January 14, 2007
A look inside the Sunni insurgency in Iraq.
Now this kind of rap I can DIG!!
The King Dream Chorus and Holiday Crew Twenty years ago various rap artists got together to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (taking some inspiration from Artists Against Apartheid). You'd think Grandmaster Melle Mel, Kurtis Blow, and Run-D.M.C. would be enough. But you'd be wrong. Lisa Lisa, Teena Marie, Fat Boys, and El DeBarge wanted in, too. All kinds of youtubey goodness here, including Ricky Martin as part of Menudo, and several solos by a scrumptious Whitney Houston.
Lyrics are here, and you can buy the single here
Running From [The] Camera
Running From Camera The rules are simple: I put the self-timer on 2 seconds, push the button and try to get as far from the camera as I can. [via]
Hey Boys And Girls!
Gobler Toys: The Fun We Can't Remember. A fictional toy company with an online collection of toys, dolls and games that only exist in the inventors' imaginations. Don't miss the hilarious Star Wars Toys That Never Were. (flash animation)
Turn Your Head and Oink
What disease does your pig have? Mine has Porcine Epidemic Diahorroea!
Dora McDonald, Martin Luther King's secretary, dead at 81
Dora McDonald, Martin Luther King's private secretary from 1960 until his death, has died at age 81. While few have heard of Ms. McDonald, she was a very important figure in King's work, and was the one who had to tell Coretta Scott King that her husband had been murdered.
Vintage androids
Karakuri automata are representative of the highest technology in the Edo period (1603 to 1867). Automata were also crafted hundreds of years ago in Europe: The Dulcimer Player by Pierre Kintzing , made in 1772; The Singing Lesson, created by Robert-Houdin; three androids by Jaquet-Droz; the Pooping Duck by Vaucanson (the first link at the top). Ancient robots. The first automaton was created by Al-Jazari: video of his clock. The history of automata [pdf]. Contemporary toy automata. [more inside]
Battle on the Hypothermic Seas
Yarrrr/Banzai! All you "Talk like a pirate day" keyboard swashbucklers take heed: The Sea Shepherd Society's flagship Farley Mowat is now officialy a pirate vessel after Canada, Britain, and Belize revoked their registration. As the Japanese winter Antarctic whale hunting season begins (previously), the M/V Farley Mowat is setting sail to meet them, armed with a hydraulic "can opener" battering ram, a pie cannon, and moral conviction. With the Japanese whaling fleet now majority owned by the Japanese government, a subject of international diplomatic intrigue, and after last year's confrontations, this could get ugly!
Kinseyian mathematics, of a kind
The "Darwinian paradox" of homosexuality presents the conundrum of how a potential genetic basis for homosexual behavior could provide a survival benefit to offpsring and extend through generations, when sexual reproduction would seem to place strong selection pressure against such a "gene". Recently developed mathematical models (PDF) from researchers Sergey Gavrilets and William Rice not only show how a "gay gene" might proliferate within a population, but also provides testable hypotheses, including predictions of "widespread bisexuality" (subscription req'd).
Climate-safe home design - alternative building is ready to go mainstream.
Passivhaus/Passive house design that saves mucho energy, does not require air conditioning, does not require heating even when outdoors it's 10 below! Since, for example, more than 30% of energy consumed in the UK is for homes and 82 per cent of that is space and water heating, [Monbiot, "Heat,"chapter 5, "Our Leaky Homes,"] changing our standards of home design is important. Diagram
shows that basic solar design concepts are well understood and technically easy to implement in new construction. [If only my house could be turned 45 degrees!] Possibly through ignorance, and partly through the desire to cut corners instead of doing things right, we do not make these wise concepts a priority. There are lots of cool alternative building techniques, many of which are traditional and being revived. This leading design standard saves 90% of energy used in the home. Here in Canada it's called the net zero energy home.
Daredevils
What's behind Niagara Falls? Some dudes investigate.
I've got pieces that have never been close to one another
Wo-wo-wo-windows wo-wo-windows windows/386 will pull these parts together and do it mighty quick. (Google video; start around minute 7) (via)
Photochrom!
A Photochrom is a color photo lithograph, produced from a black-and-white negative. They were especially popular in the 1890s and were frequently used on postcards. Photochrom.com presents "over 1,300 different images of United States, Canada, Mexico and Cuba." But that's nothing—the Library of Congress presents 5,000 of them, from all over the world. The first page is nature shots from Ireland; I suggest clicking on the page links at the top, finding a region that interests you, and using the PREV PAGE - NEXT PAGE links to find more. Some favorites: a street in Fiume (now Rijeka), the harbor of Algiers, the outskirts of Jerusalem. (LoC link via wood s lot.)
Tiny steel sculptures.
Water Intoxication Death
Wii = "wee." Water-drinking radio contest ends in tragedy. Water intoxication caused the death of this mother. Radio pranks and contests are nothing new. Some have resulted in lawsuits, but I don't recall any resulting in death before.
Rest in Peace Swamini
Alice Coltrane has passed away at age 69. She'd long been in frail health and died of respiratory failure. (mi)
VIRTUAL REALITY Hi-tech Embraced by Manufacturers & Therapists
VIRTUAL REALITY Hi-tech Being Embraced by Manufacturers & Therapists
Long a darling of the military, aviation and video-game industries, virtual reality is being embraced by more businesses as the falling cost of computer power makes it more affordable. Manufacturers of farm equipment, car seats, mufflers and other products have joined automakers and aircraft manufacturers in using the technology to speed up and improve product design, train workers and configure factories and stores.
THERAPY: Overcoming trauma through virtual reality
Long a darling of the military, aviation and video-game industries, virtual reality is being embraced by more businesses as the falling cost of computer power makes it more affordable. Manufacturers of farm equipment, car seats, mufflers and other products have joined automakers and aircraft manufacturers in using the technology to speed up and improve product design, train workers and configure factories and stores.
THERAPY: Overcoming trauma through virtual reality
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