July 21, 2010

Veggie MRIs

The next time you have 10 minutes to spend being mesmerized by something, go look at these images of vegetables. They were captured by using an MRI machine - quite frankly, they're gorgeous.

I think my favorites are the broccoli (I don't know why; the image seems whimsical to me), the corn (probably because I've been enjoying some delicious sweet corn lately), and the pineapple (because I can absolutely imagine Shawn Spencer taking an MRI of a pineapple).

July 12, 2010

Graphing Rivera

Even if you don't like baseball (and you should, it's a beautiful sport) you should go visit this graphic by the New York Times.

Mariano Rivera is a Hall-of-Fame pitcher for a reason, and this is a really clear look at why he is so good at getting hitters out. Besides the coolness of the baseball knowledge, this caught my eye because it is an interesting blend of interactive graphic and a video. It's a creative method of communicating a unique set of information.

If anybody invents a time machine and would like to take me back to teach 8 year old Jeff how to throw a cutter, that'd be great!

July 9, 2010

Classic Badger Games

The Big Ten Network has several shows on Hulu.com, and I recently used that partnership to watch one of the Big Ten's Greatest Basketball Games.

March 5th, 2003: Illinois @ Wisconsin

The game was hard-fought, with the winner taking the Big Ten Regular Season Championship. I'm not going to recap it here - either read it at ESPN or watch the game.

However, I will share some things I couldn't help thinking while the game was on:

1. Holy cow, look how young Alando Tucker looks. Nice 'fro.

2. Actually, Wilkinson looks like a preteen too. Wow.

3. Dave Mader...what an oaf. I think UW's Big Lumbering White Guys All-Star team can compete with anybody else's. Mader, freshman-sophomore year Stiemsma, J.P. Gavinski, Jason Chappell - that's a solid group.

4. That game took place over 7 years ago, and I found myself still getting excited when Devin would hit a three, or Bo got his technical foul. Good times.