Random links
- The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge
- "In an age obsessed with practicality, productivity, and efficiency, I frequently worry that we are leaving little room for abstract knowledge and for the kind of curiosity that invites just enough serendipity to allow for the discovery of ideas we didn’t know we were interested in until we are, ideas that we may later transform into new combinations with applications both practical and metaphysical. This concern, it turns out, is hardly new."
- Forging of the Mandarin mermaid: How Chinese children are taken away from their families and brutalised into future Olympians
- One explanation as to why China seems to be doing quite well at the Olympics...
- Excited train guy, New York!
- Every once in a while one of these videos seems to pop up on Youtube. Naturally, ever time I have to consider whether or not the guy in question might be Darren.
- NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn asks NYU to evict Chick-fil-A
- Ah.... "tolerance".
- Dieting vs. Exercise for Weight Loss
- "It’s long been believed that a hunter-gatherer lifestyle involves considerable physical activity and therefore burns many calories, far more than are incinerated by your average American office worker each day. And it was true, the scientists determined, that the Hadza people in general moved more than many Americans do ... But it was not true that they were burning far more calories. In fact, the scientists calculated, the Hadza’s average metabolic rate, or the number of calories that they were burning over the course of a day, was about the same as the average metabolic rate for Westerners."