Bluematter.

TypeRacer is a free online game where you compete against a group of friends or strangers in real-time, with the person who can type the fastest winning the race - I can see this being a massive hit in the blogosphere! The excellent choice of quotes adds a nice touch.

I loved this game, and I finally figured out how many words per minute I can churn out.

Via Kottke, book titles if they were written today:

Then: The Gospel of Matthew
Now: 40 Days and a Mule: How One Man Quit His Job and Became the Boss

Then: Crime and Punishment
Now: Confessions of a Axe Murderer: How Killing An Old Woman Showed Me the Truth About Life, Love, and Morality

Then: The Lion, The Witch, & The Wardrobe
Now: Harry Potter and the whatever the fuck

That's a real quality of Michael Jordan, and something we can all use in our regular daily lives.

He saw just about everything as an excuse to work harder. He didn't make his varsity team ... so he worked harder. He didn't make the playoffs, so he worked harder. He couldn't beat the Pistons, so more work.

The World Economic Forum's latest ranking of competitive countries sees the US fall to second place behind Switzerland, while Singapore moves up to third.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) released The Global Competitiveness Report 2009-2010 in which it ranks countries across the world on how competitive they are, with Switzerland, the US and Singapore taking the top three spots. The report was released ahead of an annual WEF meeting being held in Dalian.

Top Ten Rankings 09/10

Full rankings (PDF) Full rankings (Excel) Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Country Switzerland US Singapore Sweden Denmark Finland Germany Japan Canada Netherlands Score 5.60 5.59 5.55 5.51 5.46 5.43 5.37 5.37 5.33 5.32

The GCN's flagship publication is The Global Competitiveness Report  (GCR). It is the most comprehensive and authoritative assessment of the comparative strengths and weaknesses of national economies, used by governments, academics and business leaders. The GCR was first published in 1979 and its coverage has expanded each year since, now extending to 134 major and emerging economies. Further expansion of coverage is planned.

Deworming is the most cost-effective way to improve school attendance and performance in developing countries:

The simplest and least costly of these programs is deworming. Nearly 2 billion people around the world are affected by parasitic worm infections, with children disproportionately affected.

Harvard economist Michael Kremer has studied the impact of mass deworming in Kenya and India. Delivering deworming medication costs 50 cents per child per year in Kenya but yielded a 25 percent increase in school attendance; a similar program in India cost $4 per student per year and yielded a 20 percent attendance gain. "This is a simple, cost-effective and yet tragically not-done program. It's a scandal that [deworming] hasn't been addressed," Kremer says. There are spillover effects as well. "The most surprising thing about the study in Kenya was the widespread impact," Kremer says. The program drove down infection rates for several kilometers around the schools, he says, and there were significant improvements in attendance for untreated students, in the treatment schools as well as in nearby schools not in the program.

The short story: Techcrunch messes with Facebook, Facebook gets back at them with style - who would have thought corporations can have a sense of humour? HT Popehat

It’s not generally appreciated that health care expenditures for people in the lowest 15% of income are 50% to 100% greater than for people of average income. There’s also a difference at the high end. The wealthiest 15% also consume more, but only about 20% more. So there’s greater utilization at both ends of the income spectrum, but for different reasons and with different outcomes.

More spending at the high end improves outcomes, not simply for a specific condition but across the board, because the care consists of a broader spectrum of beneficial services. More yields more. But among the low-income patients, outcomes are poor despite the added spending. In fact, the added spending is because of poor outcomes – more readmissions, more care for disease that’s out of control.

The mobile phone evolution between 1983-2009

Company names with their name origins explained

Virtual Stan

I'm warming up!

The art of timeless logos

Bluematter is being revamped, so funny things will be happening to the layout over the coming days. Regular blogging service of the type not seen around around here for months will also be starting in a couple of weeks, so check back soon.

The world's coolest tennis court

More the the same marvelous landscape pictures

Peter Funch's stills on people of New York

PlanBA: Personally tailoring your time in Argentina

North Korea frees two U.S. journalists after Clinton trip

Virtual Stan