• A proposed “soda tax” is nothing new, but Mark Bittman gets comprehensive about the potential benefits and the dangers of the status quo.
• What is the best single-page resource for learning about map projections?
  I would posit this page.
• The always entertaining and approachable Neil deGrasse Tyson breaks down the problem with “unidentified” flying objects and what it would take for him to believe an abduction story.

Tom Waits describes twenty albums of particular importance to him. On the Captain Beefheart album Trout Mask Replica:

The roughest diamond in the mine, his musical inventions are made of bone and mud. Enter the strange matrix of his mind and lose yours. This is indispensable for the serious listener. An expedition into the center of the earth, this is the high jump record that’ll never be beat, it’s a merlot reduction sauce. He takes da bait. Dante doing the buck and wing at a Skip James suku jump. Drink once and thirst no more.

Chasing a heavier sound, Lou Reed tuned all six of his guitar strings to D for a pre-Velvets party song called The Ostrich. The Ostrich guitar was born and its peculiar drone was later used to great effect on tracks like Venus in Furs.

• New camera technology is coming that allows photographers to change the focus of a photo after the snap. The data captured by the “micro-lens array” puts a simple two-lens 3D shot to shame.
• With some old documents and a little urban archaeology Forgotten Chicago maps out the evolution of Chicago’s El system, exploring its many abandoned and demolished lines.
• Hats. All of ‘em. Thanks, Wikipedia.