Nobody, darnit

How Girl Guides Helped Win the War.-- Why wasn't being a Girl Scout this awesome? We learned how to make divinity, and that's about all I remember.
(Granted, I seem to remember all the badges required you to organize people and get up and talk in front of them. This, to say the least, was not my greatest strength, and I never actually received any instruction in how to overcome my shyness. I just got a lot of, "why haven't you earned any badges?" Needless to say, I was only a Girl Scout for a year. Then again, they never taught us to make telegraphs. I learned all the cool stuff from my uncles' old Boy Scout Handbook.)

How our genes determine if we're a morning person or not. (Via National Geographic)

Tornado of Fire. For real. (Via Bad Astronomer)

I haven't posted any links in a while, so here's some links.

Cowpokes in the realm of polyamory. - In which I learn a new term. Mistress Matisse talks about monogamous folks who try to rope a polyamorist away from the herd. (On The Stranger website, so there will be NSFW cleavage everywhere.

John Scalzi applies the Bechdel test to last year's sci-fi movies. (For those who don't know, the Bechdel test requires a work to contain at least two women who talk to each other about something other than men.

Squirming hairy ball of thousands of daddy -long-legs. - Not for the squeamish. :-D

Speaking of creepy. Look, Espoo! You're famous! For death! This makes me appreciate the Metalocalypse episode Dethtroll even more.

Julio the Sewer Diver. Keeping Mexico City from reverting back into a lake.

Today I:

Tried out a faux french braid that I learned last night from the awesome Torrin Paige of Youtube.

Read an article that says that doing either good or bad things increases your willpower.

Which reminded me that I should check up on my Kiva loans. I had 15$ credit, so I added 10 and made a loan to a Mongolian butcher woman.

Then I looked at this lovely list of post-apocalyptic clothes and decided I'd dress up today.

And so I discovered how far I can walk in my pretty fake-Mongol boots, which is, to the Grocery Outlet, one-way.

Went to the Grocery Outlet and used my new EBT card.
Took the bus home.

Straightened the garage and found the hedge clippers!

Clipped the pampas grass out front! Barely got cut at all!

Started the process of cleaning my little aquarium. I need a new filter and light bulb, but when it's ready, I'm going to steal spencimusprime's betta.

Took a shower, and now I'm sitting here letting my hair air dry and chatting to friends.

Got a membership to Worldcon 2011!

Preordered Black Blade Blues and The Rise of Renegade X by my dear roommate, Chelsea Campbell. (Preordered through the University Bookstore, because that's where she's having her kickass launch party.)

Right now, the plan is to put on real clothes and go sort books downstairs. (I found a slightly bedraggled bookshelf in the alley I'm going to attempt to set up.) I'm kind of happy sitting here, though. But if I take steps to do the one last thing on my to do list, I'll have absolutely no qualms about lying on the floor tonight watching Season 4 of Babylon 5.

Scientists finding ways to turn rattan into artificial bone implants.

Ancient Egyptian eye makeup may have had health benefits.

Kit Whitfield discusses why it's bad when horror movies make us sad rather than scared. Or, how to deal with the consequences of the emotions you evoke in your stories. If you want to make someone sad, you have to give them space to grieve. In horror, there's no time for that, therefore you shouldn't try to evoke sadness in the first place. Kit's got a lot of other interesting things to say on horror.

Religious optical illusion. Only click if you can handle really bad puns.

Gambling on volcanoes. Mt. Rainer's got 11/1 odds of a serious eruption in the next year.

Sunlight glints off Titan's lakes. Via planetary.org

Video of deepest volcano eruption recorded so far. There's something incredibly sensual about it.

Interview with Umberto Eco. I <3 Eco so damn much.

Criminal plastic surgeon found living a pathetic existence on top of a mountain. I'm only linking to this because he tried to kill himself in Courmayeur, Italy, which is where my grandpa served in WWII. He totally saved their church from a landslide and got a medal, which I now possess, from the local count.

The tiny town of Greensburg, Kansas was largely destroyed by a tornado, and now they've decided to rebuild in as sustainable a way possible.

For those who, like me, are looking to add some optimistic sf to their writing repertoire, here's some interesting inspiration. It's a surfing resort in Peru that offers "voluntourism" packages, where you help the local community.

Auschwitz is on Facebook.
Yes, the death camp.
Yes, it's educational and probably a good idea. But the headline...

Carrier pigeon faster than internet in South Africa. Via BBC

Teen weeps blood. I just think his name's funny.

Slacktivist has some awesome things to say on why vampires can't stand crosses.

Alan Turing gets apology from Prime Minister Gordon. Via Slashdot.