Archive for August, 2007
Good morning, assholes!
it’s funny…
doesn’t matter who you are or where you live. people are generally moody.
most every day i ride the bus downtown to work and everyday i see the exact same people. do they nod or give any indication that they recognize one another? how about when i smile or say “mornin’”?
no.
in fact, they are even rude sometimes!
please pardon the hippy-love-posting but COME ON!
everyone must have a J-O-B and everyone must commute to W-O-R-K but not everyone has to be a D-I-C-K about it.
it would all be soooo much less painful if we were even just MILDLY more cordial to one another.
it prolly wouldn’t work, but if i were to print off some steps to make commuting less of a grudge match, they would look something like this:
1. smile – looking at people as if they’re a dog that’s pissed on your rug doesn’t encourage anyone to have a great day, much less be nice to you.
2. say “hi” once in a while. it works great and feels that way, too. most times people won’t expect you to carry on a full conversation after, either.
3. don’t be afraid. fear bleeds out of people in many ways and makes an impact on others.
4. don’t judge people quietly behind your eyes. they’re not who you think they are. really.
5. patience is the key to a peaceful world.
6. don’t worry what people think about your shoes, your smell, your hair. they’re not thinking about you anyways you selfish bastard.
; )
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Lordi, Lordi
Finland now holds the world record for the longest non-stop round of karaoke singing. The country already holds the record for the largest number of karaoke singers at any given time.
The previous record was 145 hours, as held by China. However, in a karaoke bar in Kouvola, a small town on Finland’s southern coast, the record was surpassed on Wednesday, with the ultimate goal being 240 hours non-stop.
Finns travelled long distances to participate at the event, which was broadcast live on the internet.
The record goes alongside Finland’s other record for karaoke, that of the largest number singing at any given time. This is held by 80,000 fans of the Finnish hard rock band Lordi, who had met in Helsinki, for the band to give a brief free concert to celebrate their victory at that year’s Eurovision. The show culminated with all 80,000 joining in with the band on the winning song, Hard Rock Hallelujah.
A new karaoke record = Hard Rock Hallelujah
and here it is:
[shrug]
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[this is too stunning for a title]
![thinfilms rhan554l [this is too stunning for a title]](http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/rha/lowres/rhan554l.jpg)
SCIENTISTS claim to have broken the ultimate speed record – by making photons travel faster than light.
Exceeding the speed of light, 186,000 miles per second, is supposed to be impossible.
According to Einstein’s special theory of relativity, it would take an infinite amount of energy to accelerate an object through the light barrier.
But two German physicists now claim to have forced light to overcome its own speed limit using a phenomenon known as quantum tunnelling.
In an experiment, microwave photons, energetic packets of light, appeared to travel “instantaneously” between two prisms forming the halves of a cube placed a metre apart.
When the prisms were placed together, photons fired at one edge passed straight through them, as expected.
After they were moved apart, most of the photons reflected off the first prism they encountered and were picked up by a detector. But a few photons appeared to “tunnel” through the gap separating them as if the prisms were still held together.
Although these photons had travelled further, they arrived at their detector at exactly the same time as the reflected photons. In effect, they had travelled faster than light.
Dr Gunter Nimtz, one of the physicists from the University of Koblenz, told New Scientist: “This is the only violation of special relativity that I know of.”
taken from the Scotsman
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Maddox : iPhones Suck
indeed, people LOVE to talk about their iPhones and i do think they’re nifty but Maddox makes some good points in his tirade about the new device that has people in a tizzy.
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Google Screws : Beta?
The great idea that WAS Google Video has died. Google contacted customers late last week to tell them that the video store was closing. The e-mail declared, “In an effort to improve all Google services, we will no longer offer the ability to buy or rent videos for download from Google Video, ending the DTO/DTR (download-to-own/rent) program. This change will be effective August 15, 2007.”
The message also announced that Google Checkout would issue credits in an amount equal to what those customers had spent at the Google Video store. Why the quasi-refunds? The kicker: “After August 15, 2007, you will no longer be able to view your purchased or rented videos.”
See, after Google takes its video store down, its Internet-based DRM system will no longer function. This means that customers who have built video collections with Google Video offerings will find that their purchases no longer work. This is one of the major flaws in any DRM system based on secrets and centralized authorities: when these DRM data warehouses shut down, the DRM stops working, and consumers are left with useless junk.
Furthermore, Google is not refunding the total cost of the videos. To take advantage of the credit Google is offering, you have to spend more money, and furthermore, you have to spend it with a merchant that supports Google Checkout. Meanwhile, the purchases you made are now worthless. To do it right, Google should either provide users with non-DRMed copies of the videos they bought, or they should refund the money entirely. The current option is hardly acceptable, however. Would you buy a TV, a car, a book, or anything if the guy who sold it to you could take it back at any moment so long as he offered you a coupon?
Did you buy Kobe Bryant’s 81-point game to commemorate that bit of NBA history? Enjoy staring at an unplayable file come Wednesday. But hey, at least you get $2 back to go buy underwear!
nice.
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Enjoy your Space, er, stay…
“Galactic Suite,” the first hotel planned in space, expects to open for business in 2012 and would allow guests to travel around the world in 80 minutes.
Its Barcelona-based architects say the space hotel will be the most expensive in the galaxy, costing $4 million for a three-day stay.
During that time guests would see the sun rise 15 times a day and use Velcro suits to crawl around their pod rooms by sticking themselves to the walls like Spiderman.
Company director Xavier Claramunt says the three-bedroom boutique hotel’s joined up pod structure, which makes it look like a model of molecules, was dictated by the fact that each pod room had to fit inside a rocket to be taken into space.
“It’s the bathrooms in zero gravity that are the biggest challenge,” says Claramunt. “How to accommodate the more intimate activities of the guests is not easy.”
But they may have solved the issue of how to take a shower in weightlessness — the guests will enter a spa room in which bubbles of water will float around.
When guests are not admiring the view from their portholes they will take part in scientific experiments on space travel.
Galactic Suite began as a hobby for former aerospace engineer Claramunt, until a space enthusiast decided to make the science fiction fantasy a reality by fronting most of the $3 billion needed to build the hotel.
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John T. Scopes
John Thomas Scopes (August 3, 1900 – October 21, 1970), a teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, was charged on May 25, 1925 with violating Tennessee’s Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of evolution in Tennessee schools. He was in court in a case known as the Scopes Trial.
Scopes was born and raised in Paducah, Kentucky, but as a teenager attended Danville High School in Danville, Illinois (Danville High was also the first school he taught at shortly before he moved to Dayton). Scopes was a member of the class of 1919 in Salem, Illinois, which is also William Jennings Bryan’s home town. After he had gained a law degree at the University of Kentucky in 1924, Scopes moved to Dayton where he took a job as the Rhea County High School’s football coach, and occasionally filled in as substitute teacher when regular members of staff were off work.
Scopes’ involvement in the so-called Monkey Trial came about after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced that it would finance a test case challenging the constitutionality of the Butler Act if they could find a Tennessee teacher willing to act as a defendant.
A group of businessmen in Dayton, Tennessee, led by engineer and geologist George Rappleyea, saw this as an opportunity to get publicity for their town and approached Scopes. Rappleyea pointed out that while the Butler Act prohibited the teaching of human evolution, the state required teachers to use the assigned textbook, Hunter’s Civic Biology (1914), which included a chapter on evolution. Rappleyea argued that teachers were essentially required to break the law. When asked about the test case Scopes was initially reluctant to get involved, but after some discussion he told the group gathered in Robinson’s Drugstore, “If you can prove that I’ve taught evolution and that I can qualify as a defendant, then I’ll be willing to stand trial.”
By the time the trial had begun, the defense team included Clarence Darrow, Dudley Field Malone, John Neal, Arthur Garfield Hays and Frank McElwee. The prosecution team, led by Tom Stewart, included brothers Herbert and Sue Hicks, Wallace Haggard, and father and son pairings Ben and J. Gordon McKenzie and William Jennings Bryan and William Jennings Bryan Jr. Bryan had spoken at Scopes’ high school commencement and remembered the defendant laughing while he was giving the address to the graduating class six years earlier.
The case ended with a guilty verdict, and Scopes was fined $100, which Bryan and the ACLU offered to pay. The case was appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court. In a 3-1 decision written by Chief Justice Grafton Green the Butler Act was held to be constitutional, but overturned Scopes’ conviction on a technicality: the judge had set the fine instead of the jury. The Butler Act remained until 1967 when it was repealed by the Tennessee legislature.
WOW : Wrath of the Lich King
For sub.atomic.fusion :
In the cold, harsh northlands…
The Lich King Arthas has set in motion events that could lead to the extinction of all life on Azeroth. With the armies of the undead and the necromantic power of the plague threatening to sweep across the land, only the mightiest heroes can oppose the Lich King’s will and end his reign of terror for all time.
Blizzard Entertainment’s latest expansion to World of Warcraft – Wrath of the Lich King – adds a host of epic content to the existing game world. Players will achieve soaring levels of power, explore a vast new continent, and battle other high-level heroes to determine the fate of Azeroth. As you pit yourself against the dangers of the north…
PREPARE!
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Farewell : Antonioni
Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni, whose depiction of alienation made him a symbol of art-house cinema with movies such as “Blow-Up” and “L’Avventura“, has died at the age of 94.
Antonioni depicted alienation in the modern world through sparse dialogue and long takes. Along with Federico Fellini, he helped turn post-war Italian film away from the Neorealism movement and toward a personal cinema of imagination.
Yet another true visionary leaves this world.
May the gods help us.
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