This lamp looks like a giant centipede in the outdoor setting, but it's just 19 inches tall (and over 30 inches long). The Nymph Lamp, from Site Specific Design, will set you back $2,600. Link -via Dump Trumpet

I did not know that airlines are flying planes without full fuel tanks. To save weight, they calculate the least amount of fuel needed to get a plane to its destination.

With fuel prices now their biggest cost, airlines are aggressively enforcing new policies designed to reduce consumption.

In March, for example, an airline pilot told NASA he landed his regional jet with less fuel than required by FAA regulations.

"Looking back," he said, "I would have liked more gas yesterday." He also complained that his airline was "ranking" captains according to who landed with the least amount.

A month earlier, a Boeing 747 captain reported running low on fuel after meeting strong headwinds crossing the Atlantic en route to John F. Kennedy International Airport. He said he wanted to stop to add fuel but continued on to Kennedy after consulting his airline's operations manager, who told him there was adequate fuel aboard the jet.

When the plane arrived at Kennedy, the captain said it had so little fuel that had there been any delay in landing, "I would have had to declare a fuel emergency" - a term that tells air traffic controllers a plane needs immediate priority to land.

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/aug/09/bz-pilots-say-airlines-are-cutting-fuel-levels-dan/ -via Waiter Rant, where the author had a brush with a similar occurrence.

(image credit: Drewski2112)

How well do you know the Middle East, West Asia, and Northern Africa? Try to drag each nation's name to it's location on the map. It doesn't keep score, but you'll know if you're on the wrong track by the annoying buzzer. And maybe you'll learn something, like I did (although I did pretty well)! Link -via mental_floss

No, the Google Street View cameras didn't cause the fire (at least I don't think so), but they were there in Sherwood, Arkansas when this house went up in flames. Now the images are saved for who know how long on Google. Link -via J-Walk Blog)

The picture here is just a small corner of the Periodic Table of Awesoments, since you need to read the kind of awesome elements it contains.

Modern day awesominers know there are actually 118 fundamental "awesoments" that compose all good things. The Periodic table of Awesoments can be a very useful tool. It's designed to show the relationships between awesoments, and often one can even predict how awesoments interact simply by their positions on the table.

http://www.dapperstache.com/index.php?contenttype=ptoa&title=ptoa -via Gorilla Mask

This seems scary. Two researchers speaking at different hacker conferences revealed that they have learned how to turn off implanted pacemakers by remote control. Kevin Fu, director of the Medical Device Security Center, spoke at Black Hat while Daniel Halperin, a graduate student at the University of Washington, addressed attendees at Defcon.

Fu and Halperin said they used a cheap $1,000 system to mimic the control mechanism. It included a software radio, GNU radio software, and other electronics. They could use that to eavesdrop on private data such as the identity of the patient, the doctor, the diagnosis, and the pacemaker instructions. They figured out how to control the pacemaker with their device.

“You can induce the test mode, drain the device battery, and turn off therapies,” Halperin said.

Translation: you can kill the patient. Fu said that he didn’t try the attack on other brands of pacemakers because he just needed to prove the academic point. Halperin said, “This is something that academics can do now. We have to do something before the ability to mount attacks becomes easier.”

This is one of those cases where proving a point can give someone a heart attack. Link -Thanks, Kiltak!

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Better than Rick Rolling, you've just been Barack Rolled! -via Digg

Flickr user 2roxfox breeds hairless mice. Mice that carry the trait are born with hair, but begin to lose it at about two weeks of age. Within a week, they are completely bald! See a photo set of her latest litter of ten, seven of which carried the hairless trait. Link -via b3ta

This post is not about what the athletes eat while training, nor is it about food in the Olympic Village. It's not even about sponsored items. This is a guide to the most decadent and delicious carb-loading snacks you might enjoy while watching the Olympics! Pina coladas and pizza might not get you in shape, but they go good with hurdles on TV. Link -Thanks, Brendan!

Aren't they adorable? Jocelyn at Snack or Die has instructions for making your own Pacman Sugar cookies. Link -via Unique Daily

Ride Lust has a rundown of famous cars from movies and television, in no particular order. Take a look and see if your favorite is there. Link -via the Presurfer

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This bolt of lightning was shot in high speed video, then slowed way down for your entertainment. -via reddit

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Twin moose, that is, with their mama keeping a close eye! -Thanks, Heather!

Since people don't spell very well, shouldn't we just give up and accept variant spelling?

"Instead of complaining about the state of the education system as we correct the same mistakes year after year, I've got a better idea," Ken Smith, a criminology lecturer at Bucks New University, wrote in the Times Higher Education Supplement.

"University teachers should simply accept as variant spelling those words our students most commonly misspell."

To kickstart his proposal, Smith suggested 10 common misspellings that should immediately be accepted into the pantheon of variants, including "ignor," "occured," "thier," "truely," "speach" and "twelth" (it should be "twelfth").

Then of course there are words like "misspelt" (often spelled "mispelt"), not to mention "varient," a commonly used variant of "variant."

Is "misspelt" even a word? I don't think we should give up so easily. Here at Neatorama, we often misspell words, but it's not because we aren't trying. If everyone spelled words any way they wanted, reading would be too difficult for too many people. What do you think? Link

(image credit: Flickr user edwardfilms)

How many times has someone tried to convince you that the attacks on 9/11 were an inside job, a government plot, or caused by someone other than the hijackers? Besides the conspiracy theorists, there are those folks who believe anything a friend forwards to them by email. The problem is that you don't have any facts at your fingertips to refute their arguments. A post at YesButNoButYes gives you the short course in responding to popular conspiracy theories with counterpoints. This may come in handy as we get closer to the seventh anniversary of 9/11. Link -Thanks, Johnny!