Link roundup

1. Praise for Codecademy.

2. "During the Q&A session, [Nick] Saban informed the media that he and his wife set their alarm for 6:15 every morning, and then lie in bed and watch the Weather Channel for 30 minutes before rising to greet the day." (I get this, my wife and I like totally different shows and bond while watching House Hunters Intl.) Via.

3. Why do people touch their mouths so often? Maybe it's to expose our immune system to all the germs near us in small amounts.

4. Really bitter that I'm only finding out now that Fabio was at the local Whole Foods Monday.

Link roundup

1. Some people take Jurassic Park very seriously.

2. Provocative theory about the cause of early onset of puberty.

3. Jetpackage Project:

Back at the beginning of Summer, I started a project called 'jetpackage'. I was sat in my office one day and I was severely lacking in inspiration, so I looked around me at all the objects I have collected over the years and it got me thinking about how I am inspired. My office is full of collectable items that I have gleaned from car boot sales, flea markets and charity shops, whenever I am feeling uninspired I look at them and it spurs me on.

So I thought "What if a package came through the post, containing these things?" - what would they inspire me to create.

I have got a LONG list of designers, illustrators, artists, creatives that I would like to work with, and who inspire me with my work, so I decided to see how they would react to one of these packages.

4. "Parasite Turns Wasps Into Outsider Zombie Queens."

*Buy Mondo's Jurassic Park posters at eBay.

Link roundup

1. Neca posted a few WIP photos of the upcoming Team Fortress 2 and Half-Life figures.

2. "Why Do So Many Left-Handed Kids Grow Into Superstars?" (I'm just bookmarking this for my son.)

3. Megan McArdle on kids graduating with useless college degrees and endless debt:

No matter how inflated your expectations may have been, it is no joke to have your confidence that you can support yourself ripped away, and replaced with the horrifying realization that you don't really understand what the rules are.

More here.

4. Gallery of vintage high school photos.

*Buy Neca toys at eBay.

Hourglass figure

Optical illusion clothing.

Link roundup

1. Hooters is suing rival breastaurant Twin Peaks for theft of trade secrets.

2. Destructoid:

X-Men: Destiny is an ugly, boring, lazy little game. Even if it were free, it would be insulting to have one's time wasted in this way

3. Megan McArdle:

Gina Kolata's Rethinking Thin makes a pretty compelling case that almost everyone's weight fluctuates within a band of 20-30 pounds. Some peoples' band is higher than others, (and perhaps, slowly increasing over time). When you get nearer to the bottom of your body's weight tolerance, your hunger increases; drop below it, and your body reacts as if you're starving, slowing your metabolism and focusing more and more of your mental attention on food. I'm near the top of my weight band right now, and am nearly revolted by the idea of eating much besides vegetables and clear liquids. If Chris Christie was at a similar BMI, he'd probably be continually, distractingly ravenous.

Almost no one manages to stay outside of that band for very long, and those who do need to devote almost their entire energy to doing so, because the hunger is a biological signal on par with pain or the urge to drink. As Paul Campos notes in his excellent book, the idea that we can permanently reduce our weight through diet and/or exercise is one that has been experimentally tested about 500 million times over the last several decades, and fairly resoundingly refuted.