The American Red Cross needs to do two things to attract more people to give blood.

First, give money instead of coupons/shwag/etcetera.  Everyone loves money.  Not everyone loves specific goods.

Secondly, and most importantly, market giving blood as a weight loss tool.  Apparently you burn something like 2,000 calories on average by giving blood.  For a lot of people, that is a day’s worth of food.  Since Americans will do all sorts of crazy things except eating right and exercising to lose weight, such as the cabbage soup diet, you’d think they would also try giving blood every now and then.  I think 2,000 calories is close to one pound of fat (I think one pound is 2,500).  So the American Red Cross should be saying: “Donate Blood - Lose a Pound!”

Hulu.com is the coolest website ever.  On it, you can watch full length episodes of a ton of TV Shows and some full-length movies for free.  They have lots of popular shows like The Office, The Simpsons, etcetera, but they even have one of my favorite obscure shows of all time: Jack of All Trades!  The website just launched today, but based on my test viewing of one episode of Jack of All Trades, it runs really smooth and is very easy to use.  When watching, the only interruption is a commercial once every 10 minutes or so, and the commercials are only about 25 seconds each, which is not bad at all.  I highly recommend checking Hulu out.

Ever wondered what the current US Supreme Court Justices think about legal writing? Want some tips from some of the brightest legal minds of our time? Check out this link, and watch interviews with the current justices and listen to their thoughts on legal writing. Very cool.

If you want to get good fuel economy, sit ten feet behind a tractor trailer.  You barely have to touch the gas.  I just filled up my Toyota Camry and averaged 36 miles per gallon, after driving in tons of wind, and 1/3 of that tank city driving.  I average 36, but if you net out the city stuff and the wind, and the fact that the drive had a net elevation climb of a few thousand feet, I was probably in the mid 40s.  All hail gigantic trucks that get 2 miles per gallon that allow commoners like me to draft off of them.

P.S. I swear it’s safe.  I mean, think about how long it takes a truck to brake.  Even if you’re close to the truck, unless you fall asleep at the wheel you won’t crash into it when it starts to slow down.

Check out this graph. I haven’t checked out the underlying data, but based on everyday experience, I would say this graph is accurate. Not only is it more convenient to eat unhealthy food such as pre-packaged sweets, but it is less expensive as well. So, a rational person has two factors telling him to choose unhealthy food over healthy food. The question is, why is unhealthy food cheaper?

I do not have a personal underlying theory as to why unhealthy food is cheaper. The cynical person in me says this is because of lobbyists in the unhealthy food industries. The uncynical person says maybe it’s economies of scale of producing packaged foods, since they are more produced than grown and those costs are easier to bring down.

Regardless, this is interesting.

Hat Tip: Photo Basement