What do great apes, dolphins, and elephants have in common? We all check ourselves out when given a mirror, a test of self-awareness that elephants at the Bronx Zoo just passed. This probably doesn’t surprise elephant fans (like myself), but it’s good to learn more about our gentle lumbering friends. More in the Guardian article.
Yearly Archives: 2006
Shuttle Launch Seen From ISS
Patrick just sent a link to a beautiful shot of a Space Shuttle launch as seen from the International Space Station. As someone in the comments writes, “It’s like, all of a sudden I like the ISS, you know?”
a slow news day
In true cross-blogging fashion, K and I are hosting rabbit and rouftop of La Luna de Miel… literally. They’re sleeping on our fold-out couch after their long trip up and down the Left Coast, or as they put it, the Dairy Tour of the West. (which I always read as a “Diary Tour”.) We’re happy to have them, even if it does mean that Ben won’t have a spot for his trains for a few days. ;)
Maps! Of! War!
This is the coolest 90 seconds I’ve spent on world history.
NaNoWriMo blog team go!
K and I are going to give National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) a try this year. It goes something like this: starting on November 1st, each of us has to write a 50,000-word (175-page) novel by midnight on November 30th. It’s not as crazy as it sounds; hordes of people finish every year, mostly by lowering their expectations from ‘bestseller’ to ‘will not make someone vomit’ (in the words of one of the organizers).
You can follow our progress along the way by visiting our NaNoWriMo pages; a handy pair of links is included in the sidebar here. I’m not sure exactly what they’ll contain, but at the very least it’ll include up-to-date word counts. If you decide (due to some mad urge) to join us and write a novel of your own, let me know your author URL and I’ll add it to the links.