Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Paws & Claws ~ May the 4th be With You & Cinco de Mayo ~ AKA ~ Tequila (To KIll Ya) Day & a supermoon!

Many scholars have noted that Galileo's
"La matematica è l'alfabeto nel quale Dio ha scritto l'universo"
may be translated as
"Mathematics is the alphabet
with which God has written the Universe."
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2012 May 4
See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available.
Fermi Epicycles: The Vela Pulsar's Path
Credit: NASA, DOE, International Fermi LAT Collaboration
Explanation: Exploring the cosmos at extreme energies, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope orbits planet Earth every 95 minutes. By design, it rocks to the north and then to the south on alternate orbits in order to survey the sky with its Large Area Telescope (LAT). The spacecraft also rolls so that solar panels are kept pointed at the Sun for power, and the axis of its orbit precesses like a top, making a complete rotation once every 54 days. As a result of these multiple cycles the paths of gamma-ray sources trace out complex patterns from the spacecraft's perspective, like this mesmerising plot of the path of the Vela Pulsar. Centered on the LAT instrument's field of view, the plot spans 180 degrees and follows Vela's position from August 2008 through August 2010. The concentration near the center shows that Vela was in the sensitive region of the LAT field during much of that period. Born in the death explosion of a massive star within our Milky Way galaxy, the Vela Pulsar is a neutron star spinning 11 times a second, seen as the brightest persistent source in the gamma-ray sky.
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2012 April See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available.
Aurora Over Raufarhöfn
Image Credit & Copyright: Stephane Vetter (Nuits sacrees)
Explanation: It was all lined up even without the colorful aurora exploding overhead. If you follow the apex line of the recently deployed monuments of Arctic Henge in Raufarhöfn in northern Iceland from this vantage point, you will see that they point due north. A good way to tell is to follow their apex line to the line connecting the end stars of the Big Dipper, Merak and Dubhe, toward Polaris, the bright star near the north spin axis of the Earth projected onto the sky. By design, from this vantage point, this same apex line will also point directly at the midnight sun at its highest point in the sky just during the summer solstice of Earth's northern hemisphere. In other words, the Sun will not set at Arctic Henge during the summer solstice in late June, and at its highest point in the sky it will appear just above the aligned vertices of this modern monument. The above image was taken in late March during a beautiful auroral storm.
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Today is May the 4th be with you day ~
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Cinco de Mayo (Spanish for "fifth of May") is a celebration held on May 5. It is celebrated nationwide in the United States and regionally in Mexico, primarily in the state of Puebla, where the holiday is called El Dia de la Batalla de Puebla (English: The Day of the Battle of Puebla). The date is observed in the United States as a celebration of Mexican heritage and pride, and to commemorate the cause of freedom and democracy during the first years of the American Civil War. In the state of Puebla, the date is observed to commemorate the Mexican army's unlikely victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, under the leadership of General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín. Contrary to widespread popular belief, Cinco de Mayo is not Mexico's Independence Day—the most important national patriotic holiday in Mexico—which is actually celebrated on September 16.
On June 7, 2005, the U.S. Congress issued a Concurrent Resolution calling on the President of the United States to issue a proclamation calling upon the people of the United States to observe Cinco de Mayo with appropriate ceremonies and activities. Commercial interests in the United States have capitalized on the celebration, advertising Mexican products and services, with an emphasis on beverages, foods, and music.
I always thought it was a holiday to teach youngsters the dangers of Tequila *lol*
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The shipwrecked mariner had spent several years on a deserted island. Then one morning he was thrilled to see a ship offshore and a smaller vessel pulling out toward him.
When the boat grounded on the beach, the officer in charge handed the marooned sailor a bundle of newspapers and told him, “The captain said to read through these and let us know if you still want to be rescued.”
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Not in the school.
Not in the hall.
Not in B.C.
No, not at all.
Teachers in British Columbia, Canada, were told that they could not, should not quote Dr. Seuss because they're considered political messages: B.C. teachers are upset with Bill 22, which came into effect last month, ending their strike and bringing in a mediator. In Prince Rupert, teachers have been displaying their disappointment on T-shirts, signs and bumper stickers. Now, a Grade 1 teacher at a Prince Rupert elementary school has been told by the school district she could be disciplined for having the quote "I know, up on the top you are seeing great sights, but down here at the bottom we, too, should have rights" on her clothing or in her vehicle while on school property. The quote comes from Dr. Seuss's book Yertle the Turtle, in which Yertle orders the other turtles to stack up on one another so he can climb to the top and see all there is to see. In all, eight teachers in the district have received letters letting them know they could face discipline for displaying political messages.Link
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From Japan….
(1) It is edible. No artificial colours. No preservatives. This kit contains pork and chicken ingredients. 96 calories.
(2) It tastes like real hamburger, bread, cheese, ketchup, french fries and cola. It was delicious.
(3) It cost 258 yen.
Best burger in town
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Is That A Record?
A woman meant to call a record store but dialed the wrong number and got a private home instead.
"Do you have 'Eyes of Blue' and 'A Love Supreme'?" she asked.
"Well, no," answered the puzzled homeowner. "But I have a wife and eleven children."
"Is that a record?" she inquired.
"I don't think so," replied the man, "but it's as close as I want to get."
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Q and A Quickies

Q: Why did the defensive end return to the bank?
A: To get the quarter back.

Q: What did the diver say to the ship?
A: You're a wreck!
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Random Facts:

Americans consume an average of 200 pounds of meat, 31 pounds of cheese, 16 pounds of fish, and 415 pounds of veggies on an annual basis.

In the 1950s, the meat and poultry consumed per person on average was 138 lbs a year, which means that meat consumption has increased by around 45 percent over the past 60 years.
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Crossing guard has 11 college degrees --*
WAKEFIELD, England - A British man with 11 university degrees, including a doctorate in philosophy, said he took a job as a school crossing guard to give back to the community. Bruce Berry, a member of the high-IQ organization Mensa, said he took a job as a crossing guard five days a week near the Crofton School in Wakefield, England, The Sun reported Monday. "I love working for degrees but wanted to do something for the community. It's nice to get kiddies to and from school safely," said Berry, who speaks five languages fluently. Berry, who makes $325 per month at the job, said his father was a teacher at Crofton. "I feel part of the family there," he said.
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Brain Wave Pong Looks Hard
Charles Moyes and Mengxiang Jiang, students at Cornell, used an EEG headset as a gaming interface. Concentrate and the paddle goes up. Relax and it goes down. So it’s like Wii, but less physically taxing. Link -via Nerdcore
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From the diary of a Pre-School Teacher:
My five-year old students are learning to read. Yesterday one of them pointed at a picture in a zoo book and said, “Look at this! It’s a frickin’ elephant!”
I took a deep breath, then asked…”What did you call it?”
“It’s a frickin’ elephant! It says so on the picture!”
And so it does…
A fricken elephant
A F R I C A N ELEPHANT
Hooked on phonics! Ain’t it wonderful?
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Doodle Music
Math artist Vi Hart illustrates the relationship between music and mathematical symmetry. From the YouTube page: A visual and musical expression of mathematical symmetry groups. The transformations done to the video are equivalent to the transformations done to the notes. These type of repeating patterns are called frieze patterns. A couple wallpaper groups are also represented. But the video is intuitive: You don’t have to completely understand it to enjoy it! -via Waxy.org
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Dessert in a mug -Red Hot Apple Pie in a Mug and Mississippi Mug Pie.

Couples and trios -HG recipes with only two or three ingredients. Here are FIVE recipes to get you started -- these can all be made in advance and eaten after dinner. Click here for three fruity-licious dessert couples. And check out this three-ingredient freezy chocolate treat; much cooler than those fudge bars!

Sweet parfaits - This choco-nana parfait is insanely good, this bananas Foster one is a great swap for the decadent dessert (plus it's a trio), and this PB&J parfait is a classic.
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Sweet revenge — and a boatload of novacaine
Revenge is a dish best served with novocaine.
A dentist in Poland, dumped by her boyfriend, got payback by removing all of her former lover’s teeth — leading his new lady to dump him, too.
Anna Mackowiak could face three years in jail after she agreed to treat her ex-boyfriend, Marek Olszewski, when he asked her to help with a toothache just days after he broke up with her.
“I tried to be professional and detach myself from my emotions,” Mackowiak, 34, told the Daily Mail. “But when I saw him lying there I just thought, ‘What a bastard.’”
She then wrapped his jaw in bandages to prevent him from opening his mouth — and then simply walked away…
He did not realize the horror of what happened until he got back to his Wroclaw apartment. “But when I got home I looked in the mirror and couldn’t f—ing believe it. The b—h had emptied my mouth.”
Olszewski, who will get implants, said his new girlfriend could not handle being with a man who did not have teeth — and dumped him…
Double-Har!
Poisonally, I think he should check all of his body and see if she removed anything else.
Thanks, Ed
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They will come
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"Red meat is NOT bad for you. Now blue-green meat, THAT'S bad for you!"
- Tommy Smothers

"I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me."
- Noel Coward

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
- Aristotle
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CENTIPEDE
"Designed by Ed Logg and Dona Bailey, Centipede was the first arcade game from a woman designer. Colorful graphics and ingenious game play made Centipede the first game to attract more female fans than male." http://www.gold-online-games.com/games/arcade/centipede-clasic-play.html
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"Japanese researchers have successfully grown hair on a bald mouse. The researchers are ecstatic, and the mouse is relieved he doesn't have to keep wearing that stupid toupee." -Conan O'Brien
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The Beer Moth
The Beer Moth is not an insect, but an overnight accommodation at Inshriach House in Cairngorms National Park, Scotland, built into a 1956 fire truck. Yes, really.
Walter, the creator of the Inshriach Yurt, has truly excelled himself in his seemingly never ending quest for a renovation challenge. Having liberated this 1956 Conmer Q4 from the Manston Fire Museum in Kent and wrestled it back to Inshriach House, he has quite literally raised the roof (by a foot). Then he laid an oak parquet floor rescued from a Tudor mansion, salvaged snooker table slate to make a hearth and a fire escape for a staircase. The Beer Moth now also sports a completely over the top Victorian double bed, the door from one of the (now presumably a little drafty) cottages at the farm, and the former back wall of the doghouse. The mahogany plinth has been replaced with a wood-burner, the inexplicable stuffed squirrel has vacated the premises, and the cutting edge of unusual places to stay has been an immediate hit with its first fortunate (and slightly bemused) guests.
Make your reservations now! Pets are welcome in the Beer Moth, but it is not meant to accommodate children. Link -via Laughing Squid (Image credit: Inshriach House)
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Android fans: wear it proud, wear it loud. Sound activates a mini light show that sees lasers from little Android’s eyes shooting and burning away the dirty little Apple.
Apple fanboys beware – the laser-eyed Android is coming for you. And it’s powered by 4xAAA batteries.
Sound Activated Android Destroying Apple Tee2
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Donny and Marie Osmond Do Star Wars
The Seventies; It was a weird time to be alive.
Redd Foxx is Obi-Wan Kenobi. Kris Kristofferson is Han Solo. Paul Lynde is Grand Moff Tarkin. The best part: Donny is Luke Skywalker and Marie is Leia Organa. Donny and Marie Osmond are brother and sister. Spoiler: they don’t kiss.
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The World’s Tastiest iPhone

Pssshh…using your iPhone to call, text and surf the web is so 2011. The real hip iPhone users are eating theirs…or at least the hip people in China who are able to get their hands on the iPhone 5 popsicle. Oddly, while there are mango and pear flavored options, there’s no apple flavor. Link Via Kotaku
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Reiss records the death of a woman who was hastily buried while her husband was away, and on his return he ordered exhumation of her body, and on opening the coffin a child’s cry was heard. The infant had evidently been born postmortem. It lived long afterward under the name of ‘Fils de la terre.’ Willoughby mentions the curious instance in which rumbling was heard from the coffin of a woman during her hasty burial. One of her neighbors returned to the grave, applied her ear to the ground, and was sure she heard a sighing noise. A soldier with her affirmed her tale, and together they went to a clergyman and a justice, begging that the grave be opened. When the coffin was opened it was found that a child had been born, which had descended to her knees. In Derbyshire, to this day, may be seen on the parish register: ‘April ye 20, 1650, was buried Emme, the wife of Thomas Toplace, who was found delivered of a child after she had lain two hours in the grave.’
– George Milbry Gould and Walter Lytle Pyle, Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine, 1896
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Its devices are ubiquitous, its annual new product releases are among the most anticipated in the world and it recently announced it would begin issuing a dividend to its stock owners–expected to generate $10 billion in the first year alone. But ho do Apple’s eye-popping statistics translate to the real world?
So geeks, what do you think Apple’s next big move is going to be?
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Sherlock Holmes Gets a Steampunk Makeover
For more on the Steampunk Holmes endeavor, go here. You can also watch a nifty trailer for the project below. To donate to the Steampunk Holmes Kickstarter campaign, click here.
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"I want to get this off my chest: For the past 20 years, I have been using performance-enhancing vodka." -David Letterman ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"A new study found that being a vegetarian actually improves your mood, while talking about being a vegetarian just ruins everyone else's mood." -Jimmy Fallon~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I don't think I'll ever have a mother's intuition. My sister left me alone in a restaurant with my 10-month old nephew. I said, "What do I do if he cries?"
She said, "Give him some vegetables."
It turns out that jalapeno is not his favorite.
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The media-stenographers to power.--Amy Goodman
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Emperor Scorpion Has 25 Babies at the Cincinnati Zoo!
http://youtu.be/uTQRYXIuIAg
Empmom
The Emperor Scorpion, like the one pictured above, is the largest in the world. And this one has had 25 babies! According to Thane Maynard from the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, their new video of the scorpion and all those offspring is the "coolest thing you'll see all week."
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Now this is something you don’t see every day: actual video footage of a binary star system exploding into space.
This isn’t to be confused with a supernova, which is a star that has collapsed in on itself causing it to completely self-destruct — rather, a nova is a cataclysmic nuclear explosion that happens in a binary system when one star sucks away too much hydrogen from its partner. A white dwarf can only hold so much hydrogen before it reaches critical mass and completely explodes, thereby ejecting all its excess mass into space.
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Illinois State University mathematician Phil Grizzard points out that a person born on Nov. 30, 1999, is a “stopwatch baby” — the date always displays her age in months, days, and years. For example, today, 5/4/12, such a person has been alive for 5 months, 4 days, and 12 years. (Europeans can swap the month and day — the principle still works.)
A caveat: In December we must “make change” by setting the month to 0 and adding 1 to the year. So this Christmas, 12/25/12, a stopwatch baby will be 0/25/13 — 0 months, 25 days, and 13 years old.
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Open Space: Wired’s New Portal to the Commercial Space Race
The future of space travel, exploration and exploitation looks very different from the past. The new space race has a far more diverse list of entrants, with the number of new commercial companies swamping government agencies like NASA and giants like Lockheed Martin.
SpaceX is certainly the best known of these new projects, but the cast is big and growing rapidly. To help you make sense of this modern spacescape, Wired Science has launched a new portal called Open Space that will consolidate commercial and private space coverage from around Wired.com as well as the best from around the web.
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What the iPhone 5 Could Look Like
The iPhone 5 is rumored to be hitting store shelves in October and come with a brand new look. If reports turn out to be true, the iPhone 5 could be made of liquid metal and come with 4G LTE capabilities on both the AT&T and Verizon networks. If the whole Terminator 2-esque thought of a liquid metal iPhone has you rolling your eyes, the fact is, Apple acquired the rights to use a patented LiquidMetal material back in 2010, making this rumor more of a possibility than most.
Of course, this is not the first time that Apple fanatics have guesstimated what the next-generation iPhone would look like.
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‘The Scream’ Sold for a Record $120 Million
If he were alive, Edvard Munch would've screamed. You see, his iconic painting The Scream (the pastel version - one of four that Edvard has drawn) has just sold for a record $120 million at auction to an anonymous buyer.
The other three versions of The Scream are all owned by Norwegian museums, but Sotheby's say the version they sold is the most colourful. It is also the only one to include a poem by Munch on the frame, which talks of the inspiration behind the series of works. It reads: "I was walking along a path with two friends - the sun was setting - suddenly the sky turned blood red - I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence - there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city."My friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety - and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature."
The bidding lasted only 12 minutes: Link
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Nothing’s Gonna Stop Me Now
This game is based on the old TV show Perfect Strangers. The goal is to chase your dream. No, it doesn’t take much skill, but I think you’ll get a kick out of it! Link -via Gorilla Mask
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Parakeet Knows Its Home Address
A lost parakeet flew into a hotel in Sagamihara, Japan, on Sunday and landed on a guest’s shoulder. Since no one knew where the bird came from, it was taken in a cage to a local police station. For two days it sat there. Then Tuesday night, the parakeet must have decided it was time to go home. Despite giving no indications that it could talk, the bird suddenly piped up late on Tuesday night and began repeating its home address – which its owner had apparently drummed into the bird for just such an unlikely eventuality. Specifying the address down to the number of the house and the block on which is stands, the bird enabled police to track down its 64-year-old owner. Fumie Takahashi is glad to have her parakeet back. And that answers the question of what is the first thing you should teach your bird to say. Link -via Arbroath
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10 Things Your Commencement Speaker Won’t Tell You
2. Some of your worst days lie ahead.
9. It’s all borrowed time.
10. Don’t try to be great. Being great involves luck and other circumstances beyond your control. The less you think about being great, the more likely it is to happen. And if it doesn’t, there is absolutely nothing wrong with being solid.
Good luck and congratulations.
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An iPhone pocket... in your bra?
For women who hate carrying a purse, or find pants oppressive, two college juniors might just have the solution
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…. at a ball game.
Joey??
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Good sandwich guide
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The Statue of Liberty might not be standing in New York Harbor were it not for Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the New York World. France would donate the statue if we built the foundation for it. Fundraising efforts to build the foundation for the statue were hitting on hard times. After several failed attempts to raise the money, Pulitzer promised to publish the name of anyone who donated anything (no matter how small) to help get it built. Response was overwhelming as over 120,000 people made donations. The rest of the story
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Audio Slideshow: Human Planet Exploring mankind’s incredible relationship with nature
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Skeleton Foot
DeviantART member KidNamedEmCee got a foot tattoo that will frighten children at the swimming pool for years to come. The detail is amazing! He said it didn’t hurt as much as expected, but it hurts me just to look at it. Link -via reddit
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Why Chip Bags are Hard to Open
John Spevacek is a chemical engineer with a confession to make. You may have noticed that snack bags are more difficult to open than they were years ago. Spevacek comes clean and takes the blame. Here’s how the project came about.
I was in the Packaging Films Group, making multilayer polypropylene films for food packaging. The film had a heat-seal adhesive on one side of the polypropylene base. One of our larger clients used our films to make potato chip bags. The problem they had with our existing films was that the they seal was too weak. The client’s chip-making plants were located west of the Rocky Mountains, so when trucks would drive their chips out to California, some of the seals would open up due to the pressure difference between the high altitude air and the air sealed inside the bag. And so they needed a stronger seal from us, which was then passed down to me.
So really, Spevacek is not so much to blame as the altitude of the Rocky Mountains! He goes on to describe the process of making bags and packing chips and how the new kind of seal was attained. Chip-lovers should read this, then forgive him. Link -via Gizmodo
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In a world where we’ve tamed our environment and largely protected ourselves from the vagaries of nature, we may think we’re immune to the forces of natural selection. But a new study finds that the process that drives evolution was still shaping us as recently as the 19th century. The finding comes from an analysis of the birth, death, and marital records of 5,923 people born between 1760 and 1849 in four farming or fishing villages in Finland. Researchers led by evolutionary biologist Alexandre Courtiol of the Institute for Advanced Study Berlin picked this time period because agriculture was well established by then and there were strict rules against divorce and extramarital affairs. The team looked at four aspects of life that affect survival and reproduction, key signposts of natural selection: Who lived beyond age 15, who got married and who didn’t, how many marriages each person had (second marriages were possible only if a spouse died), and how many children were born in each marriage. “All these steps can influence the number of offspring you have,” says Courtiol.
The Salt Mines Below Sicily
Deep below the Mediterranean island of Sicily, thousands of tons of salt are excavated every year. The mining leaves behind miles of tunnels that are “vaulted alabaster corridors” under any available light. Take a tour of these strange but beautiful mines at Environmental Graffiti. Link (Image credit: Antonino Savojardo)
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Every so often, I like to stick my head out the window, look up, and smile for a satellite picture.
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Old British Council Films Available Online
The British Council has released a collection of films produced in the 1940s to show the world how the British lived and worked. Over 120 films were produced as ‘cultural propaganda’ to counteract anything the Nazis might throw out and to refute the idea that ours was a country stuck in the past. These films were designed to showcase Britain to the rest of the world, at a time when Britain itself was under attack. Seen by millions of people in over 100 countries worldwide from the 1940′s to 1960′s, they present a historic snapshot of Britain, portraying its industry, its landscapes, and its people. The Collection is fantastically varied, covering anything from how a bicycle is made, to how the British spend their Saturdays.
You can browse through 80 available films. Link -via Boing Boing
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It only takes a second
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A man is 4/7 across a train trestle when he sees a train coming. To get off the trestle, he can run toward the train or away from it. As it happens, in either case he’ll reach safety just as the locomotive passes him. If he runs at 20 kph, how fast is the train going?
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Doug and The Taodogs.
"We are vibrational beings. In the beginning there was silence, then for no reason Source uttered a sound and All This was created. We are here to enjoy the symphony." - DF
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"There is no other writer like Edgar Allan Poe. Poe had a very questionable lifestyle. He married his 13-year-old cousin. Today that would get him a reality show." -Craig Ferguson
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What Is on Voyager’s Golden Record?
From a whale song to a kiss, the time capsule sent into space in 1977 had some interesting contents
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If you’re Pagan, or open to it, you might appreciate that this coincides with true Beltane. Beltane is the Spring fertility festival, when traditionally Wiccans, Witches, Druids, and Pagans of all kinds celebrate the season by making love outside under the stars and moon. These days its often celebrated on May 1st but true Beltane is the halfway point between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice — May 5th. Have fun!!!
 
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The 20 Best Small Towns in America
From the Berkshires to the Cascades, we've crunched the numbers and pulled a list some of the most interesting spots around the countryhttp://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/The-20-Best-Small-Towns-in-America.html#ixzz1ttnHyAoB
18. Ashland, OR
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"German authorities report they have discovered digital files hidden in a porn movie that outline al-Qaida's plans for more terrorist attacks. I believe this is the first time that a porn film has ever contained a plot." -Jay Leno
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Family Locked in Restaurant for Refusing to Pay Tip
After receiving bad service at La Fisherman restaurant in West Houston, Texas, a family refused to pay the tip.
So what did the restaurant do? They locked the door ... and called the cops!
When the bill came, Marks said there was a problem. The restaurant added an automatic 17 percent gratuity because their party had more than five people in it, but Marks didn't feel like the staff earned the full tip so she asked to speak to a manager. "We asked her, could the gratuity be removed? Could we give our own tip? She said it was part of their policy and there was nothing she could do about," Marks said. "If you're not satisfied with the service, you shouldn't have to pay gratuity." The gratuity policy was clearly marked on the restaurant's menus. But Marks said when they questioned it the workers wouldn't let her or her friends leave; she claims they locked the door and called the police. Link
Is it fair to enforce an automatic tip policy (on large parties) if the service is less than stellar?
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Man Exposes Himself at Association for the Blind
We’ve posted a lot of stories about crimes that didn’t turn out as the perpetrators expected, you know, dumb criminal stories. This one, however, takes “defeating the purpose” to another level -that of mopery. A man exposed himself to a woman inside the Bucks County Association for the Blind. Newtown Township police said the incident occurred about 2 p.m. Friday inside the bookstore at the offices at 400 Freedom Drive. The flasher fled before police arrived. You have to wonder how many times he tried it before someone noticed. Link -via Death and Taxes
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The Nautilus One-Man-Band
Dutch musician and entertainer Arthur van Poppel has got himself the world's most awesome stand/band equipment/transportation. Behold, the Nautilus One-Man-Band (the flame is but one of the many things it can do).
Laughing Squid has more pics and the video clip of the Nautilus in action: Link
 
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Dreamy Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge
Ingredients
  • One 18.3-oz. box fudge brownie mix
  • 2 cups canned pure pumpkin
  • 2 tbsp. light chocolate syrup
  • 2 tbsp. reduced-fat peanut butter, softened
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a large mixing bowl, combine brownie mix with pumpkin and stir until smooth. Add chocolate syrup and stir until blended. The batter will be very thick, but don't add anything else!
Spray a square baking pan (9" X 9" works best) with nonstick spray. Spread the batter into the pan. Then spoon peanut butter on top and use a knife or skewer to swirl it around.
Bake in the oven for 35 minutes. The batter will remain very thick and fudgy, and it will look undercooked.
Allow the fudge to cool. Cover the pan with foil and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Cut into 36 squares. Then get ready for a fudge frenzy!
MAKES 36 SERVINGS
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PB&C Cake in a Mug
Ingredients:
1 tsp. mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 tsp. reduced-fat peanut butter, room temperature
3 tbsp. moist-style devil's food cake mix
1 tbsp. fat-free sour cream
1 tbsp. fat-free liquid egg substitute (like Egg Beaters Original)
1/8 tsp. baking powder
2 tbsp. Fat Free Reddi-wip

Directions:
Place chocolate chips in a microwave-safe mug sprayed with nonstick spray. Add 2 tablespoons hot water. Microwave for 20 seconds, and stir to dissolve. If needed, microwave for an additional 10 - 20 seconds, and stir until fully dissolved.
Add 1 tsp. peanut butter and all remaining ingredients except Reddi-wip. Mix well. Microwave for 1 minute and 45 seconds, or until set.
Gently spread cake with remaining 1 tsp. peanut butter. Top with Reddi-wip and eat up!
MAKES 1 SERVING
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One afternoon, while touring the Canyonlands of southern Utah, my husband and I pulled into the only hotel in a small town. While signing the register, we asked the young woman behind the desk if our room was air-conditioned.
When she shook her head no, we hesitated, wondering if we should push on to the next town. Sensing our doubt, she brightened as she came up with a solution. "Just turn on the heater," she suggested. "Our customers tell us all that comes out is cold air anyway."
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Most people assume WWJD is for "What would Jesus do?" But the initials really have been changed to stand for "What would Jesus drive?"
One theory is that Jesus would tool around in an old Plymouth because the Bible says, "God drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden in a Fury."
But in Psalm 83, the Almighty clearly owns a Pontiac and a Geo. The passage urges the Jesus to "pursue your enemies with your Tempest and terrify them with your Storm."
Perhaps God favors Dodge pickup trucks, because Moses' followers are warned not to go up a mountain "until the Ram's horn sounds a long blast."
Some scholars insist that Jesus drove a Honda but didn't like to talk about it. As proof, they cite a verse in St. John's gospel where Christ tells the crowd, "For I did not speak of my own Accord..."
Meanwhile, Moses rode an old British motorcycle, as evidenced by a Bible passage declaring that "the roar of Moses' Triumph is heard in the hills."
Joshua drove a Triumph sports car with a hole in its muffler: "Joshua's Triumph was heard throughout the land." And, following Jesus' lead, the Apostles car pooled in a Honda... "The Apostles were in one Accord.
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One cannot wage war under present conditions without the support of public opinion, which is tremendously molded by the press and other forms of propaganda.--General-Douglas MacArthur
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All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume. --Noam Chomsky

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By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise. --Adolf Hitler
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Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen... --Zbigniew Brzezinski
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High Intensity Head Lamp - 2-Pack

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Volvo’s hybrid semi sets a land speed record
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5,000-year-old red blood cells discovered in the Iceman mummy
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Grace Hopper on Letterman!
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Drawing An Ass
Drawing an ass
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But the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success.-- Adolf Hitler
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No honest journalist should be willing to describe himself or herself as 'embedded.' To say, 'I'm an embedded journalist' is to say, 'I'm a government Propagandist.-- Noam Chomsky~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In studying the history of the human mind one is impressed again and again by the fact that the growth of the mind is the widening of the range of consciousness, and that each step forward has been a most painful and laborious achievement. One could almost say that nothing is more hateful to man than to give up even a particle of his unconsciousness. Ask those who have tried to introduce a new idea!--C. G. Jung
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The fates have given mankind a patient soul. --Homer (800 BC - 700 BC), The Iliad
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Concatenated Order of Hoo Hoo.
 
Stumbled across this in Miscellaneous Notes and Queries, January 1897:
Concatenated Order of Hoo Hoo. This is the name of a Western organization. It was organized by the ‘supreme nine.’ The Snark of the Universe is William Eddy Barns, of St. Louis, Mo. The other officers are designated Senior Hoo Hoo, Junior Hoo Hoo, Bojum, Scrivenoter, Bundersnatch, Custocatian, Arcanoper, Gurdon. There are 24 Vicegerent Snarks for as many States and Territories. This Order was founded in 1891 by nine traveling lumbermen, detained at Kansas City on account of a railroad wreck, and has extended over the Union. Its declared object is the promotion of the ‘health, happiness, and long life of its members.’ The membership is limited to 9,999. The symbol of the Order is a black cat with its back and tail up, curled into the shape of a nine, chosen because of its traditional nine lives. Brethren are known as kittens. Hoo Hoo day is the ninth day of the ninth month of the year. The annual meeting begins the ninth minute after nine o’clock p.m. on that day. The initiation fee is $9.99, and the annual dues are 99 cents. There is a ritual, and aid is extended to distressed members and their families.
I find, to my great joy, that it still exists. In the intervening 120 years the order has inducted more than 100,000 members and expanded into Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, and South Africa. The international office is located one block from the site of the group’s founding.
In a spirit of fun, names for some of the officers were inspired by Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark. The chief executive officer of Hoo-Hoo is the Snark of the Universe (formerly the Grand Snark of the Universe). The Board of Directors includes the Chairman, Vice-President, Secretary-Treasurer, the Seer of the House of Ancients and the Supreme Nines. The Supreme Nines include the Supreme Hoo-Hoo, Senior Hoo-Hoo, Junior Hoo-Hoo, Scrivenoter, Bojum, Jabberwock, Custocatian, Arcanoper and Gurdon.
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“Nearly every example of faulty reasoning that has been published is accompanied by the phrase ‘of course’ or its equivalent.” — Donald E. Knuth
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Andy and Bob play rock-paper-scissors 10 times. Andy plays 3 rocks, 6 scissors, and 1 paper (in some order), and Bob plays 2 rocks, 4 scissors, and 4 paper. There are no ties. Who wins?
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Klouchebag is the standard for measuring asshattery online. It was made in response to Klout, the social-game that assigns you a score based on how 'influential' you are online. Klouchebag uses the ARSE rating system. Anger: profanity and rage. Retweets: 'please RT's, no or constant retweeting, and old-style. Social Apps: every useless checkin on foursquare or its horrible brethren. And English Usage: if you use EXCLAMATION MARKS OMG!!! or no capitals at all, this'll be quite high.
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Photographed in the Qinling Mountains of China by Burrard-Lucas Wildlife Photography, via Sloth Unleashed.

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Farmers Insurance/
Marvel's The Avengers -- Suit Up: University of Farmers
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Brian Greene explains some complex physics in a fairly understandable way. His presentation is really entertaining. He’s a very charismatic talker and he uses some funky animations to illustrate the concepts he discusses.
Our universe is the only one in the multiverse that allows us to exist, which is explained through string theory and the concept of the multiverse itself? Seems quite…indistinct to me. Throughout my study of physics, I always found string theory to be interesting, but I feel like something’s just a little bit off about it.
What do you guys think? Is his explanation sound enough for you to accept the existence of the multiverse and the explanation of why our universe has allowed life to form?
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Dancers + camera + kaleidoscope = this infinitely gorgeous short video. (Watch in 1080p fullscreen if you can.) It’s made for TEDxSummit, an unprecedented gathering of TEDx organizers from around the world– and the video celebrates “the power of x” to multiply great ideas.
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Brain Injury Turned Man into Math Genius
Genius: we used to think that you're either born with it or not. But today, we learn that there's another route to become a mathematical genius - being bonked in the head.
That's what happened to Jason Padgett, 41, a college dropout who became a math genius after he suffered a brain trauma in a mugging:
Ten years ago, Padgett was only interested in two things: working out and partying. One night he was walking out of a karaoke club in Tacoma when he was brutally attacked by muggers who beat and kicked him in the head repeatedly. Padgett said they were after his $99 leather jacket. “All I saw was a bright flash of light and the next thing I knew I was on my knees on the ground and I thought, ‘I’m gonna get killed,’” he said. At the time, doctors said he had a concussion, but within a day or two, Padgett began to notice something remarkable. This college dropout who couldn’t draw became obsessed with drawing intricate diagrams, but didn’t know what they were.
Neal Karlinsky and Meredith Frost of ABC New's Medical Unit has the story: Link
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An adventure 16 bits in the making…
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Wagons And Okies And Zombies…Oh My!
I’m sure everyone has heard of, and played, one of the original hit computer games Oregon Trail.
But did you ever wish the game had more action, more suspense, and random encounters with zombies?
If you answered yes then your dreams have come true, thanks to game company The Men Who Wear Many Hats and their new game Organ Trail.
It’s a lot like Oregon Trail, except you have to make difficult decisions like ‘should I kill an infected party member?’ and ‘should I shoot the zombie and risk other zombies hearing the shot?’
It’s perfect for those who like a lot of reading, and old timey graphics, with their video gaming experience.
Link –via Ology
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Notice the time-stamp in the lower right-hand corner.
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The Fourth Dimension by Cliff Pickover
What would 4D beings look like? Could heaven reside in a fourth spatial dimension just inches away from our 3D world?
I have been visiting Cliff Pickover's reality Carnival (blog) for a long time and didn't realize he was also the author of 2 really cool books I have enjoyed: The Math Book & The Physics Book.
The Physics Book: From the Big Bang to Quantum Resurrection
250 Milestones in the History of Physics
From Pythagoras to the 57th Dimension,
http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/math-book.html
250 Milestones in the History of Mathematics
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Alien Tiles Official Web Page
"The Universe's Most Challenging and Fun Puzzle Game"
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In elementary geometry, the pizza theorem states the equality of two areas that arise when one partitions a disk in a certain way. The sum of the areas of the odd numbered sectors equals the sum of the areas of the even numbered sectors (Upton 1968).
The pizza theorem is so called because it mimics a traditional pizza slicing technique. It shows that, if two people share a pizza sliced in this way by taking alternating slices, then they each get an equal amount of pizza.
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Pizza Muffins
To make Kirbie’s delicious-looking muffins, mix mozzarella cheese and pepperoni into the batter. Cook for eighteen minutes, then add more cheese and pepperoni. Pop them in the oven for a few more minutes to encounter a new type of pizza. Link -via Bit Rebels
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Kazakhstan Now Thankful for Borat
Back in 2006, the Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan was angry at Borat. The movie, starring Sacha Baron Cohen and shot in neighboring Romania, made fun of the country (as the movie's theme song proclaimed, it's the number one exporter of potassium, has the cleanest prostitutes in the region, and is overall a very nice place).
Now, Kazakhstan has changed its tune: it is now thankful for the movie, which brought in a lot of tourists!
The government of Kazakhstan has thanked Sacha Baron Cohen's creation Borat for boosting tourism in the country.
The authorities banned the film and threatened to sue the comedian after its release in 2006.
But now Kazakhstan's foreign minister has said he is "grateful" to Borat for "helping attract tourists" to the country.He said 10 times more people were applying for visas to go there. Link
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(CNN) - If you take Adam Harvey's advice, here's what you might wanna wear to a party this weekend: A funny hat, asymmetrical glasses, a tuft of hair that dangles off your nose bridge and, most likely, a black-and-white triangle taped to your cheekbone. Optional: Cubic makeup patterns all around your eyes.
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We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.~ John F. Kennedy
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"A new study found that kids who work more than 20 hours a week at a job are more likely to get bad grades. On the other hand, China." -Jimmy Fallon
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A mother in law said to her son's wife when their baby was born: "I don't mean to be rude but he doesn't look anything like my son."
The daughter-in-law lifted her skirt and said: "I don't mean to be rude either, but this is a pussy...not a fucking photo-copier."
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"Today is the 20th annual Bring Your Child to Work Day. It's a great opportunity to show your kids why you come home so miserable every day." -Jimmy Kimmel
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The Spy in the Bag

MI6, the British intelligence service that inspired the James Bond story, has got a real-life spy mystery on its hand: One of its own spy was found dead, padlocked inside a duffel back in a bathtub.
Was it the work of foreign assassins, poison, or a sex game gone wrong? John F. Burns of The New York Times has the macabre yet fascinating story of The Spy in the Bag:
At the inquest on Friday, a video was played showing two men hired by the police — one a yoga expert and the other a former military man trained in escape techniques, and both of roughly the same size and height as the muscular, athletic, 5-foot-7-inch Mr. Williams — trying to replicate what he would have had to do to get himself into the bag alone and lock it from inside. Using the same kind of red, extra-large North Face duffel bag, and the tub in the Pimlico flat, the two men were shown contorting themselves — more than 100 times in the case of one man, and 300 times in the case of the other — without managing the feat. Link
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Star Wars Land Coming To Disneyland Paris
Aside from being located in one of the most fabulous cities in the world, Disneyland Paris has a lot of other features which make a native Southern Californian like myself very jealous indeed-their Indiana Jones ride has a loop, an adult worthy rollercoaster based on Finding Nemo, and now the proposed addition of a Star Wars themed section of the park.
Star Wars Land is rumored to be coming to Disneyland Paris sometime in 2015, which means Disney’s crew of Imagineers are probably hard at work designing and testing the features of this exciting new section of the park.
I hope they include lots of Wookiees and Ewoks, Link
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Electric Motor Made out of Buckyballs
YouTube user graybum devises many simple and ingenious uses for Buckyballs, such as this amazing electric motor. It’s just Buckyballs, a wire and a battery. Redditor gloon explains how it works: When you touch the wire to the side of the magnets, you complete an electric circuit. Current flows out of the battery, through the magnet to the wire, and through the wire to the other end of the battery. The magnetic field from the magnet is oriented through its flat faces, so it is parallel to the magnet’s axis of symmetry. Electric current flows through the magnet. If you took physics at some point, it’s possible that you’ll remember the effect that a magnetic field has on moving electric charges: they experience a force that is perpendicular to both their direction of movement and the magnetic field. Since the field is along the symmetry axis of the magnet and the charges are moving radially outward from that axis, the force (Lorentz force) is in the tangential direction, and so the magnet begins to spin. -via reddit
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Apple Plans to Open Restaurant for Forgetful Staff
Remember the kerfuffle over the iPhone prototype that an Apple engineer left in a restaurant and ended up on the blog Gizmodo? Well, Apple has a plan to stop this kind of thing from ever happening again.
No, Apple is not installing a self-destruct sequence on their prototypes - rather, it is going to construct its own restaurant exclusively for Apple employees:
According to Apple’s director of real estate facilities, Dan Whisenhunt, the construction of the two-story restaurant is a direct result of security concerns: “We like to provide a level of security so that people and employees can feel comfortable talking about their business, their research and whatever project they’re engineering without fear of competition cort of overhearing their conversations. That is a real issue today in Cupertino because we’ve got other companies here in our same business,” he told the Planning Commission, leaving out the part about employees also tending to leave sensitive prototypes of future releases in public for random people to find and sell to websites, causing all manner of embarrassment to the company. Link
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BMW sued over bike-induced erection – yes, in California!
A fellow blogosphere editor in Oz emailed this. I imagine the US press will discover it, today.
A Californian motorcycle enthusiast has taken legal action after a bike seat gave him long lasting erections.
Straight from the “only in America” files comes this – a Californian man is suing BMW North America over a seat that gave him a severe case of priapism (a persistent, lasting erection) that has lasted for 20 months.
Henry Wolf claims his 1993 BMW motorcycle, or more specifically the bike’s “ridge-like” seat, gave him a “severe case of priapism” when he took it for a four-hour ride on May 1, 2010, according to the Courthouse News Service.
Wolf is suing BMW North America and the seat’s manufacturer, Corbin-Pacific, in a product liability lawsuit in the California Superior Court in San Francisco, claiming the “negligent design, manufacture and/or installation of the seat” has caused the painful condition.
Narrow, “banana” style seats similar to the one reportedly fitted to Wolf’s motorcycle have been associated with problems such as genital numbness and even erectile dysfunction, however Wolf’s case is the first known to tackle the opposite side of the problem.
The court notes state the Wolf “has been experiencing continuing problems since his motorcycle ride” including “substantial emotional and mental anguish” and the inability to engage in sexual activity…
The comments at the site in Oz are predictably wry – mostly with guys my age asking if they can buy the motorcycle or at least the seat.
Har!
Thanks, Ed
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Giant Space Invaders Art by Filthy Luker
Installation artist Filthy Luker collaborated with Red Stripe beer to create an homage to the 80's arcade game classic Space Invaders. The giant installation was done on the side of the Manchester Town Hall wall and made out of road barriers and electronics.
Take a look: hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - Thanks for the email, whoever you are! (I forgot who sent this one in and lost that email but had the link, sorry!)
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Nothing can quite prepare you for the exquisite sight of a hummingbird on the wing. Nature has truly spoiled us with this spectacle. Take a look as ten different species take flight in their search for food and marvel at the aerodynamics of one of the world's truly astonishing species.
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Newspaper Index is an index of evaluated newspapers in every country of the world. The collection contains links only to newspapers and publications with local, free and independent news. The database does not have newspapers that focus on gossip, rumour, local or sport news.
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Fog-Free Self-Cleaning Glass Made with Nanotechnology
Wiping or blowing away the fog on your car's windshield will soon be a thing of the past, thanks to researchers at MIT: they've developed a fog-free, glare-free, and self-cleaning glass by using nanotechnology.
Through a process involving thin layers of material deposited on a surface and then selectively etched away, the MIT team produced a surface covered with tiny cones, each five times taller than their width. This pattern prevents reflections, while at the same time repelling water from the surface. [...]
The researchers say they drew their inspiration from nature, where textured surfaces ranging from lotus leaves to desert-beetle carapaces and moth eyes have developed in ways that often fulfill multiple purposes at once. Although the arrays of pointed nanocones on the surface appear fragile when viewed microscopically, the researchers say their calculations show they should be resistant to a wide range of forces, ranging from impact by raindrops in a strong downpour or wind-driven pollen and grit to direct poking with a finger. Link - via Science, Space & Robots
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The First Pitch May Be Your Last!
Japanese baseball is as open to weird promotions as the US Major League. However, you won’t see a movie tie-in this creepy over here. I hope. On Wednesday, the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters (no kidding) invited the ghost character Sadako Yamamura, hair and all, from the horror movie Ring to throw out the opening pitch. -via Geeks Are Sexy
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Mutts
They might have been mutts, but they were damn loyal mutts.
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These are true injuries suffered by baseball players.
Infielder Chris Brown missed a game because he “slept on his eye funny”.
Pitcher Adam Eaton stabbed himself in the stomach as he was using a knife to open a DVD wrapper.
Sammy Sosa was disabled after a violent sneeze.
Pitcher Jeff Juden missed a start because a tattoo he got prior to the season opener got infected.
Reliever Randy Flores was put on the disabled list – while removing his socks after a game, a large patch of skin also came off.
DH Mickey Tettleton went on the disabled list with athlete’s foot. The story is that he tied his shoes too tight.
Utility infielder Bret Barberie missed a game because he mistakenly rubbed chili juice in his eyes.
Pitcher Ricky Bones injured his lower back getting out of a chair while watching television in the clubhouse.
Outfielder Dustan Mohr strained his groin while trying to get out of the dugout for a celebration for another player’s home run.
Reliever Larry Anderson strained a rib muscle jumping from the bench to join a brawl.
Shortstop Rey Quinones wasn’t available as a pinch hitter as he was in the clubhouse playing Nintendo.
Pitcher Mark Smith was injured when he stuck his hand into an air conditioner to see why it wasn’t working.
Reliever Joey Eischen broke his arm jumping into the air to field a ground ball.
Pitcher Randy Veres injured his hand pounding on the hotel room wall, trying to get the people in the next room to be quiet.
Third baseman Randy Johnson strained his back putting on his socks.
Pitcher Byron McLaughlin cut his right hand when he was practicing his windup in his hotel room. He was apparently too close to the mirror.
Catcher Brent Mayne missed an entire month in the 2002 season because he turned his head to check traffic as he was crossing the street – and wrenched his back.
Pitcher Steve Foster injured his shoulder at a taping of a segment for “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”.
Outfielder Ken Griffey Jr. missed a game after his cup slipped and pinched a testicle.
Pitcher Oliver Perez went on the 15 day disabled list after breaking his toe while kicking a laundry cart in the visitor’s clubhouse.
Outfielder Marty Cordova missed a game after he burned his face, spending too much time under a tanning lamp.
Jose Cardenal missed a game because he was kept awake all night by crickets chirping in his hotel room.
Outfielder Glenallen Hill received cuts over much of his body after he fell out of bed onto a glass table. He was having a nightmare about being covered in spiders.
Second baseman Jeff Kent claimed he hurt his wrist while washing his truck. Speculation is that he was injured in a motorcycle accident while doing tricks.
Infielder Paul Molitor dislocated a knuckle when it got stuck in another player’s glove.
Pitcher Terry Mulholland scratched his eye on a feather that was sticking out of a pillow.
Hall of Fame pitcher Phil Niekro was injured while shaking hands.
Pitcher Doc Gooden missed a start when a teammate accidentally hit him with a golf club in the locker room.
Shortstop Juan Castro hurt his neck on the pillow at the same Ritz Carlton hotel in Detroit.
Pitcher Pascual Perez missed a game in Atlanta because he couldn’t find the correct exit ramp on the freeway. OK, it’s not an injury, but it’s pretty funny!
Reliever Steve Sparks dislocated his shoulder while trying to tear a phone book in half.
Pitcher Carlos Perez broke his nose in a car accident – he was trying to pass the team bus at the time.
John Smoltz burned his chest while ironing the shirt he was wearing.
Pitcher Charlie Hough broke his finger shaking hands.
Nolan Ryan missed a start after being bitten by a coyote.
Shortstop Bobby Crosby cracked two ribs while swinging the bat during opening day practice.
Outfielder Terry Harper separated a shoulder after high-fiving a teammate.
Outfielder Vince Coleman missed the entire 1985 World Series after being rolled up in the tarp machine at Busch Stadium.
Red Sox rookie Clarence Blethen thought he looked older and meaner if he took his false teeth out when he pitched. He forgot to put them back in his mouth when he was batting. While sliding into second base to break up a double play, his own teeth bit himself in the butt.
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Eagle Catches Fox and Wolf
Eagles from Mongolia catching Fox and Wolves.
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You'll never see this again
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Europe Died at Auschwitz ..*
This is a copy of an article written by Spanish writer Sebastian Vilar Rodriguez and published in a Spanish newspaper on Jan. 15, 2008. It doesn't take much imagination to extrapolate the message to the rest of Europe - and possibly to the rest of the world.
*REMEMBER AS YOU READ -- IT WAS IN A SPANISH PAPER Date: Tue. 15 January 2008*
ALL EUROPEAN LIFE DIED IN AUSCHWITZ By Sebastian Vilar Rodrigez
Thanks, Coors
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Request a Free Energy Saver Kit from Energy Trust of Oregon
The kit has light bulbs and faucet/shower-head all designed to save you big bucks! Go GREEN and get yours free too.
For my Portland friends (who didn't already see it posted on my facebook wall) ~
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Its a great day for me to whip somebody's ass
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The small circles are icons of natinal flags, showing participation in the Olympic games from 1896 (iinnermost) to the present.
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"A recent study has found that more senior citizens than ever are entering college. College faculty says that the seniors are like any other students...except they take Jell-O shots just for the Jell-O." --Conan O'Brien ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"A new study found that happiness is u-shaped. By that they mean you're happy when you're young, you're least happy in middle age, and happiest again in retirement. You're least happy in middle age, especially when you realize you're never going to be able to retire." -Jay Leno
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Monkey doesn't appreciate your deviousness.
Penguins are great at jumping.
Victor Marx demonstrates the world's fastest gun disarm.
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StarWars The Old Republic – Hope [Fan Film]
http://youtu.be/Ppn89Nc29PQ
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Star Wars fan film that left such an impression on me, and even though this is supposed to be a fan film, the project was clearly made by very competent and dedicated professionals.
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Monster Trout caught on video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjhyfHW2iuA&feature=related
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White camel sacrificed to end suicide epidemic In rural Kazakhstan:
The white camel was slaughtered on advice from the village elders some time after two middle school students hanged themselves. Three more teenagers were recently prevented from committing suicide at the last moment, and dozens more sought help of the imams of the local mosque.

The total death toll from suicides in 2011 in the town stood at 14, most of them adolescent boys. The surviving boys said they saw a vision of an old man clad in white who told them life is pointless and showed them a rope around his neck, imam Abdurrafi Rakhmatullayev said. “That was the Devil in human guise,” Rakhmatullayev said. Words fail me.
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Sagan Series
I’m a big, big fan of the Sagan Series on Youtube, and how I missed all four episodes of the Feynman series (created by the same person,) is beyond me. But now that I’ve stumbled on them, I’m a happy man. I’ll let you guys discover this awesome new series featuring, as I’m sure you all already know if you’ve been with us for a while, one of my favorite modern day scientists.
Episode I: Beauty
http://youtu.be/cRmbwczTC6E
Episode II: Honours
http://youtu.be/Dkv0KCR3Yiw
Episode III: Curiosity
http://youtu.be/lmTmGLzPVyM
Episode IV: The Key to Science
http://youtu.be/tD_XAX--Ono
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Things you maybe have never wondered but actually have a fascinating scientific explanation: Why you can’t make it through an 8-hour workday without going to the bathroom, yet you can sleep through the night without the same bladder interruption. The answer lies in your circadian rhythms (aka your “biological clock”) (via ScienceNOW)
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The Once and Future Mayor
The job of mayor, along with a new, elected Assembly, was created by Tony Blair in a fit of half-baked American out-of-the-box, can-do thinking. He did it because “devolution” was his word of the week, and he wanted to retrospectively annoy the Tories. London was Labour; it had always been Labour, and so with much fanfare and bright speeches, Ken Livingstone was elected the city’s first mayor in 2000.
Now, those of you with young children will be shouting, “Hang on, wasn’t Dick Whittington the lord mayor of London, with his cat?” and you’re right. But the lord mayor isn’t the same as the mayor, and that was the City of London, which isn’t the same as London, which is a city, though often referred to as London Town. What we call the City is the square mile that holds the banks, the suited businesses and the stock exchange, which accounts for a large percentage of the City’s — and the Town’s, and the country’s — wealth.
"The position of lord mayor is an ancient, honorary job that involves riding in a coach wearing a big hat, eating a great many dinners and proposing a lot of toasts. The person filling it is elected by medieval guilds whose jobs more or less no longer exist: fletchers, farriers, witch-burners, that sort of thing."
It is, though, a megaphone job, with big P.R. potential, particularly in 2012, the year of the Olympics and the Royal Jubilee, not to mention the anniversaries of Shakespeare and Dickens. In London, it never rains — but it pours.
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The Most Astounding Cartoon
The Most Astounding Cartoon Neil deGrasse Tyson is no stranger to memorable words. Remember the stunning monologue he delivered on the most astounding fact in the universe? Zen Pencils has turned it into a wonderful comic, click here to read the whole thing. (ᔥ Zen Pencils)
The Most Astounding Cartoon
Neil deGrasse Tyson is no stranger to memorable words. Remember the stunning monologue he delivered on the most astounding fact in the universe? Zen Pencils has turned it into a wonderful comic, click here to read the whole thing. (ᔥ Zen Pencils)
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Welcome to the Anthropocene
Since the dawn of the Industrial Age, our species has affected sweeping and immeasurable change on Earth. No other creature, living or extinct, has made such a significant mark on the very core physical nature of our home planet. Many believe that our influence is on the scale of those seen in major geological eras, and have taken to calling this era the Anthropocene (although there is debate as to how appropriate that is).
Beyond those arguments among geologists, we can’t deny that our role on Earth is significant, as our our actions. Climate change, biodiversity loss, resource depletion … we are a planet-changer. The Anthropocene may not be used to describe fossils one day by some unknown species of alien paleontologists, but it does describe the planetary influence of a certain race of naked apes. This video chronicles that change, from 1750 to the present. I watched the vertical axis label change throughout, demonstrating that our exponential growth has not just occurred in population, but in a myriad of effects (and many negative). It’s a beautiful view of our planet full of reminders of changes past and opportunities future. A call to action and a source of hope lies within. (by WelcomeAnthropocene, commissioned by Planet Under Pressure)
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The Verdict
The 1990 antitrust case United States v. Syufy Enterprises settled a dispute regarding monopoly among Las Vegas movie exhibitors. But it became famous for another reason: It appears that Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski hid more than 200 movie titles in his opinion. Here’s a sample (italics mine):
“Absent structural constraints that keep competition from performing its levelling function, few businesses can dictate terms to customers or suppliers with impunity. It’s risky business even to try. As Syufy learned in dealing with Orion and his other suppliers, a larger company often is more vulnerable to a squeeze play than a smaller one. It is for that reason that neither size nor market share alone suffice to establish a monopoly. Without the power to exclude competition, large companies that try to throw their weight around may find themselves sitting ducks for leaner, hungrier competitors. Or, as Syufy saw, the tactic may boomerang, causing big trouble with suppliers.”
It’s a bit hard to tell how many of these are deliberate, as they appear natural in context, and Kozinski won’t say. But working with Leonard Maltin’s TV Movies and Video Guide, the Brigham Young University Law Review found 215 titles in the opinion. You can try your own hand at it — the full text is here.
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I Shot the Serif (But I Didn’t Shoot the Sans-Serif)

Typography lovers, here's a Flash game for you: I Shot the Serif (But I Didn't Shoot the Sans-Serif) by London-based creative agency To the Point. Play it here: Link [Flash Game] - via Design Taxi
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Trivia Tidbit: One company, YKK, makes roughly half of all the zippers on Earth. The zipper is one of those inventions—along with the bicycle—that seems as though it should have occurred much earlier in history. How complicated could it be to assemble two wheels, two pedals, and a chain? Or to align two jagged strips of metal teeth and shuffle them together? There is no complicated chemistry here, no harnessing of invisible wavelengths. And yet the modern bicycle didn’t appear until the late 1800s, and the zipper didn’t really become the zipper until 1917 (when it was patented by a Swedish immigrant in Hoboken).
Founded by Tadao Yoshida in Tokyo in 1934, YKK stands for Yoshida Kogyo Kabushikikaisha (which roughly translates as Yoshida Company Limited).
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The moon will be 14% larger than normal.
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Just like me
A guy's sitting in a bar having a drink. All of a sudden an alien sits down next to him, licks its finger and sticks it in the guys ear. He's a little annoyed, but doesn't say anything.
The next thing he knows, the alien does it again. This time the guy tells him to quit.
Five minutes later, it happens again. This time he yells at him to stop. Ten minutes later, he finds a finger in his ear.
Finally, he jumps up and screams, " If you don't quit I'm gonna rip your balls off!".
The alien thinks about it for a second, and does it again.
The guy jumps up, pulls its pants down, but there was nothing there! In frustration he asks, "How do you screw?!!"
The alien smiles and sticks his finger in the guys ear.
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Tennessee has banned hugging and other "gateways to sexual activity," and the city of Weston, Florida doesn't want to be left behind: it has permanently banned nightclubs, dance halls and - gasp - skating rinks.
Never mind it doesn't have any: The city council amended an ordinance on Wednesday, outlawing these venues in hopes to “protect the quality of life” of residents, according to City Manager John Flint. Weston, in Broward County, has some 65,000 residents; it was incorporated in 1996 as a family-friendly planned community. “Using tools such as periodic pro-active zoning code reviews to avoid unlawful incidents are far more preferable than having to react to such situations with law enforcement,” Flint told ABC News in an email. Skating rinks as a haven for miscreants? I knew it! Link
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Infiniski offers built-to-suit shipping container houses
Perhaps the most impressive thing about Infiniski is that, unlike other shipping container houses, its developed an adaptable process rather than a one-off design…”Depending on the project, Infiniski will use prefabricated steel modules, re-used maritime containers and/or wooden prefab modules,” which can be deployed to construct anything from family homes and residential blocks to hotels or offices.
The project pictured above is the Manifesto House built in 2009 over a period of 90 days in Curacaví, Chile. The 1700-sq ft house is built primarily from three reused shipping containers. The container at ground floor has been split and separated, with the containers on the upper level bridging the gap. By enclosing the resultant gap with thermally-efficient glass panels, the floor area is achieved despite using containers with a collective footprint of 970 sq ft…
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Greater spatial intelligence may have given modern humans an edge over Neanderthals, a new study proposes.
‎"Neanderthal groups lived in small territories but moved around a lot within their home areas to find all of the food and raw materials they needed. When modern humans moved into Eurasia, they brought a new style of social organization. Different groups over an extended region were interconnected through social networks, like people today. "
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40 Cloves and a Chicken

Ingredients

  • 1 whole chicken (broiler/fryer) cut into 8 pieces
  • 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 10 sprigs fresh thyme
  • 40 peeled cloves garlic
  • Salt and pepper

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Season chicken with salt and pepper. Toss with a 2 tablespoons olive oil and brown on both sides in a wide fry pan or skillet over high heat. Remove from heat, add oil, thyme, and garlic cloves. Cover and bake for 1 1/2 hours.
Remove chicken from the oven, let rest for 5 to 10 minutes, carve, and serve.
The best part of this recipe might be smooshing the garlic cloves onto crusty French bread.
Sounds delicious, Thanks Ed ~
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How to Join the Dark Side
Or, more specifically, how to join the famous 501st Legion, “the world’s definitive Imperial costuming organization.” If you are intrigued by the idea of Star Wars cosplay but were too shy or confused to step in, Dakster Sullivan makes the process easy by explaining what she went through to become a Clone Trooper with the 501st, including plenty of resource links. Before you know it, you can be a Storm Trooper or some other character at parades, conventions, charity events, and local meetups! Link -via GeekDad
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Quantum Gravity Treatment of the Angel Density Problem
by Anders Sandberg
SANS/NADA, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
Abstract
We derive upper bounds for the density of angels dancing on the point of a pin. It is dependent on the assumed mass of the angels, with a maximum number of 8.6766*10exp49 angels at the critical angel mass (3.8807*10exp-34 kg).Ancient Question, Modern Physics
“How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” has been a major theological question since the Middle Ages.[5]
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Go-Getter or Slacker: Brain Chemicals Decide
The next time your parents complain that you're a slacker, and not a go-getter like your sibling, tell them this: it's your brain's fault. Scientists have discovered that different levels of dopamine in three brain regions determine if a person is a go-getter or a slacker: Dopamine does different things in different areas of the brain. So while high levels in some brain regions were associated with a high work ethic, a spike in another brain region seemed indicate just the opposite — a person more likely to slack off, even if it meant smaller monetary rewards. "To our surprise, we also found a different region of the brain, the anterior insula, that showed a strong negative relationship between dopamine level and willingness to work hard," study researcher Michael Treadway, graduate student at Vanderbilt University, told LiveScience. Link
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A Northern Royal Flycatcher displays his crest
The Northern Royal Flycatcher is 16.5–18 cm (6½-7”) long, with an erectile fan-shaped crest, coloured red in the male and yellow-orange in the female. The display with the crest fully raised is seen extremely rarely, except during banding sessions.
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Laws of Life:

* Murphy's First Law for Wives: If you ask your husband to pick up five items at the store and then you add one more as an afterthought, he will forget two of the first five.

* Kauffman's Paradox of the Corporation: The less important you are to the corporation, the more your tardiness or absence is noticed.

* The Salary Axiom: The pay raise is just large enough to increase your taxes and just small enough to have no effect on your take-home pay.

* Miller's Law of Insurance: Insurance covers everything except what happens.

* First Law of Living: As soon as you start doing what you always wanted to be doing, you'll want to be doing something else.

* Weiner's Law of Libraries: There are no answers, only cross-references.

* The Grocery Bag Law: The candy bar you planned to eat on the way home from the market is hidden at the bottom of the grocery bag.

* Lampner's Law of Employment: When leaving work late, you will go unnoticed. When you leave work early, you will meet the boss in the parking lot.

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These two girlfriends are very close, allowing them to be totally honest with each other.
As one fidgeted in front of the mirror one evening before a date, she remarked, "I'm fat."
"No, you're not," the other scolded.
"My hair is awful."
"It looks just fine."
"I've never looked worse," she whined.
"Yes, you have," her friend replied.
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QUOTE: "Where humor is concerned there are no standards - no one can say what is good or bad, although you can be sure that everyone will."


HINT: (1908-2006), Canadian-American economist, was a Keynesian and an institutionalist, a leading proponent of 20th-century American liberalism.

ANSWER: John Kenneth Galbraith.
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RANDOM TIDBITS

John Ringling and his wife started spending their winters in Sarasota, Florida, in 1909. They fell in love with the area and in 1927 made it the winter headquarters of their circus. Ringling used his elephants to help with construction as he developed a commercial and residential center in the area.

John Philip Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever" is known as the Disaster Song in the circus world. It is only played in case of emergency as a way to signal to circus personnel that something is wrong without alarming the audience.

Professional clowns unofficially "trademark" their faces by sending close-up photos of themselves in full makeup to the Department of Clown Registry in Milwaukee. The clown submits a close-up photo of his face, and an artist painstakingly recreates it using acrylic paints on a goose egg, where it is kept "on file."

Famed clown Emmett Kelly portrayed himself in the Academy Award-winning film The Greatest Show on Earth. However, he wasn't completely happy with the finished film because in one shot he is seen without trademark makeup.

The Flying Wallendas were famous for performing their act without a safety net. This led to tragic consequences in Detroit in 1962, when their 7-person pyramid collapsed on the high wire, causing three performers to plummet 30 feet onto a concrete floor.

In 1999, 22-year-old Johnathan Lee Iverson became the youngest ringmaster in the history of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. He was also the first African American to hold the position.
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Nude wedding

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Groucho Marx sings Lydia The Tattooed Lady
The first filmed performance of the signature song for Groucho from At The Circus. The quality of the video is unmatched. From vaudeville to the screen and then television, Groucho was one of a kind.
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Funny Book Titles and Authors --*

"Home Maintenance"....by Duane Pipe
"Growing up in the Balkans".....by Hugo Slavia
"Irish Winter Tales".....by Pete Moss
"Increase Your Brain Power"....by Sarah Bellum
"Looking Into the Wishing Well"....by Eileen Dover
"How to Write a Mystery Novel"....by Page Turner
"I Got Away With Murder"....by Scott Free
"Winning Big".....by Jack Potts
"Vacation Spot in the Tropics"....by Sandy Beech
"I Always Enjoy the Darkness"....by Gladys Knight
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Six logicians finish dinner. The waitress asks, “Do you all want coffee?”
First logician: “I don’t know.”
Second logician: “I don’t know.”
Third logician: “I don’t know.”
Fourth logician: “I don’t know.”
Fifth logician: “I don’t know.”
Sixth logician: “No.”
Who gets coffee and why?
The waitress has asked, “Do you all want coffee?” In saying “I don’t know,” each of the first five logicians is saying, “I want coffee, and at this moment it does appear possible that all six of us do, but we don’t yet have enough information to say so definitively.”
The sixth logician doesn’t want coffee, so he’s able to say for certain that not everyone in the group does. So the waitress serves coffee to the first five logicians.
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Harper Lee and Margaret Mitchell wrote one novel apiece. Both won the Pulitzer Prize.
The Turning Point and The Color Purple each received 11 Oscar nominations — and won zero.
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A surgeon wears sterile gloves both to protect his patient and to protect himself. Can a hard-pressed surgeon with only two pairs of sterile gloves operate on three patients while keeping everyone safe?
Yes. He puts on both pairs of gloves and performs the first operation. He puts aside the outer pair of gloves and performs the second operation. Then he turns the first pair inside out and puts them on over the now-used second pair. This puts the two non-sterile sides in contact while keeping his hands in their sterile state and making the remaining sterile side (formerly the inside) of the first pair of gloves available for use in the third operation.
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Leptocephalus


Here'a a video of this amazing creature, but this still photo emphasizes how truly transparent they are. Even the bones and digestive tract are virtually invisible.
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As a Viet Nam Vet I was telling the students about an especially emotional visit to the Viet Nam Memorial in DC.
A girl raised her hand and asked me if I was able to find my name on the wall.
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Random Facts:

It took two jolts of electricity to kill convicted murderer Frank J. Coppola when he was executed by electrocution in 1982, the second of which caused Coppola's head and leg to catch fire.

When Jimmy LEe Gray was executed by asphyxiation in 1983 for murderin a three-year-old girl, his gasps for air were so desperate, authorities cleared the room of witnesses. His lawyer reports that he died banging his head against a steel pole in the gas chamber.
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National masturbation month2
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Glowsticks in the toilet
http://youtu.be/ezWHPJPfo54
32 glowsticks emptied in the back of a toilet.

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That's Strange
A lawyer named Strange died, and his friend asked the tombstone maker to inscribe on his tombstone, "Here lies Strange, an honest man, and a lawyer." The inscriber insisted that such an inscription would be confusing, for passersby would tend to think that three men were buried under the stone. However he suggested an alternative: He would inscribe, "Here
lies a man who was both honest and a lawyer. That way, whenever anyone walked by the tombstone and read it, they would be certain to remark: "That's Strange!"
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Men are like...
Men are like animals: messy, insensitive and potentially violent, but they make great pets.
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Stacking Strategy.
It is not enough to pile lots of documents on the table. Put lots of books on the floor etc. . Can always borrow from library. Thick computer manuals are the best.
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Problem Solved
A problem solved by one young lady.
Have you ever felt like strangling one of those ‘loud mouthed’ cell phone users who seem to sit near you in a restaurant or any other place and forcibly share their private call with you. Here’s one solution, provided by a commuter on how to combat this display of bad manners.
After a very busy day, a commuter settled down in her seat and closed her eyes as the train departed Montreal for Hudson.
As the train rolled out of the station, the guy sitting next to her pulled out his cell phone and started talking in a loud voice: “Hi sweetheart it’s Eric, I’m on the train – yes, I know it’s the six thirty and not the four thirty but I had a long meeting – no, honey, not with that floozie from the accounts office, with the boss. No sweetheart, you’re the only one in my life – yes, I’m sure, cross my heart” etc., etc.
Fifteen minutes later at St. Anne de Bellevue he was still talking loudly , when the young woman sitting next to him, who was obviously angered by his continuous diatribe, yelled at the top of her voice:
”Hey, Eric, turn that stupid phone off and come back to bed!”
My guess would be that Eric doesn’t use his cell phone in public any longer.
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Records That Guinness World Records Won’t Accept
Would you like to set a Guinness World Record? Read Guinness’s instructions first, because there are certain achievements that it won’t recognize, including:
  • We do not accept any claims for beauty as it is not objectively measurable.
  • We do not currently recognise ‘gluttony’ records whereby people consume mass amounts of food.
  • Due to the medical condition elephantiasis, we do not monitor a category for largest head
  • We do not accept claims for elbow licking.
    • Link -via American Digest
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    Ready to sail on the maiden voyage of Titanic 2?
    Queensland billionaire mining magnate Clive Palmer has unveiled his plans to build the Titanic II to add to his tourism portfolio.
    Mr Palmer said his new company Blue Star Line Pty Ltd had commissioned the state-owned Chinese company CSC Jinling Shipyard to build a near replica of the ill-fated Titanic. The cost is unknown…
    Mr Palmer said the companies had signed a memorandum of understanding to build the cruise liner in China, with the ship’s maiden voyage from England to North America scheduled for late 2016.
    “It will be every bit as luxurious as the original Titanic but of course it will have state-of-the-art 21st-century technology and the latest navigation and safety systems,” Mr Palmer said.
    Mr Palmer said the rebuild was a tribute to the spirit of the men and women who constructed the original Titanic. “These people produced work that is still marvelled at more than 100 years later and we want that spirit to go on for another 100 years,” he said.
    The Titanic was commissioned by the company White Star Line and was the world’s largest liner, measuring nearly 270 metres long, 53 metres high and weighing approximately 40,000 tonnes.
    Asked today if the Titanic II could sink, Mr Palmer told reporters: “Of course it will sink if you put a hole in it…It will be designed as a modern ship with all the technology to ensure that doesn’t happen…
    He said the design of the new Titanic would be as close to the original as possible but would have “state of the art engineering” and would run on diesel rather than coal power. “The technology will be 100 years improved,” the spokesman said…
    I don't think so, Ed
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    If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance. -- George Bernard Shaw
    (speaking of his family's habit of laughing over his father's drunken escapades)
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    Animal Videos: Dishwasher Cat
    http://youtu.be/7HpEKwvjqrs
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    Bisleri Mountain Water
    http://youtu.be/UMNB4ZuKOEw
    One of the benefits of Bisleri Mountain water is that it can keep your child from choking on his food! -via the Presurfer
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    Attack goose
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    The Lost Continent of Atlantis
    Atlantis is one of the longest lasting -and most easily disproved- myths in world history. Yet people keep looking for it.
    PLATO’S RETREAT
    According to the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, Atlantis was a continent larger than Asia and Africa combined, sitting on the western edge of the Mediterranean Sea. Its capital city was built in a perfect circle, composed of alternating bands of earth and water. At its center was a temple to the Greek god Poseidon, surrounded by walls of solid gold and coated in silver. The city was equipped with canals, tunnels, racetracks, and a prodigious merchant fleet, all remarkable achievements for more than 12,000 years ago and more than 9,000 years before the golden age of ancient Greece.
    Uncle John’s Endlessly Engrossing Bathroom Reader.
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    Paper Craft Mario Brothers Automaton
    http://youtu.be/g2ryxrz6k1U
    From the screenshot, it’s easy to get mislead into thinking this video just shows the automaton at work, but even better, it actually shows the device being created so you can even make your own delightful toy.
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    Animated Music Video For Pree’s “Te Koop/A Vendre”
    This is one cool animated music video for Pree‘s song “Te Koop/A Vendre”, and it’s full of rich paper textures and a nature theme that finds the band playing with the birds in the trees. It’s a visual delight, and the song ain’t bad either!
    –via Cartoon Brew
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    If you’re looking for a good education, top ranking sports programs and a peer group striving for academic excellence then you should probably look into attending Duke, Wake Forest or the University of North Carolina.
    But if you want to attend college for the booze, buds and sunbathing then you should check out North Carolina State!
    I’m not sure whether this short film was made as a joke or a student’s attempt to recruit more party people for their campus, but either way it’s fun to watch and totally 80s!–via Ology
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    Dalek Appears At MIT
    A few years ago, the Doctor and his TARDIS appeared at MIT, so it was only a matter of time before his arch-rivals showed up as well. Hopefully the Doctor can return in time to stop whatever diabolical plot they have been working on.
    Link Via io9
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    Time-traveling Birthday Party
    http://youtu.be/eQtai7HMbuQ
    Tipp-Ex is like white-out with an applicator. Their viral advertising involves a birthday party that is interrupted by a meteor. To escape, you’ll have to take the party to a different year, which you can do over and over in this interactive YouTube video. -via the Presurfer
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    Duo Paradise Le plus grand Cabaret du Monde
    I believe that means the Greatest Duo Paradise Cabaret In The World . To you and me it means a acrobatic couple worth watching. The Strongest yet amazingly supple female contortionist I’ve ever seen … she’s evidently made of soft rubber AND Steel!!
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    Sports scandals - in the Paralympics
    Der Spiegel reports on athletes pretending to be handicapped in order to compete in the Paralympic venues:
    But there is even trickery, deception and lying in disabled sports. There are plenty of dissemblers among the participants, people who, in medical inspections, deliberately paint their state of health in more dramatic terms than it is, thereby competing under false pretenses in events that are becoming increasingly popular and also provide the opportunity to make a lot of money...

    There are competition-like tests, in which the athletes, depending on the type of sport involved, have to demonstrate which movements they can perform on wheels, while throwing the javelin or in a sailboat. There are 41 classes in track & field alone. The lines between the classes are fluid...

    In the 1996 Paralympics in Atlanta, 11 athletes were sent home after cheating their way into favorable classes. At the Sydney games in 2000, the Spanish mentally handicapped basketball team won the gold medal. It later turned out that 10 players were completely healthy. They had never completed the IQ test that was supposed to have been administered...

    There are similar cases in winter sports. Athletes still joke about a Russian cross-country skier who competed as a visually impaired athlete at the Turin Paralympics in 2006. After she had reached the finish line with her escort, she turned her head to the display panel, which showed that she had won a medal. The allegedly blind athlete then threw her arms up into the air and cheered.
    More at the link.
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    Coke Light Commercial
    http://youtu.be/-lDEW1B1lRA
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    There’s a market for this?
    Seriously?
    Goat penis
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    Python vs. Alligator
    http://youtu.be/xfYAj1k9uZM
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    Forty Thieves Solitaire
    Forty Thieves Solitaire is a game by Mark Klocek. The goal of the game is to move all the cards to the 8 foundation piles located in the upper right corner. The foundation piles are built in suit in an ascending order from Ace to King. You can use the middle 10 piles to hold the cards temporarily while you build up the cards in the foundation piles.
    You may only move one card at a time, and you can only move a card to another pile if it is one lower and in the same suit. If you cannot make a move you can turn over a new card by clicking on the facedown deck in the top left of the game screen. You will have to restart if you have used all the stock cards and cannot put all the cards on the foundation.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Google's Latest Easter Egg
    Go to Google and perform a search for 'Zerg Rush.' It will start off as an innocent search result listing but you will soon realise each result is part of a game and you have to stop the Google 'zeros' from eating through them. All you have to do is shoot at the zeros, aiming them in your crosshairs. Google will keep score and tell you how many you have destroyed.
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    And You Thought Turkey Soda Was Weird
    Jones Soda has made quite a name for itself by selling flavors like turkey and bacon, and a new company now seems to be following in their footsteps.The best thing about Lester’s Fixins is that they seem to offer these odd flavors -like sweet corn, buffalo wings and peanut butter and jelly- all year round!
    Link Via Laughing Squid, Image Via Blazenhoff [Flickr]
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    How To Draw A Cartoon R2D2
    May 4 is called Star Wars Day because of the popularity of a common pun spoken on this day. Since the phrase 'May the Force be with you' is a famous quote often spoken in the Star Wars films, fans commonly say 'May the fourth be with you' on this day. So with this day coming up in a few days, Mark Anderson shows you an easy way to draw your very own cartoon R2D2.
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    Top 10 Rarest Flowers In The World
    To classify the top ten rarest flowers isn't easy especially since more than 270,000 types of flowers exist. Of those that are rare, here are not only the top ten rarest flowers, but the ten with unquestionably the most interesting stories.
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    Finally, a Robot That Wants to Build You a House Instead of Terrify You
    http://youtu.be/JgeFLGfvrEM
    MIT engineers are at it again, building amazing things that do amazing things. The Mediated Matter Group has been training the bot to weave intricate structures in the style of silkworms. They even named it CNSILK! Think of the implications for design and construction! Weaving pattern that no human hands could manage. And it’s certainly better than these big bear bots or small crawly bots or really fast running bots that I’m pretty sure are the first phase of SKYNET..
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    This amazing TedEd video explains how small an atom really is. (Hint: REALLY small)
    Neil deGrasse Tyson’s inspiring keynote at the 28th National Space Symposium is the best full-length NDT keynote of the week. Watch it in full.
    Becky Chambers gives us this inspiring definition of what it means to be a geek, and why you should embrace that passion and the social connections that come from it.
    This is not your family tree. This is not evolution.
    The Apollo spacecraft stored computer programs on ropes. Actual ropes.
    The only known white orca was spotted in the North Atlantic. His name is “Iceberg”.
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    The Higgs Boson Explained with Animation
    http://vimeo.com/41038445
    Can’t tell your “God Particle” from your “Dog Particle”? Too many quarks making you quack? Feel like a Higgs Bozo? Here’s what CERN is looking for, and what it might mean, via an awesome animation.
    A PhD Comics animation, that is. (↬ Open Culture)
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Jupiter and the Moons of Earth
    Jupiter and the Moons of Earth Wait, “moons” of Earth? Did you read that right? Don’t worry, no one’s pulling a fast one on you. In this image, captured in Germany after the April new moon, we have Earth’s largest natural satellite, the capital “M” Moon we are all familiar with. Streaking through the center is the path of our largest artificial satellite, the International Space Station, which is sort of a man-made moon that people live on. And down in the left we see Jupiter, one of our brightest celestial neighbors. As a special treat, you can click through to the high resolution version and see tiny points of light around Jupiter. Those are Jupiter’s moons! (via APOD)
    Wait, “moons” of Earth? Did you read that right? Don’t worry, no one’s pulling a fast one on you. In this image, captured in Germany after the April new moon, we have Earth’s largest natural satellite, the capital “M” Moon we are all familiar with. Streaking through the center is the path of our largest artificial satellite, the International Space Station, which is sort of a man-made moon that people live on. And down in the left we see Jupiter, one of our brightest celestial neighbors. As a special treat, you canclick through to the high resolution version and see tiny points of light around Jupiter. Those are Jupiter’s moons. (via APOD)
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    "In our brief national history
    we have shot four of our presidents,
    worried five of them to death,
    impeached one
    and hounded another out of office.

    And when all else fails,
    we hold an election
    and assassinate their character."

    ~ P. J. O'Rourke "Parliament of Whores"

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Zookeeper Licked Constipated Monkey’s Butt
    The next time you've got constipation, think of this story: Yesterday, Wuhan Zoo Monkey caretaker Zhang Bangsheng unbelievably used his tongue to lick a small monkey’s butt! 50-year-old Zhang Bangsheng used warm water to clean a small Francois’ Leaf Monkey’s buttocks, then began using his mouth to lick it, not stopping for over an hour, until the little monkey defecated a single peanut. Only after the peanut was defecated did Zhang Bangsheng laugh with satisfaction. Now that's dedication! Link - via Arbroath
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    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    A column at TechDirt crunches the numbers:
    Law professor Eric Goldman, who's spoken out about the broken class action system in the past, has another ridiculous example, this time involving Heartland Payment Systems. You may recall Heartland as being the company that had the largest security breach ever (at the time), losing data on over 100 million credit cards. A class action lawsuit (of course) followed, and Heartland agreed to pay up to anyone who could show that they were a victim of fraud from the loss. The company didn't have cardholder addresses, so it spent $1.5 million to advertise the settlement, and estimated that over 80% of the potential class saw an ad at least 2.5 times. Either way, not too many claims came in. A total of 290 claims were made, but only 11 were found to be valid.
    Heartland had to pay a maximum of $175 to those individuals. Assuming it did pay the maximum, that means the "victims" of the breach got a grand total of $1925 (perhaps less). According to the settlement agreement, Heartland was supposed to pay out at least $1 million to victims (and up to $2.4 million). If less than $1 million worth of victims were found, the rest would go to non-profit organizations focused on protecting consumer privacy rights. That leaves $998,075 for those non-profits.
    So, let's summarize:
    Actual victims got: $1,925
    Heartland spent $1.5 million to find the people to give out that $1,925.
    Somewhere around $998,075 goes to non-profits
    The lawyers who brought the lawsuit? They got $606,192.50. For helping 11 people get less than $200 each.
    And, of course, Heartland also ended up paying its own lawyers a ton. In the end, this system involved Heartland paying many millions of dollars... to benefit a "class" of 11 people and giving them less than $2,000.
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    Avengers Assemble!
    I’ve seen a lot of fan-made Avengers videos lately, but this one is not only funny, but it skewers two pop culture phenomenons at the same time! It’s a parody of the song “What Makes You Beautiful” by One Direction.
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    Fennec Foxes are one of the smallest fox species. Large ears allow the Fennec to hear the movements of its enemies and prey over long distances, which is very important for a desert animal. It can even hear its prey moving underground.
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    Dyslexia2
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    ugsome
    adj. horrid or loathsome
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    Baseball was invented by Alexander Cartwright, modeling it upon the stick and ball game that he played then. The first known club match with rules written by him was played in June 19, 1846.
    Each baseball game has 12,386,344 possible plays.
    The odds of a fan being hit by a baseball are 300,000 to 1.
    The shortest major league player was Eddie Gaedel, who was three feet, seven inches tall. His sole appearance in an MLB game was a publicity stunt.
    The tallest player in Major League history is Minnesota Twins’ pitcher Jon Rauch, who is six feet, eleven inches tall.
    Baseball legend states that the silhouette on the MLB logo is Harmon Killebrew, who played for the Washington Senators, the Minnesota Twins and the Kansas City Royals. He was second to Babe Ruth in total homeruns.
    A strange rule of this game is that before every game, umpires remove the shine from the balls by rubbing them. The number of balls that they rub before every game is around six dozen. The mud with which the balls are rubbed is also location specific. Ideally, it should only come from a particular area in Burlington County, New Jersey.
    Fidel Castro was once a star baseball player for the University of Havana.
    In 1965, the minimum annual salary for a baseball player was $6,000, just a thousand dollars more than it had been in 1947.
    A regulation baseball has 108 stitches.
    The very first baseball game was played on June 19,1845, across the Hudson River in Hoboken, New York.
    In baseball, a “can of corn” refers to a fly ball that is easy to catch.
    Robert Redford attended the University of Colorado on a baseball scholarship.
    In an effort to sell more licensed apparel, minor-league baseball teams were changing their names so often that the sport’s governing body now limits franchises to team name changes every three years.
    The Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York, houses the largest collection of baseball cards: 200,000.
    The first perfect nine innings baseball game was achieved by John Lee Richmond on 12 June 1880.
    Giants baseball catcher Roger Bresnahan introduced shin guards in 1907.
    In 1897, the Washington Senators became the first baseball team ever to introduce “Ladies’ Day.”
    The longest baseball game was between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Chicago White Sox and lasted for eight hours and six minutes. Due to MLB rules forbidding an inning to start after 1 o’clock AM, fans had to come back the next day to finish the game.
    The average baseball only lasts about a week. Each baseball can only be used one time in a MLB game.
    Pitcher Nolan Ryan struck out more players in his career of 27 seasons than any other pitcher.
    Manager Alvin Dark of the San Francisco Giants told reporters that NASA would “put a man on the moon before Gaylord Perry hits a home run.” When Perry finally hit a home run, it was 20 minutes after Neil Armstrong landed on the moon.
    Having been open for nearly 100 years, Fenway Park in Boston is the oldest baseball stadium still in use.
    Been there ~ thank you Rcaz
    The Louisville Slugger Museum, Kentucky holds the largest baseball bat in the world. This bat weighs 68,000 pounds and measures 120 feet.
    The only person credited with umpiring two major sports, football and baseball, is Cal Hubbard.
    In 1978, during a match between Texas Rangers and Baltimore Orioles, a fan suffered a heart attack. He was saved by a baseball player, George “Doc” Medich, who was a medical student during off season.
    From April 30, 1982 to September 19, 1990, Cal Ripkin, Jr. played 2632 straight games, which means he didn’t miss a game in sixteen years!
    Mike Schmidt earned the first $500,000 salary in baseball in 1977.
    The 1926 New York Giants hold the record for the longest consecutive winning streak with 26 games in which they beat every National League team. via
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    My wife and I took out life insurance policies on each other ...
    So now it's just a waiting game.
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    Handwarmer
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    A man walks into a doctor's office. He has a cucumber up his nose, a carrot in his left ear and a banana in his right ear.
    "What's the matter with me?" he asks the doctor.
    The doctor replies, "You're not eating properly."
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    Finally, Serbian hackers hacked the navigation systems of "Tomahawk" missiles -- now they're called "Boomerang."
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    A man was sitting alone in his office one night when a genie popped up out of his ashtray and said, “And what will your third wish be?”
    The man looked at the genie and said, “Huh? How can I be getting a third wish when I haven’t had a first or second wish yet?”
    “You have had two wishes already,” the genie said, “but your second wish was for me to put everything back the way it was before you made your first wish. Thus, you remember nothing, because everything is the way it was before you made any wishes. You now have one wish left.”
    “Okay,” said the man, “I don’t believe this, but what the heck. I wish I were irresistible to women.”
    “Funny,” said the genie as it granted his wish and disappeared forever. “That was your first wish, too!”
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    During training exercises, the lieutenant driving down a muddy back road encountered another car stuck in the mud with a red faced colonel at the wheel. "Your jeep stuck, sir?" asked the lieutenant as he pulled alongside.
    "Nope," replied the colonel, coming over and handing him the keys, "*Yours* is."
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    Here's a quote that offers what the American flag truly symbolizes.

    "I believe our flag is more than just cloth and ink. It is a universally recognized symbol that stands for liberty, and freedom. It is the history of our nation, and it's marked by the blood of those who died defending it."
    - John Thune     Let "Old Glory" wave strong and proud in your yard. Show your spirit, resolve and support then you fly your U.S. flag, especially on May 28th, Memorial Day and June 14th, Flag Day.
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    QUOTE: "The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think."

    HINT: (1945-), American designer, author and artist.

    ANSWER: Edwin Schlossberg.
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    Harley Davidson rules the Ocean!
    Owner located — of Tsunami motorcycle that crossed the Pacific
    http://eideard.com/2012/05/03/owner-located-of-tsunami-motorcycle-that-crossed-the-pacific/#comment-33533
    with 3 comments
    We’re reaching that point in time when flotsam from the tsunami that crushed coastal Japan last year is showing up on the western shores of North America on a daily basis. This is one of the more interesting finds.
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    Carrying out his fatherly duty, a male Oreophryne frog in Papua, New Guinea, guards his clutch and two newly hatched froglets that rest atop the egg mass. Like many of the Microhylidae family, these frogs bypass the tadpole stage, developing fully within the egg. Male frogs embrace their clutch each night to keep the eggs moist and protect them from predators such as insects. From National Geographic. You learn something every day.
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    The nipples of Sarah Strong,
    When excited, are twelve inches long.
    This embarrassed her lover
    Who was pained to discover
    She expected no less of his dong.
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    "... industry giant Microsoft Corporation... a company that has become successful without resorting to software testing..."
    -- Unknown, rec.humor.funny
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    In honor of One World Trade Center becoming the tallest building in New York, EarthCam has released an exciting time-lapse movie showcasing the construction progress from 2004-2012. Watch years of construction in just two minutes!
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    RANDOM TIDBITS

    Have you ever wondered what the difference is between "excuse me" and "pardon me"? According to syndicated etiquette columnist Miss Manners, you should say "excuse me" when you cause inconvenience to someone and "pardon me" to let someone know they've caused inconvenience to you.

    When humor columnist Erma Bombeck and her family were based in Centerville, Ohio, her neighbor and good friend was future talk show host Phil Donahue.

    Before finding fame as a sports columnist, Mitch Albom worked as an amateur boxer, nightclub singer, pianist, and stand-up comic.

    Hollywood gossip columnist Walter Winchell was the first person to break the news that Lucille Ball was expecting a "blessed event" in 1952. He was acknowledged on an episode of I Love Lucy in the song "We're Having a Baby (My Baby and Me)" with the lyric, "You'll read it in Winchell; we're adding a limb to our family tree."

    The late Ann Landers, known as Eppie Lederer to her friends, was married to Jules Lederer, who founded Budget Rent-A-Car in 1958. The couple's only child, Margo Howard, wrote Slate magazine's "Dear Prudence" advice column for eight years.

    Hollywood gossip maven Hedda Hopper threatened to "out" several stars she suspected of being gay during her career, despite the fact that her own son, Perry Mason co-star William Hopper, was homosexual.
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    News Bloopers - Tongue Twisters
    Television news is largely a live affair and at times the reporters and anchors get their tongues all twisted. Here are some tongue twisters caught in English around the world.
    http://www.evtv1.com/player.aspx?itemnum=8355
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    llama.jpg
    An alpaca (Vicugna pacos) is a domesticated species of South America. It resembles a small llama in appearance. Alpacas on a farm in Goeming, Salzburg, are shorn in the spring to make the animals more comfortable for the summer months. However it's not necessarily a case of one style fits all.
    (yes, officer, it was definitely the middle one on the bottom row that stomped me!)
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    Even on a beautiful day things don't always tend to go right. When a minigolfer misses his most important shot he unleashes a chain reaction of bad, yet comical events.
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    He was destined for the pot - if they had found one big enough to fit. But Claude the Tasmanian giant crab was saved from death when the fisherman who caught him sold him to a British aquarium for £3,000 ($4,867). He is the biggest crab on display in the UK and weighs a mighty 15lb with a 15-inch shell - enough to make 160 crab cakes. Claude is 100 times bigger than a standard UK shore crab. Yet he is still a juvenile and will grow to double his weight.
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    In arctic northern Russia, industrialized resource extraction and climate change are presenting a double threat to the Nenets, an indigenous people native to Siberia. The Nenets depend heavily on their reindeer herds, using them for food, clothing, tools, transportation, and more as they migrate more than a thousand kilometers across the tundra every year.
    Photographer Steve Morgan recently traveled to the Yamal Peninsula to document the Nenets and their threatened way of life. Here is a selection of his photos, with captions by Joanna Eede of Survival International.
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    What causes that 'fresh cut grass' smell? Trauma, that's what. It's the smell of chemical defenses and first aid. The fresh, 'green' scent of a just-mowed lawn is the lawn trying to save itself from the injury you just inflicted. Leafy plants release a number of volatile organic compounds called green leaf volatiles. When the plants are injured, whether through animals grazing on them, you cutting or mowing them, or even just unintentionally rough handling, these emissions increase like crazy.
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    Ok, the first three (at the link). Yeah, bizarre. Unethical. Dangerous. Stupid. All of those things.
    But the fourth one. Wow.
    Margaret Howe lived with a dolphin for 10 weeks in closed quarters. I’m not gonna tell you how it ends, but it involves LSD and something kinky.
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    Nakkna is a new Swedish clothing label with an acute perspective on fashion (sorry about the pun, but not really). Their garments are all built upon a shape or a volume. Pyramids and polygons become dresses and drapes.
    I especially liked these short demos of the garments, the shape shown on the rack and the model wearing the same piece. You can order from their website. (via Co.Design)
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    Drunken Grandparents Use SUV to Tow Kid’s Toy Car
    A lot of things seem like a good idea at the time, especially when drunk. Like using your SUV to tow your grandchild in a toy car: According to the arrest report, a Sarasota deputy on patrol spotted the SUV on Sunday, pulling a small plastic Hot Wheels car with the 7-year-old girl inside. The toy car was connected to the SUV with dog leashes tied to the trailer hitch.The vehicle was traveling about five to 10 miles per hour, and a woman was riding in the rear with the hatch open, cheering the child on. The little girl had on a bathing suit, and no protective gear. The deputy immediately pulled the vehicle over, and in the arrest report states the driver of the SUV, 49-year-old Paul Berloni, had a strong smell of alcohol on him.     Link - via Arbroath
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    The Japanese Yodelmeister
    After seeing this intriguing video, I looked for more information on Japanese yodeler Takeo Ischi. Here’s a little bit from his German Wikipedia entry, translated by Google:bTakeo Ishi grew up in Tokyo and studied after school engineering , because he should one day take over his father’s business. In his spare time, he was a zither and dulcimer enthusiastic, so he taught himself to play these instruments in Tokyo. About the records yodler Franz Lang , he even learned to yodel, so that he soon got an appearance on Japanese television. Then he went to Europe and sang in Switzerland in a tourist restaurant near Zurich from where he was immediately hired. Then he himself sang in front of his idol Franz Lang, who took him under his wing and into the mission of “early start” with Maria Hellwig brought. After that he was in the German as “yodeling Japanese” known. He received numerous appearances on radio and television and was popular with colleagues from the music on the move. In Mary Hellwig’s “barn” in Reit im Winkl he was a permanent guest. Takeo Ishi lived with his wife and four sons, Maximilian, Michael, Andrew and Luke in Reit im Winkl . -via Arbroath
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    A Couple of Cool Windows Aero Tricks
    You have to be using Windows 7 to use these.
    Flip 3D. This trick is way cooler than Alt+Tab: holding down the Windows key while repeatedly pressing Tab visually flips you through your open windows. (See Figure 2.) To flip backward, hold down the Shift key, too.
    Shake. Click and hold the title bar of your main window on the screen, and then “shake” it with your mouse to minimize or restore all other windows. This shortcut lets you focus on the task at hand. It works like the Windows key + Home combination.
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    Black Tomato and Iceland offer a tour inside a volcano
    Visitors to Iceland are being given the opportunity to be among the first tourists to enter the magma chamber of a volcano. The interior of Thrihnukagigur, which has been dormant for around 4,000 years, will be opened to ordinary travellers for six weeks this summer…
    The volcano is a 30-minute drive from Reykjavik, the Icelandic capital. Visitors must then embark on a short 40-minute hike across a lava field to reach the volcano, before descending 120 metres to the bottom of the crater in an open cable lift. They will be able to spend around an hour inside the volcano in the company of a team of expert guides.
    The tour costs ISK 37,000 (£180) per person, a portion of which will go towards further research into the country’s volcanoes. Visitors must be aged 12 or over, and are advised to bring walking boots, water, sensible outdoor clothing and a camera.
    The chamber was first accessed by scientists in 2011, in what was described at the time as an historic development.
    Black Tomato, the luxury adventure travel specialist, has launched an “Ultimate Volcano Adventure” package that includes a private, evening trip inside the Thrihnukagigur volcano, a tour of the Thingvellir National Park, and a trip to the famous Blue Lagoon geothermal spa.
    Thanks, Ed
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    Pursuit of Light
    NASA goes cosmic in this demonstration video that’s more poetry than information. It was produced by the media team at NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center to show on a very high-resolution screen technology called The Hyperwall, which I suspect will be as impressive as IMAX was when you first encountered it. The Hyperwall will be part of a touring exhibit, and may come to a facility near you. That said, can you imagine this little video shown as big as a wall in extreme resolution? Link -via Geekosystem
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    Adorable Rube Goldberg Machine Fits inside Two Suitcases
    When it’s time to stamp a postcard, you’ll need to use the best equipment for the job. That’s when Melvin the Magical Mixed Media Machine goes to work. This cute Rube Goldberg machine by the art collective Hey Hey Hey stamps postcards effectively but not expeditiously. Watch the video at the link. Link -via Colossal
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    Blond Guy Joke
    There are three blonde guys stranded on an island.
    Suddenly a fairy appears and offers to grant each one of them a wish.
    The first blonde asks to be intelligent.
    Instantly, he is turned into a brown haired man and swims off the island.
    The next one asks to be even more intelligent than the previous one,
    so instantly he is turned into a black haired man.
    The black haired man builds a boat and sails off the island.
    The third blonde asks to become even more intelligent than the previous two.
    The fairy turns him into a woman, and she walks across the bridge.
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    Chocolate Candle Pours Hot Syrup Over Chocolate Cake
    Stéphane Bureaux’s candle is not wax, but chocolate. Place it in the center of the cake and light it. In a few minutes, you’ll have a pool of hot chocolate syrup contained by only a wall of chocolate cake. You can figure out the next step.
    Link -via Tasteologie
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    Q: Who are Sven War, Ollie Famine, Piter Pestilence, and Jergi Death?
    A: The four Norseman of the Apocolypse.
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    Police in Wichita, Kansas, arrested a 22-year-old man at an airport hotel after he tried to pass two (counterfeit) $16 bills.
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    Two animal rights protesters were protesting at the cruelty of sending pigs to a slaughterhouse in Bonn, Germany. Suddenly, all two thousand pigs broke loose and escaped through a broken fence, stampeding madly.
    The two hopeless protesters were trampled to death.
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    A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain. - Lazarus Long
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    "Why is the sky blue?"
    "It's a fault in the universe's ray tracing algorithm."
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    When Betty eats sphaghetti
    She slurps, she slurps, she slurps,
    And when she's finished slurping
    She burps, she burps, she burps
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    "Anyway, there's plenty of room for doubt.
    It might seem easy enough, but computer language design is just like a stroll in the park.
    Jurassic Park, that is."
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    "I have made good judgements in the Past.
    I have made good judgements in the Future."
    - J. Danforth Quayle, former U.S. Vice-President
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    A widow wrote this epitaph in a Vermont cemetery:
    Sacred to the memory of my husband John Barnes who died January 3, 1803. His comely young widow, aged
    23, has many qualifications of a good wife, and yearns to be comforted.
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    You know you're in a small town.....- when you don't use turn signals because everybody knows where you're going.
    - if you're born on June 13 and your family receives gifts from the local merchants because you're the first baby of the year.
    - if you speak to each dog you pass, by name ..... and he wags his tail at you
    - if you dial the wrong number, and talk for 15 minutes anyway.
    - when the biggest business in town sells farm machinery.
    - if you write a check on the wrong bank and it covers you anyway.
    - if you missed church on Sunday and the preacher sends you a get-well card!
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    May Day was marked once again around the globe with political protests and demonstrations by organized labor. The Occupy Wall Street movement, which formed last year in New York, used the day to spread its message of social and economic inequality. Also known as International Workers Day, May 1 is marked in different ways around the world, and in many countries May Day is observed as a national holiday. This celebration of the international labor movement stemmed from a deadly 1886 labor demonstration in Chicago calling for an eight-hour workday. -- Lloyd Young(39 photos total)
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    Google doodle today honors the legacy of Keith Haring, an artist and activist who would have been 54 Friday.
    Haring’s drawings were simple, but they often carried deeper meanings. Yet they could be understood and enjoyed by kids as well. One of the first words my older son ever read was “Exit” — thanks to a Sesame Street clip featuring animated drawings by Haring. The Keith Haring website includes a family-friendly portion with coloring games and educational content for kids.
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    A Man’s World
    You know you’re in a man’s ideal world when:
    – Any fake phone number a girl gave you would automatically forward your call to her real number.
    – Nodding and looking at your watch would be deemed an acceptable response To “I love you.”
    – When your girlfriend really needed to talk to you during the game, she’d appear in a little box in the corner of the screen during a time-out.
    – Breaking up would be a lot easier. “Nice try, you’ll get ‘em next time” would pretty much do it.
    – Each year, your raise would be pegged to the fortunes of the football team of your choice.
    – At the end of the workday, a whistle would blow and you’d jump out your window and slide down the tail of a brontosaurus and right into your car like Fred Flintstone.
    – Instead of an expensive engagement ring, you could present your wife-to-be with a giant foam hand that said, “You’re #1!”
    – It would be perfectly legal to steal a sports car, as long as you returned it the following day with a full tank of gas.
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    Magnifying the Universe
    I’ve featured several “scale of everything” interactives before, my favorites being the Scale of the Universe interactive web portal (which still makes my brain fall out of my head to this day) or theChronoZoom project. Here’s another one called Magnifying the Universe, by NumberSleuth. It has an embeddable version, which is fun, and I’ve added it below (click through if you can’t see it):
    Magnifying the Universe.
    Remember: You aren’t insignificant. Nothing else on any scale (that we know of) has the power to define their place in ordered life quite like we do. We are powerful in the infinite powers of our minds.
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    Splenda Daddy
    Splenda Daddy (noun) – A man who strives to be a Sugar Daddy but just doesn’t have the funds to pull it off.
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    Road Crew
    The road by my house was in bad condition. Every day I dodged potholes on the way to work, so I was relieved to see a construction crew working on the road one morning.
    Later, on my way home, I noticed the men were gone and no improvement in the road. But where the crew had been working stood a new, bright-yellow sign with the words “Rough Road.”
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    The Facts of Life
    When my granddaughter Abby was nine years old, she was given an assignment by her teacher to write a story on "Where my family came from." The purpose was to understand your genealogy.
    I was not aware of her assignment when she asked me at the dining room table one night, "Grandma, where did I come from?" I responded quite nervously because my son and daughter-in-law were out of town and I was stalling until they returned home, "Well, honey, the stork brought you."
    "Where did Mom come from then?"
    "The stork brought her, too."
    "OK, then where did you come from?"
    "The stork brought me too, dear."
    "Okay, thanks, Grandma."
    I did not think anything more about it until two days later when I was cleaning Abby's room and read the first sentence of her paper: "For three generations there have been no natural births in our family."
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    I’m Sorry….
    Apology offensive
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    I picked up my nine-year-old daughter from school and asked how her day had gone.
    A few minutes later, distracted by driving, I repeated the question, and again a few minutes after that.
    Instead of annoyed, Ariana was philosophical.
    "Mom," she said, "your amnesia is my deja vu."
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    A group of guys and one girl are sitting together at a ball game. During the game the guys notice the girl knew just as much about the game as themselves, and are really impressed. After the game they ask her, "How is it that you know so much about baseball?"
    She says, "Well, I used to be a guy and got a sex change."
    The guys are amazed, but very curious about the process.
    "What was the most painful part of the process? Was it when they cut IT off?"
    "That was very painful, but was not the most painful part."
    "Was it when they cut off your balls?"
    "That was very painful, but was not the most painful part."
    "What was the most painful part?"
    "The part that hurt the most was when they cut my salary in half!"
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    A husband and wife are on a nudist beach when suddenly a wasp buzzes into the wife's business end. Naturally enough, she panics.

    The husband is also quite shaken but manages to put a coat on her, pull up his shorts and carries her to the car. Then he makes a mad dash to the doctor. The doctor, after examining her, says that the wasp is too far in to remove with forceps so he says to the husband that he will have to try and entice it out by putting honey on his penis and withdrawing as soon as he feels the wasp.

    And so the honey is smeared, but because of his wife's screaming and his frantic dash to the doctor and the general panic, he just can't rise to the occasion. So the doctor says he'll perform the deed if the husband and wife don't object.

    Naturally both agree for fear the wasp will do any damage, so the doctor quickly undresses, smears the honey on and instantly gets an erection, at which time he begins to plug the wife. Only he doesn't stop and withdraw but continues with vigour.

    The husband shouts, "What the hell's happening?" To which the doctor replies, "Change of plan. I'm going to drown the bastard!!!
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    398184_233452760088992_150231905077745_334806_1692160352_n.jpg
    Ursa ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    ursarodinia@aol.com
     
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