Potpourri for $1200, Alex

Since I didn’t want my Valentine greeting to Margie to vanish from the top of the page, I collected these during the day:

• Everything you want to know about curling, as recommended by fan-girl Marn,
• The water in fast food restaurant toilets has less bacteria than the water in the ice they serve you. Yum. (via BoingBoing)

• Let Wal-Mart open up banks? Well, on the one hand, if it reduces ATM fees and increases customer service, why not? On the other hand — is that too many eggs in one basket?

• Dave Hill International Man of Mystery Does the Blog — and the Feds are ready to shut him down, if need be!

  The government concluded its “Cyber Storm” wargame Friday, its biggest-ever exercise to test how it would respond to devastating attacks over the Internet from anti-globalization activists, underground hackers and bloggers.

  Bloggers?

  Participants confirmed parts of the worldwide simulation challenged government officials and industry executives to respond to deliberate misinformation campaigns and activist calls by Internet bloggers, online diarists whose “Web logs” include political rantings and musings about current events.

  All your blogs are belong to us! (via BoingBoing)

• People choose wine (at least choosing between German and French wine) influenced by the music they are hearing, even though they deny it afterwards. (via GeekPress)

• Is Disney going to bring back its 2-D Animation business, now that there are real (Pixar) creative types involved? We should be so lucky. (via Kottke)

• Tabletop nuclear fusion … confirmed?! Holy crap! (via GeekPress)

• Flame wars start because people are crappy at accurately identifying the tone/subtext of messages they receive — but think that they’re pretty good at it.

  According to recent research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, I’ve only a 50-50 chance of ascertaining the tone of any e-mail message. The study also shows that people think they’ve correctly interpreted the tone of e-mails they receive 90 percent of the time.

  “That’s how flame wars get started,” says psychologist Nicholas Epley of the University of Chicago, who conducted the research with Justin Kruger of New York University. “People in our study were convinced they’ve accurately understood the tone of an e-mail message when in fact their odds are no better than chance,” says Epley.

  Believable. (via GeekPress)

• How to fold a fitted sheet perfectly. If you’re that obessive about having perfect corners and edges in your folded sheets. Frankly, the method Margie and I use (use the pointed corners as the corners you fold by) works pretty darned well, and nobody who’s visted the house has ever complained.

• Scientists are trying to use computer models to figure out what makes a Stradivarius violin so good. Though periodic storage in chicken coops is probably not one of the reasons. (via GeekPress)