Going in with Gunns a Blazing

Tim Gunn to be a character in Marvel Comics:


More details in the New York Times article.


Tip o' the (yellow) hat to my sister for pointing it out.

Or the Ballhawk's Baleful Cry

Click image for original (ie. legible) version.

Skin Deep: Beauty's dangerous price.

Via Boing Boing:

James sez, "The web site Skin Deep covers the issues related to the lack of oversight regarding the safety of cosmetics:"

Skin Deep is a safety guide to cosmetics and personal care products brought to you by researchers at the Environmental Working Group.

Skin Deep pairs ingredients in more than 42,000 products against 50 definitive toxicity and regulatory databases, making it the largest integrated data resource of its kind. Why did a small nonprofit take on such a big project? Because the FDA doesn't require companies to test their own products for safety.

More at Skin Deep's own website.

Bibliophile's Dream / Nightmare

. . . depending on your perspective.

CSI: Mathnet

Life after Square One.

The Incompressable John Hodgman: On Lying Artfully

From Hodgman's interview with Psychology Today*:

In both of my books, I have struggled against plain absurdity. Pure non-sequiturs (such as: "Thomas Jefferson was secretly a VIKING!") have a certain flighty charm to them. But I like some factness with my fakery.

Better to say that Thomas Jefferson was thought by his wealthy neighbors to be a witch. For really, how else to explain how this prosperous Virginian slave owner would suddenly become a radical revolutionary--other than Satanic possession?

. . .

Ideally, fake facts help to jostle our imaginations. They remind us how much of actual history is so strange, and novelistic, and practically unbelievable.

But I am not a lunatic. Obviously I know that it wasn't Satan who had taken over Jefferson's mind, but the Mole-Men.

More of the story here.

* - Note: Actual date was not "today", but in reality about a week ago.

White Collar Squid

Sven's less-hip, cephalopod counterpart.

Etc.

Via Boing Boing.