Oh you pretty little things
Smoke if you got ’em. Today is the Great American Smokeout, a time to reflect on how great people look when smoking, and the terrible things the additives do to you.
Share this:
Spice up your inbox with colors and themes
Gmail fans have been building unofficial extensions to spice up their
inboxes for a while, but up til now themes haven’t been an integral
part of Gmail. We wanted to go beyond simple color customization, so
out of the 30 odd themes we’re launching today, there’s a shiny theme
with chrome styling, another one that turns your inbox into a retro
notepad, nature themes that change scenery over time, weather driven
themes that can rain on your mailbox, and fun characters to keep you in
good company. There’s even an old school ascii theme (Terminal) which
was the result of a bet between two engineers — it’s not exactly
practical, but it’s great for testing out your geek cred. We’ve also
done a minor facelift to Gmail’s default look to make it crisper and
cleaner — you might notice a few colors and pixels shifted around here
and there.
To customize your inbox, go to the Themes tab under Settings.
Share this:
The Genesis of Doctor Who.
“A frail old man lost in space and time. They give him this name
because they don’t know who he is. He seems not to remember where he
has come from; he is suspicious and capable of sudden malignance; he
seems to have some undefined energy; he is searching for something as
well as fleeing from something. He has a ‘machine’ which enables them
to travel together through time, through space, and through matter.”
Share this:
Grim Fandango, I knew you had hard puzzles.
Grim Fandango,
which was released in 1998, is considered by many to be one of the best
Lucas Arts adventure games ever made. It tells the story of Manny
Calavera, a travel agent working in the land of the dead. The game
combines Aztec and film noir imagery to create a game that is wholly
unique and still has a rabid fan base. Tim Schafer, the primary writer for the original (and a mastermind behind recently critically appreciated games such as Psychonauts through his company Double Fine Productions has released the full 72 page design document that was written in 1996. [direct pdf link]. This is great reading for those who get nostalgic just thinking about the game.
Here’s the opening scene of the game to help you develop an appreciation, if you haven’t done so already: youtube link
Share this:
David Tennant Calls it Quits On Dr Who :(
The Doctor is set to regenerate once again as David Tennant calls time on Doctor Who. “When Doctor Who returns in 2010 it won’t be with me” Tennant, widely acknowledged as one of the most popular actors ever to play the Doctor, said. “Now don’t make me cry. The 2009 shows will be my last playing the doctor.”
Speculation now turns to who will play the eleventh incarnation of the Doctor. With the 2008 Christmas special named ‘The Next Doctor‘, it is possible that we may not have long to wait until we get some clues. Check out the trailer for ‘The Next Doctor‘ here.
I’ve got to say, Tennant is probably my 2nd favorite Doctor (next to the Legendary Tom Baker), I’m gonna miss him, its going to be neat to see who they get next… New Writer, New Doctor, heres to hoping it doesn’t mess with the chemistry too much.
Share this:
Stargate Worlds: Closed Beta Invite
Congratulations!
You have been selected to join us in closed beta! Your recent
participation in our Friends and Family stress test has earned you a
spot in our next phase of development. We would like you to try
Stargate Worlds again and see all the new content that you did not see
in the Friends and Family phase. Please return to us and be active in
our beta community once more. You will see a lot of changes within
Stargate Worlds over the next months. We hope that you will continue to
be active in our community and further experience and explore Stargate
Worlds.
Closed beta is a significant release of content
into Stargate Worlds. You can now play as a member of the Stargate
Union and travel to many new worlds. This is the start of closed beta,
therefore new content will constantly be updated. We will be providing
you with information about upcoming patches, as well as Event Night
information. Check the beta forums and your e-mail often!
Share this:
8 Close Calls in the Nuclear Age
Here’s a formula for fun: Arm two superpowers to the teeth with thousands of nuclear warheads. Make sure they are deeply hostile and suspicious of each other. Now, cut off diplomatic communication, stir in about 50 smaller countries with their own agendas on each side, and–voilà!–you’ve got yourself a cold war!
1. Suez Crisis
On November 5, 1956, during the Suez crisis, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) received warnings that seemed to indicate that a large-scale Soviet attack was under way: a Soviet fleet was moving from the Black Sea to a more aggressive posture in the Aegean, 100 Soviet MiGs were detected flying over Syria, a British bomber had just been shot down in Syria, and unidentified aircraft were in flight over Turkey, causing the Turkish air force to go on high alert. All signs pointed to the ominous, except that, not long after, each of the four warnings was found to have a completely innocent explanation. The Soviet fleet was conducting routine exercises, the MiGs were part of a normal escort–whose size had been exaggerated–for the president of Syria, the British bomber had made an emergency landing after mechanical problems, and, last but not least, the unidentified planes over Turkey? Well, they turned out to be a large flock of swans.
2. SAC-NORAD Communication Failure
On November 24, 1961, all communication links between the U.S. Strategic Air Command (SAC) and NORAD suddenly went dead, cutting off the SAC from three early warning radar stations in England, Greenland, and Alaska. The communication breakdown made no sense, though. After all, a widespread, total failure of all communication circuits was considered impossible, because the network included so many redundant systems that it should have been failsafe. The only alternative explanation was that a full-scale Soviet nuclear first strike had occurred. As a result, all SAC bases were put on alert, and B-52 bomber crews warmed up their engines and moved their planes onto runways, awaiting orders to counterattack the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons. Luckily, those orders were never given. It was discovered that the circuits were not in fact redundant because they all ran through one relay station in Colorado, where a single motor had overheated and caused the entire system to fail.
3. U2 Spy Plane Accidentally Violates Soviet Airspace
U2 spy planes were high-altitude aircraft that took pictures of the Soviet Union with extremely powerful long-distance telephoto lenses. During the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, U2 pilots were ordered not to fly within 100 miles of the Soviet Union to avoid antagonizing the Soviets. However, on October 26, 1962, a U2 pilot flying over the North Pole made a series of navigational errors because the shifting lights of the Aurora Borealis prevented him from taking accurate readings with his sextant. As a result, he ended up flying over the Chukotski Peninsula in northern Siberia, causing the Soviets to order a number of MiG interceptors to shoot his plane down immediately. Instead of letting him be shot down, however, the United States responded quickly by sending out F-102A fighters armed with nuclear missiles to escort the U2 back to American airspace and prevent the MiGs from following it. Unbelievably, the tactic worked. Even more amazing: the decision whether to use their nuclear missiles was left to the American pilots, and could have easily resulted in a nuclear conflict.
4. When Camping, Make Sure to Hide Your Nuclear Weapons
On October 25, 1962, again during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a security guard at an air base in Duluth, Minnesota, saw a shadowy figure scaling one of the fences enclosing the base. He shot at the intruder and activated an intruder alarm, automatically setting off intruder alarms at neighboring bases. However, at the Volk Field air base in Wisconsin, the Klaxon loudspeaker had been wired incorrectly, and instead sounded an alarm ordering F-106A interceptors armed with nuclear missiles to take off. The pilots assumed that a full-scale nuclear conflict with the Soviet Union had begun. The planes were about to take off when a car from the air traffic control tower raced down the tarmac and signaled the planes to stop. The intruder in Duluth had finally been identified: it was a bear.
5. A Terrifying Crash
On January 21, 1968, fire broke out on a B-52 carrying a nuclear payload near Greenland, forcing the crew to bail out. The unmanned plane then crashed about seven miles from the early warning radar station in Greenland. The damage done could have been remarkable. The plane exploded, as did the explosives surrounding the radioactive core of the nuclear weapons (which require conventional explosives to detonate). Given the state of nuclear weapons technology at the time, this type of unintentional detonation of conventional first-stage explosives could have theoretically triggered the second-stage fission reaction, resulting in a nuclear explosion. Luckily for the world, it didn’t. The resulting explosion would have not only severed regular communications between the early warning station and NORAD, it would have also triggered an emergency alarm based on radiation readings taken by sensors near the station. The only conclusion at NORAD headquarters, in this grisly hypothetical but very plausible scenario, would have been that the Soviets were launching a preemptive nuclear strike, and the United States would have responded in kind.
6. Comp Fear
On November 9, 1979, four command centers for the U.S. nuclear arsenal received data on their radar screens indicating that the Soviet Union had launched a full-scale nuclear first strike on the United States. Over the next six minutes, planes were launched and nuclear missiles initialized for an immediate retaliatory strike. The president’s National Emergency Airborne Command Post–an armored jumbo jet (pictured) with radiation shielding and advanced communications capabilities, meant to allow the president to remain in contact with the government and armed forces during a nuclear war–was also launched, though curiously without the president aboard. However, the alarm was canceled because no sensors or satellites detected an actual Soviet missile launch. The alarm had been caused by computer software used for training exercises depicting a nightmare scenario Soviet first strike. Senator Charles Percy, who happened to be at NORAD headquarters during this event, said the reaction was one of overwhelming panic and terror. Justifiably so.
7. Comp Fear, Part 2
Electronic displays at NORAD, the SAC, and the Pentagon included prominent, highly visible numeric counters showing the number of enemy nuclear missiles detected. They normally displayed four zeros–“0000”–indicating that no nuclear missiles had been launched. However, on June 3, 1980, at 2:25 in the morning, the counters started randomly substituting the number “2” for “0.” As a result, crews manning bombers carrying nuclear weapons were ordered to begin to warm up their engines, Minuteman missiles were initialized for launch, and airborne command posts were also launched. It was determined that this
first event was a false alarm, but three days later it happened a second time–causing the entire emergency response procedure to start rolling once again. The problem was eventually traced back to a single faulty computer chip combined with faulty wiring.
8. WarGames!
Once more, a wise-guy teenager tries to prove he’s smarter than any
adult-and nearly destroys the whole world in the process-in WarGames.
Computer-game aficionado Matthew Broderick inadvertently taps into a
hush-hush Pentagon computer, then proceeds to inaugurate his favorite
game, “Global Thermonuclear War”. What we know, but Broderick doesn’t,
is that the Pentagon, hoping to eliminate the chancy “human element” in
the event of an actual war, has given its computer total, irreversible
control over the launching of nuclear weaponry. Broderick and
government official Dabney Coleman race against time to reverse the
computer’s resolve to send bombers to Russia.
Share this:
White House Tower Defence
Friday Flash Fun! It’s two great flavors that taste great together in White House Tower Defence!
Share this:
Black Blizzard
The History Channel just aired a 2-hour program about the Dust Bowl in the 1930s in the central United States called Black Blizzard.
What struck me most during the program was the description of a series
of massive storms that hit on April 14th, 1935 known as “Black
Sunday”. The History Channel had computer recreations of what this
looked like. Here is an image from the show (and the History Channel
website) showing one of the storms approaching. Inside the car are a
reporter and photographer who, after stopping and taking pictures of
the approaching storm, are trying to outrun the storm.
During the show they also showed several real photographs of the storms of Black Sunday and doing a quick search on Wikipedia produced one spectacular photograph of a storm as it approached Spearman, Texas:
Here is another photograph of a storm as it approaches Stratford,
Texas. This photo is perhaps even better than the one above as the
buildings are closer to the camera and give a better scale to the size
of the storm:
According to Rogers ‘s listing there is another showing of this
program on 10/25. It is definitely worth
watching. *cough* torrent *cough*
Share this:
The broccoli is smiling at you
“She handed me the box and I studied it carefully, squinting, even
allowing my eyes to blur, to try and see what I was missing. She
pointed- ‘Do you see?’ See what? I didn’t see anything. Just broccoli.
Her finger tapped on a certain part of the box and she urged me to look
closer. ‘There- right there. Do you see it? I’m not going to tell you
what it is if you don’t see it.’ And then, it suddenly became clear to
me. WHAT THE HELL?”
.flickr-photo { border: solid 1px #000000; }
.flickr-yourcomment { }
.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 1px; }
.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }
.flickr-photo { border: solid 1px #000000; }
.flickr-yourcomment { }
.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 1px; }
.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }
.flickr-photo { border: solid 1px #000000; }
.flickr-yourcomment { }
.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 1px; }
.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }
Share this:
Plastic Surgeon General Warns Of Small Breasts Epidemic – TheOnion
The National Center for Cosmetic Enhancement rails against A-cups.
BEVERLY HILLS, CA–According to a report released Monday by U.S.
plastic surgeon general Dr. Louis T. Saddler, an alarming number of
American women are suffering from dangerously small breasts.
The Office of the plastic surgeon General–headed by a presidential
appointee tasked with monitoring the national aesthetic, alerting the
public to any small flaws, and offering a wide range of affordable,
noninvasive laser resurfacing options–first addressed the countrywide
plague of undersized breasts in the mid-1980s by demanding that
manufacturers of A- through C-cup bras place large warning labels on
their products informing female consumers of the potential risk of
having deficient bosoms. Since taking the position in 2001, Dr. Saddler
has continued these education efforts, launching several ad campaigns
and personally reaching out to women all across the nation.
“The undersized breasts problem in the United States has reached
crisis level,” Saddler said during a press conference held at the
National Centers for Rhinoplasty and Microdermabrasion. “Unless they
receive immediate cosmetic treatment, millions of women in this country
will lose the attention of their male acquaintances completely, and
some may never be able to land husbands or, if they are somehow already
married, keep their husbands’ interest.”
Added Saddler, “I urge all Americans to educate themselves about the
differences between silicone and saline, and contact my secretary Linda
to set something up.”
According to information found on the plastic surgeon general’s
website, there are several easily identifiable indications that a woman
may be afflicted with Chronic Breast Deficiency, or CBD. These include
the inability to fill out tight sweaters, as well as invisibility when
in proximity to women who have large breasts. Females with this
disorder may also experience a troubling absence of back pain.
Despite impressive advances in augmentation mammoplasty in recent
years, breast smallness continues to be a scourge on the female
population, in some part due to the difficulty many women have in
recognizing the symptoms. According to Saddler, some can live with a
severe chest deficiency for years without realizing that they have a
problem.
“A woman who suspects that she may have this condition can verify it
with an extremely quick, normally painless test,” said Saddler, later
adding that symptoms such as a fluid, natural movement of the bosom or
any breast shape other than a perfectly round, rock-hard grapefruit
should also serve as definitive warning signs. “It’s as simple as
consulting a trained professional such as a strip-club bouncer or
licensed drywaller to assess your personal risk.”
“I cannot stress enough how important it is for women who believe
they already have large breasts to remember that they can almost always
benefit from having even larger breasts,” Saddler added.
Citing statistics showing that small breasts strike women of every
age, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, and that every region of the
United States is uniformly affected with the exception of Southern
California, the plastic surgeon general stressed that a nation of
under-breasted women is “everyone’s problem.” In an attempt to reach
out to as many citizens as possible, including those not directly
afflicted, the Office of the Plastic Surgeon General has released a
series of public service announcements that emphasize the important
role men can play in helping to turn the tide of the epidemic.
“If your daughter, girlfriend, or secretary has small breasts, let
her know that she should get the help she needs,” Saddler says in one
of the televised spots, standing before a diagram of Pamela Anderson.
“Referring to under- endowed women’s mammaries as ‘mosquito bites’ or
likening a female’s appearance to a diving board are just two of the
many effective methods that can encourage those suffering from this
unpleasant disorder to seek treatment.”
The informative PSA also suggests several coping strategies that can
allow small-breasted women to lead a relatively productive life while
securing the funds necessary to have their disorder remedied. These
include giggling at anything a man says, wearing shorter skirts, and
engaging in empty promiscuity.
Although the plastic surgeon general’s office has had a
long-standing and fruitful partnership with the media to promote the
image of a healthy, ample-chested lifestyle, Saddler said legislation
may be the key to solving this crisis. Last week, Congress proposed a
bill that would earmark $600 million to provide high schools nationwide
with educational programs and literature.
“The younger a woman is when she realizes that she has this problem,
the better off we’ll all be,” said Sen. Wayne Allard (R-CO), head of
the recently formed Itty-Bitty Titty Senate Subcommittee. “Of course,
we support all women receiving treatment for this disorder, regardless
of how old they are.”
“But after they hit 45 or so, really, what’s the point?” added
Allard, referring to a condition known as aging, which is cited by the
plastic surgeon general as another worrisome but treatable issue
currently affecting 100 percent of American women.
Several studies have found that the dreaded aging syndrome also
affects men, but, in those cases, is known alternatively as
“dignification” and is generally considered to be an asset rather than
an impairment.
Share this:
Atomic explosions
Atomic and nuclear explosions.
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=7278951069225366106&hl=en&fs=true
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/mediaplayer.swf
Share this:
The Sun – The Big Picture
animation of the sun, seen by NASA’s Extreme ultraviolet Imaging
Telescope (EIT) over the course of 6 days, starting June 27, 2005.
(Courtesy of SOHO/EIT consortium)
Share this:
Brain’s reaction to hand transplant
When he was 19, David Savage lost his hand in a machine accident.
Thirty-five years later, he had a replacement hand installed.
Amazingly, the same region that controlled his hand when he had one
kicked right back into gear to deal with his new appendage. This
surprised scientists because other research has shown that once a limb
is gone, the associated brain region quickly picks up other duties.
From Science News:
When Savage had both hands, part of his right brain
responded to his left hand, and a corresponding part of his left brain
responded to his right hand. After the amputation, that same part of
his left brain would have been sensory-deprived and thus ready to adopt
duties of adjacent sensory areas, such as those for the right arm and
possibly his face.Much animal and human research has documented that such neural
reorganization begins within hours of limb loss or debilitation…“It’s remarkable that an original neural pathway for the hand can be
reinstated after years and years,” (Vanderbilt University
neuroscientist Jon) Kaas says.
Share this:
Cat Flushing
Share this:
Imagine being excited about a Paul McCartney album
Paul is NOT dead.
Paul goes into the studio, alone, no songs prepared at all. Thirteen
songs in thirteen days — one each day — Paul playing every
instrument, writing lyrics on the fly, ripping a line from a poem, the
next spontaneous, off the cuff, really gutsy. The album, Electric Arguments, to be released next month.
Maybe getting fleeced in a public and nasty divorce was the best thing
to happen to this man. I’ve not liked much if anything I’ve heard since
he split from Lennon, but I damn sure love this
single — “Nothing Too Much Just Out of Sight” – it’s ragged and rugged, the thing bleeds and howls and moans. I think I’m gonna buy the album — Electric Arguments — as soon as it’s out.
Free download of Nothing Too Much Out of Sight here.
Share this:
Nerd library to end all nerd libraries
Stephen Levy toured the personal library of Priceline founder Jay
Walker and discovered nerdvana: a wunderkammer piled to the rafters
with the most pricelessly awesome nerd artifacts of all time — an
original Sputnik, the Thing hand from the Addams Family, a globe of the
moon signed by every astronaut who’s walked on it, an original of
Robert Hooke’s Micrographia, an Enigma machine, etc. You know, I’ve
often turned my nose up at the absurd excesses of wealth, but this is
one guy who knows how to spend several million on really rad junk. I think I pee’d a little reading the inventory, I’m such a nerd.
Nothing
quite prepares you for the culture shock of Jay Walker’s library. You
exit the austere parlor of his New England home and pass through a
hallway into the bibliographic equivalent of a Disney ride. Stuffed
with landmark tomes and eye-grabbing historical objects–on the walls,
on tables, standing on the floor–the room occupies about 3,600 square
feet on three mazelike levels. Is that a Sputnik? (Yes.) Hey, those
books appear to be bound in rubies. (They are.) That edition of Chaucer
… is it a Kelmscott? (Natch.) Gee, that chandelier looks like the one
in the James Bond flick Die Another Day. (Because it is.) No matter
where you turn in this ziggurat, another treasure beckons you–a 1665
Bills of Mortality chronicle of London (you can track plague fatalities
by week), the instruction manual for the Saturn V rocket (which
launched the Apollo 11 capsule to the moon), a framed napkin from 1943
on which Franklin D. Roosevelt outlined his plan to win World War II.
In no time, your mind is stretched like hot taffy.Browse the Artifacts of Geek History in Jay Walker’s Library
Share this:
Lego Batman Cake!
.flickr-photo { border: solid 1px #000000; }
.flickr-yourcomment { }
.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 1px; }
.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }
Spotted on Flickr, a cake (yes, that’s all cake) made for the Lego
Batman videogame launch party. The cake was created by cake designer Elisa Strauss.
Share this:
6 Towers fit for a Super Villain
I thought I’d offer some assistance to any super villains who may be looking for a menacing building to call headquarters. Admittedly they’re quite noticeable so unless you have the necessary means to defend the building or are managing to operate under the radar, you may want to look for something underground. All chosen structures look either creepy as hell, flat-out brutal, or both, and as far as I know none or on the market at present so you may have to use underhand tactics to actually move in.
1. Jin Mao tower, Pudong, Shanghai
you to survey the surrounding area for miles assuming cloud cover is
minimal. As for sturdiness, it’s been designed by hardcore
architects/engineers and as a result can withstand winds up to 200km/h
and earthquakes to a maximum of 7 on the Richter scale. inside, the
building is home to one of the tallest atriums on planet earth (375ft),
a perfect place for henchmen to dispose of unwanted guests.
2. Moser tower, Naperville, Illinois
huge amount of habitable space for evil operations. The reason for its
inclusion here is purely an aesthetic one – of all the structures here,
it looks the best in terms of badassness – so I’d suggest maybe
building a lair underneath and using the tower itself solely as a
front. One potential positive is that, as it’s essentially an enormous
musical instrument, you could adapt it to play any villainous music at
will. Alternatively, the giant bells could surely be used as some kind
of torture device if a pesky human were attached.
photo sources: 3. Fernsehturm Berlin, Berlin
The fernsehturm is a TV tower in Berlin and it’s extremely tall at
1207ft. it could easily serve as a European headquarters and would be
pretty difficult for non-airborne enemies to infiltrate as all the
prime living space is located 669ft up in a sphere, its only point of
entry located at the bottom of the tower’s shaft on ground level. also,
within the sphere is a revolving restaurant, a feature which could
easily be transformed into a revolving control centre / spinning
turret, although you may have to speed up the mechanism as it’s
currently making just one revolution per 30 minutes.
4. Oriental Pearl Tower, Pudong, Shanghai
As with the fernsehturm, pearl tower is a TV tower, but this one is
located in shanghai and looks far more menacing and sturdy. It’s
basically a fernsehturm on steroids: instead of one supporting vertical
column, it has 3. Instead of one large sphere, this one has 2. plus
it’s also taller at 1535ft. another benefit is that it’s located just
supercharged spitting distance from Jin Mao tower (see above), meaning
a firmer grasp over shanghai could be quickly attained providing both
towers were commandeered.
5. Taipei 101, xinyi district, Taipei
Taipei 101 has a lot going for it in terms of evil HQ suitability. Its
height is a staggering 1670ft. it can withstand practically all natural
disasters and presumably a few of the attacks you’ll likely be subject
to. visually, it resembles a giant evil robot and completely dominates
the surrounding area, instantly sending out an intimidating message
before you’ve even settled in. it’s also the only tall structure to be
seen in that particular area meaning attacks from all sides will be
visible providing you have all corners manned.
6. žižkov television tower, žižkov, Prague
There’s not much that needs to be said about this one. It’s an
enormous, intimidating tower, and its supporting legs are covered with
faceless babies. If you’re the kind of super villain who’s obsessed
with image, look no further.
photo sources:Share this:
2008 Nobel Prize for Physics
Nobels for Physics announced. The prize will be shared between three individuals, including one American teaching at the University of Chicago. The other two winners are from Japan, Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa .
Share this:
Better Stripshows through Science!
This is interesting, an interactive pole dance experiment that uses
strain gauges to change the lighting and colors by Daito Manabe + Motoi
Ishibashi. The best part about this video is you get to see a couple
Japanese hacker/engineers test it out. Well, at least that was my
favorite part.
Somewhat related, here’s a nice exchange about using a strain gauge from a scale to weigh a keg, clever!
Share this:
Fucked Up keep fucking things up
Aptly named hardcore deconstructionists Fucked Up are slated to play a free, 12-hour show in NYC on Tuesday, October 14th.
The show will feature appearances from the likes of John Cale, Matt
Sweeney, David Cross, Mobb Deep, Akon, Vivian Girls, U2’s The Edge, and
others.
RobDurdle.com 
You must be logged in to post a comment.