You know how people help their cats to reach upper floors by installing cat ladders? Those can't hold a candle to this cat-operated automatic feline elevator! Link (embedded video)

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Designer Steven Heller gives an overview and critique of Olympic pictograms used over the past 74 years for the New York Times. When you only see these every few years, you don't realize how different they are for each Olympiad. -via the Presurfer

The final day of the Winter Olympics this Sunday has only two events: the gold medal men's hockey game and the 50km cross-country skiing race. Brian McKeever will be skiing for Canada. This race will make him the first Olympian ever to participate in both the Winter Olympics and Paralympics in the same year. McKeever is legally blind.

In 1998, McKeever was a promising 19-year-old skier when he was diagnosed with Stargardt’s disease, a type of juvenile macular degeneration that gradually leads to blindness. Twelve years later, McKeever only has 10 percent of his vision, and that tiny fraction is in his peripheral vision.

Rather than rolling over when he lost his sight, though, McKeever got back on his skis.

Read about how McKeever does it at mental_floss. Link

Obviously. Link

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This catchy song was born at TEDActive 2010, where attendees were invited to contribute their ideas on what the world needs. The entire production was put together in just four days.

Jill Sobule, John Doe, Sara Watkins, Stuart Johnson, Don Was, Dave Way, Krish Sharma and the amazing team on the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus came together to create write, perform and produce an original song, on-site during the conference. Aaron Koblin served as director and the TEDActive community transformed their ideas into impressive illustrations, with a little help from artist Jansen Yee.

Link -via The World's Fair

This application will give you a lesson in how difficult it is to control the universe. Select how many planets you want and adjust their orbits and other parameters. Then set it in motion and watch your planets crash into each other or fly off into deep space. At least that's what happened to mine! With some practice, you might get a real system going. Link -via J-Walk Blog

An unnamed 35-year-old female inmate broke out of a prison in Breda, the Netherlands. She was housed on prison grounds in a special building for inmates preparing for release. To escape, she dug a tunnel with a spoon!

The woman's tunnel began in a cellar under the building's kitchen, with its entrance concealed by a removable hatch. According to Dutch public broadcaster NOS, the police are assuming that the fugitive had at least one accomplice, who is believed to have loosened paving stones that were part of a sidewalk next to the detention center, allowing the prisoner to emerge from her tunnel.

The woman had only 22 months left on her murder sentence. She is still at large. Link -via Arbroath

(image credit: Flickr user Jeremy Brooks)

The Dresden Codex is an eleven-foot-long Maya manuscript, inscribed on both sides, produced around the beginning of the 13th century. Scholars believe it to be a copy of an earlier book composed between 700 and 900 AD, which would make it the oldest book from the western hemisphere. The contents covers the Maya calendar, mathematics, astronomy, and religious beliefs. See more images from the Dresden Codex and later reproductions at BibliOdyssey. Link

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There's just something about a man in uniform. However, most of us don't throw ourselves at the object of our affection in such a blatant manner. The music adds a special touch to this video. -via YesButNoButYes

When you show up at work or school wearing a cast and people ask what happened, you can show them with a Castoo. The company makes all kinds of decorations that you apply to your cast and seal with the heat of a hairdryer. Some pre-designed Castoos show arm or leg bones with breaks. You can also get one custom-made with your particular injury by sending them your x-ray! Link -via Geekologie

Your knowledge of the Old Testament will be sorely tested in today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. For each question, you'll be given the names of two Biblical figures. You must decide which one is also the name of book from the Old Testament. I scored 100% on this one. Link

Nominations are complete for the annual Diagram Prize {wiki} for the oddest book title of the year. Ninety books were suggested in 2009, and the top six are in the running for the prize, to be announced on March 26th. The nominees are:

* David Crompton's Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter (Glenstrae Press)
* James A Yannes' Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich (Trafford)
* Daina Taimina's Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes (A K Peters)
* Ronald C Arkin's Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots (CRC Press)
* Ellen Scherl and Maria Dubinsky's The Changing World of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (SLACK Inc)
* Tara Jansen-Meyer's What Kind of Bean is This Chihuahua? (Mirror)

You can vote on your favorite in a poll near the bottom of the site's homepage. http://www.thebookseller.com/news/112868-spoons-chihuahuas-and-autonomous-robots-make-odd-title-shortlist.html -via Arbroath

Previously at Neatorama: The Oddest Book Title Ever

Yesterday, students at the University of Mississippi voted to update their image with a new mascot. The previous mascot Colonel Reb, who resembles a antebellum plantation owner, hasn't been seen at a game since 2003, due to his Confederate symbolism. Who, or what, will the new mascot be? The athletic teams at Ole Miss are the Rebels, so the logical symbol would be Admiral Ackbar, the highest ranking member of the Rebel Alliance in the Star Wars universe. Only time will tell if the students and administration at Ole Miss will embrace the campaign. Link -via Geekosystem

All athletes are ecstatic over winning a gold medal at the Olympics. But how about second and third place winners? It turns out that a bronze medal will bring more happiness than a silver medal!

Research by three U.S. academics, who analyzed heat-of-the-moment reactions, medal-stand temperament and interviews of Olympians, shows that bronze-medal winners, on average, are happier with their finishes than silver medalists. Take silver, and you tend to fixate on the near miss. Score bronze, and you are thankful you were not shut out altogether.

"When you come in second," said Thomas Gilovich, chairman of Cornell's psychology department and one of the study's co-authors, "it's the most natural thing in the world to look upward. 'I got the silver and that's what it is, but what is it not? It's not the gold.'

"With the bronze, the natural place to look is downward. 'I got the bronze. That's what it is, but what it isn't is off the medal stand.' "

The research was done during the 1992 summer games in Barcelona, but the findings appear to hold true in 2010. Link -via Digg

(image credit: Flickr user selihpxe8)

According to this infographic, there are 133,000,000 blogs on the internet, which makes me kind of proud to work for four of the top 1000 blogs. The biggest part of the blogging community update their sites 3-4 times a week, and spend 1 to 3 hours a week doing it. Looking through these statistics, it appears that I am a weird blogger, indeed. http://www.intac.net/breakdown-of-the-blogosphere/ -via the Presurfer