The winner of a coin design competition by the Dutch Ministry of Finance is a beautiful, thoughtful coin completely designed with free software. It concentrates on information design and typography, which in English means that it’d make a perfect gift for me some day. ;)

Just like they seem to have thought of everything already in philosophy, the ancient Greeks had a joke book with much of the same style of humor as today (434 words), including Monthy Python’s dead parrot sketch (3m 25s).

This might just be a designer thing, but if you think you’re good at eyeballing lines and angles, try playing the eyeballing game.

via Nate Koechley

I have no idea what they’re saying, but Deichkind is pretty cool German hip hop/ghettotech. Recommendations to get started: Ich Betaeube Mich (3m 30s), Bon Voyage (3m 24s), Electric Super Dance Band 2m 26s), Limit (3m 03s)

It’s a little morbid, but whenever I die, I think it’d be pretty cool to go out with a reef ball, a mold where they combine your cremated ashes with a bit of replacement coral reef. There’s not much of a point to adding a person’s remains to it, but it’s a good way to get your family to sponsor coral reef redevelopment. The service also saves a bit of money in the process, at least compared to a burial.

Another alternative is a sky burial (really gross, graphic pictures; prepare yourself), but that’s probably a little too gross to ask of people. To put it bluntly, they feed a dissected corpse to the birds. This isn’t appalling to do in Buddhist Tibet — Buddhists believe your body is merely a vessel for your spirit, so when you die, it becomes a useless, insignificant object. It’s an agreeable position, but still a dirty way of doing things.

via reddit

I feel like my wardrobe could use some more designer tees. Perhaps everybody’s wardrobe could.

In searching for more information about some of the smaller candidates here (believe it or not, I don’t just vote straight ticket), I came across the North Austin Civil Association. This organization represents a tiny part of the city, less than five percent of the Austin population. But while at their site, I noticed something subtle.

Look at the highlighted letters: o, b, a, m, and a, in a sentence about not supporting a specific candidate. If you’re going to support someone, just come out and say it. Unless they’re being sarcastic (I don’t really know anything about them), this is the type of stuff that only comes back to hurt people and groups later on.

When a hedge-fund manager recently quit after a year with 870% gains (610 words), he left an angry note for his clients with a few hilarious points: you can profit off the stupid, living for a legacy is ridiculous, the rich and powerful in America essentially form an aristocracy, our government is broken, and marijuana should be legalized. Oh how I love it when people are real (even if what they’re saying is debatable).

Governor Clinton campaigned on “real hope for change,” but President Bush has the “experience” we need so we don’t go to sleep without “the fear of nuclear war.” Governor Clinton is going to try to make you think the economy is worse than it actually is, but President Bush knows it’s just a worldwide slowdown. I wonder what will happen next.

The depressing list of ways the human mind is essentially fucked reminded me of another Wikipedia gem. Although many of them have already been popularly debunked, Wikipedia’s list of common misconceptions might contain a few things you didn’t know. My personally held ones include: due to population increases, over half of humans are currently alive; Eskimos have a larger number of words for snow than other languages; and, most embarrassingly, that Muslims believe martyrs are awarded 72 virgins after death. It’s okay now. I’ve been saved.

The Oak Beams of New College, Oxford (1m 20s) give a warming anecdote for the future of society.

via Legatissimo

“San Francisco is to hold a vote on whether to rename one of its largest sewage treatment facilities after George W. Bush, in what supporters describe as ‘a fitting monument to the President’s work.’” (381 words)

via Reddit

The awesome iPhone 3G has been officially announced, but many questions have been left unanswered.

• The price: we know it’s supposed to be cheap, but is this $199 8GB base price part of a contract? If the actual price without a contract is higher, can we re-start our contracts to get this deal?

  Answer: Nailed it. Previous iPhone customers can upgrade and renew their contract to secure the new $199 price level.

• What do we do with our old iPhones? If we don’t want them, are they bricks? Will they resell? Is there a trade-in program so we can recover some of the costs and maybe even recycle the materials?
• What about Flash support? It’s getting pretty ridiculous that we can’t access such a large part of the web. I understand this is largely the fault of the web developers, but there’s no reason that we still lack Flash support.
• Did they nail copy and paste this time?
• Does it support video? Can we teleconference?
• When can we demo it in stores? What were those packages that were to be opened tomorrow? I called both AT&T and Apple stores, but retail employees haven’t heard anything yet.
• How will 3G hold up with the upcoming surge of users?
• Is the battery replaceable?
• What happens to the iPod Touch? Will they discontinue it?
• Is there support for wallpapers? Can applications at least change that?
• Is the processor any faster?
• Is there some way (first- or third-party) to do MMS?
• This is still an amazing piece of technology. How the hell did they do that? Is everybody going to have one of these now?

As the economy dwindles, the wealthy are stressing over being less wealthy (1,465 words). Do I hear buying opportunity? If you’re in that troubling situation where you can’t afford your Rolex, I guess I could take it off your hands for $10 or so.

via Reddit

Summer can be boring, which is when the unbearably cute games from Orsinal come in handy. Another beautiful flash game is Music Catch from Reflexive.

via Reddit

It’s always seemed odd to me that people say “100% all natural.” Aren’t the “100%” and the “all” redundant?

President Bush made a guest appearance on Deal or No Deal (1m 49s) this week, but strangely enough, it matched its lowest Monday rating ever (374 words).

via Reddit

Instead of freaking out or getting angry, Julio Diaz gave his mugger a coat and then treated him to dinner (3m 12s). It’s a nice story, but I do have to wonder how many muggers are this impressionable.

If you and your friends can agree upon the best track on an album, it’s probably not a very good album.

In philosophy, you learn that a lot of your basic assumptions about reality are depressingly incompatible or inherently meaningless. One of the clichés on which I rest many of my most meaningful decisions has been to live without regrets. Don’t do anything you’ll regret, and don’t avoid trying something you’ll regret having missed.

Well, Time is running an article, Can You Predict Happiness? (998 words), which basically overturns that. The idea may seem simple — people are far too distractable and moment-centered to predict how much they’ll enjoy something — but it has really fundamental consequences. I read this article a week ago, and yet I still keep thinking about it. Once you make a decision, even one you find important, and go with it, “the unchosen alternatives evaporate.” The good news about that is, when making a decision seems like a toss-up, you can be happy with either choice. That bad news is, if you take it to the extreme, it’ll render all of your decisions meaningless and arbitrary. You would have been fine going with that other career, that other spouse, that other life.

You know, maybe Hillary wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Update: John tipped me off to the fact that the experiment’s designer, Dan Gilbert, has done a talk on this very subject for TED. In twenty-one minutes, he clarifies it much better than either myself or the Times article does.