Interlude | Crowd Dance at Metro Station

headspace | This Is Where We Live

This Is Where We Live from 4th Estate on Vimeo.

Interlude | Penguin Cafe Orchestra

Bars & Tones from André Chocron on Vimeo.

Interlude | Royksopp - Happy Up Here

Happy Up Here from Röyksopp on Vimeo.

Interlude | Check This Out

Interlude | Opera from 1907

Check this story out from the New York Times. There is multimedia of the recordings available. (NYT)

Interlude | Photos from Space

Photos of EARTH by Sunita Williams???

View more presentations from Rahul Tiwari.

To Hell in a Handbasket | Aliens!

The question s not whether we are the aliens. The question is not whether we need more pond scum. The question isn't even if humanity would riot in the streets if we found out whether intelligent life exists Somewhere.

The question is what we would do when we find out.

My bet is that if we found out there ws intelligent life somewhere in the universe, we would do everything within out technological capability to seek that life out, irregardless of the consequence, just to let them know that we were there... that we exist... that life has taken root somewhere other than with them...

That path has many questions to consider, many paths to contemplate.

Interlude | Air : La Femme D'Argent

Doomed by History | Evolution

Image via Wikipedia

Ancestry 101 is a wonderful little video by 23andMe.

It is always important to remember that we too are likely an evolutionary dead-end. Eventually. Never forget what we did to the Neanderthals... and what will be done to us by the Next Step...



And if you can forgive the nattering hostess that shot this video, here's an interesting look into the 23andMe offices. If I hear "Right. Right. Interesting. Right." one more time, I'm going to genetically mutate into something unpleasant. Oh wait.

Interlude | El Corazon by Hard 'n Phirm

Just to prove any song can turn into a love song when sung in Spanish, here's a tune by one of my favourite askew-song-smiths... to be fair, there are a few images from a somewhat surgical perspective, so if you're squeemish about blood... get the barf-bag handy.

useless mental tidbits | mind-fricks

Extraordinary Brain Tricks - video powered by Metacafe

ThreatWatch | Learnin' Folk

Image via Wikipedia

As part of Good magazine's "State of the Planet" for 2009, they've put up lots of interesting graphs, including this one, which is a look at how different countries rank in math and science test scores, based on the average score of 15-year-old students on math and science literacy tests, out of 1000. (good)

The top score in Science: Finland with 563.

The top score in Math: Taiwan with 549.

The United States didn't make the Top 20. The few comments I read seem to be angry excuses as to why this list doesn't take into account something or other to explain the poor showing. But here's a guess: the public education system isn't world-class. Sorry.

Three European countries made the top 10 in science (Finland, Estonia, and Netherlands), one North American (Canada), with Austral-Asia rounding out the rest, including both Australia and New Zealand.

And any way one looks at it, Finland's model is one to look at, since it placed first in science and second in math. Hong Kong is another consistent performer, in second spot for science and third for math.

[Finland on wikipedia]
[Finland's Government site]
[Education in Finland on wikipedia]
[List of Universities in Finland on wikipedia]

Interlude | Timelapse Night Flight