Stay in an ice hotel – understandably these are only available for reservations in winter. However the one in Sweden’s Lapland offers a 3-day ice-sculpting class during the summer. How could anyone not want to learn that? Lapland ice hotel Quebec ice hotel Do something for the next solar maximum in 2011/2012. The last one [...]

It’s a universal truth that pirates can make anything more interesting -  from getting a toddler to eat to studying economics (see the new book The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates) The career of legalized piracy known as privateering doesn’t get as much press but it’s still technically legal in the U.S. so [...]

Now that the bubble has burst on always making money with a computer science degree it’s time for students and parents to consider some of the more out-there, quirky majors!  Fewer jobs are everywhere, maybe less competition is the key… Carnegie Mellon is the only U.S. college to offer bagpipes as a major (other schools [...]

To the best of my knowledge there is no such thing as a tropical peat bog.  So I suppose that if you are a community with a peat bog that is no longer considered ideal for human sacrifice or worthy competition for central heating you might try to come up with some novel way to [...]

Carrots seem to be popping up in the news everywhere lately, including a new term: carrotmob, so why not a song? Probably a good thing that it’s not in English, though…

Crop circles and stoned wallabies – when is the movie coming out? Extreme tourism – paying to be pirate bait? I wonder what the buffet looks like… Naked rowers to cross the Atlantic – they’ve made a great case for nudity due to chafing but didn’t mention sun burn The EU has lifted a ban [...]

Hampsters are apparently uncommonly resilient in real or virtual form.  For some inexplicable reason I was moved to look up the infamous Hampster Dance website last week to see if it was still there.  Not only has it survived ten years, it launched in February of 1999, but it has spawned as rodents are prone [...]

Here are ten odd but interesting projects currently being funded by the National Science Foundation. To keep this funny instead of scary, I’m not listing the amount of money the government is giving each of these; however, they’re all linked to the grant profiles so you can check it out for yourself if you’re feeling [...]

Last week Slashdot posted a more interesting way to teach geography than mere square miles or kilometers. How long before the politicians decide this warrants a whole new set of sister city/state relationships? And how can I get in on that?

Google’s AI experiment, Cadie, being represented by a sad-eyed panda that would look much more in context if she(?) were depicted on velvet instead of white pixels, has come out with initial statements and recommendations.  And while I highly disagree that Redmond, home of a certain giant software company and self-proclaimed bicycle capital of the [...]