Best journal article title of the week? "Accelerated ion beams for art forensics." Frankly, they had me at "accelerated ion beams" - the beams could have been for almost anything - but using it to stop art fakes is even that much cooler. (My first thought was that the title was referring to some kind of public awareness campaign, that ion beams were taking a stand on forgery, a la "People for Pizza" or "Citizens Against Evil.") And unlike chemical testing, it does so without damaging the original work.
Most of the few routines we have in my house involve the thermostat - at night, as we all trek upstairs to bed, I turn the main floor thermostat down and turn the upstairs thermostat up. In the morning, we do the reverse. It keeps our heating bill down, but it's a little like trying to save gas by hypermiling - not everyone is going to put in that much time to save a buck here and there.
The Green Bay Packers are not going to repeat as Super Bowl Champions this year. That you surely already know. But it's not because Eli Manning and the New York Giants managed to contain the Packers' offense or outplay the Pack's defense. It's because of some sparkly nail polish and an Aaron Rodgers jersey that sat at home, unworn, during the most important playoff game of the year.
So explains our senior sports analyst, Sad Packer Fan:
Max Zorn is a packing tape artist. No, I don't mean he's really good at taping up moving boxes, I mean he makes really intricate pieces of art by slicing up bits of brown packing tape and arranging them into people and scenes. Packing tape is translucent, of course, so Max hangs the finished pieces next to streetlights in Amsterdam.
Check out the timelapse below of Max doing his thing, set to hip hop. And resist the urge to ask him to help you move on the first of the month.
We all go to Wikipedia, which means we've all seen those banners. "Please Read: A Message from Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales." Where the "face of Wikipedia" has his face all over Wikipedia, asking for donations to keep the system running.
That alone was meme fodder, but then the late 2011 drive included new faces along with Jimmy's - programmers, server managers and other staff. All of which led to a sometimes disturbing but sometimes very funny series of revisions to the "please read" banner ads.
Today, we kick off 2012 with a broadcast Nostradamus might appreciate…We’ll get predictions form some of our favorite guests on the things we use everyday…In this segment, Brady Carlson, NHPR’s afternoon host and arbiter of all things awesome, makes predictions about the role of social media in 2012.
I even put a picture together, using the template Gawker shared. Though now that I think of it, my entry is slightly illogical, seeing as how Keyboard Cat wouldn't be able to play himself off at his own state funeral. You get the idea, anyway.
The famous Tumblog Kim Jong-Il Looking At Things has already updated its "about" section to read in the past tense - it now says "the dear leader liked to look at things." Now the remixers have found a whole new side of the North Korean leader - as a DJ. Check out Kim Jong-Il Dropping the Bass to see him in action.
Local food with a capital L: New York-based Brightfarms builds greenhouses on top of grocery stores and warehouses. So if the cucumber section is running low, just run upstairs and you're good.
The system is designed to save the grocer money - if the veggies are on your roof, shipping costs go down, and the food is fresher, with a longer shelf life, meaning storage costs go down too.
Does it work? Several stores in New York and New Jersey are set to find out. If it works, maybe Brian Wilson can put a greenhouse in above his band when they perform the song "Vegetables" from Smile:
