October 17, 2009
Freedom Can Go To Hell
Geert Wilders is now making a splash in London drawing a protest from the hardline Islamic members of the British public. The protests featured such memorable slogans as "Freedom Can Go to Hell" and "Islam will dominate the world" and eventually forced Geers to change the location of his press conference.
On the ground interviews conducted by Press TV show the attitude of some of the crowd. British nationalists are naturally responding in kind.
Do you want to die in jail?
The end of mystery meat?
Let the hype rumpus start!
2009 Solar Decathalon
For the second time in two years a team from Germany has won the US Department of Energy's Solar Decathalon. This year's entry was a cube shaped house entirely covered in 300W and 70W solar panels generating a peak of 11.1kW. The DoE has published a complete product directory of all the subsystems and components used to build each house. Another notable design is the Canadian Team North house designed for optimal solar+insulation performance in high latitude climates.
Machinarium
"...children which lie, must go to their father the devil, into everlasting burning." -- Cotton Mather
The idea of witchcraft is hardly new, but it has taken on new life recently partly because of a rapid growth in evangelical Christianity. Campaigners against the practice say around 15,000 children have been accused in two of Nigeria's 36 states over the past decade and around 1,000 have been murdered. In the past month alone, three Nigerian children accused of witchcraft were killed and another three were set on fire.
The Sound of Silence
Long a mainstay prop of thrillers, the silencer (more correctly called a suppressor or moderator) presents a unique engineering challenge to the gunsmith: lower the audibility of a shot without adversely affecting performance or ballistics. Many variations have been attempted over the years, ranging from gas-seal revolvers used in NKVD assassinations (as well as more modern interpretations) to shotgun suppressors (memorably used in No Country For Old Men). Suppressors are legal in some countries that allow private firearm ownership, as well as a majority of US states, and range in size from the small to the impressive to the absolutely ridiculous.
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
"Promoting the Love and Study of American History." The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History has many resources on its website, including over 50 free lecture podcasts, a collection of war letters throughout history, a Lincoln bicentennial page, and a new John Brown exhibition. [more inside]
Math Overflow
Math Overflow is the first attempt to use the Stack Exchange platform, already popular with programmers, as a scientific research tool. Founded this month by a group of young mathematicians, including Scott Morrison and Ben Webster of the Secret Blogging Seminar, the site is already wrestling with hundreds of questions, ranging from the technical ("When is a map given by a word surjective?") to the historical ("Most interesting mathematics mistake?")
Hey, you taffers!
The Dark Mod, a total conversion for Doom 3 in the spirit of Looking Glass Technology's Thief series, has finally been released after years (and more years) of development and is now available to download.
Obey the Law
Anthony Falzone and the Fair Use Project have dropped Shepard Fairey's case after he admitted he lied and submitted false evidence in his suit against the Associated Press. (Previously).
More of the Best
Having previously put together a post with links to stories from the 2009 edition of Best of American Crime Reporting, I decided to go to earlier editions to gather together what is available on the web. Starting in 2007 with The Tainted Kidney: Charles Graeber, New York. A serial killer who chooses to donate his kidney has his motives questioned. [more inside]
John Humphrys on the move
BBC Streams has rekindled my love of all things BBC Radio 4, now I can listen to The Today Programme on my iPhone whilst on my commute.
The Andy Rooney Game
Youtube user totallyjk has been posting a series of videos titled the "Andy Rooney game", in which everything but the first and last lines of an Andy Rooney segment from 60 Minutes is removed, often with amusing or touching results. A few other YouTubers have videos of the game, too.
Baby birds eat our plastic.
The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. (warning: photos of dead birds)
Predator Appreciation Month
It's not exactly Babelfish
The Guardian's Review of the Decade.
Violence, death, mud, insanity.
Photos from the war. A slideshow of photos taken by German soldier Werner Wiehe... vermisst in Russland, 1944.
(While viewing the slideshow, might I suggest playing some appropriate musical accompaniment, arranged in sequential order?!)
My model car is faster than your model car.
What do you do if you like the sound of a Ferrari, but you can't afford to buy one? Pierre Scerri of Avignon, France loved the sound of the Ferrari 312PB, but he couldn't afford to purchase one. Pierre did what all of us would do, he started to build it, from scratch, from raw materials...
Fifteen years and 20,000 hours later, he had this.
If I was short, really, really short, I would want this car!
(MYTL)
And it just keeps going!
Army and National Guard recruitment remains a numbers game
As the Obama administration debates strategy for the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. Department of Defense recently announced it had met its 2009 recruitment goals, but Fred Kaplan of Slate sees it differently. [more inside]
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