Back from Florida, with links

Friday, December 7, 2007

This week I returned from Florida, where great times were had in the Orlando area, Miami Beach, and Key West. Since I last posted in mid-November, a lot of links have been visited. Here are a few good ones:

Kennedy Space Center Science & Politics

I stopped by the NASA’s Kennedy Space Center while I was in Florida. In related news, earlier this year, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would ban humans on Mars at NASA: How To Beat Congress’s Ban Of Humans On Mars

EPA has developed tools to help individuals (and households) reduce greenhouse gas emissions and take action: EPA Personal Emissions Calculator

Japanese researchers pitted young chimps against human adults in tests of short-term memory, and overall, the chimps won: Young chimp beats college students

Cute & Funny

Here are three cute cat videos from YouTube: 1. Crow and Kitten are Friends, 2. Psycho-Cat Christmas, and 3. Japanese Kitten Standing on Two Legs

On December 5 it was apparently the Annual Day of the Ninja. I like this Pirate vs. Ninja comparison graphic. Think ninja.

This is old news now, but I forgot to post it before (and there’s still time before the holidays): Elf Yourself

Oregon & Transportation

More old news: Drafted by the Red Sox in the first round in 2005 out of Oregon State University, Boston rookie Jacoby Ellsbury came home to a hero’s welcome in November after a meteoric six-month rise from Double-A prospect to World Series standout: Red Sox rookie star Jacoby Ellsbury gets hometown hero’s welcome

Even more old news: Oregon State University researchers have discovered which molecules control tissue regeneration in zebrafish — an advance that may one day help scientists learn to regenerate tissues in humans: OSU looks at regeneration

Maglev train (Illustration by Nathan Fariss) Apparently the weather was really bad in Oregon while I was gone, with high wind and rain. Still, most disasters, such as flooding and windstorms, that Willamette Valley residents will face are not of the catastrophic variety. However, Salem sits near a fault line and seismologists have been warning for years that a catastrophic earthquake could happen here: Oregon gets pummeled by rain, wind. Could the worst be yet to come?

Going to the airport? What are the road conditions like in the Portland Metro area and elsewhere in Oregon: TripCheck

I will soon be heading to western Washington for Christmas: WSDOT Traffic

With airports and highways more congested than ever, new steel-wheel and maglev lines that move millions in Europe and Japan have the potential to resurrect the age of American railroads: Super Trains: Plans to Fix U.S. Rail Could End Road & Sky Gridlock

Music

In case you’ve forgotten, both Radiohead’s In Rainbows discbox (including the bonus disc of eight songs) and NIN’s Year Zero Remixed album have been released for your enjoyment.

On my trip to Florida, for whatever reasons, these were my four most-played albums:

  • The Faint “Wet From Birth” (2004)
  • Redstart “So Far From Over” (2004)
  • Rilo Kiley “Under the Blacklight” (2007)
  • Yeah Yeah Yeahs “Is Is” (2007)

I found that I really liked listening to The Faint in the Miami area.

That is all for now!

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