Someone I know has been going just a little overboard with the embedded video lately. I was about to start poking fun at this new-toy obsession, but this amazing parody of how Microsoft would market the iPod just made me want to join the cool kids:

Embedded video doesn't work in RSS so you'll have to go to the actual post.

Do I even need to articulate the very important lessons that your average marketing department should take away from this little gem of hilarity? Probably not. Oh, the power of video.

PS: Can someone tell me why it was such a ridiculous pain to hack together an embedded video code that validates as XHTML transitional? I'm sure IE users won't even be able to see what I put up here. W3C, get with it, Google is giving bloggers embed tags so we're gonna want to use 'em!

Update: For those of you googling in for valid embedding code, I'm no longer using the version I whipped up at the time of posting. My new template cuts it off on the left and I'm lacking the patience to piece together a solution. Maybe later.

I've always thought it would rock to have a venus fly trap, but this would be even cooler! Not only do you get several of the famous fly traps, but a few cobra plants and pitcher plants (and more!, according to the web copy) as well!

I want one!

[via boingboing]

"Trees raise the sky by being so big and yet having so much further to go. Trees create room."—Sven Lindqvist, Exterminate all the Brutes

I read this book a few years ago and noted in the back that I wanted to write down this quote, but I doubt I ever did. The book's really about neocolonialism, but I thought this was a nice tree-appreciative bit.

According to Science Blog's summary of a Journal of Consumer Research study, moderately heavy models make women feel just as bad as the aneorexic types.

It's interesting that this effect is documentable even without the patronizing Dove Campaign for Real Beauty copy that I complained about in September. Perhaps we can instinctually recognize the portrayal of normally sized women as condescending?

More likely (although I'm not sure how these researchers defined their terms), most of the women in this study (and in the American population as a whole) are either moderately heavy themselves or somewhere between moderately thin and moderately heavy. Then, looking at the moderately heavy women, they see an unappealing reflection of their own bodies—whereas they might see the moderately thin women as a much more appealing image (albeit a somewhat-idealized one) upon which to project their idealistic self.

At any rate, Dove has significantly toned down their real beauty messaging—focusing on general self-esteem rather than the forced admiration of women with a slightly larger dress size than usual. Much better than the aren't-these-fat-girls-pretty-anyway stuff that made me scream last year.

[via Sploid]

François Jacob

"A theory that explains too much ultimately explains very little. Its indiscriminate use invalidates its usefulness and it becomes empty discourse."—The Possible and the Actual

Jacob was a biologist, but this statement seems to have interesting theological implications to me. Something along the lines of the corruption of popular religion.