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12/3 Moment of Zen: Ooh, a Maze!

In Case You're Not Sure What To Do With All Your Free Time

Here's a maze in the shape of Einstein's Head. Click for full size version.

12/2 Moment of Zen: Pizza Flags

Can You Have Your Flag and Eat It, Too?

When Project Food Blog, a competition between food bloggers for attention and a cash prize, announced that contestants would have to reimagine and present their distinctive version of pizza, Taiwanese-American participant Jen of Tiny Urban Kitchen was a little stumped. Despite her extensive knowledge and experience with Asian cuisine, she'd never made a pizza.



As pictured above, her unique take was to make turn pizza-making into a travelogue of sorts: each of her pizzas takes the form of the flag of a country she's visited, and is described not only in terms of its toppings, but with photos and brief anecdotes from her travels. Click above to read about her travels and how she managed blue for her flag pizzas without food coloring.

12/1 Moment of Zen: Native Name Map

Enough Rockets

Always thinking of new and interesting ways to view the world, the folks at National Geographic made the map of the US based on translations of place names from their origins in Native American languages. While not exhaustive, they picked some remarkable ones. Guess which place's name means, "It makes a loud noise over there all the time," which means, "A good place to dig potatoes," and where "Gnat Town" is. Click the picture above to go to NG's interactive version of the map, where you can magnify different areas to read the fine print. Click here to read about the process of translating these names through their many origins to their current form.

11/30 Moment of Zen: Nuclear Photography

Rocket Week Continues

While the US Government documented its nuclear experiments in excruciating detail, most of those images are still highly classified. German newspaper Der Spiegel recently ran a story about some of the military photographers who worked on this during its heyday in the mid-late 20th century, including a slideshow of some of those images that have been released. Images of the blasts themselves, like the one above, were shot on special XR (extended range) redscale film, which makes them look like something surreal.

11/29 Moment of Zen: Space Junk In Kazakhstan

The Russian Space Program still rents its land from Kazakhstan, near a town the USSR built for the purpose and named Baikonur (Kaz. "rich with light"), and fires off its rockets about as far inland as you can get. While most of the USA's space program cast-offs splash down in the water, Russia's land out in the desolate scrub of the steppe, which better resembles the expanses of Nevada where the US performed its nuclear tests in the mid to late 20th century (incidentally, Kazakhstan was the major proving ground for the USSR's nuclear program as well). There, they are quickly harvested for their titanium-rich scrap metal. Click the picture to see more photos of space junk harvesting.

11/23 Moment of Zen: More Creative Uses for Squash

Squash Use #327: Thwarting Robbers

A would-be convenience store robber in Manchester, NH was undone when one of the store's customers bonked him over the head with a squash earlier this month. Click the picture above (Squash Use #164: Making Pictures of Dinosaurs) for more on this story