Brian Gongol
Radio show notes: Today's afternoon drive on WHO Radio
Czech book design in the 1920s and 1930s
Welcome to Chicago in 1959
What America looks like as a ZIP Code map
The 100 best jokes on the Internet
According to someone
Lobbing an insult directly at Ahmadinejad
Danish group sneaks an ad into the Tehran Times that calls him a "swine" in hidden letters
Iowa spends half-million to subsidize Pella expansion
Times are good for Pella Corp., so they're expanding operations. So why do taxpayers have to pay them $500,000 to help with the expansion? What entitles Pella to $500,000? Does every growing company in Iowa get $500,000? What about every failing company? What in the blazes is going on here?
Should Tom Vilsack find out who he originally was?
Iowa governor and Presidential candidate was orphaned, and now he's received information from the orphanage that may tell him about his birth mother
What's good about "Casino Royale"
How the Mozilla monster came about
24 web-design tips for 2006
Falling swami
MySpace the #2 search term on Google in 2006
Some strange other ones, though: #1 was "Bebo" (a social-networking site like MySpace), #8 was "rebelde" (a band), and #9 was "mininova" (a file-sharing service)
Relief agencies still looking for help
Typhoon Durian killed 1,000 people in the Philippines just a month ago, and they're still short on aid assistance. Probably the best way to donate to disaster relief is to budget the same amount each year and give it to the most efficient relief agency you can find.
China making it harder and harder to adopt
Adoptions by American couples of Chinese babies now costs $20,000 and takes 15 months
Best gifts combine high value to recipient with high sentimental value
If gifts were only worth what people paid for them, we'd all be a lot better off if everyone just exchanged cash and then let the recipient go and pick out whatever he or she wanted most. But the act of gift-giving does a couple of other things: It's partly an act of giving things that we might not get for ourselves, either out of guilt or lack of access. It's also sometimes a matter of sharing interests, as when a parent will give a child a book instead of a video game. And, of course, there's also the implicit value of sharing, which reveals that we know something about the recipient and what he or she likes. That's why gift cards are tricky territory -- they're almost cash, so the choice of store is just about all one has to go with to show sentimental value.
British retail union wants Christmas music restricted
Hearing the same CDs over and over drives some workers a little nutty. It's probably not really worker abuse, but good employers ought to take under consideration whether the environment they create will make their employees unhappy. That's just basic knowledge from the Frederick Taylor school.
16 tips for Christmas photos
Two of the best: De-clutter the shots (keep just one focal point per photo, then just take lots of photos), and use the burst or continuous mode while taking shots of people opening presents
When caricaturing, start with the features first, not the face shape
That's advice from a "MAD Magazine" artist
Best Japanese invention of 2006: A robotic baby seal
It responds to the user interaction like petting, which is intended to provide elderly patients with useful interaction. Since 19% of the country's population is already over 65, they're looking for ways to keep people engaged in their older days.
"Scrubs" does a "Charlie Brown Christmas"
(Video) It was a Christmas party stunt
