We are Infinite Spiritual Beings
Having a Temporary Human Experience.
~ Wayne Dyer
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2012 July / August
Ash and Lightning Above an Icelandic Volcano
Image Credit & Copyright: Sigurður Stefnisson
Image Credit & Copyright: Sigurður Stefnisson
Explanation: Why did the picturesque 2010 volcanic eruption in Iceland create so much ash? Although the large ash plume was not unparalleled in its abundance, its location was particularly noticeable because it drifted across such well-populated areas. The Eyjafjallajökull volcano in southern Iceland began erupting on 2010 March 20, with a second eruption starting under the center of a small glacier on 2010 April 14. Neither eruption was unusually powerful. The second eruption, however, melted a large amount of glacial ice which then cooled and fragmented lava into gritty glass particles that were carried up with the rising volcanic plume. Pictured above during the second eruption, lightning bolts illuminate ash pouring out of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano.
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2012 July / August
High Energy Stereoscopic System II
Image Courtesy: H.E.S.S. Collaboration
Image Courtesy: H.E.S.S. Collaboration
Explanation: The largest of its kind, the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) II telescope stands in the foreground of this photo. Tilted horizontally it reflects the inverted landscape of the Namibian desert in a segmented mirror 24 meters wide and 32 meters tall, equal in area to two tennis courts. Now beginning an exploration of the Universe at extreme energies, H.E.S.S. II saw first light on July 26. Most ground-based telescopes with lenses and mirrors are hindered by the Earth's nurturing, protective atmosphere that blurs images and scatters and absorbs light. But the H.E.S.S. II telescope is a cherenkov telescope, designed to detect gamma rays - photons with over 100 billion times the energy of visible light - and actually requires the atmosphere to operate. As the gamma rays impact the upper atmosphere they produce air showers of high-energy particles. A large camera at the mirror's focus records in detail the brief flashes of optical light, called cherenkov light, created by the air shower particles. The H.E.S.S. II telescope operates in concert with the array of four other 12 meter cherenkov telescopes to provide multiple stereoscopic views of the air showers, relating them to the energies and directions of the incoming cosmic gamma rays.
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Explanation: Next week at this time, there may be an amazing new robotic explorer on Mars. Or there may be a new pile of junk. It all likely depends on many things going correctly in the minutes after the Mars Science Laboratory mission arrives at Mars and attempts to deploy the Curiosity rover from orbit. Arguably the most sophisticated landing yet attempted on the red planet, consecutive precision events will involve a heat shield, a parachute, several rocket maneuvers, and the automatic operation of an unusual device called a Sky Crane. These "Seven Minutes of Terror" -- depicted in the above dramatic video -- will begin on Monday, August 6 at about 5:24 am Universal time, which occurs on Sunday night, August 5 for western North Americans. If successful, the car-sized Curiosity rover will rest on the surface of Mars, soon to begin exploring Gale Crater to better determine the habitability of this seemingly barren world to life -- past, present, and future. Although multiple media outlets may cover this event, one way to watch these landing events unfold is on the NASA channel live on the web.
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Rex Barker here with "The Secret of Life"
A seven-year-old boy approached an old man in front of a wishing well, looked up into his eyes, and asked: "I understand you're a very wise man. I'd like to know the secret of life."
The old man looked down at the youngster and replied: "I've thought a lot in my lifetime, and the secret can be summed up in four words:
1) The first is "Think."
Think about the values you wish to live your life by.
2) The second is "Believe."
Believe in yourself based on the thinking you've done about the values you're going to live your life by.
3) The third is "Dream."
Dream about the things that can be, based on your belief in yourself and the values you're going to live by.
4) The last is "Dare."
Dare to make your dreams become reality, based on your belief in yourself and your values.
And with that, Walter E. Disney said to the little boy, "Think, Believe, Dream, and Dare."
This is Rex Barker reminding you that we all can learn from Walt Disney on how to take on challenges in life.
The old man looked down at the youngster and replied: "I've thought a lot in my lifetime, and the secret can be summed up in four words:
1) The first is "Think."
Think about the values you wish to live your life by.
2) The second is "Believe."
Believe in yourself based on the thinking you've done about the values you're going to live your life by.
3) The third is "Dream."
Dream about the things that can be, based on your belief in yourself and the values you're going to live by.
4) The last is "Dare."
Dare to make your dreams become reality, based on your belief in yourself and your values.
And with that, Walter E. Disney said to the little boy, "Think, Believe, Dream, and Dare."
This is Rex Barker reminding you that we all can learn from Walt Disney on how to take on challenges in life.
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A MAN'S SCHEDULE
1. Get up.
2. Pass gas.
3. Drink cup of black coffee.
4. Pass gas.
5. Dress, skipping shower because "alarm didn't work".
6. Pass gas.
7. Log on to computer to check porn site before leaving for work. Pass gas while "enjoying" favorite site.
6. Drive to work. Pass gas at stop light. Open window to air out car.
7. Get to work at MacDonalds. Pass gas in bathroom (for all patrons to enjoy). Forget to wash hands.
8. Lunch. Double cheesy cheeseburger and supersized fries. Pass gas.
9. Arrive home. Pass gas. Have a beer. Pass gas.
10. Tell wife you want sex. Belch.
Finish early, belch and fall asleep.
11. Get up at 3 A.M. waking wife but instead of finishing her off, return to computer to talk in the chat rooms - imagining what a stud you are, chatting with all those "gorgeous women" online. Pass gas.
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(NOTE: New images start at #56) The 2012 Summer Olympic Games, officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad (and known informally as London 2012) are in full swing in London, United Kingdom. Around 10,500 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees (the group responsible for organizing their people's participation in the games) will compete. Thousands and thousands of images will be made in London of the athletes and the spectators; the venues and the celebrations; the pomp and the circumstance. A search of current images in a wire database reveals images coming into the system at a rate of over 1,000 an hour during the hours of competition, resulting in a major picture editing challenge. A small sampling follows. -- Paula Nelson (55 photos total)
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A Blonde Bombshell buys the new Automatic BMW X8 sport. She drives the car perfectly well during the day, but At night the car just won't move at all.
She tries driving the car at night for a week but Still no luck.She then furiously calls the BMW dealers and they send out a technician to her.
The technician asks "Miss, are you sure you are Using the right gears?"
Full of anger, she replies "You fool, idiot man, how you Could ask such a question, I'm not stupid!
I use 'D' for the Day, and 'N' for the Night..."
She tries driving the car at night for a week but Still no luck.She then furiously calls the BMW dealers and they send out a technician to her.
The technician asks "Miss, are you sure you are Using the right gears?"
Full of anger, she replies "You fool, idiot man, how you Could ask such a question, I'm not stupid!
I use 'D' for the Day, and 'N' for the Night..."
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A visitor from Holland was chatting with his American friend and was jokingly explaining about the red, white and blue in the Netherlands flag.
"Our flag symbolizes our taxes," he said. "We get red when we talk about them, white when we get our tax bill, and blue after we pay them."
"That's the same with us," the American said, "only we see stars, too."
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"Our flag symbolizes our taxes," he said. "We get red when we talk about them, white when we get our tax bill, and blue after we pay them."
"That's the same with us," the American said, "only we see stars, too."
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Q: What do you get when you cross an Arab with a Mexican?
A: Oil of Ole'
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A: Oil of Ole'
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Walter White’s Lab Safety Chart
99% of all infographics are made by companies trying to get links to their websites, but that last 1% are often fantastic, like this one, by artist Kevin Tong, depicting all the rules one must follow while working in Walter White’s meth lab in Breaking Bad. The chart is so perfect it actually looks like something that could hang on the lab wall, just so it can be referenced whenever Jesse messes up again. Don’t miss the full chart at the link.
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You slam a politician, you make out he's the devil, with horns and hoofs.
But his wife loves him, and so did all his mistresses. - - - Pamela Hansford Johnson
But his wife loves him, and so did all his mistresses. - - - Pamela Hansford Johnson
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During the Vietnam war, a Lieutenant asked a Marine why he was falling back during a really fierce battle. "Didn't you hear me say that we're outnumbered 4 to 1 ?"
The Marine replied, "I got my four Sir."
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By staying informed and making knowledgeable choices about the fish you consume, you can enjoy the numerous health benefits of eating sustainable fish and seafood, while ensuring that marine life will flourish and continue to be around for future generations.
Current studies on the perilous state of the world's ocean life reveal grim results: Marine scientists released a report last year stating that if current fishing practices continue, the world's major fish populations will be extinct by mid-century.
Hair-raising statistics like this have prompted a growing percentage of consumers to seek alternatives to endangered ocean species.
Current studies on the perilous state of the world's ocean life reveal grim results: Marine scientists released a report last year stating that if current fishing practices continue, the world's major fish populations will be extinct by mid-century.
Hair-raising statistics like this have prompted a growing percentage of consumers to seek alternatives to endangered ocean species.
* With careful attention to the nature and origins of the fish and seafood you consume, you can effectively reduce your impact on marine populations while also enjoying its flavors and health benefits. The best way to avoid the toxins present in many fish is to drastically decrease your consumption of salmon, tuna, swordfish, and sharks. As some of the longest-living, largest fish in the ocean, these fish tend to accumulate the most toxins in their bodies.
* Sustainable tuna and salmon, in particular, come widely recommended as a great source of lean protein and omega-3 fatty acids, purported to lower rates of heart disease and boost healthy cell function. But there are alternative choices that boast the same health benefits:
-Anchovies
-Herring
-Mackerel
-Sardines
-Trout
These are all great alternatives, in part because they have shorter life spans and don't accumulate as many toxins as the bigger cold-water fish. They also provide a great alternative because they rank amongst the less endangered species, breed faster, and eat much lower on the marine food chain.
* Sustainable tuna and salmon, in particular, come widely recommended as a great source of lean protein and omega-3 fatty acids, purported to lower rates of heart disease and boost healthy cell function. But there are alternative choices that boast the same health benefits:
-Anchovies
-Herring
-Mackerel
-Sardines
-Trout
These are all great alternatives, in part because they have shorter life spans and don't accumulate as many toxins as the bigger cold-water fish. They also provide a great alternative because they rank amongst the less endangered species, breed faster, and eat much lower on the marine food chain.
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Q: Why was the snowman smiling?
A: He heard the snowblower coming!
A: He heard the snowblower coming!
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A guy starts talking to two women in a bar, they turn out to be Siamese twins, and they wind up back at his
apartment. He makes love to one, and then starts to work on the other. He realizes that the first one might get bored watching, so he her asks what she'd like to do.
She says, "Is that a trombone in the corner? I'd love to play your trombone."
So she plays it while he screws her sister.
A few weeks later, the girls are walking past the guy's apartment building. One of the girls says, "Let's stop
up and see that guy."
The other girl says, "Gee...do you think he'd remember us?"
apartment. He makes love to one, and then starts to work on the other. He realizes that the first one might get bored watching, so he her asks what she'd like to do.
She says, "Is that a trombone in the corner? I'd love to play your trombone."
So she plays it while he screws her sister.
A few weeks later, the girls are walking past the guy's apartment building. One of the girls says, "Let's stop
up and see that guy."
The other girl says, "Gee...do you think he'd remember us?"
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Every woman needs to see this…
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Unfortunate newspaper headlines collected by readers of the Columbia Journalism Review:
READER IS UPSET OVER DOG EATING FILIPINOS (The Wayne County Outlook, Monticello, Ky., Feb. 25, 1982)
MORE OF US WILL LIVE TO BE CENTURIONS (The Times Reporter, Dover-New Philadelphia, Ohio, Feb. 11, 1987)
POLICE BRUTALITY POSTPONED (The Mishawaka, Ind., Enterprise, Oct. 1, 1981)
DESPITE OUR BEST EFFORTS, BLACK EMPLOYMENT IS STILL RISING (The Evening Times, West Palm Beach, Fla., Oct. 3, 1980)
BRITISH LEFT WAFFLES ON FALKLANDS (Guardian, April 28, 1982)
FRIED CHICKEN COOKED IN MICROWAVE WINS TRIP (The Oregonian, July 8, 1981)
CROWDS RUSHING TO SEE POPE TRAMPLE 6 TO DEATH (Journal Star, Peoria, Ill., July 9, 1980)
HERE’S HOW YOU CAN LICK DOBERMAN’S LEG SORES (Reading Eagle, May 23, 1982)
EYE DROPS OFF SHELVES (Tri-City Herald, Pasco, Wash., Aug. 5, 1982)
PESTICIDE CONCERNS BLOSSOM (Williamsport, Pa., Sun-Gazette, May 21, 1985)
PRINCE ANDREW TAKES KOO PEASANT HUNTING IN SCOTLAND (The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Nov. 28, 1982)
In February 1986 the Durham, N.C., Sun reported that contributions to Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business had increased by 120 percent in the previous year. It chose the headline FUQUA SCHOOL GIVING UP.
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More quick and simple life hacks.
Seven-day-old hedgehog takes a nap.
US Olympic team tribute to Muhammad Ali.
Spider-dad and son: A trip to the trampoline park.
A teacher growing green in the South Bronx.
Seven-day-old hedgehog takes a nap.
US Olympic team tribute to Muhammad Ali.
Spider-dad and son: A trip to the trampoline park.
A teacher growing green in the South Bronx.
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This gopher lives under the rocket launchpad at Kazakhstan’s Baikonur cosmodrome. The creature was filmed completely by chance after a space agency cameraman accidentally left his camera rolling on the ground at the base. The gopher seemed quite happy with his home, despite it being perilously close to the pad where astronauts blast off for the International Space Station.via
Kuratas Mech for Sale
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Too funny!
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Remember the old joke: What does an 800-pound gorilla do? Anything he wants to! Along those lines, what do you do when an elephant crashes your pool party? Well, you really can’t do anything about it, so you may as well watch it on video. Notice how the camera shakes when he takes a step. That’s a big elephant. -via I Am Bored
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The State of the Music Industry
Matthew Inman at The Oatmeal explains the history of the music business, how it’s changing, and what the future holds. It explains the way things were for around 100 years in the world of recorded music. Link -via reddit
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The Ancient Olympics: a “total pagan entertainment package”
National Geographic talked with Tony Perrotet, author of The Naked Olympics: The True Story of the Ancient Games about how the ancient Olympics compares with the modern version.
The Olympic Games were held every four years from 776 B.C. to A.D. 394, making them the longest-running recurring event in antiquity. What was the secret of the games’ longevity? It was the sheer spectacle of it. Sports [were] one part of a grand, all-consuming extravaganza. It was first and foremost a religious event, held on the most sacred spot in the ancient world. It had this incredible aura of tradition and sanctity.
Today’s Olympics is a vast, secular event, but it doesn’t have the religious element of the ancient Olympics, where sacrifices and rituals would take up as much time as the sports. And there were all these pecripheral things that came with the festival: the artistic happenings, new writers, new painters, new sculptors. There were fire-eaters, palm readers, and prostitutes. This was the total pagan entertainment package.
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A fellow getting a shave asked the barber if he had another razor.
"Why?" asked the barber, "Is there something wrong with this one?"
"I don't know." replied the customer. "But I would appreciate a chance to defend myself."
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"Why?" asked the barber, "Is there something wrong with this one?"
"I don't know." replied the customer. "But I would appreciate a chance to defend myself."
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Kuratas Mech for Sale
If you’ve dreamed of operating your own mech, here’s your chance! For a mere $1.3 million, the Kuratas mech from Suidobashi Heavy Industry can be yours:
Called the Kuratas, the human-controlled robot was created by a group calling itself Suidobashi Heavy Industry lead by Kogoro Kurata, an ironworker and artist. Standing more than 12 feet tall and weighing 9,920 pounds, the Kuratas was unveiled over the weekend at Wonder Fest 2012, an annual hobby convention in Tokyo, Japan, where it was — unsurprisingly — the hit of the show.
The Kuratas features a humanoid upper body and four insect-like legs with wheels. It’s designed to seat one person in its “chest,” which pivots above a waist and has one fully-articulated arm on either side. Pressing a button on the front of the robot opens the driver compartment canopy, allowing you to climb inside its cramped interior. Once inside, the canopy closes and you’re presented with a large LCD display and an array of lighted indicators. Link | More at Gigazine
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Intruder Thwarted
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=28c_1343730864
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=28c_1343730864
What a great watch cat! Though… I suspect that the cat wouldn’t care a bit if the raccoon made off with the jewelry or the fruit bowl or the camera. He was probably just defending his food bowl. -via Buzzfeed
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Boeing, SpaceX and Sierra Nevada to win NASA backing for spaceships
NASA
Sources tell NBC News that NASA will provide further support for the development of the Boeing Co.'s CST-100 capsule (left), Sierra Nevada Corp.'s Dream Chaser space plane (middle) and SpaceX's Dragon capsule (right).
Update for 12:55 p.m. ET Aug. 3: Boeing, SpaceX and Sierra Nevada are due to receive up to $1.1 billion to continue work on spaceships that could be carrying astronauts to orbit in the 2015-2017 time frame. Check out today's updated story.
What is the difference between frustration and panic?
Frustration is the first time you discover you can't do it the second time.
Panic is the second time you discover you can't do it the first time.
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Frustration is the first time you discover you can't do it the second time.
Panic is the second time you discover you can't do it the first time.
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Wait For Me!
Just some elephant footage taken at Tarangire National Park in Tanzania. -via Arbroath
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Your Olympic Athlete Body Match
Olympic athletes come in all shapes and sizes, from tall basketball players and hefty weightlifters to tiny gymnasts. The BBC has a widget that can match your height and weight to the nearest London 2012 athlete. Just enter your stats and find out who matches you. Link -via the Presurfer
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Mother’s Curse: Why Females Live Longer Than Males
"I always look for a woman who has a tattoo. I see a woman with a tattoo, and I'm thinking, okay, here's a gal who's willing to make a decision she'll regret in the future." --Richard Jeni
Why do females usually live longer than males? Science may have the answer, dubbed the "Mother's Curse" hypothesis:
The loophole lies in the mitochondria, the energy-generating parts of our cells. The mitochondria have their own DNA, separate from the DNA that resides in the nucleus of the cell that we usually think of when we think of the genome. In almost all species, the mitochondria DNA is passed down solely from mother to child, without input from dad.
This direct line of inheritance may allow harmful mutations to accumulate, according to a new study detailed today (Aug. 2) in the journal Current Biology. Ordinarily, natural selection helps keep harmful mutations to a minimum by ensuring they're not passed down to offspring. But if a mitochondrial DNA mutation is dangerous only to males and doesn't harm females, there's nothing to stop mom from passing it to her daughters and sons.
"If a mitochondrial mutation pops up that is benign in females, or a mutation pops up that is beneficial to females, this mutation will slip through the gates of natural selection and go through to the next generation," said study researcher Damian Dowling, an evolutionary biologist at Monash Univeristy in Australia.The result: a load of mutations that don't harm females, but add up to a shorter life span for males.
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Thanks Miss Silver
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"I always look for a woman who has a tattoo. I see a woman with a tattoo, and I'm thinking, okay, here's a gal who's willing to make a decision she'll regret in the future." --Richard Jeni
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Random Facts:
Field hockey is one of the oldest competitive sports which is recorded way back into Ancient Greek Olympic games. There has been found of drawings in a tomb like place in Beni-Hasen in the Nile Valley of Egypt showing males playing this sport.
Originally made of mulberry wood, field hockey sticks are now manufactured from a variety of materials, including fiberglass, graphite, Kevlar and other composites.
Field hockey is one of the oldest competitive sports which is recorded way back into Ancient Greek Olympic games. There has been found of drawings in a tomb like place in Beni-Hasen in the Nile Valley of Egypt showing males playing this sport.
Originally made of mulberry wood, field hockey sticks are now manufactured from a variety of materials, including fiberglass, graphite, Kevlar and other composites.
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"They were saying we might get hit by remnants of tropical depression Fabio. That sounds like the saddest romance novel cover ever." -Jimmy Kimmel
"Everything went smoothly at the sailing events today, except for the British team. They forgot to bring limes and they all got scurvy." -Craig Ferguson
"An Australian swimmer who failed to win a gold medal is blaming her loss on social media. In her defense, it is really hard to tweet when you're swimming." -Conan O'Brien
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"Everything went smoothly at the sailing events today, except for the British team. They forgot to bring limes and they all got scurvy." -Craig Ferguson
"An Australian swimmer who failed to win a gold medal is blaming her loss on social media. In her defense, it is really hard to tweet when you're swimming." -Conan O'Brien
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” There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way” also by Buddha
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Snaefell Mountain Course is a road-racing street circuit used for the Isle of Man TT and Manx Grand Prix Races held in the Isle of Man from 1911 and 1923 respectively. The racing is held on public roads. It is the oldest motor-cycle racing circuit still in use.
Cars have never raced on the mountain course. In fact, they've only run on the closed course a handful of times, one of which occurred last year when Subaru persuaded the organizers to let World Rally Championship driver Mark Higgins flog a mostly stock Impreza WRX STI at full tilt. He set a lap-time record for production cars at 19 minutes 37 seconds and averaged 115.4 mph.
Cars have never raced on the mountain course. In fact, they've only run on the closed course a handful of times, one of which occurred last year when Subaru persuaded the organizers to let World Rally Championship driver Mark Higgins flog a mostly stock Impreza WRX STI at full tilt. He set a lap-time record for production cars at 19 minutes 37 seconds and averaged 115.4 mph.
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10 Futuristic Technologies That Will Never Exist
Part of the joy of science fiction is seeing all the awesome toys, and imagining how they could exist in the real world. And so many of science fiction's coolest gadgets have come true, including Star Trek's PADDs and communicators. But the sad truth is, a lot of the most fantastic technologies in science fiction are fantastic for a reason — they can't ever exist in reality. Here are 10 amazing technologies that will never exist in real life.
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Z Machine: Meet the X-Ray Generator That Can Melt Diamonds
Photo: Randy Montoya/Sandia National Laboratories/SPL
Photo: Randy Montoya/Sandia National Laboratories/SPL
Diamond is one of the hardest material in nature, but it's no match for the Z Machine at the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It can create electromagnetic pulse that is strong enough to light 100 million light bulbs and melt diamonds:
First the current is fired at hundreds of tiny tungsten wires, vaporising them to form a cloud of charged particles, or plasma. The plasma produces a magnetic field that forces the particles to line up at the centre of the machine, so that they point out of the horizontal plane of its surface, along the vertical or z-axis - hence the machine's name. This arrangement causes the particles to collide, producing exceptionally powerful X-rays.
Z's magnetic field can also be harnessed to accelerate metal plates and squish materials. In fact, Sandia researcher Marcus Knudson was able to apply over 5 million times atmospheric pressure to squeeze diamond, turning the precious stone into a puddle. Link
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Why Hemingway Used to Dress As A Girl
It sounds almost slanderous to accuse someone as manly as Ernest Hemingway to have ever worn women’s clothing, but it’s true -even if it wasn’t actually his choice. You see, Ernest’s mother always wanted to have twins, so when Ernest was born only 18 months after his older sister, mummy dearest decided that was close enough:
Submitting to her twin fantasies, she started dressing Ernest up in Marcelline’s old clothes, despite the fact that they were little girl’s clothes—lacey white dresses with pink bows and the like. Soon his mom was buying two of everything and dressing her children in identical pink gowns and flowered hats. She would refer to the kids as her “sweet Dutch dollies” and actually tell strangers that they were her twin girls. To perpetuate the twin fantasy, Grace even held Marcelline back a year in school so that she and Ernest would be in the same grade together. Oh, and his mother so treasured the fantasy of Ernest being a little girl that she sometimes referred to him as “Ernestine.”
If you’ve ever wondered why the author placed such an importance on masculinity, hopefully that bit of trivia will help answer your question. Link
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Jason Segel, Jack Black and Will Ferrell as the Hitchhiking Ghosts
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For its new ad campaign, Disney engaged famous photographer Annie Leibovitz to feature comedians Jason Segel, Jack Black and Will Ferrell as the Hitchhiking Ghosts from its Haunted Mansion ride.
Yahoo's Shine blog has the behind the scenes photos: Link
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Comment overheard this week, spoken by someone living through this year's drought in the Midwest. The sentiment will be understandable to anyone who has walked on a lawn and heard the grass go "snap, crackle" instead of "squish, squish."
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Get Down Little Porcupine
Talk about a party animal, this little guy not only has some sweet moves, he even has his own theme song.
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"On August 25, 1939, archaeologists working at a Paleolithic site called Stadelhole (“stable cave”) at Hohlenstein (“hollow rock”) in southern Germany, uncovered hundreds of mammoth ivory fragments. Just one week later, before they could complete their fieldwork and analyze the finds, World War II began. The team was forced to quickly fill the excavation trenches using the same soil in which they found the ivory pieces. For the next three decades, the fragments sat in storage at the nearby City Museum of Ulm, until archaeologist Joachim Hahn began an inventory. As Hahn pieced together more than 200 fragments, an extraordinary artifact dating to the Aurignacian period (more than 30,000 years ago) began to emerge. It was clearly a figure with both human and animal characteristics. However, only a small part of the head and the left ear had been found, so the type of creature it represented remained a mystery..."You can read the rest of the story about the recovery of additional pieces and the reconstruction of the figurine in the March/April issue of Archaeology.
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String Theory in 26 Seconds, by George Musser. I think he did a fine job with something so complex.
Fancy something more detailed? Watch string theorist Brian Greene: The Universe On A String
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A video made by Martin Harvey to show the beauty of a huge flock of flamingos on Lake Bogoria in Kenya. More than a million flamingos is truly one of the worlds greatest wildlife experiences left on earth.
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Man Charged with Feeding Gator that Ate His HandLast month, airboat captain Wallace Weatherholt lost his hand when an alligator bit it off at the wrist. Then, as if that’s not bad enough, he’s now being charged with unlawful feeding of a wild animal:
After the attack, Florida Fish and Wildlife officers began an investigation into whether the captain had fed or provoked the alligator, leading to the attack. In an interview shortly after the attack, FWC spokeswoman Carli Segelson said that there had been allegations of that happening. The Associated Press reports that airboat passengers stated Weatherholt hung a fish over the side of the boat and had his hand at the water’s surface when the alligator attacked. Feeding alligators is illegal. Those who feed an alligator face a second-degree misdemeanor, with a fine of up to $500 and possible jail time. Link
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10 Foods You Crave — And Why You Crave Them
10. When you crave dirt you need to detox
9. When you crave rice and beans you need protein
8. When you crave spice you need to cool down
7. When you crave licorice you need hormones
6. When you crave milk in your tea you need protection with your morning beverage
5. When you crave ice you need iron
4. When you crave fish cooked in greens you need calcium
3. When you crave ginger you need to heal your heart (literally)
2. When you crave caffeine you need a painkiller
1. When you crave chocolate you need to get high
Chocolate, as it turns out, is a bubbling brew of 380 chemicals, a bunch of which are known to have an effect on mood. It's a darling little meth lab of feel-good chemicals in a heart-shaped box. Forget alcohol or tobacco, this is the drug of choice for pretty much everyone.
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satanophanyn. a visible manifestation of Satan
Potassium chlorate brings out the worst in gummy bears.
In their 1996 manual Chemical Curiosities, H.W. Roesky and K. Möckel introduce this demonstration with an invocation from the Talmud: “He who ponders long over four things were better never to have been born: that which is above, that which is below, that which came before, and that which comes hereafter.”
(Please don’t try this yourself.)
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A stock analyst and a Wall Street broker went to the racetrack. The broker suggested betting $12,000 on a certain horse. The analyst was skeptical; he had never been to the races before and wanted to understand the rules and look over all the horses before placing a wager.
"You're too cautious and detail-oriented," the broker criticized as he placed his large bet. His horse won and he raked in a bundle of money.
"What's your secret?" the analyst asked.
"It's simple," the broker explained. "I have two kids... ages two and six...so I add their ages together and bet on number nine."
"But two and six is eight, not nine!" protested the analyst.
"See!" the broker replied, "I told you you're too cautious and detail-oriented."
A kingdom founded on injustice never lasts. --Seneca
"You're too cautious and detail-oriented," the broker criticized as he placed his large bet. His horse won and he raked in a bundle of money.
"What's your secret?" the analyst asked.
"It's simple," the broker explained. "I have two kids... ages two and six...so I add their ages together and bet on number nine."
"But two and six is eight, not nine!" protested the analyst.
"See!" the broker replied, "I told you you're too cautious and detail-oriented."
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According to the rough translation I've found here, an elderly woman in China who lived near a pedestrian crossing that drivers often speed through found a clever way to get motorists to slow down. She tied a sex doll to a tree at the crosswalk. That's her, and her sex doll, above. Tiexue, via Car News China, via @nadya. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. --George Bernard Shaw
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The best merchants are the ones who dictate the future, not the ones who try to predict it. --Kevin Plank, CEO of Under Armour
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A kingdom founded on injustice never lasts. --Seneca
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Faith is the daring of the soul to go farther than it can see. --William Newton Clark
Faith is the daring of the soul to go farther than it can see. --William Newton Clark
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Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them - every day begin the task anew. --Saint Francis de Sales (1567 - 1622)
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Men do have trouble hearing women
Men who are accused of never listening by women now have an excuse -women's voices are more difficult for men to listen to than other men's. Reports say researchers at Sheffield University in northern England have
discovered startling differences in the way the brain responds to male and female sounds.
The research shows men decipher female voices using the auditory part of the brain that processes music, while male voices engage a simpler mechanism.
The Daily Mail quotes researcher Michael Hunter as saying, "the female voice is actually more complex than the male voice, due to differences in the size and shape of the vocal cords and larynx between men and women, and
also due to women having greater natural 'melody' in their voices".
"This causes a more complex range of sound frequencies than in a male voice," Mr Hunter said. The report says the findings may help explain why people suffering hallucinations usually hear male voices - the brain may
find it much harder to conjure up a false female voice accurately than a false male voice. The research is published in the specialist magazine NeuroImage.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Men who are accused of never listening by women now have an excuse -women's voices are more difficult for men to listen to than other men's. Reports say researchers at Sheffield University in northern England have
discovered startling differences in the way the brain responds to male and female sounds.
The research shows men decipher female voices using the auditory part of the brain that processes music, while male voices engage a simpler mechanism.
The Daily Mail quotes researcher Michael Hunter as saying, "the female voice is actually more complex than the male voice, due to differences in the size and shape of the vocal cords and larynx between men and women, and
also due to women having greater natural 'melody' in their voices".
"This causes a more complex range of sound frequencies than in a male voice," Mr Hunter said. The report says the findings may help explain why people suffering hallucinations usually hear male voices - the brain may
find it much harder to conjure up a false female voice accurately than a false male voice. The research is published in the specialist magazine NeuroImage.
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The Hurdles - The First Olympics
The hurdles coach, John Graham, gets an important tip on negotiating this unfamiliar obstacle from an unlikely source. When the maid does show the American boys how to run the hurdles they give her a well deserved cheer!
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A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep. ~ Saul Bellow
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QUOTE: "The first thing is to love your sport. Never do it to please someone else. It has to be yours."
HINT: (1948-), American figure skater. She is the 1968 Olympic Champion in Ladies' singles and a three-time World Champion (1966-1968).
ANSWER: Peggy Fleming.
HINT: (1948-), American figure skater. She is the 1968 Olympic Champion in Ladies' singles and a three-time World Champion (1966-1968).
ANSWER: Peggy Fleming.
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You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance. --Franklin P. Jones
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RANDOM TIDBITS
With the 2012 Summer Olympics, London will become the first city to ever host a modern Olympics three times. In addition to that record, London also has the honor of being the first city to host the Paralympics, which took place in 1948 for wounded war veterans.
The 1936 Berlin Olympics (also known as the 'Nazi' Olympics) were the first Olympic Games to ever be televised. Before the advent of television, sports fans had to make due with radio commentary, and before radios were ubiquitous, you could only read about the results of the events in the newspaper.
In the past, the modern games were only canceled three times, always on account of war. The 1916 Summer Olympics in Berlin were canceled because of WWI. The 1940 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, as well as the 1944 Summer Olympics in London were canceled because of WWII. When people are fighting for basic survival, global athletic events tend to hold a lot less meaning.
Oscar Swahn, a Swedish shooting expert, won his first Olympic medal in 1908, when he was a spry 60-year-olds. Apparently he got a taste for winning, even if it came later in life than most people. (He would go on to compete in two more Olympic Games.) After WWII, Swahn attended the Antwerp Games (his last) and won a silver medal. He was 72 at the time.
The American James Connolly won the first medal given out (of the modern era) at the inaugural Athens Games, staged in 1896. Connolly competed in the triple jump and emerged victorious, becoming the first Olympic champion since the last Olympics were held, about 1,500 years prior. Instead of a gold medal, the top prize at the time was a silver medal and an olive leaf.
Even though the top athlete in his or her field wins the 'gold,' the medals aren't really made out of solid gold. In fact, they haven't been pure gold for around 100 years. The gold medals awarded now are actually silver, with gold plating.
(Courtesy of thefw.com)
With the 2012 Summer Olympics, London will become the first city to ever host a modern Olympics three times. In addition to that record, London also has the honor of being the first city to host the Paralympics, which took place in 1948 for wounded war veterans.
The 1936 Berlin Olympics (also known as the 'Nazi' Olympics) were the first Olympic Games to ever be televised. Before the advent of television, sports fans had to make due with radio commentary, and before radios were ubiquitous, you could only read about the results of the events in the newspaper.
In the past, the modern games were only canceled three times, always on account of war. The 1916 Summer Olympics in Berlin were canceled because of WWI. The 1940 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, as well as the 1944 Summer Olympics in London were canceled because of WWII. When people are fighting for basic survival, global athletic events tend to hold a lot less meaning.
Oscar Swahn, a Swedish shooting expert, won his first Olympic medal in 1908, when he was a spry 60-year-olds. Apparently he got a taste for winning, even if it came later in life than most people. (He would go on to compete in two more Olympic Games.) After WWII, Swahn attended the Antwerp Games (his last) and won a silver medal. He was 72 at the time.
The American James Connolly won the first medal given out (of the modern era) at the inaugural Athens Games, staged in 1896. Connolly competed in the triple jump and emerged victorious, becoming the first Olympic champion since the last Olympics were held, about 1,500 years prior. Instead of a gold medal, the top prize at the time was a silver medal and an olive leaf.
Even though the top athlete in his or her field wins the 'gold,' the medals aren't really made out of solid gold. In fact, they haven't been pure gold for around 100 years. The gold medals awarded now are actually silver, with gold plating.
(Courtesy of thefw.com)
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Testimony of Alexander Falconbridge before a select committee of the House of Commons, March 8, 1790:
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Gymnasties
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"Since all the Heaven's Gates members were discovered wearing Nike sneakers, do you think Nike might change their slogan to 'Maybe You Should Think About It'?" -- Scott Adams
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The world's most powerful photographs.
Clever cat gets creative to catch some balloons.
DNA building blocks found on meteorites.
Clever cat gets creative to catch some balloons.
DNA building blocks found on meteorites.
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Life may have no meaning. Or even worse, it may have a meaning of which I disapprove. -- Ashleigh Brilliant
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"While I was doing this, a neighbor walked up, and I just want to say that if you think it's easy to explain why you're squatting in your driveway, in front of a set of burning underwear, surrounded by hair spray bottles,
holding a Barbie doll in your hand, then you are mistaken." -- Dave Barry
holding a Barbie doll in your hand, then you are mistaken." -- Dave Barry
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Deep Sea Squid Detaches Tentacles to Attack
Consider what happens if you leave your opponent 5 pennies. At that point, no matter how many he removes, you can play so as to leave the final penny to him. Now, if leaving him 5 pennies is a worthy target, then by the same principle so is leaving him 9 pennies: No matter how he plays, he must now give you the opportunity to leave him with 5. And going one step further, aiming for 13 pennies will ensure that you can reach 9, then 5, and victory. So, on your first turn, take 2 pennies.
A Mexican woodpecker and a Canadian woodpecker were in Mexico arguing about which country had the toughest trees.
The Mexican woodpecker claimed Mexico had a tree that no woodpecker could peck.
The Canadian woodpecker accepted his challenge and promptly pecked a hole in the tree with no problem. The Mexican woodpecker was amazed.
The Canadian woodpecker then challenged the Mexican woodpecker to peck a tree in Canada that was absolutely 'impeccable' (a term frequently used by woodpeckers).
The Mexican woodpecker expressed confidence that he could do it and accepted the challenge.
The two of them flew to Canada where the Mexican woodpecker successfully pecked the so-called 'impeccable' tree almost without breaking a sweat.
Both woodpeckers were now terribly confused. How is it that the Canadian woodpecker was able to peck the Mexican tree, and the Mexican woodpecker was able to peck the Canadian tree, yet neither was able to peck the tree in their own country?
After much woodpecker pondering, they both came to the same conclusion. Apparently, Tiger Woods was right, when he said, 'Your pecker gets harder when you're away from home.'
There was a blonde driving down the road listening to the radio. The announcer was telling blonde joke after blonde joke until the blonde was so mad that she turned her radio off. A mile down the road, she saw another blonde out in a corn field in a boat rowing.
The manager of a large city zoo was drafting a letter to order a pair of animals. He sat at his computer and typed the following sentence: "I would like to place an order for two mongooses, to be delivered at your earliest convenience."
He stared at the screen, focusing on that odd word mongooses. Then he deleted the word and added another, so that the sentence now read: "I would like to place an order for two mongeese, to be delivered at your earliest convenience."
Again he stared at the screen, this time focusing on the new word, which seemed just as odd as the original one. Finally, he deleted the whole sentence and started all over. "Everyone knows no full-stocked zoo should be without a mongoose," he typed. "Please send us two of them."
If you stare very hard at this thing, it looks a little bit like an alien fly with a wispy moustache. And that is the only, only possible way to look at it without screaming in terror at the mangled car crash horror before you. It’s an insane tribute to man’s sexual indecision: “I want boobs! And I want a vagina! Right next to each other, so I can see them both at once! And – and the tip of another dude’s penis? I guess?” Ah well. If nothing else, it might give DC some ideas about their next redesign of Catwoman.
WILMINGTON, Del. - Officials with a Web site based in Delaware said they were surprised when Zebulon made their list of the 14 "hottest" baby names of the year. The Nameberry.com officials said the Zebulon page on their Web site received 2,128 hits from the start of the year until June, compared with only 420 hits in the same time period last year, the Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer reported Monday. "We measure interest in baby names by tracking the number of views on each of our 50,000 baby name pages," said Pam Satran, Web site co-founder and author of 10 baby name books. Satran said Zebulon has only made the Social Security Administration's list of the 1,000 most popular names four times, in 1891, 1978, 1979 and 1980. She said the highest point it reached was No. 776 in 1978. "Likely because of Grandpa Zebulon on 'The Waltons,'" Satran said, making reference to a 1970s TV show.
ANSWER: Henrik Ibsen.
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Found this interesting, Children of congress member do not have to pay back their college student loans. How nice!
Monday on Fox news they learned that the staffers of Congress family members are exempt from having to pay back student loans. This will get national attention if other news networks will broadcast it. When you add this to the below, just where will all of it stop?
35 States file lawsuit against the Federal Government
Governors of 35 states have filed suit against the Federal Government for imposing unlawful burdens upon them. It only takes 38 (of the 50) States to convene a Constitutional Convention.
This will take less than thirty seconds to read. If you agree, please pass it on.
This is an idea that we should address.
For too long we have been too complacent about the workings of Congress. Many citizens had no idea that members of Congress could retire with the same pay after only one term, that they specifically exempted themselves from many of the laws they have passed (such as being exempt from any fear of prosecution for sexual harassment) while ordinary citizens must live under those laws. The latest is to exempt themselves from the Healthcare Reform... in all of its forms. Somehow, that doesn't seem logical. We do not have an elite that is above the law. I truly don't care if they are Democrat, Republican, Independent or whatever. The self-serving must stop.
If each person that receives this will forward it on to 20 people, in three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is one proposal that really should be passed around.
Proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution: "Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States."
You are 50 or so of my 20.
Biologist Juliano Tupan discovered a rare species of wee animal in the Amazon that looks quite happy to see him.
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Well, I'm no golfer. More's the pity, because it is a fun game if you can get over the aggravation, disappointment and frustration.
I shot a 140. To give you an idea of how bad that is, 140 is almost twice par on every single hole. That means, if it is supposed to take the average golfer 4 strokes to sink a particular hole, I would sink it in 7 or 8 strokes.
What I did excel at is drinking beer and flirting with the girl who drives the beer cart.
The way I look at it, you have to focus on your strengths.
"If women have excessive belly fat and a muffin-top, it can be fatal. Especially if you mention it to her." -Jay Leno
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"A woman in California is being studied because she says she remembers everything from the last 12 years. And I'm thinking, 'Wait a minute isn't that every woman?'" -Dave Letterman
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The day before his wedding, I stopped in to visit my uncle. It was his second marriage and I knew he really wanted to make it work. "Are you nervous about the wedding?" I asked him.
"No way," he replied nonchalant. "Cup of cake. Cup of cake."
There was a man in Florida who raised "sea cows" or manatees. He soon had so many of them that he stopped giving them names and just assigned them letters of the alphabet. A, B, C, etc. He let them all swim free in the lagoon beside his house. Except for "U", which he kept in a special pen.
I guess he was afraid of losing his "u" manatee.
Q: How do you make sure that no one steals your bagel?
A: You put lox on it.
Q: What do you call jewelry lost on the golf course?
A: A diamond in the rough.
Q: Why do female parachutists wear jock straps?
A: So they don't whistle on the way down.
Q: What do you get when you cross an elephant and a skin doctor?
A: A pachydermatologist.
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*Click*
You've probably heard that lizards can lose their tail to escape from predators. Turns out, losing one's appendage is also a tactic employed by the deep sea squid Octopoteuthis deletron. Except that it's not just for a defensive measure:
Read more and watch the video clip over at Ed Yong's Not Exactly Rocket Science blog: LinkThe obvious interpretation is that the squid jettisons its body parts to confuse and distract a predator. But it can also use this ability offensively. When [scientists Stephanie Bush] threatened the animals with a bottle brush, several of them attacked it. Five of them broke off their arms while they were grabbing the brush. The arms flashed away while continuing to hold their grip, while the squids jetted off. It’s called “attack autotomy”. I imagine it would be quite off-putting if you were a fish or a bottle brush.
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It’s a heavily adhesive, hypoallergenic, stretchy tape that comes, as we have seen, in an array of colors and patterns. It is designed to approximate the weight and thickness of skin and can be stretched over any part of the body. Made of cotton fiber, the tape has an acrylic heat-activated backing and can stay attached for up to five days. When adhered, the tape lifts the upper layers of the skin away from the muscle, relieving pressure and pain in the affected area.
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Weird mating calls of the leopard slug
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HOW TO RIDE KURATAS
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Neatorama.com
Neatorama is currently undergoing a transition to new, beautiful things... We can't wait to see you on the other side.
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A youth, the son of Mr. Richard Bolton, of Great Horton, Yorkshire, was playing a few days since with a juvenile companion, who was pretending to place a pea in his ear and to make it come out of his mouth. Bolton, believing the feat to have been really performed, was induced to make the attempt himself, and thrust the pea so far into his ear that it could not be got out. In a vain endeavour to extract it made by a medical man, it was sent further in, and the poor boy died four days afterwards from the effects. – Times, Nov. 27, 1850
In the burying-ground at Newburyport, may be seen a stone inscribed: Omnem Crede Dicum Tibi Diluxesse Supremum. Sacred to the memory of Mrs. Mary M’Hard, the virtuous and amiable consort of Capt. Wm. M’Hard of Newburyport, who amidst the laudable exertions of a very useful and desirable life, in which her Christian Profession was well adorned and a fair copy of every social virtue displayed, was in a state of health suddenly summoned to the Skies and snatched from ye eager embraces of her friends, (and the throbbing breasts of her disconsolate family confessed their fairest prospects of sublinary bliss were in one moment dashed) by swallowing a Pea at her own table, whence in a few hours, she sweetly breathed her soul away unto her SAVIOUR’S arms on the 8th day of March, A. D. 1780.
Ætatis 47. – John Robert Kippax, Churchyard Literature, 1877
Ætatis 47. – John Robert Kippax, Churchyard Literature, 1877
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"Last night," said a lassie named Ruth,
"In a long-distance telephone booth,
I enjoyed the perfection
Of an ideal connection---
I was screwed, if you must know the truth."
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"In a long-distance telephone booth,
I enjoyed the perfection
Of an ideal connection---
I was screwed, if you must know the truth."
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Portland On The Web: CNN, Huffington Post, Portland Monthly & More
Like most of Portland, the fishes off the Oregon coast are overly caffeinated this week as researchers discover elevated levels of the perk-inducing stimulant in Pacific waters. Our abundance of coffee shops aren't so much to blame as the enormous amount of rain that washes our waste out to sea. Let's cut back to a couple cups a day folks, for the fishes' sake.
The Real World has sequestered its Portland cast in the Pearl, within stumbling distance of the popped-collared, mini-skirted realm of Old Town. And finally, if you're into a rendevous with a sexually frustrated housewife, be on the look out for many to descend on the Heathman in search of their own Christian Grey in the coming weeks.
Here's the kerfuffle about Portland on the web this week:
Byron Beck: Location found for Real World Portland
Seattle Times: "Shades of Grey" tourism in Seattle, Portland*
CNN: Researchers find caffeine in waters off Oregon
Huffington Post: Eating towns, drinking towns
Portland Monthly: Best New Bars
Mayor Sam Adams: First-ever Sunday Parkways in SW neighborhoods sees massive turnout
Like most of Portland, the fishes off the Oregon coast are overly caffeinated this week as researchers discover elevated levels of the perk-inducing stimulant in Pacific waters. Our abundance of coffee shops aren't so much to blame as the enormous amount of rain that washes our waste out to sea. Let's cut back to a couple cups a day folks, for the fishes' sake.
The Real World has sequestered its Portland cast in the Pearl, within stumbling distance of the popped-collared, mini-skirted realm of Old Town. And finally, if you're into a rendevous with a sexually frustrated housewife, be on the look out for many to descend on the Heathman in search of their own Christian Grey in the coming weeks.
Here's the kerfuffle about Portland on the web this week:
Byron Beck: Location found for Real World Portland
Seattle Times: "Shades of Grey" tourism in Seattle, Portland*
CNN: Researchers find caffeine in waters off Oregon
Huffington Post: Eating towns, drinking towns
Portland Monthly: Best New Bars
Mayor Sam Adams: First-ever Sunday Parkways in SW neighborhoods sees massive turnout
*Hilarious. Portland out does Seattle/Puget sound yet again. We get sparkly vampires...
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Temperatures and What They Mean
40 Californians shiver uncontrollably, Minnesotans go swimming.
40 Californians shiver uncontrollably, Minnesotans go swimming.
35 Italian cars don't start.
32 Water freezes.
30 You can see your breath.
32 Water freezes.
30 You can see your breath.
Politicians begin to worry about the Homeless.
25 Boston water freezes.
Cat insists on sleeping on your bed with you.
20 Californians weep pitiably, Minnesotans eat ice cream.
You can hear your breath. (Whisper of the stars)
15 N.Y. City water freezes.
Politicians begin to talk about the homeless.
12 You plan a vacation to Mexico.
10 Too cold to snow
5 You need jumper cables to get the car going.
Cat insists on sleeping in your bed with you.
3 You plan a vacation in Houston.
0 Too cold to skate.
American cars don't start.
-5 You can cut your breath and use it to build an igloo.
-10 Too cold to think.
Politicians actually do something about the homeless.
-15 Cat insists on sleeping in your pajamas with you.
You need jumper cables to get the driver going.
-20 You plan a 2-week hot bath.
-25 The mighty Monongahela freezes.
Japanese cars don't start.
-30 Californians disappear, Minnesotans button top button...
<-30 The kids call home from college.
25 Boston water freezes.
Cat insists on sleeping on your bed with you.
20 Californians weep pitiably, Minnesotans eat ice cream.
You can hear your breath. (Whisper of the stars)
15 N.Y. City water freezes.
Politicians begin to talk about the homeless.
12 You plan a vacation to Mexico.
10 Too cold to snow
5 You need jumper cables to get the car going.
Cat insists on sleeping in your bed with you.
3 You plan a vacation in Houston.
0 Too cold to skate.
American cars don't start.
-5 You can cut your breath and use it to build an igloo.
-10 Too cold to think.
Politicians actually do something about the homeless.
-15 Cat insists on sleeping in your pajamas with you.
You need jumper cables to get the driver going.
-20 You plan a 2-week hot bath.
-25 The mighty Monongahela freezes.
Japanese cars don't start.
-30 Californians disappear, Minnesotans button top button...
<-30 The kids call home from college.
Hell freezes over
End of the world...
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End of the world...
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An elderly couple, still very loving after all these years, is shocked when the woman's doctor says she has a heart condition that could kill her at any time. She is to avoid stress, eat right, and never, ever have sex
again -- the strain would be too much.
The couple reluctantly try to live by these rules. Both get really horny over time, however, and the husband decides he'd better sleep downstairs on the couch to guard against temptation.
This works for a few weeks, until late one night when they meet each other on the stairs -- she's coming downstairs, he's heading up.
"Honey, I have a confession to make," the woman says, her voice quavering. "I was about to commit suicide."
"I'm glad to hear it, sweetie," the man says, "Because I was just coming upstairs to kill you!"
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again -- the strain would be too much.
The couple reluctantly try to live by these rules. Both get really horny over time, however, and the husband decides he'd better sleep downstairs on the couch to guard against temptation.
This works for a few weeks, until late one night when they meet each other on the stairs -- she's coming downstairs, he's heading up.
"Honey, I have a confession to make," the woman says, her voice quavering. "I was about to commit suicide."
"I'm glad to hear it, sweetie," the man says, "Because I was just coming upstairs to kill you!"
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A woman from Chelm went to the market one day to buy herring and a loaf of bread. “How much is it?” she asked the storekeeper.
“14 cents,” answered the storekeeper to the lady.
“14 cents! For what?” asked the lady.
The storekeeper explained: The herring costs 7 cents, and the loaf of bread costs 7 cents also. So together it comes to 14 cents.”
“I know different. To the best of my recollection, 7 and 7 is 11.”
“What are your saying?”
“As far as I know, 7 and 7 is 11…I had already had 4 children when my first husband died. When I married a second time, my second husband also had 4 children from his first wife. After getting married, we had 3 children together. So each of us had 7 children, and together we had 11!
Obviously, 7 and 7 is 11.”
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You and a friend are playing a game. Between you is a pile of 15 pennies. You’ll take turns removing pennies from the pile — each of you, on his turn, can choose to remove 1, 2, or 3 pennies. The loser is the one who removes the last penny.
You go first. How should you play?
Consider what happens if you leave your opponent 5 pennies. At that point, no matter how many he removes, you can play so as to leave the final penny to him. Now, if leaving him 5 pennies is a worthy target, then by the same principle so is leaving him 9 pennies: No matter how he plays, he must now give you the opportunity to leave him with 5. And going one step further, aiming for 13 pennies will ensure that you can reach 9, then 5, and victory. So, on your first turn, take 2 pennies.
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There was a young girl named Anheuser
Who said that no man could surprise her.
But Pabst took a chance,
Found Schlitz in her pants,
And now she is sadder Budweiser.
Who said that no man could surprise her.
But Pabst took a chance,
Found Schlitz in her pants,
And now she is sadder Budweiser.
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What Happens When You Electrify Plants?
If you’re photographer Robert Buelteman, you get absolutely gorgeous works of art. Of course, it’s not just a matter of hooking a plant up to a battery. Buelteman shocks the plants with 80,000 volts of electricity and then uses a fiber optic wire to light paint the image, making it look even more shockingly beautiful.
Link Via Laughing Squid
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"You have to take a lighter approach now. Jumping up on a table in a busy restaurant, swinging from the ceiling fans, and screaming, 'YOU'RE ALL GONNA BURN IN HELL,' just scares people away."
-- Interview with Steven Forker, on his future role as the Third Coming of Christ
-- Interview with Steven Forker, on his future role as the Third Coming of Christ
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It's not hard to tell we was poor -- when you saw the toilet paper dryin' on the clothesline. ~ George Lindsey
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Healthy Living from Health.com
WHAT'S YOUR POTENTIAL AGE?
WHAT'S YOUR POTENTIAL AGE?
http://health.chtah.net/a/tBQGWhRBFYNexB8tHG5CFNC1EYp/top23
With the help of our longevity expert we've developed a quiz that can (almost!) predict the future. Based on your healthy and not-so-healthy habits, find out your chances for a long lifespan.
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With the help of our longevity expert we've developed a quiz that can (almost!) predict the future. Based on your healthy and not-so-healthy habits, find out your chances for a long lifespan.
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On the occasion of the 1893 World’s Fair, the American Press Association asked 74 prominent Americans to imagine the United States of 1993. Some responses:
- “By the 1990s, longevity will be so improved that 150 years will be no unusual age to reach.” — Thomas De Witt Talmage, Presbyterian preacher
- “In the 1990s, the United States will be a government of perhaps 60 states, situated in both North and South America.” — Asa C. Matthews, comptroller of the Treasury
- “Wealth will be more widely and equally distributed. Great corporations and business interests will be conducted harmoniously — on the principle of the employers and workers sharing in the profits.” — Junius Henri Browne, journalist
- “Three hours will constitute a long day’s work.” — Mary E. Lease, activist and lecturer
- “Trousers will be relegated to bookkeepers, barbers, pastry bakers, and cripples.” — Van Buren Denslow, attorney and economist
- “We are going to see a wonderful development in the use of jewels in American churches.” — George F. Kunz, mineralogist
- “By the end of the Twentieth Century, taxation will be reduced to a minimum, the entire world will be open to trade, and there will be no need of a standing army.” — Erastus Wiman, journalist
“Perhaps I am wrong in some of these prophecies,” reflected drama critic John Habberton, who had predicted that all marriages would be happy. “But if that is so, I shall not be here to be twitted with it — now will I?”
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FDA approves a sensor you can swallow
My sense of humor gets the better of me sometimes. All I can think is – our government figures we’ll swallow anything.
I love Ed's comment!
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Behind every man now alive stand thirty ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living. Since the dawn of time, roughly a hundred billion human beings have walked the planet Earth.
Now this is an interesting number, for by a curious coincidence there are approximately a hundred billion stars in our local universe, the Milky Way. So for every man who has ever lived, in this Universe there shines a star.
But every one of those stars is a sun, often far more brilliant and glorious than the small, nearby star we call the Sun. And many--perhaps most--of those alien suns have planets circling them. So almost certainly there is enough land in the sky to give every member of the human species, back to the first ape-man, his own private, world-sized heaven--or hell.
How many of those potential heavens and hells are now inhabited, and by what manner of creatures, we have no way of guessing; the very nearest is a million times farther away than Mars or Venus, those still remote goals of the next generation. But the barriers of distance are crumbling; one day we shall meet our equals, or our masters, among the stars.
Now this is an interesting number, for by a curious coincidence there are approximately a hundred billion stars in our local universe, the Milky Way. So for every man who has ever lived, in this Universe there shines a star.
But every one of those stars is a sun, often far more brilliant and glorious than the small, nearby star we call the Sun. And many--perhaps most--of those alien suns have planets circling them. So almost certainly there is enough land in the sky to give every member of the human species, back to the first ape-man, his own private, world-sized heaven--or hell.
How many of those potential heavens and hells are now inhabited, and by what manner of creatures, we have no way of guessing; the very nearest is a million times farther away than Mars or Venus, those still remote goals of the next generation. But the barriers of distance are crumbling; one day we shall meet our equals, or our masters, among the stars.
--Arthur C. Clarke (Foreword to 2001: A Space Odyssey)
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Think Fast:
How old was the oldest Olympian to ever compete in the Games?
How old was the oldest Olympian to ever compete in the Games?
54
56
71
72
(Think Fast Answer: 72) Swedish shooter Oscar Swahn was 72 when he competed in the 1920 Games in Antwerp. He won a silver medal in the running deer double-shot team event. At 71, Japanese equestrian Hiroshi Hoketsu is the oldest Olympian competing in the current Games
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"The full use of your powers along lines of excellence. "
- definition of "happiness" by John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)
- definition of "happiness" by John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)
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For a deeper look at the issues, read “When Did the Human Mind Evolve to What It is Today?”
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There are times when you wonder what people (and celebrities) were thinking when they came up with some of the most horrendous monikers ever given to a human child that they claim to love.
Here are a few of my favorites. Brace yourself. Say hello to...
1. Imabong (pronounced I'm-A-Bong)
2. Pajama (pronounced Paj-A-May)
3. Shadow (definitely hippie parents)
4. Zoltan (I think he was a wizard though)
5. Jazzy (No she not holding a saxophone)
They all can't be winners folks. And by that I mean the names, kids and, especially, the parents. Just give your kid a name that they can find on a little license plate in a gift shop. Is that that hard?
Here are a few of my favorites. Brace yourself. Say hello to...
1. Imabong (pronounced I'm-A-Bong)
2. Pajama (pronounced Paj-A-May)
3. Shadow (definitely hippie parents)
4. Zoltan (I think he was a wizard though)
5. Jazzy (No she not holding a saxophone)
They all can't be winners folks. And by that I mean the names, kids and, especially, the parents. Just give your kid a name that they can find on a little license plate in a gift shop. Is that that hard?
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Woodpecker Ponderings
A Mexican woodpecker and a Canadian woodpecker were in Mexico arguing about which country had the toughest trees.
The Mexican woodpecker claimed Mexico had a tree that no woodpecker could peck.
The Canadian woodpecker accepted his challenge and promptly pecked a hole in the tree with no problem. The Mexican woodpecker was amazed.
The Canadian woodpecker then challenged the Mexican woodpecker to peck a tree in Canada that was absolutely 'impeccable' (a term frequently used by woodpeckers).
The Mexican woodpecker expressed confidence that he could do it and accepted the challenge.
The two of them flew to Canada where the Mexican woodpecker successfully pecked the so-called 'impeccable' tree almost without breaking a sweat.
Both woodpeckers were now terribly confused. How is it that the Canadian woodpecker was able to peck the Mexican tree, and the Mexican woodpecker was able to peck the Canadian tree, yet neither was able to peck the tree in their own country?
After much woodpecker pondering, they both came to the same conclusion. Apparently, Tiger Woods was right, when he said, 'Your pecker gets harder when you're away from home.'
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Give Us A Bad Name
There was a blonde driving down the road listening to the radio. The announcer was telling blonde joke after blonde joke until the blonde was so mad that she turned her radio off. A mile down the road, she saw another blonde out in a corn field in a boat rowing.
The blonde stopped her car jumped out and yelled, "It's blondes like you that give us all a bad name. If I could swim I'd come out there and give you what's coming to you!"
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The manager of a large city zoo was drafting a letter to order a pair of animals. He sat at his computer and typed the following sentence: "I would like to place an order for two mongooses, to be delivered at your earliest convenience."
He stared at the screen, focusing on that odd word mongooses. Then he deleted the word and added another, so that the sentence now read: "I would like to place an order for two mongeese, to be delivered at your earliest convenience."
Again he stared at the screen, this time focusing on the new word, which seemed just as odd as the original one. Finally, he deleted the whole sentence and started all over. "Everyone knows no full-stocked zoo should be without a mongoose," he typed. "Please send us two of them."
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If you stare very hard at this thing, it looks a little bit like an alien fly with a wispy moustache. And that is the only, only possible way to look at it without screaming in terror at the mangled car crash horror before you. It’s an insane tribute to man’s sexual indecision: “I want boobs! And I want a vagina! Right next to each other, so I can see them both at once! And – and the tip of another dude’s penis? I guess?” Ah well. If nothing else, it might give DC some ideas about their next redesign of Catwoman.
Most dubious line from the official description:“They are very nice to hold and squeeze, and have cute perky nipples.”
Concubine Masturbator – $115
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Q and A Quickies
Q: What's the difference between a policeman and a garbageman?
A: The policeman does his duty and the garbageman cleans it up.
Q: What do you call a cow in an earthquake?
A: A milkshake!
Q: What's the difference between a policeman and a garbageman?
A: The policeman does his duty and the garbageman cleans it up.
Q: What do you call a cow in an earthquake?
A: A milkshake!
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Now this is some serious James Bond stuff. You want to talk about a guy who will NOT let go of an argument, let me tell you about Robert Kowalik.
Authorities say the man managed to call an emergency dispatcher and describe his situation while he clung to the outside of a pickup truck as it traveled three miles on a New York road.
Police in Troy, N.Y. say that the 45-year-old Kowalik got into a dispute with another man at convenience store. When the man drove away in his pickup truck, Kowalik was on the outside of the vehicle.
Police say it's not clear whether he had grabbed onto the truck or accidentally got attached. Either way he managed to dial 911 on his cell phone and give the dispatcher a "play-by-play" of the ordeal, which ended when he fell in a store parking lot.
Kowalik was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. The driver was charged with assault.
Authorities say the man managed to call an emergency dispatcher and describe his situation while he clung to the outside of a pickup truck as it traveled three miles on a New York road.
Police in Troy, N.Y. say that the 45-year-old Kowalik got into a dispute with another man at convenience store. When the man drove away in his pickup truck, Kowalik was on the outside of the vehicle.
Police say it's not clear whether he had grabbed onto the truck or accidentally got attached. Either way he managed to dial 911 on his cell phone and give the dispatcher a "play-by-play" of the ordeal, which ended when he fell in a store parking lot.
Kowalik was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. The driver was charged with assault.
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William Dean Howells to Mark Twain, Nov. 5, 1875:
The type-writer came Wednesday night, and is already beginning to have its effect on me. Of course it doesn’t work: if I can persuade some of the letters to get up against the ribbon they won’t get down again without digital assistance. The treadle refuses to have any part or parcel in the performance; and I don’t know how to get the roller to turn with the paper. Nevertheless I have begun several letters to My d ar lemans, as it prefers to spell your respected name, and I don’t despair yet of sending you something in its beautiful handwriting–after I’ve had a man out from the agent’s to put it in order. It’s fascinating in the meantime, and it wastes my time like an old friend.
E.B. White on the Model T, 1936:
During my association with Model Ts, self-starters were not a prevalent accessory. They were expensive and under suspicion. Your car came equipped with a serviceable crank, and the first thing you learned was how to Get Results. It was a special trick, and until you learned it (usually from another Ford owner, but sometimes by a period of appalling experimentation) you might as well have been winding up an awning. The trick was to leave the ignition switch off, proceed to the animal’s head, pull the choke (which was a little wire protruding through the radiator) and give the crank two or three nonchalant upward lifts. Then, whistling as though thinking about something else, you would saunter back to the driver’s cabin, turn the ignition on, return to the crank, and this time, catching it on the down stroke, give it a quick spin with plenty of that. If this procedure was followed, the engine almost always responded — first with a few scattered explosions, then with a tumultuous gunfire, which you checked by racing around to the driver’s seat and retarding the throttle. Often, if the emergency brake hadn’t been pulled all the way back, the car advanced on you the instant the first explosion occurred and you would hold it back by leaning your weight against it. I can still feel my old Ford nuzzling me at the curb, as though looking for an apple in my pocket.
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Web site: Zebulon a 'hot' baby name --*
WILMINGTON, Del. - Officials with a Web site based in Delaware said they were surprised when Zebulon made their list of the 14 "hottest" baby names of the year. The Nameberry.com officials said the Zebulon page on their Web site received 2,128 hits from the start of the year until June, compared with only 420 hits in the same time period last year, the Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer reported Monday. "We measure interest in baby names by tracking the number of views on each of our 50,000 baby name pages," said Pam Satran, Web site co-founder and author of 10 baby name books. Satran said Zebulon has only made the Social Security Administration's list of the 1,000 most popular names four times, in 1891, 1978, 1979 and 1980. She said the highest point it reached was No. 776 in 1978. "Likely because of Grandpa Zebulon on 'The Waltons,'" Satran said, making reference to a 1970s TV show.
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In December 1930, 26-year-old British meteorologist Augustine Courtauld volunteered to man an observation station alone in the interior of Greenland. He passed the winter well enough, but his relief party was thrice delayed, and by late March Courtauld’s station was entirely buried in snow. He would spend the next six weeks immured in his hut, above which only the Union Jack projected, and husbanding his dwindling supplies. Most of the time he simply lay in the dark, but occasionally he would light a candle to write in his journal or to read his sweetheart Mollie’s last letter. At one point he listed the pleasures he would “like to have granted if wishing were any good”:
- Sitting in an armchair before a roaring fire listening to M. playing and singing.
- Eight a.m. on a fine summer morning at sea at the helm of a small boat, a fresh breeze blowing, all sail set with M. and a smell of breakfast coming up to say ‘good morning’.
- Just having got into bed with clean sheets and ditto pyjamas.
- Bright autumn morning, eating an apple in the garden before breakfast (an enormous one): kippers, poached eggs, kidneys and mushrooms, cold partridge.
- Getting into a hot bath.
By May 1 he was out of food and was burning ski wax for light. Five days later, the stove that he used to melt drinking water had just died when “suddenly there was an appalling noise like a bus going by, followed by a confused yelling noise. I nearly jumped out of my skin. Was it the house falling in at last? A second later I realised the truth. It was somebody, some real human voice, calling down the ventilator.”
They pulled him out through the roof and he rode back to the coast on a sledge, reading The Count of Monte Cristo in the sun. He went on to fulfill all of the New Year’s resolutions he had made on the ice cap: to marry Mollie, to buy a house and a boat, to collect a library, and to give up exploring.
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TWO NUNS AND A BLIND MAN
Two nuns are ordered to paint a room in the convent, and the last instruction of the Mother Superior is that they must not get even a drop of paint on their habits. After conferring about this for a while, the two nuns decide to lock the door of the room, strip off their habits, and paint in the nude.
In the middle of the project, there comes a knock at the door. "Who is it?", calls one of the nuns. "Blind man," replies a voice from the other side of the door. The two nuns look at each other and shrug, and, deciding that no harm can come from letting a blind man into the room, they open the door.
"Nice tits," says the man, "where do you want these blinds?"
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Two nuns are ordered to paint a room in the convent, and the last instruction of the Mother Superior is that they must not get even a drop of paint on their habits. After conferring about this for a while, the two nuns decide to lock the door of the room, strip off their habits, and paint in the nude.
In the middle of the project, there comes a knock at the door. "Who is it?", calls one of the nuns. "Blind man," replies a voice from the other side of the door. The two nuns look at each other and shrug, and, deciding that no harm can come from letting a blind man into the room, they open the door.
"Nice tits," says the man, "where do you want these blinds?"
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After church on Sunday morning, a young boy suddenly announced to his mother, "Mom, I've decided I'm going to be a minister when I grow up.
"That's okay with us," the mother said, "But what made you decide to be a minister?"
"Well," the boy replied, "I'll have to go to church on Sunday anyway, and I figure it will be more fun to stand up and yell than to sit still and listen.
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"That's okay with us," the mother said, "But what made you decide to be a minister?"
"Well," the boy replied, "I'll have to go to church on Sunday anyway, and I figure it will be more fun to stand up and yell than to sit still and listen.
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Rhythmic Gymnast - Amazing Ball Routine
Wow! This is truly one of the most amazing gymnastic performances I have ever seen! This girl gives a flawless ball routine with grace and ridiculous flexibility...She makes it look so easy!
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QUOTE: "The great secret of power is never to will to do more than you can accomplish."
HINT: (1828-1906), 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet.
HINT: (1828-1906), 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet.
ANSWER: Henrik Ibsen.
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Found this interesting, Children of congress member do not have to pay back their college student loans. How nice!
Monday on Fox news they learned that the staffers of Congress family members are exempt from having to pay back student loans. This will get national attention if other news networks will broadcast it. When you add this to the below, just where will all of it stop?
35 States file lawsuit against the Federal Government
Governors of 35 states have filed suit against the Federal Government for imposing unlawful burdens upon them. It only takes 38 (of the 50) States to convene a Constitutional Convention.
This will take less than thirty seconds to read. If you agree, please pass it on.
This is an idea that we should address.
For too long we have been too complacent about the workings of Congress. Many citizens had no idea that members of Congress could retire with the same pay after only one term, that they specifically exempted themselves from many of the laws they have passed (such as being exempt from any fear of prosecution for sexual harassment) while ordinary citizens must live under those laws. The latest is to exempt themselves from the Healthcare Reform... in all of its forms. Somehow, that doesn't seem logical. We do not have an elite that is above the law. I truly don't care if they are Democrat, Republican, Independent or whatever. The self-serving must stop.
If each person that receives this will forward it on to 20 people, in three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is one proposal that really should be passed around.
Proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution: "Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States."
You are 50 or so of my 20.
Thanks, Mike
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RANDOM TIDBITS
Cheetahs, the fastest land mammals in the world, are built for speed. They can reach running speeds of up to 70 mph, and they can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in three seconds.
Full-grown cheetahs are about 4 feet long, not including a 30-inch tail. They weigh about 75 to 145 pounds and are 2 to 3 feet tall at the shoulder.
Their deep chests and enlarged hearts, lungs and nostrils help cheetahs take in more oxygen during intense chases. Their high-set eyes have a 210-degree field of view. Non-retractable claws help them gain traction when running on soft ground, and their tails help them balance as they make sharp, high-speed turns while chasing their prey.
The mother cheetah hides her cubs until they're five or six weeks old; after that, the cubs follow their mom and share her kills. They wean when they're around three months old and live with their mother for about 18 months. The female cubs then head off on their own, while the males remain together for life in a coalition.
Lions and leopards can attack a cheetah and steal its kill, so cheetahs try to avoid them by hunting in the middle of the day. Cheetahs usually eat their prey right away since they're not strong enough to hide it or fend off other predators.
Cheetahs can breed at any time of year, but they tend to mate in the dry season. Cubs are born about three months later, at the start of the wet season. There are usually three to five cubs in a litter, and each newborn cheetah cub weighs only 5 to 10 ounces.
Full-grown cheetahs are about 4 feet long, not including a 30-inch tail. They weigh about 75 to 145 pounds and are 2 to 3 feet tall at the shoulder.
Their deep chests and enlarged hearts, lungs and nostrils help cheetahs take in more oxygen during intense chases. Their high-set eyes have a 210-degree field of view. Non-retractable claws help them gain traction when running on soft ground, and their tails help them balance as they make sharp, high-speed turns while chasing their prey.
The mother cheetah hides her cubs until they're five or six weeks old; after that, the cubs follow their mom and share her kills. They wean when they're around three months old and live with their mother for about 18 months. The female cubs then head off on their own, while the males remain together for life in a coalition.
Lions and leopards can attack a cheetah and steal its kill, so cheetahs try to avoid them by hunting in the middle of the day. Cheetahs usually eat their prey right away since they're not strong enough to hide it or fend off other predators.
Cheetahs can breed at any time of year, but they tend to mate in the dry season. Cubs are born about three months later, at the start of the wet season. There are usually three to five cubs in a litter, and each newborn cheetah cub weighs only 5 to 10 ounces.
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Penis Snake
Biologist Juliano Tupan discovered a rare species of wee animal in the Amazon that looks quite happy to see him.
It's an exciting discovery for science ... and an arousing news for the Interweb who couldn't stop giggling because the animal, named Atretochoana eiselti, looks just like a ... ehm, penis.
Experts demurely called it the "floppy snake," but it was quickly renamed the Man-aconda by The Sun, "trouser snake" and "penis snake" by others. MSN Now asks its readers to whip out their best puns. The Daily Mail, surprisingly, limped out and asked everyone to stop sniggering.
At least stop sniggering long enough to learn that the animal is actually not a snake, but rather a type of caecilian, a limbless and blind amphibian that is thought to be aquatic and lacks lungs (it breathes through its skin instead). More photos here: more …
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Fun With Cheetahs
A photographer and filmmaker examines a pack of cheetahs playing around, when one approaches him and his camera. The encounter prompts the question: Who is watching whom?
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CLOP
If you thought Bennett Foddy’s QWOP was too difficult (or too short because you failed), then you’ll like his newest game CLOP. It works like QWOP, but you are controlling a unicorn (or not). With four legs, the animal is less likely to fall down completely, but I still managed to end up with the horn stuck in the ground.
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"Scotland announced that it will legalize gay marriage. I don't know what's bigger news, that Scotland did that or that a country where guys wear plaid skirts didn't already have gay marriage." -Jimmy Fallon
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A gay guy walked into a delicatessen and asked the shopkeeper for a 12 inch summer sausage. "Would you like it sliced, sir?" the shopkeeper asked politely.
"What do you think I am?" replied the fag, "a slot machine!?"
"What do you think I am?" replied the fag, "a slot machine!?"
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Well, I'm no golfer. More's the pity, because it is a fun game if you can get over the aggravation, disappointment and frustration.
I shot a 140. To give you an idea of how bad that is, 140 is almost twice par on every single hole. That means, if it is supposed to take the average golfer 4 strokes to sink a particular hole, I would sink it in 7 or 8 strokes.
What I did excel at is drinking beer and flirting with the girl who drives the beer cart.
The way I look at it, you have to focus on your strengths.
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"A report shows smoking marijuana can help eliminate diarrhea. It's true. The finding was called significant by doctors and a win-win by Taco Bell." -Conan O'Brien
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"Starbucks is planning to close down all the restrooms in its New York locations. Which explains the most popular new Starbucks order: An empty cup." -Jimmy Fallon
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"If women have excessive belly fat and a muffin-top, it can be fatal. Especially if you mention it to her." -Jay Leno
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"A woman in California is being studied because she says she remembers everything from the last 12 years. And I'm thinking, 'Wait a minute isn't that every woman?'" -Dave Letterman
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The day before his wedding, I stopped in to visit my uncle. It was his second marriage and I knew he really wanted to make it work. "Are you nervous about the wedding?" I asked him.
"No way," he replied nonchalant. "Cup of cake. Cup of cake."
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QUOTE: "I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know way of judging the future but by the past."
HINT: (1736-1799), attorney, planter and politician who became known as an orator during the movement for independence in Virginia in the 1770s.
ANSWER: Patrick Henry.
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Taiwanese vegetable vendor given Asia’s Magsaysay Award
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RANDOM TIDBITS
Opened in 1927, Sid Grauman's Chinese Theatre is a Tinseltown landmark, with a "who's who of celebrities" enscribed in slabs of concrete in the sidewalk out front. Less well known is the foreign-themed movie house Sid built five years prior: Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, located just down the street on Hollywood Boulevard.
The initials of the AMC theater chain stand for American Multi-Cinema. In 1963, Stanley Durwood opened the first multiplex, a single theatre offering movies on two or more screens, in Kansas City, Missouri. The first megaplex was the 24-screen AMC Grand in Dallas, opened in 1995.
An antitrust suit against Paramount led to a 1948 Supreme Court decision that forced movie studios nationwide to divest their movie theater holdings. Studios had begun keeping their popular releases away from competing theater chains, to the detriment of Hollywood. Paramount alone had to sell off its interests in nearly 1,400 theaters.
The Nickelodeon television network got its name from a term used for movie theaters of the early 20th century; such establishments typically charged five cents - a nickel - for admission.
Just as Denver's landmark Mayan Theatre was due for demolition in 1986, the city's Museum of Natural History opened a new display of centuries-old Mayan artifacts from Mexico. A local group stepped in and saved the historic 1930 theatre, which underwent a $2 million facelift.
In 1953, movie theaters nationwide began to employ new tricks in an attempt to regain the audiences they had lost to television. The Cinemascope technique combined an extra-wide image with stereophonic sound, neither of which could be duplicated on TV sets of the era.
Opened in 1927, Sid Grauman's Chinese Theatre is a Tinseltown landmark, with a "who's who of celebrities" enscribed in slabs of concrete in the sidewalk out front. Less well known is the foreign-themed movie house Sid built five years prior: Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, located just down the street on Hollywood Boulevard.
The initials of the AMC theater chain stand for American Multi-Cinema. In 1963, Stanley Durwood opened the first multiplex, a single theatre offering movies on two or more screens, in Kansas City, Missouri. The first megaplex was the 24-screen AMC Grand in Dallas, opened in 1995.
An antitrust suit against Paramount led to a 1948 Supreme Court decision that forced movie studios nationwide to divest their movie theater holdings. Studios had begun keeping their popular releases away from competing theater chains, to the detriment of Hollywood. Paramount alone had to sell off its interests in nearly 1,400 theaters.
The Nickelodeon television network got its name from a term used for movie theaters of the early 20th century; such establishments typically charged five cents - a nickel - for admission.
Just as Denver's landmark Mayan Theatre was due for demolition in 1986, the city's Museum of Natural History opened a new display of centuries-old Mayan artifacts from Mexico. A local group stepped in and saved the historic 1930 theatre, which underwent a $2 million facelift.
In 1953, movie theaters nationwide began to employ new tricks in an attempt to regain the audiences they had lost to television. The Cinemascope technique combined an extra-wide image with stereophonic sound, neither of which could be duplicated on TV sets of the era.
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Random Facts:
The early Olympic Games were celebrated as a religious festival from 776 B.C. until 393 A.D., when the games were banned for being a pagan festival (the Olympics celebrated the Greek god Zeus). In 1894, a French educator Baron Pierre de Coubertin, proposed a revival of the ancient tradition, and thus the modern-day Olympic Summer Games were born.
The first Olympics covered by U.S. television was the 1960 Summer Games in Rome by CBS.
The early Olympic Games were celebrated as a religious festival from 776 B.C. until 393 A.D., when the games were banned for being a pagan festival (the Olympics celebrated the Greek god Zeus). In 1894, a French educator Baron Pierre de Coubertin, proposed a revival of the ancient tradition, and thus the modern-day Olympic Summer Games were born.
The first Olympics covered by U.S. television was the 1960 Summer Games in Rome by CBS.
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I Raise Sea Cows
There was a man in Florida who raised "sea cows" or manatees. He soon had so many of them that he stopped giving them names and just assigned them letters of the alphabet. A, B, C, etc. He let them all swim free in the lagoon beside his house. Except for "U", which he kept in a special pen.
I guess he was afraid of losing his "u" manatee.
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Q and A Quickies
Q: How do you make sure that no one steals your bagel?
A: You put lox on it.
Q: What do you call jewelry lost on the golf course?
A: A diamond in the rough.
Q: Why do female parachutists wear jock straps?
A: So they don't whistle on the way down.
Q: What do you get when you cross an elephant and a skin doctor?
A: A pachydermatologist.
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Cutest puppy attack ever.
A camera that takes one trillion frames per second.
How to pick up a chicken.
Revolutionary milk carton demonstrated on Austrian TV.
A camera that takes one trillion frames per second.
How to pick up a chicken.
Revolutionary milk carton demonstrated on Austrian TV.
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On Monday, June 10, in the Evening, the Sky being very serene and calm, I was desirous to take a view of the disk of Mars (then very near the Earth, and appearing very glorious) to see if I could distinguish in my 24 Foot Telescope, the Spots said to be seen on him. Directing my Tube for the purpose, I accidentally fell upon a small whitish Appearance near the Planet, resembling in all respects such a Nebula … The Reverend Mr. Miles Williams, Mr. Alban Thomas, and myself contemplated this Appearance for above an Hour … and we could not be deceiv’d as to its Reality; but the slowness of its Motion made us at that time conclude that it had none, and that it was rather a Nebula than a Comet.
Read more. [Image: Wikimedia Commons]
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Neil deGrasse Tyson, Olympics Commentator
Doin’ his NdT thing for the Interplanetary Olympics of the year 2320 (or something). So much more awesomeness, as if he produced anything else, on his Twitter feed.
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I release a fish at the edge of a circular pool. It swims 80 feet in a straight line and bumps into the wall. It turns 90 degrees, swims another 60 feet, and hits the wall again. How wide is the pool?
It sounds as if there’s not enough information to solve this, but there is if you remember that when a right triangle is inscribed in a circle, its hypotenuse is the diameter. The pool is 100 feet wide.
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Video from KGW Channel 8 - official TBF photos and video coming at ya sometime this week
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Willamette River is Cootie-Free and Beach-Ready
Forget your fears of growing a third arm on contact with the Willamette River. According to Will Levenson, one of the organizers of The Big Float on July 29, the river is “scientifically 100 percent safe for people swimming in it.”
It's so safe, Levenson says, that he's petitioned the city of Portland Parks and Recreation to create a swimming beach at Gov. Tom McCall Waterfront Park.
Levenson proposes improving the beachfront in the bowl in south end of the park—the only place people can get to the water. City officials say they're studying his proposal. He says the beach will take downtown Portland’s livability “to the next level,” and he hopes to create it by removing rocks that currently cover the sand during an “Unrock the Bowl” event on August 25.
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Buster Keaton’s 1926 comedy The General is based on a real event. In April 1862 a group of Union volunteers hijacked a Confederate train in Georgia and led the rebels on an 88-mile, six-hour chase through the state, tearing up tracks and cutting telegraph lines as they went and releasing cars behind them to slow their pursuers. The conspirators ran out of fuel just short of Chattanooga, their goal, but the Union awarded a Medal of Honor to most of them for the exploit.
Keaton turned this into the story of Johnnie Gray, a hapless Georgia engineer who proves his mettle by chasing a stolen Confederate locomotive across Tennessee in order to rescue his beloved. The film’s central train chase is a masterpiece of mechanical slapstick, essentially a live-action cartoon showcasing the actor’s hair-raising stunts with locomotives, cannon, fire, and dynamite as the trains roll through the Southern countryside.
“I was more proud of that picture than any I ever made,” Keaton said in 1963. “Because I took an actual happening out of the … history books, and I told the story in detail, too.”
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25 Crazy Photos From The Olympics Opening Ceremony
The opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics in London will go down in history as one of the wackiest, and most theatrical, displays of national pride ever seen at the games.
There were Ravers, Voldemort puppets and lots of rock n roll. It was brightly burning testament to the fashion, music and creativity of the U.K.
Enjoy this gallery of images from the opening ceremony, they won’t make you feel like you’re there but they will save you lots of time and money! Link
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10 Of The Most Beloved Dogs In Literature
You've all heard of Lassie. Or Toto from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Buck from Call of the Wild may ring a bell. Here's a list of a few of the most beloved dogs in literature.
You've all heard of Lassie. Or Toto from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Buck from Call of the Wild may ring a bell. Here's a list of a few of the most beloved dogs in literature.
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69. BUDDHA: Less is morehttp://zenpencils.com/comic/69-buddha-less-is-more/
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Where Do Zombies Belong?
Watch zombies roam the streets of New York, doing mundane, everyday things. Even better, watch the people around them react! This is part of the Put Zombies Back on TV Campaign, a protest against Dish Network, which dropped several channels, including AMC, the home of the TV series The Walking Dead. Link -via The Daily What
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Vintage Pics Of Summer Fun
Oh the joys of summer- outdoor barbecues, beach blanket bingo and breaking a sweat without moving a muscle. Summertime is in full swing, so let’s take a gander at these vintage pics of people having fun in the sun!
Why go outside, risk getting skin cancer and get chewed up by insects when you can live vicariously through these photos? Link
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Q:How would our world look like to us if our brains did not flip the images our eyes gives us back to its normal way? Would just everything be flipped upside down or would certain things be twisted? If I then look down at my body, how would it look like to me? And if it was just flipped, would it make any difference, I mean we would be used to it, just like we are used to what we see now, if that was all we knew then it wouldn't make any difference right?
Who’s to say that your brain flips anything? Your perceptions of “up”, “down”, “left” or “right” only exist because you have always and forever associated the direction of “up” with the opposite of the pull of gravity. The orientation of images inside your brain is pretty irrelevant, and besides … it doesn’t work that way.
The way that images, direction and motion are assembled from your eyes to your brain is more like this:
- In your visual field, different nerves are activated by a vertical edge over there | , and a diagonal edge over here / … etc.
- Still other nerves are activated by motion along those lines, meaning that something going up and down fires different nerves than something going left to right, here, there and all directions in between. It gets weirder: If we let an animal grow up in an environment where they can only see horizontal stripes, they will never be able to see vertical motion. You can not see what you are not exposed to, because you never develop nerves that respond to those directions.
- Still other optical nerves and receptors interpret light levels, color differences and perceive depth for each part of your visual field.
All of this information is assembled to create a “picture” of your environment, but it’s a “picture” only in the loosest sense. The visual system is not a camera the way we are used to thinking of cameras. We don’t see a series of pixels and turn that into an image inside our head. Instead, specialized cells fire for specialized input, and our perception of our surroundings exists only as a pattern of synapses and axons activated by what’s entering our eyes.
So the image isn’t just flipped when it enters your eyes … it’s disassembled, digested, tasted, measured, and reconstructed into a web of brain activity.
I haven’t taken neuroscience for several years, so I may be a bit off on some of this. Feel free to chastise me on your own blogs :)
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Custom Built Warhammer 40K Servo Skull
This awesomely gruesome Servo Skull sculpture was created by Spooky777, who used a medical skull model to give it a realistic edge and plenty of ewww factor.
In the world of Warhammer 40k:
SERVO-SKULLS are drone-like devices fashioned from human skulls [...] and then given a rudimentary Machine spirit, support systems, and anti-gravity engine to allow them to hover and drift bodiless through the air.
If nothing else, this sculpture will make for a great conversation piece! Link–via Obvious Winner
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Channeling Holmes
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$77,000 bottle of cognac accidentally broken
An interview with Westboro Baptist Church
Proof that the whole organization is batshit crazy
Proof that the whole organization is batshit crazy
Trivia Tidbits:
What do rabbits and horses have in common? They can’t vomit.
The Leave It to Beaver theme is called “The Toy Parade.”
The first dice were made from sheep ankle bones
Snails kiss before mating (by rubbing their antennae together)
Warren G. Harding was the first president to be voted for by women.
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Kyle Eschen performs at the World Magic Awards 2008
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Almost perfect!
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A Little Laundry Music
Modern hi-tech washing machines can be used as musical instruments! This one plays “The Imperial March” from Star Wars. -via Buzzfeed
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Fifty-five chameleons live on a tropical island. Thirteen are green, 19 are brown, and 23 are gray. Whenever two chameleons of different colors meet, both change to the third color. Is it possible that all 55 chameleons might eventually be the same color?
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Remember the cool xkcd infographicomic with all the known and verified exoplanets drawn to scale? If not, refresh your memory here.
Well now you can play with an interactive version of that comic! It looks just like the image above, butyou have to click here to actually play with it, because the internet is not made of magic.
(this fine coding work done by Lane Harrison)
EDIT: When you click through to the viz, highlight the whole image and get a special nerd surprise. Sharp eyes by follower orangeschmorange!)
EDIT 2: Also try the Konami code (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a, enter) #mindblown
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Get a look inside the complexes that housed the Manhattan Project in photographer Martin Miller’s series Slouching Towards Bethlehem…Birth of the Nuclear Genie.
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NASA Selects SpaceX to Deliver Astronauts to Orbit!
Three cheers for private spaceflight!
SpaceX, the world’s leading private spaceflight firm, announced today that NASA picked their Dragon capsule to succeed the Space Shuttle as a ferry for our astronauts into orbit. This comes just weeks after an empty test capsule successfully docked with the ISS and returned safely to Earth.
This is fantastic news for the future of private spaceflight, and for NASA’s future in general. By allowing NASA to focus on developing equipment for missions beyond low-Earth orbit and leaving the “easy” stuff to companies like SpaceX, we can stretch a thin NASA budget and truly shoot for the stars.
As Neil deGrasse Tyson says, this is the kind of policy that will allow us to stop “going boldly where hundreds have been before.” Onward, upward and beyond, thanks to the entrepreneurs and dedicated scientists at SpaceX!
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Talking Turkey
A guy sees a yard of turkeys and pulls over to hold a conversation with them. I don’t know what country this is in, but some phrases are universal: “Gobble-gobble” and “hahah!” -via b3ta
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To Err is Human, To Really Foul Things Up Requires a Computer:
Trading Firm Lost $440 Million in 45 Minutes Due to Software Bug
It's been a bad week for Knight Capital Group, a New Jersey brokerage that has been an unapologetic advocate for automated electronic trading when a software bug caused it to lose $440 million in just 45 minutes. That's a lost of about $10 million per minute, or $160,000 a second!
The high-speed trading arms race being waged on Wall Street has finally claimed its first major casualty.Knight Capital Group, a brokerage that handles nearly 11% of all stock trading in U.S. companies, is in danger of collapsing after a software glitch triggered millions of unintended orders. The New Jersey firm lost $440 million in less than an hour — nearly four times the company's profit last year.The blunder, which Knight's chief executive said on television was "a bug, a large bug" in its computer systems, caused Wall Street to shudder.
This, of course, reminds me of the funny saying "To err is human, to really foul things up requires a computer."
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Circles Optical Illusion
Of course, I had to confirm immediately: See it for yourself more …
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The vagina is just one part of a women’s private parts
The secrets behind national anthems. This is a fascinating topic
Wow. Net-casting spider hunt filmed in wild
This short cartoon about the cuddliest demon summoning deserves a run in theaters
The Monterey Bay Aquarium animal care team and a nurturing weedy sea dragon dad have achieved a milestone reached by only four other aquariums in North America: the birth of a brood of sea dragon babies.
Quick and simple life hacks - part 2
"SCSI is _not_ magic. There are _fundamental technical reasons_ why it is
necessary to sacrifice a young goat to your SCSI chain now and then."
-- John Woods, jfw@proteon.com
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Read more: How to Treat Clay Soil | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_5794230_treat-clay-soil.html#ixzz22199bvwc
Read more: How to Treat Clay Soil in Gardens | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_8155419_treat-clay-soil-gardens.html#ixzz221A8f0Pb
Click on photo to enlarge
I feel so virtuous having seconds of vegetables: another slice of homemade Sweet Potato Pie ~ Yummmmy .
(Wiki note: In 1992, the Center for Science in the Public Interest compared the nutritional value of sweet potatoes to other vegetables. Considering fiber content, complex carbohydrates, protein, vitamins A and C, iron, and calcium, the sweet potato ranked highest in nutritional value. According to these criteria, sweet potatoes earned 184 points, 100 points over the next on the list, the common potato.)
I saw this on @Todd_Roy earlier today via @DiscoverMag, who wrote "Oh this? Its nothing, just a picture of 2 perfectly round concentric circles that ur brain will refuse to see."
Of course, I had to confirm immediately: See it for yourself more …
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You can track the Mars Science Laboratory.
I had almost forgotten about this amazing web app, Eyes On The Solar System. You can track, well, everything in the Solar System, including the Mars Science Laboratory, through space, right in your browser. It’s like space travel, in your pajamas. Check it out here, and get ready for the touchdown tomorrow!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Adrian Drake spent 475 hours over the course of 21 months to build this painstakingly accurate model of Firefly's Serenity entirely out of Lego bricks. The result is this 135-pound, seven-foot long, 70,000-brick beauty that looks especially shiny paired with its minifig crew.More »
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Vast fungal networks form hive mind for tree-to-tree communication: a behemoth botanical brain
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7 Facts Women (And Men) Should Know About the Vagina
Despite the displays of female sexuality on the Internet, and scantily clad pop stars and models, the word vagina seems to remain taboo.
In fact, myths and misinformation seem to surround the vagina. For example, you might read on the web that the hymen — the membrane that partially covers the opening of the vagina and breaks during first intercourse — can grow back if you don’t have sex for a long while. It can't.
Also, there hasn’t been much resolution concerning female ejaculation. The medical community still can’t determine whether it exists, yet evidence — some of it dating to nearly 2,000 years ago — suggests that the phenomenon is real.
To separate fact from fiction and myth from reality, we've rounded seven facts worth knowing about a woman’s nether regions.
The vagina is just one part of a women’s private parts
Kegel exercises don’t only work for orgasms
Probiotic supplements could help keep the balance
Discharges women should worry about
Sex can keep the vagina healthy — especially for postmenopausal women
Good and bad bacteria
The clitoris isn't just a small pink nub:The clitoris has 8,000 nerve endings aimed for sexual pleasure — that's double the number in the penis, according to experts.The clitoris, which is a small pink organ that lies underneath the clitoral hood, is a powerhouse of pleasure. Although it extends into the vagina for about three inches, and connects with the controversial G-spot area,the clitoris is considered an "external" organ. As researchers noted in a 2011 article in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, "the glans and body are visible, while the roots are hidden, therefore they are not "internal.'"In other words, the most visible part of the clitoris is only a small part of it — it extends from there like roots of a tree. The length of the whole clitoris has been estimated to be nearly four inches long.
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The clitoris isn't just a small pink nub:The clitoris has 8,000 nerve endings aimed for sexual pleasure — that's double the number in the penis, according to experts.The clitoris, which is a small pink organ that lies underneath the clitoral hood, is a powerhouse of pleasure. Although it extends into the vagina for about three inches, and connects with the controversial G-spot area,the clitoris is considered an "external" organ. As researchers noted in a 2011 article in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, "the glans and body are visible, while the roots are hidden, therefore they are not "internal.'"In other words, the most visible part of the clitoris is only a small part of it — it extends from there like roots of a tree. The length of the whole clitoris has been estimated to be nearly four inches long.
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India’s power cuts affected 10% of all humans on Earth. And here’s everything you need to know on the energy side of the story in 7 paragraphs by David Biello.
This is really useful: how to talk to people in wheelchairs
The secrets behind national anthems. This is a fascinating topic
“It’s 1879, and psychology is just about to be born.” – great historical post by Maria Konnikova
Fascinating profile of a transgender scientist on his experience and the science gap
Wow. Net-casting spider hunt filmed in wild
Why do men collect dinosaur eggs? “1. collecting is a dude thing 2. the dude thing must be sexual 3. DINOSAUR EGGS 4. ? 5. …PROFIT.”
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Why We're More Interested in Sex During the Summer
A new study of Google search terms has surprising findings
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This short cartoon about the cuddliest demon summoning deserves a run in theaters
If only more animation studios prefaced their feature films with short cartoons, we might get more fun romps like The Colors of Evil. In this film, which Phillip Simon and Alyse Miller created as their thesis project at Ringling College of Art and Design, a wicked little girl summons a demon to deal with her obnoxious classmate. But the pink, fluffy, origami folding creature who shows up isn't quite what she expected.
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Half-Drag, Men’s Faces Half Made up as Their Female Alter Egos
Half-Drag is a wonderful ongoing series by New York City-based photographer Leland Bobbé where men’s faces are half made up as their glamorous female alter egos. You can check out all of the images and make a donation to this non-commercial project at Bobbé’s website.
Half-Drag is a wonderful ongoing series by New York City-based photographer Leland Bobbé where men’s faces are half made up as their glamorous female alter egos. You can check out all of the images and make a donation to this non-commercial project at Bobbé’s website.
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Weedy Sea Dragon Brood a first for Monterey Bay Aquarium
http://www.zooborns.com/zooborns/2012/08/weedy-sea-dragon-brood-a-first-for-monterey-bay-aquarium.html#more
http://www.zooborns.com/zooborns/2012/08/weedy-sea-dragon-brood-a-first-for-monterey-bay-aquarium.html#more
The Monterey Bay Aquarium animal care team and a nurturing weedy sea dragon dad have achieved a milestone reached by only four other aquariums in North America: the birth of a brood of sea dragon babies.
More than 80 of the inch-long fish – Australian relatives of the seahorse – began hatching on July 22. The father, who carried the eggs in a brood pouch under his tail, delivered the young, with the last eggs hatching on Aug. 2.
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The furry, slimy and spiny friends at Simon’s Cat get into the Olympic spirit with a snail-biting sprint to the finish.
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A chimpanzee at the Welsh Mountain Zoo in Colwyn Bay, uses sign language to ask a human to hand him over some biscuits on the floor. The human appears not to be smart enough to understand.
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“Oh, that’s Charlie… He likes to ride.”
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Researchers at the Wildlife Conservation Society mount a tiny camera on an imperial cormorant's back and observe it take a two-and-a-half-minute dive under water, 45 meters deep, in the Patagonian Sea, off the coast of Argentina, to look for food on the ocean floor.
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Quick and simple life hacks - part 2
After the success of his first series of 10 quick and simple life hacks, a list of useful tips and tricks that can always come in helpful, HouseholdHacker is back with round 2
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Around the Sun is about saving money in Portland, Oregon … and beyond.http://aroundthesunblog.com/
Here you’ll find:
- A summary of free events in Portland each weekend (publishes on Thursday)
- Money-saving deals, discounts and promotions
- Tips for being frugal
- Other money-related information
Portland-area resident Amy Reyes writes Around the Sun in her spare time.
To contact Amy, please post a comment or write to atsblog at gmail dot com.
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http://youtu.be/XnvxjJQkqZY
Magicians Penn & Teller are bringing their “eccentric and edgy illusionist entertainment” to New(kd) Las Vegas, an elaborate themed 3D haunted house for Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights 22, described as a “dark, dilapidated and radioactive version of ‘Sin City’…” Check out the promo video with Penn & Teller which shows a little of what is in store (a radioactive emergency in Las Vegas!). Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights opens September 21, 2012 at Universal Orlando Resort in Orlando, Florida.
Magicians Penn & Teller are bringing their “eccentric and edgy illusionist entertainment” to New(kd) Las Vegas, an elaborate themed 3D haunted house for Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights 22, described as a “dark, dilapidated and radioactive version of ‘Sin City’…” Check out the promo video with Penn & Teller which shows a little of what is in store (a radioactive emergency in Las Vegas!). Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights opens September 21, 2012 at Universal Orlando Resort in Orlando, Florida.
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After Hours
When the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University instituted an annual dinner in 1897, it began a tradition of “postprandial proceedings” — typically songs sung around a piano. This air, “Ions Mine,” was sung to the tune of “Clementine”:
In the dusty lab’ratory,
‘Mid the coils and wax and twine,
There the atoms in their glory
Ionize and recombine.
‘Mid the coils and wax and twine,
There the atoms in their glory
Ionize and recombine.
(chorus) Oh my darlings! Oh my darlings!
Oh my darling ions mine!
You are lost and gone forever
When just once you recombine!
Oh my darling ions mine!
You are lost and gone forever
When just once you recombine!
In a tube quite electrodeless,
They discharge around a line,
And the glow they leave behind them
Is quite corking for a time.
They discharge around a line,
And the glow they leave behind them
Is quite corking for a time.
(repeat chorus)
And with quite a small expansion,
1.8 or 1.9,
You can get a cloud delightful,
Which explains both snow and rain.
1.8 or 1.9,
You can get a cloud delightful,
Which explains both snow and rain.
(repeat chorus)
In the weird magnetic circuit
See how lovingly they twine,
As each ion describes a spiral
Round its own magnetic line.
See how lovingly they twine,
As each ion describes a spiral
Round its own magnetic line.
(repeat chorus)
Ultra-violet radiation
From the arc of glowing lime,
Soon discharges a conductor
If it’s charged with minus sign.
From the arc of glowing lime,
Soon discharges a conductor
If it’s charged with minus sign.
(repeat chorus)
Alpha rays from radium bromide
Cause a zinc-blende screen to shine,
Set it glowing, clearly showing
Scintillations all the time.
Cause a zinc-blende screen to shine,
Set it glowing, clearly showing
Scintillations all the time.
(repeat chorus)
Radium bromide emanation,
Rutherford did first divine,
Turns to helium, then Sir William
Got the spectrum, every line.
Rutherford did first divine,
Turns to helium, then Sir William
Got the spectrum, every line.
(repeat chorus)
The fourth verse was contributed by J.J. Thomson himself.
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image credit
Of all meteorological phenomena - from puffy white clouds to dramatic lighting strikes - the rainbow is surely the most universally loved. Coming, as it does, on rainy days, the rainbow can be seen to represent a promise of better times after adversity or hardship. The many beautiful shades of a rainbow have also come to stand for the wonders of human diversity. The rainbows in these pictures are certainly diverse in terms of setting, standing as they do over some of the greatest cities in the world - from Sydney (pictured above) to Istanbul. So let's take a look at some more metropolises framed by one of nature's most beautiful creations.
Of all meteorological phenomena - from puffy white clouds to dramatic lighting strikes - the rainbow is surely the most universally loved. Coming, as it does, on rainy days, the rainbow can be seen to represent a promise of better times after adversity or hardship. The many beautiful shades of a rainbow have also come to stand for the wonders of human diversity. The rainbows in these pictures are certainly diverse in terms of setting, standing as they do over some of the greatest cities in the world - from Sydney (pictured above) to Istanbul. So let's take a look at some more metropolises framed by one of nature's most beautiful creations.
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Who knew a simple flip-flop could have such a rich history? Havaianas - Brazil's choice of flip-flops - is celebrating its 50th birthday, and to mark the incredible impact the accessory has had on Brazilian culture (and beyond), AlmapBBDO launched this gorgeous animated short that melds together fantasy and reality brilliantly.
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They are songs of pride and patriotism, booming out at every international sporting fixture and medal ceremony. But behind the world's national anthems lurk some strange and surprising stories.
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An upstate New York roaster has created what it calls 'the world's strongest coffee,' an eco-friendly gourmet brew with 200% more caffeine than the average dark roast. Death Wish Coffee bills itself as 'the responsible coffee company with an irresponsible product.' This java, available for $19.99 per pound online, is the result of a personal quest by the brand founders 'to find a coffee that is not only dark, rich, bold and flavorful but also has high caffeine content.'
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A beautiful solar-powered machine running inside a wine glass. The creator has many other similar machines, which you can all check out on his website.
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Michael C. Hayes, perhaps most well-known for his illustrations for ‘Magic: the Gathering‘ and the ‘Legends of Norrath‘ franchise, created these absolutely breathtaking fantasy illustrations, reminiscent of 18th century art.
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Here are the sports you’ll see at this summer’s big sporting event, in a glorious 8-bit montage. Produced by Flikli
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"SCSI is _not_ magic. There are _fundamental technical reasons_ why it is
necessary to sacrifice a young goat to your SCSI chain now and then."
-- John Woods, jfw@proteon.com
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Break Dancing Gorilla
This gorilla has got some moves! Meet Zola, the break dancing gorilla: Zola, nine-years old, is one of eight Western lowland gorillas currently living at the Calgary Zoo as part of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums Gorilla Species Survival Plan. He loves to play in water and keepers regularly give him the opportunity to do so as part of the enrichment activities they plan and vary on a daily basis. Hit play or go to Link [YouTube]
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Visualizing Prime Numbers
Jason Davies has created a way to visualize prime numbers as periodic curves (curves that repeat every n points). Wherever only two curves intersect (for 1 and the number), that’s a prime. Play with the interactive, zoomable version here. Awesome stuff!
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A French Retailer called Early Flicker has applied to trademark the logo for the hacktivist group Anonymous. The group prides itself on its facelessness, and while no one really knows who Anonymous members are, it is very likely that this cannot be challenged.
The retailer also trademarked their slogan: “Anonymous. We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.”
The reason behind this trademark appears to be self serving as the retailer wishes to be the only legal source of t-shirts, mugs, and other paraphernalia with the Anonymous logo on it.
A few observations here. Is this French Retailer a supporter of Anonymous? Or is he simply profiteering on the popularity of the hacker group? Currently Early Flicker is selling products with this icon on it. They are just making it legal by applying for the Trademark.
Considering Anonymous’ many public attacks to expose the wrong doers, will this retailer be a target of their actions for “stealing” their logo and motto for personal gain?
The process is still in the works and Early Flicker doesn’t own it yet. Ironically, part of that process would include the opportunity for someone to come forward and claim they rightfully own the logo and slogan, and that would require someone to admit they “own” or have the rights to Anonymous – which would make them potentially liable for the group’s actions.
Could this be a ploy to lure out Anonymous members?
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Apparently it’s going to be based on a story arc where Kitty Pride (played by Ellen Paige in the X-Men trilogy) sends her powers to her past-self in order to, you know, save the mutants from mutant haters.
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Talk about the cloud, throw in a few key tech buzzwords in there, and BANG, you’ve got an instant recipe for success on your hands. Don’t you just love The Onion? :) [The Onion]
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To say it costs a lot to be Batman is an understatement.
But if you have an extra $1564 lying around, you, too, can dress like Batcycle Batman, courtesy of UD Replicas, an officially licensed movie replica company!
You can also buy the pieces individually…but that’s less fun.
[Via Fashionably Geek]
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Do Spiders Need All Eight Legs?
Why do spiders have so many legs (besides giving us the creeps)? Alain Pasquet and colleagues noticed that more than 1 in 10 spiders caught in the wild are missing one of their eight legs, so they decided to see whether spiders with fewer limbs suffer any disadvantage when it comes to spinning webs:
Based on the findings, the authors propose that spiders have legs that they don’t really need—an advantage when it comes to escaping a predator that’s put the bite on a limb, for example. Yet there does appear to be a limit to how many legs a spider can lose. In the wild, the team found few spiders missing more than two legs. And in the lab, these five-legged spiders built shoddy webs. Link
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Animated Short – Mountain
This animated short is called Mountain, and even though it was created with minimalist vector shapes it’s rich with depth, animated motion and expression.
It was created by David Prosser of Studio AKA, and it was inspired by a trip he took to Seoul, South Korea.
I really like the character designs, and the story kept me entertained until the very end. Enjoy!
–via Drawn
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A clever homage to the big bang that birthed our existence, geek culture, television, and good old fashioned science. Most people won’t get this shirt, but that’s okay, they aren’t the ones who matter.
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Command Performance
J.B.S. Haldane’s father was a physiologist who would sometimes take his son along while investigating mines in order to teach him the rudiments of science. At one point they were lowered by a bucket into a pit in North Staffordshire, where a tunnel’s low roof forced their party to crawl:
“After a while, we got to a place where the roof was about eight feet high and a man could stand up. One of the party lifted his safety lamp. It filled with blue flame and went out with a pop. If it had been a candle this would have started an explosion, and we should probably have been killed. But of course the flame of the explosion inside the safety lamp was kept in by the wire gauze. The air near the roof was full of methane, or firedamp, which is a gas lighter than air, so the air on the floor was not dangerous.
“To demonstrate the effects of breathing firedamp, my father told me to stand up and recite Mark Anthony’s speech from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, beginning ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen.’ I soon began to pant, and somewhere about ‘the noble Brutus’ my legs gave way and I collapsed on to the floor, where, of course, the air was all right. In this way I learnt that firedamp is lighter than air and not dangerous to breathe.”
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Science T-shirt is blunt, to the point
Geneticist (and occasional BoingBoing contributor) David Ng? The fact that he designs awesome T-shirts while procrastinating just seals the deal.
How to Treat Clay Soil
Clay soil is a problem in the garden when growing vegetables, trees, or foliage. Clay compacts easily and can become waterlogged. This leaves little room for oxygen to get to the plant roots, causing rot and other plant diseases if the soil is not treated before planting. Treating clay soil requires the addition of organic fillers to restore structure to the soil so your plants can grow and receive the needed oxygen and moisture content to remain healthy and thrive.
1 Till hard clay soil with a spading fork to break up large clods and help expose the soil to the sun and air. Turn the soil over with your spade, digging as far down as 8 inches and working in small areas at a time to break up the clay.
1 Till hard clay soil with a spading fork to break up large clods and help expose the soil to the sun and air. Turn the soil over with your spade, digging as far down as 8 inches and working in small areas at a time to break up the clay.
2 Leave larger clay clods that are resistant to breakage on the top of the soil to dry out in the sun.
3 Wet the clay clods with water after they have dried and break up the remaining clods with a steel garden rake.
4 Add green plant materials, compost, sand and animal manure, up to one half of the soil content, mixing it into the clay earth. When using manure, leach out excessive salts in the manure by running water through it before adding it to the clay.
5 Avoid using organic materials that decay slowly over time such as sawdust, straw and peat moss, as they will use extra nitrogen needed by the plants for growth. If this is your only available medium, you may need to add additional nitrogen into the soil to compensate if you are planning to plant right away.
6 Add gypsum to the soil if you have sodic (acidic) soil. You can usually tell these types of soils by the hard crust that forms on the top of earth after a good rain. Apply a top layer of gypsum (5 pounds to every 100 square feet) to the soil after it has been worked with the other organic materials.
Read more: How to Treat Clay Soil | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_5794230_treat-clay-soil.html#ixzz22199bvwc
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How to Treat Clay Soil in Gardens
Clay soil is heavy, compacts and doesn't drain easily -- its structure is not conducive to successful planting and growing. Although clay soil, on it's own, can never make for a healthy garden, you can improve the soil's consistency by turning it over and adding amendments. You may notice an immediate improvement, but patience is key with clay soils since it may take several seasons of tilling and amending to notice a drastic improvement
Instructions
- Push the tines of a spading fork or rototiller into the soil to loosen and aerate the clay soil. If using a spading fork, work in rows and break up the soil down to a depth of 6 to 8 inches. If using a rototiller, again work in rows, but let the tiller do the work for you. Simply place the tines in the soil and start the tiller. Grip the tiller tightly while it works into the soil down to about 6 to 8 inches. Move forward as the tiller completes one section, then continue on to the next section.
- Sift through the soil by hand and pull out any weeds or rocks.
- Shovel about 1/4 cup dry soil samples from your garden -- take samples from four different areas -- into a bucket and mix them together. Perform a pH test on the samples. Either purchase a soil test from a garden center or contact your nearest extension office -- it often provides soil testing for a small fee. Follow the specific directions provided with the soil test. Garden center soil tests usually only determine the pH, while an extension office will provide an extensive report that advises on amendments needed to alter pH and required fertilizer and trace minerals.
- Shovel the specified amendments on top of the soil. You may need to use lime if the pH is too low or sulfur if the pH is too high. Follow the specific directions provided with the product to determine how much to use. Till the amendments into the soil, working to the same depth of 6 to 8 inches to fully incorporate the amendments into the soil.
- Shovel at least 2 to 3 inches of compost onto the top of the soil. All clay soils benefit from the addition of compost -- it increases the nutrient level and helps to loosen the soil. Till the compost into the soil working down to a depth of 6 to 8 inches.
- Push a rake across the top of the soil to make the area level after tilling.
- Plant a cover crop at the end of the gardening season. Cover crop choices vary by region. The National Gardening Association recommends using winter wheat and winter rye in the northern states and crimson clover and oats in warmer states. In the spring, till the crop into the soil before amending and planting.
Read more: How to Treat Clay Soil in Gardens | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_8155419_treat-clay-soil-gardens.html#ixzz221A8f0Pb
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A new synthetic replacement for rod and cone cells may someday bring vision to those with macular degeneration or inheritable forms of blindness.
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Click on photo to enlarge
Workers check the function of the hydraulic arms of a London bus that is being transformed into a robotic sculpture by Czech artist David Cerny in Prague July 2, 2012. The bus, which Cerny hopes could become an unofficial mascot of the London 2012 Olympic Games, does push-ups with the help of an engine powering a pair of robotic arms, and the motion is accompanied by a recording of sounds evoking tough physical effort. It will be parked outside the Czech Olympic headquarters in London for the duration of the Games.
REUTERS/Petr Josek
Thanks, Ed
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One of the more innovative urban architectural trends has been the planting of vertical gardens. Now a study confirms they're more than show; they can have a big impact on cleaning up city air.
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A new beverage billed as “water with alcohol”
Many people enjoy having a few drinks after work or on the weekend. Only a subset of them actually enjoy the taste of whatever cocktail or malt beverage they’re sipping on. Others would prefer to get the buzz and inhibition release without actually choking down liquor or beer. Whether it’s that earthy pine-tree-in-a-bottle flavor of gin or the harsh burn of cheap whiskey, alcohol can be downright painful. Air, “the first water with alcohol,” provides an alternative with a light flavor profile purported to be closer to club soda than beer or spirits.Air advertises itself as “Water + Air. Carbonated.” The taste is supposedly as simple as the tagline; the malt beverage combines water, alcohol and natural fruit flavors for a taste that’s barely there. It claims to use all natural ingredients. While we haven’t given it the proverbial swig, the description has us thinking of lightly fruit-flavored club soda spiked with alcohol…
Air distribution is currently limited to a handful of states on the West Coast of the US [of course]. A recent tweet indicates the company also plans to come to the eastern states. It’s sold in such stores as Whole Foods and Albertsons. The minds behind the young drink have been hosting launch parties in major cities like LA, Las Vegas and Portland throughout the summer.So is Air really the Holy Grail for drinkers (i.e. all the fun of alcohol without any of the strong, acquired taste)? We’re guessing it’s more like the latest Zima or Smirnoff Ice – a fruity malt beverage that only the ladies can get away with drinking – but we’ll have to taste it to know for sure … maybe once they get around to filling liquor store coolers in our neck of the woods.
If it shows up in our local Whole Foods, I’ll give it a try. That’s about all I’ll guarantee.
I'll try it Ed ~ and let you know ~
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The basilisk was just a legendary monster-until the day in 1587 that word swept through Warsaw that one was hiding in a cellar in the Polish capital, killing anybody who approached it
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Tie a Bowtie with Bill Nye and Chris Hardwick!
Be the dapper scientist you’ve always wanted to be! I’m a pretty capable traditional tie-knot-tyer, but this one is gonna take some practice.(↬Nerdist)
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This Video will make you really sick
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Locks changed — after coppers lose the keys to Wembley Stadium
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The Dangers of Texting While Walking
On city streets and in shopping centers, there is usually someone strolling while talking on a phone, texting with his head down. The problem isn't as widely discussed as distracted driving, but the danger is real. (July 30)
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(Wiki note: In 1992, the Center for Science in the Public Interest compared the nutritional value of sweet potatoes to other vegetables. Considering fiber content, complex carbohydrates, protein, vitamins A and C, iron, and calcium, the sweet potato ranked highest in nutritional value. According to these criteria, sweet potatoes earned 184 points, 100 points over the next on the list, the common potato.)
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Land Speed Record Vehicles,
Part 1: The Pioneers
http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2012/07/land-speed-record-vehicles-part-one.html
The Thrilling Story Of The Land Speed Record and The Fastest Men On Earth
Part 1: The Pioneers
http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2012/07/land-speed-record-vehicles-part-one.html
The Thrilling Story Of The Land Speed Record and The Fastest Men On Earth
Land Speed Record Vehicles,
Part 2: Jet Propulsion 1960s-1980s
http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2012/07/land-speed-record-vehicles-part-2-jet.html
Most beautiful streamlined shapes in the Sixties (of course)
Part 2: Jet Propulsion 1960s-1980s
http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2012/07/land-speed-record-vehicles-part-2-jet.html
Most beautiful streamlined shapes in the Sixties (of course)
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The Ultimate Pagan Festival
And begin them here, with Tony Perrottet’s hilarious history, which will among other things make you wonder what all the fuss is about women Olympians’ uniforms. The heck with skirts on female boxers, let them just wale away at each other in the nude.
The whole experience was so famously uncomfortable that a master once threatened his disobedient slave with a visit to the Olympic Games.
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Danish expedition to amass data for North Pole/Arctic Ocean claims
Denmark will dispatch a scientific expedition to the Arctic Ocean at the end of the month to gather data before it submits a formal claim to a vast tract north of Greenland that includes the North Pole. Such a claim would be made under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), setting up a possible clash of interests with fellow Arctic coastal states Russia and Canada that are making their own claims.
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Some people say that romance is dead. Well, if you utter any of the ten things listed below that fall under the category of "Top Ten Things Not to Say on Your Anniversary" you better believe that storybook romance is six feet under and there to stay.
Or maybe it's the perfect list to help get someone out of a bad relationship. What would work better than saying, "Today is our what?" or "I thought we only celebrated important events?" to that special someone that has caused you more pain, trouble and heartache than being a New York Mets fan. I guess it's all in how you look at it.
Also, enjoy three great quotes, a game that involves a Jelly Cannon, and scientific research that reveals that Pop Music All Sounds the Same.
Or maybe it's the perfect list to help get someone out of a bad relationship. What would work better than saying, "Today is our what?" or "I thought we only celebrated important events?" to that special someone that has caused you more pain, trouble and heartache than being a New York Mets fan. I guess it's all in how you look at it.
Also, enjoy three great quotes, a game that involves a Jelly Cannon, and scientific research that reveals that Pop Music All Sounds the Same.
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Jelly Cannon
http://www.addictinggames.com/puzzle-games/jellycannon.jsp
Take aim at getting all of the yellow jelly balls together. Fire the blue jelly balls to push the yellow balls together. Make One Big Yellow Jelly and you move on to the next round! It's that easy... and fun!
Take aim at getting all of the yellow jelly balls together. Fire the blue jelly balls to push the yellow balls together. Make One Big Yellow Jelly and you move on to the next round! It's that easy... and fun!
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Pop Music All Sounds the Same
http://entertainment.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/07/26/12973700-researchers-find-pop-music-is-too-loud-and-all-sounds-the-same?lite
Check this article about something you probably already knew. Yes, all pop music all sounds the same. Hey, it's science!
Check this article about something you probably already knew. Yes, all pop music all sounds the same. Hey, it's science!
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Top Ten Things Not to Say on Your Anniversary
10. I stopped caring about anniversaries when you stopped caring about cooking.
9. Today is our what?
8. Okay, let's celebrate, but do we have to celebrate together?
7. I thought we only celebrated important events?
6. You can celebrate anniversaries with your next husband.
5. You don't like what I pick out, so I thought why bother.
4. I got you a present worth a dollar for every time you were nice to me this year. Here's a $5 gift certificate for McDonald's.
3. If you want me to pretend like I care about our anniversary, I will.
2. You want to go out to dinner? Okay, okay, I'll take you to Pizza Hut if it'll shut ya up.
1. I thought you only had to celebrate anniversaries while you were still in love.
(From Aha! Jokes)
10. I stopped caring about anniversaries when you stopped caring about cooking.
9. Today is our what?
8. Okay, let's celebrate, but do we have to celebrate together?
7. I thought we only celebrated important events?
6. You can celebrate anniversaries with your next husband.
5. You don't like what I pick out, so I thought why bother.
4. I got you a present worth a dollar for every time you were nice to me this year. Here's a $5 gift certificate for McDonald's.
3. If you want me to pretend like I care about our anniversary, I will.
2. You want to go out to dinner? Okay, okay, I'll take you to Pizza Hut if it'll shut ya up.
1. I thought you only had to celebrate anniversaries while you were still in love.
(From Aha! Jokes)
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If you want to know how people are feeling about the 2012 Olympic Games, just watch that giant Ferris wheel that looms over the River Thames in London. Once a night, the London Eye will light up in a pattern that reflects the prevailing sentiment about the games among Twitter users that day. Positive tweets will turn the thing yellow, negative ones purple.
Personally, I think they need to build a smaller mini-eye, and make it look like a penny-farthing bicycle.
Veddy British, hup, hup.. (and, a tribute to the cult classic 'The Prisoner')
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Photo: Wikipedia
"Where facts are few, experts are many." - Donald R. Gannon
Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you. ~ Oscar Wilde
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The World Naked Bike Ride – St. Louis took place on Saturday evening. About 1,000 bikers took part in the 10 mile ride. Here are images from the event.
1 comment:
Why is it that most of the naked people should not even be seen in public, much less nekked?????
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Emerging Adults
At what age do you become an "adult"? 18? 21?
At what age do you become an "adult"? 18? 21?
A new survey by Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, revealed that there may be gradations of adulthood.
Witness the advent of "emerging adults" (age 18 to 29):
Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, a research professor in psychology at Clark University, coined the term as a phase of human development for the period of late teens through the 20s. It began with Gen X (born in the mid-'60s through early 1980s) and has rippled through to the next generation, the Millennials.
The main contributing social forces are later ages for career, marriage and parenthood, says Arnett, who has been studying young people for 20 years. [...]
To feel more like a grown-up, Alana Prant, 23, says she wants to become financially independent. That's the response of 30% of those surveyed who said financial independence is the most important factor in becoming an adult.
"I'm about to be 24. I should feel like an adult, but I don't," she says. "My parents completely support me."
Sharon Jayson of USA Today explains: Link "I'm about to be 24. I should feel like an adult, but I don't," she says. "My parents completely support me."
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The Internet Map
No matter how much you zoom out, The Internet Map is bigger than you think. Developed by Ruslan Enikeev, it includes the 350,000 largest sites on the web! I’m pretty sure the different colors represent different languages. Neatorama is the medium-sized blue dot between Boing Boing and Buzzfeed, to the left of reddit. There’s a search field in case you want to find a particular site.
Mathematically speaking, The Internet map is a bi-dimensional presentation of links between websites on the Internet. Every site is a circle on the map, and its size is determined by website traffic, the larger the amount of traffic, the bigger the circle. Users’ switching between websites forms links, and the stronger the link, the closer the websites tend to arrange themselves to each other. Link -
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Warning: Language very NSFW
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Click to enlarge
Out standing on a hill that is.
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Buttermilk the 5-week-old Nigerian dwarf goat baby plays with her dwarf goat baby friends at Took a Leap Farm in Houlton, Maine.
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A confused baby crow slowly walks up to a man with a camera with the purpose of hanging out with him, while its parents fly around, making non-friendly noises.
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Carbon Eaters on the Black Sea
This brilliant cyan pattern scattered across the surface of the Black Sea is a bloom of microscopic phytoplankton. The multitude of single-celled algae in this image are most likely coccolithophores, one of Earth’s champions of carbon pumping. Coccolithophores constantly remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and slowly send it down to the seafloor, an action that helps to stabilize the Earth's climate.
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Cat Wants to be a Cat Bank
http://youtu.be/1hW39r8zJlg
http://youtu.be/1hW39r8zJlg
We’ve shown you how a cat bank works. We’ve even seen cats using one. We even have them in the NeatoShop, in case you want one of your own. But now you can see a cat who aspires to BE one! -via Buzzfeed
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Ransom E. Olds on the Olds Pirate Racing Car
Photo: Wikipedia
Zoom! Dark Roasted Blend has a fantastic collection of men fulfilling their need for speed. Take a look at their neat gallery of Land Speed Record Vehicles: Link- Thanks Avi!
I, for one, am partial to this old photo of Ransom E. Olds (Yes, the founder of Oldsmobile) driving the Olds Pirate racing car in the late 1890s.
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"An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows." - Dwight D. Eisenhower
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"Never spend your money before you have it." - Thomas Jefferson
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"Where facts are few, experts are many." - Donald R. Gannon
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"A new study found that overweight men are more likely to have children with weight problems. Or in other words, if you get your dad's genes, you're also going to get his sweatpants." -Jimmy Fallon
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My friend has a bad habit of overdrawing her bank account. One day before we went shopping, I complained about my lack of funds and lamented, "Guess I'll use plastic."
Unconcerned, she whipped out her checkbook and said: "I'm using rubber."
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My friend has a bad habit of overdrawing her bank account. One day before we went shopping, I complained about my lack of funds and lamented, "Guess I'll use plastic."
Unconcerned, she whipped out her checkbook and said: "I'm using rubber."
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And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take and take in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him? --Book VII, Plato's Republic
At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows --Book VII, Plato's Republic
And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened: --Behold! Human beings living in a underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood. --Book VII, Plato's Republic
At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows --Book VII, Plato's Republic
And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened: --Behold! Human beings living in a underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood. --Book VII, Plato's Republic
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When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities. --Book VII, Plato's Republic
He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven; and he will see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day? --Book VII, Plato's Republic
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He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven; and he will see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day? --Book VII, Plato's Republic
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Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you. ~ Oscar Wilde
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"Congress may pass a law that would result in TV networks that broadcast indecency being even stiffly penalized. In fact, it is going to cost us 500 more bucks because I said 'stiffly penalized.'" --Craig Ferguson
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"Due to the bad economy, the Queen of England's salary will be frozen for the next four years. In fact, to make ends meet the queen is thinking of having a yard sale. Getting rid of a lot of stuff they don't use anymore, like Canada." -Jay Leno
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While I was working in the men's section of a department store, a woman asked me to help her choose a white dress shirt for her husband.
When I asked about his size, the woman looked stumped at first, then her face brightened. She held up her hands, forming a circle with her forefingers and thumbs.
"I don't know his size," she said, "but my hands fit perfectly around his neck."
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"Due to the bad economy, the Queen of England's salary will be frozen for the next four years. In fact, to make ends meet the queen is thinking of having a yard sale. Getting rid of a lot of stuff they don't use anymore, like Canada." -Jay Leno
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While I was working in the men's section of a department store, a woman asked me to help her choose a white dress shirt for her husband.
When I asked about his size, the woman looked stumped at first, then her face brightened. She held up her hands, forming a circle with her forefingers and thumbs.
"I don't know his size," she said, "but my hands fit perfectly around his neck."
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Lockheed Martin reveals glimpse of Sea Ghost UAV
Lockheed Martin has hinted at plans for a new UAV carrier combat aircraft, known as the UCLASS Sea Ghost. This makes the American defense contractor the fourth contender for the U.S. Navy’s unmanned carrier combat aircraft contract, joining Northrop’s X-47B, Boeing’s Phantom Ray and General Atomic’s Sea Avenger.
Lockheed Martin isn’t revealing too much about the Sea Ghost, but a released concept image shows a streamlined, blended-wing UAV with a silhouette and a hatch that are obviously designed with stealth technology and the nose has a jet intake where the pilot’s cockpit would be in a manned version. Other than that, nothing about what’s inside the hull is known.
However, Lockheed Martin has dropped some very broad and vague hints by saying that the Sea Ghost draws on the company’s work on the Joint Strike Fighter F-35C, the RQ-170 Sentinel Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) and other Navy programs. The company also says that the Sea Ghost will be carrier based and will include Persistent Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) and light strike combat capability.
Thanks, Ed ~
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A priest was invited to attend a house party. Naturally, he was properly dressed and wearing his Priest's Collar. A little boy kept staring at him the entire evening. Finally, the priest asked the little boy what he was staring at.
The little boy pointed to the priest's neck.
When the priest finally realized what the boy was pointing at, he asked the boy, "Do you know why I am wearing that?"
The boy nodded his head yes, and replied, "It kills fleas and ticks for up to three months."
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Anyone surprised? Civil partnerships are five times more popular than forecast
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For the 9th edition of their MP3 experiment series (here's no. 8), Improv Everywhere takes over 4,000 people to the Governors Island in New York City, where they all listen to "Steve The Omnipotent Voice from Above" via an MP3 and do all types of synchronized shenanigans, all culminating in a massive water gun fight.
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A sign seen over the toilet paper dispenser in a military "latrine" (bathroom):
"Another quality product of the 3M company, sandpaper division."
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The difference between philosophy and theology:
If you have an argument over philosophy, you get red in the face. Over theology you throw bombs.
If you have an argument over philosophy, you get red in the face. Over theology you throw bombs.
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Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those I had to kill because they pissed me off.
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"They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me." -- Nathaniel Lee, on being consigned to a mental institution, circa 17th century.
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1. I swallowed a goldfish.
2. Your lipstick works better than crayons.
3. Does grape juice leave a stain?
4. The principal called…
5. But DAD says that word all the time.
6. What’s it cost to fix a window?
7. Has anyone seen my earthworms?
8. I painted your shoes pretty, huh Mommy?
9. The dog doesn’t like dressing up in your clothes.
10. I’m moving out.
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A fellow nurse at my hospital received a call from an anxious patient.
“I’m diabetic and I’m afraid I’ve had too much sugar today.” the caller said.
“Are you light-headed?” my colleague asked.
“No,” the caller answered, “I’m a brunette.”
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[...] our ability to awe was biologically selected for by evolution because it imbues our lives with sense of cosmic significance that has resulted in a species that works harder not just to survive but to flourish and thrive…
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Out of the vault ~ one of my favorites:
THE FBI’S MOZZARELLA FELLA SPELL
FBI agents conducted a raid of a psychiatric hospital in San Diego that was under investigation for medical insurance fraud. After hours of reviewing thousands of medical records, the dozens of agents had worked up quite an appetite.
The agent in charge of the investigation called a nearby pizza parlor with delivery service to order a quick dinner for his colleagues. The following telephone conversation took place and was recorded by the FBI because they were taping all conversations at the hospital.
Agent: Hello. I'd like to order 19 large pizzas and 3 cases of soda.Pizza Man: And where would you like them delivered?
Agent: We're over at the psychiatric hospital.Pizza Man: The psychiatric hospital?
Agent: That’s right. I'm an FBI agent.Pizza Man: You're an FBI agent?
Agent: That’s correct. Just about everybody here is.Pizza Man: And you're at the psychiatric hospital?
Agent: That’s correct. And make sure you don’t go through the front doors. We have them locked. You'll have to go around to the back service entrance to deliver the pizzas.Pizza Man: And you say you're all FBI agents?
Agent: That’s right. How soon can you have them here?Pizza Man: Everyone at the psychiatric hospital is an FBI agent?
Agent: That’s right. We've been here all day and we're starving.Pizza Man: How are you going to pay for all of this?
Agent: We've collected a pool of cash.Pizza Man: And you're all FBI agents?
Agent: Yes.Pizza Man: With guns?
Agent: That’s right. Now, can you remember to bring the pizzas and sodas to the service entrance in the rear? We have the front doors locked.
Pizza Man: No f-in’ way.
*Click*
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A life-long city man, tired of the rat race, decided he was going to give up the city life, move to the country, and become a chicken farmer. He found a nice, used chicken farm, which he bought. Turns out that his next door neighbor was also a chicken farmer. The neighbor came for a visit one day and said, "Chicken farming isn't
easy. Tell you what. To help you get started, I'll give you 100 chickens."
The new chicken farmer was thrilled. Two weeks later the new neighbor stopped by to see how things were going. The new farmer said, "Not too good. All 100 chickens died."
easy. Tell you what. To help you get started, I'll give you 100 chickens."
The new chicken farmer was thrilled. Two weeks later the new neighbor stopped by to see how things were going. The new farmer said, "Not too good. All 100 chickens died."
The neighbor said, "Oh, I can't believe that. I've never had any trouble with my chickens. I'll give you 100 more."
Another two weeks went by, and the neighbor stops in again. The new farmer says, "You're not going to believe this, but the second 100 chickens died too."
Another two weeks went by, and the neighbor stops in again. The new farmer says, "You're not going to believe this, but the second 100 chickens died too."
Astounded, the neighbor asked, "what went wrong? What did you do to them?"
Well, says the new farmer, "I'm not sure whether I'm planting them too deep or not far apart enough."
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Well, says the new farmer, "I'm not sure whether I'm planting them too deep or not far apart enough."
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