Link Banana

It’s that time of year.

• One sentence commencement speeches. (Scroll up to see the speech Frank Warren gave at St. Mary’s.) (via Neatorama)
• Obama’s ASU commencement, the best I’ve encountered this year. (Parts 2 & 3; Text)
• Perhaps stealing a theme from the President, Timothy Noah thinks commencement speakers are generally too accomplished.

Collected in English on one, sometimes illegible, piece of art by Emily Wick. You can also view (and order) individual states.

(via Neatorama)

UPDATE (1/17/2009): Taking a step I was too lazy or careless to, Strange Maps has listed every state motto in Latin and English, and included the story of its conception.

The classic poem — one I remember fondly from childhood — retold on the faces of baseball cards. It’s sometimes difficult to find the words on each cards, but it’s a very neat idea.

(via Neatorama)

I have mixed feelings about the merits of posts like this one, but I always look at them.

A beautiful, well-designed (and apparently smut-free) alternative to Urban Dictionary, the coolest feature about Addictionary is probably that you can request a word for your definition of a new thing.

(via Neatorama)

I’m ashamed to say that I’ve never looked nearly this closely at the stuff.

(via Neatorama)

Neatorama points to some interesting maps. Basically: the total area of the moon covered by the Apollo 11 astronauts was smaller than a soccer field. Or, if they landed on a baseball diamond, they hardly left the infield.

This bridges are literally awesome. If you don’t take a look, you’re really missing out.

(via Neatorama)

Sometimes the serendipity of my feedreader is just shocking. On the same day I saw picture of both the highest and lowest man-made objects. They are:

• Burj Debai. (via Fimoculous)
• A Siberian Diamond mine. (via Neatorama)

UPDATE (8/25/08): Or perhaps this is actually the lowest man-made object. (via Neatorama) I have mixed feelings about a hole that can’t be seen from above ground being meaninfully considered a hole.

Two stunning examples of great design that perfectly fits its beautiful setting.

• The Aurland Lookout. Just wow. (via Neatorama)
• Clingstone. Article and slideshow. Those views. (via Materialicious)

To fight their public urination problem, officials in Musiri, Tamil Nadu, India are paying people to use the restroom.

Dozens of people are queuing up to use toilets in Musiri, a remote town in Tamil Nadu state, where authorities are succeeding in keeping street corners clean with the new scheme.

The urine was also being collected and tested for its efficacy as a crop fertiliser, an official of Tamil Nadu’s  agricultural university said.

The poor of Musiri, are earning upto a dollar a month and very happy to keep the street corners clean.

(via Neatorama)

Neatorama is offering a conveniently visual take on media ownership. Some suprised me, and there are some notable errors and omissions. The comments likely contain an answer to your concerns.

Some things are just cool.

(via Neatorama)

Chris Coleson lost 86 pounds eating only at McDonald’s. Take that Jared.

(via Neatorama)

These two things recently caught my eye.

• Kobe Bryant speaks Italian. Now you know. (via Neatorama)
• Chinlone is a traditional Burmese sport, whose ball is about halfway between a soccer ball and a hacky sack. That also approximates what it is. (via Good)

I linked to a part of Aaron Koblin’s Flight Patterns project a few weeks ago, without recognizing it as such. Neatorama has compiled some valuable links to his work, and pointed out the awesome video in the title link. Their summary:

In 2005, Aaron Koblin took all of the air traffic over United States data, as seen by the FAA, and visualized it in a beautiful animation. Aaron’s work was originally developed as a series of experiments for the “Celestial Mechanics” project (eye candy!) by Scott Hesels and Gabriel Dunne at UCLA.

I’ve spent too much time playing roller coaster games over the last week. These two are the main culprits:

• Rollercoaster Creator, which is mostly for fun. (via Neatorama)
• And Roller-Coaster Designer, which is supposed to teach you about G-forces. (via MetaFilter)

I know I just did this last week, but the list (with photos) that ProTraveller has assembled is so good that it requires a link.

(via Neatorama)

Under the category of “old stories that are legitimate to talk about because someone else also missed them the first time,” the Freakonomic blog held a contest for the six-word slogan for the United States of America. The winner? That title above. Runners up included:

Caution! Experiment in Progress Since 1776 (134)

The Most Gentle Empire So Far (64) votes

You Should See the Other Guy (38)

Just Like Canada, With Better Bacon (18)

(via Neatorama)

Jyoti Amge is 14, weighs 11 pounds, and is less than two feet tall. The Daily Mail, of couse, has pictures.

Jyoti is treated like a mini-celebrity in her home town, where people flock to meet her and some even treat her like a goddess.

She will even be releasing an album with her favourite Indian pop star, the bhangra/rap star Mika Singh.

(via Neatorama)