there’s interesting news on a 60kya fossil of an anatomically modern human w/ different mtDNA from humans today. while, this finding could suggest that we’ve lost some genetic diversity, i don’t think it really is enough evidence to do much to discredit the out of africa theory (in favor of the multi-regional hypothesis), which has ample evidence of it’s own (self reference: $). the loss of genetic diversity isn’t much of a surprise, with recent discoveries anyway… of course i’m no expert, this is just my gut reaction. i have no doubt that the most interesting stuff has yet to be discovered.

jason manley wrote a nice little walkthrough on how he paints. very cool to see his process. he dispenses some great advice. page 2 has tons of links to galleries of various old masters. (links summarized at the bottom).

reminds me though, wish i could find that mozilla sidebar that harvested links. maybe i’ll write my own a bit later… [update] here’s a links panel

oh wow, spooge aka craig mullins has an article on 3dpallete too. that’s awesome. oops, just a rehash of a tut on his site. it’s still cool though…

stop signs on the web – short economist article on new regulations on the net, enchroachment of freedoms, blah blah blah, discussion on /. there’s ton’s of other cool stuff on ”s front page right now as well: syncml 1.0, ww2 digital encryption, and laser equipped 747’s among other things.

on the plate: tons of class reading, class design work, programming, and the obligatory organizing the crap on my computer.

with my new schedule, i’ve cut down a lot on surfin around on the web. today, i spent my internet time chasing down images of cell phones and such whatnot. nokia has a nice picture archive online. haven’t found the equivalent for any other cell phone companies yet. also, i did a drawing assignment today (drawing a hand the best i could). it’s been a loooong time since i’ve done any realistic drawing with pencils, but i think it ended up alright. about 3 hours and change, 18″x24″ original.

ooh, titanium is purrrty…

these sidstation soundfiles rock. the sidstation is a synth made from the old C64 MOS6581 SIDs. more sidstation history.

i start classes again tomorrow. got a bit done over break, perhaps not as much as i would have liked, but my computer boots up faster now (that’s a joke, haha). so, i haven’t done too much web surfing recently, but here’s some really good stuff:

• the conversations revolving around traffic and the us war on drugs is for the most part lively and interesting at /.
• k5 has a really interesting discussion going on about how non-americans feel about americans.

been down for the past few days – my workstation had mysteriously blue screened, and stayed that way even when reinstalling. i pulled out all my hardware, have reinstalled and am putting stuff back in piece by piece.

mmmm, fat in chocolate. “While edible, they are not really meant to be eaten, the official said.”

the international herald tribune’s look is much less ho-hum than say, the nytime’s or the washington post

iht currently has an interesting piece by mikhail gorbachev.