The 21 Steps by Charles Cumming is a spy thriller told with Google Maps. The protagonist, of course, does a lot of traveling. Link -via Metafilter

The Astronomy Picture of the Day is a gorgeous sunset in honor of the Vernal Equinox.

To celebrate the equinox, consider this colorful view of the setting Sun. Recorded last June from the International Space Station, the Sun's limb still peeks above the distant horizon as seen from Earth orbit. Clouds appear in silhouette as the sunlight is reddened by dust in the dense lower atmosphere. Molecules in the more tenuous upper atmosphere are preferentially scattering blue light.

Go to Astronomy Picture of the Day to see it full-size. Link -via Digg

(image credit: Expedition 15 Crew, NASA)

Jeff Atwood of Coding Horror has a helpful and informative article about rechargeable batteries. The beauty of it is the unabashed joy he takes in his new charger.

...I ended up tossing my generic "rapid" chargers in favor of the majestic, glorious, and surprisingly inexpensive La Crosse Technology BC-900 AlphaPower battery charger.

Seriously, just look at this thing. It's a geek's dream.

Link -via Metafilter

John Clarke and Bryan Dawe of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation explain the subprime mortgage meltdown in a manner even I can understand.

People who don’t know what they’re doing will buy anything, Bryan.

http://www.abc.net.au/australiawide/stories/2008/200803/s2190009.htm -via Boing Boing

(YouTube link)

Ghostriding a car is old hat, but how about a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle? These marines in Iraq are up to the task. Warning- brief mooning at the end. -via Gorilla Mask

Forbes’ list of America's Cleanest Cities is out, and Miami ranks at #1. You can only find out all top ten by watching a slideshow, so I’m listing them for you:

1. Miami, Florida
2. Seattle, Washington
3. Jacksonville, Florida
4. Orlando, Florida
5. Portland, Oregon
6. San Francisco, California
7. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
8. Tampa-St. Petersburg, Florida
9. Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota
10. San Jose-Sunnyvale, California

Florida cities are helped by prevailing winds that blow away smog. Link -via Geek Like Me

Fred Rogers, star of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, would have been 80 years old today. In honor of his birthday, Mr McFeely asks you to wear your favorite sweater.

"We’re asking everyone everywhere — from Pittsburgh to Paris — to wear their favorite sweater on that day," he asks in his best speedy delivery voice. "It doesn’t have to have a zipper down the front like the one Mister Rogers wore on the program, it just has to be special to you."

Rogers’ favorite sweater is now on display at the Smithsonian Institutions’ Museum of American History. Wear A Sweater Day is part of "Won’t You Be My Neighbor?" Days (March 15-20) in Pittsburgh. Link -via Metafilter

(YouTube link)
The tale of a confused bird, an obedient dog, and a curious cat. -via Arbroath

“The most complicated thing that humans have ever built” describes the Large Hadron Collider ready to begin operations next month. Built underground, it runs 17 miles across the borders of two countries (Switzerland and France). The world’s largest particle accelerator will smash protons together to create conditions similar to the “Big Bang” and maybe warp the space-time continuum. Statistics on the size and possibilities of the collider’s work, as well as pictures to give you an idea of its size, can be found at Dark Roasted Blend. Link

(image credit: Michael Hoch, CERN)

The luchtime quiz today at mental_floss is based on a quirk in Sandy’s websurfing experience.

We’ve all spent time goofing off on the Web… Googling our own names, clicking on weird links, thwacking penguins. Web marketers know this, so companies often grab “major league” one-word URLs (like, say, www.love.com, which goes to AOL’s personals site). But sometimes, sites don’t take you where you think they might. It used to drive me crazy that, until the last few years, keying in MLB.com didn’t take you to the official pro baseball site, but to a law firm known as Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. (That situation has since been rectified.)

This quiz names 15 big URLs, and you’ll try to determine where those addresses go.

I only scored 10 out of 15. Maybe you can do better. http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/13383

2-year-old Joshua Brookes dialed 999 when his mother Isobel fell unconscious. The operator was able to keep Joshua on the line long enough to trace the call to his home in Wigan, England. She instructed Joshua to let the policeman in, although he had to stand on a box to reach the door handle. Isobel, who suffers from a rare heart condition, was taken to a hospital and has made a complete recovery.

Back at home in Ashton-in-Makerfield, Isobel said she had taught both Joshua, now three, and his older sister Amy, six, how to dial 999 in an emergency as soon as they could talk because her heart condition makes her prone to passing out.

She said: "Amy has done it before, but she was at school this time. I didn't know anything about it until I woke up with a paramedic standing over me.

"Joshua did really well. I'm really proud of him."

Link (with audio clip) -via Arbroath

This origami cube is more than just an LED paper lantern. Its circuitry is made of flexible aluminum foil fused to the paper! You can make it yourself with instructions from Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories, and you can adapt the shape to your favorite origami project. Link

If you never read about cars, you’ll want to make an exception for this one. Jeremy Clarkson (whose reviews are always worth reading) was supposed to write a review of the Renault Laguna Sport Tourer Dynamique. He didn’t much like the car, so he wrote a wonderful piece about why people wash their cars. Or don’t.

What a meaningless way of passing the time. You don’t wash your vacuum cleaner or your television set, you have a machine to wash the dishes and you employ a man to clean your windows. So how much do you have to hate the sight of your wife and children before you think, “I’d rather go outside into the cold and spend a couple of hours burnishing my wheel nuts”?

The comments are almost as funny. Link -via Dark Roasted Blend

Freshome has a collection of 16 of the Most Extreme & Modern Beds You’ll Ever See. Some are space-saving ideas, some convert into other furniture, some are powered to do things, and some are just beautiful designs. All have product links. The bookcase bed shown here lies against the wall until you need it, when you can assemble it on the floor as a twin or double bed. Link -via Geek Like Me

A 16th century Japanese medical text included illustrations of the mythical creatures that cause disease when they invade the body. Although the basic concept proved to be true, bacteria and viruses were not visible at the time. The fanciful depictions and descriptions are a hoot, considering what we know now! For example, Gyochu as pictured here.

Gyochu, a deadly critter responsible for leprosy, acts as a messenger to the underworld. On the night of Koshin-no-hi (an important date occurring every 60 days on the Chinese calendar), Gyochu leaves the body to visit Enma-daio (Lord of the Underworld) and tell him of your misdeeds. Enma-daio is known to punish people for bad behavior by reducing their remaining time on earth.

See more at Pink Tentacle. Link -via Everlasting Blort