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People in Russia say that there is no wedding without a fight. That’s not right, there are. But not this one.
From English Russia, with love video. Link -Thanks, Jan!
For once, I think our President is starting to make a little sense. Hit play, or go to the Link, to watch this amusing press conference. via The Presurfer
“At the time, Egypt was in the Roman Empire, so the finding reveals how widespread trade was throughout the empire,” Bruno said. “The mix of cultures probably was not unlike what exists today in Egypt.”
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Wired Blogs is looking at who is editing Wikipedia entries in order to protect or shape their own image.
Caltech graduate student Virgil Griffith just launched an unofficial Wikipedia search tool that threatens to lay bare the ego-editing and anonymous flacking on the site. Enter the name of a corporation, organization or government entity and you get a list of IP addresses assigned to it. Then with one or two clicks, you can see all the anonymous edits made from those addresses anywhere in Wikipedia’s pages.
Wired is collecting cases of Wikipedia edits coming from those who stand to lose or gain depending on the accesible information. Several are already listed. They invite anyone to contribute cases you know of, or that you can find via Griffith’s search tool. Link -via Metafilter
Hands down, here’s the dumbest criminal of all time: the Duct Tape Robber:
Robbery is a serious problem for retail stores across our region. But the employees of Shamrock Liquors in Ashland, Kentucky, can’t stop laughing about what happened last Friday at the store along 13th street.
Police say Kasey Kazee walked in to the store with duct tape wrapped around his head to conceal his face.
Fortunately, store manager Bill Steele had some duct tape of his own. Steel had a wooden club wrapped with duct tape that eventually sent the suspect fleeing the store.
Link to Story | Link to Video – via Gorilla Mask
German researchers are developing a fire-fighting beetle robot to battle forest fires:
Scientists in Germany are hard at work on an autonomous, pill-bug-like robot to be used to fight forest fires. It’s got legs like the little insect, and if the going gets too hot, it can retract them into its body. They’ll then be protected by the ceramic casing, which can withstand heat of up to 2,300 degrees.
Trucking along at 12 to 19 mph the bugbots could cover wide areas by being able to get close to the heat without getting burned. In fact, a team of merely 30 of the robots could cover an area as large as 4,400 square miles.
Jessica Vitkus of AlternaCrafts created this colorful "threat levels" security blanket:
Endorsed by the White House and Fox News, this colorful scrap quilt is a guide to our ever-changing security alert levels. Each level is labeled with embroidery to distinguish a DHS Blanket from a gay-pride flag. (Note: Blanket is not a safety device. In case of a terrorist attack, DHS Blanket will not protect you.)
Link – via Boing Boing
The Wright brothers were the first people to fly, right? Well, according to this excellent article at our pal mental_floss, that may not be quite true. For example:
French inventor Clément Ader distinguished himself as the first to develop stereo sound, among his many engineering innovations. He was the first to achieve self-propelled flight, with an batwing aircraft powered by a steam engine. His first flight was around 50 meters, on October 9, 1890, a full 13 years before the Wright Brothers! He then designed a better flying machine that reportedly flew 200 yards in 1892. A public demonstration in 1897 apparently ended badly, and Ader lost his Department of War funding.
Inspired by The Big Lebowski Phonetic Alphabet, grupthink user skrrrriti wrote this article to solicit users to contribute to the Internet Phenomena Phonetic Alphabet – Thanks misterblister!
Here’s why it’s a bad idea to drink too much coffee:
Jasmine Willis, 17, developed a fever and began hyperventilating after drinking seven double espressos while working at her family’s sandwich shop.
The student, of Stanley, County Durham, was taken to the University Hospital of North Durham, where doctors confirmed she had overdosed on caffeine.
She has since made a full recovery and is now warning others about the dangers of excessive coffee drinking.
Link – via Blue’s News
When scientists performed “genetic nose jobs” on female mice, they were surprised to find that they’ve turned them critters into insatiable sex machines (i.e. behave like males)!
The new work of the Harvard University and Howard Hughes Medical Institute team, published in the journal Nature, indicates that defects in this organ, known as the vomeronasal organ, lead female mice to act like males, solicting them, mounting them and thrusting them while abandoning nesting and nursing.
"These results are flabbergasting," says Prof Catherine Dulac. "Nobody had imagined that a simple mutation like this could induce females to behave so thoroughly like males."
Link – Thanks cuimhne!
The mystery of the moving rocks (or sailing stones [wiki]) of Death Valley’s Racetrack Playa is solved and the mysterious force is identified: the rocks are dragged by wind-blown sheets of ice that formed when water left by rain or snowmelt freezes during the night.
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – via reddit
Four years ago, about 40 million Americans and 10 million Canadians plunged into darkness as Northeastern and Midwestern US, as well as Ontario lost electrical power.
BlogTO has a "flashback" article marking the anniversary of the Great Northeast Blackout of 2003 [wiki]:
Something magical and beautiful can be seen in many people’s recollections of their experiences during the blackout. It helped many people transcend usual social barriers by breaking down or simply pausing the normal framework of society. It encouraged people to take a step away from rushing from the grocery store to their home to catch a television show and instead engage with their surroundings. [...]
We witnessed people spontaneously directing traffic through intersections around there, something that I’ve come to realize was pretty widespread.
Verdant Power has been testing the use of underwater turbines in New York’s East River for the past few weeks, with the goal of adding hundreds or even thousands of turbines to help address the city’s power needs.
There’s just one minor problem – the current is so powerful that the turbines are snapping like twigs. While the turbines have been temporarily removed, Verdant is hopeful that a redesign will allow for greater power generation with fewer malfunctions.
How to use a wristwatch as a compass, an old trick that is worth repeating.
Fark displayed its 3 millionth active thread today. Fark is an odd news aggregator and networking site launched by Drew Curtis in 1999. Fark now receives around 2,000 submissions a day. Congratulations to Drew and the gang at Fark on the milestone! Link
Monkey Suicide asks the question “How many times can 1 monkey die?â€
Thus far 205 monkeys have met their doom in all kinds of sticky situations.
ForbesTraveler lists the most expensive desserts in the world. The one above is called the “Fortress Aquamarine†and costs $14,500.
This dessert, which debuted in March, was inspired by the success of the restaurant’s other gem-studded treat, the Bombay Sapphire Martini. The star of the show is an 80-carat aquamarine gem that rests on a sliver of chocolate shaped to resemble the traditional stilt fisherman that’s part of the resort’s logo. Handmade glass utensils (not included in the price) complete the presentation. And yes, diners can pocket the gemstone after polishing off the dessert. None have yet been sold.
Link – via A Welsh View
It’s time for another Neatorama’s Caption Monkey game! Funniest caption wins a Free Monkey Drawing by Ape Lad of Hobotopia.
Rules are simple: one caption per comment, you can submit as many as you’d like. You can also vote for your favorite comment (no, not your own).
Funniest caption will receive a free monkey drawing – you name the monkey and Ape Lad will draw it for you – if you don’t win, but still want a monkey or other critters, you can buy one directly from Ape Lad (worth the money!)
Update 8/16/07: Congratulations to Sky #1 for the winning comment:
He never knew after 6 years of schooling he would be working farts out of sumo wrestlers.
A while ago, in my tongue-in-cheek response to the Amazing Criss Angel Levitation post, I posted a bit about the Amazing Levitation of the Cult Leader and Terrorist Shoko Asahara (where he claimed he can levitate by means of "Yogic Flying").
Now, behold – you can see the Yogic Flying in its full majesty: hit play or go to Link [Google Video]
Checkout is a thesis film by New York University students Dan Eckman, Dominic Dierkes, and Megie McFadden. It’s about a ninja that works in a convenience store:
Black Shadow, a recently graduated ninja assassin, returns home from his training to begin his career; however, due to the tight job market, he is forced to take on a job as a stockboy at the local grocery. Mike and Drew, two fraternity brothers, hop from convenience store to convenience store exploring the competitive side of the “beer run.” And Janitor Joe goes to great extremes to prove to everyone at the grocery store that he can – in fact – be a “creepy janitor” as these three seemingly disparate storylines converge in a large-scale grocery store fiasco.
Link (don’t miss the trailer!)
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Why did the chicken cross the canvas? To make art, of course!
Chinese painter Xiao Hu watches as two chickens walk on a paper at a studio in Songzhuang, Beijing, July 21, 2007. Xiao Hu bought the two chickens at a market, painted their claws with ink, and then let the chickens to walk on the white paper, making paintings.
To make chicken scratches and call it art: smart.
To make chickens actually paint the "art" for you: genius!
The Let Them Sing It For You website will sing whatever you type using sound clips from actual, popular songs! Although not perfect, the vocab is surprisingly good!
Link – Thanks Joe!
The products from Smart combines a fun design with educational information.
When it comes to the above solar system shower curtain, I’ll leave the obvious certain planet doubles as a reminder to wash certain body parts for the comments.
Link – via GadgetGrid
“She (the hamster) usually climbs up the side of the cage and does a “monkey bar†stunt. I just tried to set it up with a nicer-looking environment,†he said. He had noticed that his pet usually grabs on with two paws to maintain her balance, and after a while, drops to a single limb “when she gets tired†he explained.
Update: Yes, the hamster should be a he… missed that one!
Originally from Indian Pad:
An 11-year-old boy has hair growing all over his face and body, a rare medical anomaly, and doctors say that laser treatment or plastic surgery is the only way out. Prithviraj Patil, son of a well-to-do farmer in Sangalwadi near Sangli, suffers from a rare medical anomaly though he is otherwise like any normal child.
The child is obviously afflicted with a severe form of hypertrichosis. Hypertrichosis is generalized as excessive hair growth however, in this case, the word ‘excessive’ is a bit of an understatement. Currently there are fewer that 20 living and similar cases reported worldwide. The direct cause of the condition is still unknown and variations can be present at birth or manifest later in life. Furthermore, hypertrichosis can be inherited or appear via spontaneous mutation.
The first well documented case of hypertrichosis occurred in 1557 with the discovery of Petrus Gonzales – Wolf Boy of the Canary Islands. While Prithviraj Patil is the most recent case to come to light, previously Supatra Sasuphan of Thailand garnered media attention for her similar condition.
