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A spontaneous lunchtime food fight broke out at a Chicago middle school, and by the time the last bell rang, 25 students aged 11 to 15 were arrested for reckless conduct. Parents told the local news they are furious.
“My children have to appear in court,” Erica Russell, the mother of two eighth-grade girls who spent eight hours in jail, said Tuesday. “They were handcuffed, slammed in a wagon, had their mug shots taken and treated like real criminals.”
“They’re all scared,” Ms. Russell said of the two dozen arrested students. “You never know how children will be impacted by that. I was all for some other kind of punishment, but not jail. Who hasn’t had a food fight?”
What do you guys think? Link (Image from aggrotech‘s Photobucket album)
Photo: Corrie White
No, that’s not the AOL Guy casting a cherry spell, it’s actually a drop of milk. Corrie White discovered a talent for macro-photography and prefers the dairy product due to its slower rate of descent. Using dyes and little else, she creates some stunning, gorgeous images… she even shows her modest, kitchen-based studio!
Link Previously on Neatorama- Macrophotography of Dews
This video incorporates footage from 1935, in which Irish craftsmen build a coracle from willow and an ox hide, then use the craft to set their nets in the River Boyne. One has to admire the skill and experience required to propel a keel-less craft in a reasonably straight line. As the narrator notes, these river craft are related to the larger currachs that were capable of substantial ocean voyages.
Found at Scribal Terror.
This Mona Lisa made out of motherboards decorates the headquarters of the computer maker Asus in Taipei. It serves as an expression of that company’s desire to retake its position as the world’s largest motherboard manufacturer. More pictures at the link.
Link via Make | PBS news report
Blogger Kenny Pearce is developing a bibliography of works of science fiction that are particularly noteworthy for expressing a philosophical worldview or premise. He presents several categories, such as Mind, Solipsism, and Sex and Gender. Some of the stories that he lists are available online, like Isaac Asimov’s “The Last Question” — a confrontation with entropy.
Pearce asks readers for suggestions. What would you add to the list?
Link | The Last Question | Image: NIH
In 1971, Gerald Mayo sued Satan in U.S. District Court, alleging that the Dark One had interfered in his life, causing him harm. Judge Weber dismissed the case, arguing that Mayo had failed to serve process of the suit to Satan, and that the court lacked jurisdiction over the defendant. Kevin Underhill’s legal humor blog has a copy of the decision:
Civil rights action against Satan and his servants who allegedly placed deliberate obstacles in plaintiff’s path and caused his downfall, wherein plaintiff prayed for leave to proceed in forma pauperis. The District Court, Weber, J., held that plaintiff would not be granted leave to proceed in forma pauperis who in view of questions of personal jurisdiction over defendant, propriety of class action, and plaintiff’s failure to include instructions for directions as to service of process.
Prayer denied.
The case was later used as a precedent during a case against God.
Link via Grow A Brain | Photo: flickr user Forever Wiser
Family Schmamily … I’m Here For The Turkey – $9.95
This Thanksgiving, after fighting the long lines at the airport, navigating the parking lot that used to be called freeways, and defusing family tension at the dinner table, everyone could use a little humor. So wear this T-shirt and hope that your family sees the humor in it and give you an extra serving of turkey!
From the Neatorama Shop: Link
Design by the talented Chris Murphy
An Australian computer hacker named Ashley Towns has created a virus that … rickrolls jailbroken iPhones:
The Australian programmer who claims to have created the world’s first Apple iPhone virus as a prank has told Computerworld he does not regret writing it.
The worm, ‘Ikee’ changes iPhone owners’ wallpaper and replaces it with a photo of ‘80s pop star Rick Astley and the message “ikee is never going to give you up”.
Twenty-one-year-old Wollongong resident Ashley Towns, said he created the virus out of curiosity and boredom.
“I had just formatted my iPhone and it told me to set the password in bold, big letters and I wondered how many people have actually done that," Towns said.
“So I ran a scan on my [Optus] 3G network and there was 26 phones running the service that’s vulnerable, and out of that 26, 25 hadn’t changed their passwords.”
Photo: Ronald Playforth
Early in May, 1945, officers from the German army and Gestapo met with Allied commanders, including Field Marshall Montgomery to offer their country’s surrender at his headquarters near Hamburg. Interestingly, the only color photographs of this event were taken by a clerk, Ronald Playforth, who hid in the trees during the meeting.
Thequintessential wrote a brief synopsis of this event:
His pictures show Admiral Hans Georg von Friedeburg, the most senior member of the delegation, General Eberhard Kinzel, chief of staff of the north west Germany army, and Major Friedl, a 6ft 6ins Gestapo chief. They were received by Field Marshall Montgomery, with his customary black beret and army uniform, who, when the Germans tried to negotiate, reportedly gave them a ‘tongue lashing’ about the bombing of Coventry and the horrors of Belsen. The delegation reported back to their HQ and Admiral Karl Doenitz – Hitler’s successor – and were given permission to sign the surrender papers, which they did the next day, May 4. When it was all over Montgomery is said to have leaned back and said simply: ‘That concludes the surrender.’
Check out these 15 ludicrously expensive fireplaces. Pictured is the enormous transparent fireplace called Pictofocus, which will set yu back $21,000!
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by 
Everyone in the family is happy and excited when a soldier comes home after a long deployment, but who is best at expressing that joy? Right, the dog! Mental_floss posted ten videos of dogs welcoming their soldiers home. I dare you to keep a straight face and a dry eye while watching these. Link
This is the REAL “Odd Couple”! When the cat went for the bird’s foot, I thought for just a second that he was going to start eating, but no, the emotion is apparently reciprocal. -via reddit
A 22-year-old student in England is trying to survive on a diet of meat, potatoes, and cereals because she has an irrational fear of vegetables.
She suffers from a fear known as lachanophobia, which leaves her sweating and stricken with panic attacks at the merest sight of a sprout or a pea…
“People might think it is a bit of a laughable affliction but I have a genuine fear of greens it’s not just that I dislike the taste of sprouts or broccoli, but the actual sight of them fills me with dread and I could never touch them.”
The unusual fear affects just a few thousand people in Britain…
The fact that she has gone public with her affliction shows that she does not have gelotophobia. You can find your phobia here.
Link. Image credit to 365 Halloween. For a scarier creation see the “Vegetalien” of digital artist Till Nowak, and for a less frightening one, see Giuseppe Arcimboldo‘s work.
Designer Marcus Tremonto created a lamp made out of carbon fiber. He selected this material for the Carbon 451 Lamp because it is strong enough to support its own weight but thin enough to present the aesthetic qualities Tremonto wanted:
When asked by art gallery owner Patrick Brillet to design a piece out of Carbon Fiber, we decided to celebrate and utilize the best of the materials true physical properties, its strength and lightness. The complexity of curves and required thinness could not be duplicated in any other material while still maintaining its ability to support itself completely[...]
More pictures at the link.
Link via Gizmodo | Artist’s Website
The people who are making decisions about the internet are, fundamentally, deciding the access of all future generations to come. Forget Afghanistan and Iraq; these are the theaters of war where democracy will live or die. SherWeb has an overview of the most contentious battles over who controls the web.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by 
An unnamed Alaskan bush pilot went on a fishing trip and neglected to wash down his plane afterward. The 1958 Piper Cub was just too much temptation for a bear to bear.
The fishy aroma attracted a passing grizzly bear who, clearly frustrated at not being able to see the lovely “noms” it could smell, took the plane apart in an effort to find it. Aircraft fabric is no match for bear claws. The bear also chomped both tyres for good measure, then departed the scene.
Alaskans are a hardy bunch, however – as tough as the aircraft they fly. The pilot radioed for two new tyres, three cases of duct tape and a couple of rolls of cellophane to be flown in so he could repair his craft and get home.
Duct tape: is there anything it can’t do? The story includes a picture of the plane after repair. Link -via Fark
Olympia Le-Tan makes handbags that look like books, with covers embroidered to resemble classics. What a neat way to show off your literary taste! Link to pictures. Link to artist’s site. -via Boing Boing
A fairly new website called Kids Eat For keeps a database of family-friendly restaurants and the deals they offer. Find out what day and time kids eat for free or at reduced prices at restaurants near you! Major cities have many listings, and you can search for any in your area as well, or report specials in your area. Link -Thanks, Lisa!
(image credit: Flickr user lindaaslund)
Andreas Dober’s wall clock for the German luxury shop Anthologie Quartett cycles a bicycle chain to display the hour with copper digits at the top. A custom job, it prices out at $2,338.
Link via Make | Anthologie Quartett
"The War to End All Wars" ended 91 years ago on the 11th Hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month in 1918. This became known as Armistice Day, and later as Veteran’s Day. For many, especially Americans, World War I has been practically forgotten as it is overshadowed by WWII in history classes, but WWI had a great impact on the 20th century and that impact lingers to this day. The nation of Iraq was created in the aftermath of the war, for example.
World War I in many ways was the “War to end all Wars” in that it was every war past and future rolled up into one. There were Napoleonic charges, aerial bombardment, a few misguided cavalry charges with actual horses, tanks, machine guns, artillery barrages, air combat, poison gas attacks, flamethrowers, submarine warfare, and primitive hand-to-hand fighting that came down to knives, sharpened spades, and clubs.
The trenches were hell on earth – mud, water, snipers, artillery barrages, barbed wire, machine gun fire, and the rotting corpses of those who fell in No-Man’s Land, the deadly area between the opposing armies’ trenches. Plus there was rampant disease, lice, and rats grown fat from feeding off of corpses.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by samuraidave.
The Navajo language is incredibly complex, with syntax, tonal qualities and dialects that render it unintelligible to outsiders. A spoken language, it has no alphabet or symbols, and is used only in remote Navajo areas of the American Southwest. For these reasons, it was selected as a code language during World War II by the U.S. Marines.
In 1942, Japanese translators and codebreakers were regularly intercepting U.S. military communications and sabotaging U.S. plans in the Pacific. Philip Johnston, a white man who was raised on the Navajo Reservation, convinced Major General Clayton Vogel, commanding general of the Amphibious Corps, Pacific Fleet, that the Marines should recruit Navajos to transmit important military communications.
From the Naval Historical Center:
“In May 1942, the first 29 Navajo recruits attended boot camp. Then, at Camp Pendleton, Oceanside, California, this first group created the Navajo code. They developed a dictionary and numerous words for military terms. The dictionary and all code words had to be memorized during training.
…The developers of the original code assigned Navajo words to represent about 450 frequently used military terms that did not exist in the Navajo language. Several examples: ‘besh- lo’ (iron fish) meant ‘submarine,’ and ‘dah-he- tih-hi’ (hummingbird) meant ‘fighter plane’…
Once a Navajo code talker completed his training, he was sent to a Marine unit deployed in the Pacific theater. The code talkers’ primary job was to talk, transmitting information on tactics and troop movements, orders and other vital battlefield communications over telephones and radios…Praise for their skill, speed and accuracy accrued throughout the war. At Iwo Jima, Major Howard Connor, 5th Marine Division signal officer, declared, ‘Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima.’”
For decades after the war, the contributions of the Navajo code talkers were not publicly acknowledged, because of the continued value of their language as a secure code. The code talkers were finally honored at the Pentagon in 1992, and the Navajo code talker exhibit is now a regular stop on the Pentagon tour.
Of the approximately 400 Navajos who trained as code talkers, only about 50 are still alive, most of them living in the Navajo Nation that includes part of New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. Today, for the first time, a group of 13 code talkers will take part in the Veterans Day parade in New York City.
AP Photo/Felicia Fonseca of Navajo code talker Keith Little, 85, at a book signing in Albuquerque, N.M.
