Moving forward with new strengths
Metamorphosis ~
~ Ursa, 2004
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I wrote this haiku for Dick when he was dealing with depression associated with the seizure disorder (epilepsy) he developed after his head went thru the windshield in a car accident. A shodo brushstroke (Japanese calligraphy) version on rice paper now hangs in his therapist's office.
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RIP my Sweet Babu ~
It's been one year today since my sweetheart, Dick, died from an epileptic seizure. I'm taking some time this weekend to remember the good times, the rough times, and to put things into perspective.
He was a wonderful, loving, giving, thoughtful man with a wicked sense of humor and fun. A romantic; big-hearted & big-handed, tall & strong & slim, with a crooked grin & a twinkle in his blue eyes.
A consulting electrical engineer ~ My freaky geek.
I gave him some recipes that I modified 'so that even an engineer could follow the instructions'.
I gave him a rose ~ he dried & pressed the flower and sealed a few petals and leaves in wallet-size laminated plastic cards. We each carried one ~ mine is still in my wallet.
He gave me a delta shower head in my Easter basket one year (and candy, of course).
To Borrrris from your Natasha, Big D (darlin') from Little D, Big Babu from Little Babu ~ WildCat from MamaBear ~ (he took some of my worst typos and turned them into nicknames)
To my Big D ~ I will always remember you ~ kisss ~ from your Little D ~
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2012 September
Image Credit & Copyright: John Nelson, IDV Solutions
Explanation: Should you be worried about hurricanes? To find out, it is useful to know where hurricanes have gone in the past. The above Earth map shows the path of every hurricane reported since 1851, Although striking, a growing incompleteness exists in the data the further one looks back in time. The above map graphically indicates that hurricanes -- sometimes called cyclones or typhoons depending on where they form -- usually occur over water, which makes sense since evaporating warm water gives them energy. The map also shows that hurricanes never cross -- or even occur very near -- the Earth's equator, since the Coriolis effect goes to zero there, and hurricanes need the Coriolis force to circulate. The Coriolis force also causes hurricane paths to arc away from the equator. Although incompleteness fogs long term trends and the prevalence of hurricanes remains a topic of research, evidence is accumulating that hurricanes are, on the average, more common and more powerful in the North Atlantic Ocean over the past 20 years.
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2012 September
Airglow over Italy
Image Credit & Copyright: Tamas Ladanyi (TWAN)
Image Credit & Copyright: Tamas Ladanyi (TWAN)
Explanation: In this serene night skyscape, the Milky Way's graceful arc stretches over prominent peaks in the Italian Alps known as Tre Cime di Lavaredo. A 180 degree wide-angle panorama made in four exposures on August 24, the scene does look to the north and the sky is suffused with an eerie greenish light. Still, the subtle glowing bands are not aurorae, but airglow. Unlike aurorae powered by collisions with energetic charged particles and seen at high latitudes, airglow is due to chemiluminescence, the production of light in a chemical reaction, and found around the globe. The chemical energy is provided by the Sun's extreme ultraviolet radiation. Like aurorae, the greenish hue of this airglow does originate at altitudes of 100 kilometers or so dominated by emission from excited oxygen atoms. More easily seen near the horizon, airglow keeps the night sky from ever being completely dark.
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Rex Barker here with "Bouncing Back"
One of my fondest memories as a child is going by the river and sitting idly on the bank. There I would enjoy the peace and quiet, watch the water rush downstream, and listen to the chirps of birds and the rustling of leaves in the trees. I would also watch the bamboo trees bend under pressure from the wind and watch them return gracefully to their upright or original position after the wind had died down.
When I think about the bamboo tree's ability to bounce back or return to it's original position, the word resilience comes to mind. When used in reference to a person this word means the ability to readily recover from shock, depression or any other situation that stretches the limits of a person's emotions.
Have you ever felt like you are about to snap? Have you ever felt like you are at your breaking point? Thankfully, you have survived the experience to live to talk about it.
During the experience you probably felt a mix of emotions that threatened your health. You felt emotionally drained, mentally exhausted and you most likely endured unpleasant physical symptoms.
Life is a mixture of good times and bad times, happy moments and unhappy moments. The next time you are experiencing one of those bad times or unhappy moments that take you close to your breaking point, bend but don't break. Try your best not to let the situation get the best of you.
A measure of hope will take you through the unpleasant ordeal. With hope for a better tomorrow or a better situation, things may not be as bad as they seem to be. The unpleasant ordeal may be easier to deal with if the end result is worth having.
This is Rex Barker, reminding you if the going gets tough and you are at your breaking point, show resilience. Like the bamboo tree, bend, but don't break.
When I think about the bamboo tree's ability to bounce back or return to it's original position, the word resilience comes to mind. When used in reference to a person this word means the ability to readily recover from shock, depression or any other situation that stretches the limits of a person's emotions.
Have you ever felt like you are about to snap? Have you ever felt like you are at your breaking point? Thankfully, you have survived the experience to live to talk about it.
During the experience you probably felt a mix of emotions that threatened your health. You felt emotionally drained, mentally exhausted and you most likely endured unpleasant physical symptoms.
Life is a mixture of good times and bad times, happy moments and unhappy moments. The next time you are experiencing one of those bad times or unhappy moments that take you close to your breaking point, bend but don't break. Try your best not to let the situation get the best of you.
A measure of hope will take you through the unpleasant ordeal. With hope for a better tomorrow or a better situation, things may not be as bad as they seem to be. The unpleasant ordeal may be easier to deal with if the end result is worth having.
This is Rex Barker, reminding you if the going gets tough and you are at your breaking point, show resilience. Like the bamboo tree, bend, but don't break.
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The following statements were found on patient's charts during a recent review of medical records. These statements were written by various health care professionals including (we're afraid) a doctor or two at several major hospitals:
"The lab test indicated abnormal lover function."
"Exam of genitalia reveals that he is circus sized."
"The skin was moist and dry."
"The patient had waffles for breakfast and anorexia for lunch."
"She stated that she had been constipated for most of her life until 1989 when she got a divorce."
"The patient was in his usual state of good health until his airplane ran out of gas and crashed."
"I saw your patient today, who is still under our car for physical therapy."
"The patient lives at home with his mother, father, and pet turtle, who is presently enrolled in day care three times a week."
"Exam of genitalia reveals that he is circus sized."
"The skin was moist and dry."
"The patient had waffles for breakfast and anorexia for lunch."
"She stated that she had been constipated for most of her life until 1989 when she got a divorce."
"The patient was in his usual state of good health until his airplane ran out of gas and crashed."
"I saw your patient today, who is still under our car for physical therapy."
"The patient lives at home with his mother, father, and pet turtle, who is presently enrolled in day care three times a week."
"Bleeding started in the rectal area and continued all the way to Los Angeles."
"Both breasts are equal and reactive to light and accommodation."
"She is numb from her toes down."
"Exam of genitalia was completely negative except for the right foot."
"While in the emergency room, she was examined, X-rated and sent home.The patient was to have a bowel resection. However, he took a job as stockbroker instead."
"When she fainted, her eyes rolled around the room."
"Examination reveals a well-developed male lying in bed with his family in no distress."
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"Both breasts are equal and reactive to light and accommodation."
"She is numb from her toes down."
"Exam of genitalia was completely negative except for the right foot."
"While in the emergency room, she was examined, X-rated and sent home.The patient was to have a bowel resection. However, he took a job as stockbroker instead."
"When she fainted, her eyes rolled around the room."
"Examination reveals a well-developed male lying in bed with his family in no distress."
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Exploding watermelons with your mind
Watermelon wars: thanks, Ed
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QUOTE: "Labor was the first price, the original purchase-money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labor, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased."
HINT: (1723-1790), Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy.
ANSWER: Adam Smith.
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ANSWER: Adam Smith.
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"A man in Thailand was arrested with more than 10,000 pairs of stolen underwear. Legal experts are expecting a brief trial." -Jimmy Fallon
"The agriculture department says we now have the smallest cattle population in 60 years. That shows you how fat we're getting. We're close to putting cows on the endangered species list." -Jay Leno
"Studies are showing that Republican candidates are buying a lot of their ad time on the Weather Channel. You can tell because last night, the weatherman blamed the cold front on immigration and gay marriage." -Conan O'Brien
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"The agriculture department says we now have the smallest cattle population in 60 years. That shows you how fat we're getting. We're close to putting cows on the endangered species list." -Jay Leno
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QUOTE: "Labor was the first price, the original purchase-money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labor, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased."
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quadarecknod
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Industrious builder of wondrous contraptions Dan Rosenfeld channelled his love of video conferencing, and the Apple Macintosh commercial from 1984, into an awesome Big Video Head rig that would make the Wizard of Oz green with envy.
Here's more about the Big Head Project: The rig is a head-mounted box with a 24-inch LCD monitor on the front that displays a larger-than-life version of Dan's face. Inside the box, Dan has a tiny camera trained on his face, a microphone, and a monitor connected to an external camera so he can see where he's going. To test gaze awareness, the rig is configured so that Dan is looking directly at you while talking to reduce the thousand-yard stare associated with teleconferencing. --via Gizmodo
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http://youtu.be/dyd9EFrdbxQ
I can't tell if this little guy is trying to swim in the air or to fly like one of the wacky turtles in Super Mario Bros. What do you think?
I can't tell if this little guy is trying to swim in the air or to fly like one of the wacky turtles in Super Mario Bros. What do you think?
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"Studies are showing that Republican candidates are buying a lot of their ad time on the Weather Channel. You can tell because last night, the weatherman blamed the cold front on immigration and gay marriage." -Conan O'Brien
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Last year, a chemical compounds from Ardberg's Islay distillery was taken to the International Space Station to test the effects of near zero gravity on the maturation process of whiskey.
To celebrate, Ardberg have now released "Ardbeg Galileo"
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ATTRACTION - the act of associating horniness with a particular person.
LOVE AT 1st SIGHT - what occurs when two extremely horny, but not entirely choosy people meet.
DATING - the process of spending enormous amounts of money, time, and energy to get better acquainted with a person whom you don't especially like in the present and will learn to like a lot less in the future.
BIRTH CONTROL - avoiding pregnancy through such tactics as swallowing special pills, inserting a diaphragm, using a condom, and dating repulsive men or spending time around children.
EASY - a term used to describe a woman who has the sexual morals of a man.
PRIG - a term used to describe a woman who wants to stay virgin until married.
EYE CONTACT - a method utilized by a single woman to communicate to a man that she is interested in him. Despite being advised to do so, many woman have difficulty looking a man directly in the eyes, not necessarily due to the shyness, but usually due to the fact that a woman's eyes are not located in her chest.
FRIEND - a member of the opposite sex in your acquaintance who has some flaw which makes sleeping with him/her totally unappealing.
INDIFFERENCE - a woman's feeling towards a man, which is interpreted by the man as "playing hard to get."
INTERESTING - a word a man uses to describe a woman who lets him do all the talking.
IRRITATING HABIT - what the endearing little qualities that initially attract two people to each other turn into after a few months together.
LAW OF RELATIVITY - how attractive a given person appears to be is directly proportional to how unattractive your date is.
NYMPHOMANIAC - a man's term for a woman who wants to have sex more often than he does.
FRIGID - a man's term for a woman who wants to have sex less often than he does, or who requires more foreplay than lifting her nightgown.
SOBER - condition in which it is almost impossible to fall in love.
NAG - a man's term for a woman who wants more from her life with him than just intercourse.
KRUBERA CAVE
The deepest known cave on Earth is currently the Krubera Cave, (sometimes known as the Voronya Cave.) The cave is located in the Arabika Massif of the Gagrinsky Range in the country of Georgia. Kubera cave acquired the title of ‘deepest cave’ in 2001 when Ukrainian explorers were able to reach a depth of 1710 meters. The main branch reaches a depth of roughly 2191 meters. There is a
RANDOM TIDBITS
Most Americans consider Labor Day a uniquely American experience, but in all reality, Labor Day has its origins in Canada. Stemming from 1870's labor disputes in Toronto, in 1872 a parade was held in support of a strike against the 58 hour workweek. As a result, 24 union leaders who were responsible for organizing the event were arrested under anti-union laws.
The first Labor Day celebration in the United States can be traced to New York City's Union Square on Sept. 5, 1882. It was designed as a way to appease city workers after numerous strikes and in some cases even violence.
Oregon was the first state to make it a holiday in 1887. By the time it became a federal holiday in 1894, thirty states officially celebrated Labor Day.
President Eisenhower designated May 1 as both Law Day and Loyalty Day. Each of these were specifically aimed at replacing the communist holiday with a religious or patriotic one. In many countries, May Day is also Labor Day.
More than 10,000 workers marched in the first Labor Day parade, protesting 16 hour workdays and were fighting to have an eight-hour workday.
Making Labor Day an official national holiday as part of his political campaign, in 1894, President Grover Cleveland made good on his promise, and signed a law making Labor Day an officially recognized US holiday.
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Navy Firecrackers Jump Rope Routine Part 1
http://www.evtv1.com/player.aspx?itemnum=15151
The Kings Firecrackers are a performance jump rope team made up of talented 4th-8th graders from the Kings Local School District in Ohio. Watch as they perform this brilliant routine.
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"A new study found that vegetarian cavemen died earlier than cavemen who ate meat. Not from starvation: they were just murdered after they kept talking about why they became vegetarians." -Jimmy Fallon
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Click link to see the transformation....
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LOVE AT 1st SIGHT - what occurs when two extremely horny, but not entirely choosy people meet.
DATING - the process of spending enormous amounts of money, time, and energy to get better acquainted with a person whom you don't especially like in the present and will learn to like a lot less in the future.
BIRTH CONTROL - avoiding pregnancy through such tactics as swallowing special pills, inserting a diaphragm, using a condom, and dating repulsive men or spending time around children.
EASY - a term used to describe a woman who has the sexual morals of a man.
PRIG - a term used to describe a woman who wants to stay virgin until married.
EYE CONTACT - a method utilized by a single woman to communicate to a man that she is interested in him. Despite being advised to do so, many woman have difficulty looking a man directly in the eyes, not necessarily due to the shyness, but usually due to the fact that a woman's eyes are not located in her chest.
FRIEND - a member of the opposite sex in your acquaintance who has some flaw which makes sleeping with him/her totally unappealing.
INDIFFERENCE - a woman's feeling towards a man, which is interpreted by the man as "playing hard to get."
INTERESTING - a word a man uses to describe a woman who lets him do all the talking.
IRRITATING HABIT - what the endearing little qualities that initially attract two people to each other turn into after a few months together.
LAW OF RELATIVITY - how attractive a given person appears to be is directly proportional to how unattractive your date is.
NYMPHOMANIAC - a man's term for a woman who wants to have sex more often than he does.
FRIGID - a man's term for a woman who wants to have sex less often than he does, or who requires more foreplay than lifting her nightgown.
SOBER - condition in which it is almost impossible to fall in love.
NAG - a man's term for a woman who wants more from her life with him than just intercourse.
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KRUBERA CAVE
The deepest known cave on Earth is currently the Krubera Cave, (sometimes known as the Voronya Cave.) The cave is located in the Arabika Massif of the Gagrinsky Range in the country of Georgia. Kubera cave acquired the title of ‘deepest cave’ in 2001 when Ukrainian explorers were able to reach a depth of 1710 meters. The main branch reaches a depth of roughly 2191 meters. There is a
second branch that could possibly reach deeper than this; however a subterranean waterfall 1500 meters down floods this branch system with freezing water.
The Arabika Massif is one of the more outstanding limestone massifs in the world. With karst topography, the potential for deep cave structures and groundwater circulation is great. Krubera Cave is located at 2256 meters above sea level in the mountainous region. So while the cave is nowhere close to being a ‘deepest’ point on the planet, (its lowest known point technically not even below sea level), it is still the deepest point underground that has been explored.
Throughout the past 10 years, the exploration of Krubera Cave has increased greatly. In 2004 the “Call of the Abyss” project pushed to the ‘Game Over’ point at 2080 meters below the surface. This was the first time humans had reached a point below the 2000 meter line. The depth of the cave was then extended further past the Kvitochka point discovering a new branch in July 2005. This branch was further explored until 2007 when a dive down ‘Blue Lake’ measured it at 2191 meters.
Multiple new endemic fauna has been discovered within the cave, including spiders, scorpions, beetles, as well as shrimps and amphipods. Some of these species have been seen at all levels of the cave.
The Arabika Massif is one of the more outstanding limestone massifs in the world. With karst topography, the potential for deep cave structures and groundwater circulation is great. Krubera Cave is located at 2256 meters above sea level in the mountainous region. So while the cave is nowhere close to being a ‘deepest’ point on the planet, (its lowest known point technically not even below sea level), it is still the deepest point underground that has been explored.
Throughout the past 10 years, the exploration of Krubera Cave has increased greatly. In 2004 the “Call of the Abyss” project pushed to the ‘Game Over’ point at 2080 meters below the surface. This was the first time humans had reached a point below the 2000 meter line. The depth of the cave was then extended further past the Kvitochka point discovering a new branch in July 2005. This branch was further explored until 2007 when a dive down ‘Blue Lake’ measured it at 2191 meters.
Multiple new endemic fauna has been discovered within the cave, including spiders, scorpions, beetles, as well as shrimps and amphipods. Some of these species have been seen at all levels of the cave.
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I don't understand the purpose of the line, "I don't need to drink to have fun." Great, no one does. But why start a fire with flint and sticks when they've invented the lighter?
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The wife and I were sitting around the breakfast table one lazy Sunday morning.
I said to her, "If I were to die suddenly, I want you to immediately sell all my stuff."
"Now why would you want me to do something like that?" she asked.
"I figure that you would eventually remarry and I don't want some other asshole using my stuff."
She looked at me and said: "What makes you think I'd marry another asshole?"
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I said to her, "If I were to die suddenly, I want you to immediately sell all my stuff."
"Now why would you want me to do something like that?" she asked.
"I figure that you would eventually remarry and I don't want some other asshole using my stuff."
She looked at me and said: "What makes you think I'd marry another asshole?"
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It's All-American Breakfast Month!
Check out this roundup of yum-azing guilt-free breakfast recipes.
B-fast in a Hurry!
Slammin' Smoked Salmon 'n Bacon B-fast Sandwich - one wonderful muffin 'wich.
Chili Dog Egg Mug; Greens, Eggs, and Ham Mug; and Jamarama Egg Mug - Egg mugs RULE!
BLT B-fast Burrito - If you've got five minutes, you've got a hot 'n cheesy bacon-packed egg wrap!
Breakfast Waffle- Three ways to gussy up ordinary toaster waffles.
Egg Mug, California Love Mug, and It's All Greek to Me Egg Mug - Three of our very best egg-mug recipes.
Breakfast Fiesta Crunchy Tacos - Crunchy taco shells filled with b-fast goodies
Double-0-Cinnamon Apple Breakfast Bowl - Apples and cinnamon
Slammin' Smoked Salmon 'n Bacon B-fast Sandwich - one wonderful muffin 'wich.
Chili Dog Egg Mug; Greens, Eggs, and Ham Mug; and Jamarama Egg Mug - Egg mugs RULE!
BLT B-fast Burrito - If you've got five minutes, you've got a hot 'n cheesy bacon-packed egg wrap!
Breakfast Waffle- Three ways to gussy up ordinary toaster waffles.
Egg Mug, California Love Mug, and It's All Greek to Me Egg Mug - Three of our very best egg-mug recipes.
Breakfast Fiesta Crunchy Tacos - Crunchy taco shells filled with b-fast goodies
Double-0-Cinnamon Apple Breakfast Bowl - Apples and cinnamon
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Make-Ahead Morning Meals!
Grab 'n Go Cookies - Fruity, oaty, and fabulous! These fiber-packed softies will get your morning started right...
Fluffy-Good Zucchini Nut Muffins - Our moist and yummy muffins are perfectly guilt-free!
Nicely Iced Pumpkin-Bread Muffins - these spiced sweets are especially nice
Big Fat Blueberry Muffins - taste these bursting-with-berries baked treats
Grab 'n Go Cookies - Fruity, oaty, and fabulous! These fiber-packed softies will get your morning started right...
Fluffy-Good Zucchini Nut Muffins - Our moist and yummy muffins are perfectly guilt-free!
Nicely Iced Pumpkin-Bread Muffins - these spiced sweets are especially nice
Big Fat Blueberry Muffins - taste these bursting-with-berries baked treats
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Great Bowls of Oatmeal...
Piña Colada Oatmeal,Caramel Cocoa Oatmeal Bowl - Two breakfast bowls
Our original, classic, oversized oatmeal. and then add your favorite toppings!
Cinn-a-nilla Apple Oatmeal Parfait - Never had chilled oatmeal?
Piña Colada Oatmeal,Caramel Cocoa Oatmeal Bowl - Two breakfast bowls
Our original, classic, oversized oatmeal. and then add your favorite toppings!
Cinn-a-nilla Apple Oatmeal Parfait - Never had chilled oatmeal?
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Griddle Me This... French Toast and Pancakes!
Cannoli-Stuffed French Toast Nuggets - Make it now!
Crazy-Good Carrot-Cake Pancakes - dessert-y and delicious, it's also loaded with fiber!
Overstuffed Peanut Butter 'n Banana French Toast - We love this dish!
Two classic and craveable pancake picks
Cannoli-Stuffed French Toast Nuggets - Make it now!
Crazy-Good Carrot-Cake Pancakes - dessert-y and delicious, it's also loaded with fiber!
Overstuffed Peanut Butter 'n Banana French Toast - We love this dish!
Two classic and craveable pancake picks
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Breakfast for Four...
3-Cheese Bacon-Apple-Bella Frittata - Apples 'n eggs? It TOTALLY works!
El Ginormo Southwest Oven-Baked Omelette -huge, fluffy egg dish to feed the family...
The Big Apple French Toast Casserole - This recipe isn't made in a skillet
Big Southern-Style B-fast Trifle - serious comfort food in the morning this trifle...
3-Cheese Bacon-Apple-Bella Frittata - Apples 'n eggs? It TOTALLY works!
El Ginormo Southwest Oven-Baked Omelette -huge, fluffy egg dish to feed the family...
The Big Apple French Toast Casserole - This recipe isn't made in a skillet
Big Southern-Style B-fast Trifle - serious comfort food in the morning this trifle...
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Theft Leads to Potato Spill
A thief hijacked a truck carrying 13 tons of potatoes at a farm in Essleben, Germany. However, he neglected to make sure the back door was closed securely before he took off.
A thief hijacked a truck carrying 13 tons of potatoes at a farm in Essleben, Germany. However, he neglected to make sure the back door was closed securely before he took off."He was pretty easy to follow because he left this huge trail of potatoes behind him," explained one farm hand.
The hapless crook eventually fled empty handed when the trailer overturned, bursting one of the tractor's rear tyres causing it to crash into an electricity pylon.
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A woman was in court charged with the attempted murder of her husband.
"But why did you stab him over a hundred times?" asked the judge.
"Oh, your Honor," replied the defendant, "It wasn't my fault. didn't know how to switch off the electric carving knife!"
"But why did you stab him over a hundred times?" asked the judge.
"Oh, your Honor," replied the defendant, "It wasn't my fault. didn't know how to switch off the electric carving knife!"
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K-Pop superstar PSY, and he teaches how to do the horse riding dance from his hit song “Gangnam Style.”
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RANDOM TIDBITS
Most Americans consider Labor Day a uniquely American experience, but in all reality, Labor Day has its origins in Canada. Stemming from 1870's labor disputes in Toronto, in 1872 a parade was held in support of a strike against the 58 hour workweek. As a result, 24 union leaders who were responsible for organizing the event were arrested under anti-union laws.
The first Labor Day celebration in the United States can be traced to New York City's Union Square on Sept. 5, 1882. It was designed as a way to appease city workers after numerous strikes and in some cases even violence.
Oregon was the first state to make it a holiday in 1887. By the time it became a federal holiday in 1894, thirty states officially celebrated Labor Day.
President Eisenhower designated May 1 as both Law Day and Loyalty Day. Each of these were specifically aimed at replacing the communist holiday with a religious or patriotic one. In many countries, May Day is also Labor Day.
More than 10,000 workers marched in the first Labor Day parade, protesting 16 hour workdays and were fighting to have an eight-hour workday.
Making Labor Day an official national holiday as part of his political campaign, in 1894, President Grover Cleveland made good on his promise, and signed a law making Labor Day an officially recognized US holiday.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Navy Firecrackers Jump Rope Routine Part 1
http://www.evtv1.com/player.aspx?itemnum=15151
The Kings Firecrackers are a performance jump rope team made up of talented 4th-8th graders from the Kings Local School District in Ohio. Watch as they perform this brilliant routine.
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It was a brilliant scheme: send in someone to shoplift goods, then come in as an undercover cop to arrest him, then make off with the goods free and clear. It worked in Hollywood movies all the time ... But things went awry with this "fake arrest" scheme at a Florida (where else?) Walmart:The young perps--who hatched the “fake arrest” plot as a cover for swiping four decks of trading cards--were arrested after a suspicious store manager, Laura Dougherty, followed them from the Port St. Lucie retailer and watched as Brandon Rhoads, 17, unlocked a set of toy handcuffs from the wrists of his 14-year-old cohort.According to a police report, the bizarre incident occurred Monday at around 3 AM. Rhoads entered the Walmart with a “gun in a holster on his hip” and “quickly opened and closed his wallet, showing the 52-year-old Dougherty a badge,” noted investigators.The teen then approached his friend and “placed handcuffs on him” before walking him out of the store (with the Yu-Gi-Oh! cards). When the duo realized that Dougherty was following them, they fled on foot Link
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During the California Gold Rush in the mid 1800s, businesses like boardinghouses, saloons, clothing companies and laundry sprang up to serve the gold-seekers.
Today, there's another gold rush of sorts. This time it's in North Dakota and instead of gold, it's oil. And with that, come a new breed of smart entrepreneurs:
It took little more than a day for 18-year-old Evan Jensen to smell opportunity in North Dakota's booming oil patch. The recent high school graduate got a whiff of himself and his 21-year-old brother, Justin. The two had been sleeping in a pickup while looking for work in the oil fields of western North Dakota. "We smelled," he said. "Bad." Thousands of workers have descended on the region to seek their fortune in the oil fields, and housing construction and growth of brick-and-mortar businesses haven't kept up. The closest shower to Jensen was at a truck stop some 60 miles away. It was expensive, filthy and the wait was several hours long. That's when the idea for a mobile shower hit him harder than the reek of his own B.O. "There are a lot of necessities that aren't available out here," Jensen said. "Like a place to take a shower and brush your teeth."
Check out Jensen's Mobile Shower business over at SF Gate: Link
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When our friends Juergen and Mike of For 91 Days were hiking in the Payette National Forest, Idaho, they ran across this wreckage of a B-23 Bomber and told us this fascinating story:
In February of 1943, a B-23 Bomber got lost in the snowy mountain wilderness of Idaho. Short of fuel, the crew realized that they’d have to land soon, and searched desperately for a place to touch down. In the nick of time, the mountains opened up and they spotted Loon Lake: frozen over and just big enough to attempt a landing. The plane skidded across the ice and crashed into the trees on the lake’s southern shore.
Everyone survived the rough landing, but they weren’t home free quite yet. The eight man crew was still lost in the wild back-country of Idaho, with no way to communicate their location, or any idea as to where they were. For fifteen days in harsh winter weather, they held on. Three of the team were sent out to explore and hopefully find help, but it was a commercial pilot who eventually discovered the wreckage by chance. He landed his little plane three times in the tricky conditions to rescue the crew. All eight men survived.
The wreckage from the Chinook Bomber is still in the woods. After 69 years, it’s more intact than I would have believed. We walked around the bomber, and poked our heads into the wheel well and cockpit. Amazing. I suppose it’s too remote to effect a clean-up, and anyway it serves as a remarkable memorial to humanity’s will to survive Link- More about the B-23 "Dragon Bomber" crash: Link
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Q: How do blonde braincells die?
A: Alone.
Q: Why should blondes not be given coffee breaks?
A: It takes too long to retrain them.
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"Google Plus has introduced a new policy that allows nick-names. Unfortunately, it's a nickname they give you based on your search history." -Conan O'Brien
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Q and A Quickies
Q: How do blonde braincells die?
A: Alone.
Q: Why should blondes not be given coffee breaks?
A: It takes too long to retrain them.
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Random Facts:
Peter McGuire is considered the Father of the Labor Day holiday. An Irish-American cabinet maker and pioneer unionist proposed a day dedicated to all who labor at a meeting of the Central Labor Union on May 18,1882 where he stated, "Let us have, a festive day during which a parade through the streets of the city would permit public tribute to American Industry." He is described as a red-headed, fiery, eloquent leader of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners.
There are an estimated 15.8 million labor union members nationwide. About 13 percent of wage and salary workers belong to unions, with New York having among the highest rates of any state: 25 percent. North Carolina has one of the lowest rates, 3 percent.
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Peter McGuire is considered the Father of the Labor Day holiday. An Irish-American cabinet maker and pioneer unionist proposed a day dedicated to all who labor at a meeting of the Central Labor Union on May 18,1882 where he stated, "Let us have, a festive day during which a parade through the streets of the city would permit public tribute to American Industry." He is described as a red-headed, fiery, eloquent leader of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners.
There are an estimated 15.8 million labor union members nationwide. About 13 percent of wage and salary workers belong to unions, with New York having among the highest rates of any state: 25 percent. North Carolina has one of the lowest rates, 3 percent.
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"Google Plus has introduced a new policy that allows nick-names. Unfortunately, it's a nickname they give you based on your search history." -Conan O'Brien
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"A new study found that vegetarian cavemen died earlier than cavemen who ate meat. Not from starvation: they were just murdered after they kept talking about why they became vegetarians." -Jimmy Fallon
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"A recent article says yoga-related injuries are on the rise. It's not surprising that yoga fans are upset with this article. After all, it's easy for them to get bent out of shape." -Craig Ferguson
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Can objects have preferences?
The rattleback is a top that seems to prefer spinning in a certain direction — when spun clockwise, this one arrests its motion, shakes itself peevishly, and then sweeps grandly counterclockwise as if forgiving an insult.
There’s no trick here — the reversal arises due to a coupling of instabilities in the top’s other axes of rotation — but prehistoric peoples have attributed it to magic. See Right Side Up.
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English professors love to catch the errors students make in their term papers, and they love nothing better than to catch mixed metaphors. The "friends and survivors" of Calvin College English department collected this list of mixed metaphors and posted them on their web site:
"He swept the rug under the carpet."
"She's burning the midnight oil at both ends."
"It was so cold last night I had to throw another blanket on the fire."
"It's time to step up to the plate and cut the mustard."
"She's robbing Peter to pay the piper."
"He's up a tree without a paddle."
"Beware my friend...you are skating on hot water."
"Keep your ear to the grindstone."
"Sometimes you've gotta stick your neck out on a limb."
"Some people sail through life on a bed of roses like a knife slicing through butter."
"He swept the rug under the carpet."
"She's burning the midnight oil at both ends."
"It was so cold last night I had to throw another blanket on the fire."
"It's time to step up to the plate and cut the mustard."
"She's robbing Peter to pay the piper."
"He's up a tree without a paddle."
"Beware my friend...you are skating on hot water."
"Keep your ear to the grindstone."
"Sometimes you've gotta stick your neck out on a limb."
"Some people sail through life on a bed of roses like a knife slicing through butter."
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A grasshopper hops into a bar and jumps up on a barstool.
The bartender looks at him and starts laughing and says, "Hey! We got a drink named after you!"
The grasshopper gives the bartender a dirty look and says, "You got a drink named Hank?"
The bartender looks at him and starts laughing and says, "Hey! We got a drink named after you!"
The grasshopper gives the bartender a dirty look and says, "You got a drink named Hank?"
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Hair Catastrophe
This baby dog was found on the street in very bad state. Veterinarians had to spend considerable time and energy in order to get out all of the matted hairballs from the little guy.
Click link to see the transformation....
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Out on the playa of Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, more than 50,000 participants gathered last week to form Black Rock City, a temporary city that became the home of the 26th annual Burning Man Festival. Every year, participants from around the world descend on the playa — performers, artists, free spirits, and more — to form a self-reliant community, to dance, to express themselves and take in the spectacle of the festival. Reuters photographer Jim Urquhart spent the week on the playa, and returned with these photographs, taking us along on a virtual visit to Burning Man 2012.
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REJMYRE, Sweden - An American artist working in Sweden says he plans on collecting the sweat of Swedish glass-blowers and selling it to tourists as perfume. Daniel Peltz, a conceptual artist from New York who is currently in residence at the Rejmyre Art LAB in eastern Sweden, said he hopes tourists who buy Swedish glass will also spend some of their money on his perfume, The Local.se reported Sunday. "The glass-blower's sweat and work is something that tourists appreciate when they come here and look. So for me there isn't such a huge difference in selling the glass-blower's sweat and the finished glass," Peltz told the local Norrkopings Tidning daily newspaper. Peltz is working with glass-blowers, who said they were happy to help out with the project. "Very different. We normally strive after perfection, now it was about the process," said Elin Jonsson at Rejmyre glass works to the newspaper.
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Freedom is absolutely necessary for the progress in science and the liberal arts.--Spinoza
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They can because they think they can.--Virgil
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RETROCRUSH
Have you been looking for a way to get back in touch with your retro roots? Visit Retrocrush.com and check out hundreds of articles and interview that will bring back all of those memories of the movies, music, comics, cartoons, toys, clothes and TV shows that you grew up with.
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I found your second grade class photo……Is that you in the back row?
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"A new study has found that men and women see colors differently. Women can perceive more than 50 shades of gray, whereas men see a poorly written book." -Jimmy Kimmel
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QUOTE: "There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect."
HINT: (1874-1936), English writer who published works on philosophy, ontology, poetry, plays, journalism, public lectures and debates, literary and art criticism, biography, Christian apologetics, and fiction, including fantasy and detective fiction.
ANSWER: Gilbert Keith Chesterton.
HINT: (1874-1936), English writer who published works on philosophy, ontology, poetry, plays, journalism, public lectures and debates, literary and art criticism, biography, Christian apologetics, and fiction, including fantasy and detective fiction.
ANSWER: Gilbert Keith Chesterton.
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Fanny Kemble meets an early steam locomotive on the Liverpool-Manchester railway, Aug. 25, 1830:
We were introduced to the little engine which was to drag us along the rails. She (for they make these curious little fire horses all mares) consisted of a boiler, a stove, a platform, a bench, and behind the bench a barrel containing enough water to prevent her being thirsty for fifteen miles, the whole machine not bigger than a common fire engine. She goes upon two wheels, which are her feet, and are moved by bright steel legs called pistons; these are propelled by steam, and in proportion as more steam is applied to the upper extremities (the hip-joints, I suppose) of these pistons, the faster they move the wheels; and when it is desirable to diminish the speed, the steam, which unless suffered to escape would burst the boiler, evaporates through a safety valve into the air. The reins, bit, and bridle of this wonderful beast, is a small steel handle, which applies or withdraws the steam from its legs or pistons, so that a child might manage it. The coals, which are its oats, were under the bench, and there was a small glass tube affixed to the boiler, with water in it, which indicates by its fullness or emptiness when the creature wants water, which is immediately conveyed to it from its reservoirs. There is a chimney to the stove, but as they burn coke there is none of the dreadful black smoke which accompanies the progress of a steam vessel. This snorting little animal, which I felt rather inclined to pat, was then harnessed to our carriage, and Mr. Stephenson having taken me on the bench of the engine with him, we started at about ten miles an hour.
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Heading down the interstate, our car passed through a huge swarm of gnats so dense that their bodies made popping noises as they hit the windshield. "I can't get over how loud they are," my wife said.
"Well, we are hitting them at 65 miles an hour," I pointed out.
Her reply left me speechless. "There's no way bugs can fly that fast!"
"Well, we are hitting them at 65 miles an hour," I pointed out.
Her reply left me speechless. "There's no way bugs can fly that fast!"
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This bizarre little creature is a Phronima, a group of animals found throughout the worlds oceans (except polar regions). Phronima has six species, and like many marine animals they are transparent.
Females attack salps (a type of plankton), devour the animal and hollow out its shell. She then enters it and lays her eggs inside. After she's deposited her eggs, she propels her cargo through the water as the offspring develop, providing them with food.
However, that's not the really cool part (in my opinion anyway). Have you figured out what they look like yet? It's a Xenomorph Queen!
Image taken on the scientific Tara Expedition.
Females attack salps (a type of plankton), devour the animal and hollow out its shell. She then enters it and lays her eggs inside. After she's deposited her eggs, she propels her cargo through the water as the offspring develop, providing them with food.
However, that's not the really cool part (in my opinion anyway). Have you figured out what they look like yet? It's a Xenomorph Queen!
Image taken on the scientific Tara Expedition.
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RANDOM TIDBITS
The first Avon Lady was no lady at all. It was David McConnell, a book salesman who gave small bottles of perfume to housewives who would allow him inside their homes to listen to his pitch. He soon realized that there was a market for door-to-door cosmetic sales, particularly in rural areas.
On February 26, 1996, Elizabeth Taylor appeared on four different CBS sitcoms as a promotion for her then-new perfume, Black Pearls: Can't Hurry Love, High Society, Murphy Brown, and The Nanny.
The first fragrance marketed exclusively for males was Estee Lauder's Aramis, which was launched in 1964.
In the seventeenth century, most gentlemen kept perfume in the heads of their walking sticks. A quick whiff would ward off the nasty street smells of that era.
Charisma Carpenter, who found fame first as a cheerleader for the San Diego Chargers and then on TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, was named after an Avon perfume (much to her alleged dismay).
In 1979, Shelley Hack was tapped to replace Kate Jackson on Charlie's Angels based solely on her high profile as the spokes-model for Revlon's Charlie perfume.
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I Believe I Can Fly
When I was young I dreamed of being a test pilot. Flying higher, faster, farther. Risking my life for the science of aviation. But when I grew up I found out I wasn't qualified because of my poor eyesight.
Now I work in a post office which gives me many of the same thrills. I'm always pushing the envelope!
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The first Avon Lady was no lady at all. It was David McConnell, a book salesman who gave small bottles of perfume to housewives who would allow him inside their homes to listen to his pitch. He soon realized that there was a market for door-to-door cosmetic sales, particularly in rural areas.
On February 26, 1996, Elizabeth Taylor appeared on four different CBS sitcoms as a promotion for her then-new perfume, Black Pearls: Can't Hurry Love, High Society, Murphy Brown, and The Nanny.
The first fragrance marketed exclusively for males was Estee Lauder's Aramis, which was launched in 1964.
In the seventeenth century, most gentlemen kept perfume in the heads of their walking sticks. A quick whiff would ward off the nasty street smells of that era.
Charisma Carpenter, who found fame first as a cheerleader for the San Diego Chargers and then on TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, was named after an Avon perfume (much to her alleged dismay).
In 1979, Shelley Hack was tapped to replace Kate Jackson on Charlie's Angels based solely on her high profile as the spokes-model for Revlon's Charlie perfume.
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I Believe I Can Fly
When I was young I dreamed of being a test pilot. Flying higher, faster, farther. Risking my life for the science of aviation. But when I grew up I found out I wasn't qualified because of my poor eyesight.
Now I work in a post office which gives me many of the same thrills. I'm always pushing the envelope!
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Getting old sucks
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Thanks, Mike
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One day a truckload of fertilizer went by this farm where a young boy lived.
The boy stopped the truck and asked the driver, "What are you going to use this fertilizer for?"
The man said, "For my strawberries."
The boy replied, "Well, at my place we put sugar and cream on our strawberries."
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Science magazine came out with a report on the difference between men and women's brains.
Apparently women are more controlled by a part of the brain called singletgyrus.
Men are more controlled by a part of the brain known as the penis.
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The boy stopped the truck and asked the driver, "What are you going to use this fertilizer for?"
The man said, "For my strawberries."
The boy replied, "Well, at my place we put sugar and cream on our strawberries."
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Q and A Quickies
Q: How can you tell if a tree is a dogwood tree?
A: By its bark.
Q: What did the blonde name her pet zebra?
A: Spot.
Q: How can you tell if a tree is a dogwood tree?
A: By its bark.
Q: What did the blonde name her pet zebra?
A: Spot.
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Science magazine came out with a report on the difference between men and women's brains.
Apparently women are more controlled by a part of the brain called singletgyrus.
Men are more controlled by a part of the brain known as the penis.
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If you wife or girlfriend ever asks, 'If I was to arrange a threesome for your birthday, which of my friends would you pick to join in?'
Never give two names.
Never give two names.
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An inmates letter to Sandusky...
Dear Coach Sandusky,
I've heard a lot about you and I can't wait 'til you're my new cellmate and we can shower together.
I've attached my picture. Hope you're as excited as I am.
Love and XOXO
Leroy Johnson
#876953
I've heard a lot about you and I can't wait 'til you're my new cellmate and we can shower together.
I've attached my picture. Hope you're as excited as I am.
Love and XOXO
Leroy Johnson
#876953
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Did you know you can buy Uranium Ore on Amazon?
Check out the link, and be sure to read the hilarious reviews. These are some of my favourites.
"As a busy mad scientist with many voices distracting me on a nearly constant basis, it is helpful to find such a wonderful product that I can use on on a daily basis. Whether as fuel for my robot army (coming soon to a neighborhood near you) or as a catalyst for mutation or just as a healthy snack, this product continues to amaze. My wife/captive swears by it and uses a pinch in her morning coffee. She is literally glowing from the inside out because this product. Highly recommended!"
"Not only did this product whiten my teeth it made my coffe glow!! It also made me grow a 3rd breast now I make tons of money as a stripper thank you amazon your the best!!!!!!!!"
"I buy for project, we make great reactor! Suddenly reactor turns too hot, big explosion! Now city is destroyed and horror movie is made about place... Worst of all we make Sweden angry! They say we give them radioactive animals! Is lie, we only contaminate little bit of Russia! I put picture of result in customer images. Not happy with this."
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"Not only did this product whiten my teeth it made my coffe glow!! It also made me grow a 3rd breast now I make tons of money as a stripper thank you amazon your the best!!!!!!!!"
"I buy for project, we make great reactor! Suddenly reactor turns too hot, big explosion! Now city is destroyed and horror movie is made about place... Worst of all we make Sweden angry! They say we give them radioactive animals! Is lie, we only contaminate little bit of Russia! I put picture of result in customer images. Not happy with this."
The world’s smallest country is smaller than the world’s largest buildings.
Vatican City occupies 44 hectares, or about 4,736,120 square feet.
The Pentagon, by comparison, has a total floor area of 6,636,360 square feet.
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“One likes people much better when they’re battered down by a prodigious siege of misfortune than when they triumph.” — Virginia Woolf (diary, Aug. 13, 1921)
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The inability to predict outliers implies the inability to predict the course of history.
--Nassim Taleb, Author and Essayist
--Nassim Taleb, Author and Essayist
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It has been more profitable for us to bind together in the wrong direction than to be alone in the right one.
--Nassim Taleb, Author and Essayist
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--Nassim Taleb, Author and Essayist
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Things always become obvious after the fact. --Nassim Taleb, Author and Essayist
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When you develop your opinions on the basis of weak evidence, you will have difficulty interpreting subsequent information that contradicts these opinions, even if this new information is obviously more accurate.
--Nassim Taleb, Author and Essayist
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As World War II engulfed Europe, the Allies learned of German atrocities at the Auschwitz concentration camp from a remarkable source: A Polish army captain named Witold Pilecki had volunteered to enter the camp in 1940 in order to gather intelligence and to organize its prisoners.
Using a false identity card, Pilecki let himself be captured during a Warsaw roundup and became inmate 4859 at Auschwitz. Over the next two years, as he witnessed the horrors unfolding there, Pilecki prepared the camp’s inmates for an uprising, distributed extra food, and even built a secret radio transmitter to communicate his findings, urging his superiors to attack and liberate the camp. His reports, which made their way to London, at first provoked disbelief:
“Sometimes a group of civilians who had been tortured and interrogated in the cellars and who had now been handed over to [SS officer Gerhard] Palitzsch for some fun would be led out. Palitzsch would order the girls to undress and run in a circle around the enclosed yard. Standing in the middle of the yard he would take his time picking a victim, then he would aim, shoot and kill them all one by one. None of them knew who would die next, or who would live for a few more moments, or who might be taken back for further interrogation. He — improved his aim.”
Another SS man, named Klehr, would kill prisoners with an injection of phenol directly into the heart. “One day, after taking care of everyone in the queue for an injection, he entered as usual the toilet where the dying häftlings were dumped to admire his handiwork for the day, when one of the ‘corpses’ came to life (there must have been an error and he had received too little phenol), stood up and started to stagger over the other corpses like a drunk towards Klehr saying: ‘Du hast mir zu wenig gegeben, gib mir noch etwas!’ ['You didn't give me enough, let me have a little more!'] Klehr went white, but not panicking, rushed at him — the executioner’s apparently cultured mask slipping — pulled out his pistol and without shooting, not wishing to make a noise, he finished off his victim by hitting him over the head with the butt.”
“What can humankind say now — that very humankind which wants to demonstrate cultural and personal progress and rank the 20th century much higher than centuries past?” Pilecki wrote. “Can we from the 20th century look our ancestors in the eye and … laughably … prove that we have attained a higher cultural plane?”
The hoped-for attack never came, and Pilecki finally escaped the camp in 1943, after 945 days. He went on to participate in the Warsaw Uprising, but in 1947 he was arrested by the Stalinist secret police, accused of spying, and executed. His final resting place is unknown. Poland’s communist regime suppressed his story until 1989, and his Auschwitz report was not published until 2000. But today he is regarded as a heroic figure in Poland — in 2006 he received the Order of the White Eagle, his country’s highest decoration.
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Just a talking sea otter named Nellie.
Emirates Airlines A380: First class from Bangkok to Hong Kong.
Mother Duck vs. Hyena.
Mimosa pudica: A very sensitive plant.Why you don't perform magic to small children.
New Zealand soldiers send off fallen comrades awesomely.
Colossal iceberg is born.
Some seriously loud thunder at a Texas Rangers game.
Hamsters playing in a pet shop.
Lucky guy avoids a bizarre accident.
How one man's work defines him.
Crazy high jump skateboarding.
Just two guys playing the hang drums.
Emirates Airlines A380: First class from Bangkok to Hong Kong.
Mother Duck vs. Hyena.
Mimosa pudica: A very sensitive plant.Why you don't perform magic to small children.
New Zealand soldiers send off fallen comrades awesomely.
Colossal iceberg is born.
Some seriously loud thunder at a Texas Rangers game.
Hamsters playing in a pet shop.
Lucky guy avoids a bizarre accident.
How one man's work defines him.
Crazy high jump skateboarding.
Just two guys playing the hang drums.
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Ants, like many animals on the Gulf Coast of the USA, have had their ability to survive severely tested in the wake of Hurricane Isaac. In this picture they’re displaying their fascinating team work skills by creating a living life boat on top of the flood waters in Florida. Worker ants make up the bulk of the raft, helping to keep it afloat while continuing to care for the larvae of the colony. The queen ant is safely sheltered in the centre of thebundle, while soldier ants scurry across the top on lookout for potentialdangers such as predators.
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CRACKED
According to Cracked.com they're... "A funny website filled with funny videos, pics, articles, and a whole bunch of other funny stuff." Hey, they're right! Trust me, if it's funny, it's on Cracked.com.
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"Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment."
- Rita Mae Brown
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- Rita Mae Brown
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"Illusion is the first of all pleasures." - Oscar Wilde
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"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy and Jill a rich widow." - Evan Esar
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via
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"A company announced they are now selling waffle-flavored vodka. Who is this for, the drunks that still think breakfast is the most important meal of the day?" -Jay Leno
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After I applied for jobs at both a library and a shoe store, my husband said he hoped that I'd get the one at the store. "It would be nice to have employee discounts on shoes," he explained.
Then, without thinking, he added, "Of course, if you get the job at the library, we'll get free books."
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Trying to do my share for the environment, I set up a recycling basket at my church and posted above it this suggestion: "Empty water bottles here."
I should have been a little more specific, because when I went to check it later, I didn't find any bottles in it. But it was full of water.
Then, without thinking, he added, "Of course, if you get the job at the library, we'll get free books."
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Trying to do my share for the environment, I set up a recycling basket at my church and posted above it this suggestion: "Empty water bottles here."
I should have been a little more specific, because when I went to check it later, I didn't find any bottles in it. But it was full of water.
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Somethin’ Ain’t Right…
… with one of those chicks!
… with one of those chicks!
via
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"MTV has announced this will be the last season of 'Jersey Shore.' So I guess we'll never know if they learn to walk upright." -Conan O'Brien
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"A new study found that about one percent of the U.S. population is allergic to gluten, while the other 99 percent are sick of having to hear about it." -Jimmy Fallon
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It is not once nor twice but times without number that the same ideas make their appearance in the world.
--Aristotle
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I pray Thee, O God, that I may be beautiful within. --Socrates
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Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. --Plato
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Zionist colonization, even the most restricted, must either be terminated or carried out in defiance of the will of the native population. This colonization can, therefore, continue and develop only under the protection of a force independent of the local population - an iron wall which the native population cannot break through. This is, in toto, our policy towards the Arabs. To formulate it any other way would only be hypocrisy. ~ Ze'ev Jabotinsky, ideological mentor to Netanyahu
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Probability is not a mere computation of odds on the dice or more complicated variants; it is the acceptance of the lack of certainty in our knowledge and the development of methods for dealing with our ignorance.
--Nassim Taleb, Author and Essayist
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--Nassim Taleb, Author and Essayist
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The aim of a college education is to teach you to know a good man when you see one. ~ William James
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Did you know who in 1923 was:
1.President of the largest steel company?
2.President of the largest gas company?
3.President of the New York Stock Exchange?
4.Greatest wheat speculator?
5.President of the Bank of International Settlement?
6.Great Bear of Wall Street?
These men should have been considered some of the world's
most successful men. At least they found the secret of making
money. Now more than 55 years later, do you know what has
become of these men?
1.The President of the largest steel company, Charles Schwab
died a pauper.
2.The President of the largest gas company, Edward Hopson, is insane.
3.The President of the N.Y.S.E., Richard Whitney, was released
from prison to die at home.
4.The greatest wheat speculator, Arthur Cooger, died abroad, penniless.
5.The President of the Bank of International Settlement shot himself.
6.The Great Bear of Wall Street, Cosabee Rivermore, died of suicide.
The same year, 1923, the winner of the most important golf championship,
Gene Sarazan, won the U.S. Open and PGA Tournaments. Today he is still
playing golf and is solvent.
Conclusion: Stop worrying about business and start playing golf
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1.President of the largest steel company?
2.President of the largest gas company?
3.President of the New York Stock Exchange?
4.Greatest wheat speculator?
5.President of the Bank of International Settlement?
6.Great Bear of Wall Street?
These men should have been considered some of the world's
most successful men. At least they found the secret of making
money. Now more than 55 years later, do you know what has
become of these men?
1.The President of the largest steel company, Charles Schwab
died a pauper.
2.The President of the largest gas company, Edward Hopson, is insane.
3.The President of the N.Y.S.E., Richard Whitney, was released
from prison to die at home.
4.The greatest wheat speculator, Arthur Cooger, died abroad, penniless.
5.The President of the Bank of International Settlement shot himself.
6.The Great Bear of Wall Street, Cosabee Rivermore, died of suicide.
The same year, 1923, the winner of the most important golf championship,
Gene Sarazan, won the U.S. Open and PGA Tournaments. Today he is still
playing golf and is solvent.
Conclusion: Stop worrying about business and start playing golf
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68 Things I Learned At The Democratic National Convention
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It was 46 years ago Saturday that "Star Trek" first premiered on NBC. The series ran for just three seasons, to 1969. The interactive doodle reduces the "Star Trek" experience to three key moments. There's the crew assembled on the bridge of the Enterprise, the away team in the ship's transporter room, and the crew on the surface of an alien planet, complete with unpleasent alien creature and an unhappy fate for the red-shirted crewman. Along the way there are little references to fans of the original series, including a locker filled with Tribbles and an appearance by a modified version of the Gorn.
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More about rednecks...
In Fort Lauderdale, Florida, a sixteen-year-old youth was charged with beating up his fifteen-year-old wife after the latter hid the caps to his toy pistol.
In Fort Lauderdale, Florida, a sixteen-year-old youth was charged with beating up his fifteen-year-old wife after the latter hid the caps to his toy pistol.
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Well, aren't we just a ray of stinking sunshine?
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On Clinton: "A man will occasionally step on his dick, but he shouldn't stand on it" --Kris Kristofferson.
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On Clinton: "A man will occasionally step on his dick, but he shouldn't stand on it" --Kris Kristofferson.
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"How tall are you?"
"Six foot seven."
"Let's forget about the six feet and talk about the seven inches."
- Mae West
"Six foot seven."
"Let's forget about the six feet and talk about the seven inches."
- Mae West
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There was a young lady of Dover
Whose passion was such that it drove her
To cry, when you came,
"Oh dear! What a shame!
Well, now we shall have to start over."
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Whose passion was such that it drove her
To cry, when you came,
"Oh dear! What a shame!
Well, now we shall have to start over."
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I was desperate, I was weary
I prayed for holy guidance from above
I thought she came to lead me through the darkness
But then I felt a probing rubber glove...
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I prayed for holy guidance from above
I thought she came to lead me through the darkness
But then I felt a probing rubber glove...
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Why is pubic hair curly?
If it was straight, it would poke your eyes out.
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If it was straight, it would poke your eyes out.
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When the last scene of Titanic faded to black and people began rushing for the exits, one patron shouted: "Quick! There are only enough cars in the parking lot for half of us!"
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Deja Moo: The feeling that you've heard this bullshit before.
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Love is a matter of chemistry, sex is a matter of physics.
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The Bouba-Kiki effect
For those who don't know about this yet, please do this before reading further: You have been given two names- "Bouba" and "Kiki". Now look at the pic with the two figures and name them either as "Bouba" or "Kiki".
Done?
Done?
Most of you will name the jagged figure on the left as "kiki" while the curvy one on the right as "bouba". But why?
In 2001, V. S. Ramachandran and Edward Hubbard repeated Kohler's experiment (which used the words "takete" and "maluma" and similar pictures) using the words "kiki" and "bouba" and asked American college undergraduates and Tamil speakers in India "Which of these shapes is bouba and which is kiki?" In both the English and the Tamil speakers, 95% to 98% selected the curvy shape as "bouba" and the jagged one as "kiki", suggesting that the human brain is somehow able to extract abstract properties from the shapes and sounds.
According to V.S. Ramachandran, this experiment gives us an insight on how our language evolved and also on our ability to think in "abstract" terms. In his recent book 'The tell-tale brain', he proposes his own theory of how language evolved- 'The Synaesthetic Bootstrap Theory' (see source no.2) as he likes to call it, where he begins his research by focusing on people having Synaesthesia, a neurological rarity in which two or more senses are connected. For example music might be "seen" in colours and patterns, taste may be seen in shapes. And he comes to the conclusion that all of us have synaesthesia to some degree; as in this bouba-kiki case the visual and auditory maps in our brains are getting "linked". "Boubaness" or "kikiness" arises between two stimuli that are otherwise utterly dissimilar: an image formed on the retina versus a sound activated in the cochlea of the ear, hence the common denominator is indeed abstract.
This linking or mapping or "cross-modal abstraction" seems to occur in the IPL (Inferior Parietal Lobe, a part of brain that is exaggeratedly developed in humans as compared to other apes, and also, Einstein's brain had a much larger IPL compared to the average human brain size (see source no.4) ).
Notice that this theory is hugely different from the now discredited Onomatopoeic Theory of words, which states that words are made only on the "imitation" of the sound- as in this example there is no sound at all.
He extends this concept further to explain how metaphors work. (see source no. 3).
Source: 1) 'The tell-tale brain', 2010, V.S. Ramachandran
2) http://
2) http://
3) http://
4) http://www.nytimes.com/
Image source: http://
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Green's law of debate:
Anything is possible if you don't know what you're talking about.
Anything is possible if you don't know what you're talking about.
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In the beginning the Universe was created...
This made a lot of people angry and was widely regarded as a bad move.
-- Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
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-- Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
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Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time.
I think I've forgotten this before.
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I think I've forgotten this before.
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"Just because we pay inexperienced strangers to tell us how to do our jobs, that doesn't mean we're morons!"
"Yeah! It's a coincidence."
-- Wally, Dilbert
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ALMOST exactly my type ... but something's not big enough..... his hands
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Tombstone Epitaph
In a London, England cemetery:
Ann Mann
Here lies Ann Mann,
Who lived an old maid
But died an old Mann.
Dec. 8, 1767
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In a London, England cemetery:
Ann Mann
Here lies Ann Mann,
Who lived an old maid
But died an old Mann.
Dec. 8, 1767
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The Stanford Law Review runs the following quote on their masthead:
"For every thousand people hacking at the leaves of evil there is one chopping at the roots." -H.D. Thoreau
On their April Fools issue they ran the following:
"For every person hacking at the leaves of evil there are a thousand smoking the stuff.
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"For every thousand people hacking at the leaves of evil there is one chopping at the roots." -H.D. Thoreau
On their April Fools issue they ran the following:
"For every person hacking at the leaves of evil there are a thousand smoking the stuff.
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Do not grow old, no matter how long you live. Never cease to stand like curious children before the Great Mystery into which we were born.
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Starship Asterisk*
Students and Autodidacts: See video astronomy lectures for free
Explanation: Launched on a grand tour of the outer planets in 1977, by good fortune the twin Voyager spacecraft were also headed in the general direction of the Sun's motion relative to nearby stars. Thirty five years later, Voyager 1 appears to be nearing the boundary of the Sun's heliosphere and interstellar space. Of course the heliosphere is the realm of the Sun defined by the influence of the solar wind and the Sun's magnetic field. But how can you tell when your spacecraft crosses the boundary into interstellar space? One clue would be a sudden increase in the detection of energetic cosmic rays. The high energy particles stream through interstellar space accelerated by distant supernovae in our galaxy, but are normally deflected or slowed by the heliosphere. Covering a 12 month period (September 2011 to 2012), this plot does show a dramatic increase in the rate of cosmic ray particle detection in past months by the Voyager 1 spacecraft.
Voyager 1 is now 18 billion kilometers (17 light hours, 122 Astronomical Units) from the Sun and may soon be the first spacecraft from Earth to enter the realm of the stars.
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Video of massive explosion on the Sun
Do birds hold “funerals”? A paper said so. The media said so. Barbara King explains.
Alexis Madrigal on how Google is building the world’s best maps with its Ground-Truth project
Kerri Smith profiles Xing Xu, China’s premier dinosaur hunter
Kerri Smith profiles Xing Xu, China’s premier dinosaur hunter
Paralysed people with broken spines get feeling back in stem cell world first
Interesting concept. Write a letter to your future self
Interesting concept. Write a letter to your future self
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http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2012/09/05/encode-the-rough-guide-to-the-human-genome/
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9 crazy ‘marry me’ stunts — and the rise of the alarming public proposal. Where do you draw the line between romance and the desire for a viral video?
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Bryson Andres (my favorite busker) is now performing in Guam
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The perfect back-to-school treat has a colorful past that once brought the wrath of an axe-wielding reforme
Read More »
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A dance studio instructor in western Canada says the pole-dancing class she intends to provide children is a healthy workout and has nothing to do with sex.
While X-rated images of exotic dancers might come to mind when mention is made of pole-dancing, Kristy Craig of Duncan's Twisted Grip Dance and Fitness Studio says anyone thinking along that line is way off base. "There is nothing provocative. There is nothing sexual about it," she said. "It's pure fitness and strength and fun. I mean kids love climbing trees. They will climb anything."
Craig, who notes she has never worked in the adult entertainment industry, says she already has four children as young as 5, including one boy, signed up for her Little Spinners pole-dancing lessons. The kids' parents also take classes at the studio, she said.
The network said pole-dancing has gained popularity world-wide in recent years, with children as young as 7 being allowed to compete at the Russian national championships in St. Petersburg
While X-rated images of exotic dancers might come to mind when mention is made of pole-dancing, Kristy Craig of Duncan's Twisted Grip Dance and Fitness Studio says anyone thinking along that line is way off base. "There is nothing provocative. There is nothing sexual about it," she said. "It's pure fitness and strength and fun. I mean kids love climbing trees. They will climb anything."
Craig, who notes she has never worked in the adult entertainment industry, says she already has four children as young as 5, including one boy, signed up for her Little Spinners pole-dancing lessons. The kids' parents also take classes at the studio, she said.
The network said pole-dancing has gained popularity world-wide in recent years, with children as young as 7 being allowed to compete at the Russian national championships in St. Petersburg
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Ask Smithsonian
Q: How many instruments did Antonio Stradivari build, and how were they identified or authenticated?
A: Stradivari probably built around 1,100 violins, violas and cellos; perhaps 400 to 500 survive, and some are still being played. He added a label bearing his name, his town of Cremona and the year to all his instruments on the inside and visible through the f-hole. Identifying a Stradivarius today may be complicated by the number and nature of repairs made to the instrument since his death, in 1737.
— Bruno Frohlich, Anthropologist Museum of Natural History
A: Stradivari probably built around 1,100 violins, violas and cellos; perhaps 400 to 500 survive, and some are still being played. He added a label bearing his name, his town of Cremona and the year to all his instruments on the inside and visible through the f-hole. Identifying a Stradivarius today may be complicated by the number and nature of repairs made to the instrument since his death, in 1737.
— Bruno Frohlich, Anthropologist Museum of Natural History
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Think Fast
Which of the following was invented by Benjamin Franklin?
- Altimeter
- Electromagnet
- Glass armonica
- Light microscope
(Think Fast Answer: Glass armonica) Franklin invented this musical instrument in 1761. His version consisted of 37 glass bowls of varying sizes, mounted horizontally on an iron spindle. Mozart, Beethoven and Strauss have all composed works for the glass armonica.
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Doc and his wife were splitting up the debts and assets. The main asset, of course, was the house. My ex's truly serious suggestion: "Since the house payment is a little more than the credit card payments, I'll do you a favor and take the house and the house payment and you can take the credit card debt."
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Marriage certificate is just another name for a work permit.
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It is not what a teenager knows that bothers his parents, it is how he found out.
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A friend of mine said he and his son were at the grocery store when his son (about 9) asked him what "Oriole sex" was. I told him the store wasn't a proper place to talk about it, but I'd explain it to him on the way home. On the way, I decided to tell the truth and explain it fairly graphic and clinical. I thought I did pretty good until my son said, "Oh, you mean like a blow job, huh?"
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Just how obsessed was Stanley Kubrick with one-point perspective? Watch this video to find out
There are some directors whose movies are instantly recognizable, and Stanley Kubrick is easily among them. One thing that makes Kubrick's movies so unusual is his heavy use of one-point perspective, to focus in on a single character or object, and often to create a sense that we are trapped within the scene rather than merely watching it.This spectacularly comprehensive supercut by Vimeo user kogonada highlights the unusual symmetry of Kubrick's films, and lets us zoom in on the effect of the single-perspective shot.
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Gorgeous circuit board table
About 15 years ago, this environmentally conscious state with a fir tree on its license plates began pushing the idea of making renewable energy from the ocean waves that bob and swell on the Pacific horizon. But then one of the first test-buoy generators, launched with great fanfare, promptly sank. It was not a good start.
But time and technology turned the page, and now the first commercially licensed grid-connected wave-energy device in the nation, designed by a New Jersey company, Ocean Power Technologies, is in its final weeks of testing before a planned launch in October. The federal permit for up to 10 generators came last month, enough, the company says, to power about 1,000 homes. When engineers are satisfied that everything is ready, a barge will carry the 260-ton pioneer to its anchoring spot about two and a half miles offshore near the city of Reedsport, on the central coast
Thanks Ed ~ I love living in this state of great innovation & forward thinking.
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Portland, a public toilet paradise
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The 5 Most Unpleasant And Undignified Ways To Die In Ancient Times
Antiquity was the pits. For every advancement in philosophy or mathematics, you had half a dozen crazed aristocrats high on mercury potions trying to remove your limbs in bold new ways. More »
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Awesome Pic: Dubai From Above - [urban madness]
Inside the Yakuza Gang (with Photos) - [interesting]Epic Fight: Shark vs. Octopus - [wow video]
Super Link: Most Watched TED Talks - [got some time?]The Smoothest Con Man That Ever lived - [weird]World's Most Expensive Hotel Suites - [travel]Crazy Chunks of Ice Falling from the Sky - [wow weather]
Very Satisfying to See This Robot Run - [neat video]
Mesmerizing Magic Carpet - [wow video]
18 Trucks (in 2 rows!) on top of one truck - [wow video]Angry Little Gekko! - [fun video]
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2,014-pound burger sets world record
CARLTON, Mich. - A Minnesota casino said it set a Guinness World Record by cooking up a 2,014-pound bacon cheeseburger. The Black Bear Casino Resort near Carlton said the burger concocted Sunday handily defeated the previous record of 881 pounds, 13 ounces and a Guinness adjudicator was on hand to verify the record, the Duluth (Minn.) News Tribune reported Tuesday. "What I saw today was a feat of remarkable teamwork that resulted in a world record burger that actually tastes really good," Guinness adjudicator Philip Robertson said. The burger was topped by 60 pounds of bacon, 50 pounds of lettuce, 50 pounds of sliced onions, 40 pounds of pickles and 40 pounds of cheese.
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A Loss for Words
What’s the worst dictionary in the world? It appears to be Webster’s Dictionary of the English Language: Handy School and Office Edition, published in the late 1970s by Book-Craft Guild, Inc. While on vacation in 1994, Christopher McManus of Silver Spring, Md., had to rely on HSOE to arbitrate word games, and he quickly discovered that it had no entry for cow, die, dig, era, get, hat, law, let, may, new, now, off, old, one, run, see, set, top, two, who, why, or you. In fact, of 1,850 common three- and four-letter words that McManus found listed unanimously in seven other dictionaries, HSOE omitted fully 46 percent. At the same time it included such erudite entries as dhow, gyve, pteridophyte, and quipu.
“To find took, one must know to look under take,” McManus writes, “and disc is listed as a variant only at the disk entry.” The volume includes a captioned illustration of a raft, but no entry for raft! It’s not clear what happened, but McManus suspects that the book was assembled from blocks of typeset copy, about 40 percent of which disappeared during publication. “Since the erstwhile publisher, Book-Craft Guild, is not listed in current publishing directories, definitive explanations are not available.” (Christopher McManus, “The World’s Worst Dictionary,” Word Ways, February 1995) (Note that this doesn’t indict all Webster’s dictionaries — most invoke Webster’s name only for marketing purposes.)
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Evolution could explain part of the placebo effect
Sometimes beneficial, sometimes costly, it’s a head-scratcher of a biological mechanism when you think about it. Why would we evolve a way for our brains to overpower our biology? Why is it that simply performing an action (taking a sugar pill) can jump-start a complete immune response?
A decade ago, Nicholas Humphrey devised a theory that said that because immune responses are expensive, so it pays to require an extra kick to get them going. Peter Trimmer, of the University of Bristol, recently tested that with a computer model:
“There is a simple explanation, says Trimmer: the immune system is costly to run - so costly that a strong and sustained response could dangerously drain an animal’s energy reserves. In other words, as long as the infection is not lethal, it pays to wait for a sign that fighting it will not endanger the animal in other ways.”
While you’re at it, review this great video on what the placebo effect means, and some examples of it at work.
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The Smallest Mountain Range in the World
http://www.livescience.com/22912-smallest-mountain-range-photo.html?FB
http://www.livescience.com/22912-smallest-mountain-range-photo.html?FB
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'It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.'
It turns out that somebody may very well be watching you, and that somebody is probably the FBI.
A hacker group called Antisec (that's Operation Anti-Security, a movement opposed to the computer security industry) has released over one million Apple device IDs. The information was supposedly obtained after a FBI Regional Cyber Action Team supervisor's notebook was hacked and the IDs were dumped.
This data, if cross-referenced with Apple's developer resources, could potentially identify a unique user's geographic location and other specific information.
What is all of this information good for? What else? Tracking citizens. But why? Do these one million devices belong to terror suspects? And if they do, did the FBI get warrants to track one million citizens?
As we recall from the Fourth Amendment; "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated."
Of course, it is still unclear how much information is being recorded and to what purpose. Antisec has not volunteered any more information and the FBI certainly isn't talking.
But if you have an Apple device you might want to see if yours was one of the IDs released.
And you might want to start looking over your shoulder.
A hacker group called Antisec (that's Operation Anti-Security, a movement opposed to the computer security industry) has released over one million Apple device IDs. The information was supposedly obtained after a FBI Regional Cyber Action Team supervisor's notebook was hacked and the IDs were dumped.
This data, if cross-referenced with Apple's developer resources, could potentially identify a unique user's geographic location and other specific information.
What is all of this information good for? What else? Tracking citizens. But why? Do these one million devices belong to terror suspects? And if they do, did the FBI get warrants to track one million citizens?
As we recall from the Fourth Amendment; "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated."
Of course, it is still unclear how much information is being recorded and to what purpose. Antisec has not volunteered any more information and the FBI certainly isn't talking.
But if you have an Apple device you might want to see if yours was one of the IDs released.
And you might want to start looking over your shoulder.
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Healthy Living from Health.com
13 DRUGS THAT CAN MAKE YOU GAIN WEIGHT
http://health.chtah.net/a/tBQR41GBFYNexB8t1l8CFNC1EeP/top23
You've been cutting calories and staying active (you swear!), but the scale just won't seem to budge? Find out if you're taking a medication that can pack on the pounds.
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You've been cutting calories and staying active (you swear!), but the scale just won't seem to budge? Find out if you're taking a medication that can pack on the pounds.
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THAT’S ONE SMALL STEP FOR A MAN, ONE GIANT LEAP FOR MANKIND — NEIL ARMSTRONG
is an anagram of
AN EAGLE LANDS ON EARTH’S MOON, MAKING A FIRST SMALL PERMANENT FOOTPRINT
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Turkey dubstep.
Master craftsman creates a glass horse sculpture in seconds.
Performance of "Ocarina of Time" on a self-made instrument.
Firefighter competition.
Ducks crossing a highway in Toronto.
Michio Kaku explains string theory.
A dog gets rescued because of Google Maps.
A new kind of touch screen.
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Master craftsman creates a glass horse sculpture in seconds.
Performance of "Ocarina of Time" on a self-made instrument.
Firefighter competition.
Ducks crossing a highway in Toronto.
Michio Kaku explains string theory.
A dog gets rescued because of Google Maps.
A new kind of touch screen.
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Four hundred years ago in northwest England, twenty people were arrested on witchcraft charges.
We know so much about the Lancashire Witches because the trial was recorded in unique detail by the clerk of the court, Thomas Potts, who published his account soon afterwards as The Wonderful Discovery of Witches in the County of Lancaster. I have recently published a modern-English edition of this book, together with an essay piecing together what we know of the events of 1612. It has been a fascinating exercise, revealing how Potts carefully edited the evidence, and also how the case against the ‘witches’ was constructed and manipulated to bring about a spectacular show trial. It all began in mid-March when a pedlar from Halifax named John Law had a frightening encounter with a poor young woman, Alizon Device, in a field near Colne. He refused her request for pins and there was a brief argument during which he was seized by a fit that left him with ‘his head … drawn awry, his eyes and face deformed, his speech not well to be understood; his thighs and legs stark lame.’ We can now recognize this as a stroke, perhaps triggered by the stressful encounter. Alizon Device was sent for and surprised all by confessing to the bewitching of John Law and then begged for forgiveness.
Much like the later witch trials of Salem, Massachusetts, the hysteria surrounding the accusations spread as those accused started naming names, while others took advantage of the proceedings for their own ends. Read an account of the trial itself and the commemoration of it 400 years later at The Public Domain Review. Link -via @LettersOfNote
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The theory of evolution is in crisis. But this is a positive development, because it reflects the non-linear progress of scientific knowledge, characterized by what Thomas Kuhn described in his influential book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions as “paradigm shifts.”
For the last 70 years, the dominant paradigm in evolutionary science has been the so-called “new synthesis.” Widely publicized in recent years by Oxford evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, the new synthesis unites Darwin’s theory of natural selection with Mendelian genetics, which explains heredity.
Read the whole article ~
Thanks, Ed
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In what has to be one of the worst proposal gimmicks ever, 30-year-old Alexey Bykov of Russia hired a movie director, stuntmen, make-up artists, and a script writer to stage a scene in which he dies in a car crash.... so he could propose. "I wanted her to realise how empty her life would be without me and how life would have no meaning without me.
His girlfriend, Irena Kolokov, arrived at the scene of the "accident" and was, of course, devastated.
"We'd arranged to meet at a certain place but when I arrived there were mangled cars everywhere, ambulances, smoke, and carnage," said Miss Kolokov. "Then when I saw Alexy covered in blood lying in the road a paramedic told me he was dead and I just broke down in tears." It was then that Bykov leapt to his feet and proposed. Remarkably, Kolokov accepted. Link -via The Daily What
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Portland On The Web: Forbes, Fox News, San Francisco Chronicle & More
Not content to produce just wines made from local, organic grapes, Portland this week received news of a local wine made by organically grown local rocker Courtney Taylor-Taylor of The Dandy Warhols. Taylor-Taylor recommends his wine be served with spicy foods and says the wine is so good "you'll shit"(hopefully from excitement and not spicy food).
Despite most locals treating Wal-Mart like a medieval dragon that must be chased out of town with torches and pitchforks, a new superstore will be constructed in North Portland with the city's largest green roof. And finally, Oregon is #4 in illegal drug use, which explains why everyone has at least one roommate who claims to be drying 'hops' in their room.
San Francisco Chronicle: Oregon is #4 in illegal drug use
Forbes: Portland to get massive green roof -- atop a Wal-Mart
Willamette Week: Courtney Taylor-Taylor releases his own wine
Fortune: Tech may have found its next SXSW
New York Times: Project aims to harness power of the waves
Examiner: LaMichael James: online auction selling fake game used jersey
Fox News: Oregon Wine Country: Go for Pinot Noir
Eater PDX: Portland's 10 Most Anticipated Fall Openings
Not content to produce just wines made from local, organic grapes, Portland this week received news of a local wine made by organically grown local rocker Courtney Taylor-Taylor of The Dandy Warhols. Taylor-Taylor recommends his wine be served with spicy foods and says the wine is so good "you'll shit"(hopefully from excitement and not spicy food).
Despite most locals treating Wal-Mart like a medieval dragon that must be chased out of town with torches and pitchforks, a new superstore will be constructed in North Portland with the city's largest green roof. And finally, Oregon is #4 in illegal drug use, which explains why everyone has at least one roommate who claims to be drying 'hops' in their room.
San Francisco Chronicle: Oregon is #4 in illegal drug use
Forbes: Portland to get massive green roof -- atop a Wal-Mart
Willamette Week: Courtney Taylor-Taylor releases his own wine
Fortune: Tech may have found its next SXSW
New York Times: Project aims to harness power of the waves
Examiner: LaMichael James: online auction selling fake game used jersey
Fox News: Oregon Wine Country: Go for Pinot Noir
Eater PDX: Portland's 10 Most Anticipated Fall Openings
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Entomologist Oskar Conle discovered a stick insect with very unusual colorings in Mount Halcon, the Philippines, and fellow scientists agreed that it's a new species. Meet Conlephasma enigma:
"Another unique characteristic is the spectacular colour pattern. [A male] has dark bluish-green head and legs, and a bright orange body with distinctive bluish-black triangle-shaped spots on its back," he adds. It is more likely that the insect uses these striking colours to warn off predators, rather than as a form of camouflage. "In fact we have discovered that the new stick insect has the ability to release a potent defensive spray from glands located behind its head. "The defensive substance is sprayed when the insect feels threatened, and has a strong distasteful smell, which likely functions to repel potential predators in a similar way to skunks," says Mr Gottardo.
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9 Scientific Breakthroughs That Happened Totally by Accident
So many wonderful products came about by accident, but that's not really surprising. Scientists and inventors often come up with a substance as a byproduct, mistake, or flat-out discovery that's not what they were looking for. However, with a little imagination, that unintended stuff might find the perfect use. For example, Robert Chesebrough was looking for oil, but he found Vaseline, which turned out to be quite profitable.
Men working in the fields complained about gunk called rod wax that was clogging up their drilling equipment. The enterprising Chesebrough took the substance back to his lab in New York, isolated it from petroleum, and found it to be very good at healing cuts and scrapes, among other uses. In fact, Chesebrough was such a firm believer in the stuff that he ate a spoonful every day until he died.
Read more about Vaseline and 8 other accidental breakthroughs at Gizmodo. Link -via the Presurfer
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Men and Women See the World Differently, and Not Just Figuratively
A new study of vision differences between genders suggests that, whether mena and women have a different worldview or not, they definitely see the world differently. Guys' eyes are more sensitive to small details and moving objects, while women are more perceptive to color changes, according to a new vision study that suggests men and women actually do see things differently. [...] They found that the guys required a slightly longer wavelength of a color to experience the same shade as women and the men were less able to tell the difference between hues. [And], compared with the women, the male volunteers were better able to identify the more rapidly changing images made up of thinner bars, the researchers said.
How the tests were conducted and more interesting results on LiveScience.
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Finally, a catchy, simple tune to help the non-physicists among us understand string theory. Michael Wilson, aka Coma Niddy, breaks down what has to be the most complicated, labyrinthine theory in the history of science with easy-to-remeber verses like:
Everything is made of atoms
Atoms are made of a bunch of things
Like Protons, neutrons, Electrons, and quarks
And those may be made of tiny strings
Depending on the how the strings vibrate
Will determine how the particles behave
Just like how you pluck the strings of the Bass
It affects the note it plays
via Motherboard
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ALBERT EINSTEIN: A human being is part of a whole
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Red Kettles & Bell Ringers
As you open your pocketbooks for the next natural disaster, please keep these facts in mind:
The American Red Cross President and CEO Marsha J. Evans' salary for 2011 was $951,957 plus expenses.
The United Way President Brian Gallagher receives a $675,000 base salary along with numerous expense benefits.
UNICEF CEO Caryl M. Stern receives $1,900,000 per year (158K) permonth, plus all expenses including a ROLLS ROYCE.
Less than 5 cents (4.4 cents) per donated dollar goes to thecause.
The United Way President Brian Gallagher receives a $675,000 base salary along with numerous expense benefits.
UNICEF CEO Caryl M. Stern receives $1,900,000 per year (158K) permonth, plus all expenses including a ROLLS ROYCE.
Less than 5 cents (4.4 cents) per donated dollar goes to thecause.
******
TheSalvationArmy's Commissioner Todd Bassett receives a salary of only $13,000 peryear (plus housing) for managing this $2 billion dollar organization.
TheSalvationArmy's Commissioner Todd Bassett receives a salary of only $13,000 peryear (plus housing) for managing this $2 billion dollar organization.
96 percent of donated dollars go to the cause.
The American LegionNational Commander receives a $0..00 zerosalary.
The American LegionNational Commander receives a $0..00 zerosalary.
Your donations go to help Veterans andtheir families and youth!
The Veterans of Foreign WarsNational Commander receives a $0..00 zerosalary .
Yourdonations go to help Veterans and their families andyouth!
The Veterans of Foreign WarsNational Commander receives a $0..00 zerosalary .
Yourdonations go to help Veterans and their families andyouth!
The Disabled American Veterans National Commander receives a $0..00zero salary .
Yourdonations go to help Veterans and their families andyouth!
The MilitaryOrder of Purple Hearts NationalCommander receives a $0..00zero salary .
Yourdonations go to help Veterans and their families andyouth!
The VietnamVeterans Association National Commander receives a $0..00zero salary .
The VietnamVeterans Association National Commander receives a $0..00zero salary .
Yourdonations go to help Veterans and their families andyouth!
Thanks, Mike
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Beer lovers rejoice! The White House has released the secret recipe for its homemade brews, the White House Honey Ale and the White House Honey Porter. Check out the complete instruction by Assistant Chef Sam Kass over at the White House Blog: Link
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The fashion company Coach recently released a line of men's leather products, including wallets made from old baseball gloves. It will release only 200 of these wallets, each of which will be assembled from about one and a half gloves Story Link and Official Website -via Recylart
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Kitties have highly tuned senses that help them hunt in the wild, but this crazy cat seems to be receiving transmissions from another planet!
Maybe it's talking to the star of the movie The Cat From Outer Space, either that or it sees a bird outside and wants to get at it...naw, it must be something to do with aliens, anything else is just plain ordinary!
--via Obvious Winner
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How 13 Video Games Got Their Names
Did you know Pac Man was originally called Puck Man because "puck" sounds sort of like the Japanese equivalent of "nom?" So how did it end up as "Pac?"
Did you know Pac Man was originally called Puck Man because "puck" sounds sort of like the Japanese equivalent of "nom?" So how did it end up as "Pac?"
The name of the game, Pakkuman, was inspired by the Japanese onomatopoeia, “paku-paku,” which describes the sound of eating, similar to the English word “chomp.” As the game was brought to market, the title morphed into Puck Man.But when Puck Man made his way to North America there was concern that the arcade cabinets would be vandalized by making the P into an F to spell something entirely different. A compromise was reached and the game became known as Pac-Man instead. Thanks to the American marketing machine, the name Pac-Man was eventually adopted for the game all over the world.
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In February, 1971, Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell experienced the little understood phenomenon sometimes called the “Overview Effect”. He describes being completely engulfed by a profound sense of universal connectedness. Without warning, he says, a feeing of bliss, timelessness, and connectedness began to overwhelm him. He describes becoming instantly and profoundly aware that each of his constituent atoms were connected to the fragile planet he saw in the window and to every other atom in the Universe. He described experiencing an intense awareness that Earth, with its humans, other animal species, and systems were all one synergistic whole. He says the feeling that rushed over him was a sense of interconnected euphoria. He was not the first—nor the last—to experience this strange “cosmic connection”...
Their experiences, along with dozens of other similar experiences described by other astronauts, intrigue scientists who study the brain. This “Overview Effect”, or acute awareness of all matter as synergistically connected, sounds somewhat similar to certain religious experiences described by Buddhist monks, for example. Where does it come from and why? ...
Mitchell believes that perhaps both the theologians and scientists have missed the mark.
Their experiences, along with dozens of other similar experiences described by other astronauts, intrigue scientists who study the brain. This “Overview Effect”, or acute awareness of all matter as synergistically connected, sounds somewhat similar to certain religious experiences described by Buddhist monks, for example. Where does it come from and why? ...
Mitchell believes that perhaps both the theologians and scientists have missed the mark.
“All I can suggest to the mystic and the theologian is that our gods have been too small; they fill the universe. And to the scientist all I can say is that the gods do exist; they are the eternal, connected, and aware Self experienced by all intelligent beings."
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But Mooooom I Don't Wanna Learn to Swim
When you spend most of your life in the water, you need to learn how to get around at some point. Here's mommy teaching him how to get back to the surface so he can breathe. They may be the most dangerous animal on Earth, but they certainly are adorable. Via Pets Lady
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There are laws and then there are geeky laws. Read more about four geeky laws rule the world of technology and social media:
1. Amara's Law: "We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run"
Roy Amara is an engineer and futurist (long before that term became trendy) at the Institute for the Future think tank. Amara's law is probably best illustrated by the "Hype Cycle," a term coined by Gartner Group to characterize the hype or "Peak of Inflated Expecations" and subsequent "Trough of Disillusionment" before reaching the "Slope of Enlightenment" and "Plateau of Productivity".
2. Brooks' Law: "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later"
Fred Brooks, the author of "The Mythical Man-Month
," explains Brooks' Law as follows: First, it takes the new guy some time to learn about the project before becoming productive. Teaching him takes resources that could otherwise be put into the project itself. Second, communication overheads increases as the number of people increases - sometimes, they spend more time talking to each other to keep the project in sync, rather than working on the project itself.
," explains Brooks' Law as follows: First, it takes the new guy some time to learn about the project before becoming productive. Teaching him takes resources that could otherwise be put into the project itself. Second, communication overheads increases as the number of people increases - sometimes, they spend more time talking to each other to keep the project in sync, rather than working on the project itself.
3. Thackara's Laws: "If you put smart technology into a pointless product, the result will be a stupid product"
In 2005, critic John Thackara wrote a book called In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World
, in which he pointed out the tendency of designers to incorporate technology into products just because they can (tweeting refrigerator, we're looking at you!) without asking whether they should.
, in which he pointed out the tendency of designers to incorporate technology into products just because they can (tweeting refrigerator, we're looking at you!) without asking whether they should.
4. Reed's Law: "The Value of a Network Increases Dramatically When People Form Subgroups for Collaborations and Sharing"
In 1993, Robert Metcalfe noticed that the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of users of the system. For example, two people with telephones can only make one connection. Five telephones can make 10 connections, and twelve telephones can make 66 connections. This is now famously known as "Metcalfe's Law" or network effect: The value of a network is proportional to n2, where n is the number of users.
Both Metcalfe's Law and Reed's Law have been used to explain why social networking sites like Facebook become more valuable the more users it has (hence the saying "everyone's on Facebook because everyone's on Facebook.")
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Exhaustive RGB Colorspace Atlas
How many colors are there? A lot, as this atlas by Tauba Aurebach illustrates: american artist tauba auerbach presents the 8 x 8 x 8-inch hard-back cubes illustrating the RGB color scheme in a page-by-page medium. a digital offset print on paper with airbrushed cloth cover and book edges create a colorful reference volume of all the colors in existence. Link -via Nerdcore | Artist's Website
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This caterpillar is determined to be eaten by a frog--one that seems decidedly unmotivated to do so. Which will prevail? -via Blame It on the Voices
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How much Sriracha do you need? The correct answer is "more." Try this recipe by Lisa of Parsley, Sage & Sweet which mixes it with cheddar and pepper jack cheeses. Link -via Tasteologie
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What a pleasant idea -if you like tacos as much as the next person. This is the latest tune from Parry Gripp with animation by BooneBum. -via Geeks Are Sexy
Previously: More from Parry Gripp
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Western Blue Jays Hold a Funeral for Dead Bird
Humans are not the only animal that mourn their dead, but this is quite surprising: when a Western Scrub Jay bird encounters a dead bird, it will call out to others to stop foraging and, well, for lack of better words, attend a bird funeral.
The revelation comes from a study by Teresa Iglesias and colleagues at the University of California, Davis, US. They conducted experiments, placing a series of objects into residential back yards and observing how western scrub jays in the area reacted.
The objects included different coloured pieces of wood, dead jays, as well as mounted, stuffed jays and great horned owls, simulating the presence of live jays and predators. [...] The jays reacted indifferently to the wooden objects.
But when they spied a dead bird, they started making alarm calls, warning others long distances away.The jays then gathered around the dead body, forming large cacophonous aggregations. The calls they made, known as "zeeps", "scolds" and "zeep-scolds", encouraged new jays to attend to the dead Link
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Jantar Mantar
This looks like an ultra-modern playground, but it's actually an astronomical observatory in Jaipur, India. It was built on orders from Maharajah Jai Singh II in the early 1700s. Jantar Mantar, which means calculation instrument, is the largest of five observatories the Maharajah had built to explore and measure the heavens. Read more about it and see plenty of pictures at Kuriositas. Link -via the Presurfer (Image credit: Flickr user ComradeCosmobot)
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The following is an article from Uncle John's Endlessly Engrossing Bathroom Reader.
In the late 1870s, a short, skinny kid started taking jujitsu classes in Tokyo. Martial arts would never be the same. (Right down to their fancy, colored belts.)
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There are only 21 Lamborghini Reventóns in the world and each costs about $1.6 million. That was beyond the price range of Wang Jian of Jiangsu province, China. So he took an old Nissan van, a Volkswagen sedan and sheet metal and built a slightly low-end replica.
Link -via American Digest
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The Sweetest Heist of All Time: The Canadian Maple Syrup Heist
The United States have the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. China has the Strategic Pork Reserve. And Canada? Apparently it has its own strategic maple syrup reserve and it's been hit by sticky-fingered thieves in what is probably the sweetest heist of all time:
The warehouse in rural Quebec held more than C$30 million ($30.4 million) worth of maple syrup, a whopping 10 million pounds of the amber pancake topping.It was not clear exactly how much of the sweet stuff was taken in the heist, which occurred at some point over the last few days and was uncovered during a routine inventory check."We don't know yet how much is missing - we do know it is significant," said Anne-Marie Granger Godbout, executive director of the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers.Numerous barrels in the warehouse were emptied of their sticky contents. The remaining barrels need to be weighed and tested to ensure the syrup inside had not been tampered with.The robbers "were wise enough, they tried to hide their crime," said Granger Godbout. "We just want to make sure we know how much is missing and how much is still there."
Aunt Jemima is wanted for questioning.
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Fashion photographer Pauline Darley, along with make up artist Mademoiselle Mu and hairstylist Sophie Haise turned model Clémentine Levy into a skeletal beauty. The hauntingly gorgeous photo series, done for Ever Magazine, is titled "She Has Waited Too Long."
Take a look over at Pauline's website: Link- via My Modern Met
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The Accidental History of the @ Symbol
The symbol, @, that most younger people know only from email addresses and Twitter, has a long history. Its medieval origin is a little fuzzy, but there are several possible explanations of its birth. When I was young, it was shorthand for "at," which always seemed silly to me, because why abbreviate such a short word?
The symbol later took on a historic role in commerce. Merchants have long used it to signify “at the rate of”—as in “12 widgets @ $1.” (That the total is $12, not $1, speaks to the symbol’s pivotal importance.) Still, the machine age was not so kind to @. The first typewriters, built in the mid-1800s, didn’t include @. Likewise, @ was not among the symbolic array of the earliest punch-card tabulating systems (first used in collecting and processing the 1890 U.S. census), which were precursors to computer programming.
The symbol’s modern obscurity ended in 1971, when a computer scientist named Ray Tomlinson was facing a vexing problem: how to connect people who programmed computers with one another.
The rest is history, and if you want to read that history, you'll find it at Smithsonian. Link
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Awesome Gadgets Used by Real-Life Spies
Is there anything cooler than super-secret spy tech? Maybe, but you can bet that it's even more super-secret than your clearance allows. These, however, are gadgets we know exist, and they're used by people who would tell you all about it, but then they'd have to kill you.
Spies gather information by watching, listening, and waiting. Eavesdropping is what spies do best. Is it any wonder, then, that three of these clever devices are for espionage? And in case things get messy, sometimes an agent needs a way to take out a target that's less direct than an abduction or assassination.
From The Great Seal Bug to anti-tank canine soldiers, check out Tecca's collection of amazing spy tricks, tactics, and trappings: Link
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If people living in the year 1899 could have seen what life would be like in the year 2000 they probably would have been disappointed, although 3D TVs and tablet computers would have seemed pretty far out.
Check out these illustrations which were made by Jean-Marc Côté and other artists in France in 1899, 1900, 1901 and 1910. The first series of these pictures were produced for the 1900 World Exhibition in Paris.
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This Poor NASA Astrobiologist Has the Unenviable Job of Answering Everyone's Questions About Doomsday Theories
But the good news is that you can bookmark this link to answer pretty much every crackpot 2012 scenario your friends throw at you.
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Amazing Parents Passed out These Bags on an Airline Flight
Redditor gigantomachy writes, "Brilliant and thoughtful parents handed these out to everyone on my flight." Bravo, bravo! Even if the babies had a terrible time, many passengers would have been too charmed to complain Link -via Nag on the Lake
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Quadrocopter swarm puts on choreographed light show
Many see small quadrocopters as the future of surveillance, aerial photography, warfare and even construction, but a new demonstration involving a world record-setting swarm of 50 quadrocopters has shown the aircraft can also pull off some pretty impressive dance moves
The aerial display was put together by a team from Austria’s Ars Electronica Futurelab and Germany’s Ascending Technologies GmbH. The Ars Electronica team was responsible for creating the computerized choreography and equipping the standard model Hummingbird quadrocopters supplied by Ascending Technologies with special radio receivers and modified firmware. The vehicles were also equipped with LEDs to put on an eye-catching nighttime display.
Thanks, Ed ~as you said, way cool!
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It was magnificient. And yet it was also a failure, for not a single person cleared the entire lake to land safely on the ground. -via Geekologie
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Louis J. Marcone came up with a novel way to catch bank robbers in 1989: The teller might step on a trigger and surreptitiously spray the robber with “a non-toxic, clear, odorless and harmless liquid spray material which can be readily detected by trained police dogs.”
He envisioned a second application for the device: The spray unit could be attached to a fire alarm, so that anyone who pulled the alarm would be marked with the scent. “If the alarm was determined to be a false alarm, the fire department can alert police to bring trained police dogs to the scene, whereupon the dog can track the scent from the alarm location to the person activating the false alarm.”
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A critical element to playing the bones is not trying to force them to make contact with one another through finger manipulation but allowing their momentum to do the work. By moving the hand back and forth across the chest, with just enough force on the bones to keep them from falling out of the hand, a patient learner can produce a triple click. This "click-it-y" sound is the essential ingredient to playing the bones. A double-click can be produced by the same movement of the hand with the addition of a bit of pressure to the bones to suppress the third click. Once these elemental triple and double figures have been mastered, they can be combined to create complex combinations of rhythmic sounds. The effect is further enhanced by the use of two pairs of bones, one in each hand. A skilled practitioner can produce a wide variety of percussive sounds reminiscent of those made by a tap dancer.
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Photo: David Burdick/NOAA Photo Library/Flickr - via LiveScience
Oh, that? Just a glowing jellyfish near the wreckage of the Shinkoku Maru, a World War II-era Japanese tanker sunk by torpedo attack in 1944, near the Chuuk Lagoon in Micronesia. And yes, the jellyfish is mooning you.
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Administrivia"
"Death’s Companion: Paperwork" is the title of a column in the NYT this week detailing the myriad of things that need to be attended to when a loved one dies.
“There was a tidal wave of things to do,” Ms. Foreman said. “We were surprised by how much and how hard it was. When you think something’s done, it’s not. Everything takes multiple tries.”
“There was a tidal wave of things to do,” Ms. Foreman said. “We were surprised by how much and how hard it was. When you think something’s done, it’s not. Everything takes multiple tries.”
We’re leaving aside the financial matters: wills, estates, lawyers and so forth. We’re also leaving aside the sometimes wrenching, sometimes comforting process of sorting and donating clothing and personal items. We’re dealing only with administrivia, some of which can be handled online but much of which requires phone calls and letters and a whole lot of persistence.
This isn't a detailed "how-to" article (those can be Googled); this is more of a what-to-expect and how-to-prepare set of reminders about -
Social Security and Medicare
Changing advance directives (for surviving significant others)
Changing bank accounts
Selling the car
Changing or canceling bills and subscriptions. Utilities. Credit cards. Phones
Canceling monthly prescriptions
Updating emergency contacts
Filing taxes
It can be a tiresome experience.
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For the first time in Zoo Planckendael's history, a baby Red Panda has been born! The timid little new born is difficult to spot, but if you're lucky, you'll catch him scampering from one nest box to another under the watchful eye of her mother, Lolita. The female cub, named Nangwa (Tibetan for "appearance") by keepers, is an ambassador for her imperiled species. The Red Panda is listed on the IUCN Red List as "Vulnerable" because of habitat loss in their native Nepal. Timber from their natural environment is increasingly cut down for fuel and construction. Additionally, their reddish-brown fur is highly sought after.
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http://youtu.be/aAhPaiajwDY
Some guys are so good at Parkour that they make our jaws drop. Then there's Ronnie Shalvis, who takes it to another level by doing it dressed as Altair from Assassin's Creed. You can see a behind the scenes video as well. -via The Daily What Geek
Some guys are so good at Parkour that they make our jaws drop. Then there's Ronnie Shalvis, who takes it to another level by doing it dressed as Altair from Assassin's Creed. You can see a behind the scenes video as well. -via The Daily What Geek
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RANDOM TIDBITS
The first useful application for aerosol spray cans was introduced during World War II. Insecticide-filled "bug bombs," as they were called, helped protect American military personnel from disease-carrying insects.
In the first season of the sitcom Full House, John Stamo's character was an exterminator named Jesse Cochran. He later found a better job as a jingle writer and rock musician and a decidedly more Greek last name: Katsopolis.
Guitarist Greg Ginn of punk band Black Flag revealed that, although the band's moniker wasn't specifically inspired by the popular brand of insect-control products, they didn't mind the connection: "It just sounded, you know, heavy."
Through the mid-twentieth century, untold ecological damage occurred after several nations began purposely spreading oil over mosquito-infested swamps in order to reduce the spread of malaria.
Marvin Glass and Associates designed the original Mouse Trap board game that Ideal sold in 1963. However, the company refused to pay any royalties or licensing fees to Rube Goldberg, even though the game's elaborate mousetrap resembled one of his cartoons.
Green Acres star Eddie Albert was also an ardent environmentalist and one of the first people to call for a ban on DDT. In 1969, he sailed to Anacapa Island to study the pelicans there and found that chicks were dying because the pesticide had caused mothers to lay eggs with shells that were too fragile.
The first useful application for aerosol spray cans was introduced during World War II. Insecticide-filled "bug bombs," as they were called, helped protect American military personnel from disease-carrying insects.
In the first season of the sitcom Full House, John Stamo's character was an exterminator named Jesse Cochran. He later found a better job as a jingle writer and rock musician and a decidedly more Greek last name: Katsopolis.
Guitarist Greg Ginn of punk band Black Flag revealed that, although the band's moniker wasn't specifically inspired by the popular brand of insect-control products, they didn't mind the connection: "It just sounded, you know, heavy."
Through the mid-twentieth century, untold ecological damage occurred after several nations began purposely spreading oil over mosquito-infested swamps in order to reduce the spread of malaria.
Marvin Glass and Associates designed the original Mouse Trap board game that Ideal sold in 1963. However, the company refused to pay any royalties or licensing fees to Rube Goldberg, even though the game's elaborate mousetrap resembled one of his cartoons.
Green Acres star Eddie Albert was also an ardent environmentalist and one of the first people to call for a ban on DDT. In 1969, he sailed to Anacapa Island to study the pelicans there and found that chicks were dying because the pesticide had caused mothers to lay eggs with shells that were too fragile.
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El Ateuf, M’Zab Valley, Algeria
An aerial view of what must be a remarkable town to walk through. The streets are nonrectilinear and look to be only the width of a cart. One feels like this is an "organic" town that has grown in place over the centuries without central planning. It must be alternately chaotic and fascinating. Photo cropped from this one, via noctuaries and A London Salmagundi - but original photographer credit not specified at those links. Update: Photo credit found by reader HeavenlyJane - the photo from which this is cropped was taken by Jann Arthus-Bertrand.
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Tuchman's Law
Disaster is rarely as pervasive as it seems from recorded accounts. The fact of being on the record makes it appear continuous and ubiquitous whereas it is more likely to have been sporadic both in time and place. Besides, persistence of the normal is usually greater than the effect of the disturbance, as we know from our own times. After absorbing the news of today, one expects to face a world consisting entirely of strikes, crimes, power failures, broken water mains, stalled trains, school shutdowns, muggers, drug addicts, neo-Nazis, and rapists. The fact is that one can come home in the evening, on a lucky day, without having encountered more than one or two of these phenomena. This has led me to formulate Tuchman's Law, as follows: "The fact of being reported multiplies the apparent extent of any deplorable development by five- to tenfold" (or any figure the reader would care to supply).
Disaster is rarely as pervasive as it seems from recorded accounts. The fact of being on the record makes it appear continuous and ubiquitous whereas it is more likely to have been sporadic both in time and place. Besides, persistence of the normal is usually greater than the effect of the disturbance, as we know from our own times. After absorbing the news of today, one expects to face a world consisting entirely of strikes, crimes, power failures, broken water mains, stalled trains, school shutdowns, muggers, drug addicts, neo-Nazis, and rapists. The fact is that one can come home in the evening, on a lucky day, without having encountered more than one or two of these phenomena. This has led me to formulate Tuchman's Law, as follows: "The fact of being reported multiplies the apparent extent of any deplorable development by five- to tenfold" (or any figure the reader would care to supply).
--- Barbara Wertheim Tuchman (1912 – 1989), author of The Guns of August, A Distant Mirror, and The First Salute, among others.
True ~ the flood damage I saw reported on TV showed my area as a disaster area, when, in fact, all the flooding meant was that we needed to drive on different streets.
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2011 was a very good year for U.S. arms sales, with more than triple the business from the year before.
According to a new report to Congress, worldwide sales of U.S. weapons last year added up to $66.3 billion. That accounts for more than three-quarters of 2011 arms sales worldwide, which is “the highest single year agreements total in the history of the U.S. arms export program.” The report was prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) as part of their annual study of arms sales.
In 2010, the U.S. authorized $21.4 billion in sales, which led CRS to describe the jump as “extraordinary.” In terms of overall sales, Russia was distant second to the United States, having moved $4.8 billion...
Saudi Arabia purchased more than $33 billion in arms from the U.S., including 84 new F-15 jets and upgrades for 70 older models. The Saudis were not alone in purchasing weaponry in the region. The United Arab Emirates purchased 16 Chinook helicopters for just under $1 billion total; Oman shelled out $1.6 billion for 18 F-16 fighters. Egypt added land forces, spending $1 billion on M1 Abrams tanks, a sale that the Pentagon has used to argue for freezing domestic production of the Army’s signature land vehicle.
But “the U.S. arms agreements with Saudi Arabia were extraordinary,” concluded the report, as they “represent, by far, the largest share of U.S. agreements with the world or the developing world in 2011.” The selling of arms to Saudi Arabia is not without controversy. As the Center reported in June, the country has continued to receive steady flows of arms from the United States despite being on a State Department watchlist for human rights violations. Since the start of 2004, Saudi Arabia has purchased $75.7 billion in arms.
According to a new report to Congress, worldwide sales of U.S. weapons last year added up to $66.3 billion. That accounts for more than three-quarters of 2011 arms sales worldwide, which is “the highest single year agreements total in the history of the U.S. arms export program.” The report was prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) as part of their annual study of arms sales.
In 2010, the U.S. authorized $21.4 billion in sales, which led CRS to describe the jump as “extraordinary.” In terms of overall sales, Russia was distant second to the United States, having moved $4.8 billion...Saudi Arabia purchased more than $33 billion in arms from the U.S., including 84 new F-15 jets and upgrades for 70 older models. The Saudis were not alone in purchasing weaponry in the region. The United Arab Emirates purchased 16 Chinook helicopters for just under $1 billion total; Oman shelled out $1.6 billion for 18 F-16 fighters. Egypt added land forces, spending $1 billion on M1 Abrams tanks, a sale that the Pentagon has used to argue for freezing domestic production of the Army’s signature land vehicle.
But “the U.S. arms agreements with Saudi Arabia were extraordinary,” concluded the report, as they “represent, by far, the largest share of U.S. agreements with the world or the developing world in 2011.” The selling of arms to Saudi Arabia is not without controversy. As the Center reported in June, the country has continued to receive steady flows of arms from the United States despite being on a State Department watchlist for human rights violations. Since the start of 2004, Saudi Arabia has purchased $75.7 billion in arms.
Note that three-quarter of the arms sales for the entire world are from the United States. That certainly says something about us as a nation.
At The Center for Public Integrity source the map above is interactive.
At The Center for Public Integrity source the map above is interactive.
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It happened on an open-book exam (!!!)
After similarities were noticed in up to 20 student exam papers by an examiner, the matter was brought to the attention of the administrative board and an investigation was launched. That probe has now found some 125 of the course's final papers were suspicious and has begun contacting students involved.
Possible punishments range from being suspended for a year to an official warning. The class was taken by only 250 students meaning a staggering half are now suspected of cheating.
The newspaper quoted an email sent to students taking the exam that said it was "completely open book, open note, open internet, etc.." but warned them not to discuss it with each other and to treat it as an "in-class" exam.
After similarities were noticed in up to 20 student exam papers by an examiner, the matter was brought to the attention of the administrative board and an investigation was launched. That probe has now found some 125 of the course's final papers were suspicious and has begun contacting students involved.
Possible punishments range from being suspended for a year to an official warning. The class was taken by only 250 students meaning a staggering half are now suspected of cheating.
The newspaper quoted an email sent to students taking the exam that said it was "completely open book, open note, open internet, etc.." but warned them not to discuss it with each other and to treat it as an "in-class" exam.
Addendum: An interesting followup article in Salon, with one student saying: Harvard chose to go public with this story to first and foremost save their own asses. They wanted to get the version that they wanted out to the public first. Why did they do this? A large number of the students involved had threatened to go public with this unfair process and an even larger number of students have already lawyered up and are preparing to sue the college, professor platt, and every single TF in the course. Myself included.
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From my favorite author, Dana Stabenow's fb feed:
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In 2004 wind energy company Gamesa Energy UK announced plans to erect a 40-meter test mast in a field outside the Welsh village of Llanfynydd.
The villagers value their seclusion, and the area is home to three endangered bird species — the red kite, the curlew, and the skylark.
So they changed the town’s name to Llanhyfryddawelllehynafolybarcudprindanfygythiadtrienusyrhafnauole, which means “a quiet beautiful village, an historic place with rare kite under threat from wretched blades.”
At 66 letters, this surpassed Anglesey’s Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch as the longest place name in the United Kingdom, attracting some media attention and free publicity for the village’s battle against the energy company.
The change lasted only a week, but it served its purpose. “It might seem that changing the name of the village for the week is a bit of a joke, but we could not be more serious,” villager Meirion Rees told the BBC. “If our community is to be overshadowed it might as well change its name and its identity.”
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While it's not something most people will ever have to resort to, there are a few legitamate reasons to fake your own death. Of course, if you do it because you think you're wanted for a crime, it might be a good idea to check that you are actually wanted first:
Bennie Wint thought he was a wanted man, so he went. On the eve of his marriage to Patricia Hollingsworth in 1989, he went for a swim, and never came back. He was presumed drowned, and his fiance, his ex-wife, and his four-year-old son mourned for him. Twenty years later, he was pulled over for not having a light bulb on his license plate, and he couldn't help but confess his sins. He told the police he had slipped away and “had never looked back” because he thought he was wanted on drug charges...It turns out, he wasn't wanted on drug charges after all, so the whole affair was for naught.
Let that be a lesson to all of you who think you're wanted for a crime. Also, if you're going to fake your death, don't go to your funeral...that's just asking for trouble. Read nine more stories of faked deaths at Oddee.
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Here was the scrambler:
For each set of clues below, find a pair of words matching the respective clues which have the same spelling except for a "u" which is present in only one of the words. For example, if the clues were "learned where something is / affectionate" then the answer would be "found / fond".
For each set of clues below, find a pair of words matching the respective clues which have the same spelling except for a "u" which is present in only one of the words. For example, if the clues were "learned where something is / affectionate" then the answer would be "found / fond".
1) an example of business or dress attire / be seated
2) feeling pleasure about something good that you have done / to give a quick push with your finger
3) something that holds together / obligated
2) feeling pleasure about something good that you have done / to give a quick push with your finger
3) something that holds together / obligated
ANSWERS:
1) suit / sit
2) proud / prod
3) bond / bound
1) suit / sit
2) proud / prod
3) bond / bound
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QUOTE: "Progress is the product of human agency. Things get better because we make them better. Things go wrong when we get too comfortable, when we fail to take risks or seize opportunities."
HINT: (1964-), American diplomat, former think-tank fellow, and civil servant.
ANSWER: Susan Rice.
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Broadcast (1996). David Attenborough turns his life long fascination with amber into a time travelling detective story that spans 150 million years. Examining and identifying the contents of this unique material, he opens a window into prehistoric tropical rainforests and unravels detailed stories about the plants and animals that lived there. The episode shows Attenborough searching for the identities of preserved creatures inside a piece of Baltic Amber that was given to him by his adoptive sister when he was twelve years old. The Amber Time Machine is part of the Attenborough in Paradise and Other Personal Voyages a collection of seven documentaries.
It's 49 minutes. But.... It's very well done.
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Living Green - We are throwing away a miracle resource.
It is used on the fringe as a fuel, as shown in this video clip; Using Vegetable Oil as Gas, but the diversity of uses for waste cooking oil are only beginning to be revealed. Billions of gallons of this suff are literally being thrown away every year. What could we be doing with it (other than running trucks on it)?
Waste cooking oil makes bioplastics cheaper.
"Bioplastics" that are naturally synthesized by microbes could be made commercially viable by using waste cooking oil as a starting material. This would reduce environmental contamination and also give high-quality plastics suitable for medical implants, according to scientists presenting their work at the Society for General Microbiology's Autumn Conference at the University of Warwick.
The Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) family of polyesters is synthesized by a wide variety of bacteria as an energy source when their carbon supply is plentiful. Poly 3-hydroxybutyrate (PHB) is the most commonly produced polymer in the PHA family. Currently, growing bacteria in large fermenters to produce high quantities of this bioplastic is expensive because glucose is used as a starting material.
Work by a research team at the University of Wolverhampton suggests that using waste cooking oil as a starting material reduces production costs of the plastic. "Our bioplastic-producing bacterium, Ralstonia eutropha H16, grew much better in oil over 48 hours and consequently produced three times more PHB than when it was grown in glucose," explained Victor Irorere who carried out the research. "Electrospinning experiments, performed in collaboration with researchers from the University of Birmingham, showed that nanofibres of the plastic produced from oils were also less crystalline, which means the plastic is more suited to medical applications."
Previous research has shown that PHB is an attractive polymer for use as a microcapsule for effective drug delivery in cancer therapy and also as medical implants, due to its biodegradability and non-toxic properties. Improved quality of PHB combined with low production costs would enable it to be used more widely.
The Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) family of polyesters is synthesized by a wide variety of bacteria as an energy source when their carbon supply is plentiful. Poly 3-hydroxybutyrate (PHB) is the most commonly produced polymer in the PHA family. Currently, growing bacteria in large fermenters to produce high quantities of this bioplastic is expensive because glucose is used as a starting material.
Work by a research team at the University of Wolverhampton suggests that using waste cooking oil as a starting material reduces production costs of the plastic. "Our bioplastic-producing bacterium, Ralstonia eutropha H16, grew much better in oil over 48 hours and consequently produced three times more PHB than when it was grown in glucose," explained Victor Irorere who carried out the research. "Electrospinning experiments, performed in collaboration with researchers from the University of Birmingham, showed that nanofibres of the plastic produced from oils were also less crystalline, which means the plastic is more suited to medical applications."
Previous research has shown that PHB is an attractive polymer for use as a microcapsule for effective drug delivery in cancer therapy and also as medical implants, due to its biodegradability and non-toxic properties. Improved quality of PHB combined with low production costs would enable it to be used more widely.
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Winston Churchill said, "We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket & trying to lift himself up by the handle."
Churchill had so many famous quotes (like the one above), speeches and addresses that I felt like sharing two of his most memorable.
Remarkable words. Remarkable videos. A remarkable man.
Churchill had so many famous quotes (like the one above), speeches and addresses that I felt like sharing two of his most memorable.
Remarkable words. Remarkable videos. A remarkable man.
Churchill: We Stood Alone
http://www.evtv1.com/player.aspx?itemnum=88&aid=
Winston Churchill stood alone against fascism and renewed the world's faith in the superiority of democracy. In this historic clip Winston Churchill discusses his war strategy against Germany with Parliament.
Churchill: We Shall Fight On
http://www.evtv1.com/player.aspx?itemnum=62&aid=
In May, 1940, after the outbreak of the Second World War, Winston Churchill became Prime Minister and Minister of Defense and remained in office until 1945. During this time, he worked to develop a military strategy that would ensure Hitler's defeat.
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Winston Churchill stood alone against fascism and renewed the world's faith in the superiority of democracy. In this historic clip Winston Churchill discusses his war strategy against Germany with Parliament.
Churchill: We Shall Fight On
http://www.evtv1.com/player.aspx?itemnum=62&aid=
In May, 1940, after the outbreak of the Second World War, Winston Churchill became Prime Minister and Minister of Defense and remained in office until 1945. During this time, he worked to develop a military strategy that would ensure Hitler's defeat.
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Once, at the chambers of Sir William Jones, while some books were being removed, a large spider dropped upon the floor and Sir William said to Mr. Day, the philanthropist, who stood near him, ‘Kill that spider, Day; kill that spider!’ ‘No,’ said Mr. Day, with that coolness for which he was so conspicuous, ‘I will not kill that spider, Jones; I do not know that I have a right to kill that spider! Suppose when you are going in your coach to Westminster Hall, a superior being who, perhaps, may have as much power over you as you have over this insect, should say to his companion, ‘Kill that lawyer; kill that lawyer!’ how should you like that, Jones? and I am sure to most people a lawyer is a more obnoxious animal than a spider.’
– Thomas Brackett Reed, Modern Eloquence, 1900
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2012 Ig® Nobel Prizes
The 22nd annual 2012 Ig® Nobel Prize Ceremony will be held on September 20 at Harvard University's Sanders Theater. Ten Ig Nobels will be awarded for research that makes us laugh, and then makes us think. The ceremonies will feature "a variety of momentously inconsequential events," or in other words, silliness.
The identity of the winners is kept secret until they receive their prize on stage. Their acceptance speeches will be brief, with time limits being enforced by a stoic, very cute eight-year-old girl.
Genuine Nobel laureates will physically hand the prizes to the winners. Attending the ceremony will be Dudley Herschbach (chemistry, 1986), Rich Roberts (physiology or medicine, 1993), Jack Szostak (physiology or medicine, 2009), and Roy Glauber (physics, 2005). One of them will also be the prize in the Win-a-Date-with-a-Nobel-Laureate Contest.
Genuine Nobel laureates will physically hand the prizes to the winners. Attending the ceremony will be Dudley Herschbach (chemistry, 1986), Rich Roberts (physiology or medicine, 1993), Jack Szostak (physiology or medicine, 2009), and Roy Glauber (physics, 2005). One of them will also be the prize in the Win-a-Date-with-a-Nobel-Laureate Contest.
Another of the evening's events will be the part in which noted scientists will present lectures on their research limited to 24 seconds, followed by a summation of no more than seven words. If you cannot attend, the entire evening will be streamed live via internet, and then archived for later view. If you can attend, Improbable Research has a link for ticket purchases, and plenty more information about the awards. Link
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Just a step or two…
An irritating friend took a drink from my wife’s beer and said, “Ha,Ha, this is one step from kissing your wife!”
“Yes it is,” I replied, “and two steps from sucking my dick.”
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Well, that's it. You no longer have to buy albums or collect songs for a dance party because it's all here in one mashup featuring PSY, LMFAO, Dev, Offspring, and Bloodhound Gang. How many songs you can mash together is only limited by how many use the same source music and/or beat. Steve Streza says this is the first full mashup he's done. I think he did okay! -via Buzzfeed
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Two minutes in duration, from Westray to Papa Westray (in the Orkneys). The entire flight is documented in this 2-minute video.
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Aggressive Little Bitch…
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What makes a rainforest? Millions of things, living and dead and inanimate, but perhaps most importantly of all, rain. Rain, obviously, comes from clouds, and clouds come from.... fungi? Maybe so, according to an essay in TIME based on research published recently in the journal Science, which explores the intricate relationship between a rainforests's unique weather and the flora and fauna that rely on it. When you mess with the Amazon rainforest you mess with a lot of things — 2.5 million species of insects, 40,000 species of plants, 1,300 species of birds, and those are only the known ones. The 1.4 billion of acres of thriving, sprawling biology that cover the Amazon help drive the very metabolism of a continent. And now it appears that the rainforest is at least partly responsible for something else: the Amazonian clouds themselves. Clear-cut the land and you could, in effect, clear-cut the sky. More about the tenuous link between land and sky, on TIME. Link
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Troma recently released 150 of their films on YouTube. That includes this great film from the creators of South Park, Cannibal! The Musical. Via BoingBoing
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Toby created a website with detailed information on making your own angel or bird wings that fold and expand. These wings look like they are growing out of your body for extra realism! Whether you want to try this yourself or just admire the art of the craft, you'll want to check out the step-by-step instructions. Link -via Everlasting Blort
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Hunters often use deer urine to attract their prey. Specifically, they use the come-hither-smelling urine of does in heat. And where do hunters get this urine? From professional urine farmers like Judi Collora:
The key to success as a urine farmer, she says, is understanding that different seasons bring a fluctuating urine supply. “It all depends on how thirsty the deer are,” she says. “In the summer when it’s hot, they drink way more than in the winter when it’s cold.” And the less they drink, the less they pee, and the less profit a urine farmer makes. [...]
The one question they get asked most often, Mr. Collora says, is how they know the best time to harvest estrus urine. “Hey, it ain’t rocket science,” he laughs. “You put a buck in there. When he starts riding the doe, and she lets him, they’re in heat. When they’re done, you collect their urine. That’s our whole business model.”
The one question they get asked most often, Mr. Collora says, is how they know the best time to harvest estrus urine. “Hey, it ain’t rocket science,” he laughs. “You put a buck in there. When he starts riding the doe, and she lets him, they’re in heat. When they’re done, you collect their urine. That’s our whole business model.”
Cow chip deficiency strikes the Midwest
The drought has caused a shortage of flattened, dried cow manure - or cow chips - for the Wisconsin State Cow Chip Throw and Festival, which attracts about 300 throwers and 40,000 spectators to Prairie du Sac, Wis...
The hot, dry summer - which has caused crop, water level and other problems across the nation - caused the grass to brown and cattle to stay near their barn for food and to keep cool. That means the manure in the pasture wasn't able to dry and flatten in the sun...
Instead, a few organizers went out sporadically and collected about a third of the usual amount - 200 or 300. Every year they keep the good ones that don't break - so they will dip into the 150 to 200 in reserve barrels for this year's competition...
When searching for chips, they look for them be about the size of a ping pong paddle. "If it looks like it has air bubbles on the top, it's bad chip," Reuter said. "It won't be worth it because it will be light and airy. But if it's thick and solid and grassy, it's a good chip."
The hot, dry summer - which has caused crop, water level and other problems across the nation - caused the grass to brown and cattle to stay near their barn for food and to keep cool. That means the manure in the pasture wasn't able to dry and flatten in the sun...
Instead, a few organizers went out sporadically and collected about a third of the usual amount - 200 or 300. Every year they keep the good ones that don't break - so they will dip into the 150 to 200 in reserve barrels for this year's competition...
When searching for chips, they look for them be about the size of a ping pong paddle. "If it looks like it has air bubbles on the top, it's bad chip," Reuter said. "It won't be worth it because it will be light and airy. But if it's thick and solid and grassy, it's a good chip."
It's worth remembering that in pioneer days, dried buffalo patties served as handy fuel in woodless plains areas. Herbivore feces are no more nasty than the material you scrape out from under your rotary lawn mower; it's carnivore feces that get nasty.
from: Tai-wiki-widbee
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Hookworms are nasty parasitic nematodes, which larva infect humans through our skin, then travel to the lungs via the bloodstream and enter our airways. The hookworm larva are subsequently swallowed and made their way to the small intestines. There, the parasites grow up to be worms half an inch long and live for years, while causing abdominal discomfort and other nasty symptoms like anemia in some people.
So, why would anyone in their right mind want to get infected - on purpose - with hookworms?
Meet science writer Moises Velasquez-Manoff. He explains the benefits of being infected with parasites in this intriguing interview with Wired's Brandon Keim:
According to Velasquez-Manoff and the scientists he writes about, it’s no coincidence. A fast-growing body of research suggests that immune systems, produced by millions of years of evolution in a microbe-rich world, rely on certain exposures to calibrate themselves. Disrupt those exposures, as we have through modern medicine, food and lifestyle, and things go haywire.
Velasquez-Manoff, who has several immune-related disorders, including food allergies and alopecia, had heard about the “hookworm underground” — people who infect themselves with parasites in the hopes of restoring immune balance. Though it’s something he now recommends against doing, it marked the beginning of a reportorial journey into a frontier of science and health Link
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This week marks the 35th anniversary of Voyager 1's launch to Jupiter and Saturn.
Soon it will become the first manmade object to escape our solar system and enter a new realm of space.
Random Facts:
Voyager 1 is now flitting around the fringes of the solar system, which is enveloped in a giant plasma bubble. This hot and turbulent area is created by a stream of charged particles from the sun. Outside the bubble is a new frontier in the Milky Way: the space between stars. Once it plows through, what will happen is anyone's guess.
Voyager 1 is currently more than 11 billion miles from the sun. Twin Voyager trails behind at 9 billion miles. Since the spacecraft are so far out, it takes 17 hours for a radio signal from Voyager 1 to travel to Earth. Each only has 68 kilobytes of computer memory. To put that in perspective, the smallest iPod, an 8-gigabyte iPod Nano, is 100,000 times more powerful.
Voyager 1 is now flitting around the fringes of the solar system, which is enveloped in a giant plasma bubble. This hot and turbulent area is created by a stream of charged particles from the sun. Outside the bubble is a new frontier in the Milky Way: the space between stars. Once it plows through, what will happen is anyone's guess.
Voyager 1 is currently more than 11 billion miles from the sun. Twin Voyager trails behind at 9 billion miles. Since the spacecraft are so far out, it takes 17 hours for a radio signal from Voyager 1 to travel to Earth. Each only has 68 kilobytes of computer memory. To put that in perspective, the smallest iPod, an 8-gigabyte iPod Nano, is 100,000 times more powerful.
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This year’s Astronomy Photographer of the Year, run by the Royal Observatory Greenwich in association with Sky at Night Magazine, received a record number of entries from amateurs and professional photographers from around the globe. The awards will be announced on 19 September and an exhibition of the winning entries will open at the observatory on 20 September.
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A Vapid Death:
A terrible diet and room with no ventilation are being blamed for the death of a man who was killed by his own gas. There was no mark on his body but autopsy showed large amounts of methane gas in his system. His diet had consisted primarily of beans and cabbage (and a couple other things). It was just the right combination of foods. It appears that the man died in his sleep from breathing from the poisonous cloud that was hanging over his bed. Had he been outside or had his windows opened it wouldn't have been fatal but the man was shut up in his near airtight bedroom. He was ``...a big man with a huge capacity for creating [this deadly gas].'' Three of the rescue workers got sick and one was hospitalized.
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Tombstone Epitaph In a Thurmont, Maryland, cemetery:
Here lies an Atheist
All dressed up
And no place to go.
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Here lies an Atheist
All dressed up
And no place to go.
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"Pardo's First Postulate:
Anything good in life is either illegal, immoral, or fattening.
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Anything good in life is either illegal, immoral, or fattening.
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At work, the authority of a person is inversely proportional to the number of pens that person is carrying.
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Out-of-body Orgasms?
We've heard tales of out-of-body experiences but is there such a thing as an Out-of-body Orgasm?
Turns out that there is. The above picture is a "cortical homumculus" and the diagram indicates the location and amount of cortex devoted to each part of the body. The diagram roughly shows the portion of the human brain directly responsible for the movement and exchange of se
nsory and motor information of the body.
Now, we turn over to the case of amputees. Almost everyone who has lost a limb will experience a phantom limb, a sensation that the limb is still there, and in some cases that phantom limb can be painful. Notice that this is not delusion but an illusion- there is a strong feeling that the phantom limb is present and the amputee knows perfectly well that it's just a feeling and perception. This is what V.S. Ramachandran means when he speaks of "body-image"- the perception that we have a body comes from an intrinsic image of the body, not just on external stimuli.
Next, we move to cortical remapping- Cortical remapping is what happens in the brain after an accident or trauma or stroke. It relearns and remaps its functions. But sometimes, the remapping can have some curious effects. Like a hand being remapped onto the corresponding cheek, with sensations felt on the cheek also being felt on the phantom hand. As you can see from our little homunculus here, the portion of the brain that corresponds to the hand is next to the portion that corresponds to the face/cheek. This is why, when sensory information ceases for a hand (due to its untimely separation from the body), remapping can cause a neighboring area to essentially step-in and fill the void, a kind of spillover.
If you drop a water droplet on the cheek of such a person, the amputee may feel the water droplet sliding on his phantom limb. The pain felt in the phantom hand (technically an "out-of-body pain") can also be reduced by massaging the cheek.
This becomes more evident in folks who lose a foot. Because the foot and the genitals are side-by-side on the whole cortical homunculus (genitals not depicted in the pic), the sensory gap left by the missing foot can be remapped so that the genitals step in. In this case, a very curious phenomena can occur.
An engineer in Florida reported a heightening of sensation in his phantom lower limb during orgasm and that his experience actually spread all the way down into the (phantom) foot instead of remaining confined to the genitals: so that the orgasm was much bigger than it used to be.
In the next part, we will see how V.S. Ramachandran managed to "amputate" the phantom limb itself.
Source: http://
http://www.intropsych.com/
http://
Image source: http://www.intropsych.com/
Now, we turn over to the case of amputees. Almost everyone who has lost a limb will experience a phantom limb, a sensation that the limb is still there, and in some cases that phantom limb can be painful. Notice that this is not delusion but an illusion- there is a strong feeling that the phantom limb is present and the amputee knows perfectly well that it's just a feeling and perception. This is what V.S. Ramachandran means when he speaks of "body-image"- the perception that we have a body comes from an intrinsic image of the body, not just on external stimuli.
Next, we move to cortical remapping- Cortical remapping is what happens in the brain after an accident or trauma or stroke. It relearns and remaps its functions. But sometimes, the remapping can have some curious effects. Like a hand being remapped onto the corresponding cheek, with sensations felt on the cheek also being felt on the phantom hand. As you can see from our little homunculus here, the portion of the brain that corresponds to the hand is next to the portion that corresponds to the face/cheek. This is why, when sensory information ceases for a hand (due to its untimely separation from the body), remapping can cause a neighboring area to essentially step-in and fill the void, a kind of spillover.
If you drop a water droplet on the cheek of such a person, the amputee may feel the water droplet sliding on his phantom limb. The pain felt in the phantom hand (technically an "out-of-body pain") can also be reduced by massaging the cheek.
This becomes more evident in folks who lose a foot. Because the foot and the genitals are side-by-side on the whole cortical homunculus (genitals not depicted in the pic), the sensory gap left by the missing foot can be remapped so that the genitals step in. In this case, a very curious phenomena can occur.
An engineer in Florida reported a heightening of sensation in his phantom lower limb during orgasm and that his experience actually spread all the way down into the (phantom) foot instead of remaining confined to the genitals: so that the orgasm was much bigger than it used to be.
In the next part, we will see how V.S. Ramachandran managed to "amputate" the phantom limb itself.
Source: http://
http://www.intropsych.com/
http://
Image source: http://www.intropsych.com/
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There were these three blokes sitting on the high cliffs of a lonely beach, with a rope going down into the surf and a Chinaman frantically trying to climb up.
While they were sitting there a Priest walks along, looks over and says, "God bless you children, that's Christianity at work. May the lord bless you both," and then kept on walking.
One bloke looks at the other, "Who the fuck was that?" "Oh," said the other bloke, "that's Father Johnston. He knows all there is about the bible."
The other bloke looked around and quickly says, "Well he knows fuck all about shark fishing."
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While they were sitting there a Priest walks along, looks over and says, "God bless you children, that's Christianity at work. May the lord bless you both," and then kept on walking.
One bloke looks at the other, "Who the fuck was that?" "Oh," said the other bloke, "that's Father Johnston. He knows all there is about the bible."
The other bloke looked around and quickly says, "Well he knows fuck all about shark fishing."
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A whole bunch of us were sitting around my house talking and we were trying to remember a guy's name. None of us could remember his name at all when all of a sudden my friend yells, "Dick!".
We said yes that's it. Then she said "Boy, I pulled that one out of my ass".
We said yes that's it. Then she said "Boy, I pulled that one out of my ass".
No one said anything until I burst out laughing and she said "You had to go there didn't you?"
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"When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other." -- Eric Hoffer
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Never ruin an apology with an excuse. - Kimberly Johnson
"Trying" is the first step toward failure - Homer Simpson
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“Pictures of last night/ended up online/I’m screwed…oh well…”
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A police officer came upon a terrible wreck where the driver and passenger had been killed. As he looked upon the wreckage a little monkey came out of the brush and hopped around the crashed car. The officer looked down at the monkey and said "I wish you could talk."
The monkey looked up at the officer and shook his head up and down.
"You can understand what I'm saying?" asked the officer.
Again, the monkey shook his head up and down.
"Well, did you see this?"
"Yes," motioned the monkey.
"What happened?"
The monkey pretended to have a can in his hand and turned it up by his mouth.
"They were drinking?" asked the officer.
"Yes."
"What else?"
The monkey pinched his fingers together and held them to his mouth.
"They were smoking marijuana?"
"Yes."
"What else?"
The monkey motioned "Screwing."
"They were screwing, too?" asked the astounded officer.
"Yes."
"Now wait, you're saying your owners were drinking, smoking and screwing before they wrecked."
"Yes."
"What were you doing during all this?"
"Driving" motioned the monkey.
The monkey looked up at the officer and shook his head up and down.
"You can understand what I'm saying?" asked the officer.
Again, the monkey shook his head up and down.
"Well, did you see this?"
"Yes," motioned the monkey.
"What happened?"
The monkey pretended to have a can in his hand and turned it up by his mouth.
"They were drinking?" asked the officer.
"Yes."
"What else?"
The monkey pinched his fingers together and held them to his mouth.
"They were smoking marijuana?"
"Yes."
"What else?"
The monkey motioned "Screwing."
"They were screwing, too?" asked the astounded officer.
"Yes."
"Now wait, you're saying your owners were drinking, smoking and screwing before they wrecked."
"Yes."
"What were you doing during all this?"
"Driving" motioned the monkey.
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Rex Barker here with "Take Responsibility in Life"
Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody.
There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry with that, because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it.
It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody have done.
This is Rex Barker reminding you that in life, if you want to get things done, if you want to move forward in your life, if you want to grow as a person, and even if you just want to stop wasting time waiting in line, take control of the situation and do something. Successful people dont sit there fidgeting waiting for someone else to act or to find out what is going on. They do it themselves. So they next time you seem frustrated, take action.
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The Lone Ranger and Tonto had been riding down the trail all day. When they had stopped to take a rest Tonto
placed his ear to the ground and listened.
"Buffalo come," remarked Tonto.
"How can you tell, Tonto?" asked the Lone Ranger.
"Face sticky."
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placed his ear to the ground and listened.
"Buffalo come," remarked Tonto.
"How can you tell, Tonto?" asked the Lone Ranger.
"Face sticky."
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Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings;
they did it by killing all those who opposed them.
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Barbara Walters was doing a documentary on the customs of American Indians. After a tour of a reservation, she asked a Brave,who had only one feather in his headdress, "Why the difference in the number of feathers in the headdresses?"
His reply was, "Me have only one sqaw, me have only one feather."
She asked another Brave, feeling the first fellow was only joking. This Brave had four feathers in his headdress.
He replied, "Ugh; me have four feathers because me sleep with four squaws."
Still not convinced the number of feathers indicated the number of sqaws involved, she decided to interview the Chief. Now the Chief had a headdress full of feathers, which, needless to say, amused Ms. Walters. She asked the Chief, "Why do you have so many feathers in your headdress?"
The Chief proudly pounded his chest and said, "Me Chief. Me fuck-em all. Big, small, fat, tall. Me fuck-em all."
The Chief proudly pounded his chest and said, "Me Chief. Me fuck-em all. Big, small, fat, tall. Me fuck-em all."
Horrified, Ms. Walters stated, "You ought to be hung!"
The Chief replied, "You damned right, me hung. Big like buffalo, long like snake."
Ms. Walters cried, "You don't have to be so goddamned hostile!"
The Chief replied, "Hoss-style, dog-style, wolf-style, any-style, me fuck-em all!"
With tears in her eyes, Ms. Walters cried, "Oh dear."
The Chief said, "No deer. Me no fuck deer. Asshole too high and fuckers run too fast. No fuck deer!"
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New haircut, new hair color(s), new outlook on life ~
My birthday is next weekend
~ and my schedule just opened up
~ and I got a few free birthday dinner vouchers to use this month.
Who wants to help me celebrate?
Ursa ~
ursarodinia@aol.com
ursarodinia@aol.com
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