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I’m not a big science guy, but this is a thought that crossed my mind a little while ago:

How did we evolve new organs?

Did nature select for one single-celled organism over another because it had a little more of a pancreas, or what? I can understand variations in hair thickness or skin tone or something, because those seem like things that can logically vary in a population. But what about arms, legs, stomachs, eyes? Even ignoring the whole intelligent design idea of how something so complicated came to be, how did anything come to be in the first place?

In another fit of randomness, I made an account with del.icio.us (which is, incidentally, the best URL ever). It’s a self-described “social bookmarking site” — basically, you get to make a list of links and then browse other peoples’ links. The nifty part is that you can tag your links with keywords, a la Flickr. Then you can go browse by tags, sort by tags, combine tags and run searches, etc., etc. Personally, I think it’s cool to see how many other people link to the same sites as you. (It’s clearly a nerdy website — 3068 other people linked to Slashdot, but only 4 linked to the Flecktones.) Take a look, it’s quite tasty.

After a good 45 minutes of scouring the Internet, including attempts to navigate websites in other languages, I found a Mac version of one of my favorite classic computer games: Lode Runner On-Line: The Mad Monks’ Revenge. I remember playing this game way back when it first came out in (gulp) 1995. Back when things were “On-Line” instead of online…those were the days. Anyway, check it out. There’s a PC version on the page too.

The guy who did the Somerville Gates has hit the big time [see previous entry]. Strange how people respond to art like this, isn’t it?

”At last an artist for our times who spans not only space-time continuums but the archaic human-animal divide and presents a postmodern perspective interrogated by the feline,” one fan wrote.

Another, who signed his e-mail Marcus Cade, authored haiku:
“tiny orange gates
kitty peregrination
I was happy once”

Weirded out, as they say.

(via Kottke)

My Spanish class has a “Student Activities Manual” that goes along with the textbook. Every time there’s a test, we have to hand in all the activities for those chapters. I was convinced that she doesn’t read any of this, so I figured I’d have fun. This is what I wrote for a “letter to my sister”:

Querida hermana:

Lo siento. No escribo porque…pues, porque ¡tengo un novia nuevo! Y le gusto mucho…demasiado. Quieres tener sexo todo el tiempo. Ay dios mio.
Se llama Pedro. Tiene pelo negro, un nariz grande, y labios maravillosos. Estoy muy feliz con él. Oh, y es amable también. Y…ah…alegre. …Regreso en unos minutos, ¡Pedro me llama!
¡Whew! Sí, es mi vida ahora, hermanita. Espero que estés feliz y…y buena. Te amo mucho. ¡Y te amo, Pedro!

-Rosa

Loosely translated to English:

My dear sister:

I’m sorry. I haven’t written because…well, because I have a new boyfriend! And he likes me a lot…too much. He wants to have sex all the time. Oh my God.
His name is Pedro. He has black hair, a big nose, and marvelous lips. I’m very happy with him. Oh, and he’s nice too. And…um…happy. …I’ll be back in a few minutes, Pedro is calling me!
Whew! So yes, that’s my life nowadays, my dear sister. I hope that you’re happy, and…and good. I love you lots. And I love you, Pedro!

-Rosa

Well, as it turns out, she does read these things…but all she did was make a correction or two and put a check mark next to it. I don’t know what to think about that.

I decide to infiltrate a white supremacist hate group by posing as an eager new recruit, a new hater, if you will. I want to put a face on extreme hate, to find out the hobbies of haters, what haters find hot and what haters find not. I want to learn what someone in a hate group really loooooooves. Ice cream? Everyone loves ice cream. I love ice cream. Maybe hate groups love ice cream, too?

So begins this mildly disturbing article from SF Weekly. It’s a frightening look into the culture of hate in America. Good read.

(via Metafilter)

Reuters reports that Apple may be buying TiVo. I’m not entirely sure what the purpose of that would be, considering that TiVo hasn’t been doing so well lately; the article suggests that potential buyers may be “looking to bolster their video services.” I suppose a few years from now there may be video-enabled iPods…

Speaking of iPods, Apple announced a revamp of the iPod lineup yesterday. There’s now a 6GB iPod mini, a 30GB iPod photo, a digital camera addon planned, a few price slashes, and more. The Apple Blog has a good summary of the updates.

Finally, The Cult of Mac reports that “costume designer Jennifer Rade won an award Saturday night at the Costume Designers Guild Awards for the clothes used in Apple’s silhouette iPod ads — even though the clothes can’t be seen.” Nicely done. Did John Cage win any awards for 4′33″?

The Onion AV Club has another great interview, this time with author/editor/all-around awesome guy Dave Eggers. I’m impressed with the quality of interviews that a humor publication can turn out.

Using this nifty tool, I put my iTunes library on Spymac. Check the I Me Mine sidebar. And it’s a hefty hunk of HTML, so be patient.

In other iTunes news, I finally won a song from the Pepsi promotion…on my sixth try. I’m hoping to scrounge up an album by the time this is over, so my luck better improve.

Yeah, I’ve been slacking off on the blogging lately, but I this makes up for it. Take a deep breath. Ready?

Every Calvin and Hobbes comic strip ever!!

Waxy suggests, and I agree, that if you like them you should go buy the complete set, coming soon to a bookstore near you. It’s definitely going on my must-buy list.

(via Waxy)

EDIT: As you might expect, this site bit the dust. Buy the collection!

There’s an article in The Apple Blog detailing the coolness of Quicksilver, one of my favorite programs of all time. I highly recommend the program to all Mac users, and the article to all Quicksilver users.

Incidentally, I’m going to put together an entry of all of my favorite Mac freeware, so keep an eye out for that in the future.

So I won’t be making it down to New York to see The Gates…but I suppose this might be the next best thing.

(via A Whole Lotta Nothing)

I recently noticed that Thefacebook’s groups have been dominated by meaningless associations with clever titles. I noticed this because I’m a member of these groups:

Pretty Much The Best Group Ever Made
Your Mom Goes To College
Vote for Pedro
Don’t Be Jealous That I’ve Been Chatting Online With Babes all Day.

Here’s an interesting article that draws a parallel between Steve Jobs and Howard Dean, and, by extension, Apple and the Democratic Party. I don’t pretend to know enough about politics to comment on how true it is, but it’s useful as a history lesson on Apple if nothing else.

(via Daily Kos)

This jacket is undoubtedly the most frightening article of clothing I’ve ever seen.

The prototype design is a coat with warning strips of fur that become electro-statically charged in situations where the wearer feels threatened. When charged the fur begins to stand on end; a visual indication that the wearer is uncomfortable. If someone invades the wearer’s personal space they will begin to feel a second warning; as they enter the coat’s electrostatic field they will feel tingling skin sensations and their hair will stand on end. The fur will begin to twitch toward them and emit crackling sounds. If the ‘threat’ proceeds to touch the fur then 100,000 volts of electro-static charge discharges from the fur, into the offender’s body (non-lethal but definitely a bite).

Be sure to check out the two scenario videos, one of which involves setting the stun level to “Kill!” (It doesn’t appear to actually be lethal; rather, it looks like the guy got kicked in the balls.)

(via Boing Boing)