A grab-bag of things I found interesting

Here are a bunch of items I’ve had starred in google reader for a while and haven’t written about.

An article from The Atlantic about the Chevy Volt, GM’s ambitious plug-in hybrid car project. It’s basically an electric car with a gas engine that can charge the battery on a long trip (but it doesn’t directly run on gas). $4/gallon gas has some advantages (it’s $4.70 on my street, actually).

Yahoo Autos has an article about why the 3,000-mile oil change is a myth. Good thing, because I kept forgetting to get mine changed.

Bruce Schneier recounts one of my favorite stories from his book Beyond Fear:

At 3,106 carats, a little under a pound and a half, the Cullinan Diamond was the largest uncut diamond ever discovered. It was extracted from the earth at the Premier Mine, near Pretoria, South Africa, in 1905. Appreciating the literal enormity of the find, the Transvaal government bought the diamond as a gift for King Edward VII. Transporting the stone to England was a huge security problem, of course, and there was much debate on how best to do it. Detectives were sent from London to guard it on its journey. News leaked that a certain steamer was carrying it, and the presence of the detectives confirmed this. But the diamond on that steamer was a fake. Only a few people knew of the real plan; they packed the Cullinan in a small box, stuck a three-shilling stamp on it, and sent it to England anonymously by unregistered parcel post.

Awesome boxing kangaroo!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_FVD0BR2Mc
That thing throws quite a punch!

A panoramic view of Obama’s Detroit rally.. a massive crowd.

NYTimes: “A household with income under $13,000 spends, on average, $645 a year on lottery tickets, about 9 percent of all income.”
Wow :-/

And finally, a picture from Igor (a coworker) from a little while ago:

Igor’s an excellent photographer, you can see his work here.

I have a bunch more stuff to share, but I’ll save it for another post. Hopefully you bored-at-work folks are sufficiently distracted for the moment. If not, I have more on my friendfeed page.