- Buy a “mega jug” (their words) of soda with your meal, and KFC will donate money to diabetes research. That’s irony coming full circle.
- The US State Department reportedly lobbied against a minimum wage increase in Haiti on behalf of textile corporations. That’s just scummy. [via]
- Fuckin’ A: profanity at the New Yorker. [via]
- China used prisoners in lucrative internet gaming work. [via]
- And finally, Jonathan Coulton on Snuggies and Business Models. The Planet Money podcast is worth listening to, if you haven’t already.
food
Thursday various
- Firefly Meets the Muppets. Yeah, like any of you aren’t going to click that link.
- Amber Benson’s remix of “Under Your Spell” is all kinds of weird.
- Doctor Who recipes. [via]
- Kids: don’t sell your kidneys for an iPad. Got that? Good. [via]
- And finally, Alan Rickman’s classy goodbye letter to Harry Potter. [via]
Thursday various
- I ate in an In n Out Burger when I was in Las Vegas a couple of years ago and I really liked it. Then again, I was maybe just really hungry. I certainly didn’t love it this much. That’s some crazy line.
- Cellphones Cause Bees to Swarm to Their Death, Says a New Study. Oh just great. [via]
- “A large proportion of iPad owners in the US have not used the device to read an e-book, a survey from media and publishing forecast firm Simba Information reveals.” That’s kind of sad.
- Well I guess I just stopped using Twitpic. [via]
- If summer movie posters told the truth. [via]
- And finally [via]:
A weighty Wednesday
This afternoon at work, we had one of our semi-regular “brown bag lunches,” where they invite a speaker in to talk about any number of topics, and give us a free lunch for attending. Today’s talk was on “An Expert’s Perspective on What Does and Does Not Work in Weight Loss,” given by Dr. Sasha Stiles of NYU’s Langone Medical Center. It was reasonably interesting and informative; if nothing new, her advice and perspective were at least sound. Usually the company gives us lunch before the talk, but today it was reversed. I don’t know if that was to fit with the speaker’s schedule, to discourage people who RSVP for the lunch but don’t stay, or just to ensure we were all in the mood to eat less after hearing about weight loss for an hour.
Meanwhile, taking a page from Neil Gaiman, I’m trying for a little weight loss of my own, working out a little in the evenings to an audio book. In my case, I went with Frank Herbert’s Dune, which I’ve been meaning for ages to re-read. (I’ve seen the movies, and the endless parodies and tributes, but I haven’t read the book since high school.) It’s much too soon to say if the workouts are having the desired effect, but I’m really enjoying the book. I’d almost forgotten how good it is.
Of course, I can’t mention Dune without also mentioning this caption I made last Saturday night. I am inordinately proud of the silliness of the pun.
Tuesday various
- NASA proves Einstein was smart. Okay, it’s a little more complicated than that — namely, finding that there’s “a space-time vortex around Earth, and its shape precisely matches the predictions of Einstein’s theory of gravity” — but yeah, basically: Einstein? No dummy. [via]
- Gelatin cubes dropped onto solid surface High Speed Video. Strangely fascinating. [via]
- Time Magazine talks to the kids who were there with George W. Bush on 9/11. I’m not sure I agree with them. Maybe Bush did just want to protect the kids he was reading to from finding out, from panicking, but his focus probably should have been on the nation as a whole. Still, there’s no denying they have a unique an interesting perspective on that day. [via]
- Oh, thanks a lot, monarchy! Book slump to eight-year low in Royal Wedding week.
- And finally, what American accent do you have? It guessed me correctly, although your mileage — especially if it’s, y’know, outside the US, and…what’s the word for “mileage” in metric anyway? Kilometrage? [via]