10 non-work-related items that I found fun or interesting

via Arts and Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Edward Tufte wrangles sprawling data into elegant and restrained stories. He is the da Vinci of our information-drenched, hyperactively quantitative culture...more

I don't know where I picked this up from – I saved the link to the original article not to the blog post. Probably Arts and Letters Daily but could also be Big Think or even Boing Boing.
Is it Cold in Here? by Jennifer Ouellette looks at the experience of being one of the few women working at CERN in Switzerland (home of the Large Hadron Collider).
Read the Scientific American article

via Arts and Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Instead of religious sins plaguing our conscience, we now have sins of leaving water running, lights on, not recycling, or using plastic grocery bags. It's our green religion...more

via Arts and Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Who owns yoga? Now that it’s a multi-billion-dollar industry, everyone wants a piece of the action. But yoga’s history is a palimpsest...more

via Steve van Dulken's Patent blog (British Library)
The Bum Box®, a portable seating invention
Recently I was at an open-air concert at Kenwood House, and we were offered free portable, collapsible seats made out of cardboard. more

via Arts and Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Alexander the Great could not conquer Afghanistan, but he did leave behind the drug that ultimately would: Opium. Can the country be weaned from it?...more

via Arts and Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Can you multitask? Of course you can - as many as two tasks at the same time! So can everybody else, the latest research shows...more

via Lighter Footstep by Shea Gunther
Sea otter stalks young boy at aquarium

via Arts and Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Specialist university librarians used to choose with the help of academics the best books and journals for collections. Alas, publishers now choose for them...more

via Arts and Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Tibet: a land where childlike monks and nuns smile softly all day long? A place of stillness, calm, and wondrous spiritual energy? Only in the romantic imagination...more

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