If you’re in need of some reading material on a weekend and are in the vicinity of Baltimore, Maryland, stop by The Book Thing and see what they’ve got. You can take it with you for free. Yup, no charge. The catch? The book is stamped “Not For Resale”, so if you are intending to profit from this venture, you won’t look too good. But otherwise, feel free to browse and pick what you like. As the FAQ says: Q. Is there a limit to how many books I can take? A. You can only take 150,000 per day per person. (From a NY Times article on founder Russell Wattenberg)

Herein lies The Untold History of Flash. I had no idea that Macromedia Flash has its roots in the somewhat fertile soil of pen computing and the long gone Go operating system. Creating graphics software for a pen environment was a worthy endeavor, perhaps more so than trying to convince business people to adopt the platform for work. After the market completely dried up and AT&T; pulled the plug on Go, the SmartSketch team turned the product into animation software, the Internet became an everyday thing, and now the tale is history. (thank you Kathryn!)

I’ve seen plenty of “Work from home!” signs nailed to telephone poles and received my share of similar spam as well. Rob Cockerham actually went out of his way to research what exactly was behind all the signs that were littering the city of Sacramento. The short story is that they are the fruits of labor from people trying to “get rich quick” from the already saturated Herbalife market. His study details what is involved in investing yourself in the scheme, why it probably won’t do you any good, and what it is that you are actually trying to sell (some formulations contain ephedrine and the newer ones probably don’t help you lose weight). Rob would like the sign litter to stop and to get the word out on what is behind it. (Oh, and by the way, he would also like to know how this BART garbage can managed to travel to downtown Sacramento.) (via BrainLog)

Instead of having its components screwed into a case, this homebrewed computer is held together with spray-on polyurethane foam. “Disclaimer: DON’T do this at home kids, any modern CPU or GPU will generate too much heat to remain operable in such tight and highly isolated environments such as a PU-foam case.” Oh, and it’s not upgradeable and difficult to repair too. (via Larkfarm)

“Progressive Men Employ Progressive Methods” The text of the 1931 edition of “Songs of IBM” is online thanks to someone who understands the amazing power of the Internet as an archival medium. The site includes a wav file recording of employees singing “Ever Onward”. Some of the tunes may no longer be familiar, but there are plenty of lyrics written for well-known classics such as “Over There”, “Glory Glory Hallelujah”, and “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.” Times have certainly changed. (via /usr/bin/girl)

A couple of years ago, I lamented that American Express was not actually producing their Blue card as advertised with see-through plastic because of problems with ATM machines. Well, I held a recently issued one in my hand yesterday, and it was most definitely clear. So if you have an opaque Blue card, you may want to accidently misplace it and call for a new one. Or, perhaps, they have already sent you one you can peer through.

I was a big fan of Pirate’s Booty for a while last year. It’s a puffed cheese snack and it fueled late night Diablo II sessions without puffing up the fat cells. After I had eaten too much of it, though, it started reminding me of those new environmentally friendly packing peanuts that dissolve in water. So I haven’t had any in a while. But William Grimes of the NY Times recently tried it out, after having been pestered by acquaintances about it. Turns out Good Housekeeping verified his disbelief that the product was as low-fat as it claimed. The Good Housekeeping Institute sent bags out to independent labs for analysis. One ounce of Booty contained 8.5 grams of fat and 147 calories. The bags were labeled as having 2.5 grams of fat and 120 calories per serving. Oops. When contacted, the company claimed that they knew about the problem and the cause was a new manufacturing process and the bags would be relabeled. They then recalled the misleading bags. Currently, the information on their site claim 5 grams of fat and 128 calories. Ah well. I am much more enamored of Good Health’s Rosemary Olive Oil Potato Chips. They are so full-flavored that you can be satisfied after just a few chips (though you may find yourself eating up the entire bag).

The latest fashion statement from the bio-tech industry is jeans dyed blue by genetically altered bacteria. These little buggers, none other than a strain of the well known E. coli, take in sugar and produce tryptophan (also well known for its Thanksgiving Day nap-inducing properties) which is converted to indigo. This is a more environmentally friendly way to create our favorite blue denim color as it does not create toxic by-products.

There’s hope for tinnitus sufferers with a new therapy method based on differentiating between computer generated tones. This practice actually reduces the disproportionately large areas of the auditory cortex that are believed to be the cause of the ringing noise. (And I apologize to those people who now hear a ringing noise because of the fact that I made them remember they had one.)

Keeping kosher? Want your dog or cat to keep kosher too? KosherPets was founded by a Florida couple who started feeding kosher meat to their dog for health reasons. Their high quality homemade pet food impressed their Jewish neighbors who kept asking for it even upon their return to summer homes. A business was born, and they are now certified kosher for Passover.