Oh mah tailbone!
Oh mah tailbone! Classic episodes of Deputy Dawg. Hen House Hassle; Seize You Later, Alligator; Dog-Gone Catfish; and Aig Plant. Oh, mah cotton-pickin’ tailbone!
Share this:
The Record Industry’s Decline
The Record Industry’s Decline. "The record companies have created this situation themselves," says Simon Wright, CEO of Virgin Entertainment Group, which operates Virgin Megastores. Rosen and others see that 2001-03 period as disastrous for the business. "That’s when we lost the users," Rosen says. "Peer-to-peer took hold. That’s when we went from music having real value in people’s minds to music having no economic value, just emotional value."
Share this:
the Amazing Roswell UFO Festival
LOOK UP! (or down, if you happen to be reading from one of these. The annual "Amazing Roswell UFO Festival" happens this weekend, and it looks like people – er, visitors – are coming from all over! Who knew back in 1947 that this little incident would be the start of an entire sub-culture? Well, for me the fascination started with two of the the greatest UFO movies ever. For my grandparents, it started with one of the greatest radio broadcasts ever. But hey, there’s no need to rely on fiction when we have one of the most insanely great UFO videos of all time provided by none other than the Mexican Government! Seen anything strange in the sky yourself lately? If so, you’d better report it here.
Share this:
Digital Skin Grafting
"In this film, director Shanker wanted to change Rajini’s wheatish complexion to a white European complexion. It has taken 25 dedicated CG technicians almost a year to achieve this 6 ½ min. feat."
Share this:
From a better vanished time?
Classic Car Restorations – I was particularly taken by the Model A and the parade ground car of Stalin.
Share this:
The CIA’s Family Jewels
In 1973 CIA director James Schlesinger asked "employees to report activities they thought might be inconsistent with the Agency�s charter." You know, illegal stuff, black ops, the works. The resulting top secret documents are called the "Family Jewels." Today they were released. Press release with link to documents.
Share this:
Dana Gioia says, “I don’t think that Americans were smarter then, but American culture was.”
Fifty years ago, I suspect that along with Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, and Sandy Koufax, most Americans could have named, at the very least, Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, Arthur Miller, Thornton Wilder, Georgia O’Keeffe, Leonard Bernstein, Leontyne Price, and Frank Lloyd Wright. Not to mention scientists and thinkers like Linus Pauling, Jonas Salk, Rachel Carson, Margaret Mead, and especially Dr. Alfred Kinsey.
The prepared text of the speech delivered by Dana Gioia at Stanford University Commencement on June 17, 2007.
Share this:
Flying High
London Flyers. Paris Flyers. Punk Flyers. More UK Flyers. Belgian Flyers. German Flyers. Greek flyers. Academic Flyer. Flickr Flyers.
Share this:
Farms Fund Robots to Replace Migrant Fruit Pickers
Farms Fund Robots to Replace Migrant Fruit Pickers
Share this:
Arrr?
Introducing rPhone – Industry insiders at PiratePalooza have the specs on the first iPhone killer.
Share this:
Contraption
Contraption. Yes, it’s a single link video post. Yes, it’s explicitly a viral. Yes, parts of it appear to be faked. It’s still awesome.
Share this:
Shields down
Robert Watt, Canada’s Chief Herald is retiring. He has held the office since its inception in 1988 and has developed an
international reputation for practicing an old world art in a new world context. Among his more interesting designs are those for the municipality of Delta, British Columbia, an Ottawa synagogue and the personal coat of arms for our Haitian-born Governor-General, Michaëlle Jean.
Share this:
Electrostatic Machines
This fellow reads up on electricity generating machines in old books and then builds them.
Share this:
Build your own game console kit
ThinkGeek is selling this sweet-looking DIY video-game console kit for $200. If your kids are going to spend the summer indoors getting pasty, at least they can learn a trade:
Written by best-selling game development author Andre’ LaMothe, the included book is your complete guide to developing games, graphics, and media applications for the Propeller Powered Hydra Game console. The book assumes you have only basic programming experience. It covers all aspects of the Propeller chip from its architecture to using the Propeller Tool IDE for programming in both Spin and assembly language, with numerous demo programs to use as starting points for your own games.
Included on the CD is all the source code and executables for all the included games, demos, tools and examples. Additionally, “Hydra Tiny BASIC” based on the “Tiny BASIC” specification originally published in “Dr. Dobb’s Journal” in 1975 is included. With this classic version of BASIC you can write programs directly on the Hydra without the need for a PC! Simply load BASIC into the Hydra or on the included game cartridge and you are up and running with nothing more than your TV and keyboard.
Share this:
I was held hostage at “Thomas” toy factory in China
Snip from essay by David Barboza of the New York Times:
As an American journalist based in China, I knew there was a good chance that at some point I’d be detained for pursuing a story. I just never thought I’d be held hostage by a toy factory.
That’s what happened last Monday, when for nine hours I was held, along with a translator and a photographer, by the suppliers of the popular Thomas & Friends toy rail sets.
“You’ve intruded on our property,” one factory boss shouted at me. “Tell me, what exactly is the purpose of this visit?” When I answered that I had come to meet the maker of a toy that had recently been recalled in the United States because it contained lead paint, he suggested I was really a commercial spy intent on stealing the secrets to the factory’s toy manufacturing process.
“How do I know you’re really from The New York Times?” he said. “Anyone can fake a name card.”
Share this:
Camera in parcel tracks journey through postal system
Tim Knowles put a digital camera inside a cardboard box and rigged it so that it would snap a photo every ten seconds through a small hole in the box. Then he sent the box through the mail. It recorded a total of 6994 images and he made a movie with them. It’s really cool!
Share this:
Punctuation bookends
I’m pretty hot for these quote-unquote bookends, made of concrete with a synthetic rubber cover.
Share this:
Toddler in MENSA
Georgia Brown of Hampshire, England, has a 152 IQ and is the youngest member of MENSA. She’s two years old. Brown’s parents noticed how clever she was after she started crawling at five months, walking at nine, and chatting with people by the time she was eighteen months old.
From the BBC News:
(Middlesex University) psychologist Joan Freeman, who tested Georgia, said she thought the toddler could have scored even higher but needed a nap after 45 minutes of work…
She told the BBC: “She is two years, nine months – not very much older than a toddler really – and she is able to answer questions five and six-year-olds can’t.
“The test uses questions like ‘If brother is to boy, then sister is to …?’. If you take a normal two-year-old, they cannot hold a pencil, they don’t know the colours and they would not be able to answer those simple questions.
“The thing I found most striking was the copying of a circle. Most two-year-olds cannot do that but she drew a perfect one.
Share this:
CIA secret documents just declassified
The Central Intelligence Agency has just declassified 700 pages of documents about such creepy, strange, and titillating subjects as “cranks, nuts, and screwballs,” “Soviet Tactical Laser Weapons,” and “USSR-UFO Sightings.” For example, here’s a section of the mostly-redacted thriller “(TITLE DELETED)-USSR-UFO SIGHTINGS-SOMEONE MUST HAVE MADE A POLITICAL DECISION”:
One one occasion XXXX asked if the U.S. forecast has even bothered with U.F.O. sightings. He explained that one time the XXXXXXXXX and the XXX in particular, has been plagued with calls and questions about the U.F.O. sightings. He said that some of their scientific balloon flights had prompted some of them. Now, he said, he never gets these calls anymore and half joking surmised that someone must have made a political decision that they were not to be sighted anymore.
Share this:
Drug addled driver makes mess of farmer’s field
A driver allegedly zonked on cocaine tried to elude police by driving through a cornfield. The moron ruined the farmer’s crop, as seen in this photo.
Share this:
1000 Science Lecture Videos
SciTalks – from the press release [19 June]: "The site launches today with over 1,000 lectures online, and more are being added daily. Segments range from a series of hour-long lectures by the late Richard Feynman, to a short, hilarious Ali G interview with Noam Chomsky, and a fascinating talk on designing a semiconductor-based brain, by up-and-coming Stanford researcher Kwabena Boahen."
Share this:
Suspect has identifying characteristics.
“Prisoner kills officer at Utah hospital.” Gee, I wonder how they caught him?
RobDurdle.com 
You must be logged in to post a comment.