April 2012
52 posts
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wikiHow: How to Remove Duct Tape from a Snake →
Do you find yourself wondering, at this very moment, how to remove duct tape from a snake? Fear not! Thanks to the radiant magnificence of the internet, now you (yes, you) can find out how to do so in just six easy steps!
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Neidenburg Church
fluxmachine:
People and buildings seek carnal knowledge.
[six word caption courtesy of Bri Hand, http://sixwordglory.tumblr.com/ ]
Kevin Weir takes old photos and then makes creepy GIFs with them. Wired ran a short piece on him and his work, and his Tumblr has a lot more.
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She definitely knows what those words mean →
How Appealing brings us this fantastic quote from 5th Circuit Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod:
An employee either is or is not at-will. There is no such thing as somewhat at-will, or as the majority puts it “sufficiently non-at-will.” In fact, the majority’s conclusion brings to mind Miracle Max’s diagnosis that Westley was “mostly dead.” See Princess Bride...
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How WWII codes on Twitter thwarted French vote law →
Charles Onians, AFP:
Twitter users turned Sunday’s French presidential election into a battle between a green Hungarian wine and a red Dutch cheese in a bid to get round tough laws banning result predictions.
The #RadioLondres hashtag was the top France trend on Twitter during the first-round presidential vote, in homage to World War II codes broadcast to Resistance fighters in...
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Modern Mechanix: This Gun Replies to “Hands Up!”... →
This is probably the best post in the history of Modern Mechanix. From the May 1929 issue of Modern Mechanics comes a machine gun vest. That’s a vest with a machine gun in it. That fires. Bullets.
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Hubble Zooms in on a Magnified Galaxy →
NASA:
Thanks to the presence of a natural “zoom lens” in space, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope got a uniquely close-up look at the brightest “magnified” galaxy yet discovered.
Not only is that cool as hell, the pictures are amazing.
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Gladstone Scientists Regenerate Damaged Hearts By... →
Cool medical news out of the Gladstone Institutes (affiliated with UC San Francisco):
“The damage from a heart attack is typically permanent because heart-muscle cells — deprived of oxygen during the attack — die and scar tissue forms,” said [Deepak] Srivastava, a UCSF professor who directs cardiovascular and stem cell research at Gladstone, an independent and nonprofit...
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Olympics 2012: branding "police" to protect... →
The Guardian:
Fans in the crowd won’t be allowed to upload snippets of the day’s action to YouTube – or even, potentially, to post their snaps from inside the Olympic Village on Facebook. And a crack team of branding “police”, the Games organisers Locog have acknowledged, will be checking every bathroom in every Olympic venue – with the power to remove or tape over...
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"Darth Vader and Son" →
Jeffrey Brown’s new children’s book “Darth Vader and Son” looks like a real hoot. Real charming illustrations.
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Police spot stolen truck being buried in giant... →
Sean Federico-O’Murchu, msnbc.com:
Thieves snatched a truck from a business in an Upstate New York town — and the evidence almost disappeared into the sands of time.
But a week after it was taken, the vehicle was discovered by eagle-eye investigators flying around Wayne County, according to local media.
“Jeffery Paul was in the process of burying the box truck,” Investigator...
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The Definition of Privilege →
Hey check this out, Ron Leech, a politician in Alberta, Canada, has neatly defined the concept of privilege for us:
I think, as a Caucasian, I have an advantage. When different community leaders such as a Sikh leader or a Muslim leader speak, they really speak to their own people in many ways,” Leech is reported to have said by CTV.
As a Caucasian, I believe that I can speak to all the...
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Sweden’s New Gender-Neutral Pronoun: "Hen" →
Natalie Rothschild, writing in Slate, about not just a new pronoun but Sweden’s status at the forefront of gender-equality. This caught my eye though:
Ironically, in the effort to free Swedish children from so-called normative behavior, gender-neutral proponents are also subjecting them to a whole set of new rules and new norms as certain forms of play become taboo, language becomes...
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Kickstarter: Wollstonecraft →
Jordan Stratford is writing a children’s book about the fictional adventures of young Ada Lovelace and young Mary Shelley.
This is the made up story about two very real girls – Ada, the world’s first computer programmer, and Mary, the world’s first science fiction author – caught up in a steampunk world of hot-air balloons and steam engines, jewel thieves and mechanical...
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Egypt's presidential race: An unexpected lineup →
Hamza Hendawi and Sarah El Deeb, AP:
A year ago, anyone from the old regime seemed too tainted to ever hope for power. Though rising to political prominence, the Muslim Brotherhood promised it wouldn’t run for the presidency, wary of seeming too dominant.
Now, the two main contenders to rule Egypt are the Brotherhood’s top strongman and the most feared and powerful figure of Hosni...
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Paintballing with Hezbollah →
Mitchell Prothero, writing in Vice Magazine:
We figured they’d cheat; they were Hezbollah, after all. But none of us—a team of four Western journalists—thought we’d be dodging military-grade flash bangs when we initiated this “friendly” paintball match.
This is one of the most fascinating pieces about the Middle East I’ve read, well, possibly ever — certainly this year. Read...
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The New Aesthetic (or: Drones Don't Wear... →
Dan Catt on the art movement that’s known as the New Aesthetic:
The New Aesthetics, or at least the aspect I’m looking at, is inspired by computer vision. And computer vision is at the point now that computer graphics was at 30 years ago. The New Aesthetics isn’t concerned with retro 8bit graphics of the past, but the 8bit graphics designed for machines of the now.
Make sure to click...
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Remembering Mike Wallace, Legendary '60 Minutes'... →
PBS NewsHour had a nice retrospective of the career of Mike Wallace on Monday. It also had a long interview by host Jeffrey Brown with two of Wallace’s 60 Minutes co-workers, correspondent Morley Safer and executive producer Jeff Fager. Good stuff.
R.I.P. (report in peace) Mike Wallace
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Commodore founder Jack Tramiel dies at 83 →
Bonnie Cha, CNET:
Jack Tramiel, founder of Commodore International and former CEO of Atari International, died on Sunday at the age of 83. He was surrounded by family at the time of his passing, according to Forbes.
Famous for saying that computers should be built “for masses, not the classes,” Tramiel played an important role in the early days of personal computing and video...
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5 ex-cops sentenced in Katrina killings case →
Last week, Judge Kurt Engelhardt sentenced five police officers for their roles in the Danziger Bridge murders of two men after Hurricane Katrina. This piece by Cain Burdeau for the AP quotes some of Judge Engelhardt’s unbelievably harsh remarks:
U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt expressed frustration that he was bound by mandatory minimum sentencing laws to imprison former Sgts. Kenneth...
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John Derbyshire is a racist →
Ugly stuff. Be sure to explore the links Ta-Nehisi Coates provides — in fact I’ll enumerate them here: Derbyshire’s original article, in all its ugly glory; an interview with Derbyshire from 2003 in which he proclaims himself to be “very mild, tolerant racist”; and, bonus, a follow-up to that interview in which he attempts to explain what sort of racism is “very...
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GoldenEye Spectrum Emulation Unlocked →
New ROM hack of GoldenEye 007 for the N64!
Little benownst to the world all this time, GoldenEye (N64) has a fully-functional ZX Spectrum 48x emulator built into it. By feeding it a proper Spectrum monitor program and calling menu 25 to load a snapshot, any Spectrum 48x program can be run.
Waiiiiiiiiiiiit a minute.
What.
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Excuse me? →
I mean, I knew the Augusta golf club, home of the Masters tournament and which famously excludes women from its membership, was run by a bunch of backwards, privileged assholes. But I didn’t think the New York Times was too. From the AP’s story:
“If it were left to me, which it seldom is in the power structure of writer versus editor, I’d probably not come cover this...
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China ship insurer deals new blow to Iran oil... →
Randy Fabi, Reuters:
A major Chinese ship insurer will halt indemnity cover for tankers carrying Iranian oil from July, dealing a blow that narrows the insurance options for Tehran’s main export already constricted by payment barriers caused by Western sanctions.
With Western sanctions on Tehran increasing, sources at the China P&I Club told Reuters on Thursday it did not want...
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Paul Ryan apologizes for military criticism →
The AP:
Representative Paul Ryan said Sunday that he has apologized in a telephone call to the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman for accusing the military of not giving its “true advice” on President Obama’s budget plan.
Military generals are required under oath to provide lawmakers their personal views on security matters, even if those views conflict with the White House.
In...
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"I wonder if that 'chicks take off their glasses... →
Hilarious.
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Yayoi Kusama: "The Obliteration Room" →
This December, in a surprisingly simple yet ridiculously amazing installation for the Queensland Gallery of Modern Ar, artist Yayoi Kusama constructed a large domestic environment, painting every wall, chair, table, piano, and household decoration a brilliant white, effectively serving as a giant white canvas. Over the course of two weeks, the museum’s smallest visitors were given thousands upon...
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The Little White Box That Can Hack Your Network →
Robert McMillan, reporting for Wired:
When Jayson E. Street broke into the branch office of a national bank in May of last year, the branch manager could not have been more helpful. Dressed like a technician, Street walked in and said he was there to measure “power fluctuations on the power circuit.” To do this, he’d need to plug a small white device that looked like a power adapter onto the...
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Supreme Court Ruling Allows Strip-Searches for Any... →
Adam Liptak, The New York Times:
The Supreme Court on Monday ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that officials may strip-search people arrested for any offense, however minor, before admitting them to jails even if the officials have no reason to suspect the presence of contraband.
