The Apple Store, by Playmobil.

"If something exceeds your ability to understand how it works, it sort of becomes magical. Thankfully, for most people, that's a pretty low bar."

"The video is a cathartic opus that aims to express the despair caused by a soul-destroying job and the pain of a broken relationship."

You'll need headphones.



Courtesy Low Morale.

Drive-By Cute-ing:

I Am Quietly Judging You.

Bombing Out.

I have a new found respect for Governor Schwarzenegger. While I disagree with much of his politics, I admire the way in which he notes his opinion. Here's a veto note he passed to the legislature;

(Hint: check the first letter of each line.)

Sheer Audacity.

Did you know that a new method of music production was invented for the documentary "An Inconvenient Truth"?

It's based on a mathematical model that creates a regular beat designed to maximise emotional response.

They're calling it the Al-Gore-rhythm.

It's Amazing What You Can Pick Up At A 7-Eleven Nowadays.

Why I Do What I Do.

Business-Related Photo of the Day.

Carry on.

The Demise of the English Language.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2010/2881190.htm

A great listen.

I am, of course, in almost entire unagreementisation.

Aucity.

Ness.

*Wince*

Rocky Mountain Oysters:

"Also known as prairie oysters, are a North American culinary name for edible offal, specifically buffalo or bull testicles. They are usually peeled, coated in flour, pepper and salt, sometimes pounded flat, then deep-fried."

I'm not sure why, but I can't help but wince when reading "pounded flat".

My God, it's full of Math.

I truly believe that math is the essence of beauty, the singular descriptor for everything around us.

Nature by Numbers from Cristóbal Vila on Vimeo.

"Indistinguishable from Magic".

Watch the whole video. In wonder.

This is what computers were made for.

"Let's Try Cesium."

Chemistry is awesome.

Dear Javi,

This is your dad. I am 29 years old, it's about a week after you were born, and we've just had your bris. On the way here your mum asked me to sum up how I feel in five words, and my answer was "we're supposed to protect you."

We are good people, your mother and I. Different - very different- but good. Your mum is a magical, extraordinary person, and I thank my lucky stars every day that I found her.

So here begins the rest of your life. I hope one day you're a dad so you can feel the absolute joy of holding your child in your arms.

Happy birthday.

Life, Changing.

This is the most important video that you will watch today.

Quite possibly the most important you'll watch for some time.

Yes, I'm talking to you.

Foot. Mouth.

While I admire Seth Godin's dedication to pushing the envelope by announcing content for an unannounced device, I'd have hoped that his partner would actually have a web site viewable on the platform he's targeting.

Checking out the site from my phone, I have no idea what a "vook" looks like, or what it does.

Unlightenment.

I'm constantly amazed at the useful tidbits of advice I find online.

I never thought I'd find a personal growth message in a popup on eBay.

The mechanism by which exercise reduces fat levels. (Hint: it's not by burning calories.)

Hmmm.

"The question is why does exercise work in obesity? Because it burns calories? That's ridiculous. Twenty minutes of jogging is one chocolate chip cookie, I mean you can't do it. One Big Mac requires three hours of vigorous exercise to work that off, that's not the reason that exercise is important, exercise is important for three reasons exclusive of the fact that it burns calories.

The first is it increases skeletal muscle insulin sensitivity, in other words it makes your muscle more insulin sensitive, therefore your pancreas can make less, therefore your levels can drop, therefore there's less insulin in your blood to shunt sugar to fat. That's probably the main reason that exercise is important and I'm totally for it.

The second reason that exercise is important is because it's the single best treatment to get your cortisol down. Cortisol is your stress hormone, it's the hormone that goes up when you are mega-stressed, it's the hormone that basically causes visceral fat deposition which is the bad fat and it has been tied to the metabolic syndrome. So by getting your cortisol down you're actually reducing the amount of fat deposited and it also reduces food intake. People think that somehow exercise increases food intake, it does not, it reduces food intake.

And then the third reason that exercise is important, which is somewhat not well known, but I'm trying to evaluate this at the present time, is that it actually helps detoxify the sugar fructose. Fructose actually is a hepato-toxin; now fructose is fruit sugar but we were never designed to take in so much fructose. Our consumption of fructose has gone from less than half a pound per year in 1970 to 56 pounds per year in 2003."

-- Robert Lustig

Why Didn't Anybody Tell Me About This?