Video: White Stripes play one second show
The White Stripes completed a tour of every Canadian province and territory they’d never played before. The last gig was in St. John’s, Newfoundland and it was a short one. Very short. One note, in fact.
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Enigma machine on eBay
Every so often, an authentic Enigma machine, turns up on eBay. The Enigma machine, introduced in 1923 by the Chiffriermaschinen Aktien-Gesellschaft (Cipher Machines Stock Corporation), was used by the Germans to encrypt messages during World War II. With eight days left in the auction, the current bid on this specimen is $10,100 and the reserve has not been met. According the auction listing, this Enigma is in “museum condition” and includes extra lamps. Here’s a description of the Enigma from a 1999 article in Wired:
German soldiers issued an Enigma were to make no mistake about their orders if captured: Shoot it or throw it overboard.
Based on electronic typewriters invented in the 1920s, the infamous Enigma encryption machines of World War II were controlled by wheels set with the code du jour. Each letter typed would illuminate the appropriate character to send in the coded message.
In 1940, building on work by Polish code breakers, Alan Turing and his colleagues at the famed UK cryptography center Bletchley Park devised the Bombe, a mechanical computer that deciphered Enigma-encoded messages. Even as the Nazis beefed up the Enigma architecture by adding more wheels, the codes could be cracked at the Naval Security Station in Washington, DC – giving the Allies the upper hand in the Battle of the Atlantic. The fact that the Allies had cracked the Enigma code was not officially confirmed until the 1970s.
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Trekworld photoshopping contest
Today on the Worth1000 photoshopping contest: if Trekkers ruled the Earth.
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Barbie in Wonderland
A new line of Alice in Wonderland Barbie toys is in the offing, and dude, they’re weird. The Mad Hatter is a kind of bulbous, ancient harlequin, while Alice is a doe-eyed anime princess. Apparently the Queen of Hearts is coming too — I’m thinking anthropomorphic furry fire-ant.
I think I found a picture of the Red Queen in this picture.
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Song titles as movie posters photoshopping contest
Today on Something Awful’s Photoshop Phriday: Song-titles as movie posters. I’m partial to this Strangelove/End of the World as We Know It, though the Indiana Jones “Whip It” poster was very fine indeed.
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Guevara With a Sweet Southern Tan
Do the Coup D’etat. The White House has made the Constitutional Crisis official: the Justice Department will never be allowed to pursue contempt charges against an official invoking executive privilege — even if it’s blatantly illegal.
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Finally, you can claim experience points for housework
Chore Wars: Finally, you can claim experience points for housework.
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Iranian man stoned to death for adultery after serving 11-year prison sentence
Iranian man stoned to death for adultery after serving 11-year prison sentence. Unsuccessful, unofficial investigation here. Amnesty International pleads for life of his partner.
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Hello Rogers, I’d like to upgrade.
Swedish Woman Gets Superfast Internet. She is a latecomer to the information superhighway, but 75-year-old Sigbritt Lothberg is now cruising the Internet with a dizzying speed. Lothberg’s 40 gigabits-per-second fiber-optic connection in Karlstad is believed to be the fastest residential uplink in the world, Karlstad city officials said. She’s already received one offer of marriage.
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Firday Flash Addiction
Jay is Games is holding its 3rd Casual Gameplay Design Competition. I love short games (the kind one can play in the course of a conference call) and there’s a couple of goodies in here. My favorite is Gimme Friction Baby and my current high score is 16.
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Thriller. The Ultimate version.
In the year 1982, Michael Jackson releases Thriller, which according to the Guinness Book of World Records, is the greatest selling album of all time. The 14 minute music video was the longest/most expensive at the time, and was directed by filmmaker John Landis. Details of the video here.
Now onto the show. Thriller with Legos. At a wedding. The tv show Good Morning America on the wedding version. At walmart. At another wedding. In Final Fantasy. More animatics. Professional dancers. More dancers. And More. Yup, more here. Even more dancers. Sigh. Even more dancers. And it’s not just for 2 year olds. College students too. Penn State’s Blue Band. The Bollywood Version. They even do it in Prison.
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Slap happy
Rose and Camellia. Flash Friday. It’s in Japanese, so I don’t know which girl is Rose and which is Camellia. But I do know this — they resolve their problems by slapping each other. Instructions are in Japanese as well, but it’s pretty simple: Click "attack" and run your mouse over your opponent’s face to slap, click "evasion" and run your mouse over yourself to dodge a slap.
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In 1840, the Cuerdale Hoard – the greatest Viking silver treasure trove ever found outside Russia – …
In 1840, the Cuerdale Hoard – the greatest Viking silver treasure trove ever found outside Russia – is found in Lancashire. 2007: a father and son find an amazing Viking hoard while metal detecting in in Harrogate. The most important find of its type in Britain for over 150 years, it reveals a remarkable diversity of cultural contacts in the medieval world, with objects coming from as far apart as Afghanistan in the East and Ireland in the West, as well as Russia, Scandinavia and continental Europe.
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17 UK Publishers Reject Disguised Jane Austen
“It seems like a really original and interesting read.” It is a truth universally acknowledged that the first line of Jane Austen’s "Pride and Prejudice" is one of literature’s most famous, wittily kicking off one of the most beloved of all classics. And yet, 17 British publishers failed to recognize it and rejected the manuscript when Jane’s name and the title were changed. What happens when the gatekeepers of literature are illiterate?
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A bay bay
Speaking of ‘highly virulent earworms,’ today’s NY Times suggests that searching for this year’s ‘song of the summer’ may lead to "one sad conclusion." Have today’s hitmakers failed to live up to the jams of yesteryear? Others have offered their opinions…
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The Former Shah of Iran Speaks
The Shah of Iran talks about torture, his own popularity, and corruption.
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Rogue taxidermy
Nate Hill is a rogue taxidermist. He collects raw materials from some nasty places, and creates new, better animals from them. Now he has a bigger project. Then there is his TV show, Chop, chop.
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One more game you cannot win…
For nearly two decades, fifty computers have been running day and night on an extremely complex problem. Today, scientists from the University of Alberta announced the result of all that work – they have solved the game of checkers. Chinook, the computer program they developed, can never be beaten – try for yourself. While checkers is the most complicated game to be solved so far, it is not the only one. You can play a perfect game of tic-tac-toe, of course, but also connect four, and a 6×6 board of the game othello. Chess players are already thinking ahead to when their game is solved, with Advanced Chess being Gary Kasparov’s answer. The hardest game to completely solve might be Go, which may not be solved until 2100.
RobDurdle.com 
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