Photoshop Disasters

Have you seen a truly awful piece of Photoshop work? There is only one place that really cares and wants to show the whole world. Photoshop Disasters is run by the mysteriously anonymous Cosmo7, who uses his powers to shine the light of truth on the clumsy manipulation, senseless comping, lazy cloning and thoughtless retouching perpetrated by the world of Photoshop driven advertising and art. Also, his thoughts and the comments of his community are worth the price of admission alone.

Ten Most Important Satellites Orbiting Earth Now

Remember that model solar system you made in the sixth grade? Well, now there is something more relevant and even closer home you can force your kids to make out of Styrofoam balls. It's a diagram of the "Ten Most Important Satellites Orbiting Earth Now," brought to you by IO9. Satellites are involved in every day of our lives from weather reporting to Google Maps to shooting television stations around the globe. So you might as well get on a first name basis with them. Well, all of them except Goldeneye that is.

Homeboy Astronomy

Marko Pyhajarvi writes the "Homeboy Astronomy" blog to help beginners and fellow amateur astronomers learn astronomy to start observing the stars and other interesting objects.

Marko is from Finland and he gives this little etymology about his blog's title " 'Homeboy' can be understood as “a hometown boy, a close friend”. A close person of mine called me homeboy some time ago." Oh, cute! I'm not sure he realizes just how sweet and welcoming his slang usage is in the states.

In any event, Homeboy Astronomy gives accessible, practical advice about backyard astronomy sprinkled with astronomical factoids and tidbits. Now, he can be your homie too.

Bjorin Hurri

Formed online in 2006, Gorilla Artfare is a collection of 100 artists "chained to their drawing boards" around the globe and connected to an underground network of over ten thousand more "bridging international boundaries and defying artistic definition".

Bjorin Hurri is one of their family whose created a delightful collection of "Steampunk Star Wars" character designs (make sure you scroll down). They are so worth drooling over and perhaps using as my ipod screen saver.

Verbotomy

Most Word of the Day sites lack interest and whimsy because, frankly, they are filled with words that are actually words used in the English language. How unimaginative of them! Thank goodness I found "The Big Book of Bunkum" by Victoria Elizabeth a.k.a. the self proclaimed, "Quipping Queen". Please don't mistake any of these words for actual words, they are just fun to say.

Recent additions to Bunkum include "flatterchatter" (one with an incredible if not insatiable appetite for all forms of adulation, praise and recognition) and "umdrum" (a pregnant pause associated with a pathetic person, a prosaic place, or a thankless thing that one wishes one had not encountered in the first place. Hello, my last alumnae dinner).

Want to try your own hand an verbal invention? Join Verbotomy, where everyday "verbotomists" create a new definition (and matching cartoon). Players must create a word -- a verboticism -- that matches the definition to be voted on by community members. Recent winners include the above "tinselclown" (A person so enamored with the holidays that they don't just deck their halls and home, but they also decorate their car, their cubicle, their pets, and themselves) and "delessious" (To leave out an important ingredient when you are sharing a favorite recipe so that no one else can make it taste as good as yours). Go forth and conquor.

You Suck at Photoshop

Okay, some of you will recognize this Donnie Hoyl's Videos from the "My Damn Channel" website from my post on the "Top Ten Lifehacker Videos". Well, I had to pull his series "You Suck at Photoshop" out because, not only are his methods succinct and easy to understand, but I haven't laughed so hard since I was addicted to Sifl and Olly in 1998.

Much of the information we have to remember in modern life is presented dryly using printed words or in a straight forward lecture format. Our brains do not easily encode information from either method. However, add mnemonics, vivid imagery and strong emotions (like laughing your ass off) and presto, you get rich retention of both information and the structure of the information. And because the images are vivid and the emotions strong, the message is easy to recall when you need it.

Otherwise, just watch so you'll laugh your ass off.

Year's Biggest Full Moon Friday Night

As you go out in search of the first stirrings of Holiday parties, remember to look up as the sun is setting. According to the LiveScience article, "Year's Biggest Full Moon Friday Night" earth's natural satellite reaches its closest point to our planet, tonight meaning it will be 4 percent bigger in our sky and 30 percent brighter than some other full moons during the year. Oh, and expect record tides, too.

Speed Eating Key to Obesity

Osaka University scientists looked at the relationship between eating speed, feelings of "fullness" and being overweight by scrutinizing the eating habits of 3,000 people. Check out their findings (reported in the British Medical Journal) at the BBC News article "Speed Eating Key to Obesity".

What the Japanese research shows is that individual differences in eating behavior, such as eating too quickly too allow your gastric feedback signals have a chance to start developing underlies the over-consumption of food and is linked to obesity.

Also, see why Japanese scientists probably give a damn in the Softpedia article "Why Are People of Okinawa the Most Long-Lived on Earth?".

Top Ten How To Videos

It's fun. It's dandy. It's how to improve your life according to Lifehacker. Check out their, "Top 10 How To Videos" to find out how to open a beer bottle with paper, boost you're WiFi signal with foil or (just like George Bush) how to walk into a car dealership and walk out knowing exactly what they're going to charge you.

OBAMANOS!

It's not every morning I wake up, put on red, white and blue and walk down to the multi-lingual school to stand in line for an hour and a quarter just to gain access to the gym. I feel just so, everything, right now. Completely anxioushopefulterrifiedexcited as so many Americans are feeling, tonight. To ease you through you Election night jitters I have compiled some fun things to do while waiting for the results to roll in. Just remember to keep breathing!

The NY Times keeps track at how voters are feeling with, "one word to describe your current state of mind," an organic wordsmithing plaything which pops the most used words submitted by voters across the screen in varying magnitude.

BlackBook.com presents, "Get Drunk and Watch Election Return in Washington DC," offering a list of places offering free food and, you guessed it, booze on election night. My favorite?, The Ritz-Carlton will be dropping prices of drinks when a state turn red or blue, but only the prices on drinks of that color.

In that vein, The Modern Gal, Martinis for Two, and The Culture Blog each offer an election night drinking games that are fairly self-explanatory.

Need a good laugh? Try cracked. com's "The 2008 presidential election as depictd by 5-year-olds".

Need a good cry? Talking Points Memo does a good job of capturing why the images and stories of voters bringing their children to the polls have been so touching in, "I Didn't Vote For Obama Today".

Google Chrome Goes to the Comics

What's all this buzz about Google Chrome? It's not just the "Incognito Mode" that's great for hiding your skeevy midnight browsing habits. Conveniently, Google has a web comic called, "Google Chrome: Behind the Open Source Browser Project," explaining why their product kicks every other browser's ass.

Already know why about it and want to become a Google Chrome Thaumaturge? Check out Lifehacker's, "The Power Users Guide to Google Chrome".

Ready to make the switch-a-roo? There's only one caveat. Google Chrome is not yet compatible with the Google Toolbar. Oversight much? Why Google, why?

Hand Bones

I called them Hand Bones while growing up. A line a picked up from the ever popular "Mocking Bird" rhyme. Recently stuck at home with an injured shoulder the repetitive movement was about all a could manage to relieve boredom and I found myself clapping rhymes with myself.

Enter the suddenly remembered secret domain of a little girl. Handclapping rhymes, a important component of handed-down oral girl culture and an altogether mysteriously shared experience. The Daring Book for Girls describes them as a fascinating oral storytelling tradition, many of which flirt with adult concepts such as, courtship, language and power memes all while using inventive language, simple songs, and sometimes tricky choreography.

If you'd like to catch a couple of school girls artfully giggling their way through some modern ones, watch the videos hosted on Kidz Lore, an Australian folklore website that has a section on "clapping games" which provides a nice collection.

One of my favorite memories of these games comes from a magical day in the fourth grade when I taught three friends how to do the only foursome hand bones I knew, Rocking Robin, as you have it which made us the stars of the playground for a week. Oh, and if you just want to remember how to do your favorites again? Cocojams.com has a good list of songs and patterns.

Tech Habits to Improve Your Life

So, I spent a little time on an information technology help desk. Who hasn't? It turns out, a lot of people. There isn't a single place I have worked that hasn't turned me into the de facto go to person when it came to computers because I was available and knowledgeable, even though I never worked in IT out of college.

Keeping good technology habits can be hard, but teaching my Mom how to use the clipboard across software platforms led to a glow of pride when she eventually cracked open her own tower hardcase and installed new memory cards. If you fear the electrical demon in your home or office, it's time to face the music. And PC World's article "20 Tech Habits to Improve Your Life" is the right place to start. Go on kids, learning how to do backups should be taught in middle school, and after you learn how using a mouse can actually slow you down and how the essentials of basic e-mail tidiness can speed you up, you'll feel like a new person.

What Your Global Neighbors Are Buying

The New York Times has an interesting interactive cartogram titled, "What Your Global Neighbors Are Buying," that shows how citizens of the countries of the world spend their discretionary income. Greece? Thirteen times as much on clothing as electronics. Japan? More on recreation than clothing electronics and household goods combined. Americans? Well, we spend a lot on everything.

Raging Caging

The topic on everyone lips last night? Voter disenfranchisement through fraud and voter caging possible in the upcoming November elections. What is voter caging? The slate can clear it up for you in their 2007 article on "Raging Caging".

Other news stories I heard included one from Michigan, where the Chairman of the GOP in Macomb County has declared he will challenge people's right to vote if they have been evicted from their foreclosed on homes. Macomb County is 1 of the top 3 hardest hit by foreclosures and even if he can't turn voters away from the polls, Macomb County, populated mostly by African Americans, can expect some long lines on election day. The Michigan messenger picks up that story in, "Lose your house, Lose your vote".

Lastly, you can listen to the September 11, 2008 broadcast of the Thom Hartmann Nationwide show, where sub-in Lee Rayburn describes how registered Democrats in "purple states" across the nation are receiving misleading absentee ballots with incorrect addresses or return addresses to GOP headquarters. The bit posted here is 10 minutes and well worth listening to or you can download the complete third hour of the show at the itunes store under Thom Hartmann Nationwide - 9/11/08 - Hour 3.