the Times

Plans are underway to build a beach with refrigerated sand at the new Palazza Versace hotel in Dubai. A substructure of pipes will circulate coolant under the sand to keep guests' feet from getting burned. Giant fans are also proposed to generate an "ocean breeze." The eco-impact of the scheme is a concern. The whole thing reminds me of the domed beaches and ski resorts covered in Iara Lee's cyber-era documentary Synthetic Pleasures.

Starting today, visitors to NYTimes.com have the option of seeing an enhanced version of our home page that we call Times Extra. This alternate view of the same editorial slate adds links to related coverage from third-party news sources and blogs — right there beneath our main news stories.

Memorization is a waste of time when Google is only a a few clicks away. That's what Don Tapscott, author of the bestselling books Wikinomics and Growing Up Digital, believes. Tapscott, considered by many to be a leading commentator on our Internet age, believes the age of learning through the memorization of facts and figures is coming to an end.

Just spotted on Twitter (search: mumbai or #mumbai) and via chat sessions here in the Boing Boing tv studio: Attacks in Bombay (NYT), and here's a snip from the

Meant to blog this when it came out, but it's one of the funniest/creepiest things I've ever read in the Times: a really odd Q&A with Karl Rove.

Don't miss story in the Times today about the steps being taken to repair one of our major water tunnels:

For this, the city has enlisted six deep-sea divers who are living for more than a month in a sealed 24-foot tubular pressurized tank complete with showers, a television and a Nerf basketball hoop, breathing air that is 97.5 percent helium and 2.5 percent oxygen, so their high-pitched squeals are all but unintelligible.

Have you ever heard a song by a band and totally been turned on to that band, rushing out to buy their record, listening to it, and then excitedly telling your friend all about your "discovery", saying, "Hey, have you ever heard of this band called The Rolling Stones??? They ROCK!" only to have your heart crushed when your friend tells you that band's old news? (Tankboy has to do it to me all the time.) We hate to be "that friend," but...

By Steven Snell

News websites can be intriguing to examine from a design perspective. Regardless of what type of news they cover, they all face the challenge of displaying a huge amount of content on the home page, which creates plenty of layout, usability and navigational challenges for the designer. The lessons that can be learned from examining how news websites address these challenges can be valuable for designers who work with other types of websites, including ones with blog theme designs.

What do you get when you move the head of digital media at one of the world's leading old-school press outfits into the CEO's office of an even hipper large music and news organization? We don't know, but we're excited to find out! Veteran media exec Vivian Schiller announced today that she's leaving her position as head of NewYorkTimes.com to become the new CEO of National Public Radio (NPR).