Interviewing is a skill and not everyone has it -- but some surprising people do. Like William Shatner. Have you seen his Raw Nerve? Whatever faults he has, Shatner knows how to do a probing interview.
Where was I? Oh, yeah: Bert from Sesame Street is one of those people. "If you could be any sock from history, what would you be?" Brilliant. That's how you get inside someone's head.
There's not much information about this video, but, allegedly, it shows an explosion at the bottom of a water-filled quarry. There's enough 12-year old boy left in me to say that this is awesome.
We've mentioned noodling before. It's a fishing technique that consists of grabbing a fish with your bare hands and tossing it up on the shore. But here in Texas we do it a bit differently. Noodling consists of shoving one's fist into the water. Then, when a big ol' catfish clamps its jaws around your hand, fling it out of the water.
Currently and sadly, noodling is illegal. But that may change. The Wall Street Journal spoke to expert noodler Brady Knowlton:
Nothing beats "the heebie-jeebies you get underwater, in the dark, with this little sea monster biting you," he says. He recalls that his arm looked like "the first stage of a chili recipe" after his first noodling experience about 15 years ago. Catfish are equipped with bands of small but very abrasive teeth.
The bill swam easily through the state house, but now rod-and-reel anglers are speaking up against the proposed law, currently in the state Senate.
They say noodling is unfair to the fish, since they're grabbed in their burrows without a chance to swim away.
Craft introduced me to a great Flickr pool called Geekigami, which is filled with well-made pieces of original origami. This piece by Flickr user -sbel- isn't geeky, but it is neat.
I had no idea that a set of lenses was such an incredibly complex piece of machinery! Michael Zang acquired on eBay a Leica Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50mm that had been sliced in half. It was made by students as a graduation project.
Half-caff latte, I choose you! Christiaan Morris made this latte surface art for the Fremont Coffee Company in Seattle. Other images at the link include Darth Vader, Batman, and Boba Fett.
Virgin Galactic's experimental SpaceShipTwo, dubbed the VSS Enterprise, recently performed its first flight using "feathering". That means that the rear of the craft bent far backwards to slow it down during re-entry. Popular Science's Clay Dillow explained its significance:
“Feathering,” as it is known, is probably the biggest innovation integrated into SpaceShipTwo’s design. In the feathered position, the entire tail section of the plane rotates upward about 65 degrees, creating a different aerodynamic shape that is highly stable yet creates tremendous drag to slow the aircraft down during re-entry. Though that drag is pretty significant, the light weight of the aircraft keeps the skin temperature from rising too high, circumventing the need for heat shields and other thermal protection.
Moreover, when feathered correctly the aircraft is so stable that the pilot can more or less take his hands off the sticks and let the aircraft work its way through the atmosphere naturally, based purely on its aerodynamic shape. That’s a huge safety feature, as the pilot doesn’t have to maintain a specific degree of entry or rely on a sophisticated fly-by-wire computer.
At the link, you can watch a video of the flight. Skip ahead to 2:30 to see the feathering.
Students at a Dutch university have constructed the largest functional Nintendo Entertainment System controller in the world. It measures twelve by five feet. As you can see from the Dutch-language video at the link, they set it up in a public venue and let people play Super Mario Bros. on a huge screen.
Israeli designer Idan Friedman has been experimenting with a new medium lately -- embossed disposable aluminum pans. He refers to the project as depicting "ordinary people and disposable objects." I think that it's a lovely way to take trash and turn it into art.
Three-person chess, a game mentioned on by Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory, is now a reality. It requires a specialized board, but other than that, you can just follow the rules at the link. Here's an overview from the creators:
The only changes from conventional chess are some protocol issues that must be followed to maintain order where the teams border each other, which is simple and necessary. Also, please notice that the trajectory lines orienting from the outer rank, are simply visual aids to help guide diagonal moves passing through the center. If the path is clear, a diagonal move starting from the outer rank can pass through the center and sweep back around to where it originated. The complexities of the third player are infinite. Your threatened piece may be allowed to maintain occupancy as your position is beneficial to the threatening player.
http://www.3manchess.com/page4.html via Geekosystem | Photo: 3-Man Chess
The Centers for Disease Control, an agency of the United States government, finally got with the times and decided to warn the public about the dangers of zombie attacks. Here's what the CDC plans to do during an outbreak, assuming that its staff shows up for work:
If zombies did start roaming the streets, CDC would conduct an investigation much like any other disease outbreak. CDC would provide technical assistance to cities, states, or international partners dealing with a zombie infestation. This assistance might include consultation, lab testing and analysis, patient management and care, tracking of contacts, and infection control (including isolation and quarantine). It's likely that an investigation of this scenario would seek to accomplish several goals: determine the cause of the illness, the source of the infection/virus/toxin, learn how it is transmitted and how readily it is spread, how to break the cycle of transmission and thus prevent further cases, and how patients can best be treated.
This sounds a trifle naïve. Anyway, the website then offers tips on how to prepare your family to live through this kind of unnatural disaster. There is one, huge, glaring oversight: no weapons. There's not a single mention of the utility of guns, machetes, and such during the most obvious time when they will be absolutely necessary to survive.
But that's probably more a job for FEMA. Maybe the CDC isn't the place to go for survival advice.
The late Paul Johnson of Carbon Hill, Ohio, collected pencil sharpers starting in the 1980s. His collection grew to over 3,400 distinct sharpeners, which he eventually housed in a shed that served as a museum. Johnson passed away recently, so the collection was moved into a regional welcome center last Friday.
The Logan Daily News reports Johnson started collecting after his wife gave him a few pencil sharpeners as a gift in the late 1980s. He kept them organized in categories, including cats, Christmas and Disneyland. The oldest is 105 years old.
Link | Photo: Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations via Flickr user queenofdesign