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It’s yellow and transports students to schools. A school bus? No – a
school tricycle! Only in New Delhi – via Mandelrot
Times are tough – and if you’re looking for a new job, Look at This blog has a nice tip for you: the 10 questions you should NOT ask in a job interview.
Here are a few:
10. What’s your company’s policy on severance pay?
9. How long does it take your company’s bureaucracy to get around to firing somebody for poor performance?
8. Do you have a random drug testing policy?
7. Does your company’s life insurance cover suicide?
Link – via Land-O-Links
Artist Andy Saunders teamed up with VW parts and accessory company Just Kampers to create the "Vancake" the world’s lowest Volkswagen Bus!
The 3-foot (1 meter) tall VW Bus entitled "Vancake" that’s fully road legal was created by Saunders and his team in just three days during this past weekend’s (July 18 to 20) Bug Jam festival at the UK’s Santa Pod Raceway. Apart from lowering the roof the team also applied a custom paint job and an electric sunroof.
Link – via Craziest Gadgets
After the success of Zombie Harmony and 9 Reason NOT to Date a Tyrannosaurus Rex, Matthew Inman launched another funny microsite: 10 Reasons It Would Rule to Date a Unicorn.
Reason I: They Fart Glitter. Good enough for me! Link – Thanks Matthew!
The sales of the insanely popular video game Grand Theft Auto IV have been halted in Thailand because of a copycat murder:
One of the largest video game distributors in Asia has halted sales of the Grand Theft Auto IV in Thailand after a teenager confessed to robbing and murdering a taxi driver while trying to recreate a scene from the game.
New Era Interactive said it had sent a note to all of its Thai stores telling them to pull the game off the shelves after a 19-year old high-school student confessed to killing a taxi driver with a knife he bought at a local branch of Tesco.
Police in Bangkok said that the youth "had wanted to find out if it was as easy in real life to rob a taxi as it was in the game."
Link – Thanks Geekazoid!
Artist Deborah Grumet of the ABCs of Art took the Ten Commandments and illustrated them in the style of road sign pictograms!
This one to the left is the Sixth Commandment: "You shall not murder." Can you guess the inspiration for this particular sign?
Link | The YouTube slideshow – Thanks Deborah!
A few days ago, Craig Covault wrote an article for Aviation Week claiming that the Mars Phoenix lander didn’t just find ice – it had discovered "potential for life" on Mars and that the White House was briefed about it:
"They have discovered water on Mars for the third or fourth time," one senior Mars scientists joked about the hubbub around the water ice announcement.
The other data not discussed openly yet are far more "provocative," Phoenix officials say.
In fact, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory science team for the MECA wet-chemistry instrument that made the findings was kept out of a July 31 news conference at the University of Arizona Phoenix control center. The goal was to prevent them from being asked any questions that could reveal information before NASA is ready to make an announcement, sources say.
The Bush Administration’s Presidential Science Advisor’s office, however, has been briefed on the new information that NASA hopes to release as early as mid August. It is possible an announcement would not come until September, to allow for additional analysis. That will depend upon the latest results still being analyzed from the spacecraft’s organic oven and soil chemistry laboratories. (Source – Thanks Geekazoid!)
The news was picked up by Slashdot and the blogosphere was propelled into a tizzy, despite NASA and the White House’s quick denial of the rumor.
So, let’s play a fun guessing game. What do you think the "provocative" news is all about?
Using records from the Microsoft Messenger Instant Messaging database, researchers have just proven (again) the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon theory:
With records of 30 billion electronic conversations among 180 million people from around the world, researchers have concluded that any two people on average are distanced by just 6.6 degrees of separation, meaning that they could be linked by a string of seven or fewer acquaintances.
The database covered all of the Microsoft Messenger instant-messaging network in June 2006, or roughly half the world’s instant-messaging traffic at that time, researchers said.
"To me, it was pretty shocking. What we’re seeing suggests there may be a social connectivity constant for humanity," said Eric Horvitz, a Microsoft researcher who conducted the study with colleague Jure Leskovec. "People have had this suspicion that we are really close. But we are showing on a very large scale that this idea goes beyond folklore."
Link – Thanks Geekazoid!
The Boy Scout Store has merit badges available for purchase for accomplishments that aren’t spelled out in the Boy Scout Manual. Show off your accomplishments in the fields of drinking, cat herding, belching, and going bald! Link -via Everlasting Blort
The St. Petersburg Times reports on a feral child found living in an urban apartment under horrific conditions. Danielle was almost seven years old, yet she had never been to school, didn’t speak, and did not react to human contact. The story is heartbreaking.
Dr. Kathleen Armstrong, director of pediatric psychology at the University of South Florida medical school, was the first psychologist to examine Danielle. She said medical tests, brain scans, and vision, hearing and genetics checks found nothing wrong with the child. She wasn’t deaf, wasn’t autistic, had no physical ailments such as cerebral palsy or muscular dystrophy.
The doctors and social workers had no way of knowing all that had happened to Danielle. But the scene at the house, along with Danielle’s almost comatose condition, led them to believe she had never been cared for beyond basic sustenance. Hard as it was to imagine, they doubted she had ever been taken out in the sun, sung to sleep, even hugged or held. She was fragile and beautiful, but whatever makes a person human seemed somehow missing.
Armstrong called the girl’s condition “environmental autism.” Danielle had been deprived of interaction for so long, the doctor believed, that she had withdrawn into herself.
The most extraordinary thing about Danielle, Armstrong said, was her lack of engagement with people, with anything. “There was no light in her eye, no response or recognition. . . . We saw a little girl who didn’t even respond to hugs or affection. Even a child with the most severe autism responds to those.”
Danielle’s was “the most outrageous case of neglect I’ve ever seen.”
The special report includes the story, videos, and a photo gallery, and well as links to child abuse, adoption, and historical information. Link -via trendalicious
I declare you Mon Calamari and wife! Photo: jwinokur [Flickr]
The awesomest wedding cake EVAR! Photo: jwinokur [Flickr]
All of the guests are in costume! Photo: jwinokur [Flickr]
There are Star Wars fan wedding, then there are hardcore Star Wars fan wedding! Photographer Justin Winokur has a very neat Flickr photoset of what is undoubtedly one of the BEST Star Wars wedding ever! Congrats to the couple!
Link – via Super Punch
(And let me be the first to say it: "Wedding? It’s a trap!" – Mon Calamari Rebel leader Admiral Ackbar)
A pair of bloomers once owned by Queen Victoria had just fetched £4,500 at an auction:
The knickers have a 50in (127cm) waist and date from the 1890s, which indicates the monarch had a large girth as she approached her old age.
It was thought the bloomers would fetch £500 but a Canadian buyer spent £4,500 on the pants which are monogrammed with VR for Victoria Regina.
Link – via Scribal Terror
This is pretty funny: a story about an Olympic swimming competitor whose Speedo fell out in the middle of the swim!
Okay, so maybe it’s a little unbelievable, but still enjoyable nonetheless: Link [embedded YouTube, in Japanese - but you'll get the gist]
Papercraft enthusiast “atom” made this kinetic (pushed by hand) sculpture of a Trevithick steam locomotive (Richard Trevithick [wiki] built the world’s first working railway steam locomotive). Atom also has paper model of a wall pendulum clock and other cool stuff.
Tired of losing your teeny tiny remote control? Get one that is almost a foot long!
The built in shock absorber is great for those accidental drops, and the rubberized edges will make sure your remote, and furniture is protected. You won’t lose this down the back of the sofa, and you won’t need your glasses to find it.
Last Sunday, Pastor Irwin Allen of Peoria, Arizona, deliverd a sermon about sins so specific that some people in the audience gasped with recognition.
So how did Pastor Allen gave such a "prophetic" sermon? He read the blogs of the people in his congregation:
Pastor Alton, who cultivates a reputation as a computer illiterate techno-phobe, is actually an avid reader of MySpace pages, blogs and personal websites of the people in his congregation. "I appear, shall we say, un-hip," he says. "Therein lies my advantage."
Though he publicly refers to the Worldwide Web as the "Worldwide Waste" and e-mail as "sin-mail," in his home office is a bank of computer screens with more than 170 bookmarked sites — personal web pages, blogs, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, Flickr and more.
Each week Alton surfs the sites for hours to find evidence of questionable behavior by people in his church. He jots offenses down and incorporates them into his Sunday sermons.
Link – via Locust & Honey
Update 8/4/08 – It’s a satire, LarkNews is like the Onion for evangelicals (which, I fully admit, I didn’t know though I did look for references to the story and could only find it on LarkNews – Thanks Rev. Kate Layzer)
