how to bury your dead

This news piece was so incredibly sad, we waited 9 days to post it. From Reuters, the government is preparing for the upcoming pandemic of avian flu. Are they stockpiling anti-flu vaccines? Are they making the world country cleaner, safer? Well, that’s one way of looking at it. Presenting: How to bury your dead. In your backyard.

“We talk about how people should bury their dead in their backyards, how far from the septic systems,” said Dorothy Teeter, director of the King County public health department in Seattle. “In case you’re wondering, it’s $20 apiece for high-quality body bags.”

But while you are still alive, you might enjoy your music online. Here’s something we’ve been meaning to try out: Picard from MusicBrainz. It promises to help you organize and tag your mp3s. Okay.

Also, while you are still above ground, you might check out MIT’s free open courses. You think “burying your dead 101” is a course? Don’t bet on it.

geek to live: underwear rotation and google’s rules

We’ve borrowed one of our favorite blog’s slogan (lifehacker) for today’s entry.

Firstly, underwear rotation. Here’s a topic near and dear to our hearts. When Mrs. Taco found us rotating our t-shirts (of which we have many), she laughed. Lo, how lonely we felt! As if we were the lone taquito left in a 3-rolled-with-guac combo from ‘Bertos. Because we not only rotate our shirts, but the underwear, and, in their own way, the socks as well. We’re not fanatics about it, but it helps keep everything worn at least somewhat evenly. So it was with great joy in our hearts that we read about ChangeLog’s wife rotating his underwear. We’re not alone!

Newsweek recently published Google’s 10 ten rules for employing IT workers. We can find no fault in these.

1. Hire by committee
2. Cater to every need
3. Pack them in. Almost every project at Google is a team project, and teams have to communicate. The best way to make communication easy is to put team members within a few feet of each other
4. Make coordination easy
5. Eat your own dog food
6. Encourage creativity
7. Strive to reach consensus
8. Don’t be evil
9. Data drive decisions
10. Communicate effectively.

Almost every good working environment I have had–where people are genuinely happy and look forward to coming to work–has focussed on most of these in some way or another. But some days, we would be happy enough with just some good communication.

Hacking the body: fight brain-freeze and more

Men’s Health has a sheet of 18 tricks to teach your body. Nice little hacks and work-arounds for everyday problems. Our favorite? How to combat brain-freeze. Yes, we are susceptible to this horror. And, living in the middle of Hell, we are inclined to drinking very cold drinks to cool off. And, because we are children, we drink them too fast. But there is hope.

13. Too much Chipwich too fast will freeze the brains of lesser men. As for you, press your tongue flat against the roof of your mouth, covering [area] as much as you can. “Since the nerves in the roof of your mouth get extremely cold, your body thinks your brain is freezing, too,” says Abo. “In compensating, it overheats, causing an ice-cream headache.” The more pressure you apply to the roof of your mouth, the faster your headache will subside.

Hot diggity! Now, when combatting the “warmest winter on record (yet again” with Slurpees galore, we shall not be mocked as our eyes tear up, and we rest our heads in our hands until the world comes back into focus.