What more of an intro do you need to this link?
Fairy’s Strange Junkfood Tribute: How to Make Fried Oreo Cookies!
In trying to find an image to go with this (I purloined them from foodsubs.com ) I googled for images and found that all manner of dogs, cats, rabbits, polar bears, ferrets, and guinea pigs are all named “Oreo”. Go ahead, try it.
Warning: not for the especially squeamish: eMJA: Myxoedema and a lost wedding ring
You decide.
Our own kitty, whom we’ve named Scrappy, ranks a respectable 7.8 on ratemykitten.com. This cat, well, not as much.
Engadget reports on The Wave Pillow, an Internet enabled pillow that connects to a server and checks the waves at a beach that you specify, and then vibrates in time to the waves. Supposedly then, you can decide to either wake up, grab a surfboard and miss your classes, or alternatively roll over, go back to sleep and miss your classes.
Sometimes, you just have to wonder if some kids’ parents beat them too much or not enough.
Bruce Simpson, designer and builder of a low cost, homebrew cruise missile, has posted a rather interesting plea to sell his services. He claims that after the New Zealand government shut down work on cruise missiles, his family has been placed under significant economic stress, and he is how willing to design low cost cruise missiles for anyone who is willing to pay his modest requests (but as he assures us, not for terrorists).
I first read Simpsons webpages several years ago, and marvelled at his good work on pulse jets including his jet powered gokart. He’s a very skilled designer, and his pages have lots of good information about pulsejets, metal spinning, and all sorts of other good stuff. I’m left with a vaguely unhappy feeling about this mercenary turn of mind. I wasn’t very happy when I heard word of the NZ government shutting down the project, as it seemed a heavy handed way to deal with him, but I’m less certain after reading his diatribe. A man as talented as he is could find work in any of a number of industries, and it seems odd that he would focus on trying to become a weapons supplier in preference to other occupations of a more socially redeeming nature.
His page goes on to explain that he is basically doing this to show how feasible it is, and to call attention to the danger that developments like this represent. The arguments sound suspiciously like those of so-called hackers who break into systems to illustrate their weakness. It’s far from clear to me how why breaking, entering and vandalizing computer systems should be considered a benefit to society. In the same way, building a weapons system that can deliver 10kg of explosives doesn’t make anyone safer.
With many crack federal agents like this, don’t you feel safer at night? Isn’t harassment of people necessary in our post 9/11 world, especially when it happens to them rather than us?
I mean the Supreme Court has already given law enforcement an open license to request anyone’s ID, requiring only the flimsiest of pretenses. Who are we to argue or be upset?
Lessig had this link awhile ago on his weblog, but I thought it would be appropriate for Independence Day. You can purchase a copy of The United States Constitution and Amendments from Amazon, formatted for Microsoft Reader. Interestingly enough, it’s protected by DRM, so you aren’t granted any rights to redistribute, alter, or even print the book, despite its public domain status. As one of the reviewers hinted, it may be worth the $2.99 they charge just for the irony of it all.
Of course, if you don’t wish to invest in irony, you can thank Project Gutenberg for providing The Constitution (even formatted for the Pocket PC) and The Declaration of Independence, which was Ebook #1, and initiated the idea of Project Gutenberg way back in 1971.
To all my readers, have a happy Fourth!
Addendum: You can also get a fairly high resolution scan of the Declaration from ushistory.org.
While scanning the headlines of CNN Money this morning, I found out that Barbie is dating again, this time it’s a hunky Australian. This is just the kind of insightful business coverage I’ve come to expect from CNN.
The most precious quote:
After 43 years as one of the world’s best-looking couples, Mattel announced the breakup of Barbie and Ken in February. But some experts saw the move by Mattel was purely “a publicity stunt.”
Gee, do you think?
Of course the news has always displayed a certain fascination with the dating habits of plastic blondes, so perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised.
On a slightly more serious note, Mattel lost a trademark infringement suit against a Utah artist and was ordered to pay 1.8 million in court fees. Free speech and the right to parody prevail!
I enjoy an (admittedly waning) interest in the Photoshop contests on fark.com, and recently they ran a contest where the theme was Find Nemo somewhere unexpected. A cute idea, with several ideas that were pretty damned funny. One of the most hilarious to me was this one, which is a spoof of a particular photo which has been showing up on my Yahoo! page as the most e-mailed, seemingly for weeks.
I had mentioned this before, but managed to find this gif. You can refer to my previous post if you have difficulty decoding the French.
I suspect that the story surrounding this E-bay posting is a fake, but if not, it’s an excellent justification for the notion that some people just shouldn’t have kids.
I’m giving another try at trackbacking to the original metafilter posting, but something is obviously wrong with either my understanding of trackback or the crosstalk between metafilter and wordpress. More investigation is needed.
Dug this brief blurb off of talk.origins this morning. From the pages of New Scientist:
HERE’S one US company where “freedom fries” surely never appeared on the staff restaurant menu, even when Francophobia was at its height. One of its products is a laptop bag which bears a label in English and French. The English version reads simply and sensibly “Wash with warm water; use mild soap; dry flat; do not use bleach; do not dry in the dryer; do not iron”. The French version, only, continues (in translation): “We are sorry that our president is an idiot. We didn’t vote for him.”
Somehow I missed out that the NSA had banned Furby from entering their Maryland facilities. Can anyone doubt that beneath their furry exterior they are plotting the overthrow of the United States government?
Well, perhaps not. But you can hack ’em to do all sorts of stuff, or just go straight for the Furby autopsy or perhaps see how we might execute a Furby convicted of war crimes.
In entertainment today, Jessica Simpson and Britney Spears are both battling to play that most challenging of thespian roles: Daisy Duke on the upcoming “Dukes of Hazzard” movie.
It appears that Jessica will have spare time since ABC rejected her proposed comedy pilot in which she would play “Jessica Sampson”, a ditzy blonde who joins a television news program. Oh, what a challenging role that would have been. It is good to see young women really push themselves as actresses and challenge the stereotypes that confront them.
