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In this fun click-through game from Gregory Weir, they’re out to get you. They’re always watching. And they’ve always been there. But maybe, just maybe, you can find a way to escape them…
Link via JayIsGames
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I’m a big fan of the genre of fiction known as alternate history. That’s why I’m excited about a new novel by Harry Turtledove and Bryce Zabel called Winter of Our Discontent: The Impeachment and Trial of John F. Kennedy.
The point of divergence is that a Secret Service agent spotted the glint off of Oswald’s rifle seconds before he fired. Kennedy survived November 22, 1963. Whether or not he would survive scandals that would rock his administration would not be so certain.
You can read the first chapter of the novel here, and the articles of impeachment here.
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Here’s something for you to ponder the next time you’re in the bathroom: American’s love for soft toilet paper is ecologically hard on forests!
… fluffiness comes at a price: millions of trees harvested in North America and in Latin American countries, including some percentage of trees from rare old-growth forests in Canada. Although toilet tissue can be made at similar cost from recycled material, it is the fiber taken from standing trees that help give it that plush feel, and most large manufacturers rely on them.
Customers “demand soft and comfortable,” said James Malone, a spokesman for Georgia Pacific, the maker of Quilted Northern. “Recycled fiber cannot do it.” [...]
Though most of the pulp comes from tree farms, but not all:
Although brands differ, 25 percent to 50 percent of the pulp used to make toilet paper in this country comes from tree farms in South America and the United States. The rest, environmental groups say, comes mostly from old, second-growth forests that serve as important absorbers of carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping gas linked to global warming. In addition, some of the pulp comes from the last virgin North American forests, which are an irreplaceable habitat for a variety of endangered species, environmental groups say.
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Remember the adage "no good deed goes unpunished?" Well, Jim Moffett was helping two elderly women and a man cross a busy Denver street in a snowstorm when a pickup went straight at them – Jim pushed the three out of the way, but got struck himself.
His reward for being a Good Samaritan? A jaywalking ticket:
Family members said 58-year-old bus driver Jim Moffett and another man were helping two elderly women cross a busy Denver street in a snowstorm when he was hit Friday night.
Moffett suffered bleeding in the brain, broken bones, a dislocated shoulder and a possible ruptured spleen. He was in serious but stable condition Wednesday.
The Colorado State Patrol issued the citation. Trooper Ryan Sullivan said that despite Moffett’s intentions, jaywalking contributed to the accident.
Previously on Neatorama: Suing a Good Samaritan
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Mark Pagel, evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading, and colleagues have identified some of the oldest words in the English language using computer analyses:
Reading University researchers claim "I", "we", "two" and "three" are among the most ancient, dating back tens of thousands of years. [...]
At the root of the Reading University effort is a lexicon of 200 words that is not specific to culture or technology, and is therefore likely to represent concepts that have not changed across nations or millennia.
"We have lists of words that linguists have produced for us that tell us if two words in related languages actually derive from a common ancestral word," said Professor Pagel. [...]
For example, the words "I" and "who" are among the oldest, along with the words "two", "three", and "five". The word "one" is only slightly younger.
William the Conqueror (Getty)
Time-travellers would find a few sounds familiar in William’s wordsThe word "four" experienced a linguistic evolutionary leap that makes it significantly younger in English and different from other Indo-European languages.
Meanwhile, the fastest-changing words are projected to die out and be replaced by other words much sooner.
For example, "dirty" is a rapidly changing word; currently there are 46 different ways of saying it in the Indo-European languages, all words that are unrelated to each other. As a result, it is likely to die out soon in English, along with "stick" and "guts".
Verbs also tend to change quite quickly, so "push", "turn", "wipe" and "stab" appear to be heading for the lexicographer’s chopping block.
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Is life on Earth special? Not according to Carnegie Institution’s astronomer Alan Boss. The author of the new book The Crowded Universe: The Search for Living Planets
[Boss] made the prediction based on the number of "super-Earths" — planets several times the mass of the Earth, but smaller than gas giants like Jupiter — discovered so far circling stars outside the solar system.
Boss said that if any of the billions of Earth-like worlds he believes exist in the Milky Way have liquid water, they are likely to be home to some type of life.
"Now that’s not saying that they’re all going to be crawling with intelligent human beings or even dinosaurs," he said.
"But I would suspect that the great majority of them at least will have some sort of primitive life, like bacteria or some of the multicellular creatures that populated our Earth for the first 3 billion years of its existence."
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Watch this series of slow-motion videos in which 90 small magnets are laid out in a matrix. Then another magnet is dropped on top, which upsets the matrix and causes the magnets to realign, assembling themselves into, um, whatever it is that magnets naturally assemble into.
I know my description is confusing; but take my word, it’s pretty cool. Link -via Unique Daily
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Thirty states have deals with large banks to deposit unemployment benefits. Many of the banks then issue a prepaid debit card to jobless people. On the surface, it looks like a simple deal. In practice, recipients are finding that accessing their money can cost quite a bit! After the first withdrawal, each transaction carries a fee. The banks make interest off the money that is deposited, and a 1-3% fee from vendors off any transaction made with the cards. The state saves money over writing and mailing checks because the banks will set up the program for free. Banks don’t mind because they make plenty off fees charged to benefit recipients.
In Missouri, for instance, 94,883 people claimed unemployment benefits through debit cards from Central Bank. Analysts say a recipient uses a card an average of six to 10 times a month. If each cardholder makes three withdrawals at an out-of-network ATM, at a fee of $1.75, the bank would collect nearly $500,000. If half of the cardholders also dial customer service three times in any given week (the first time is free; after that, it’s 25 cents a call), the bank’s revenue would jump to more than $521,000. That would yield $6.3 million a year.
Rachel Storch, a Democratic state representative, received a wave of complaints about the fees from autoworkers laid off from a suburban St. Louis Chrysler plant. She recently urged Gov. Jay Nixon to review the state’s contract with Central Bank with an eye toward reducing the fees.
“I think the contract is unfair and potentially illegal to unemployment recipients,” she said.
The easiest way to avoid fees is to withdraw all funds at once from a debit card account, then deposit the money in your regular checking account. Link -via Cynical-C
(image credit: Free Digital Photos)
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Can you hear the sound in the clip at this site? I can’t, but that’s not surprising. It can generally only be heard by people under the age of 25. Those who can hear it say it’s pretty annoying. Some older folks use it to repel teens, but some young people use it for a ring tone. Link -via Digg
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Months later, I received an email from a William Diesslin, regarding my photos of Matten:
You didn’t know it at the time, but you photographed my great
grandfather’s store front! I’ve attached the photo for your reference.”
I scoured my photos until I found what seemed to be a match for the historic black and white picture Diesslin had sent. During the next few weeks, I learned the rest of the story. Diesslin’s search for his ancestry had been unsuccessful until he discovered my blog. Once he saw my photo he was able to identify the present day building and track down the owners, who confirmed the store had originally belonged to his great grandfather.
In a subsequent email he remarked:
"This will be a landmark for my family as my dad was orphaned at 14
years old, all family history was lost. Your photos may have opened up
a long lost link to my ancestors.”
There’s more to the story, like the fact that Diesslin stayed in that very building (it is now a hostel) back in the 1980’s and had abslutely no idea that it had any connection to his family. The series of coincidences are so bizarre as to be almost unbelievable. To read the rest of the story, and to see the histoic and present day photos, visit Hole In The Donut Travel Blog.
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Some really bizarre classes that are honestly offered at colleges include "Underwater Basket Weaving", "The Joy Of Garbage", and "Far Side Entomology". The professor who teaches the class "Arguing With Judge Judy" wants us to know,
…this class is “NOT a course about law or “legal reasoning.” It is instead an exploration of logical fallacies that are often presented by defendants and plaintiffs on court television shows like Judge Judy and The People’s Court. Seems right up the alley of most college students, as they are squarely in the demographic of afternoon television programming (which also targets the elderly and unemployed).
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Technically it’s an iRobot, but it’s pretty much the same thing. It kinda reminds me of Dr. Robotnik’s creations, only alot less evil.
– via Make
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The pristine condition of the Mount Mabu forest is attributed to two things: its remote location and and the fact that Mozambique was embroiled in a civil war for the past 20 years, which finally ended in the mid-1990s. Even locals didn’t know much about the forest.
Among the expedition’s discoveries were three species of butterflies new to science, a new species of adder, six birds that are globally threatened, and this perhaps terrified pygmy chameleon.
“This is potentially the biggest area of medium-altitude forest I’m aware of in southern Africa, yet it was not on the map.”
– expedition leader Jonathan Timberlake, RBC Kew
Shown is a pygmy chameleon found in the Mount Mabu forest.
Link – via timesonline
(image credit: Julian Bayliss/Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew)
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Not too long ago a small local newspaper up here in Maine ran an article about a guy who had collected countless rolls of undeveloped film. It started with one roll of Kodachrome from a discarded camera but soon became the reason he would rummage around thrift stores when driving around the country. Over the years he collected a huge stash and finally had it all developed.
The result of his obsession is a site called MangoFalls where he’s posted hundreds of images from those rolls of film that he dragged around for so long. You won’t find any scenic snapshots. It’s all about the people and their fashions from the 50’s and 60’s. I suppose it’s possible that you might even see someone you know.
The metal body was battered and the lens looked like a coke bottle that had been dragged down 5 miles of asphalt. The camera had been dead a long time. I was about to set it down when I noticed that there was a roll of film inside. I slowly rewound the film, popped the door, and was rewarded with a pristine roll of Kodachrome. I asked the guy at the counter how much he wanted for it. “Gimme a quarter” he replied. I paid the man and drove home with the mystery roll.
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These Japanese snacks are actually called “Sea Otter Boogers” and apparently are quite tasty treats made of candied black beans. They’re yours for only about $6, of course, you have to speak Japanese to order them.
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This egg shell art is truly stunning. InventorSpot has more pictures of these lovely, detailed art pieces by artist Ron Cheruka.
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It’s amazing what some people can creatively do with everyday objects, and Christian Faur has recently dropped my jaw … He makes pixel-art out of crayons, No not drawing with them, but using them stacked in a tray to make a picture.
My earliest memories of making art involve the use of wax crayons. I can still remember the pleasure of opening a new box of crayons: the distinct smell of the wax, the beautifully colored tips, everything still perfect and unused. Using the first crayon from a new box always gave me a slight pain. Through a novel technique that I have developed, I again find myself working with the familiar form of the crayon.
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