Mathematical patterns in african-american hairstyles "Ethnomathematics is the study of mathematical ideas involved in the cultural practices of a people. Its richness is in exploring both the mathematical and educational potential of these practices."

Black Man with a Gun. Maybe he could teach these guys about gun safety.

Allen Spiegel [fine arts] more inside

Apes face extinction. According to the UN's Great Apes Survival Project, all the apes - gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans - face a very high risk of extinction within 50 years at most.

File this under "Why They Hate Us" The rest of the world, that is. They hate us because we make and market and buy things like Miracle Seat, "a vacuum toilet seat that COMPLETELY removes all odors BEFORE they escape from the toilet bowl."

Listing of illustrators web pages. Scroll down the list and randomly click and be wowed. [some images NSFW; some Flash]

25 years ago today San Francisco's Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were shot and killed at City Hall by former Supervisor Dan White. Although younger, non-Bay Area natives may not remember, at the time the story shook San Francisco like an earthquake.

A movie and popcorn to fight global warming? Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon is the self-proclaimed first college or university to comply with the Kyoto protocol. All for the cost of a movie and popcorn per student, or the cost of 0.0025% of a credit hour.

1.800.201.7575 - That's the number for Amazon.com customer service, in case you've been as frustrated as I am that the only way to get in touch with them is to email them. Why is phone support lacking from their business plan? Once word spreads will they change it?

Apparently, it's time for member authentication thanks to Mr. I-need-to-spoil-the-party.

Worthwile dilemmas. The Oblique Strategies, now in flash.

Hooray for Lileks. He done smack down that coward Salam Pax good! more inside

Why obscure languages are more fun to learn. Teach yourself Abkhaz, Schw

MeFi Will See You Now... It feels like we are sitting in the MeFi waiting room, thumbing through old copies of Highlights and Newsweek. (Not to criticize the FPPs, which have been good.) How can we gather more members? And what else can we do to make MoFi its own thing?

Forty years ago today Doctor Who was born.

Toast portraits This guy makes mosaic portraits of famous people using toast.

Anonymous confessions. "I just now figured out the Colonel Lingus skit from SNL. It just suddenly made sense to me, but I'd seen it months ago." This and other, mostly (but not all) sex-related confessions. (Via Fark.)

In other news , the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq (but of course) has just sacked 28,000 schoolteachers

Freeway blogging. One surefire way to make your voice heard: put your blog on the side of the road. Of course, this isn't always popular: in Scotts Valley, CA a pair put an anti-war banner on an overpass bridge after the Sept. 11 attacks. While the US flags and pro-America sentiments were allowed to remain, Caltrans removed Courtney and Brown's banner, claiming that it was more "distracting" than a flag. We can be thankful that Caltrans policies regarding this were overturned, so people can use this unusual but valuable medium.

From trees to buildings In the last few decades, the inventive Swiss architect Marcel Kalberer has perfected a method of "living architecture", using willow rods. (via amberglow)