MountMap Pop-up Topographic Ski Map:
Combining the thrill of pop-up books with the danger of handling tricky paper folds while perched on the edge of a snow-covered mountain, MountMaps offers topographical maps of ski resorts printed on waterproof, recyclable plastic. Well, two resorts, at least, but you get the idea. The maps fold out of a small case to show elevation, ski paths, buildings, and cave dwellings of the fierce but proud Snowboardin’ Yeti. Each case also includes a 16-28 page key for using your MountMap, which doesn’t sound awkward at all.
Mountmaps were originally conceived by Stephen Brittan and Fletcher Morgan on a chairlift in Chamonix, France, and executed with “two thousand year old oragami techniques and lots of mathmatics and science.” You’re putting your life in the hands of two Englishmen at high altitudes that like making paper cranes. (Thanks, Andy!)
MountMaps: The World’s First Pop-up Topographical Ski Map [MountMaps]

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yep, that is cool

Rules for papers (it’s always simpler than students think):
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It’s not so much a rule as it is a peeve, but one thing I’d add to that list is “I HATE MICROSOFT WORD.” It’s a bulky, clumsy, ugly program that lards files with so much crap and distracts writers with so many useless geegaws that I think it actively conspires to diminish people’s writing ability. When I ask for papers to be submitted electronically, I do not mean that I want a Word file as an attachment: I want plain text. Don’t fuss over fonts or paragraph formats or borders or margins, just type the words, then copy and paste into an e-mail document. When I write, I always just use a simple text editor (SubEthaEdit is currently the editor of choice), and then if I need to (for instance, because I’ve got to add superscripts or a complicated table), I’ll copy it to Word for final touch-up…but I spend as little time in that wretched mess of a program as I can.

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that’s the ticket… it really is. clean, pure text, that’s the stuff. works much better than anything else i’ve seen.

All right, it’s the “knock the bitch up” contest: