Take an F1 track and race a Fiat, Ferrari 360 Modena, and an F1 car for one lap. Who wins? Nah, let's make it interesting: Give the Fiat a 30-second head start over the Ferrari and don't even start the F1 until one minute and twenty-one seconds have passed. Yeah, same result, but a lot more interesting this way.

Great photo essay on the growth of Hummingbirds from eggs to fully grown—and leaving the nest.

Corey Doctorow over at <I>Boing-Boing</I> links to this amazing clip of "Tumse Hai Dil Ko" from the 1965 movie <I>Jaanwar</I>. It is, of course, "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" filtered through a Bollywood sensibility, and it's great fun.

Interesting collection of images from Cornell's division of rare and manuscript collections.

Paul Lim then introduced me to the diminutive NuForce Reference 9 monoblock amps ($4200/pair) in their very attractive Rose Copper Special Edition finish. I'm all about the fancy colors, y'all.

Imagine HiFi's Paul Lim redirected my attention to Almarro's cute A205A amplifier in sassy iPod white finish. The price of this amp with iPod input has yet to be determined, but the standard version goes for $800.

Though the finish of the Cain & Cain speakers was lovely, all I could really focus on were their Frisbee-like belly buttons. I'm a little bit sorry to admit that, because I found the speaker itself unattractive, I lost interest in what it had to say. I couldn't get around the looks to examine the sound. This is something I will have to work on.

According to researchers at the University of Illinois, if you drop food on hardwood or tile floors and pick it up within five seconds, it probably <I>is</I> safe to eat.That's because it takes at least that long for germs to devour dropped dry food. It takes wet food less time to become contaminated&mdash;and if you drop food onto carpet, all bets are off. "That's an entirely different story and we haven't done that study yet."