Feb 15, 2012  •  In Geek, Giveaways, Shopping, Travel

Giveaway: Plaid Doctrine Eco Messenger Bag!

Today I am very excited to be introducing Plaid Doctrine, a travel accessories company that crafts its products from recycled bottles! Plaid Doctrine was created by Suzanne Park, who logged 300,000+ miles traveling for work and found herself frustrated with the travel gear available today. She says, “I searched high and low for my last […]

Feb 14, 2012  •  In Cute, Geek, Science, Web

Google’s Geeky Valentine Surprise

Happy Valentine’s Day! For a sweet Valentine’s surprise, type this into a Google search: sqrt(cos(x))*cos(300x)+sqrt(abs(x))-0.7)*(4-x*x)^0.01, sqrt(6-x^2), -sqrt(6-x^2) from -4.5 to 4.5 Too lazy or suspicious to try it for yourself? What will happen is that the algebraic equation will plot out a graph in the shape of a heart, like so: Feel free to share […]

Feb 9, 2012  •  In Blogging, Bloggy Thursdays, Geek, Tutorials, Web

Bloggy Thursdays: Disable Hotlinking

Welcome to this installment of Bloggy Thursdays, where I share with my fellow bloggers tips and tutorials to maximize and better your blog. While I do not consider myself an expert, I do like to think that after 10+ years of blogging — in addition to my technical knowledge — I know more than the average blogger […]

Feb 7, 2012  •  In Art/Design, Beauty, Geek

Photoshopped Classic Nudes

In her Venus project, Italian artist Anna Utopia Giordano asks the question “What would have happened if the aesthetic standard of our society had belonged to the collective unconscious of the great artists of the past?”, digitally altering great classic works of art to better fit today’s waif-like standards. I will be completely honest; some of the subjects of […]

Feb 6, 2012  •  In Art/Design, Books, Entertainment, Geek, Movies

Panem’s 13 Districts Visualized [More “Hunger Games” Pr0n]

A fanatical Hunger Games fan by the name of V. Arrow has thoughtfully and carefully put together a map of Panem’s 13 districts, taking into account all historical accounts from the books, and merging what has been revealed about each district with the typography and natural resources of North America. Click on over to aimmyarrowshigh’s LiveJournal, […]

Feb 6, 2012  •  In Art/Design, Blogging, Geek, Personal, Web

New Directions, and A Call for Help

A few years ago, J casually said to me, “You know, you should really make your blog more mobile device friendly.” “But that might ruin the design! And you know how hard I worked on it. Besides, less than 1% of my visitors are using a mobile device when they browse on over.” Did I […]

Feb 4, 2012  •  In Asian, Claire, Education, Geek, Information, Parenting

Why Chinese is Hard

Most of my readers know that we have been teaching Claire three languages since she was born. And at this point, at 16 months of age, she understands Cantonese Chinese the best, and more than half the words she speaks are Cantonese. I have no problem with this. I believe that Chinese — regardless of […]

Feb 2, 2012  •  In Art/Design, Geek, Infographics

The Psychology of Color [Infographic]

I have always known that color has the power to influence your mood — for example, did you know that when a certain prison painted its walls pink, acts of agression and physical violence decreased significantly? — and was pleasantly surprised by some of the facts presented in this infographic by PaintersOfLouisville.com. Case in point: you […]

Feb 2, 2012  •  In Blogging, Bloggy Thursdays, Geek, WordPress

Bloggy Thursdays: Why I Stopped Using LinkWithin (And Switched to nRelate)

***Update: with the recent discontinuation of nRelate, I have switched over to Contextual Related Posts. (You can see it in action at the bottom of this post!) I was able to customize the widgets fairly easily, and the matching algorithm is probably the best I’ve ever come across! Welcome to this installment of Bloggy Thursdays, where I share […]