14 TV Shows We Want Back - The Daily Beast: "Every year, great shows get canceled too soon. We look back at a few of our favorites."
Saturday, May 23, 2009
14 TV Shows We Want Back
14 TV Shows We Want Back - The Daily Beast: "Every year, great shows get canceled too soon. We look back at a few of our favorites."
Friday, May 22, 2009
To Mr. Cheng
You’ve Got Skeleton | Wired.com: "A loaf of bread, a terrestrial globe, a plastic skeleton and a hamburger. Is there anything you can’t send by mail?
Swedish artist Eric Ericson has for several years been sending the strangest objects to a post office on Rosa-Luxembourg-Strasse in Berlin, addressed to a Mr. Cheng. He didn’t package the items, just sent them the way they were — kind of like Wired’s long-running Return to Sender contest.
sparatmr-cheng-a-6“I wanted to see what was possible to send, and what would arrive, “ says Ericson, who has put all the items in a book, To Mr. Cheng, which has been published in Sweden."
Hell's Gate
Hell's Gate: "This place in Uzbekistan is called by locals “The Door to Hell”. It is situated near the small town of Darvaz. The story of this place lasts already for 35 years. Once the geologists were drilling for gas. Then suddenly during the drilling they have found an underground cavern, it was so big that all the drilling site with all the equipment and camps got deep deep under the ground. None dared to go down there because the cavern was filled with gas. So they ignited it that no poisonous gas could come out of the hole, and since then, it’s burning, already for 35 years without any pause. Nobody knows how many tons of excellent gas has been burned for all those years but it just seems to be infinite there."
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Astronauts Drink Recycled Urine, and Celebrate
Astronauts Drink Recycled Urine, and Celebrate: "Astronauts took a swig of recycled urine water to toast their successful testing of the wastewater recycling system on the International Space Station.U.S. astronaut Michael Barratt called drinking the recycled water the stuff of science fiction, and cracked several jokes during the inauguration of the system known as ECLSS.
'We have these highly attractive labels on our water bags that essentially say 'brought to you by ECLSS,' and 'drink when real water is over 200 miles away,'' Barratt said.
Barratt appeared on NASA TV with crewmate Koichi Wakata, a Japanese astronaut, and station commander Gennady Padalka, a Russian cosmonaut. Earth crowds gathered at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston and Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville."
Lacrosse Muscles Its Way West
Lacrosse Muscles Its Way West - WSJ.com: "This weekend in Foxboro, Mass., more than 100,000 spectators are expected to pour into Gillette Stadium to see four schools -- Duke, Virginia, Cornell and Syracuse -- square off for the national championship of a sport that, if the numbers are correct, you'll be hearing a lot more about. That sport is lacrosse.
Until recently, lacrosse -- America's other stick and ball sport -- was rarely on TV and only its championship games generated much in the way of media coverage. It was mostly played on the East Coast, and it was often viewed as a game for private-school kids. Some of the game's most electrifying athletes -- Gary and Paul Gait; Casey, Ryan and Michael Powell -- were little known outside core followers. The sole exception may be Jim Brown, the former Cleveland Browns running back who played lacrosse at Syracuse University.
Economics reporter Kelly Evans explains how lacrosse has grown in the last 10 years among American students from many demographics.
'Lacrosse has taken off because it combines the hitting of football, the speed of basketball, and requires the endurance of soccer,' says Kyle Harrison, who led Johns Hopkins to a national championship in 2005 and who won that year's Tewaaraton Trophy as the country's best male player."
Until recently, lacrosse -- America's other stick and ball sport -- was rarely on TV and only its championship games generated much in the way of media coverage. It was mostly played on the East Coast, and it was often viewed as a game for private-school kids. Some of the game's most electrifying athletes -- Gary and Paul Gait; Casey, Ryan and Michael Powell -- were little known outside core followers. The sole exception may be Jim Brown, the former Cleveland Browns running back who played lacrosse at Syracuse University.
Economics reporter Kelly Evans explains how lacrosse has grown in the last 10 years among American students from many demographics.
'Lacrosse has taken off because it combines the hitting of football, the speed of basketball, and requires the endurance of soccer,' says Kyle Harrison, who led Johns Hopkins to a national championship in 2005 and who won that year's Tewaaraton Trophy as the country's best male player."
No benefits for laid-off religious workers
No benefits for laid-off religious workers - UPI.com: "Some people recently laid-off from religious institutions in Virginia said they were shocked to find the state does not offer them unemployment benefits.
Carol Bronson, who was laid off from her secretarial job at Temple Emanuel synagogue in Virginia Beach, said she was told her unemployment claim was denied because the tax exemptions for religious organizations under Virginia law include an exemption from paying unemployment taxes, The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot reported Monday.
'I had no idea that there would not be any benefits for me after leaving my job,' she said."
Carol Bronson, who was laid off from her secretarial job at Temple Emanuel synagogue in Virginia Beach, said she was told her unemployment claim was denied because the tax exemptions for religious organizations under Virginia law include an exemption from paying unemployment taxes, The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot reported Monday.
'I had no idea that there would not be any benefits for me after leaving my job,' she said."
Praying Mantis Eats Hummingbird
Praying Mantis Eats Hummingbird (Bird Watcher's Digest): "The other day while I was working in the yard my son urgently called to me. 'Dad, a praying mantis caught a hummingbird!'
Not sure what to expect, but knowing my son is not one to make things up, I came running to see for myself. By the time I arrived it was too late for the poor hummer and my scientifically minded son had already begun taking pictures and studying the scene."
Goose flies upside-down
Goose flies upside-down: "This is the moment a goose was caught performing an extraordinary upside-down contortion as it battled to land in heavy winds.
The bird was captured by a wildlife photographer flying with its neck twisted 180 degrees and its body seemingly facing the wrong way.
The manoeuvre may look painful but it is a known tried and tested way of braking, called whiffling."
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
The 75 Things Every Man Should Do
Things to Do Before You Die- Esquire: "Nothing on this list is that automatic. Every element here is a matter of the choices you make, the chances you take, the courage you are willing to show. You can trick yourself into thinking bungee jumping somehow satisfies those criteria, but willfully falling off a crane in a mall parking lot is more or less a rite of passage by now, isn’t it? Maybe you call that a big moment. The trick is choosing to experience them all that way."
What's your name ?
What's your name ?: "Got a picture of someone you knew some time ago but you don't remember his/her name? Submit your picture and your email address here.Recognize the person in the photo? Please send his/her name via the mentioned email. New sets of photos are posted on this blog every week."
The Greatest Automotive Flops of the Last 25 Years
The Greatest Automotive Flops of the Last 25 Years - MSN Autos: "“Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.” —Truman Capote
“My other Maserati is also a piece of s**t.” —bumper sticker seen on a Chrysler’s TC by Maserati in Berkeley, California
As nouns go, “flop” is a good one—short, peppy, and to the point. Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines a flop as “an act or sound of flopping,” or “a complete failure.” It implies a cheeky, jovial kind of bad, a light-hearted crappiness of fate that goes beyond simple notions of success or defeat.
By the same token, in the automotive world, a flop isn’t necessarily a bad car. Bad cars come and go all the time, but flops are something more—they’re an unholy convergence of economic, corporate, and design conditions; a perfect storm of bad luck, bad planning, and—say what?—engineering. Four-wheeled flops don’t have to be miserable to drive or vomitous to look at (although it certainly helps); they just have to be a no-questions-asked sales disaster."
Shuttle Astronauts Again Surprised by Hubble
Shuttle Astronauts Again Surprised as Spacewalk Hubble Repair Proves Easy: "High above Earth, where the space shuttle Atlantis has lassoed the Hubble Space Telescope, some of the simple repairs have been heart-poundingly difficult, and many of the most daunting tasks have turned out to be a breeze.
So it went yesterday, with two astronauts ripping open an instrument and fiddling with sharp objects that posed a potentially lethal hazard to pressure-suited spacewalkers. Heralded as the most challenging spacewalk of the mission, it went like a dream -- and for at least one day, the aging Hubble and its eccentricities didn't give the astronauts fits."
Teller Reveals the Neuroscience of Illusion
Magic and the Brain: Teller Reveals the Neuroscience of Illusion: "One of the first tricks in Penn and Teller's Las Vegas show begins when Teller—the short, quiet one—strolls onstage with a lit cigarette, inhales, drops it to the floor, and stamps it out. Then he takes another cigarette from his suit pocket and lights it.
No magic there, right? But then Teller pivots so the audience can see him from the other side. He goes through the same set of motions, except this time everything is different: Much of what just transpired, the audience now perceives, was a charade, a carefully orchestrated stack of lies. He doesn't stamp out the first cigarette—he palms it, then puts it in his ear. There is no second cigarette; it's a pencil stub. The smoke from the first butt is real, but the lighter used on the pencil is actually a flashlight. Yet the illusion is executed so perfectly that every step looks real, even when you're shown that it is not."
Shoppers of the future will 'pick' fruit from supermarket shelves
Shoppers of the future will 'pick' fruit from supermarket shelves - Telegraph: "Instead of buying pre-packaged packs of tomatoes or strawberries, they will be able to 'harvest' as much or as little as they like – introducing the concept of 'harvest by' dates rather than 'best before' dates.
The idea has been proposed by Futurelab, a company that helps businesses predict trends of the future, and was part of a report commissioned by Sainsbury, the supermarket chain."
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Iowa town seeks status as video gamers' mecca
Iowa town seeks status as video gamers' mecca : "For a brief shining moment in the 1980s, Ottumwa was the unlikely hot spot of the fledgling video game industry as gamers around the globe flocked to this sleepy Iowa city and its video game arcade for a series of landmark tournaments.
Gamers set world records, the TV show 'That's Incredible' broadcast a tournament to a national audience, and then-mayor Jerry Parker dubbed Ottumwa 'The Video Game Capital of the World.'"
Nile Monitor Lizards Florida
Nile Monitor Lizards Florida: "Nile monitor lizards, which can grow up to 6 feet long, are plaguing the west coast of the Sunshine State. The non-indigenous animals, which were introduced to the area as pets, are causing potentially deadly roadblocks at an airport and threatening the survival of native species."
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