This guest post is from North Carolina author and sculptor Joel Haas (featured previously at Neatorama), who is traveling in Taiwan and taking plenty of pictures. Whatever they are, a night market is NOISE and COLOR!!

Part flea market, part carnival, part food court, part social nexus, a "night market" is where vendors set temporary booths along a street and sell from about 5:30 PM until about 2 AM. All Taiwanese towns and cities have night markets. The most famous and largest is Taipei's Shilin Night Market. Imagine the NC State Fairgrounds, arenas and all, turned into a giant flea market and then doubled or tripled in size. Pack it with people and illegal vendors setting up shop in the middle of the aisles. Until I was nearly run over, I had forgotten it is okay to ride a bike or motor scooter through the night market aisles. The only thing stopping traffic in some areas is the utter crush of people. Most places in the night market resemble the midway at the state fair on a record day. The smell of "stinky tofu" (fermented tofu) fills the air so you know you're in a true Taiwanese market. You can buy everything to eat from steaks to jellyfish to candied tomatos to tea jelly; cotton candy to squid; tripe to exotic fruit. Shop for clothes, luggage, underwear (remember the people who needed waistband amplifiers?) or books. Power tools or bok choy, a night market's got it all and probably more. Grannies shoot baskets at one of the numerous arcades.

"Buddha Head" fruit on sale--Joy's and my favorite. Called "custard Apple" in English. It is unknown in the States as it doesn't ship well.

I couldn't resist buying a package of this stuff. It's very thin and dry. Quite tasty, actually.

Artist Anne Karsten led a group of 4th and 5th graders through the process of designing monsters. Then she made 24 plush versions of the monsters based on their drawings! The toys were then sold (to their parents) as a fundraiser for the school. http://www.annekarsten.com/stuffed-monster-gallery to story. http://www.annekarsten.com/stuffed-monster-gallery/stuffed-monsters/ to pictures. -via Boing Boing

(College Humor link)
David from Southwest Airlines has a shtick that's a welcome break from the usual pre-flight instructions! -via Digg

The NCAAA basketball tournament starts this week! The 64 teams are scheduled, but how familiar are you with the schools? Today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss asks you to identify the state in which certain colleges (the ones that aren't obvious from the name) are located. I scored 67%, which is below average for this quiz. http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/23616

Math meets home decor in this tatted Sierpinski triangle by mathematician Ted Ashton! The tiny lace triangles became fractals as they are connected. Link -via Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories

What does the United States do with its nuclear waste?

According to the Department of Energy, there is enough spent nuclear waste in the United States to fill a football-field-sized hole 15 feet deep. From a plethora of proposals, scientists and politicians have selected on-site storage as the safest solution for the buildup. But it's a temporary solution. The waste will be fatal to humans and other animals for tens of thousands of years — yet the storage tombs are expected to last only a hundred years.

Wired takes a look at the process we use now and the challenges we'll have to confront in the years ahead. Link

(image credit: Jason Cohn/Wired.com)

Emilio Marcos Palma made history, and the Guiness Book of World Records, in 1978 just by being born! His father was in charge of the Argentine army's Esperanza Base near the tip of the Antarctic peninsula. As a political ploy, the government of Argentina airlifted his mother to the base to give birth. Parts of the territory in which Esperanza Base is located are claimed by Argentina, Chile, and the UK. The Guinness Book lists him as the only person identified to have been the first born on any continent. He is also the southernmost human birth known, although two other people have since been born in Antarctic territory. Link -via Grow-A-Brain

Esperanza Base (pictured) is now inhabited by 55 people, including ten families and two schoolteachers! Link

(image credit: © Samuel Blanc)

The human brain is quite susceptible to logical fallacies that can mess up our lives and our societies. One of them is probability.

Our brains are stupid when it comes to calculating probability. As a result, we all have this fuzzy idea that if something can happen, it probably will. And we think this, while having no idea what "probably" even means.

This is why millions of high school kids think they're going play pro sports when they grow up, even though there are only enough available jobs for a tiny fraction of them. When the news says an asteroid may hit the Earth in the next 10 million years, people will watch the skies suddenly sure that an asteroid will hit that day.

Read about all five fallacies at Cracked. Link

The town of Oaxaca, Mexico celebrates Noche de Rábanos, or Night of the Radishes, every December. Radishes up to two feet long are carved into intricate scenes as carvers compete for prizes. It's just one of ten bizarre food festivals at ListVerse. Link -via Interesting Pile

Everything you ever wanted to know about Roman candles, including how to make your own, in in this article at Confession of a Fireworks Man.

I once made the mistake of thinking I could hold a one-inch display candle in my hand as it fired. The first shot propelled a star skyward, and the rest of the candle backward out of my hand to who-knew-where. I had to quickly find it and stabilize it with my foot as it finished firing. I still haven't lived that down in my local fireworks guild. I don't recommend you try any similar stunts.

With these larger Roman candles, it's best to tape them to a stake and firmly secure them to the ground before ignition.

Link -via Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories

March 14th (3/14) is National Pi Day, as officially designated by the US congress this year. Traditional festivities are to study the mathematical constant pi in school (which took place yesterday since 3/14 fell on Saturday this year), bake and eat a pie, and sing Pi Day Carols. Evil Mad Scientist Laboraties constructed a Pi Pie Trivet for the occasion, and posted instructions for making your own. Link

6-year-old Mihir Kumar of Ranchi, India was celebrating Holi when he slipped and fell off the roof he was dancing on. He fell on an iron rod, which pierced his body through the ribs from one side to the other! Mihir was rushed to the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences, where he underwent three hours of surgery to remove the rod.

He is now recovering in hospital.

Dr Sandeep Agarwal, one of the three surgeons to operate on the boy, said he had miraculously escaped major internal injuries.

Link -via Arbroath

(image credit: AP)

Those of you who are sick of Daft Punk can skip to the next item. Those who aren't can try mixing your own version of "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" with the iDaft Console. I spent way too much time playing with this! Link -via Metafilter

Imagine taking a seat in this toilet stall!

Georgia Max Coffee chose to redesign the toilets of a number of key ski resorts in Japan. The cubicles were fully wrapped on all sides, so that the person caught short would have a ski jumper’s view when they were sitting on the loo. The person could look down at their skis (simply printed on the floor of the cubicle) and see the steep ski jump slope ahead of them.

http://www.coloribus.com/paedia/prints/2009/03/11/290722/ -via Boing Boing

People who see Shorty on the banks of the river Test in Redbridge, Southampton, England tend to call emergency services because they are convinced the poor pony is stuck in the mud. Four times Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service’s animal rescue team has responded to find that the pony was fine.

Animal rescue expert Anton Phillips was one of no less than 12 rescuers dispatched to help the animal before realising the pony was not in any distress.

He said: “This was the fourth time we have been called out by members of the public who have seen this pony on the salt marsh.

“It’s basically a cross between a Shetland pony and a New Forest pony and has definitely inherited features from both its mother and its father – it has short legs like a Shetland but a long body like a New Forest pony.

“From 200 yards away it does look like the pony is trapped in the mud, especially when it is stood next to other ponies.

Link -via Arbroath