The next thirty years of war
The British Ministry of Defence has been thinking about the future , and 2037 looks like it’ll be a doozy. Others have been thinking about it too, and they believe they’ll be mainly hot, sweaty, dirty and confusing.
Of course, if you’re the Canadian military, you get a science fiction author to write your future for you.
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Tom Smith’s Free Music.
Tom Smith is your average guy who likes comic books, Harlan Ellison short stories and Julie Newmar in a Catwoman suit (who dosen’t?). Except the thing is, the guy can sing and write music too. And he releases a free song every week at his iTom page. Like most artists his music can be hit and miss, but there’s some great free music to be found there such as Contessa and the awesome Jim Henson tribute A Boy and His Frog. Oh, and he also runs the ‘Digital Acoustic‘ livejournal, where he discusses all manner of things such as comics, politics and of course, music.
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SCIENCE!
“UNTIL you experiment with chlorine, you have missed some of the biggest thrills your home laboratory can give you.” Sound like fun? Bet you’ll want to set up your own home chemistry lab and try it out. But don’t stop there – the wonders of hydrogen and mercury await! Make a gas that gives you the giggles, then blow stuff up for more guffaws. And that’s just part of only one section of Modern Mechanix – "Yesterday’s Tomorrow, Today!"
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Map of maps, timeline of timelines
Milestones in graphics, maps, and visualizations. An incredible site for anyone interested in the history of visualization of data. See the first town map from 6200 BCE. Take a look at some of the most important graphics through history, including the London cholera map and the diagrams that made Florence Nightingale’s case, as well as recent examples of some of the worst. Also check out the fascinating history of timelines, or Cabinet magazine’s beautifully illustrated Timeline of Timelines.
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Turn on, tune in, get out
Entheogens and Psychotherapy. A 2001 paper by Canadian psychotherapist Andrew Feldmar on the potential therapeutic uses of psychedelics and his own experience with LSD. Now, because of this paper, he is no longer allowed to enter the U.S. [Via MindHacks.]
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121 pints of tears on the wall, 121 pints of tears…
"The average person will eat over 10,000 bars of chocolate, shed 121 pints of tears and have sex more than 4,200 times".
A documentary airing tonight in the UK is attempting a new method of visualizing statistics related to an individual’s impact on the environment. Human Footprint is scheduled to air on Channel 4 at 9PM GMT.
There is a "calculator" you can use to get the statistics adjusted for your age (and give you a little more data behind the statistics if you can sit through a page by page flash demo).
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Children Having Children
A nine-year-old girl had a baby; her rapist gets twenty-five years. She is not the youngest mother: Lina Medina bore a child at age five. Other young mothers.
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ewwww
The hagfish (YouTube) is also known as the slime eel. It can also tie itself in a knot. Designer eel skin.
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The Magic of Disney
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Flickr shooter Stuck in Customs produced this incredible photo of the centerpiece from the Disney-MGM Studios at Walt Disney World, using high dynamic range photography techniques.
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Mantis
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Fear me!
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HOWTO Make a room-sized cardboard play-castle
The Mr McGroovy’s Box-Rivets site has a killer set of plans for converting eight refrigerator boxes (they have tips for getting these for free) into a room-sized cardboard play-castle that your kids can run around in.
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Fan-made inflatable Vader takes to the sky
Benoit Lambert — member of the Belgian 501st Legion FanWars Garrison — takes over the skies in his amazing Darth Vader hot air balloon.
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Kid wrongly imprisoned for bomb threat – error due to Daylight Savings Time
A 15-year-old Pennsylvania high-school student was thrown in jail for 12 days because authorities believed he’d called in a bomb-threat. His voice sounded nothing like the voice that made the threat, but he had called the school at the time the threat was made… Or so they thought, until they realized that the call-logging program they used wasn’t honoring Daylight Savings Time.
Cody Webb was arrested last month, after Hempfield Area High School received a bomb threat on their student hotline � which provides a range of information to students about the school – at 3.17am on March 11th. They believed they’d found the culprit when they traced the phone number they thought was responsible to Webb.
Unfortunately, the school forgot that the clocks had switched to Daylight Saving Time that morning. The time stamps left on the hotline were adjusted by an hour after Day Light Savings causing Webb’s call to logged as the same time the bomb threat was placed. Webb, who’s never even had a detention in his life, had actually made his call an hour before the bomb threat was placed.
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Boss-proof your computer with a USB foot-switch
The Stealth Switch is a $40 foot-switch that lets you instantly change whatever is on you computer’s display into something innocuous. For instance, if you work in a macho environment where everyone reads ESPN sites, you can read your favorite blog about crocheting little cosplay outfits for your guinea pigs without having to worry about getting caught and being made sport of.
StealthSwitch is a microprocessor based computer privacy device. StealthSwitch uses patent pending technology to instantly and completely hide applications with a press of the footswitch. The applications are not just minimized, they are made completely invisible. No more minimizing applications, turning off the monitor, or re-booting when someone enters your office or cubicle. With a simple click of the foot switch, you can instantly hide the current window, hide all open windows, or hide all open windows except certain windows. And the best part – because the StealthSwitch, is under your desk, no one will notice. When they leave your office, simply click the foot switch again and your programs are back just the way they were. StealthSwitch, can also mute the sound, hide the taskbar, hide all desktop icons, and password protect the restore function all at the same time.
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Crocs banned in Swedish hospital for generating a “cloud of lightning”
A Swedish hospital has banned Crocs-brand plastic clogs because they build up static charges that zetz the delicate medical instruments:
Blekinge hospital in southern Sweden suspects the slip-on shoes, made by US firm Crocs Inc, are to blame for at least three incidents in which respirators and other machines malfunctioned. The mishaps caused no injuries.
Hospital spokesman Bjorn Lofqvist said staff wearing the clogs could turn into “a cloud of lighting” because of the static electricity.
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Esquire’s list of things worth shortening your life for
Esquire’s list of “60 Things Worth Shortening Your Life For” is a pretty good one — I’ve done 19… So far. Mostly those pertaining to fatty food, drugs and tobacco.
1. Danger dogs.
The Tijuana delicacy — a hot dog wrapped in bacon, fried, and topped with mayo — has made its way to San Diego and Los Angeles, sold from carts outside stadiums, clubs, and wherever hungry drunks congregate. See also:2. Jersey breakfast dogs.
An East Coast derivative with scrambled eggs and melted cheese.3. Surfing Teahupoo, Tahiti.
Unbelievable swells that roll over a shallow coral reef. Catch a wave and you’re flying; bail and you’re bleeding.4. Giving a buddy a kidney.
You only need one. Hopefully.5. Black Cat espresso from Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea.
A triple. Note the exceedingly heavy body, with chocolate, caramel, and dried-fruit notes. Also note that you’re vibrating. That means it’s working. intelligentsiacoffee.com.
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My Brief Career as a Phone-Sex Worker
This is an article in the Hartford Advocate which describes the author (Jennifer Abel) taking a job as a phone-sex worker just to see what it’s like. It’s a fascinating article.
Two words for anyone who wants to get rich giving phone sex: don’t bother. In theory, you can make up to 40 cents a minute, but to get that you have to do at least 60 calls a week with an average call length of 10 minutes or more. If your calls average six minutes or less, you only make a nickel a minute and risk being fired. (And you’re only paid for when you actually talk, not the time spent waiting for the phone to ring.)
But the deck’s stacked so a high average is hard to get. For example, you have to hang up if you get a call from a minor, but that means a five-second call bringing down your average. There’s no appeals process to say, “Yes, that was a short call but it doesn’t count.”
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Photos of fast food in ads and in real life
This is a great idea. These folks bought fast food items and photographed them, then placed the photos side-by-side with the photos in ads for the same product.
Each item was purchased, taken home, and photographed immediately. Nothing
was tampered with, run over by a car, or anything of the sort. It is an accurate
representation in every case. Shiny, neon-orange, liquefied pump-cheese, and all.
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Tiny themed prefab houses
The Tumbleweed Tiny House Company sells minuscule prefab dwellings with themed appearances — New England manor, Gypsy caravan, artsy mid-century modern, etc. They’re small enough to put up without a permit in most jurisdictions, but large enough to live (humbly) in them.
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Please don’t stare at the chimps in the zoo
Belgium’s Antwerp Zoo has posted a sign outside the chimp house asking visitors not to stare at the animals. Apparently, continued interaction with humans, through direct eye contact for example, is distracting one particular chimp named Cheeta from bonding with the others. From the Associated Press:
(Zoo spokeswoman Ilse Segers) said that Cheetah’s continued interaction with humans was “delaying the social integration of the animal in the group,” and isolating the ape from the others.
A sign posted on the glass enclosure requests onlookers not to stare at the apes. “Look away when an animal seeks to make contact with you, or take a step back,” said the sign. “Some individuals are more interested with visitors than their own kind.”
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Motley Fool: 27 second stock pitch video contest
Motley Fool is running a contest where they’re seeking the funniest 27 second stock pitch video you can come up with. The grand prize is $5000. As inspiration, they’ve posted a bunch of sample videos written by Daniel Rubin for stocks like Yahoo!, Netflix, Google, and Tivo. I’m sure I’m not the only one who finds talk of P/Es to be about as exciting as rolling a jar of pennies, so any attempt to make stock information tolerable, even entertaining, is probably a worthwhile pursuit.
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Tripod dog T-shirts are awesome
This girl Sonia started it to pay for her dog’s medical treatment as well as other dogs that are diagnosed with osteosarcoma and require leg amputation. So she makes these cute shirts and other stuff.
RobDurdle.com 
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