First things first

This is the most beautiful and effective PSAs I’ve ever seen. If you don’t already wear your seatbelt, this may convince you to start.

I’ve never been very interested in most so-called extreme sports. Nor have I ever been particular fond of ironing.

But extreme ironing? I have to say, I’m intrigued. It’s exactly what it sounds like: “the latest danger sport that combines the thrills of an extreme outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well pressed shirt” (from the Extreme Ironing Bureau).

Take a look at this bit of pressing that took place at the most remote spot on the planet:

A recent Facebook meme (and the one that prompted the article I mentioned before) is the “25 Random Things” meme. It’s almost exactly the same as the “100 Things About Me” meme that a lot of bloggers have done except, well, the lists have twenty-five items instead of one hundred.

Apparently the Bard was an early participant in this meme. Yup, Shakespeare had compiled his own list of “Five and Twenty Random Things Abovt Me.”

And here’s a depiction—a frighteningly on-the-nose one, I might add—of what some Facebook interactions might look like if they took place in a face-to-face real life:

In my house we are crazy for cheetahs and hedgehogs. I doubt there’s a lot of “cute cheetah” footage out there. But hedgehogs? Oh yeah.

Take a look at this music video by the Quebecois band Tricot Machine. The song is called “Les peaux de lièvres,” and the video is made up of 700 (yes, SEVEN HUNDRED) unique knitted scenes:

Continental philosophy always gave me a headache in graduate school, but continental knitting is one technique that I’ve been wanting to learn for a while. From what I hear, it’s pretty efficient and can get your stitches moving fast; plus, it’s a good idea to know more than one way to knit so you don’t get any repetitive stress injuries and have to get your own Phantom.

From the Craftsanity podcast comes this great demo on continental knitting. I’m looking forward to giving it a try when I’m able to knit again!

That’s how long this Japanese origami artist spent–nonstop (except for a break to eat)–creating an amazing phoenix from one 70cm x 70cm pieces of paper. From what I can see here, it doesn’t look like he used any water or scissors here. This is way better than the sand art (which was pretty neat, too).

Thanks to a friend who was working as a research scientist at HP in Palo Alto and had very good connections in the tech-geek community, I was lucky enough to get a Gmail account shortly after the beta was opened. (This was in the days when you had to be invited by a current Gmail user, and some unscrupulous folks were actually selling Gmail invitations on eBay for scads of money! Gah…) I don’t put much stock in Google-as-Big-Brother paranoia (after all, keep in mind that nothing of an especially sensitive nature should be sent via e-mail, regardless of what client you’re using) and think that Gmail is in the same category of Great Things as pirate music for kids. I used to be a hardcore Yahoo user but abandoned that account for personal mail once it got all spamified. But I still use it for Internet orders and website registrations, so I check in on it every once in a while.

I popped into Yahoo today and found a link to this amazing video (it has music, so be sure your sound is on):

Yes, that’s right: it’s a grown-up playing in a sandbox. Obviously, she’s moved way beyond the shovel-and-pail techniques employed by toddlers. It’s neat to see how one image unpredictably segues into another. I didn’t spot an overarching narrative theme here (maybe “Happy, peaceful world”?), though, and the lack of narrative means that something like this won’t really keep my interest for long periods of time. (Pretty pictures are nice, but I do want a story that goes somewhere.) The length of this video is just right for me.

Like it? Want to see more? Check out the artist’s website.