But Apparently it IS the Happiest Place On Earth

While I was searching (unsuccessfully) for an image to accompany the last post, I came across the happiest known picture of North Korea's Dear Leader. Enjoy.

Not Such A Small World After All...

Apparently the original It's A Small World ride at Disneyland is being renovated to accommodate increasingly overweight American bodies. How ironic.

The problem, quite simply, is that the flume that the boats ride in, and the boats themselves, were designed and built in 1963 on the assumption that the male adult riders would average 175 pounds and the women about 135, which they pretty much did at the time. Alas, those figures are as outdated today as the Rocket to the Moon ride.

The Small World ride now must accommodate adults who frequently weigh north of 200 pounds, which it often cannot do. Increasingly, overweighted boats get to certain points in the ride and bottom out, becoming stuck in the flume.

Russian Urban Photography

I just found a bunch of amazing photos by a Russian photographer, Mira Lukavaya. Lukavaya takes amazing shots of abandoned and decaying buildings, factories and churches around Russia. His photos are incredible, and his site is well worth a look.

String Theory In Two Minutes Or Less

Discover Magazine recently held a contest (hosted by my favorite science writer Brian Greene) in which viewers submitted videos explaining string theory in under two minutes. Click below to see the winner.

More About Memory

Mind Hacks, a very good blog about neuroscience and psychology, recently had a link to a great article by Joshua Foer in National Geographic about two extremes of memory; one person who can accurately remember nearly every day of her life and another who has lost nearly all of his adult memories--as well as the ability to create new ones.

EP wears a metal medical alert bracelet around his left wrist. Even though it's obvious what it's for, I ask him anyway. He turns his wrist over and casually reads it. "Hmm. It says memory loss."

It's fascinating to think about what a huge role memory plays in determining how we experience the world around us. Lose our memories and we lose a large part of what makes us who we are.

Not Your Average Pair of Heels...

According to Style.com, shoe design-god Christian Louboutin and David Lynch are teaming up for an exhibition at the Gallerie du Passage in Paris. Shoe fetishists, click here for the scoop, but be careful, it is somewhat NSFW.

Ah, The Irony...

I just came across a great New York Magazine review of the book 'How To Talk About Books You Haven't Read', by Pierre Bayard. Aside from it being a great title, it is also a very funny review (and has the added irony of having been written by a reviewer who didn't actually read the book). My favorite part:

Today I’m proficient in such feints as the stretched truth (“It’s funny, I’ve never actually finished that,” I’ll volunteer about War and Peace, of which I’ve read only the first paragraph), the misdirection (“Have you read Gravity’s Rainbow?” “You know what’s always bothered me about Pynchon?”), and, on very rare occasions, the enthusiastic flat-out lie (“Did you finish Brideshead Revisited?” “Yes! Yes, I really did!”).