(* Just kidding about the porn. Although it does relate to a story demonstrating the power of using the word in an article heading.)
Police in Germany are irritated as hell at some happy pranksters who have been planting little United States flags in dog-poo piles for some time now. Piles of poo in parks and on sidewalks have been sprouting little flags, in a cheerfully anarchic form of political protest. Read the news item about The Dog-Poo Flag Protesters.
Oddly enough, I got e-mails from some dogs, moaning about the fact that I keep putting cats in the “things to make you go awwww” section. So, to keep my ankles from being chewed, take a look at this Cute Puppy Pic.
Here’s something that Mark Shuttleworth should get behind, so to speak. How about open-source dildonics? What’s “dildonics”, I hear you ask? Well, it’s “the generic term given to sex toys that are able to be controlled from a piece of computer equipment. In particular, this technology enables users to control sex toys over a network such as the Internet.” Now you know.
Go see what’s coming, so to speak, at Open Dildonics.
And in a merge of commerce and the adult film industry, well-known porn actress Jenna Jameson has linked up with a cellphone company to provide “moan-tones” and more. Read Adult Industry Invading Cellphones. (Given that I’ve actually heard some cellphones locally where people have set the sound of a cock crowing as their ringtone, I figure anything is possible, from here on.)
The robots are almost here. Korea plans to install mobile robots in post offices later this year. For a rundown of this, as well as the imminent arrival in Japan of “domestic” robots, read the very informative article Does the World Need Wireless Robots?.
Speaking of Japan, take a look at these rather odd but cute Keyring Plants.
Unless you’re that way inclined, you’ve probably discovered the confused hell that is underneath assembling all the bits of a video/TV/sound-system combo. Go be deeply afraid at this pic of the back of a “future proof” home theatre receiver, at Engadget.
United States mission creep time. American Airlines now seems to want passengers to provide written information on where they’re staying and the addresses of US friends. Read this Open Letter to American Airlines.
Zimbabwe train-wreck-spotting item. The United Kingdom Independent reports that things have become so bad in Zimbabwe, in terms of medical services, that folks are having to use witchdoctors in lieu of modern medicine. Read Boomtime for Zimbabwe Witchdoctors.
Ever been curious about what money way back in the past would equal in today’s currency? It starts getting pretty complicated, but the Economic History Resources site has made a calculator available, using five different approaches to working it out. Go experiment and see how much money was worth, between any two years from 1789 to 2003: Relative Value in US Dollars.
For history of a different sort, especially for the film geeks: you don’t normally think of cinema when the Victorians are mentioned. Go look through A Who’s Who of Victorian Cinema.
And here’s real fun history in action — although “fun” isn’t the word to describe the horrors of living in London in 1850. A bit of background, a journalist from Punch, the satirical magazine, went to visit the poverty-stricken East End in London, and documented the lives and careers of the folks struggling to stay alive. The front end to the online data is at London Labour and the London Poor.
To get a sense of the extreme life, try this extract from a man who was a professional fire-eater, and read his description of being paid to fight rats, using only his mouth.
Did you read sci-fi as a kid? Want to participate in an online questionnaire that can help gather material for a book about children’s science fiction? If you grew up reading sci-fi, then contribute your two cents’ worth, at The Intergalactic Playground of Children’s Science Fiction.
For art that makes a great point, how about a chair that has an expiry notice (after which alarms sound and spikes slam into view)? Go sit very cautiously and see if you get the pointed joke of it all, at the real-life art installation known as Seat Sale: Licence to Sit.
You’ve always heard that thing about “no two snow flakes are ever the same”. Well, someone once decided to take advantage of this apparent fact, and photographed them. All of them. I’m not sure if this is technically “science” or just an historical record of someone’s odd obsession, but the pix of snowflakes are wonderful to browse through. Go look at The Bentley Snow Crystal Collection.
As geeks know, the mention of the word “porn” in just about anything online is a virtual guarantee of huge quantities of web traffic. Why? I don’t know. But the use of the word “porn” in an article heading means it’s going to be far more popular than any other article. Read this great analysis (and deliberate use) of this quirk, by PC Magazine, in its feature entitled Free Porn Magic for You!.
The world moves very fast these days. Recall the endless apparent “Satanic” symbols being flashed around by the Bushies at the recent inauguration? Well, one or two of the more choice ones have hit the T-shirt market — go look at Satannn. For more regular T-shirts, try this wonderful advert for The Blog T-Shirt!.
Keeping with the graphics theme, to give yourself inspiration (or nausea), why not spend some time at the Museum of Bad Album Covers?
Given that so much of the counterfeit goods in the world would seem to be coming from the Pacific Rim region, it’s not surprising that a pirated version of Disneyland has been around for 10 years already in Thailand. Go look at the photos of Dream World.
There’s a natural drug around that, as far as I know, isn’t legislated against, and is freely available down in the markets in Durban — where, as a kid, I saw it being sold in big bags. Betel nut is a mild stimulant, and it’s very big in some Asian countries. To start with, read An Essay on Betel Nut.
And just to put the opposing view, so that you can decide where the truth lies, here’s Science News Saying Betel Nut Is Bad News.
In Taiwan, betel nut is a standard thing sold by usually scantily clad females on the street. For a collection of some film clips by folks interested in finding out more about this culture, dip into Taiwan Betel-Nut Girls.
Here’s an online gallery of pix taken of Betel-Nut Sellers. Then, to show this odd culture spreading beyond itself, here’s an online gallery of pictures taken by an artist who uses models dressed up as Fake Betel-Nut Girls. Lastly, here’s a Betel-Nut Users Fan Site.
And you thought being glared at by beggars was a problem. Try the growing craze among some British schoolkids who have cellphones that can take pictures. The concept is simple and mean: slapping someone in the face, and snapping a pic using the cellphone to capture the reaction. This has spread beyond the schoolyard and into the public arena. It’s called Happy Slapping.
Good idea/bad idea time. In Europe, it might be a great idea to sell handbags that have the fake outline of a pistol visible, as a way of scaring off muggers. Here, on the other hand, it will probably get you mugged even faster. Take a look at Popgadget‘s take on The Guardian Angel Bags.
What do frogs and chickens have in common? Well, they’re both insects, according to some educational charts that appeared in India. These charts are like comic strips, but they provide information on a wide range of topics. Firstly, here’s a link to an advert for a book about the odd and very quirky charts, called An Ideal Boy. To see a close view of some of the charts themselves, read a review from Metropolis Magazine, entitled Oh Behave!.
Unlike the South African postal service, which generally seems to be a great way for its workers to line their own pockets with the contents of people’s mail, the US mail is a little bit more reliable. Go see the results of what happens when some folks decided to test the patience of the US postal system, and deliberately mail strange and weird objects in a variety of totally non-standard ways. Check out the insane but amazing results of Postal Experiments!.
Free download time. For a range of nicely collectible MP3 goodies dealing with aspects of the psychedelic drug culture — such as lectures and interviews with folks including Robert Anton Wilson, Albert Hoffman and Terence McKenna — go grab stuff at Future Hi Media.
Still more trippy audio, not necessarily high quality though, can be found at Terence McKenna Lectures. And it will be worth your while to pause by the happy excesses of The Trip Receptacles.
How would you like to use your internet access to make calls to the “real” phones of people offline — for free? This story shows the potential of the internet utterly to undermine the corporate desire to make money. First off, back in 1995, a project started known as Free World Dial-Up.
And now here’s Bellster — the peer-to-peer phone system that allows folks online to route calls into the real world’s phone systems. Go sniff it over, and if you like the idea of bypassing all the money-making methods of telecommunications, take part — if enough people get onboard, we can kiss the Telkoms of this world goodbye: Bellster. For additional reading, try Can a Peer to Peer Phone Network Fly?.
Are you scared of clowns? Or of deep-sea diving? How about a Texan clown called Glurpo, who did “underwater shows”? Go stare at the weirdness at The Underwater Clown.
Big boom time! You may not know this, but if you drop a lump of sodium into water, it explodes. Go look through the pix and video as one quite careful person decided to experiment with this concept. Put on your safety goggles and hit the Sodium Party!.
Just when you thought it couldn’t get more frightening, it does. A few years back, there was the odd discovery that large numbers of women had been having dreams about Woody Allen. This caused all kinds of lengthy academic studies and sociologists to wax lyrical about its meaning. Well, get ready for more, because here’s a very interesting site filled with Dreams about Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Regrettable and morally reprehensible section. Take a look at some of the gloriously offensive slogans and clothing items available at this genuine clothing label (with the slogan “the fashion label that likes it rough and dirty”). Browse through the goodies at Locher’s Fashion.
Know anyone facing the death penalty in Thailand? Now you might be able to watch their last hours as they sit on death row, via webcam. The executions themselves apparently won’t be televised, but it’s clearly a matter of time before that is done. Whether all this is true is unknown. First off, here’s the BBC report Thai Jail Plans Death-Row Webcam. And read Thai Government Denies It’s Planning to Broadcast Executions.
Until the next time, if Telkom doesn’t get me.