I really should read this.

Is it just me, or does the title card at the end look a lot like a font they'd have used for a psychedelic rock album cover? I expect it to say "Iron Butterfly" or something.

Just one of many amazing things to be found at the Tree of Life Web Project.

If you haven't read about evolution or the history and classification of life since your high-school biology class (for me, approximately 1990), do yourself a favor and just click around Wikipedia a bit. Start with the article for any animal or plant you're interested in, and just follow the links.

The human race seems to know so much more about genetics, molecular biology, and therefore about evolution than we did in 1990. It seems like a major scientific revolution has happened in the meantime.

(Either that, or that expensive textbook in 1990 had less of what was then known about evolution in it than some website written by random people on the internet, that anyone can edit. I am not discounting this possibility.)

Via Jesse.

Awesome.

(note: this exact identical question was also posted to the songfight forums)

A music store near me happens to have a number of picks in their pick case that are very similar to the ones in this picture:

Martin-Vintage Heavy Gauge Blue Guitar Pick Picks

The only difference is that these are not blue, they are brown and translucent. And they are a *lot* cheaper than these ones being sold on e-bay.

I bought one and I really liked the way it felt, and the way it sounded. Although I did manage to break it sooner than any other picks I've ever used. I would be genuinely saddened if it turned out that these were some kind of vintage item that is no longer made so that when the store sells out of them, I will only be able to get them at jacked-up prices on e-bay.

Should I go out right now and buy up all of the ones at the store? Or are these actually a common commodity that I don't need to worry about running out of?

You may be familiar with Frank Zappa's brief scene with Davy Jones in "Head":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOI-SDYGviM

I've always thought that the line "Monkees is the craziest people" had
to be a reference to something.

Thanks to Wikipedia, I *finally* know:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lew_Lehr

Only a handful more of these kinds of loose ends to tie up, and I'll
know everything I ever wanted to know.

Work related.

Abstract: JSR 168 was not designed with AJAX in mind. Which makes sense, as it is definitely older than the name "AJAX" being used for asynchronous client requests, and possibly older than the technology itself. There are workarounds, but they are just that: it takes work to get around the problem.

Read the article *and* the comments.

I don't write much about cars on here. Mostly because I'm not an "enthusiast". This will probably be the only car-related post you'll see from me.

Yesterday I brought home a 2004 Honda Civic. I needed a car to get me (and usually only me) to and from work. I need a car to use little gas, and not break down often. And that's about it.

Oh, and I need to be able to play my iPod in it. Strongly considering this. Yeah, FM transmitters, yadda yadda. I've used one of those before on my Saturn and it sucked.

So, just drove the thing off the lot and I'm already thinking of modding it.

Which brings me to the real kernel of this post: it's really, really sad that the term "rice boy" seems to have largely come and gone from popular usage without anyone taking advantage of the opportunity to record a parody called "Rice Boys Don't Play Rock N' Roll" based on the sleaze-metal classic "Nice Boys" (most famously recorded by Guns N' Roses but originally by Aussie (and awesome) slide-guitar rockers Rose Tattoo). A crying, crying, shame.

Finally, before anybody says, "if you want to save gas why didn't you buy a hybrid?": I did the math. Based on my daily commute distance and the current price of gas, I figured out how much money a hybrid would save me per year. A hybrid would take at least 10 years to save enough gas money to make up for the higher price tag. In 10 years fusion cars or something could be available anyway.