In recognition of American Craft Beer Week, I present to you, the 10 best beer names ever.

An analog textual clock - An analog textual clock

With a pickup mounted on the body of the instrument just below the strings, Revathy Krishna, KP Sarada and Sivanandam and Jayanthi Kumaresh get an unexpectedly fat sound out of their veena. Rocking! The instrument is more often amplified with a microphone, in which case it sounds more like this performance by D. Balakrishna, who, as you'll hear, ain't no slouch, neither. And here Pichumani gets his groove on, no doubt about it. So, hey, two more raags for the road, courtesy of Rajeswari Padmanabhan. The second tune on her clip, by the way, has got some deep blues in it, so I'm thinking maybe Rajeswari might've been down to the crossroads at midnight... [NOTE: see hoverovers for link descriptions]
One of the legendary veena masters is S. Balachander. Here's a short documentary on him, with some fabulous reverb on that narrator! Part 1 (4:35) and 2 (4:41). Here's a performance by S. Balachander.

By the way, those clay pots that you see being played as veena accompaniment in these clips are called ghatam. Pretty cool, huh? Here's a player surrounded by a set of tuned ghatam.

The 46 Anime Laws of Physics.

Kim Neely has enjoyed a very rich professional life already. A writer for Rolling Stone for fifteen years, she also penned the Pearl Jam biography. These days find Kim involved in an entirely different pursuit. Lampworking is a type of glass work that uses a gas fueled torch to melt rods and tubes of clear and colored glass. At her mom's unused workshop Kim created Bluff Road Art Glass.
A few of my favorites include these glass bones, this necklace called fossil, and this fine silver link bracelet. Kim also blogs her work.

United States election logos, 2008-1960.

A 3D Exploration of Picasso's Guernica (flash movie via)

Hentai sculpture sells for $15m (NSFW)
Murakami! Murakami! Murakami! Murakami! Murakami! Murakami!

Kittiwat Unarrom is a baker with a unique passion- sculpting delicious gourmet bread treats in the likeness of human body parts. Think bread sculpture meets BodyWorlds. If that's not quite gruesome enough for you, you can feast like a cannibal! (NSFW, no real cannibalism involved)

Arnold Smit shows, step by step, the crafting of a bow. More of his beautiful bows here. (Also available in Dutch.)

In the wake of Iggy Pop's high-larious tour rider, Foo Fighters have updated their 2008 rider (earlier rider here.) Full of jokes about Dio and bacon witticisms, you've got to admire these hardworking young men, for, as they say, "We are just another bend trying to make enough money to fuel our private jet. Please help."

Lori Drew was charged today for her involvement in the MySpace-related suicide of Megan Meier last fall.

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy is an excellent resource for matters philosophical. There you can be enlightened on such diverse subjects as paradoxes existential or logical, Greek or American philosophers obscure to the wider world, philosophers whose names have resounded through the ages, both well-attested and possibly mythical, Buddhist thought and Western mysticism and definitions of thorny and difficult concepts. And that's just a small sampling of the letter P section. All articles are written by specialists on the subject and the editors of the IEP are all academic philosophers. The encyclopedia is far from complete, so if you think you can help out, they have a list of their 100 most desired articles.

While Alaskan senators get mopey about polar bears and climate change, the capitol city is busy cutting their power use... even if it is a bit against their will. The Snettisham Hydro plant suffered a massive avalanche this Spring, taking out the main source of power for Juneau. Some more info

People can handle the truth about war. Veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas reflects on how the media's willingness to show the horrors of war has changed since Vietnam.

WOW is the largest role-playing game in the world. Monster Camp is a new documentary that follows the folks that participate in a real life role playing camp/organization. A WOW camp. For some, this might be heaven. Here are some reviews: Variety, Rotten Tomatoes.
For some of us who are unfamiliar with the massive multi-player game. This could be quiet an eye opener, to a part of the community we don't see often.

I had to add something terrifying, like Tyra explaining the ugly side of WOW.

7 Reasons Why Scifi Book Series Outstay Their Welcomes

NewsFilter: The California Supreme Court has just overturned the state's ban on same-sex marriages. Read the decision.

3 interesting sites: Isidore-of-Seville and Metrum and Elbruz

We're all used to animal cams at the zoo. You can watch animals in the wild or in captivity. But how about a live animal cam at...the library!

120 years of Billboard data. Eternally curious blogger Andy Baio starts a three-day analysis of the data in the Whitburn Project, "a huge undertaking to preserve and share high-quality recordings of every popular song since the 1890s. To assist their efforts, they've created a spreadsheet of 37,000 songs and 112 columns of raw data, including each song's duration, beats-per-minute, songwriters, label, and week-by-week chart position." It all happens on good ol' Usenet--here's a FAQ.

Kevin Colvin may have gotten busted, but his generation is taking over. Millenials are everywhere -- and while some people welcome our bright-eyed, tech-savvy overlords, Gen-X is steadfastly unimpressed

10 optical illusions in 2 minutes - SLYT, Samsung promotion.

The Adventures of God-Man an occasional feature of Ruben Bolling's Tom The Dancing Bug strip

Two Buddhist teachers live a purportedly celibate life together as they strive for new heights of intimacy. But Tibetan Buddhist leaders and scholars are alarmed; the Dalai Lama refused a birthday offering. His teachings on yoga and business are controversial; so is the matter of his three-year "silent" retreat. More on Geshe Michael Roach. (Wiki.)

The very angry caterpillar is a film made by the previously discussed Lichtfaktor for UK children's television programme Blue Peter. It stitches together light paintings using stop-motion (frame-by-frame) techniques.

Academic discussions of stock markets frequently reference The Efficient Markets Hypothesis; an idea that share prices are fairly valued, their prices reflecting all available information. However folklore such as "Sell in May and go away", which proved prudent in 2007, clashes with this theory.
The history of the equity markets is long, and like any discipline with a rich history there is a deep trove of lore and near superstition adhered to by many market participants. But sometimes such folk tales are true.

For example, The Weekend Effect, documents negative a correlation between Friday and Monday returns. Some believe the Weekend Effect is driven by short sellers purchasing shares Friday afternoon to close open positions. But others speculate this is caused by the corporate practice of "burying" bad news by releasing it on Friday afternoons after the markets are closed, thus leading to a Monday morning sell off. Regardless of the cause, The Weekend Effect has been observed in most G20 stock markets, and in some cases for almost a century. Schwert (2002) looked at The Weekend Effect in detail [.pdf].

While there are other market phenomenon linked to days of the week, we also see large number of what are called "calendar effect" anomalies. These tend to be observed at or during specific times of the year, and once again cut across national and cultural boundaries.

Consider The January Effect, which refers to the tendency of the equity markets annual returns to follow the results of the first five trading days in January. In other words, if the market finishes the first week of the year on a positive note, so will the entire year and vice versa. Haug & Hirschey (2006) conducted a very detailed analysis [.pdf] of the January Effect.

Lest one think stock traders are cold hearted capitalists, The Santa Claus Effect gives all good (actually only the longs) equity market participants a present in December in the form of an end of year rally and higher share prices. Some, however, believe this effect reflects nothing more than end of year buying as tax exempt vehicles (e.g., an IRA) are capitalised, or bonuses are received and invested.

Halloween brings seasonal market advise - "Sell in May and go Away but buy back on St. Leger Day". A phenomenon that not only has been observed globally but also documented in England since 1694. Adherents believe in liquidating share holdings each May, not re-entering the market until "St. Leger Day", a date in late September which refers to the running of a horse race at Doncaster in England. Jacobsen & Bouman (2001) studied this effect globally [.pdf].

So how about 2008? Well many will easily recall last summers carnage, with The Dow, the S&P500 and the NASDAQ all losing hundred of millions of dollars of shareholder wealth under much more benign economic conditions.

With the S&P 500 at a relatively low price to earnings ratio, The Fed pushing rates down to 2%, commodity prices trending higher, the housing market sharply down, the American economy slowing and the US Dollar trading at record lows - the summer of 2008 as well as the autumn will no doubt prove very interesting.

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Complete citations to papers referenced
Haug, M., Hirschey, M., 2006, 'The January Effect', Financial Analysts Journal, Vol 62, No 5
Jacobsen, B. , Bouman, S., 2001, 'The Halloween Indicator, Sell in May and Go Away: Another Puzzle', Massey University Working Paper
Schwert, G., W., 2002. Anomalies and Market Efficiency, Handbook of the Economics of Finance, pages 937-972