eveninghawk’s links

I’ve been feeling angsty about things like relationships and people, and it’s made me rather cynical today even though I’m in a generally good mood. This is both frustrating and odd since I’ve been having a great day, but I guess malcontent is not a prerequisite for a bad mood. While listening to a random mix up of music Eve 6 managed to make me feel a bit more connected to humanity with their lyrics:

I would swallow my pride I would choke on the rhines
But the lack thereof would leave me empty inside
I would swallow my doubt turn it inside out find nothing but faith in nothing
Want to put my tender heart it in a blender
Watch it spin round to a beautiful oblivion
Rendezvous then I’m through with you

I was listening to the Police’s 1979 tune “Message In a Bottle,” and thinking about two things… I really like the song, and I really like the message that loneliness is something we all complain about, but something we all share. It’s a great message, and it’s a great way to present the message. We’re not alone in our little boxes, even though people are prone to think that way.

Here are some stories that have piqued my interest of late. Wired had an article about breweries and sustainability. MIT has a piece on using algae as stack scrubbers to reduce carbon dioxide pollution. Ceres has made a 2006 report on companies making the biggest strides with climate change strategies. All of these are rather hopeful bits of information, a nice change from the gloom and doom I get in class. Mind you, bird flu may kill us all this next migration season and then we’ll have a lot less to worry about.

Sometimes it really is worth it to blow some time playing some pretty games. This morning I was pointed to Quest for the Rest, which is beautiful and well worth checking out. It actually reminds me of a lot of stuff that Ben likes to do.

It also brought up memories of a link Scott sent me back in the days when I was in Shanghai, Orisinal, which has moved from the address i remembered. Thankfully I was able to track it down, as it’s a really fun site with pretty games that are… cute and extremely well built.

Do any other folks listen to the naked scientists program? I’ve been checking out the podcast and have been much amused…. but more amusing is that people will eat lousy food if you serve it to them in a big bucket (the research was on popcorn), and people discount the calorie content if they don’t like it. Really, check it out!

Joe pointed out a great site to me this week. I seriously want to get some prints of this artwork to hang around my room, I like it that much. Please, if you want to see some neat stuff or at least put some neat new desktop images on your machine, go check out David Lanham’s artwork.

Prof. Walter Willett is an interesting doctor who manages to talk about health, nutrition, and balance in great terms while backing things up with data from some of the longest running nutriotional and epidemiological studies conducted. I learned an awful lot about what to eat and what not to eat… and what precautions are probably a good idea.

Clip-sized references of the info and updates can be found at the Nutrition Source.

This was one of the few Murakami books that I could nail down in my local library. It seems this man is hot hot hot.

Anyhow… i liked this book, though not so much as Dance Dance Dance. Why? Well… I just never really cared for the main character… rather i developed a sense of pity for the women who cared about him.

This is a book about bugs. It’s a great book. Sue Hubbell seems, to me, to be a great speaker of the greatness of critters with an exoskeleton. Seriously, this book, with each chapter devoted to another interesting thing with many legs, will give you at least some appreciation for creepy crawlies.

Neil Gaiman’s American Gods is worth the hype and more than well worth reading. It was wonderful fun and effortless reading, and for the first time in a couple of years, a book I read a dreaded the fact that it would end.

This is one that, even though I’ve already read it (thank heavens for Boston Public), I will keep on my wishlist, because it is just amazing and funny and worth perusing again.

Part of the fun was seeing so many gods and myths i recognize, and discovering many new ones.