Archive for May 1st, 2008
Maker Faire Bay Area 2008 Photo Gallery
Maker Faire is this weekend in San Francisco. Scott Beale of Laughing Squid has already posted a gallery full of fascinating photos.
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Synchronization
(YouTube link)
Synchronization of 5 coupled metronomes in Lancaster University.
Pretty neat. -via Cynical-C
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Barack Obama vs. Mike Gravel
I’m a fan of both Barack Obama AND Mike Gravel, but I don’t know quite what to make of this new video by my amigo “rx” of Dick is a Killer fame. Here’s his YouTube channel. Enjoy – or flame away!
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Cat juggling!
OK – not Cat Juggling*, but something almost as good. Baby dropping! Even better, perhaps? YouTube.
*First person in comments to correctly identify the “cat juggling” reference WITHOUT THE AID OF GOOGLE gets a tip of the hat!
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D.C. Madam Found Dead: Was it Really Suicide?
Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who was convicted of running a high-end prostitution ring in the nation’s capital (her nickname is the "D.C. Madam"), was found dead of an apparent suicide today (CNN and ABC News have the story)
Now, just how many of you believe that it was a suicide?
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The Man Who Regrew His Finger
We’ve posted about the "magical" power of the pig bladder powder to regrow finger a couple of months ago – and now, the BBC has an interview with the man who regrew his finger, Lee Spievak.
Link (BBC Media Player/Flash Video, complete with some gruesome images of Lee’s finger) – Thanks Jonathan Beaton, Lasse Bang, and Louise!
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CEO Brings Yak to Office. Yes, Yak.
To foster a fun and creative work environment, more and more companies are having "take your pet to work" day. But Jim Harding, CEO of a Seattle start-up tech company Cirqe went a step further: he took his yak to work!
Weighing in at over 1,000 pounds, Harding’s long-haired bovine just hung around the office on Tuesday. The conference room was unavailable.
"As you can see, he’s pretty calm, he’s cool, he’s collected," Harding said.
But what about the cleanup? Nothing a shovel couldn’t solve. "Yeah, he does tend to do that, about eight times a day," Harding said.
Employees said Harding tries to foster a fun and creative work environment. "It’s an unusual office, but it’s really fun," said software engineer Raul Raja. "You can’t say much when the boss brings in a yak."
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Postal Worker Suspended for ... Wearing the Wrong Shorts!
UK postman Adam Williamson got suspended from his job at the Royal Mail and was even escorted home by the police because he showed up at work wearing non-regulation shorts:
When postman Adam Williamson found he could no longer squeeze into his standard issue Royal Mail trousers, he turned up at work in shorts.
But the solution didn’t go down well with bosses, who suspended him and had him escorted from the sorting depot by police.
Mr Williamson says he has fallen foul of rules because the navy blue shorts have a Nike logo. But he claims they are virtually identical to ill-fitting ones supplied by his employers and he has used them on rounds during the summer for several years.
Depot chiefs are refusing to back down until he finds a non-branded pair of shorts that fit, however.
The dispute got heated and other postal workers threatened to walk off the job in protest of management’s treatment: Link
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Army Study: Bad Recruits Make Good Soldiers
According to an Army study, recruits with criminal, bad driving or drug record (therefore require special waivers to enlist) have more discipline problems and are more likely to drop out because of alcohol problems than those with a spotless record.
No surprise there, but this is interesting: those bad soldiers also earn more medals for valor, stay longer, and get promoted faster!
Gen. William Wallace, commander of the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe, Va., dismisses the notion that waivers are creating more disciplinary problems in today’s Army.
Instead, he said, when the Army brings in a young person who made a mistake and got past it, most likely "they will be a better person for having made that mistake and learned from it, than perhaps somebody who didn’t make the mistake and didn’t have the opportunity to learn."
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Silly Political Parties (of the non-elephant-or-donkey variety)
It’s only April. That means we have another six months to hear all about the upcoming U.S. presidential election. While it’s obviously a very important decision that we all need to be well-informed about, I must admit, I’m getting a little tired of hearing about it. So, for something completely different, let’s discuss frivolous political parties (and no, I don’t mean Democrats or Republicans).
The Deadly Serious Party
The Deadly Serious Party of Australia was anything but. In the 1980s, the DSP was formed and promised to send a flock of trained, killer penguins to protect the Australian coasts from an invasion from Argentine.
Beer Lovers Party of Belarus
Yes! A party I can get behind. Apparently Beer Lovers political parties weren’t that uncommon in post-Soviet states. Their platform was “cleanness and quality of the national beer, state independence and the neutrality of Belarus, freedom of economic relations, personal inviolability and inviolability of the private property”.
The chairman of the party, Andrey Romashevsky, was arrested in 1995 for “hooliganism”. I had no idea that was a criminal offense. After he was released, he moved out of Belarus and the Beer Lovers Party pretty dissolved. Its mascot is a drunken hedgehog, which is a stereotype from Russian jokes (maybe someone can explain that to me?)
The Rhinoceros Party
The Parti Rhinocéros, AKA the Rhinoceros Party, was registered in Canada for more than 30 years. They issued “A promise to keep none of our promises.” Members of the party claimed to be the “spiritual descendants” of Cacareco, a Brazilian rhino that was elected to São Paulo’s city council in the 1950s. They claimed that the rhino was the perfect symbol for a political party, because, among other things, they are “slow-moving, dim-witted, can move fast as hell when in danger, and have large, hairy horns growing out the middle of their faces.” Promises the party made (which they had already promised not to keep) included repealing the law of gravity, paving Manitoba to make the world’s largest parking lot, ending crime by abolishing all laws and that they would enforce higher education by building taller schools.
Union of Conscientiously Work-Shy Elements
The UCWSE was a shockingly successful silly political party started in Denmark in 1979. Jacob Haugaard, the founder, was rather unexpectedly elected to the national parliament of Denmark in 1994. During his ‘94 campaign, he promised better weather, better Christmas presents, more pieces of Renaissance furniture in IKEA, Nutella in the army field rations and more bread for the ducks in parks. He actually accomplished the last two during his four-year term, and also had a public toilet placed in the park in Aarhus. This was especially important to him, because after each election he served beer and sausages in the Aarhus park to his voters.
Although the UCWSE was a joke, Haugaard was not expecting to actually be elected and took his duties very seriously when he was. He retired from politics in March 1998 when his first (and only) term was up. Photo from InternationalReports
The McGillicuddy Serious Party
The McGillicuddy Serious Party formed in 1984 in Hamilton, New Zealand, and had a strong Scottish theme. This seemed a little strange to me until I did some research – Hamilton is named for Captain John Charles Fane Hamilton, the Scottish commander of the HMS Esk. He was killed in Tauranga Campaign of the New Zealand Land Wars.
Anyway, Clan McGillicuddy discovered an extremely distance relationship to the Stuart pretenders of the royal family and suggested one of their own as a replacement for Queen Elizabeth II. They challenged the New Zealand army to a winner-take-all pillow fight battle for the crown. The challenge was declined.
To select political candidates, the party held a battle with newspaper swords and water balloons. Whoever lost the battle would become the candidate for that particular election. A game of musical chairs was another option.
The various policies of the party over the years included free dung, leaving beer on all of the beaches so any invading army would abandon attack and get drunk instead, a potato famine, limiting the speed of light, free castrations and putting accountants in concrete and using them as traffic barriers.
The Official Monster Raving Loony Party
Arguably the most famous frivolous party so far, the Official Monster Raving Loony Party is a registered party in the U.K. started in 1983 by David Sutch, AKA Screaming Lord Sutch. The party had some pretty solid backing in Commander Bill Boaks, a retired WWII hero who was involved in the sinking of the Bismarck.
Their platform included refusing to sign up to the euro, but inviting the rest of Europe to use the pound; letting motorists drive straight over a roundabout when no traffic was coming; and the introduction of a 99 pence coin to save on change. Despite their bizarre manifesto, some of the things the OMRLP asked for have come to pass in the U.K., including a voting age of 18, passports for pets and all-day pub openings.
Eventually, the some members of the party split off into other factions, most notably the Raving Loony Green Giant Party and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Loony Party. Photo from BBC News
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History’s Mysteries
15 Historical Events That Fascinate Us brings us the short version of the most puzzling pieces of our history. The wonders of the ancient world, rumored treasures no one has found, lost civilizations, technology that shouldn’t have been possible at the time, these mysteries capture our imagination and our curiosity. Link -via the Presurfer
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Skin Cells Made into Heart Cells
Scientists at UCLA have succeeded in reprogramming stem cells from mouse skin to become functioning cardiac cells. This is the first trial to find that partially differentiated, or iPS cells that don’t involve embyos or eggs can be made into the three types of cardiac cells needed for heart repair. Senior author of the study Dr. Robb MacLellan says the results are encouraging.
“I believe iPS cells address many of the shortcomings of human embryonic stem cells and are the future of regenerative medicine,” said MacLellan, an associate professor of cardiology and physiology. “I’m hoping that these scientific findings are the first step towards one day developing new therapies that I can offer my patients. There are still many limitations with using iPS cells in clinical studies that we must overcome, but there are scientists in labs across the country working to address these issues right now.”
Further studies at UCLA will try to determine whether human cells can be reprogrammed as well as the mouse cells. Link -via Digg
(image credit: Dake)
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Tetris Theme on Bottles
(College Humor link)
Someone in the comments at Digg suggested that after this and the radio-controlled car doing the Mario theme, the next video should be the Halo theme done by cat yodeling. -via Digg
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Shipwrecks and Sea Disasters
They’re big, they’re buoyant, and when they fail, they might stay right where they are for many years. Dark Roasted Blend has a whole fleet of shipwrecks and abandoned boats for you to see. Link
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The Toughest Movie Characters of All Time
Unlike so many lists you see on the internet, this one encompasses cinema history more than thirty years back. Cultcase looked at classic films to find the toughest (male) characters in cinema history. No special effects, just tough guys written and acted that way. Each has a video clip. You’re sure to find at least one you’re not overly familiar with, and some you may remember as awe-inspiring or nightmare-inducing. Link -via Geek Like Me
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What is it? Game 60 (Neatorama T-Shirt Prizes!)
This week’s collaboration with What is it? Blog brings us this strange apparatus. The first person who guessed what it is for correctly and incorrect but funniest guess will each win a free Neatorama T-shirt (so two winners this week).
Contest rules are simple: place your guess in the comment section. One guess per comment, please. You can submit as many guesses as you’d like. Please don’t post any URL (let others play!).
For more clues, check out What is it? Blog. Good luck!
Update 5/2/08 – the right answer is dental lab gas burner, but no one got it right. So two “funniest caption” winners: congratulations to Mr. Binky (”goldfish themepark”) and tigergal39 (”mutant cow milker”)!
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James Brown and Luciano Pavarotti
I was fascinated by this collaborative performance of “Man’s World.” I guess I’m not the only one, because the YouTube video has 3+ million views on it. The performance must have been fairly recent, because both of them look like the reanimated dead. I waited in line for a day in 1988 to see Mao’s pickled corpse in Tiananmen Square and frankly he looked like he was in better shape after 12 years under glass than these two look under the stage lights. An electrifying performance, regardless! YouTube.
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