Fantastic.

http://dreamdelusion.wordpress.com

Read it. Comment on it. You’ll be smarter for it – and probably leave with a smile on your face.

Mardi Gras from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Really creative, I think.

Last Wednesday (March 11th), people in India and other countries with large Hindu populations celebrated Holi, the Festival of Colors. Holi is celebrated as a welcoming of Spring, and a celebration of the triumph of good over evil. What that translates to in action is an enthusiastic dropping of inhibitions, as people chase each other and playfully splash colorful paint, powder and water on each other.

View the Photo Set at The Big Picture.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Zach was tagging photos of me, and iPhoto was giving suggestions. One of its suggestions sadly missed the mark:

It’s really sweet. As Chris said, “amazing creation of mood without a single word spoke.” The score is particularly well done.

Some of my favorites:

This one (above) is probably my favorite of the bunch. It’s so subtle, clever, and – once you see the panda – unmistakable. I just love it.

The theory is that it’s distracting to hold a phone and drive with just one hand. But a large body of research now shows that a hands-free phone poses no less danger than a hand-held one — that the problem is not your hands but your brain.

“It’s not that your hands aren’t on the wheel,” said David Strayer, director of the Applied Cognition Laboratory at the University of Utah and a leading researcher on cellphone safety. “It’s that your mind is not on the road.”

From: A Problem of the Brain, Not the Hands: Group Urges Phone Ban for Drivers

I think the question people want answered before they stop using phones in their cars is, “What is it about talking on a phone – even using a hands-free kit – that impairs my driving ability?”

I have my guesses, but I thought this reason from the same article sounded quite reasonable:

It may be that talking on the phone generates mental images that conflict with the spatial processing needed for safe driving. Eye-tracking studies show that while drivers continually look side to side, cellphone users tend to stare straight ahead.

Whatever your personal thoughts on the matter are, you should definitely ask yourself: Do you ever feel an absence of quickness or awareness while driving when you’re also talking on the phone?

It’s a look at some of the security features (surely some of them aren’t disclosed) which protect the President from attacks or mishaps while he’s driving around.