Mosse, Saddam’s Palaces
BLDGBLOG: Beyond the most obvious reasons—for instance, there’s a war going on—why did you go to Iraq? Was there something in particular that you were hoping to see?
An interview with Richard Mosse on the photos he took of the transformation of Saddam Hussein’s palaces.
If You Could Collaborate
Yet another reason I wish I was in the UK:
If You Could Collaborate is the fourth annual If You Could exhibition. Aiming to provide a platform for the finest creatives from all over the world to question their conventional working methods and outcomes. The contributors have been challenged to produce something a little unexpected, by working with a partner of their choosing from any discipline, profession or background. There is no brief to answer, or format to honour – the only limit being the enterprise and imagination of the artists involved, and a liberal 12 month deadline.
via It’s Nice That
cultural erosion
In which Chris Onstad refutes the Jeremiad “kids these days” argument.
Artist’s Interpretations of Calvin and Hobbes
Vimeo Sued By Capitol Records Over Lip Dubs
I am surprised, actually, it didn’t happen sooner:
If anything better underlines my point it’s an email I received from Sean Nelson, the frontman of the band Harvey Danger, whose song Flagpole Sitta we’ve now infamously lip-dubbed:
That Flagpole Sitta video made me incredibly happy, just when I thought there was NOTHING that could make me listen to that song again. A thousand thank you’s.
Capitol, you’re a bunch of goof-balls. This lawsuit is the tactical equivalent to pooping on someone’s birthday cake.
Well, is it?
iPhoto now has this insane face recognition software, which is kind of amazing — it does a very good job with anybody white. All my black friends it immediately thinks are either each other or, literally, faces on the wall of the Underground Railroad museum in Cincinnati. I am not kidding you. I took a picture of Thomas (who is white) in front of this mural depicting a line of about a hundred freed slaves, and now iPhoto is all, “oh, is THIS your homegirl? is THAT your homegirl?” In other news, it thinks I look like my boyfriend #thatsracist #thatshomophobic.
Nico Muhly, who hasn’t been blogging much since he got the Twittur.
Odds Are, You Listen to Céline
And you lie about it:
These are two of many findings shaking up the radio industry as it converts from measuring ratings through surveys to monitoring listeners electronically using so-called Portable People Meters.
As radio executives are discovering, what people say they do and what they actually do is different — especially where “My Heart Will Go On” is concerned.
That more men are mellowing out to Air Supply than are willing to admit it is a curious discovery, but the new system has serious repercussions, especially for classical radio. When 12 major areas, including New York and Los Angeles, switched to the system last year, classical radio’s market share fell 10.7 percent in those areas, a significant drop, according to a study by Research Director, a ratings consultancy.
a lot of layers here
The Vermont Supreme Court is ruling on the value of a dog’s love.
the chevy volt dance
In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past few days, we’ll recap: GM commissioned a song to explain some of the finer points of how the Volt’s high-tech powertrain functions and later decided to add a dance routine to the jingle and let it loose on an unsuspecting public at the LA Auto Show.
once more, with feeling
Microsoft employee gets fired for not saying Bing!.
Don’t know if it’s true, but it’s gorgeously entertaining.
world’s longest sea bridge
China has begun construction on what will become the world’s longest sea bridge.
The Y-shaped link between Hong Kong, Macau and China will be around 50km (31 miles) long in total, 35km of which will span the sea, said the state news agency Xinhua. Due to be completed by 2015, the 73bn yuan (£6.75bn) cost of the bridge will be shared by the authorities in the three territories.
The structure also includes a 5.5km underwater tunnel with artificial islands to join it to bridges on each side.
super Earth
Astronomers have discovered a new Earth-like planet that is larger than our own and may be more than half covered with water, according to a study published Wednesday in the science journal Nature.
The so-called “super Earth” is about 42 light years away in another solar system and has a radius nearly 2.7 times larger than that of our planet, according to the study by the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics.
But:
Its temperature is estimated at between 280 and 120 degrees Celsius (536 and 248 degrees Fahrenheit) with its host star about one-fifth the size of the Sun, according to the scientists.
Splendid Holiday Recipes — From My Home to Yours
Cook up some of these yummy, festive treats and it will be as if all y’all are here with me in the comfort and warmth of my own little kitchen. Enjoy!
The only thing I think about this time of year is sharing food and drink with my family and friends. My family, at least — I don’t have many friends besides old Mrs. Crotch next door, Doug (I think that’s his name) at the beer drive-thru, and Yelling Boy, that skateboard kid who screams at me when I walk out to my car after work.
No matter how delicious my recipes turn out, I thrust ahead on my journey toward culinary transcendence. My pilgrimage excites and terrifies me. There are so many foods yet to put in my mouth. I need more time.
Seasoned Greetings, fellow travelers!
Best Eggnog Ever
A traditional wintertime beverage, now with bold, modernistic tweaks.
1 qt. skim milk
1 dozen eggs
3 cups dairy sour cream
1 cup plus one tablespoon powdered non-dairy creamer
1 pint vanilla-flavored liquid antacid
2 cups canola oil
1 liter premium Scotch whisky (gin or tequila may be substituted)
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Whisk canola oil, non-dairy creamer, and antacid into the eggs and beat until mixture becomes blended and frothy. Slowly add sour cream and skim milk; mix thoroughly. Leave uncovered and allow to stand at room temperature for one week. Stir in liquor and refrigerate for at least two hours. Serve chilled and sprinkle with nutmeg and cayenne pepper. Enough eggnog for five or six guests.
Weekly Picture 171
Stage of the Winter King, Austin, TX 12.16.2009
The Copenhagen Wheel
Dickens’ Toothpick
An ivory and gold toothpick once owned by Charles Dickens has sold at a New York City auction for $9,150.
P-Wing
Drew discovers the answer to a nagging 17 year-old question:
Destructoid didn’t note it, but the article also answered how the P-Wing, this item for baby players with clumsy little starfish hands got its name, but the interview did. Nintendo veteran Toshihiko Nakago is explaining the physics of flying in Super Mario Bros. 3 — which, by the way, involves a raccoon tail and ears, just like we now use today — and how normally Mario would need to get a good running start before he could take off.
I’m not sure who came up with the name, but we all referred to this as “the runway.” So at that point, we looked again at the maps and completely reworked the levels so that Mario would have places where he could take off from. In the end, we made it so that if you got an item called the P-Wing, which was the Koopa Paratroopa’s wing, you could fly through the whole level.
So there you go. The item — a wing with an otherwise mysterious “P” on it — comes from the Paratroopa enemy, hence the initial. The Koopa Paratroopa — a winged turtle whose name is a pretty obvious pun on paratrooper — has been airborne ever since the original Super Mario Bros., and it’s his wing that makes the P-Wing-powered Mario so ready for flight… even though he’s still flying with raccoon parts.
the GOP’s url shortening service
But unlike bit.ly, GOP.am includes a toolbar at the top of the screen that follows users as they click through to see whatever pages the links go to. It also sports an animation of RNC chairman Michael Steele walking around on the lower right as if he’s showing off the website — particularly awkward when that website is the alt.com bondage site.
MINI Beachcomber concept
quote out of context
Shava are probably the only representatives so far of the genre of Suomibhangra, a Finnish take on the South Asian diaspora dance genre, bhangra. On one level there’s a lot to be critical of here, perhaps – the wilful exoticism, the fake Indian dancers, the almost-brownface of someone like the “Finnjabi bad boy” in the video.
