The Economist, on North Korea and the internet: “Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s dictator, has interests in modern technology beyond his dabbling in nuclear weaponry. In 2000 he famously asked Madeleine Albright, then America’s secretary of state, for her e-mail address. Mr Kim believes there are three kinds of fool in the 21st century: smokers, the tone-deaf and the computer-illiterate.” Whatever, dude—he hasn’t updated his livejournal in, like, seven months!
Love 2.0: Anil Dash and Alaina Browne, from Geeksugar’s Geeks We Love series. I love them too!
NPR: Billiards Star Reyes Gets Everyone into the Pool: “The man many consider to be the best pool player in the world, Efren “Bata” Reyes, is a skinny, almost toothless, 52-year-old Filipino with a slight paunch, an infectious grin and a legion of fans both at home and abroad.” Last year, Bata was featured in Time’s 60 Years of Asian Heroes issue, in the august company of legends like Gandhi, Akira Kurosawa and Muhammad Yunus.
Photos of David Hasselhoff in drag. I was going to say something like “to be fair, he’s in costume for his character in The Producers” but then I read this: “His dressing room – filled with posters of himself from various shows, a Knight Rider lunchbox and a magazine with guess who on the cover – looks like an homage to yours truly. “I must be the most self-indulgent person to have this stuff,” he says, “But I’ve gotta market the Hoff.” He really does speak for himself. [ via The Superficial ]
How the internet is saving the interjection, by Ben Yagoda in Slate. “Interjections are probably the most expressive part of speech. They are definitely the most disregarded and always have been. When the Greek grammarian Thrax came up with the idea of dividing language into parts of speech in about 100 B.C., he didn’t include interjections, and his English-language heirs have tended to do so grudgingly.” [ via negatendo.net ]
Dog pees upside down! No, really, that’s all it is. But the photo is pretty amazing. (Also weird: the dog is apparently ovo-lacto vegetarian.) [ via B.A.’s Weblog ]
Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Athens Medical School have found that taking regular naps is really good for you:
The researchers found those who took naps of any frequency and duration had a 34% lower risk of dying from heart disease than those who did not take midday naps.
Those who took naps of more than 30 minutes three or more times a week had a 37% lower risk.
More on napping from Newsweek:
NASA sleep researchers have found that a nap of 26 minutes can boost performance by as much as 34 percent. A 2006 study from the Stanford University School of Medicine found that napping resulted in improved mood, increased alertness and reduced lapses in performance among doctors and nurses.
The French, for their part, are already trying to incorporate the news into their labor policies: France’s Health Minister, Xavier Bertrand, told reporters this month that the government—which already allows for a 35-hour work week—will be studying the effects of after-lunch naps at volunteer firms and will promote on-the-job naps if they prove useful. “Why not take a nap at work?” Bertrand told reporters. “It can’t be a taboo subject.”
I’m a dedicated lifelong napper (as is my dog) and take a nap most every afternoon. If you’re stressed out or burned out a lot at the end of the day, try scheduling naps into your day—I guarantee they’ll improve your quality of life.
From Macworld 2008: the iPhone Shuffle, which has no display and a single button that dials a random number from your phonebook. “Our research showed that people don’t care who they call as much as they care about being on the phone,” said Jobs. “We also found that most cell phone users hate routine, and prefer to be surprised. That’s just as true for people answering calls as it is for people making them. It’s much more liberating, and far more social, to call people at random than it is to call them deliberately.”
If you had a hundred fifty grand, Ecto 1 could be your winged steed, your chariot of fire. Or hey, five years at a 7% interest rate and she’s yours for a monthly payment of $2970.14. [ thanks, Jballz! ]
“Getting a shoe compliment from a woman is like having Bobby Flay come up to you at a party and tell you your seven-layer dip was incredible, like having Whitney Houston (pre-crack, of course) duck her head into your car window at a stoplight and tell you that she overheard you belting out “I Will Always Love You” and that you’ve really got something there, like having Mario Testino tap you on the shoulder when you’re posing for Myspace self-portraits in front of your bathroom mirror and saying “You’ve got a good eye, kid.”