You news junkies will have noticed the increasing reports, over the past year or so, of meteors hitting houses, fields and generally being far more visible than they ever used to be. Naturally, most scientists aren’t saying anything, or even wondering why the idea of being hit by a meteor is now no longer the completely rare thing it used to be.
At least one United Kingdom politician has waded into this totally avoided subject, in the following article. Note the very thought-provoking information he gives, namely that you are 750 times more likely to die in an asteroid impact than you are to win the lottery. Hmm, tata ma chance, tata ma meteor? Read British MP on Asteroid Impacts.
While we’re on the topic of Earth changes, another thing that no one is wondering about too much — is why there are so many volcanoes that have abruptly decided to become active. Go look at the list of currently ready-to-blow-at-any-time volcanoes, at Volcano Live.
To go to the other extreme, imagine you are a geek with time on your hands, a camera, an ant farm and a willingness to share these with the entire world. Yes, the excitement never stops at Ant Farm Blog!.
Here’s some really frightening news. You are being recorded while you’re on hold. You’ve sat on hold many times when calling companies. What you didn’t know is that even though you aren’t speaking to anyone, they’re recording you while they’re playing music or adverts — not only when their personnel are talking to you. Read They’re Recording You on Hold.
Some whiney readers didn’t like me sticking up for the oppressed Palestinians, and were quite outraged by the mere idea that someone in the media could consider that Israel was and is the bad guy. So, as an education piece, have a look at this site made by Jews against Zionism, called The Gulf between Zionism and Judaism.
Having successfully swatted aside the stupid Middle East, and irked the whiney among us, let’s move on to the really important things: plastic action figures! Not just any common or garden-variety action figures, but utterly strange and weird little figures taken from details from Hieronymus Bosch paintings. It’s one thing to see them in the corners of paintings; it’s another to see them in real life. Go stare at Hieronymus Bosch Action Figures.
If you’re new to the concept of utterly twisted yet beautiful art, and want to dip into the world of Bosch, try A Quick Overview of Hieronymus Bosch. Then scroll through A Bosch Gallery. And for more detailed info, see The Bosch Universe.
While we’re briefly in the realm of art, real art, you might also want to expand your mind (and get some great wallpaper for your PC) by dipping into the world of the wonderfully grotesque and beautiful Swiss artist HR Giger. As you perhaps know, Giger was the mind behind Alien.
Yes, “art” can mean a heck of a lot more than the tired old “Marxist edutainment” approach that exists locally. You can be an artist and totally avoid portraying anything to do with the sordid reality around you.
The internet proves its worth yet again as an educational tool of note. Take, for instance, this quite matter-of-fact and highly detailed instructional page from eHow on How to Sell Your Soul to The Devil.
Food is always good. But food disguised as something else is even better. First off, take a look at what happens when food becomes art. Browse through the utterly incredible edible art works at Watermelon Carving. Then, for food you didn’t expect, consider the fishy cuteness of Hello Kitty Sushi!.
But sushi isn’t always what it seems. Sometimes it’s chocolate — nibble at Chocolate Sushi. And here’s More Chocolate Sushi.
Then — and I’ve been waiting years to say this in a public place — would you mind if I nibbled at Uranus? Or if you’re phobic, maybe I could just eat your Mars? Before you get huffy and indignant, some chocolate-makers decided that what the world needed was a fully edible party pack of all the planets of the solar system, made out of chocolate. Go try to decide if its accidental art, or just sweets, at The Chocolate Solar System.
From one extreme to another, would you eat A Chocolate Cake Disguised as a Cabbage?
A few years ago, Colorado University Professor Ward Churchill wrote what I consider to be a very intelligent and insightful essay, looking at aspects of American policy and 9/11. Take the time to read his essay, titled The Justice of Roosting Chickens.
As you can see, it’s a very thoughtful and honest appraisal of the mess in which the United States finds itself. However, the right wing decided that this essay — despite having been written a number of years ago — was the perfect device to start attacking the enlightened educators in US universities, and all hell broke loose as the US media began a witch-hunt, more in keeping with the 1950s anti-communist frenzy than any civilised society.
First, read this “editorial” from the local newspaper, telling the university to “re-examine” all of the professor’s writings: Rocky Mountain News.
As the storm increased, and right-wing TV talk-show hosts began calling Churchill a “traitor” and worse, he tried to defend himself. Read Prof Churchill Replies to His Critics.
The governor of Colorado, smelling blood in the water, and wanting to get on to the right side (no pun intended) of the voters’ hysteria in his state, waded into the controversy: The Governor Speaks.
By the time there was a public meeting of authorities at the university to look into this storm in a teacup over a past essay, the media had managed to whip up the patriotic masses into believing that the professor had actually written something that was “wrong” and somehow “treason”. Scuffles and fights broke out at the meeting. Read Melee at Colorado Regents Meeting.
The TV networks and mass media finally succeeded in making sure that any other enlightened, thinking persons working in the education field would from here on keep their mouths shut. His car vandalised and scrawled with swastikas and a total public uproar, egged on by the mass media, finally took its toll: Professor Churchill Resigns.
Goodbye to freedom of expression, freedom of thought and honest analysis in the US education system. Suggest that the US might be “misguided” or “incorrect” in its politics, and you’re out of a job and labelled a traitor. If the US manages to survive another decade or two, and more importantly, survive the current Nixon-like excesses of the Bush regime, this story will make a wonderful movie.
Gear change. As you may have noticed, the various anti-software piracy wings of the corporate state have been doing advertising campaigns locally to try to persuade people that piracy is wrong. The Business Software Alliance (BSA) has made people laugh right across the internet with its public statements that use a form of logic that doesn’t quite work. Read The Business Software Alliance’s Peculiar Logic.
Staying with the BSA-type thinking, try 101 Dumb Business Moments.
Things to make you go “awwwwww”. Just to get far away, for one week at least, from the damn “cute kitten pix” genres, try this Hedgehog Attacking a Glove. Or how about Cute Baby Ducks?
Things to make you go “oops”. What’s another name for a very big firework? Correct — the word is “bomb”. (Something that some folks perhaps didn’t quite realise when they made a very big firework to set off on a road at night, and film the results.) Go watch A Very Big Firework.
A week or so ago, I featured the “rent a has-been celebrity for your dinner” website. Turns out it was a hoax site. D’oh! Scroll down to near the bottom of the page as The Guardian uncovers the hoax of Has-Beens on Toast.
Edjikation time. Know your enemy — curious about the basics of cryptoanalysis? Download the entire official US Military Cryptanalysis Teaching Manuals.
Then, for those poor suckers who believed the hype and actually were dumb enough to buy the far-too-small MP3 player and storage device known as an iPod, by now you will have discovered the limitations with which you are stuck, including the DRM (digital rights system) in which the iPod stores files. Go read Details on Cracking IPod’s DRM. And to fiddle further, soak up the info and links at Screwing Around with iPod Settings.
So you’re no longer using the junkware browser called Internet Explorer, and have installed Firefox or some other browser to surf the net. Guess what happened to one geek who gave up using the standard browser. He was arrested. He reached a website and some moron looking at the logs decided it was a “hack attempt” and called the police. Read Arrested for Using a Non-Standard Browser. And here’s the carefully worded BBC News Item.
More geek stuff. If you believe, to quote REM, that “they put a man on the moon”, this geek spent four years building a replica of the 1964 prototype for the Block I Apollo guidance computer, then posted extensive, step-by-step build notes. He’s even written a C++ simulator for it: Apollo Computer.
To test how much of a geek you really are, go stare at Pirates of the Caribbean Translated to HackerSpeak.
Last computer-related item. Geeks in Belgium shows the rest of the world how to do it — go look at the pix from the 2004 Computer-Tossing Championships.
Quick dip back into the chaos that is the US Bush administration — Slate glides into the growing media awareness that there’s a mini-me version of Stalin in the White House, with an interesting article called The Propaganda President.
Regrettable sites and downloads section. You’ve heard of Tasmanian devils, or maybe you even recall the cartoons featuring them. To see what they’re actually like, download this charming clip of a Tasmanian devil in captivity, eating some Roadkill.
Or to see the filth and sleazy material on which your parents were getting off way back, read Exploitation Magazines of the 50s and 60s. And how about a fairly blatant Tattoo of Well-Endowed Male Mermaids?
Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse, it does. If you’re a male who dreams of having boobs, then there’s a lovely, quite cheerful sequence of photographs showing how you — using only some sellotape — can finally get the breasts you’ve always dreamed of. Go to How to Get Man Boobs.
Finally, feel the need to look like a cross between the more uglier members of the African National Congress and that gimp from Pulp Fiction? Go stare at the fashion drive-by-shooting crime scene known as The Knitted One-Piece Catsuit.
Until the next time, if geeks don’t get me.