October 2009

Only a true, longtime Doctor Who fan will get the joke… but for those of us who have followed his adventures for years, this is hilarious. Be sure to click through to see the whole thing.

From The Columbus Dispatch:

Cool classes aren't novel at Kenyon College, a top-ranked liberal-arts school known for producing presidents and poets.

Yet, even by Kenyon standards, a biology class taught to non-science majors by professor Joan Slonczewski is out of this world.

Learn biology through science-fiction books and films. Confront the mutants before they destroy the Earth.

…

Slonczewski, who also teaches traditional science classes, set out 10 years ago to make the subject more relevant to Kenyon liberal-arts majors, who constitute a majority at the school. She developed a course around her novels and the works of others, including Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park), Frank Herbert (Dune) and Kurt Vonnegut (Galapagos).

The class, filled with references to pop culture and discussions about moral and ethical issues, has continued to grow in popularity.

(via io9)

Just the thing for a rainy day: print and make your own papercraft TARDIS [PDF]!

Jon Heilman is offering replicas of the signage on the side of Professor Marvel's Wagon, as seen in The Wizard of Oz.

(via Boing Boing)

Over at eGullet.com, "Fat Guy" describes in comprehensive detail his preferred method for preparing a perfect steak.

[T]he standard American method of preparing steak involves high heat. I'd say that 99% of steaks I've had at steakhouses and in people's homes have been cooked either on a grill, under a broiler or in a very hot skillet. Yet, some of the best steaks I've ever had have been served at Ducasse's restaurants (and at other restaurants that use similar methods, such as Tom Colicchio's Craft places), where the steaks are prepared using relatively low heat… [S]o here's the Ducasse method of making a rib steak, as interpreted by me. This is a 45-minute process, assuming you start with a steak that has been allowed to come up to room temperature or that at least has been out of the refrigerator long enough to take the chill off it.

(via Metafilter)

Pastafarian Miłek has given us all the opportunity to behold the Flying Spaghetti Monster in all His glory…

(click through for more)

(via Friendly Atheist)

Flashcards are a time-honored means of memorizing important facts. In the age of the Internet, there is no shortage of online flashcard resources:

• ProProfs supplies teacher-contributed quizzes and flashcard sets.
• CoboCards provides tools to create your own flashcards, review them online, or print them out for offline study. (This site is in German when you first visit it; use the flag in the far upper right to switch to English!)
• FlashcardDB makes it easy to create, study and share flashcards online.

• Use Flash Card Flash to find flashcard sets from many of the best flash card sites.

"We built Kitchen Monki to be a hard-core productivity tool. Use it to organize your own recipes. Use it to share recipes among your friends. Or our favorite, use it to automate grocery list preparation. If you use iTunes to organize your music, you'll like your ability to catalog, sort, and search your recipes. We've built Kitchen Monki to be your one digital home for all your recipes from all sources."

(via Lifehacker)

The immortal Mr. Bean does home improvement as only he can…

Much, much more here…

The Calvin and Hobbes search engine will retrieve strips containing any keyword you like… say, for instance, "Spaceman Spiff"…

Over at Slashdot, there's a good discussion about Linux Games For Non-Gamers going on.

"The Lunch Box is a web-based portal that enables all schools and school districts to make a healthy difference for all children in America by providing relevant information and the pragmatic tools necessary to make good food available for all kids." Good stuff here about school lunches, as well as a number of recipes. There's also a calculator for resizing any listed recipe for any number of customers. Handy if you're planning to feed a crowd.

(via: TED Blog)

"Sahana is a Free and Open Source Disaster Management system. It is a web based collaboration tool that addresses the common coordination problems during a disaster from finding missing people, managing aid, managing volunteers, tracking camps effectively between Government groups, the civil society (NGOs) and the victims themselves."

"The Printliminator is a bookmarklet with some simple tools you can use to makes websites print better. One click to activate, and then click to remove elements from the page, remove graphics, and apply better print styling."

(via lifehacker)

A little story about a man, a woman, and a world…