Two awesome links -- useful for class!

Screen shot from This Too Shall Pass video by OK Go

Although I spent three straight days working on class and demo setup at the end of spring break, I don't have anything I'm ready to post about these. 

Instead, I recommend two links:

1.  This music video by the Illinois rock band OK Go reminds me of the halcyon days when MTV actually played clever music videos rather than girls dancing without their vests on.  The 4-minute video chronicles the world's most awesome rube goldberg device -- it puts that Honda commercial from a few years back to shame.  Physics content galore!  Thanks to Carrie Russell for making me aware.

2.  Randall Munroe, author of the xkcd comic strip that I linked a couple of weeks ago, frequently produces content that I want plastered on the walls of my classroom.  I've already ordered his visual presentation of character interactions in Star Wars and Lord of the Rings (click on the image to enlage; go to his store to order the poster).  This chart about metric units and orders of magnitude will be coming next, once I get around to ordering again.

But today's special awesome poster isn't yet available in Munroe's store. A friend of his who works in nuclear physics was becoming frustrated at fielding so may calls from ignorant journalists in the wake of the issues at the Japanese nuclear plant.  At the friend's request, Munroe created this Radiation Dose Chart.  I've linked here to the "blag"* post about the chart because he summarizes the chart's history and rationale there.  Click on the small image for a large image.  Look for the bananaphone reference!  This chart is public domain, so you can get it printed and hung yourself; I'm just waiting until it shows up in the xkcd store.

* Munroe writes a "blag," not a "blog."  He just likes being technologically different.

I'm generally not a fan of "link dump" posts, but (a) these were too good to pass up, and (b) I don't have anything else today.  Time for class -- I'll have lots more by the weekend.