Though individuals with allergies lived throughout the study area, the authors found that allergies were tied to the amount of biodiversity around the teenagers’ homes; the more forest and agricultural land, the lower the prevalence of allergies. On the other hand, kids living near bodies of water or in urban centers had significantly higher levels of allergies.

∞

Though he understood children deeply, Mr. Sendak by no means valorized them unconditionally. “Dear Mr. Sun Deck …” he could drone with affected boredom, imitating the semiliterate forced-march school letter-writing projects of which he was the frequent, if dubious, beneficiary.

But he cherished the letters that individual children sent him unbidden, which burst with the sparks that his work had ignited.

“Dear Mr. Sendak,” read one, from an 8-year-old boy. “How much does it cost to get to where the wild things are? If it is not expensive, my sister and I would like to spend the summer there.”

Look at the world around you. You are already where the wild things are.

∞

The beauty of the novel is that it is succinct in the way that only a story recounted from memory can be, and Barnes captures this style with the addition of the occasional tangent about how we remember scattered throughout the story when our narrator, Tony, feels so compelled to comment on the topic out of the need for excuses or a search for resolution. However, Barnes saved the best for last. That is to say, the ending of the novel surprises you and proceeds to worm into your mind for days following as you ponder everything that has happened.

Jess Severson wrote a good review of the novel’s ending over at Don’t Mind the Mess. It contains many spoilers, so finish the book before you head over there, but here’s a taste.

You can’t read this book without wanting to talk about the end. I was online looking at discussions and reviews in the middle of the night to make sure I’d worked it out just right.

Some may say that with his spare last few pages, Barnes does the reader no favors. After all, he never spells out in exact terms precisely what it all means. But it’s all there.

Indeed, Barnes does give a meandering explanation, but there’s so much more that is left unsaid. The characters are suddenly not exactly as you’ve come to picture them, and the reader is only ever given Tony’s memory as a framework upon which to build the settings and characters of his past.

While I do not think that The Sense of an Ending should be the winner of this year’s Rooster award, I would not be surprised if it does win. Regardless of the tournament outcome, this slim volume is worth a couple hours of your time to read.

∞

Mac OS X — sorry, OS X — is going on an iOS-esque one-major-update-per-year development schedule. This year’s update is scheduled for release in the summer, and is ready now for a developer preview release. Its name is Mountain Lion.

∞

Why is this notable? Aren’t there other “geniuses” who go to college early all the time? Yes, but when asked if he is a genius, Cavalin states,

“That’s always the question that bothers me,” Cavalin, who turned 14 on Tuesday, says when the G-word is raised. “People need to know you don’t really need to be a genius. You just have to work hard and you can accomplish anything.”

And maybe cut out some of the TV.

Although he’s a big fan of Jackie Chan movies, Cavalin says he limits his television time to four hours a week.

Take note. Cavalin said four hours of television per week. Aside from the fact that most American households have more televisions than people in them, those people are watching the “tube” for over 30 hours per week.

Americans watched more television than ever in 2010, according to the Nielsen Company. Total viewing of broadcast networks and basic cable channels rose about 1 percent for the year, to an average of 34 hours per person per week.

The difference between Cavalin’s television viewing and that of the average American is a part-time job qualifying 30 hours. If you spent an extra 30 hours per week on any other endeavor, you would find that you could accomplish a lot more. Although, I suppose your television pop culture trivia skills would suffer.

For those who might claim that Cavalin probably does nothing other than study, remember that he wrote and translated a book while in college, and he also participates in plenty of recreational activities, including scuba diving.

Cavalin’s level of determination isn’t for everyone, true, but if you take half of the time you would normally spend consuming media and use that time to create, learn, explore, or play, you would likely have a much richer and more interesting life.

I am impressed by Cavalin’s drive. At 14 years old, he’s already an excellent role model.

∞

Rebecca Eaton, executive producer of PBS’s “Masterpiece”, describes the appeal.

“Downton” appeals because it is a colorful piece of social history, set on the cusp of huge change.

“I think that it is tremendously reassuring, because we live in a time of unresolved crises, to watch a show that not only has beautiful eye candy, gorgeous costumes and actors, but where whatever is wrong sooner or later gets resolved,” she said.

My wife watches the show with me, and claims that it is “okay”, but I think she secretly finds humor in my rabid obsession with the well-disguised soap opera. I prefer to call “Downton Abbey” a riveting drama. I also think my wife secretly enjoys the show just as much as I do. And how could one not? It’s so good.

∞

Upon inspecting closer, I noticed that my entire address book (including full names, emails and phone numbers) was being sent as a plist to Path. Now I don’t remember having given permission to Path to access my address book and send its contents to its servers, so I created a completely new “Path” and repeated the experiment and I got the same result – my address book was in Path’s hands.

Disclaimer: I’m not insinuating that Path is doing something nefarious with my address book but I feel quite violated that my address book is being held remotely on a third-party service. I love Path as an iOS app and I think there are some brilliant people working on it, but this seems a little creepy. I wonder how many other iOS apps actually do the same…

Mark Chang has discovered that Path is not the only app to do this.

Hipster starts with a POST to api.hipster.com/v1/people

Worth noting, this is not over HTTPS, and it sends your info, including password and iPhone UID in plaintext. Ugh.

…

The Hipster app, in an unsecured HTTP GET request, sends a big chunk of your iPhone address book in the form of an email param that includes a comma-separated list of email addresses.

…

The Hipster app allows you to deselect the “Contacts” button when looking for new friends, but it is enabled by default. Therefore, there is no way to avoid sending address book emails to Hipster, as far as I can tell.

The CEO of Path has recently stated that in the next update of the iOS app, an opt-in option will be available to control whether or not your contacts are sent; however, Hipster app already has the option, but it is opt-out and therefore on by default.

While I think it is good form for app developers to let the user decide whether or not they want a third party app server storing all of their address book contacts or not, I think Kottke hit the nail on the head when he said,

What. The. Hell! Apple?

My guess is that the API is available because Apple leverages it in some manner as well, but if we want apps to stop sending all of our contacts off of our iOS devices, then perhaps Apple needs to remove that capability. I’m not sure of the full privacy implications here since it appears that a lot of data is sent plain-text over HTTP connections, but there are definitely some data control issues with applications transmitting your data off of your device without explicit permission or notification.

∞

Exploiting Bethesda’s freshly released Skyrim Creation Kit, the team at Valve has put together a Space Core mod, which literally drops a Portal 2 personality core out of the sky and into the realm of Tamriel. You can pick up the hardy little orb and tote it around with you — it’s pretty much indestructible and its major purpose is to babble uncontrollably using the vocal talents of Nolan North.

Dropping a little Portal personality into the world of Skyrim is awesome. I’ll be loading this mod for certain.

∞

For two and a half weeks, I mulled the Lumia 800’s merits. It’s a beautiful, sturdy phone with a great battery, a good camera, and a decent screen. But was it good enough to replace my year-and-a-half-old iPhone 4? I wondered. Well, it hasn’t. As impressive as the Lumia is, its ecosystem leaves a lot to be desired, and the apps I’ve come to know and love are nowhere to be found in Microsoft Marketplace.

I also feel that a smartphone ought to double as a pocketable computer. Unfortunately, the Lumia doesn’t fit that bill either. Too many pieces are missing from Mango. I am, however, confident that Microsoft and Nokia will hit their stride down the road, and when they do, the Lumia will be a force to be reckoned with. It’s just not there yet.

Perhaps I should give Microsoft and Nokia one more year to expand the Windows Phone ecosystem. The other issue I have is that there is nothing to rival the clarity of the Retina display on the iPhone. Using anything else just feels like a major step backward, especially when pixels are visible. Apple was brilliant to increase the pixel density on the iPhone when they did. [via 512 Pixels]

∞

I’ve trained for marathons, triathlons, 10Ks, a 13.5-hour challenge, Ubanathlons, and more. But my favorite fitness program isn’t one where you train for a major event.

It’s where you get fit by a thousand little actions.

When the actions are tiny, they are easy. You have no excuse. You can do them anywhere, all day long.

I fold fitness into my life, like blueberries into batter, and it becomes a part of the recipe, not just a topping.

Go read Leo’s entire post for the breakdown, but the Thousand Cuts Fitness Program works on the premise of short, frequent exercise throughout your day. This is nothing new, but for those who often cite the excuse that they have no time for getting in shape, this is the program to adopt.

Since I have a desk job, I will randomly drop and do 20 push-ups or go for a 5-minute walk during my work day. Movement and action are vital to your health. The human body has excellent endurance and has evolved to support a mobile lifestyle, not a sedentary one.

If you want to jump-start your fitness routine, then start now. There will never be a better time. There never is. Life does not wait for you, so stop waiting for it to give you an opportunity. Create your own opportunity to be a healthier, happier person.

I can tell you from personal experience, if you’ve never done a pull-up before, the first time you are able to do one feels awesome. Be well.

∞