31 May 2011
30 May 2011
Giant Crying Baby Heads
After I saw the incredible crying baby head in Jillian Mayer's video, I Am Your Grandma, I poked around until I found the source. Each is hand-painted and numbered by the artist, Landon Meier. Cost: $200.00.
Memorial Day 2011 | Arlington National Cemetery
Garden of Stone | Arlington National Cemetery
More than 300,000 people, including veterans and military casualties ranging from the American Civil War through to the actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, are interred in the cemetery.
Every year just prior to Memorial Day, small American flags are placed before the gravestones and niches of the servicemen and servicewomen buried at Arlington.
28 May 2011
Bisou Gets A Summer Haircut
The Baltimore summer started early this year. It's been really hot and muggy all week, so Bisou got an extreme haircut and a bath today.
27 May 2011
The Animation School of Hamburg | Dystopia
Vimeo | Kuriositas
Dystopia – a grey, bewildering and repressed place, ruled over by an unseen elite. Yet in to this dark place a little color somehow finds it way. It has an effect on one individual who begins to express himself using forbidden colors. This wonderful piece of animation is by Daniel Leyva, Esteban Fernández Dagach and Dieter Schindler at the Animation School of Hamburg.Kuriositas
Toby Ng | The World Of 100
Click images to enlarge
These posters are part of a 20-set project created by graphic designer Toby Ng.
Via Nag on the Lake
26 May 2011
Francesco Capponi | The Egg Pinhole Camera
Since I started pin-holing the world, I have had the strong desire to make a special camera, with the purpose of shooting just one photograph. The purpose was to sacrifice the camera in the process of photo creation – I wanted the camera to become the photograph. To let you understand, the process from the camera to the photograph is the same that ties the baby bird to the egg: the bird grows protected from the shell and when it's ready breaks it and comes out. This is why I decided to create the Pinhegg – An Egg Pinhole Camera.
Francesco Capponi
You can find directions to build your own Pinhegg camera at lomography.
Via Dangerous Minds
Simple New Blood Test Can Diagnose Depression
Researchers at Keio University in Tokyo have devised a test which indicates depression levels by measuring the concentration of phosphoric acid in the blood. The new test could help improve early detection rates of depression if performed during regular medical checks, according to the study, masterminded by the medical research group Human Metabolome Technologies (HMT).I couldn't find any publication information about this study.
The connection between phosphoric acid levels and depression was confirmed in an earlier study conducted by the company involving 66 people, 31 of whom were diagnosed with depression. The study showed that patients with depression had a lower concentration of what is known as ethanolamine phosphate, with researchers subsequently able to diagnose depressed patients on this basis with an 82 per cent success rate. In contrast, earlier blood tests for diagnosing depression which have previously been under development involve significantly more time- consuming DNA analysis of white blood cells.
The Telegraph via Jezebel
25 May 2011
Your Brain In Love
Graphic: James W. Lewis, West Virginia University (brain), and Jen Christiansen.
Click image to enlarge
... Researchers have revealed the fonts of desire by comparing functional MRI studies of people who indicated they were experiencing passionate love, maternal love or unconditional love. Together, the regions release neurotransmitters and other chemicals in the brain and blood that prompt greater euphoric sensations such as attraction and pleasure. Conversely, psychiatrists might someday help individuals who become dangerously depressed after a heartbreak by adjusting those chemicals.Scientific American via Neatorama
Passion also heightens several cognitive functions, as the brain regions and chemicals surge. “It’s all about how that network interacts,” says Stephanie Ortigue, an assistant professor of psychology at Syracuse University, who led the study. The cognitive functions, in turn, “are triggers that fully activate the love network.”
Today Is ... National Tap Dance Day
YouTube
The fabulous, apparently weightless, Nicholas Brothers perform "Jumpin' Jive" from Stormy Weather [1943].
Now, that's what I'm talking about.
23 May 2011
Monkey Monday | Baby Black Lion Tamarin
YouTube | Arbroath
Keepers at Durrell are delighted to announce the birth of a healthy male black lion tamarin. The baby, born on 22nd March, represents a great achievement for the conservation charity as this is the first black lion tamarin baby to have been successfully bred outside of Brazil in the last eight years.
21 May 2011
Make Your Franklin
Click image to enlarge
Make Your Franklin is an international community art project where you can create your own symbol of modern society by customizing a download-able template. Check out the gallery.
The Presurfer
18 May 2011
SPLC | Hate Map
Click image to enlarge
The Southern Poverty Law Center counted 1,002 active hate groups in the United States in 2010. Only organizations and their chapters known to be active during 2010 are included.
All hate groups have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.
This list was compiled using hate group publications and websites, citizen and law enforcement reports, field sources and news reports.
Hate group activities can include criminal acts, marches, rallies, speeches, meetings, leafleting or publishing. Websites appearing to be merely the work of a single individual, rather than the publication of a group, are not included in this list. Listing here does not imply a group advocates or engages in violence or other criminal activity.
Click image to enlarge
Dangerous Minds
16 May 2011
Never Dust Again | Dead Skin Cells Help Clean Indoor Air
Colored scanning electron micrograph of flakes of dead skin
C001/1723 | Science Photo Library
The dead cells that slough off your skin every day pile up in the dust that collects around your home. But this grimy-sounding stuff actually helps clean the air indoors, according to new research.Read more at LiveScience.
Oil associated with dead skin cells removes the pollutant ozone, a molecule made up of three oxygen atoms. In fact the oil, squalene, reduces indoor ozone levels by about 2 to 15 percent. Its molecules contain six double bonds between carbon atoms, and these bonds interact with — and break apart — ozone ... So, the roughly 500 million skin cells you shed every day are being put to good use.
... Previous research within a simulated aircraft cabin indicated reactions with passengers' exposed skin, hair and clothing were responsible for half of the ozone removal that occurred. And another study, this time in a simulated office, found that one person removes 10 to 25 percent of the ozone in a typical 1,059 cubic foot (30 cubic meter) room.
Via The Awl
My Name Is Jesus And I'm Serious
A couple who claim they are Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene have set up base in Queensland's Bible Belt and are drawing in disciples from across the country. The pair, real names Alan John Miller and Mary Suzanne Luck, operate from rural Wilkesdale, near Kingaroy, where they claim to have been joined by 30-40 followers.There are links on the couple's Divine Truth Web site to the Lyndon LaRouche PAC. Larouche has been dscribed as a conspiracy theorist, fascist, anti-Semite, and cult leader.
"My name is Jesus and I'm serious," Mr Miller says. Cult watchers and the Anglican and Catholic churches are concerned the pair, who ask followers to donate to sustain them, could draw in the vulnerable.
Read more about Jesus and Mary at Arbroath.
15 May 2011
14 May 2011
High School Sophomore Challenges Michele Bachmann To Debate On Behalf Of Women Everywhere
Source unknown
Dear Representative Bachmann,Dangerous Minds | Supporting FB page
My name is Amy Myers. I am a Cherry Hill, New Jersey sophomore attending Cherry Hill High School East. As a typical high school student, I have found quite a few of your statements regarding The Constitution of the United States, the quality of public school education and general U.S. civics matters to be factually incorrect, inaccurately applied or grossly distorted. The frequency and scope of these comments prompted me to write this letter.
Though I am not in your home district, or even your home state, you are a United States Representative of some prominence who is subject to national media coverage. News outlets and websites across this country profile your causes and viewpoints on a regular basis. As one of a handful of women in Congress, you hold a distinct privilege and responsibility to better represent your gender nationally. The statements you make help to serve an injustice to not only the position of Congresswoman, but women everywhere. Though politically expedient, incorrect comments cast a shadow on your person and by unfortunate proxy, both your supporters and detractors alike often generalize this shadow to women as a whole.
Rep. Bachmann, the frequent inability you have shown to accurately and factually present even the most basic information about the United States led me to submit the follow challenge, pitting my public education against your advanced legal education:
I, Amy Myers, do hereby challenge Representative Michele Bachmann to a Public Forum Debate and/or Fact Test on The Constitution of the United States, United States History and United States Civics.
Hopefully, we will be able to meet for such an event, as it would prove to be enlightening.
Sincerely yours,
Amy Myers
It Starts With Language | Work-Life "Integration"
Click image to enlarge
On a related concept, from the comments for this strip:
The late George Carlin said: "It used to be called 'labor department'. But that was no good because it constantly reminded the people at the top who actually did the work. So they changed it to 'personnel'. That was better but it still reminded the people at the top that their workers were people. So they changed it again to 'human resources', and what do you do with a resource? You exploit it! Naturally. This is yet another example of how the people who wish to control our lives begin by taking control of our language."Trending terms for Human Resources are Human Capital Management, Talent Acquisition, and Talent Management.
13 May 2011
Edgar Gets A New 'Do
Edgar had his first trip to the groomer today. Adorable muppet.
Thanks, Roy
ETA:
If these pics appear rotated 90 degrees to the right, then BLOGGER IS STILL A LITTLE BIT BROKEN.
Blogger SNAFU
Blogger has been down for at least the past 24 hours. I only lost one or two posts; some bloggers have had significant losses, especially of "pre-posted" material.
I'm going to wait, maybe even until tomorrow, before posting anything new until I'm sure Blogger is back in business.
12 May 2011
The Sonoma Enema
... On the afternoon of Sunday, May 1, a 53-year-old Sonoma man who is visually impaired - that is to say he could not see well, if at all - was standing in his apartment when a woman appeared in his doorway, unannounced and unexpected. The woman told him she was there to give him an enema. Because the man had recently undergone intestinal surgery, he thought perhaps that explained her presence. The woman deftly guided him to his bedroom, had him drop his pants and lie face down on his bed. She then gave the man an enema and promptly left.Sonoma News | Arbroath
The whole episode took about a minute-and-a-half, he later told police. The woman did not leave a card or any other identifying information. And given the condition of his eyesight, the man did not, in the complete sense of the word, actually see her.
A day later, on Monday, the enema recipient began wondering about what had happened to him but took no action. By Tuesday, he felt compelled to shed some light on the experience, so he contacted police. An investigating officer promptly called the man's doctor and was told no enema had been prescribed, ordered or approved. Sonoma police turned the case over to the domestic and sexual assault unit of the Sonoma Sheriff's Office who have yet to make sense of the caper.
It is well known that fatal enemas have been implicated in conspiracy theories surrounding the deaths of both Napoleon Bonaparte and Marilyn Monroe, but the victim of what may become known in crime annals and police academies across the country as "The Sonoma Enema," apparently reported no ill-effects from the treatment.
11 May 2011
Levi Johnston's New Book Cover
This is the real cover. It's perfect. And Sarah Palin should like the "crosshairs" theme.
Political Wire | Brooklyn Mutt
Bios Urn
An eco-friendly urn offers people who decide to be cremated the opportunity to give back to Earth with their remains – literally. Designed and created by Spanish designer Martín Ruiz de Azúa, who lives in Barcelona, the Bios Urn allows people to have their ashes eventually grow into a tree.Arbroath
Instructables | The Bacon Challenge 2011
Bacon Roses | kaptaink_cg
Van Gogh for Breakfast | Copper Twist
Assorted Bacon Butterballs | bajablue
The Bacon Challenge is simple: make something amazing that involves bacon. We know, bacon is already pretty amazing on its own - therein lies the challenge! Dress it up, build with it, get creative with your porcine bounty. The challenge is to make something both original and bacon-related. If it’s about bacon, it’s eligible.My favorite contest entries are featured above. Don't those roses look delicious?
Source | Geekosystem
10 May 2011
09 May 2011
A Boy, A Dog, And A Blowtorch
Police said it seems that a 3-year-old was able to operate a handheld blowtorch and set fires in his family's garage and on a neighbor's porch in Shenango Township, Lawrence County. Firefighters were called at about 9:30 a.m. Friday to extinguish the flames.WTAE | Gizmodo
Township police said somebody reported seeing the boy walking on Route 388, carrying the blowtorch and wearing only a T-shirt. "The torch itself in the propane tank has safety switches, and the child was able to manipulate them and turn the torch on," said Shenango Township Police Patrolman Darrin Cwynar.
Police said the boy burned a porch swing, a broom, a sliding door, a deck and a knob on a septic tank and singed an igniter on a gas grill. Shenango Township Police Chief Dave Rishel said damages were estimated to be almost $5,000. "The torch was right near the grill and the results could have been devastating, just could have been devastating," said Rishel. "Fortunately, the child was not burned in any way, shape or form. That in itself is a miracle."
When police found the child and picked him up, he told them where he lived, but nobody answered the door when they went there. Eventually, they were able to contact a relative. "When I arrived on scene with the family member, he was able to gain entry through the garage, and we found there was a large pile of objects that were smoldering. The garage was filled with smoke," said Cwynar.
Police said the boy's mother was asleep in the house, exhausted after having worked a midnight shift, and the father was at work. No charges have been filed while an investigation continues by police and the county's Children and Youth Services office.
Fauxtographed | Hasidic Newspaper Removes Hillary Clinton And Audrey Thomason From Situation Room Pic
Click image to enlarge
Ultra Orthodox Hasidic newspaper Der Tzitung is telling its readers like it isn't- by editing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from the now-iconic Bin Laden raid Situation Room photo. Oy vey.More at Jezebel and Jewish Week
The religious paper never publishes pictures of women, as they could be considered "sexually suggestive." Apparently the presence of a woman, any woman, being all womanly and sexy all over the United States' counterterrorism efforts was too much for the editors of Der Tzitung to handle.
Monkey Monday | Koko Gets New Sunglasses
YouTube
Koko tries on a pair of sunglasses and knows she looks good in them. However, Penny refers to them as "little alien glasses" which Koko seems to find insulting, as indicated by her final comment (in sign language). Note also that Koko attempts to clean her glasses by first "huffing" on them to create some moisture, and then rubbing them with her finger. Penny then offers to bring her a kleenex to complete the job. Another thing to note is that Koko is actually signing "glass" when she taps on the glasses with her fingers.
08 May 2011
Noam Chomsky | My Reaction To Osama Bin Laden's Death
©2011 Noam Chomsky | Guernica Magazine | Counter CurrentsIt’s increasingly clear that the operation was a planned assassination, multiply violating elementary norms of international law. There appears to have been no attempt to apprehend the unarmed victim, as presumably could have been done by 80 commandos facing virtually no opposition—except, they claim, from his wife, who lunged towards them. In societies that profess some respect for law, suspects are apprehended and brought to fair trial. I stress “suspects.” In April 2002, the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, informed the press that after the most intensive investigation in history, the FBI could say no more than that it “believed” that the plot was hatched in Afghanistan, though implemented in the UAE and Germany. What they only believed in April 2002, they obviously didn’t know 8 months earlier, when Washington dismissed tentative offers by the Taliban (how serious, we do not know, because they were instantly dismissed) to extradite bin Laden if they were presented with evidence—which, as we soon learned, Washington didn’t have. Thus Obama was simply lying when he said, in his White House statement, that “we quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda.”
Nothing serious has been provided since. There is much talk of bin Laden’s “confession,” but that is rather like my confession that I won the Boston Marathon. He boasted of what he regarded as a great achievement.
There is also much media discussion of Washington’s anger that Pakistan didn’t turn over bin Laden, though surely elements of the military and security forces were aware of his presence in Abbottabad. Less is said about Pakistani anger that the U.S. invaded their territory to carry out a political assassination. Anti-American fervor is already very high in Pakistan, and these events are likely to exacerbate it. The decision to dump the body at sea is already, predictably, provoking both anger and skepticism in much of the Muslim world.
We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s, and he is not a “suspect” but uncontroversially the “decider” who gave the orders to commit the “supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole” (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country, the bitter sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region.
There’s more to say about [Cuban airline bomber Orlando] Bosch, who just died peacefully in Florida, including reference to the “Bush doctrine” that societies that harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves and should be treated accordingly. No one seemed to notice that Bush was calling for invasion and destruction of the U.S. and murder of its criminal president.
Same with the name, Operation Geronimo. The imperial mentality is so profound, throughout western society, that no one can perceive that they are glorifying bin Laden by identifying him with courageous resistance against genocidal invaders. It’s like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk… It’s as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes “Jew” and “Gypsy.”
There is much more to say, but even the most obvious and elementary facts should provide us with a good deal to think about.
Noam Chomsky, is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and social activist. He is a professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is well known in the academic and scientific community as one of the fathers of modern linguistics. Since the 1960s, he has become known more widely as a political dissident and an anarchist, referring to himself as a libertarian socialist. Chomsky is the author of more than 150 books and has received worldwide attention for his views. [Wikipedia]
07 May 2011
Did You Know ...
DidYouKnows.com is a site offering over 1,000 "useless" [but interesting] facts. For example, did you know that:
- reindeer like bananas?
- wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times?
- in 1886 Coca Cola was originally introduced as an 'intellectual beverage' to boost brain power?
- Isaac Newton invented the cat door?
- a piece of paper cannot be folded more than 7 times?
- a giraffe can clean its ears with its 21 inch tongue?
- the dot on top of the letter 'i' is called a tittle?
- the yo-yo was originally used as a weapon for hunting the in the Philippines?
- arachibutyrophobia is fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth?
Via The Presurfer
03 May 2011
I'm An Alien | The Geek Zodiac
Click image to enlarge
Detail
The Geek Zodiac was conceived by James Wright and designed by his friend Josh Eckert.
Slashfilm | Geekologie
02 May 2011
Monkey Monday | The Monkeytail
Let's face it guys, we're all idiots. It's our sophomoric ways and our ability to grow hair on our face that makes us men. Sure, not every man can grow facial hair, but to go even days, weeks, or years without shaving allows us the opportunity to reshape our character to the sameness of great men like, Chuck Norris, Wyatt Earp and Kenny Rogers. However in all of these cases, we're emulating a style that has already made its mark in the history books. Enter: The Monkeytail. A style so obvious to our evolutionary descent that it's remained all but unheard of until now. We'd like to invite everyone- man, woman, child and beast, to submit your Monkeytail and be a part of history in the making. Get creative, tell your friends and thank you for visiting TheMonkeytail.com.Geekologie
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