Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

…and that’s not the only good news to come out of the NSF’s recent tasty-sounding Cocoa Conference.

Chocolate-loving inhabitants of Panama (Kuna island-dwellers drink 5 cups of cocoa a day) seem to be protected from cancer and heart disease by the very high levels of flavonols in their cocoa. Sadly, most of these flavonols are lost in the process of making commercial chocolate. But Mars Inc. is experimenting with a new pro-cocoa product that may fulfill the hot-fudge prediction in Woody Allen’s Sleeper.*

Five cups of cocoa a day? I’m not sure that even I want to be that healthy…

Dr. Melik: … wheat germ, organic honey and… tiger’s milk?

Dr. Aragon: Oh, yes. Those are the charmed substances that some years ago were thought to contain life-preserving properties.

Dr. Melik: You mean there was no deep fat? No steak or cream pies or… hot fudge?

Dr. Aragon: [chuckling] Those were thought to be unhealthy… precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true.

Tip for cabin fever: a tower of tippable teddy bears from the Netherlands…and thanks to MontaukRider for sending them to me!

And I’ve got even more linkadelic links:

• From Shutterclog Niek, Sun rising and setting over the globe
• Even more from the Netherlands–a contest for latte swirlies?
• Dive right into the work of this sidewalk chalk guy
• God spoke two words to a television preacher–unbelievably, those words were “Millionaire potential.”

Steve Rubel’s explaining memetrackers* to the marketers. “Look, but don’t touch,” says he. Darn good advice, but not possible in quantum mechanics, where observing any event inherently changes it.

Now, picture Web 2.0 as a Schrödinger’s cat, with more people peeking and poking at her every day. Is she starting to look rather different from what we expected?

Sticking to memetrackers, since that’s what Steve wrote about:

There’s now a huge difference between linking to the last story at the bottom of the page on Memetracker X and linking to the only-slightly-less-popular story that almost but never-quite made it onto that page. This creates a huge incentive for ambitious bloggers to try to link to stories they think will be popular link-targets instead of linking to stories that tickle their interest.

The linkage pattern of profit-seeking bloggers is changed because it’s observed–pulled toward what Kevin Marks called the zero-sum game of traditional media, instead of the what GapingVoid calls the “nice long tail.”

A lot of Web 2.0 Schrödinger’s cats need to worry a bit more about those nice long tails.

Can you say that three times fast?

If so, you’re probably somebody like Richard Doherty, research director of the Envisioneering Group, talking in Adage about MySpace.

Ah, to see ourselves as others see us…

I didn’t know that the Nobel Foundation had posted a bunch of our family photos in Frank’s Nobel biography.

Regular readers of this blog have seen Frank with devil horns, posing with that notorious imp Richard Feynman, but I also really love this angelic photo of him giving a very long-ago talk.

Also, I must confess, the way I looked playing guitar in my early twenties…

What does it sound like?

Listen for yourself as the baby Hippocampus erectus nibbles, tink-clinking like alien faint wind-chimes. Then stick around to play UCSD’s seahorse game…

This moment of zen tranquility comes to you via Marc Abrahams of the Ig Nobels. Did you notice that his blog has a new URL now? Thanks, Marc.

Seth Godin asks:

Is “I accept responsibility” the new “Your call is very important to us”?

It’s a phrase getting lots of play in DC right now, as Dick Cheney and Michael Chertoff theatrically “accept responsibility” for misdeeds that were, in fact, clearly their fault but for which, also clearly, they expect no punishment.

I will point out that Google News Search turns up 240 results for “accepts responsibility”, a very popular moral stance among convicted felons…

Julie and Ted Leung’s laptops were stolen

Sad story, great blogpost. Among minor losses: her blogroll. Leave your URL in the comments if you were on it.

Chris Bliss can juggle and the Beatles can sing…

Ballplay as percussion, the naked passion of geekery, and other stuff you never knew could make “Golden Slumbers” better–thanks to Dervala for the link!

SXSW Interactive just put schedule info online

Shortlist recs: tagging, creating passionate users, more tagging, and bloggers in love!

David Weinberger has a tag line for Boston…

“And what did you get on your SAT’s?”