April 2008 Archives
I like the Scottish guy with the urinary tract infection...
Topless Robot - The 10 Most Ridiculously Stereotyped Fighting Game Characters
Street Fighter II has a lot to answer for. Sure, it founded an entire subculture of videogames and offered a nicely complex tournament fighter that holds up even today. But it also relied on the most basic of international prejudices, from its South American beast-man to its stoic Japanese warrior, ensuring that each and every fighting game to follow would paint its cast with similarly broad strokes.
Unless you include the large concentration of alcohol in it. Me, I've got 2 bottles of it at home. It's good if you don't do something stupid like take straight shots of it.
Absinthe's Mind-Altering Mystery Solved - Yahoo! News
An analysis of century-old bottles of absinthe - the kind once quaffed by the likes of van Gogh and Picasso to enhance their creativity - may end the controversy over what ingredient caused the green liqueur's supposed mind-altering effects .The culprit seems plain and simple: The century-old absinthe contained about 70 percent alcohol, giving it a 140-proof kick. In comparison, most gins, vodkas and whiskeys are just 80- to 100-proof.
In recent years, the psychedelic nature of absinthe has been hotly debated. Absinthe was notorious among 19th-century and early 20th-century bohemian artists as "the Green Fairy" that expanded the mind. After it became infamous for madness and toxic side effects among drinkers, it was widely banned.
The only bad part about this is you can't buy it in Canada. It fits 20 cases of beer, dammit!
Here's a pretty awesome electric motorcycle that uses advanced gyros for steering and speed control. I think I want one.
As usual, he provides some great pictures, and brings calipers to the restaurant. Now that's an engineer for you.
Chili's Bacon Burger - Off Topic - Cooking For Engineers
From my pocket, I produced calipers with which I proceeded to measure the thickness of the bacon (one of the strips I had ordered on the side for this specific purpose - if I was going to contaminate some bacon, I wasn't going to sacrifice one of the ones on my burger!). Having done the measurements, I can now report that (on Friday, April 13, 2008 at the Chili's in Santa Clara, California) they served bacon that was (to an accuracy of 1/128th of an inch) 3/16 in. thick (4.75 mm ˜ 0.2mm) after cooking. In my experience, that's really thick bacon.
Pretty bad situation here. It's even worse that 96% of the 5500 complaints received by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an advocacy group, are from other Christians.
Soldier Sues Army, Saying His Atheism Led to Threats - New York Times
When Specialist Jeremy Hall held a meeting last July for atheists and freethinkers at Camp Speicher in Iraq, he was excited, he said, to see an officer attending.But minutes into the talk, the officer, Maj. Freddy J. Welborn, began to berate Specialist Hall and another soldier about atheism, Specialist Hall wrote in a sworn statement. “People like you are not holding up the Constitution and are going against what the founding fathers, who were Christians, wanted for America!” Major Welborn said, according to the statement.
Major Welborn told the soldiers he might bar them from re-enlistment and bring charges against them, according to the statement.
Yikes! Literally. It won't be long before they start experimenting with atomic-powered supermen.
China down to 12 days of coal stocks - earth - 23 April 2008 - New Scientist Environment
At the end of a cold and stormy winter, the country has just 12 days of coal reserves at most power stations. Some provinces, including Hebei, bordering Beijing, have less than a week's coal left. This is a record low, the state electricity regulatory commission revealed on Tuesday.China relies on burning coal for 70% of its electricity. Even though Chinese coal production in the first quarter of this year was up almost 15% on the same period last year, it has apparently not been enough to meet rapidly growing demand.
Coal imports, which started last year, have also failed to meet the difference between supply and demand. Such is the demand for power from an economy that has been growing by 10% a year for more than two decades.
It's actually pretty easy. Here's how...
In fact, there is so much debt out there that many are now saying they’ll use the money to pay off current debt or save; certainly not the intention of what the current government has in mind. They would love nothing more if you went and blew your stimulus check on a new laptop or stove and one month later, are back in the same spot.This is the problem with deficit spending on many levels. At a certain point debt will crush an economy if it is not handled properly. We have done an abysmal job managing debt over the past few decades and now we are seeing the after effects of this. Today I want to put out a hypothetical budget for a family with 2 kids earning $100,000 a year and show you how easily it is to go into debt. This data is conservative and I will talk about a few of major line items later in the article. So now I present to you going broke on $100,000 a year.
Huh, and I've only read 11 of these books. Time to get to work.
50 best cult books - Telegraph
Cult books are somehow, intangibly, different from simple bestsellers – though many of them are that. The Carpetbaggers was a bestseller; Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was a cult.They are different from books that have big new ideas – though many of them are that. On The Origin of Species changed history; but Thus Spoke Zarathustra was a cult.
They are different from How-To books – though many of them are that. The Highway Code is a How-To book; Baby and Child Care was a cult. These are books that became personally important to their readers: that changed the way they lived, or the way they thought about how they lived.
Yes, but what does it say about eating at your local Denny's?
"Eating Local" Has Little Effect on Warming, Study Says
On average, food racks up about 1,000 food miles (or 1,650 "food kilometers") traveling from farms to processing or packaging plants before reaching Americans' dinner plates, the study estimates.The whole supply chain—including delivering grains to feed cattle and delivering fuel to farms, for example—adds another 4,200 miles (6,750 kilometers).
Yet all that shipping, driving, and flying accounts for only a sliver of foods' climate impact—just 11 percent of the total—compared with the impact from producing the food itself, the study showed.
It seems like they did *everything* wrong when making this film.
Yoko sues filmmakers over Imagine | Entertainment | Reuters
John Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, and his sons are suing the filmmakers of "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" for using the song "Imagine" in the documentary without permission.Lennon recorded the song in 1971 and in 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked it No. 3, in their 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, according to the lawsuit.
Yoko Ono, son, Sean Ono Lennon, and Julian Lennon, John Lennon's son from his first marriage, along with privately held publisher EMI Blackwood Music Inc filed suit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan seeking to bar the filmmakers and their distributors from continuing to use "Imagine" in the movie.
Canadian artist finds his Web-published Creative Commons artwork and interviews were stolen and republished into a coffee table book, selling for $100 on the Internet.
Luc Latulippe � Blog Archive � My illustrations, stolen and published in new book
“OMG! You should totally sue them!”Yes, this is everyone’s first reaction, right after red-faced anger. Well, let me just grab my wallet and… oh, right, I draw pictures for a living! This means I’m lucky if I have enough money to pay some bills for the next few months, but not quite enough to launch a class-action lawsuit across international borders against a bogus copyright infringing publisher in China.
It was a strange case of murder most convoluted. Like something straight out of a bad film noir. It was even nicknamed the "Black Widow" murders.
Woman, 77, guilty of murder - San Jose Mercury News
Helen Golay, who was convicted of murder, and Olga Rutterschmidt, found guilty on the conspiracy charge, were accused of plucking Kenneth McDavid and Paul Vados off the streets, fraudulently gaining millions in insurance coverage, putting them up in apartments for two years until insurance companies' legal deadline to contest the fraud expired, and then having them run over in dark alleys.
So complicated a scheme that police didn't even link the two deaths until:
The Los Angeles Police Department concluded the deaths were connected after McDavid's death when two investigators bumped into each other, compared notes and realized the same pair of odd women had claimed the bodies.
Quick, what is this an ad for? And no, Patrick Swayze is incorrect. Kurt Russell is also incorrect. However, both are surfers.
Christine Comer was the Director of Science for the Texas Education Agency for nine years, until she was forced to resign for failing to remain neutral on creationism.
What a bunch of jerks.
YouTube - Teacher Expelled Over Religion
This video is also found at the site expelledexposed.com, which debunks a lot of the misinformation that comes from the "Expelled" movie.
Hmmm. I seem to remember a show called the X-files. It was quite a while ago. Wasn't it about the same time Twin Peaks was on?
The title is out there for upcoming X-Files film
Sure enough, Chris Carter doesn't know how many people out there will be familiar with the show, though he insists it's still relevant:
"It has struck me over the last several years talking to college-age kids that a lot of them really don't know the show or haven't seen it," Carter said."If you're 20 years old now, the show started when you were four. It was probably too scary for you or your parents wouldn't let you watch it. So there's a whole new audience that might have liked the show."
While I'll admit brandishing a knife at a robber is kind of stupid, it reminds me of a story about a Canadian prime minister who used to grab people by the neck and shove them out of his way.
Think that's a knife? Takeout owner foils attempted robbery
The masked man entered the Lucky Star takeout in Corner Brook on Tuesday night, and used a small knife to demand money.Owner Ben Fong went behind the cash register, but then responded much like the Paul Hogan character in the 1986 movie, with a line to match the famous "That's a knife" catchphrase.
Fong normally uses his knife — the blade is 25 centimetres, or about 10 inches, in length — for cutting meat.
It's still not as cool as the old SX-70 film. Remember that the old Polaroid film was permanent, fixed, and always an original print. That's what made Polaroid pictures great for artists. These images, while fast (and that's probably all people care about these days), will always be copies, and can be made from transient, modifiable digital images. There's no such thing as an "original" anymore.
I'd like to see Zink Imaging make film that's compatible with the SX-70 and all other Polaroid instant cameras, since no one's making that kind of film anymore.
Instant Digital Prints (and Polaroid Nostalgia) - New York Times
Polaroid wants to conjure up those golden analog days of vast sales and instant gratification — this time with images captured by digital cameras and camera phones.This fall, the company expects to market a hand-size printer that produces color snapshots in about 30 seconds.
Beam a photograph from a cellphone to the printer and, with a gentle purr, out comes the full-color print — completely formed and dry to the touch.
The printer, which connects wirelessly by Bluetooth to phones and by cable to cameras, will cost about $150. The images are 2 inches by 3 inches, the size of a credit card.
Hey, let's put the tent on the roof. No I mean, with a ladder and everything, so you can sleep on the roof of your car.
AutoHome Roof Top Tents - Maggiolina, Columbus Variant, and OverLand
To shreds, you say?
ThinkGeek :: Planet Express Babydoll
Even if you can't join our ranks today, you can take home an official "Planet Express" t-shirt. It features our logo in orange on a red, fitted t-shirt with the words, "Reliable Interplanetary Delivery. Serving the Milky Way and Beyond!" Note that the printing is slightly distressed (you can see the shirt in several places), much like our employees!
Available at ThinkGeek. Finally, I can combine my need to keep my knives organized with my need of throwing them at spinning circus people.
ThinkGeek :: Throwzini Knife Holder
Whether you have a zeal for throwing steel or you're a cutlery connoisseur, this knife block is just for you. In 1938 the Wheel of Death introduced the spinning target stunt to knife throwing and decades later knife throwing still lives on in the modern day circus. And it can live on in your kitchen (although in a much less dangerous fashion) with the Throwzini Knife Holder.
Whoa, how bad can it be when FOX is making fun of you?
Directed by one Nathan Frankowski, "Expelled" is a sloppy, all-over-the-place, poorly made (and not just a little boring) "expose" of the scientific community. It’s not very exciting. But it does show that Stein, who’s carved out a career selling eye drops in commercials and amusing us on sitcoms, is either completely nuts or so avaricious that he’s abandoned all good sense to make a buck....
What the producers of this film would love, love, love is a controversy. That’s because it’s being marketed by the same people who brought us "The Passion of the Christ." They’re hoping someone will latch onto an anti-Semitism theme here, since there’s a visit to a concentration camp and the raised idea — apparently typical of the intelligent design community — that somehow the theory of evolution is so evil that it caused the Holocaust. Alas, this is such a warped premise that no one’s biting.
Everyone's favourite anoymous, left-leaning KW snark rants on about Tommy Lukiwski. For those on vacation over the past month, Lukiwski's the guy in the videotapes spewing hateful remarks about gays.
Canadian Cynic: Lukiwski, He's A Sorry Bastard
Golly gosh, is he ever sorry that the video came to light. He's incredibly, deeply sorry that people have discovered what he thinks in this troubling and graphic manner. Tommy is shaken to the quick to have his constituents and all of Canada learn the root basis for his suggestion in 2005 that equal marriage would lead to "polygamy and social decline".And Tommy would give just anything to take back the evidence of his spiteful, cretinous attitude. That's why he has decided to step down from his position as Parliamentary Secretary to Government House Leader Peter Van Payday Loan... what's that? Oh. He hasn't stepped down. Okay, well, he won't give that. Then, that's why he has accepted the Prime Minister's decision to strip him of his position and consign him to the back benches... sorry, what? Oh. Neither the Prime Minister, the party nor the government are going to discipline l'il Tommy.
Pretty funny test. Also tests your knowledge of Lovecraftian characters and the Cthulhu mythos.
If you come out insane, you can always download a certificate here.
Anyone raised by TV knows that there are a few defining instances which helped usher us into puberty: the way Wonder Woman made us tingle a little bit while she was stopping Mount Vesuvius from erupting, etc. And it's easy to admit to some childhood crushes (i.e. Tasha Yar was hot), even ironically (i.e. Doctor Pulaski was hot). But there are indeed some that you should never ever talk about, not even in jest (i.e. that rock-eating Horta was totally hot), otherwise people will never look at you the same again.
Topless Robot - The 10 Geeky Childhood Crushes You Should Never, Ever Admit - Page 1
Ah, Data, the android helmsman whose innocent curiosities about human nature endeared him to us all. Data was the resident kid on the Enterprise, in ways that Wesley and Riker never were, and that may be why we can’t comprehend some young Star Trek fan having an actual crush on Data. We’re sure that some do (Star Trek was the birthplace of awful fan fiction, after all), but we really don’t need to hear about it.Worf? That’s fine. Picard? Sure, go nuts. Geordi? Eh, maybe he got 10-year-old you to watch Reading Rainbow and dream of being an engineer. But Data? He’s Pinocchio. No one thinks that way about a puppet.
I wonder if anyone ever got his gun away from him. Say what you will about him, good or bad, but I have about half a dozen of his films on DVD, and they're great.
Nancy Reagan was heartbroken over Charlton Heston's death. President Bush hailed him as a "strong advocate for liberty," while John McCain called Heston a devotee for civil and constitutional rights.Even Michael Moore, who mocked Heston in his gun-control documentary "Bowling for Columbine," posted the actor's picture on his Web site to mark his passing.
I had to add this in, simply because it showed how much of an influence he was on modern culture. I also have this film on DVD. Around 1:33 is where it is.
Enjoying a few more of the "lost in translation" pics.
Excellent news. VillainSource is new and improved. Take that, Mr. Bond.
VillainSource -- formerly VillainSupply
Helpful Tip: Keep your secret lair a SECRET.A Secret Lair isn't so secret with a couple of hundred ex-construction workers wandering the globe, blabbing to bar patrons about the secret shark trap you built into your underwater grotto. That's why it's vital to mind Helpful Tip #12:
ALWAYS KILL OFF YOUR CONSTRUCTION CREW ONCE YOUR LAIR IS COMPLETE!
Man these are fantastic. I can say without hyperbole that these are the best costumes ever! Seriously though, I couldn't decide which picture to show. The Flaming Carrot costume is most excellent.
I'm totally going to buy the "crime scene" roll.
Have you ever noticed that going to the toilet, although necessary, can be rather boring. Bring some life back to your bathroom with these On-A-Roll novelty toilet papers. Each comes with its own amusing design that will have you cracking up.
They're in backwards order, so I don't mind sharing number 1 with you. It's pretty funny.
The Top 10 Historical Hoaxers - Times Online
1: Horace De Vere Cole:Horace De Vere Cole was a man devoted to, one might almost say obsessed by, practical jokes. His most memorable prank was probably giving carefully selected free theatre tickets to bald men so that when their gleaming pates were seen from the Upper Circle a rather rude word could clearly be seen. Whether impersonating foreign dignitaries to the consternation of senior naval officals or shocking Edwardian society by performing astoundingly vulgar tricks with a cow's udder in public thoroughfares his was a life devoted to, and ultimately squandered on, the pursuit of japery.
Very cool news. A new Futurama film is coming June 24. There are a lot of sexy tentacles involved. And Stephen Hawking's in it.
Very interesting story about one of Canada's famous unsolved mysteries.
On the evening of the infamous murder, loved ones say the athletic and easygoing Clifford Redpath came home to his family's Victorian mansion in Montreal, looking tired, perhaps stressed, from studying for his bar exams.The 24-year-old went upstairs to see his rich, widowed mother, Ada Maria Mills Redpath, who spent much of her time confined to her bedroom due to ill health.
At about 6 p.m. on Thursday, June 13, 1901, Clifford's older brother, Peter, heard gunshots and found Ada and Clifford sprawled on the floor, bleeding from bullet wounds in their heads.
Their deaths stunned the community, as the Redpaths were among the richest families in Canada and respected philanthropists and industrialists.
But the police were never called, the Redpaths did not speak of it and nearly a century later, the murder is still, in the words of one historian, shrouded by a "veil of suspicion that emerged at the time and continues to the present."
Hmmm, so, like that marketing agency lobby group that took over a college class and had them invent a blogger to pitch anti-counterfeiting messages...
Military Report: Secretly 'Recruit or Hire Bloggers' | Danger Room from Wired.com
A study, written for U.S. Special Operations Command, suggested "clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers."This 2006 report for the Joint Special Operations University, "Blogs and Military Information Strategy," offers a third approach -- co-opting bloggers, or even putting them on the payroll. "Hiring a block of bloggers to verbally attack a specific person or promote a specific message may be worth considering," write the report's co-authors, James Kinniburgh and Dororthy Denning.
Aha. See, this is an April Fool's joke. Below are some of my favourites:
Top 10 Creationist Discoveries of All Time | Wired Science from Wired.com
10. T. rex ate coconuts According to experts at the Creation Museum, our favorite predatory dinosaur would have fit right in at Whole Foods.7. NASCAR is the official sport of the spiritually enlightened
Some forms of entertainment were meant for the pure of heart.5. Liberals are evil
Even though most of the truly bizarre sex scandals have involved republicans, and democrats prefer to have affairs with women of legal age, left-wing politicians are morally more morally bankrupt than their conservative counterparts.
This is pretty cool. It may be the next emblem I get for my car.
Randi Emblem - James Randi Educational Foundation
This fishy Randi is the perfect accent for your car – complete with magic wand, top hat, and rapier wit!
Apparently, this billboard went up over Easter weekend. All the religious people stayed away from businesses and restaurants nearby.
Now someone just needs to put this up near a church.
Business Owners, Customers Upset Over Controversial Billboard - News Story - WFTV Orlando
It looked harmless enough, but the words on a billboard unnerved so many people that a popular restaurant nearby actually lost business. The billboard was on Colonial Drive near Old Cheney Highway.Although the popular Straub's Seafood restaurant often advertises on it, it wasn't their billboard. The sign was taken down after Channel 9 started asking questions.
The billboard came down around 4:00 Friday afternoon and nearby business owners are relieved. Straub's Restaurant can replace the sign with the night's specials.
Seriously though ... this billboard unnerved people? No, you want to unnerve someone, you put up a billboard like this:
Artist Evan Shaner answers the age-old question: "What if Charles Schulz created the Watchmen?"
(sigh) It's getting so hard to determine what's real and what's not on the Interwebs. Having it be April Fool's Day doesn't help it any.
So, introducing Meatwater. Apparently it's meat-infused H2O, and is dubbed a "high efficiency survival beverage. Comes in Beef Jerky, Cheese Burger, Fish'n Chips, Peking Duck, Tandoori Chicken, and other flavours.
This turtle soup tastes a little smokey.
Life's a drag for tortoise | The Sun |HomePage|News
Owner Li Yun from the town of Kouqian in Yongji county, said his pet was addicted to cigarettes after it started smoking smouldering butts he left lying around his garden.He said the animal is now addicted and he has timed it smoking a cigarette in four minutes, and gets upset if he can’t smoke half a pack a day.
He said: “Whenever I smoke the tortoise lifts its head out of the water and stares at the cigarette. If I don’t let it smoke, it swims around crazily in its little pond, scratching the sides.
Say, that's a really nice table you've got there. Reeealy nice.
WTOL.com, Toledo's News Leader, News 11 | Bellevue man facing charges for having sex with a table
Police say a man in Bellevue was caught on tape having sex with a picnic table.Bellevue Police Captain Matt Johnson says Art Price, Jr., 40, was seen on four occasions between the hours of 10:30 a.m. and noon having sex with his picnic table. What makes this a felony, Johnson says, is that it took place in close proximity to a school, which made it likely that children could have seen Price.
The neighbor -- who wishes to remain anonymous -- saw Price walk out onto his deck, stand a round metal table on its side and use the hole for the umbrella to have sex.
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