Twain & Tesla
I hope Retro Jim won’t mind me ripping off his content, but my mind is blown every time I drop by his front page:
I came across this image of Mark Twain in Nikola Tesla’s lab… – more
Category: neat
Quick Note On The Undead
There are few things in this world that I’m as excited about as the new Walking Dead AMC series.
Easily one of the best written comics in the last twenty years, and one of the best arguments for funny books bringing something to storytelling that isn’t necessarily capturable in straight prose.
I can’t wait to see a real life Rick Grimes in action.
Spread The Books Around
A bright fellow I know recently brought Book Crossing to my attention.
Got an extra book (or seven) that you liked, but didn’t love? Print out a BCID (Book Crossing ID) sticker, and place it inside.
Leave it somewhere.
Done!
With any luck your freed novel will find its way into the world’s library, and not into some hobo’s underpants for insulation. The new owner opens the book to see the BCID sticker (which includes instructions), and logs onto BookCrossing.com to register having found the work – and to hopefully be inspired to carry on the idea.
Apache Knuckle Duster
This thing is apparently called an Apache Knuckle Duster:
In the early 1900’s France went through a period of unrest in which the lower class “Apache” gangs would accost the middle-class homemakers, a group who’d been brought up to avoid violence and were thus entirely unprepared. The gangs often carried combination weapons such as this, not something that could be taken seriously by anyone with a proper gun or blade, but a real enough threat to those who couldn’t defend themselves.
In the end though, the solution was Jiu Jitsu.
Shrews Vs Cancer
My friend Hardy pushed this article from the CBC along to me:
Shrew spit tames cancer cells
[…]
At first, Stewart thought the chemical — called soricidin — might be a potential painkiller, because it blocked nerve transmission. When he tested it on a random cell culture that happened to be ovarian cancer cells, however, he found the cells died[…]
Northern Short-tailed Shrew, Photo by Gilles Gonthier
I think we can all agree that any new tool to fight cancer is a welcome one, but what really brought the story home for me was the description of his process:
Stewart spent several years luring the animals with pepperoni and trapping dozens of shrews in his rural backyard before he eventually identified the chemical in shrew saliva that causes paralysis. Researchers then purified and synthesized it.
People tend to think that a single person can no longer make a difference in the scientific community, that the age of the sole-tinkerer is over, and that nothing gets done without a larger machine to make things happen.
If this passes the tests and manages to become key to a widely used treatment, it won’t be because of the scads of test tube wranglers and suit wearing money-holders, it’ll be because one interested fellow spent years in his backyard with pepperoni grease on his fingers and a real need to know burning in his brain.
The Shadow
There’s a new (non-Baldwin) The Shadow movie in the works!
In an exclusive interview with MTV, Uslan—no stranger to superhero adaptations as the producer of all contemporary Batman movies, among others—confirmed that The Shadow is still moving forward, despite the fact there has been seemingly no progress since the initial announcement four years ago.
[…]
When asked about the rumor that Raimi was out as director and [Twilight: Eclipse Director] Slade was in, Uslan said, “Don’t necessarily believe everything you read on the Internet.” And, while he didn’t confirm that Raimi would actually be directing, he said that Raimi was as passionate about the project as he was. – reelzchannel.com
I know this is the general fanboy thought everytime Raimi is attached to direct something – but – what if Bruce Campbell were The Shadow? That chin could put the pulp back into fiction.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af1OxkFOK18]
Vincent Price's Menu
For my birthday a few years ago the lovely Jessica May ebayed me a copy of A Treasury Of Recipes by Vincent and Mary Price. It’s been one of the prides of my book shelf since, and occasionally we try out a recipe.
I recently mentioned it to some folks, who, understandably, immediately began referencing ‘eye of newt’ as a key ingredient – really though it’s a fascinating book, and an interesting bit of culinary archeology. I believe it was written near the end of Mary and Vincent’s relationship, and its easy to imagine their storied history spread across the international menus within.
Self Contained Biosphere
A combination of the waning populations of the dual Sea-Monkey colonies we maintain, and our impending move, have me really interested to have a go at this self-contained biosphere project.
It would be fantastic for the kids to maintain some of the life of our pond even as we relocate back to civilization.
(A PDF version of the instructions is also available.)
Christmas with Boston Dynamics
Around our house, Boston Dynamics are the rock stars of robotic technology. Finding that they’ve distributed a new video on youtube is like waking up to a full stocking on Christmas morning. I’ve posted previously about their most famous design, The Big Dog, but here’s an updated video – now with 50% more “Holy #$%@, did you SEE that?”
[youtube_sc url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNZPRsrwumQ]
The bit where it’s climbing cement blocks near the end got me wondering what happened to an older off-shoot of the Big Dog project, Little Dog:
[youtube_sc url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIipbi0cAVE]
Back to having my mind blown with new content though, they’ve managed to get The Petman up to 4.4mph!
What’s The Petman you may ask? It’s either the cutting edge in bipedal robots or walking wide-awake nightmare fuel.
[youtube_sc url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja_UsmXVPVk]