Vegetarianism

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

Best food advice I've heard in a while. Here's an article with more reasons to eat mostly plants.

Best of Craigslist

This is the best thing I've read in a while. (Again courtesy slashdot.)

I was complaining about Microsoft to a friend one day, and he said, "You know what? You don't like GUI's." I immediately began to protest, but then I stopped and thought about it, and realized he was right. I prefer a nice, simple console to a bunch of images you point and click and hope they do the right thing.

So, here's to Unix.

The Science of Love

This article's kinda long, but I enjoyed it. I'm enough of a Vulcan to be tickled pink that love has a perfectly logical, scientific explanation.

After all, as Richard Feynman said, "Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars — mere globs of gas atoms. Nothing is "mere". I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more?"

Double Einstein Ring

May I just say, "Whoa."

That's pretty awesome...first of all that scientists now have that data, and that ability to study the universe more deeply. And also that it's so incredibly rare. Can you say "lucky?"

Sorry, this stuff is just so cool. And I know some people say, "Why bother studying this stuff? It's not practical at all." But seriously, who wouldn't want to know about the universe? It's the UNIVERSE. I mean, we're humans. Constantly curious, that's us. =)

Who would you meet?

If you could meet anyone (real, not fictional characters), alive or from history, who would you want to meet?
The way I've come up with a list is to imagine that I'm going to have lunch with someone, and I try to figure out who would be really interesting to talk to, and who I think I'd actually get along with.

My list:
Fred Rogers
Fr. Hesburgh (I've met him, actually, and he's completely awesome)
Richard Feynman and Isaac Asimov
Fareed Zakaria
Archibald MacLeish

Separately, here's a list of people I feel I could learn a lot from, but I think I'd be too intimidated to actually be able to speak in their presence:
Martin Luther King Jr. / Frederick Douglass / Lucretia Mott
Gene Krantz
Oprah
Nancy Pelosi
Richard Branson
Thomas Edison
Euler
Buzz Aldrin
Bob Gates / Maj. Gen. Doug Stone

Bloomberg

OK, I promised myself when I started this blog that I'd stay away from serious or controversial topics (like politics). But after reading this, can I just say, I really hope Michael Bloomberg runs for President. If he does, he immediately gets my vote.
And then I was thinking about the movie "The American President." The President in that movie is very popular, very likeable, etc...basically the writers tried to make a character that the audience would vote for if he was real. And the two big political issues that come up in the movie? Gun control and the environment. And he's a bachelor. Yup, Michael Bloomberg is Andrew Shepherd. Sort of. (What? I thought it was funny.)

Now of course there's a good argument that an Independent candidate could never win. However, here's a devil's advocate argument to chew on:
In the current political atmosphere, many people want a non-Republican President. So I'm going to assume that the Republican candidate will lose, and ignore him. (Feel free to challenge this assumption if you like.)
So for the Democrats: if Obama wins the nomination, he has a seriously good chance of winning. People like him. If, however, Hillary wins the nomination, she'll be fighting a lot of anti-Hillary sentiment in this country.
Thus, if Hillary wins the nomination, we'll have 2 not-so-popular choices for President. I argue that this could leave a significant number of votes open for a 3rd-party candidate, particularly if he's smart, politically savvy, and rich. Bloomberg is all three. There's a good chance that in this scenario, the campaign would become NOT Hillary vs. Republican, but Hillary vs. Bloomberg, with the Republican candidate left as an afterthought.
Comments welcome, but please keep things civil. =)