Lists are popular among blog writers, so I thought I might try a top-ten listing of the blogs that I most like to keep up to date with. The rest of the list might follow, but for now, here are just the four blogs I read most (in no particular order) when I want to be inspired, informed, or entertained:

Art of Nonconformity
“Unconventional strategies for life, work and travel”
Chris Guillebeau is an intrepid traveller, and I’ve been following with interest his journey towards the goal of visiting every country in the world by the age of 35. So far, at age 31, he’s been to 107 countries out of 197. He also writes very well on the topic of living an unconventional life, something that resonates with people like me who don’t think being “normal” is all it’s cracked up to be. He doesn’t profess any spiritual beliefs on his website, but his writings line up well with the bible’s teachings on being the unique individual you were created to be, rather than conforming to the pattern of the world.

Get Rich Slowly
“Personal finance that makes cents”
There’s plenty of dodgy stuff on the internet about getting rich quick, but this blog is refreshingly different (just ignore the ads Google places on it). It’s a great resource of personal finance tips and information grounded in good sense and wisdom; the result of extensive research by an average guy named J.D. Roth who got himself out of debt and lives frugally. Some of the content applies to an American audience, but this can be excused as the author is an American.

Backyard Missionary
“Unrefined theological musings, random personal reflections and occasional naughtiness”
This trained pastor, but otherwise regular guy - Andrew Hamilton - writes on subjects ranging from spirituality to books to coffee, and much other stuff. Whatever the topic, he writes from a Christian perspective, but with an authenticity and “down-to-earth-ness” that real people can relate to. Sometimes he raises questions and doubts which I suspect most of us have thought, but never felt comfortable about speaking out. He has just set off with his family on a six month trip round-Australia road trip - the grey nomad lifestyle, but without waiting until he’s old and grey.

Cafe Grendel
“The blog of a coffee snob and home coffee roasting enthusiast”
The subject of this blog is mostly coffee-related, but Grendel (sometimes known as Michael Carroll) writes on a range of other subjects with knowledge, wit and compassion. His Perth Coffee Map is a great resource for anyone looking for a guide to the best coffee outlets in Perth and beyond, all sampled and reviewed personally by Grendel … oh, what sacrifice! He roast his own beans rather well too.

Incidentally, I discovered these four blogs quite independantly of each other, before learning that:

• The writers of the first two blogs both live in Portland, Oregon, and they know each other.
• The writers of the last two blogs both live in Perth’s far northern suburbs, not far from each other, and they know each other. One day I bumped into both of them at a cafe.

Big internet, small world

Introducing the latest book in the popular Dummies series - “Lint Collecting For Dummies: How to pluck a Guinness world record out of your navel”.

Could this be my own instructional book describing how to achieve recognition for a navel lint collection, like I did?

No, it’s just a joke. The book cover shown is a fake one, produced at the Dummies Book Cover Maker website. Here, anyone can type in a name and subtitle, select a few options, and be presented with a realistic looking book cover based on what you type in.

If you ever wanted to see what “Genetic Modification for Dummies” might look like, or any other title, now you know where to go.

The idea that an ice age could be caused by global warming, not cooling, seems counter-intuitive … but its an idea being taken more seriously by many scientists.

This article states “if enough cold, fresh water coming from the melting polar ice caps and the melting glaciers of Greenland flows into the northern Atlantic, it will shut down the Gulf Stream, which keeps Europe and northeastern North America warm. The worst-case scenario would be a full-blown return of the last ice age - in a period as short as 2 to 3 years from its onset …”. The article explains how this could happen, as does this one.

The above mainly affects the northern hemisphere, but some scientists (such as Dr Joachim Scheven) claim that warmer oceans may have triggered an ice age globally - due to higher evaporation being balanced by higher precipitation which leads to more snow in cooler areas.

Global average temperatures may have risen, but a lot of weather events are breaking records in the other direction. This extensive list of record cold weather and unusual snowfalls suggests warming is not exactly global.

So where is it all heading? I’ve no idea; as a weather enthusiast I just find it interesting.

You can find out almost anything on the internet. A classic example of this is the Toiletology 101 website by Kay Keating - “A free course on toilet repairs to save water and money”.

This unique resource promises “Almost everything you ever wanted to know about your toilets! And some things you probably never knew you needed to know”. Many years ago it helped me repair a fault in my toilet’s cistern. Last weekend, with my toilet constantly dripping, I remembered the site and was able to rectify the problem, thanks in part to the understanding of toilet plumbing gained from reading Toiletology 101.

Even if your loo is faultless, there’s plenty to interest those into gadgets and learning how stuff works. Useful information freely available … its what makes the internet great.

Of interest to website design geeks … an easy method of applying borders and drop shadows to images, which I accidentally found in this article.

Instead of having to add borders and shadows to every image using a graphics program (as I did for my WA Snow pages), this method applies similar effects to plain images using CSS and a couple of DIV tags around the image’s HTML code. In other words, laborious and repetitive image editing is replaced with a bit of text.

In my example (a Firefox screenshot), the left photo has border and drop-shadow applied using this neat trick, while the other doesn’t. Both use the same source image. Its apparently compatible with most browsers, although Internet Explorer leaves out the white frame.

I’ve applied this effect to my cow photos gallery, and plan to use it on others … such as my new Tasmanian photo gallery which is coming soon.

Ever wondered what the world’s population is? Not last year or the year before, but right now? You can see an up-to-date estimate at the World Population web page.

The interesting thing about this counter is that it updates each second. I knew the world population was over six billion, but to see a number increasing before my eyes (at a net rate of about three per second after subtracting deaths from births) emphasised the reality and urgency of population growth.

With a finite supply of fossil fuels, sea level rises expected to flood vast areas of currently populated land, and climate change capable of upsetting food production, it makes you wonder … where will it end? The population surely can’t increase at this rate forever.

Recently I read the phrase “get the short end of the stick”, and wondered where this expression came from. It means to suffer the bad effects of a situation, or to get a raw deal, or the worst outcome … but how this relates to sticks didn’t appear at all obvious.

At first I thought about it literally. How is the end of a stick defined? How far up the stick does the “end” extend? If the ends of a stick are its furthest extremeties, then that would make them points, which have no size and therefore can’t be short or long. If not, then what would make the short end worse than the long end? Some Googling was required.

Thankfully I came across The Phrase Finder website and the light dawned. This post contained an explanation:

I am quite confident that the phrase “short end of the stick” refers to an old fashioned method for carrying heavy objects (this can be visualized using a bale of hay). A long stick is inserted through ropes or cords wrapped around the object and two (or more) people carry the object together. If the load is off-center a disproportionate burden is placed on the person(s) on the “short end of the stick”

So now I know, and can once again sleep at night!

If you’ve ever entered a public toilet and wondered which urinal to stand at, or wondered what the proper protocol is when using someone else’s bathroom, then a visit to the International Centre for Bathroom Etiquette may answer your questions … and others you hadn’t thought of.

Its light-hearted, but more than just toilet humour. The use of e-mail in toilets, and the latest news in toilet technology, are some of the other subjects on this unusual website. Its good to see that someone is thinking about how to be considerate of others while conducting one’s business.