Gutt's airline ticket routed him via the U.S. city of Portland, Oregon, to Billings, Montana. Only as he was about to board a commuter flight to Sidney -- an oil town of about 5,000 people -- did he realize his mistake.That's all. I'm not even going to say anything.
There are some great cartoons for geeks at xkcd.com. The stick animations really grow on you after a while and there are some pretty good jabs at ridiculous tech and general geekery. You know, things I might actually think about.
Course if you didn't take so many compsci courses you won't think things like this are funny. But hey, there's always wikipedia. And there's some shining advice for you non-geeks too:
I think Randall also has a solution to my self-loathing blog quandary. Oddly enough I'll take auto-derogatory over banal conformity most days of the week.
So who wants to guess what's going on here? No, that tiger isn't saving the piggies till snack time, they actually live together at a kind of freak-show zoo in Thailand. Incongruous species are kept in the same enclosure and, as in this case, sometimes raised by foster parents of another species. So don't think you can rummage through your closet to find those tiger print hotpants and jump into the tiger pit at your local zoo. You'd get taken down faster than a three legged zebra on the savanna.
While we're talking about kids with bright futures, hop on over to The Nonist for some photoshoped (but hilarious) pictures of up and coming scientists. I mean "Ballooner of scrotums"? That's gold Jerry....continued on Get Rich Slowly...I went to the credit union today to deposit my Christmas bonus. I waited my turn behind a boy who was about four years old. In one hand he held a wad of cash, and in the other he held his account information. His parents watched from the side of the lobby.
“Why, hello,” said the teller when she saw the boy. He walked purposely to the counter. She leaned over and looked down at him. “What can I do for you?” she asked.
“I need to make a deposit,” he said. He stood on tip-toes, reaching up with the money and the account information.
“You need a stool,” the teller said, laughing.
Helio is a MVNO joint venture between SK Telecom and Earthlink. MVNO means that they don't own any licensed spectrum but rent service from other providers. Look at the coverage map of my area. No whitespace. They've got a ton of 3G coverage that they lease from Sprint and they lease voice only access from Verizon for all the other areas. What? They only reason I'm on Verizon is because they have the most pervasive coverage in my area. They don't have the best service they have the most ubituitous service. And now they don't have that because I can go through someone else to get a hybrid service. So right out of the blocks that's sounding sweet. But there's more:The premise of this new company would be to bring advanced mobile devices in service from SK Telecom's home market of Korea to the US wireless market, where such advanced devices had been noted, by many, to be lacking. Helio, as it was to be called, would market itself to the younger demographic, promoting itself using the latest in cutting-edge handset technology. They plan to avoid taking on the major US wireless carriers directly, and instead they intend to carve out a niche for themselves with technology-savvy consumers.Yeah? Bringing some of that rocking handset technology over here from Korea? Awesome. And marketing themselves to a savvy consumer base sounds like they won't want to piss people off by crippling their phones.
It has the same intellectual resonance as doing The Wave at an event. You are embarrased if you do it sober, beligerant to non wavers if you do it drunk.You know that? I already hate this. So before you accuse me of just being bitter about not getting invited to the party, think about this. This is the same as those emails that your friends fill out about what colors they like and what movies they've seen and if you don't send it back to them you aren't really friends. If you're my friend and actually expect me to fire that back at you, you're insane.
High speed photography is neat, and you get some especially intriguing shots during sporting events. Check out Sports Illustrated's 41 most interesting pictures of the year. Like this one of a defender giving someone the old reach around to try and prevent a goal. They're putting pretty high quality cameras every where these days.
You may get to the point where you see the picture at my right and ask yourself "what the hell is going on there?" Well, that's "sepak takraw". Think volleyball and soccer all mixed up into one sport. Sounds pretty kick-ass, right? But they aren't just playing hacky sack over a net. They sometimes spike the ball with a bicycle kick and then land on their feet. Holy crap. Where can I watch me some takraw?
Here's one you don't hear too often: refuse to have a bullet removed from your body what will be used as evidence against you. Apparently it was a used car-lot robbery gone wrong. Some street toughs started shooting at the owner and he shot back, striking one of the kids in the forehead. I've often thought a bullet to the forehead would kill you, but apparently the "bullet struck the teenager and borrowed into the soft, fatty tissue of his forehead." I wonder how much fatty tissue we're talking about. Was this guy a real porker, or does everyone have the ability to absorb bullets?
Whoa, this is an interesting concept. People are down on some kinds of alternative energy because they can be inconsistent and are not on-demand sources. If you have a cloudy day you'll generate less solar power. Or if there's no wind, you'll get less wind power. And the flip side is that you may end up generating more power than you need, but don't have any way to store it.
This is odd. Its a patch that you wear on your wrist or arm that emits a fragrance rather than a drug. And the aroma is sposed to make you randy. I'm not exactly sure what the target audience is here. Unless there are a bunch of people out there who wish they were hornier than they naturally are. I feel like most of these things will be used in the pursuit of altering someone else's state. They don't dissolve in liquid though, so you'll have to think of another plan. They come in two varieties mens' and womens' so plan your strategy and order carefully. You'd hate to wake up in the morning and find that you'd attracted the wrong flavor of companion.
A Texas jury sided with a multi-million dollar out of state corporation over the complaints of local residents. Damn straight, I'm not usually for big companies rolling over the opinions of citizens, but screw these guys. The difference is in the details. This company runs the largest wind farm in the world and these plaintiffs are alleging that the turbines are a public nuisance. They say that the sounds created by clean, efficient energy are too much to bare. (well, they say that now that a judge told them they can't make a case against the look of the turbines) An impartial sound engineer took readings and found that the highest reading was 44 decibels. That's smack in between a residential area at night and a quiet restaurant. Or how about the wind blowing at 10 mph? Imagine that, a wind farm makes as much noise as the wind. How dare they?
Lifehacker has a link to an interesting article about designing logos incorporating letters. Its a pdf link but not a problem with your foxit pdf reader, right? Anyway I wish I was good at logo design so I liked reading it and appreciate the various tips it gave. I think mostly the best designs just come through messing around with what you've got. And refining and messing. Oh, and having some artistic talent may help too, I'm not sure. I sure wish I could make a smooth curve, as is evident in this little mock up of what I'm working on for a Daily Placebo Industries logo. (go get that Dauphin font so you know what d, p and i look like). I can't wait till its polished enough to be emblazoned on my private jets, satellites and volcano strongholds. Oh and maybe on a blazer with fine hand ticking.
Alright, so by now you've heard about TIME magazine's choice for the person of the year. That's right, its you! Feckin weak guys. Why don't you grow a pair and pick someone? Anyone. I mean how the hell do you call this the person of the year? If everyone is special, then no one is special. Its a non-statement. Yeah I know it technically falls in your guidelines for "person of the year": a profile on the man, woman, couple, group, idea, place, or machine that "for better or worse, has most influenced events in the preceding year." What? Group, idea, place or machine? Are you guys on crack? Maybe you should change it to "Noun of the year". Yeah the noun which most influenced verbs over the past year.
Like the digital timer and electric starting gun, technology is being used to absolutely differentiate as athletes push the boundaries of rules. These rocks have circuitry in them that detects when the thrower's hand lets go as well as detect when the stone passes the hog line. Hang on a fraction too long and red lights flash on the stone so you know to remove it. Pretty cool stuff, but at 650 bones a pop its a little prohibitive for smaller clubs. But next time I see a national competition on TV I'll be looking for these babies.
Most hull designs are focused on reducing wave resistance and pressure drag (pushing water out of the way and escaping the vacuum the ship creates). But the other type of drag that's been on designers' minds is frictional drag. This is the force created by water sticking to the bottom of the boat and is the reason for those expensive Teflon bottom paints. But there are a variety of techniques that are like making the boat float on a cushion of air.Clinical death occurs when the heartbeat and breathing have stopped. Since regular breathing is impossible when the heart is stopped, clinical death is synonymous with cardiac arrest or cardiac death.
So you've probably taken some kind of CPR course where they make you check a dummy for pulse and breathing. If there's no thump thump, you're sposed to violently bang on his chest until you are relieved by a more competent person or the patient physically stops you.
Meet the newest addition to my RSS aggregator. Radar Magazine waltzed into my heart with this cynically nostalgic write up of the ten most (unintentionally) dangerous toys of all time. Sure you may have seen a list of dangerous toys before, but never one compiled with such tenacity and verve. I don't even know what verve is but its fun to say. Plus they've got some nice stats like: Jarts racked up 6,700 injuries and four deaths.
This is awesome. A McDonald's is forced to close its doors because people don't want the disgusting offerings within. In Travistock, England there are just so many options for good food that the global food chain can't compete. If you can't take the heat, get out of the reheating area. This is just the beginning, I can feel it. All over the world people are going to start rising up, shrugging the shackles of grease pushers, and eating good local food.
So after a bunch of porkers couldn't keep their grip on a wiimote and smashed their window or TV, Nintendo is offering a recall of the tethers. Maybe it the straps were to wimpy after all. Or maybe Nintendo doesn't think everyone will care enough to take advantage. At least now they'll have an adequate defense when someone claims they owe TV reparations. You should filled out a strap replacement form buddy, sorry.
What the hell? Is the Guinness Book of records now a yellow pages of handymen? Some dolphins in China ate part of their plastic enclosure and took ill. (like ya do when you eat plastic) But doctors couldn't get utensils into the stomachs and their arms just weren't long enough. So of course they took the next logical step and called the world's tallest man. He stepped up like a champ and reached into the gaged animals. I'm wondering who'll get called up next... will it be the woman with the longest fingernails? Maybe the world's heaviest motorcycle twins. Somehow this seems like it should be an episode of the A-team.
Ouch. Talk about lonely. This company is making dinner companion DVD's for people who know they're going to be eating alone but want to pretend that they're not. I really can't imagine how sad this might be were it used in earnest. But I do think someone should get one and a portable DVD player to take to a nice restaurant by himself. Of course it'd be best of you could tape the hilarity yourself, but I'm not sure about the details.
I have a hard time picturing two million of anything but two million tennis balls seems like a lot. So I got all excited about the Japanese figuring out how to recycle them. Wait. No, they're just putting them on the legs of tables and chairs. Excuse me? Maybe I'm just used to mind-blowing technology coming from over there, but we were doing this in fourth grade.
Well I've made the switch to Blogger Beta. I'm not exactly sure why, except that they wanted me to. Sure there are a bunch of new features like WYSIWYG template editors and labels. But apparently you have to choose a Beta template to take advantage of any of that. So now I have to reimplement all my customizations in the new system to get anything out of it. Also some of the formatting is a little screwed up through the transition. There's a white space just south of the banner that shouldn't be. Oh and the blogger nav bar doesn't hide any more, so I need to move my logo. I thought that was a nice compromise, hiding the bar. But apparently I've got some work ahead of me to get back to normalcy.
Here's the company responsible for developing the kite supplemented tanker I wrote about a little while ago. Its a cool idea, but I'm a little put off now that I know more about the product. See, when I was like 14 I wondered if we could fly a kite off the fore deck to get a little more downwind oomf. Just chalk me up another idea that someone else got to first. Cause apparently that's how this company got going; they'll build a kite sail for your boat and show you how to use it. They guarantee you'll sail faster or they'll buy back the kite. I'm thinking maybe if your boat blows at going downwind you could get one of these and not use the asymm.
Its that time of year again; the best photos of the year from TIME. Most of the pictures don't really lend themselves to funny captions, but this one just calls out to me. "The make-a-wish foundation grants Eddie's last request. He gets to feed the velociratpors .""Isaac Garcia from Central Desktop Blog writes, 'How much does Google pay *itself* to claim the top ad position for searches relevant to its own products? Google holds the top advertisement (Adword) slot for the following key words: intranet, spreadsheet, documents, calendar, word processor, email, video, instant messenger, blog, photo sharing, online groups, maps, start page, restaurants, dining, and books... ...if you are trying to advertise a product that is competitive to Google, then you'll never be able to receive the Top Ad Position, no matter how much money you bid and spend. How different is it than MSFT placing its products (Internet Explorer) in a premium marketing position (embedded in the OS)?'"
Especially if you're in an area likely to be hit by a sudden heavy snowstorm. An elderly couple was trapped in a sudden storm out at a shack on their property. They'd been tending to injured birds when trees began to fall and snow blocked their return. Luckily their 160 lb German Shepard-Timber Wolf dug a 20 ft tunnel though the snow and forced them to crawl through.
There have been a bunch of stories about the Air Force's new pain ray. Is it ethical? Is it safe? You know all those wimpy questions. Only Defense Tech has the balls to ask "Is it entertaining?" They've come up with the next great idea for American Reality TV. An obstacle course to complete and attention hungry stars running it while under the happy gaze of Mr microwave. And I also like the popular vote draft method they suggest. Although I have to say, after all the talk about this pain ray, I'm a little disappointed. Its just a big microwave without the oven. I thought we were talking about a way to stimulate just the pain receptors without actually causing damage (no matter how insignificant).
So American Express runs this promotion every winter holiday season. Its called the wishlist, and basically consists of deeply discounted luxury merchandise in limited quantities. Like today its a 40 inch LCD TV and a blueray player for $1500. Very nice, but I'm not biting cause I have a big LCD TV and I'm not convinced that blueray will take. But next Monday they're selling three Porsche Caymans for five grand. Five grand... I can rummage that together. And I can sell my kidneys to make the insurance payments. But every year as thoughts of sugarplums dance through my head, Dee reminds me that I still have to pay the income tax on the MSRP that was discounted. Well, IRS, I can't pay you a third of fifty grand I didn't get. I can let you drive around in my car a third of the time. But you have to pitch in for gas.
Now we're getting there. Everyone knows that things float in the future. And we can't use magnets because nothing's made of metal. So some Japanese scientists are working on a way to make fish float. Well, technically they can make tadpoles, insects and fish eggs float too, but I imagine its pretty much any small object. The technology uses sound waves to keep an object suspended for a sustained period. I imagine it'll be a while before we're floating people with it, but that's not why it was designed anyway. The researchers are looking for a way to house compounds that normally corrode their containers. So imagine any video game you've played where the magical floating orb of mystery junx is floating in a temple. We can do that. All we have to do is figure out how to extract essence of water.
Yeah, I'm probably not gonna sign up for this any time soon. A man in Paraguay was crucified in a demonstration to release someone or another. Like voluntarily. I thought it was just those crazy South Americans till I read a little more. Apparently lots of people have themselves crucified for various reasons. Nutbags.
I just dropped 20 bucks to get in here so sit down, shut-up and turn your damn phone off. Remember back in the days when there were ushers wearing little red vests at the movies? Yeah, me neither. Theaters have had to streamline their work-flows just to squeeze out a profit. Basically that means you're going to buy your ticket at a touchscreen kiosk, wait 20 minutes in line for food with a 300% mark-up, and that there's no one to oversee unruly behavior during the show.
Well social netoworking has hit a new low. Yes, the armies of friend gathering users have a new tool in convincing people that they really are popular. Courtesy of Fakeyourspace (and your monthly service fee) you can have hot models leave you messages on your profile page. Well, probably not hot models. Probably a bunch of nerds that have hot model pictures on their profile. (notice I'm not saying Myspace whores cause that's just not nice.) But it might be just the thing if you wanted to lure in some hot people to be your friends. Kinda like decoys when you're duck hunting. Pull 'em in with a little eye candy, then BAM, those lookers won't know that hit them, friends with a dork.
Its rough being on the bleeding edge. Especially when you enjoy buying and using electronic devices because they are unknown only to have people searching your person for unknown electronic devices. Imagine the hubub that arose when someone tried to board a plane with the new (and stupid) Nike+iPod implant in their shoe. Remember that some dude had shoes made of bomb, and now you have to run footwear thought the x-ray scanner. I find it funny only cause I don't ever think I'll be persuaded to get this thing. But it got me thinking. We're only going to have more and more wearable or implanted technology in the future. And if things keep progressing, we'll have more and more invasive searches in once public areas. How in the world are these two going to reconcile? Will TSA employees actually be versed in technology or weaponry? Or will they just keep raising alarms when they run across something they've never seen before? Honestly, my outlook is so bleak that I prefer not to even think about it.
Eyes too big for your stomach? Well don't scrape those leavings into the trash. And don't run them down the in-sink-erator. Feed them to your table. A slot in the center leads to a sack filled with worms, bugs and bacteria that are just salivating for some compost. At the bottom is a nozzle that sprinkles out the finished product; sweet rich compost for your house plants. Nevermind what I'm sure must be a gut wrenching stench, man-up and take one for the environment. I'm pretty sure we've got some compost going in my apartment right now. Its just slow going cause the items in question are in the fridge.
