Sculptures carved on the end of a pencil.

The number of published books in the world. No wonder it’s almost impossible to ‘make it' as an author.

Asimov’s robotic laws on last.fm

Global album-of-the-week, and deservedly. This time they’re keeping it close, revisiting childhood haunts, examining the angst of growing up and losing touch with the ‘kids', and the changes to memory:

So can you understand Why I want a daughter while I’m still young? I want to hold her hand, And show her some beauty, Before all this damage is done

Glowing indie rock at it’s finest.

Yikes:

Evolution did the rest: It divided the earth between humans and ants, and in so doing created another fundamental dichotomy. There are billions of humans on earth, and trillions upon trillions of ants - an estimated 1.6 million for every human being. If the earth were a scale, and all the humans were placed on one side and all the ants on the other, it would not budge. Ants have answered the ever-expanding human biomass with an ever-expanding biomass of their own, so that the planet is poised, teetering between its two most successful civilizations - each of which is social, aggressive, expansionist, and well suited for war.

The return of Road Runner & Wile E. Coyote (Genius), easily my favourite Looney Tunes characters. Even passes the laugh-out-loud test :-)

(via Daring Fireball)

Alan Moore, the great thinker:

I’m interested in the superhero in real life, but not the comic book version. I’ve had some distancing thoughts about them recently. I’ve come to the conclusion that what superheroes might be - in their current incarnation, at least - is a symbol of American reluctance to involve themselves in any kind of conflict without massive tactical superiority. I think this is the same whether you have the advantage of carpet bombing from altitude or if you come from the planet Krypton as a baby and have increased powers in Earth’s lower gravity. That’s not what superheroes meant to me when I was a kid. To me, they represented a wellspring of the imagination.

A new Dredd movie? Please please please don’t take off his helmet this time.

Good and sensible tips, especially the eye contact mantra - drivers definitely react differently when you give them the Julie Bishop death stare:

Finally, drivers act with more courtesy when they are being watched, eye contact is a powerful thing - a bit like a flashing light, increasing the probability that you’re not ignored.

Having watched the pro’s, a beautiful short film on a group of amateurs climbing the Tourmalet and three other Pyrenees peaks. Where do I sign up?