In this memorable talk, Dan Gilbert demonstrates just how poor we humans are at predicting (or understanding) what will make us happy. Gilbert is a psychology professor at Harvard, and author of “Stumbling on Happiness”.

(Recorded Feb. 2004 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 22:02) More TEDTalks at ted.com

My father told me about this book when we were in the Strand this weekend. I read the first 1/2 the night I bought it, and finished it the next day. Not only does it have wonderful photography, but it combines my strange interest in true crime and miniatures.
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FRANCES GLESSNER LEE, a Chicago heiress, provided for just about every creature comfort when she fashioned 19 dollhouse rooms during the 1940’s. She stocked the larders with canned goods and placed half-peeled potatoes by the kitchen sink. Over a crib she pasted pink striped wallpaper.

But you might not want your dolls to live there.

Miniature corpses — bitten, hanged, shot, stabbed and poisoned — are slumped everywhere. The furnishings show signs of struggles and dissolute lives; liquor bottles and chairs have been overturned; ashtrays overflow.

Mrs. Lee, a volunteer police officer with an honorary captain’s rank whose father was a founder of the International Harvester Company, used her ghoulish scenes to teach police recruits the art of observation.

She called her miniatures the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, after a saying she had heard from detectives: “Convict the guilty, clear the innocent, and find the truth in a nutshell.”

Read the rest of the NYTimes Article here.

Bad Allergies + Deviated Septum = sinus misery. Note the lack of symmetry. These images are just about the coolest things I’ve seen in a while. Watch my eyes close, look for my eyelashes and then you can even see my mole towards the end.

I’m writing this to keep track of the fact that I’m having another occular migraine. I was running late this morning too. It was really hard to get out of bed, and now I wonder if it had something to do with this. I can’t write much becuase it’s right in my field of vision, which is annoying. I’ll check in later with something much more interesting.

I woke up this morning with an ocular migraine. This hasn’t happened in about a year. Not sure why it’s happening today – but it’s a pain in the butt. I can’t see correctly out of my left eye becuase the aura is in the way. It’s not easy to type, and I definitely can’t read like this. Hopefully it will go away soon.

Here’s a link to the day I found out what these were in the first place.