The Latest from Boing Boing |  |
- Raygun: WTF 2000
- Rima Fakih, first Arab Miss USA, may be in trouble for pole dancing photos
- HOWTO make a kosher worm (insert circumcision joke here)
- Clock calculates wasted time at meetings
- J.D.Roth on DIY finance
- Verizon dismisses $18K phone bill
- Gay men in Asia Pacific are denied HIV/AIDS care
- MIT reveals designs for future airplanes
- Sexy Sauerkraut Wrestling
- Virgin Galactic has a new CEO: George Whitesides
- New report on food allergies: some folks think they have 'em when they don't
- Stunning time-lapse video of Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland, in action
- All the trailers for Cannes 2010 film festival on a single web page
- Kids school you on how time travel works
- Colourlovers: free, online alternative to Pantone
- Welcome to the guestblog, Kristen Philipkoski!
- Urinating uses up 141 calories per hour
- War on Terror: The Board Game in the Boing Boing Bazaar
- Mangled English signs in the NYT
- Nemo Gould's PoBot sculpture requires 25-cents to activate
- Restless Legs Syndrome, Niacin, and Web Search
- Eye-Gifts from Pedro: photography of Mike Watt, iconic punk bassist
- Anesthesia awareness
- Wikileaks founder's passport confiscated
- Lost etymology of "fanboy"
- Making a bookshelf out of my book
- Talibannosaurus Rex
- The 23 enigma in history
- How to poo in space
- This dog needs Viagra to survive
| Posted: 17 May 2010 09:49 PM PDT  Mario, a maker in Bogota, created with WTF2000 prop raygun out of "my dead heat gun (RIP), pieces of video camera, industrial plastic rollers, toilet tank tree, blender glass." |
| Rima Fakih, first Arab Miss USA, may be in trouble for pole dancing photos Posted: 17 May 2010 05:15 PM PDT Rima Fakih became the first Arab-American Miss USA on Sunday, which is awesome. Less awesome: the Miss Universe people are apparently investigating photos from a Michigan radio station of the 24-year old pole dancing in a 2007 contest. It would be a shame if they revoke her crown because of this; let's hope that doesn't happen.   |
| HOWTO make a kosher worm (insert circumcision joke here) Posted: 17 May 2010 09:36 PM PDT If you're a strict orthodox Jew, worms aren't kosher, but worms in fish are. Why? Because ancient scholars believed in "spontaneous generation," so the worms were thought to be creatures that didn't "crawl on the ground." Now that we know there's no such thing as spontaneous generation (apart from all the insanely heavy objects I don't remember putting in my suitcase when I packed for this book-tour), can fish-worms still be kosher? Apparently so, if we're to believe Yeshiva World, which proposes resolving this conundrum by simply rejecting the science that disproves spontaneous generation. All hail the "la la la I can't hear you" school of theology. Worms In Fish: Problem Or Not? (Thanks, Steve!) (Image: Red Wiggler Worms, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from wheatfields's photostream) Previously:   |
| Clock calculates wasted time at meetings Posted: 17 May 2010 10:22 PM PDT  Meetings can be a huge waste of time. To quantify just how much, you can use TIM (Time is Money), a simple gadget that calculates how much money is wasted at a meeting by multiplying the number of people present with their average hourly wage and the amount of time spent. Silly accompanying infomercial below.
Product page [via OhGizmo!] Previously:   |
| Posted: 17 May 2010 04:43 PM PDT  My name is J.D. Roth, and for the past four years, I've been writing a popular personal finance blog. I am not a trained financial professional; I don't have a degree in finance, and I'm not a certified financial planner. I have no formal training. I'm just an average guy who was deep in debt, and finally got fed up with his situation. After deciding to turn things around, I read dozens of financial books, and used what I learned to pay off my debt and begin to save. In four years of reading and writing about money nearly every day, I've learned some things. Sure, I've learned how to manage credit cards effectively and where to find good savings accounts. But I've also learned that in nearly every instance, the way to take control of your finances is to embrace the DIY ethic. Instead of trusting others to manage your money, you need to have the guts manage it yourself. DIY Personal Finance Last summer, O'Reilly media -- the folks behind Make magazine (which Mark edits) and the computer books with the animals on the cover -- asked me if I'd be willing to write a book about money. But not just any book about money. Your Money: The Missing Manual would let me share the tips I'd gleaned since starting to write Get Rich Slowly in 2006. I knew right away that I wanted to encourage readers to take control of their financial lives. One of my mantras is: "Nobody cares more about your money than you do." Other people, both pros and amateurs, are keen to offer advice, but their recommendations are often counter to your own interests. To really build a financial future that meets your needs, you have to learn how to save and invest, set financial goals, and master the art of conscious spending. My belief that you need to take charge of your own financial life has only been strengthened over the past two years. The housing crisis, the market meltdown, the controversy over credit card policies -- while these things can't be avoided entirely even by smart money managers, their effects can be mitigated. If you call the shots when buying a house, the real estate agent can't talk you into spending more than you can afford. (My brother lost two houses to foreclosure because he listened to his real estate agent instead of making his own decisions.) If you invest based on your risk tolerance, you can avoid catastrophic losses during a market crash -- or insure that you don't miss out on the subsequent boom. Why Bother? Why bother with DIY finance? There are many advantages to taking control of things yourself, including:
Now, it's important to understand that DIY finance is just like DIY anything else. You can't enter a woodshop and expect to be building Stickley furniture overnight. You need to read. You need to practice. You need to start small. If you try using the heavy powertools first -- say, directing your own investments -- you can get into a lot of trouble if you don't know what you're doing. And there will always be times you'll want to call in an expert. I've promised my wife that I won't mess with major plumbing or electrical work; for big jobs, I call in somebody who knows what they're doing. The same is true with money. Though I can handle most of the routine stuff myself, I have a team of trusted experts at my disposal for when strange stuff happens: if I sell a business, if a parent dies, if the IRS audits me. An important part of the DIY ethic is knowing when to pass things off to the pros. Action Steps If you've decided you want to take control of your financial life, there are a few essential steps to get you started. I can't give you the secret to wealth and happiness in a single blog post (I just wrote a 300-page book, and even that felt short!), but I can give you some basic guidelines to get started. 1. Take Control of Your Spending I'm not a big believer in detailed budgets. They work fine for some people (and if you're one of them, that's great), but for many others, a broader budget makes more sense. After trying (and failing) to use all sorts of detailed budgets, I finally settled on the Balanced Money Formula, as described by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi in their book, All Your Worth. Here's what it looks like: Whatever you decide to do, start tracking what you spend. Sign up with a service like Mint or Wesabe and start watching your pennies the same way you watch your calories. Some people think frugality is a bad thing. It's not. Frugality is an important part of personal finance. While it's true that you can save tons of money by being smart when you buy a car or a home, chances to save on these things don't come along very often. But there are tons of opportunities to save at the grocery store or when shopping for your kids' clothes. Make the most of them. Save on the big stuff and the small stuff. The bottom line? By practicing conscious spending, you can spend on the things that are important to you while pinching pennies on the things that don't matter. Note: If you have trouble with compulsive spending, you can try "hacks" like the 30-day rule, but you may need to seek outside help. 2. Take Control of Your Debt The only way you're going to get out of debt is to start spending less than you earn. I know that some people are in tight spots, trapped by medical problems or catastrophic accidents. But most Americans are in debt because they buy things they can't afford. In the past four years, I've talked with hundreds (thousands?) of people who have struggled with debt. Those who have managed to kick debt to curb have one thing in common: They've stopped waiting for help and decided to help themselves. If you're willing to put in the time and effort, you can get out of debt. I tend to favor the debt snowball method of debt reduction, which has been made popular by financial guru Dave Ramsey. Using this technique, you pay off your lowest balances first (instead of your highest interest rates). You pay a little more in the long run, but it works. This free debt snowball calculator lets you compare different debt-reduction strategies to find one that works for you. Once you've taken control of debt, you need to avoid it in the future. To do that, you need to learn how to use credit wisely. 3. Take Control of Your Credit Credit can be a convenience, or it can kill you. Establish some ground rules: Don't buy on credit if you wouldn't (or couldn't) pay cash, pay off your balance at the end of every month, and always read the fine print. Pick a card that works for you (from a site like CardRatings.com or Index Credit Cards) and use it responsibly. Don't just accept a card that is loaded with fees. At the same time, take control of your credit score. Take the time to educate yourself on how credit scores work. A great place to start is Credit Report Card, a free service that rates your credit and gives you advice on how to improve it. (If you want to really geek out on this, pick up a copy of Liz Weston's Your Credit Score, which is packed with information.) You can stay up-to-date with the world of credit and credit cards by reading CreditBloggers, where Mark is a regular contributor. 4. Take Control of Your Banking Why are you with your current bank? Because it's close to home? Because they gave you a free Frisbee when you signed up? Your bank won't make you rich, but it's the central hub for much of your financial life. You should choose a place with features and fees to match your needs. Rates are low right now, but they'll rise over the next couple of years. As they do, take the time to be sure your money is working hard for you. Like many readers at Get Rich Slowly, I use a local credit union for my checking account, and I use a high-yield online savings account for my savings. (I use ING Direct, but there are other great options.) Here's a tool to help you find a credit union near you. You may also want to look into reward checking accounts, which often give better returns than high-yield savings accounts!
5. Take Control of Your Investing If your employer offers a retirement plan, use it -- especially if they offer any sort of matching contributions. While it's wrong to say that an employer's 401(k) is "free money," it's still a damn good deal. Whether or not you have a retirement plan at work, start a Roth IRA, which is an easy way for individuals to set money aside for the future. (Here's a free Roth IRA e-book that explains the basics.) What should you invest in? First off, don't make the mistake of believing that you need a broker or adviser to pick your investments for you. Studies show that paying others to make these decisions for you generally costs more than you gain from it -- if you gain anything at all. If you want to learn about stocks and bonds, do some research at the American Association of Individual Investors website, or borrow a stack of books from the public library. But I'd encourage you to instead consider index funds, which are mutual funds designed to track the movement of the stock market (or a section of the stock market). For example, Vanguard's VFINX fund is designed to mirror the movement of the S&P 500 index. Some people argue that index funds don't make sense because they can never beat the market. While that's true, they still perform better than 80% of investors (professional or otherwise) over long periods of time. If you don't believe me, maybe you'll believe Warren Buffett, the most successful investor the world has ever seen. He advocates index funds for most investors, having once said, "I believe that 98 or 99 percent -- maybe more than 99 percent -- of people who invest should extensively diversify and not trade. That leads them to an index fund with very low costs." 6. Nobody Cares More About Your Money Than You Do These tips just scratch the surface. In Your Money: The Missing Manual, I spend over 300 pages explaining how you can reclaim your financial life by taking back control from other people. I want you to learn how to negotiate, not just when buying a car, but when buying furniture and appliances. I also want you to know how to negotiate your salary. I want you to read contracts instead of blindly signing them. I want you to learn how to research big purchases. I want you to know how to buy a house you can actually afford. None of this is rocket science. But many of us never learned the basics. Our parents did their best to teach us, but they didn't know a lot of this stuff, either. And we live in a society that is hell-bent on encouraging us to spend, so it can be tough to master the mental side of money. My goal is to help as many people as possible realize they can be masters of their financial destiny. Taking charge of your own finances has a powerful side effect: When you encounter new financial situations -- buying a home, starting a business -- you feel less intimidated. You're able to grasp the basics quickly, and can have the confidence that you'll be able to figure out the rest. Plus, you put yourself in a position to parse the advice from the so-called experts. (You can even use your bullshit detector to process articles like this one.) So, don't wait for someone to give you permission to do this stuff. You're an adult. Nobody's going to give you the go-ahead. Take charge of your own financial life today. |
| Verizon dismisses $18K phone bill Posted: 17 May 2010 04:54 PM PDT A rare occurrence of a phone company cutting a customer a serious break: Verizon customer Bob St. Germain was forgiven an $18K phone bill his son racked up in 2006 when a promotional offer for free Internet expired without their knowing. I have no clue why Internet access should cost so much in the first place.   |
| Gay men in Asia Pacific are denied HIV/AIDS care Posted: 17 May 2010 04:36 PM PDT A joint report published by the UNDP and the Asia Pacific Coalition on Male Sexual Health revealed that 90% of gay men in Asia can't get HIV/AIDS support even if they want to. 19 out of 48 countries in the Asia Pacific region have criminal laws against gay male sex; it can earn you the death penalty in Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan, or get you whipped in Malaysia and parts of Indonesia. In Thailand and India, condoms have been confiscated because they're seen as evidence of illegal activity. In China and Singapore, education materials on HIV/AIDS are censored.   |
| MIT reveals designs for future airplanes Posted: 17 May 2010 04:32 PM PDT  An MIT aeronautics team revealed this design for a new generation of airplanes that would be quieter and up to 70% more fuel-efficient than the ones we fly in now. The research was funded by a $2.1 million NASA program — called N+3 — aimed at developing more eco-friendly, high-performance planes over the next 25 years. Air travel is becoming more frequent and is expected to double by 2035; without going through major overhaul, the current system won't scale. As Ed Greitzer, the lead investigator in this project, points out, airplanes have looked pretty much the same for the last half century, and are way too inefficient when it comes to fuel, noise, and runway usage. So he changed it by coming up with two designs: the 180-passenger D series to replace the Boeing 737 and the 350 passenger H series to replace the 777. The engineers conceived of the D series by reconfiguring the tube-and-wing structure. Instead of using a single fuselage cylinder, they used two partial cylinders placed side by side to create a wider structure whose cross-section resembles two soap bubbles joined together. They also moved the engines from the usual wing-mounted locations to the rear of the fuselage. Unlike the engines on most transport aircraft that take in the high-speed, undisturbed air flow, the D-series engines take in slower moving air that is present in the wake of the fuselage. Known as the Boundary Layer Ingestion (BLI), this technique allows the engines to use less fuel for the same amount of thrust, although the design has several practical drawbacks, such as creating more engine stress.Fly the eco-friendly skies [MIT News]   |
| Posted: 17 May 2010 03:58 PM PDT  Well, I suppose that's one way to get your probiotics in. Men and women wrestling in delicious, fermented sauerkraut. It's brutal, but it's vegan. Shot at the "Cabbage Chuck" event in Shiocton, Wisconsin.   |
| Virgin Galactic has a new CEO: George Whitesides Posted: 17 May 2010 03:31 PM PDT Oh, this is interesting news: longtime spacevangelist George Whitesides is joining space tourism company Virgin Galactic to assume the role of CEO (the company's first CEO, in fact). Press release here.   |
| New report on food allergies: some folks think they have 'em when they don't Posted: 17 May 2010 03:22 PM PDT "Food allergies are real and can be life-threatening. It would be folly to dismiss them. But many people think they have them when they actually don't, according to a new report commissioned by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. And that says a lot about how we think about food." Gina Kolata in the New York Times. (via John Brockman)   |
| Stunning time-lapse video of Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland, in action Posted: 17 May 2010 03:52 PM PDT Sean Stiegemeier, who created the video embedded above, writes, So I saw all of these mediocre pictures of that volcano in Iceland nobody can pronounce the name of, so I figured I should go and do better. But the flights to get over took forever as expected (somewhat). Four days after leaving I finally made it, but the weather was terrible for another four. Just before leaving it got pretty good for about a day and a half and this is what I managed to get. Iceland, Eyjafjallajökull - May 1st and 2nd, 2010 (vimeo) Music: Jónsi - Kolniður; shot on Canon 5d mkII, Motorized Dolly via MILapse. |
| All the trailers for Cannes 2010 film festival on a single web page Posted: 17 May 2010 03:12 PM PDT Here are all the trailers for all films showing at Cannes 2010, gathered together on a single web page for your viewing pleasure. (via Flux)   |
| Kids school you on how time travel works Posted: 17 May 2010 03:09 PM PDT |
| Colourlovers: free, online alternative to Pantone Posted: 17 May 2010 02:57 PM PDT  Anyone who needs to know the hot color of the season—designers, buyers, stylists—until recently had to go to one company, Pantone, and pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for color trend forecasts. The company is the undisputed authority on color, and they pretty much have the monopoloy on the color business. Pantone also holds the standardized numerical keys to color. By matching swatches with Pantone, everyone can make sure they're referring to the same hue. They're like a proprietary Dewey decimal system for color.
Why does anyone need special software to create a color palette—a simple rectangular box filled with strips of various shades? Using a program like Adobe Illustrator it can be a surprisingly laborious many-step process. People get very excited when they discover how easy it is on Colourlovers.
Slowe also uses Colourlovers' online tools to experiment with patterns like sunbursts, plaids or polka dots that she might use for her shirts or jacket linings. "Colourlovers figured out a method with preset shapes that makes it easy to create a seamless pattern." To see some of their patterns, check out their awesome Twitter background application, Themeleon.
"That's exactly what we want to help the world find," Darius told me in an email. He went on to explain how he hopes to take on Pantone.
The incumbent companies in the color space took hold in the print age and they're slow to adopt to the fast changing digital world. They also tend to subscribe to panels of experts and closed systems. We approach things much differently, by empowering the people and tapping their collective creativity to find the best, most inspiring, loved, etc. colors. We'll be able to forecast colors, not based on "expert" opinion but by looking at overall usage. We'll provide people with real data to support their decisions.
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| Welcome to the guestblog, Kristen Philipkoski! Posted: 17 May 2010 03:03 PM PDT  Most of the regulars whose bylines you read on Boing Boing, myself included, have at one point or another worked for or contributed to Wired Magazine—and that's where we crossed paths with writer and editor Kristen Philipkoski. I'm delighted to welcome her to the Boing Boing guestblog for a series of posts involving art, science, design, and technology. Links to a few guest dispatches she brought us from Art | Basel fair in Miami earlier this year are below. Follow Kristen on Twitter. She's also a Pilates instructor, and will kick your ass.
Previously:   |
| Urinating uses up 141 calories per hour Posted: 17 May 2010 02:50 PM PDT  My next book is about health, so I got a fitbit (in case you missed its debut last year, it's a souped-up pedometer that measures your calorie intake and output). The best part? You can record an activity on the fitbit website, and it will tell you how many calories you've expended. And not just for jogging or walking or playing tennis. Any activity. The list is absurdly long - hundreds of them. Here, a sampling of some of my favorites: Cooking Indian bread on an outside stove - 211 calories per hour |
| War on Terror: The Board Game in the Boing Boing Bazaar Posted: 17 May 2010 01:43 PM PDT  War on Terror: the Board Game is $44.95 in the Makers Market / Boing Boing Bazaar. This is one bad ass board game for 2 – 6 players. It will bring out the nastiest, greediest, darkest, most paranoid aspects of your character. It can make you cry, or feel on top of the world (or, at least, in charge of it). Comes with all the ingredients of a good night in: WMDs, nuclear weapons and suicide bombings. The Axis of Evil is a spinner in the middle of the board. And it even comes with a balaclava (ski mask) that has the word "EVIL" written on the forehead. All we ask is that you play nice when wearing the balaclava. Or start a revolution. Do what you want.War on Terror: The Board Game   |
| Mangled English signs in the NYT Posted: 17 May 2010 01:12 PM PDT |
| Nemo Gould's PoBot sculpture requires 25-cents to activate Posted: 17 May 2010 01:05 PM PDT  PoBot only works if you give him a quarter. Made from found materials by artist Nemo Gould. Nemo says: "PoBot will debut at The Crucible's Cathedral Gallery (Oakland CA) as part of their "It's Alive" kinetic art show. Then "PoBot" will take a detour down to San Mateo for this year's Maker Faire." |
| Restless Legs Syndrome, Niacin, and Web Search Posted: 17 May 2010 12:46 PM PDT  Until recently, Betty Zukov had Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS), whose main symptom is an irresistible urge to move your legs. It felt "like worms moving underneath your skin," she said. She is in her eighties. The problem started in her twenties and slowly worsened. It went up and down. When it was especially bad, she couldn't sit and watch TV. She couldn't go to a concert (she teaches singing) because she couldn't sit still. During the day it disappeared; in the middle of the night it was worst. Sleep was impossible. She had to get up every 30 minutes. About ten years ago, the problem got so bad she saw a doctor. He prescribed Mirapex, a common treatment. It helped a lot. She felt groggy in the morning but was able to sleep through the night. In spite of the drug, however, the problem continued to get worse. In early 2009, she told Dennis Mangan, her son, "My legs are bothering me so much." Dennis lives in Santa Rosa, California, near his mom, and works at a blood bank. He was familiar with the website DoctorYourself.com, run by Andrew Saul. The website is a guide to megavitamin therapy, which uses high doses of vitamins. Abram Hoffer, a Canadian psychiatrist who used niacin to treat schizophrenia, was an early advocate of such treatments. The most famous supporter has been Linus Pauling, who said high doses of Vitamin C cured many illnesses. Saul recommended niacin for RLS. Apparently he got the idea from a letter he'd received. The letter said: Just thought I'd let you know another great use for niacin -- restless leg syndrome. My husband has never been officially diagnosed, but has a lot of trouble sleeping. . . . It got so bad that I wasn't going to be able to sleep in the same room. Every few seconds, his legs would move and it was driving me up the wall. I persuaded my husband to try niacin with Vitamin C right before bedtime. Works like a charm, in fact when he missed his vitamins the other night, I could tell within minutes. Saul added, "My own family members with the problem have tried this, and they no longer have restless legs." This persuaded Dennis that his mom should try niacin. His belief that it would work wasn't high, but she was miserable. It was easy to convince her to try it. She started taking four 250-mg capsules/day, one at each meal and one before bedtime, a typical megavitamin-therapy dose. Within two days, her RLS was gone. She has kept taking niacin and her RLS has not returned. The Recommended Daily Allowance for niacin is 20 mg/day. A serving of salmon might have 20 mg, so 1000 mg/day is much more than you could ever get from food. Most people who take that much will flush soon afterward. Yet only after taking 1000 mg/day for several months did Mrs. Zukov experience flushing. Apparently it took that long for her body to reach appropriate levels of niacin -- another indication she was seriously niacin-deficient. A National Institutes of Health website says that because niacin is water-soluble, "it is not stored in the body." This is a mistake. A large fraction of your body weight (two-thirds?) is water. A tiny fraction of that water is replaced each day. Vitamin C is water-soluble, yet it takes several months without Vitamin C to get scurvy. Folate is water-soluble, yet it takes several months without folate to show signs of deficiency. Perhaps Mrs. Zukov needed 40 mg/day but for a long time got 35 mg/day. For most of her life she had been a vegetarian, which may have had something to do with it; meat is a better source of niacin than vegetables. Among thousands of RLS research papers, Dennis couldn't find even one about niacin treatment. We confirmed this. In May 2010, at PubMed we searched "restless legs syndrome AND niacin". It returned only one item: the article Dennis wrote about his mom's case for the journal Medical Hypotheses. A National Institutes of Health website says "RLS is generally a life-long condition for which there is no cure." According to the Mayo Clinic website, "In many cases, no known cause for restless legs syndrome exists. Researchers suspect the condition may be due to an imbalance of the brain chemical dopamine." Nothing is said about niacin. About 5% of Americans have RLS. Could every case be due to lack of niacin? Maybe. Every case of scurvy turned out to be due to lack of Vitamin C. We already know that niacin deficiency can cause nervous-system problems. Maybe the moral is: You have more time to surf the Web about your problem than your doctor. Further reading: Bruce Ames explains why megavitamin therapy makes sense.
Photo by williamcho / Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License.   |
| Eye-Gifts from Pedro: photography of Mike Watt, iconic punk bassist Posted: 17 May 2010 12:35 PM PDT  Above, two shots from the current photography exhibition. For many years, Watt has lived in San Pedro, near the urban Port of Los Angeles. He began photographing the port area in 2002, mostly while kayaking or biking. He explains: I started taking digital shots when columbia records gave me a primitive mavecia (used floppy discs!) in 1997. I really didn't get into it though w/the bike riding in the early morning (I started pedaling in 1996 after like 22 years of not riding a bicycle cuz I got a car at sixteen) 'till around 2002. I was in love w/early morning but never thought of taking pictures. you know, pedro faces east - much different than the other so cal water towns and that's what we got: sunrises and not really sunsets. I started paddling maybe seven years ago. I love my kayak and it's above-the-waist action so it gives my knees a break (I paddle tuesdays, thursdays and saturdays) - I had surgeries on them in my early twenties (I'm fiftytwo now) cuz I was born w/them bad (gift from my pop's danish ma) and fuck, my pop was a sailor - an engine room cat (chief, machinist mate) so why not be my own engine room? so I'm a paddler besides a pedaler. I have a waterproof camera for when I'm in the 'yak and then one for pedaling I carry in kind of a purse the goes over my shoulder crosswise.Eye-Gifts from Pedro: Mike Watt at Track 16 Gallery. Here's a video interview with the artist, and here are more images from the show. (track16.com, thanks Laurie and Sean) |
| Posted: 17 May 2010 12:34 PM PDT Waking up in the midst of surgery. According to Wikipedia, it "occurs in 20,000-40,000 patients out of the 20 million US surgeries performed each year." Yikes. From CNN: When Carol Weiher was having her right eye surgically removed in 1998, she woke up hearing disco music. The next thing she heard was "Cut deeper, pull harder.""Awake during surgery: 'I'm in hell'"   |
| Wikileaks founder's passport confiscated Posted: 17 May 2010 12:14 PM PDT Julian Assange, the founder Wikileaks (a whistleblower site that exposes classified and covered-up government information) reports that customs officials at the Melbourne Airport confiscated his passport and told him that the passport would be canceled. Previously:
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| Posted: 17 May 2010 11:51 AM PDT Harry sez, "I encounter people--especially tech enthusiasts--dismissing each other as fanboys every day. But I wasn't satisfied with the dictionary's etymology of "fanboy." So I traced it to its 1973 origins in a little-known fanzine by Jay Lynch, the influential underground cartoonist and co-creator of Wacky Packages and Garbage Pail Kids. May Jay get full credit for the pervasive word he coined." To understand the origins of "fanboy," you don't need to go back to 1919...but you do need to start earlier than 1985. Try 1973-when a handful of copies of a fanzine were distributed at a Chicago comics convention. The zine was credited to two fans who took Marvel Comics, the work of Frank Frazetta, and other matters a wee bit too seriously, Alfred Judson and Bill Beasley. And its name was Fanboy.Fanboy!) (Thanks, Harry!)   |
| Making a bookshelf out of my book Posted: 17 May 2010 11:42 AM PDT Oline73 reviewed an advance copy of my book, Made by Hand. When he was finished reading it, he used my book to make an "invisible bookshelf."The video above shows how he did it. |
| Posted: 17 May 2010 11:31 AM PDT |
| Posted: 17 May 2010 11:32 AM PDT Readers of William S. Burroughs and Robert Anton Wilson will be familiar with the "23 enigma," and the real or imagined synchronicities associated with those digits. It was Burroughs who turned Wilson on to the fun fascination with 23, and Wilson then popularized it in his Illuminatus Trilogy. But apparently, observations of the 23 enigma has a much longer history than the earliest examples Burroughs collected, dating back to a weird connection to gangster Dutch Schultz in the 1930. Over at the CFI Blogs, Theo Paijmans takes a look back: "The hidden roots of the 23 Enigma" Previously:   |
| Posted: 17 May 2010 01:56 PM PDT Gizmodo has posted a video this morning that takes us through the process of pooping in space. Alignment is very important, apparently. And the hole is much smaller. How do you poop in space: the movie [Gizmodo] |
| This dog needs Viagra to survive Posted: 17 May 2010 11:11 AM PDT  A Long Island animal shelter is asking all Viagra prescribers to donate some of their unused pills to a six-year old female pit bull, whose survival is at stake:Six-year-old Ingrid is dependent on two daily 50-mg. doses of the libido-revving meds, but her supply of the drug is just 30 days from running out. Caregivers at the shelter are appealing to Viagra users to share their coveted pills to give the much-loved pooch the gift of life.NY Daily News via Dogster   |
This article proposes that Halachah rejects migration to the flesh, even when identical intestinal worms are present. Rather, we presume that flesh worms are internally generated, even if we are uncertain of the biological mechanism by which this occurs. This approach simply resolves all difficulties but one - that scientists say that non-invasive worm generation is impossible. In this matter, we reject the evidence of experimentation in favor of the word of Chazal, whose tradition-based biological knowledge exceeded human experimental abilities. 
Filmmaker 
But the founders of a young internet startup are changing that with free color tools and an online community: 
German painter, poet and writer Maximilian Dauthendey's (1867 - 1918)... Der Geist Meines Vaters was published in Germany in 1912. About his strange affiliation with the number 23, and describing himself as a 'numbers fanatic' who kept a keen eye on lucky and unlucky numbers in daily life, Dauthendey had this to say: 
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