http://www.ilovepasta.org/index.html, the home of the National Pasta Association. "Cooking tips":http://www.ilovepasta.org/cooking.html, "recipe ideas":http://www.ilovepasta.org/recipes.html, "beautiful drawings of pasta types":http://www.ilovepasta.org/shapes.html (pictured above), there's even a "kid's corner":http://www.ilovepasta.org/funfacts.html and a "press area":http://www.ilovepasta.org/news.html with interesting pasta news. Some interesting pasta facts to whet your palate: * _Legend has it that noodles were first made by 13th century German bakers who fashioned dough into symbolic shapes, such as swords, birds and stars, which were baked and served as bread.In the 13th century, the Pope set quality standards for pasta._ * _To cook one billion pounds of pasta, you would need 2,021,452,000 gallons of water - enough to fill nearly 75,000 Olympic-size swimming pools._ * _Approximately 2.75 million tons of pasta is made in Italy each year, while the United States produces nearly 1.9 million tons per year._ * _There are more than 600 pasta shapes produced worldwide._

What are the lengths nations might be willing to go to in order to secure supremacy? This is a question we as a species have asked throughout our history and it seems as if the answer has changed over the millenia. Back before it was a realistic possibility to do so, military rhetoric used to be full of the idea of blowing an enemy off the face of the earth, but what if we could simply change the earth we’re facing? That is the question asked in “Jamais Cascio”:http://www.openthefuture.com/jamais_bio.html’s article in the January 2008 issue of “Foreign Policy”:http://www.foreignpolicy.com, “Battlefield Earth”:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=414.
Building on a theme from his personal site, “OpentheFuture.com”:http://www.openthefuture.com, Cascio discusses the possibilities of geo-engineering as a strategic weapon. As climate science has proven, human actions have changed the way our Earth works in terms of raising overall atmospheric temperature but what if we could change things on purpose?
By manipulating our environment enough, the Saudis could in theory bring rain to Arabia and avoid the inevitable shortage of drinking water in that region. The Chinese could bring drought to Taiwan and force it’s high-value high-tech industry into mainland China’s eager arms. It sounds like a REALLY bad idea right? But that doesn’t mean someone won’t try it. In fact, Cascio rightly points out that our own US Government has tried it, first during Vietnam with Project Popeye–an effort to seed more rain clouds and strengthen the monsoons hitting the Ho Chi Minh trail–and then in the mid-90’s with the Air Force policy paper: “Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025.” I don’t know if this is an accurate predictor of the future, but I know it’s a future I don’t want to see.
More about articles about “global warming”:http://duenos.net/article/global-warming on Duenos.net.

_Picture books are for looking at._ That’s the rather simple motto of my favorite book site of the moment, “Lookybook.com”:http://www.lookybook.com/. Through this site you can browse and buy hundreds of picture books, save them to a virtual bookshelf for later reading, and recommend picture books through the community. Another fabulous implementation of the promise of web 2.0. Embedded below is “Lemons are Not Red” by Laura Vaccaro Seeger.

Previously featured on Duenos:
* “No Red Carpet for Most Recent Newberry Winner”:http://duenos.net/article/54/no-red-carpet-for-most-recent-newberry-winner: A scandalous word lands a children’s author in hot water.

As far as professors go, there is no one like Walter Lewin. At a university like MIT, where I’m sure there are lots of professors who try to dodge introductory courses–preferring to leave that sort of work to graduate students or junior lecturers–Lewin has perfected the art of teaching. His lectures on basic concepts like “classical mechanics”:http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Physics/8-01Physics-IFall1999/CourseHome/, “electricity and magnetism”:http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Physics/8-02Electricity-and-MagnetismSpring2002/CourseHome/, or “vibrations and waves”:http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Physics/8-03Fall-2004/CourseHome/ are works of genius combining scientific information with a humble yet often fantastic stage presence the likes of which very few actors ever achieve. Preferring to show rather than tell, Dr. Lewin’s lectures feature real examples of physics at work, like this pictured demonstration of the conservation of momentum.
Perhaps the best part about Lewin’s lectures–at least as far as I’m concerned–is that they are not just available to students at MIT. Thanks to a great educational outreach program called “MIT Open Courseware”:http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm, Lewin’s lectures and many others are available for anyone to download and watch. Alternatively, “iTunesU”:http://www.apple.com/education/itunesu/, a special educational sub-section of Apple’s iTunes music store distributes all of Lewin’s physics lectures, as well as TONS of other materials from all over the world.
For more information about Lewin and his work, read his “faculty bio”:http://web.mit.edu/physics/facultyandstaff/faculty/walter_lewin.html from the MIT website, “this article”:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/19/education/19physics.html?_r=1&ex=1198904400&en=422fff9addc1eaff&ei=5070&emc=eta1&oref=slogin from the “New York Times”:http://www.nytimes.com, or his entry in the ever-informative information hive that is “Wikipedia”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Lewin.
(Thanks Melissa)

With Camera. Okay so the music is really what sold me – but it’s pretty freaking cool man. Just wait until I send this badass into your living room and make him dance.

Hats off to Mobuzz.tv and http://www.soygik.com/ for the grab.

I’ve been reading a lot about Scientology lately and I have to say, if you haven’t heard the epic story of the “Space Opera”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_opera_in_Scientology_doctrine, you’re missing out. It turns out that 75 million years ago the cruel dictator “Xenu”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenu of the Galactic Confederacy brought billions of Thetans (that’s what we are) to Earth, stacked them around volcanoes and blew them up with hydrogen bombs. That’s how we humans (temporary hosts of Thetans) came to be here. At least, that’s how it is according to L Ron Hubbard and those who’ve chosen to subscribe to his particular version of reality. If you’ve got a spare half hour or so and looking for something to drop your jaw, go and read about “Scientology”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology, its “founder”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Ron_Hubbard and the “doctrine”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditing_%28Scientology%29 so fiercely defended by people like Tom Cruise.
Speaking of Cruise, there has been a lot of internet tongue wagging going on surrounding his most recent “public defence”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFBZ_uAbxS0 of his religion. Before you go all hot and heavy to watch Tom Cruise crack up on camera, I have to warn you that it is VERY boring and aside from using a lot of acronyms (“KSW”:http://www.xenu-directory.net/glossary/glossary_jkl.htm#KSW, “SP”:http://www.xenu-directory.net/glossary/glossary_s.htm#SP, “LRH”:http://www.xenu-directory.net/glossary/glossary_jkl.htm#LRH, etc…) and insisting that Scientologists are THE authorities on the mind, he doesn’t say much. Still, if you insist as I did to see that entire thing, “here it is”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFBZ_uAbxS0.
Not wild about watching Tom Cruise ramble on rather crazily about his being the only one to be able to save people? Over at “Perez Hilton”:http://perezhilton.com they have a “dance remix version”:http://perezhilton.com/2008-01-18-the-tom-cruise-scientology-video-the-dance-version that might be more appealing.

It would seem society says all the cool kids are innovators with radical ideas that stand apart from the rest. About a year ago I bought a custom built laptop – not to stand out – but because it was an intelligent decision (a great deal and I could do whatever I wanted with the machine). So far it’s turned out amazing – I’ve upgraded it a couple of times and regularly use it for anything from teaching to gaming to even recording. I’ve had only one little issue with it all this time – the back cover has a little indent where a logo is supposed to go.
Well the time has come for me to the join the rest of you people who ‘want to be different.’ No I’m not listening to indie-emo-punk music. No I’m not subscribing to what the industry says is the unique and cool in laptops and buying a mac.
I’m getting a laptop skin! Turns out it’s rather hard to find them for a reasonable price and with any good designs. After about an hour of putzing around searching for one here’s what I’ve got for all of you:
Get Your Skins.com and DecalGirl.com seem to have the best pre-made selection, as far as I can tell.

Unique Skins.com, however, has a sweet editor that you can use to customize your skin however you want – doing multiple pictures, laying them out however you want, and for laptops of all sizes. Oh and they decorate phones, mp3 players, and gaming consoles too.
If you’re in the market of cool hunting, I’d suggest you go check them out!

So as I outlined in my introductory post one of my academic areas is the digital divide. I won’t be introducing it here but I suggest you consult Wikipedia if you have questions. Anyway, one of the web resources I consult occasionally that has to do with this area is the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). I was running around their broadband usage and access statistics pages and happened upon a chart that stood out. They actually have ratings by country based on how many bot-infected (virused) computers they have. It’s not really a common dimension people think about when it comes to digital divide but as a technician I know just how horribly slow and painful a bot-infected, spyware ridden, student owned Celeron laptop can be. If you think you might be able to use the internet, think again. Remember that episode of Futurama where they have the big fight with ads? Yeah, exactly. Okay admittedly many of these systems might have dormant or non-invasive digital critters shacking up on the hard drive but it’s still rather unfortunate. I can say I’m not so surprised Poland takes the cake for most infested but where did this Spain come from? And Portugal? Do they have more than 10 people?

Oh, and in case you’re wondering about who has the most access, home computers, fast connections, etc… generally the rich Northern European countries and Japan/Korea own house. The US, while it has the largest sheer number of internet users, still stands somewhere near the middle.

I find that one of the coolest questions you can ask someone is “Who are you?”
Some people define who they are by their studies, their jobs, their friends, their physical characteristics, or perhaps just their simple name. Our identities are complicated and always changing – yet static in some sense.
So who am I?
I am a loving, passionate individual who yearns to make a difference in the world – in the lives of others as well as my own. Intensity and enthusiasm flows through my veins. I find meaning and value in creating, connecting, and helping people. I see leadership as service, and take point often – I conspire to inspire. I’m also active and assertive – in more than one sense. I’m a thinker, a dreamer, and still yet a realist with a pinch of curiosity.
—
So poetic hogwash aside, here’s what I tell the hob-nobs in academe:

Jeff Ginger is a second year graduate student studying sociology and library & information science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He attended UIUC for his undergraduate career as well where he fostered his love for sociology and hatred for computer science. He comes from a Science and Technology Studies (STS) disciplinary background (the insurgents of soc really), a hefty helping of race/ethnicity studies (with intergroup dialogue too!), and is perhaps most famous for his Masters Paper and other research on Facebook.com. His current studies revolve around social & community informatics, battling the digital divide, and human-computer interactions (HCI) and his ultimate PhD work will be some blend of the three.

Jeff also occasionally makes websites, pretends to be an artist, records fun noises, and likes to teach. You can shoot harpoons at his Hindenburg-esq ego here.