Beware of the second coming of System 7

Greetings.

Jewish date:  2 Ṭeveth 5771 (Parashath Vayyiggash).

Today’s quasi-holiday:  International Anti-Corruption Day.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “How to stop a hurricane (good luck, by the way)”
• “Zoo Illogical: Ugly Animals Need Protection from Extinction, Too”
• “Breaking our link to the "March of Progress"”
• “The gorgeous molecular biology movie that's taken the world by storm”
• “Japan’s Robot Picks Only the Ripest Strawberries”

Image of a Macintosh SE via Wikipedia

Today’s weird thing is this simulation of a Macintosh SE running System 7.0.  I have no idea why anyone did this, but it may be fun for the nostalgic, especially since the simulation includes some games and a screen saver.  Enjoy, share the weirdness, and happy Ḥanukkah.

Aaron

Can flash drives explode?

Greetings.

Jewish date:  26 Kislew 5771 (Parashath MiqQeṣ).

Today’s quasi-holiday:  International Day of Persons with Disabilities (UN).

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Arsenic-Eating Bacteria Opens New Possibilities for Alien Life”
• “Recommended Daily Vitamin D Intake Gets a Boost” and “Vitamin D”
• “The antidepressant reboxetine: A headdesk moment in science”
• “Bat resembling Star Wars Yoda discovered in Papua New Guinea rainforest”
• “What’s with the new cough and cold products?”
• “Computer identifies the most boring day in history”

Today’s weird thing is the USB Grenade Flash Drive.  This is something you absolutely should not take through Israeli security.  You should have no trouble taking it through American security, as the TSA is reportedly more interesting in finding out what you look like naked rather than if you are carrying anything dangerous.  Enjoy, share the weirdness, happy Ḥanukkah, and Shabbath shalom.

Aaron

The mother (or monster) of all weird crossovers

Greetings.

Jewish date:  19 Kislew 5771 (Parashath Wayyeshev).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  Black Friday (USA), Buy Nothing Day.

Note:  Currently I am working with an unreliable Internet connection, so I plan on keeping my posts short for the moment to increase the chances that they actually get through.

Today’s weird thing is something bizarre working its way virally across the Internet, what may be the mother (or monster) of all weird crossovers, “Cookie Monster Auditions for Saturday Night Live”:



Considering the normally low quality of Saturday Night Live, even if Cookie Monster is not at his best, it would obviously be their best show ever.  Since Cookie Monster was clearly trying to limit himself to a short time in making this video, there is an obvious skit which was left out:  a Saturday Night Live parody of Sesame Street, which might well involve humans dressing up as Muppet characters and discussion of some aspect of life on Sesame Street not normally discussed.  The alternative might be a Muppet-only version of Saturday Night Live, which might well have Muppets pretending to be humans parodying something else.

Oh, if you are on Facebook, please join the (as of this typing) 87,941 other people who like it to encourage NBC to make a Cookie Monster-hosted episode of Saturday Night Live a reality.

Enjoy, share the weirdness, and Shabbath shalom.

’Aharon/Aaron

PS:  This post was brought to you by the letters L, E, and the number 5.

Where do superheroes buy their magic spandex costumes?

Greetings.

Jewish date:  18 Kislew 5771 (evening) (Parashath Wayyeshev).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  National Opt-Out Day, Use Even If Seal Is Broken Day, Celebrate Your Unique Talent Day.

I am alive and well, currently in Ra‘ananah, Israel.  I have been here for a week and am living under a name which transliterates as ’Aharon Shelomoh ’Edhelman.  And I have been very busy and very tired.  Making ‘aliyyah (moving to Israel) is a frightfully complicated processes.  Much of what I have done is doing things which need to get done as soon as possible:  getting an identity document, signing up with a health organization, getting a bank account, and telling the Ministry of Absorption so they deposit money in said account for the next few months.  There has also been a lot of looking for and buying various things necessary that were not taken in my suitcases, such as hangers, food, and kitchen utensils.  (Yet I still do not have a hotplate.  Or a cell phone.)  I have also started studying in ’ulpan (Hebrew classes); I tested as fairly advanced and have been bored by the grammar review and find exercises requiring impromptu acting much more interesting.

Image via Wikipedia

Given how tired I am, I will proceed straight to today’s tonight's weird thing, courtesy of Barry:  The Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company, which bills itself as “Online purveyors of high quality crimefighting merchandise”.  Enjoy, share the weirdness, and, please, someone send me something that lets me fly.

’Aharon/Aaron

Sherlock Holmes is crazy

Greetings.

Jewish date:  2 Kislew 5771 (Parashath Wayyeṣe’).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  World Freedom Day, National Young Readers Day.

Yes, I am not posting much these days.  My plans to move to Israel have advanced considerably.  I will be making the move on November 15-16, and getting everything ready takes a lot of time and effort.  Expect posts to be few and far between for a while.

Image via Wikipedia

Today’s weird thing is Sherlock.  This is a reimagining of Sherlock Holmes and company set in 2010.  What is truly unusual about it is that while every other reimagining or other work which tries to change the setting of a story which your humble blogger is aware of misunderstands the characters or story and screws it up, this one makes extraordinary efforts to do it right—and it pays off.  The new Sherlock really does act and think like the original, only doing it in a modern setting.  E.g., he examines John Watson’s cell phone and deduces from it a lot about John.  There are also attempts at exploring aspects of Sherlock and John which are often ignored.  Sherlock, it is noted—in language more sophisticated than I am about to use—is crazy.  John, who in this version served in the military in Afghanistan rather than India, suffers psychologically from his war experiences; this also feeds into why he teams up with Sherlock.  I could go on, but there are other things I need to do.  But before I post, due note that you can watch all three episodes (“A Study in Pink”, “The Blind Banker”, and “The Great Game”) on-line through December 7.  I understand that further episodes are planned.  Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of car-eating rabbits

Greetings.

Jewish date:  23 Marḥeshwan 5771 (Parashath Toledhoth).

Today’s quasi-holiday:  Halloween.

Worthy causes of the day:  “Call on ABC News to drop Andrew Breitbart”, “Tell ABC News: Don't give Andrew Breitbart a platform to spread his lies.”, “Jewish Rights on the Temple Mount - Petition Spot”, “Unite Deserving Dads and Their Children! - The Petition Site”, “Stop Iceland's Cruel Whale Slaughter - Take Action Today @ The Rainforest Site”, “Stop the Yellowstone Bison Slaughter - Take Action Today @ The Animal Rescue Site”, and “Take Action: The Senate Must Act!”.

I would like to apologize for having not posted anything for about three weeks.  This is has been due to two factors:  1) I have had a respiratory infection, which is not conducive to getting much of anything done.  2) I have been working on a review of Robert Graves’s The White Goddess, which is a decidedly nontrivial book.  Having reached a stage where the review is more or less presentable, I present it without further adieu on Divine Misconceptions and resume posting here, too.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “It’s alive! New computer learns language like a human, almost.”
• “Is killing yourself adaptive? That depends: An evolutionary theory about suicide”
• “Lay Rescuers: Try CPR without Mouth-to-Mouth Resuscitation”
• “Love Lessens Pain”
• “The True Size of Africa”
• “No high-tech high five, this robot uses a beanbag for a hand”
• “Shark Bytes:  How and Where Sharks Attack”
• “Vans drive themselves across the world - Rome to China without a prang”
• “WHEN BAD TASTES GOOD: DISCOVERY OF TASTE RECEPTORS IN THE LUNGS COULD HELP PEOPLE WITH ASTHMA BREATHE EASIER”:  I cannot make up something like this either.
• “What does HIV sound like? [Audio]”
• “Have a Heart: Donate Your Pacemaker”

Image which Zemanta thought was relevant via Wikipedia

Today’s weird thing is “Car-Eating Rabbits Invade Denver Airport”.  I cannot make up something like this.  Really.  Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of The Gong Show

Greetings.

Jewish date:  3 Marḥeshwan 5771 (Parashath Lekh-Lekha).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  Columbus Day (USA), Thanksgiving (Canada), Native American Day, Indigenous Peoples Day.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Alternative Biomedical Treatments for Autism: How Good Is the Evidence?”:  Long story made short:  pretty bad for the most part.

Today’s weird thing is the Country Western Song Generator, which spouts out lyrics like:

I met her on probation all hunched over; I can still recall that little hat she wore;  She was chewin' on a hangnail in the twilight,      and I knew I'd have to scrape her off the floor; Her rabbi said I'd hate her dog forever; She said to me she loved my one blue eye; But who'd have thought she'd run off on 'The Gong Show'; I now can kiss my credit cards goodbye.

This utility should be useful for song writers who completely lack creativity.  Or perhaps for musicians looking to see if anyone is paying any attention to lyrics.  Enjoy (or feel horribly depressed or something) and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of the ground moving beneath your feet

Image via Wikipedia

Greetings.

Jewish date:  2 Marḥeshwan 5771 (Parashath Lekh-Lekha).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  National Cake Decorating Day, World Mental Health Day (UN), National Angel Food Cake Day, 42 Day.

Worthy cause of the day:  “Tell the DOJ: Investigate the Chamber of Commerce's campaign spending”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Biggest Genome Ever”
• “An Asteroid Smashup”
• “Old tracks show protodinosaurs emerged millions of years earlier than previously thought”
• “Regulators consider more rigorous examination of consumer genetic tests for serious diseases”
• “Smarter Than You Think - Google Cars Drive Themselves, in Traffic”
• “Longreach life-saving bazooka wins James Dyson Award for Australian inventor”
• “So, How Long Would It Take to Travel to That Exciting New Exoplanet?”
• “The 100-year leap”
• “Linguists Discover New Language in Remote India”

Today’s weird thing is “650 Million Years in 1 Min. and 20 Sec.”, which animates continental drift.  And the continents have moved around quite a bit.


650 Million Years in 1 Min. and 20 Sec.

Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of horrific iPad hacks

Greetings.

Jewish date:  27 Tishri 5771 (Parashath Noaḥ).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  Long Walk Day, World Teachers’ Day.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Brooklyn Father, Son Launch 'Homemade Spacecraft'”:  I cannot make something like this up.  And what they did seems so ridiculously easy that I am amazed that more people are not doing something like this.
• “Planet Hunters Discover a World That Could Harbor Life”
• “Giant extinct penguin skipped tuxedo for more colorful feathers”
• “Horizontal Gene Transfer: Bacteria Transmit Genetic Code without Sex”
• “Can You Hear Me Now? The Truth about Cell Phones and Cancer”:  No, cell phones do not cause cancer.  And they cannot.

Today’s weird thing is “iPad runs Windows 95, universe stays intact”, a bizarre hacking stunt.  Included is this horrifying video:



Enjoy (or be afraid) and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of Asteroid spaceships

Greetings.

Jewish date:  26 Tishri 5771 (Parashath Noaḥ).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  Ten-Four Day, National Golf Day, World Animal Day.

Worthy cause of the day:  “Stop 'Corn Sugar' Now!”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Wasted Food Equals Wasted Energy”
• “Empathy’s failures”:  This is a scary look into the human conscience.
• “Reflective "death ray" torments Vegas sunbathers”:  Thank Barry for pointing this one out.
• “Ten Worst Passwords on the Web”:  If you use a password like any of these, please consider changing it.  All of these are pretty lame.
• “Every single Republican Senate hopeful is against climate change action”:  I am trying to stay out of American politics right now, preparing as I am to move to Israel, but this just scares me.
• “No U.N. 'Alien Ambassador' as the Bets Roll In”
• “The Pink Panther of Swindon: White cat is abandoned after guerilla grooming session leaving her so bright she 'glows in the dark'”:  Think Eureka the Pink Kitten from L. Frank Baum’s Oz books.
• “FBI drive for encryption backdoors is déjà vu for security experts”
• “This is a news website article about a scientific finding”
• “A Look At The Technologies and Industries Senators Leahy and Hatch Would Have Banned In The Past”
• “Insect Dinners - Waiter, There’s Soup in My Bug”
• “Dying to Eat: A Graphical View of U.S. Obesity”
• “WTF, kids swearing earlier now, researcher says”

Image via Wikipedia

Today’s weird thing is “Hello, want to kill some time?”, which lets you install a JavaScript bookmarket in your browser which lets you shoot items in the current Web-page with an Asteroids-style spaceship..  Enjoy, share the weirdness, and please don’t shoot my blog.

Aaron

Beware of bread

Greetings.

Jewish date:  19 Tishri 5771 (Parashath Bere’shith).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  Ancestor Appreciation Day, Banned Book Week, World Tourism Day.

Worthy cause of the day:  “Stand Up for Veterans - They Stood Up for Us - The Petition Site”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Dying to Eat: A Graphical View of U.S. Obesity”
• “Insect Dinners - Waiter, There’s Soup in My Bug”:  I cannot make something like this up.

Image featuring the insidious substance via Wikipedia

Today’s weird thing is “Bread Kills!”, which is a very silly illustration of bad epidemiological reasoning, specifically that fallacies of equating correlation with causation and the assumption that preceding alone is a proof of causation.  Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of Starfleet kitchen utensils

Image marginally relevant to today’s weird thing via Wikipedia

Greetings.

Jewish date:  18 Tishri 5771 (Parashath Bere’shith).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  Banned Book Week, European Day of Languages, National Pancake Day, Gold Star Mother’s Day.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “An alien's eye view of the solar system (w/ video)”
• “Lost language unearthed in a letter”
• “Million Dollar Comma”
• “We Only Trust Experts If They Agree with Us”:  This is a sad commentary on what people believe.
• “Salmonella Take Advantage of Our Battle Plan”

Today’s weird thing is the Star Trek Enterprise Pizza Cutter, which is described in this short video:

(There is also a Star Trek Enterprise Bottle Opener, but the pizza cutter is cooler and more useful in a fight against Klingons.)  Enjoy, share the weirdness, and live long and prosper.

Aaron

Beware of ballistic marshmallows

Greetings.

Jewish date:  13 Tishri 5771.

Today’s quasi-holidays:  World Gratitude Day, International Banana Festival, Elephant Appreciation Day, Miniature Golf Day, International Day of Peace, Independence Day (Armenia).

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Intel wants to charge $50 to unlock stuff your CPU can already do”:  You do realize, I hope, that this is an invitation for hackers to write their own unlocking code to avoid paying the $50.
• “The Quadrotor Drone Learns Several Terrifying New Tricks”

Today’s weird thing is the Marshmallow Mforcer Semi-Automatic Pistol, a weapon which fires marshmallows.  This should be useful when fighting foes made out of tissue paper.

Image of hint via Wikipedia

Special bonus weird thing:  Stay Puft Caffeinated Gourmet Marshmallows.  Apparently life sometimes imitates corny movies.  (Hint:  Ghostbusters reference.)

Enjoy, share the weirdness, and DUCK!

Aaron

Beware of period picnic tables

Image of the cracked media via Wikipedia

Greetings.

Jewish date:  11 Tishri 5771.

Today’s quasi-holiday:  International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Worthy causes of the day:  “Don't Build the Belo Monte Dam! - The Petition Site” and “Protect the Paradise Forests and the Orangutan - The Petition Site”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• Relevant to today’s quasi-holiday:  “Pirates Need Science, Too”
• “Password advice from the father of the firewall”
• “HDCP Master Key Confirmed; Blu-ray Content Vulnerable”:  It was only a matter of time.  Any content that can be read can be cracked.

Today’s weird thing is “Periodic table”, which describes a picnic table in the shape of a period table.  Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of the Flying Alarm Clock

Greetings.

Jewish date:  9 Tishri 5771.

Today’s quasi-holidays:  Constitution Day.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Pi record smashed as team finds two-quadrillionth digit”:  Intuition suggests finding later and later digits in π is something in the way of a mathematical game which, since π is an irrational number, will never end.

Image of the wrong sort of alarm clock, which is likely to be sent flying through the air, via Wikipedia

Today’s weird thing is the Flying Alarm Clock, which is a novel approach to getting its owner up by forcing the person being woken up to do a nontrivial task in order make it stop making a racket.  See this somewhat lame video which demonstrates it:

Enjoy (or loathe this thing; your choice) and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of Firefox

Greetings.

Jewish date:  8 Tishri 5771.

Today’s quasi-holidays:  Collect Rocks Day, National Play-doh Day, Wife Appreciation Day, International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer, Mayflower Day, Women’s Friendship Day.

Worthy cause of the day:  “Got Science?”.

Today’s weird thing is “Firefox rejects your”:

I hope your browser does not act like this in real life.  Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of Sam-I-Am

Greetings.

Jewish date:  7 Tishri 5771.

Today’s quasi-holidays:  Felt Hat Day, Independence Day (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua).

Worthy causes of the day:  “DemocracyForAmerica.com » Stand with Patrick Leahy”, “Save Darfur Coalition:  Give just 60 seconds for Sudan”, and “Tell Congress: Don't extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Ancient brewers tapped antibiotic secrets”:  I do not make stuff like this up.  Nor could I.
• “New Poll Gauges Americans' General Knowledge Levels”:  We need to work on this.
• “Online appeal sets classical music free”:  Interesting idea.
• “Crested dinosaur pushes back dawn of feathers”

Cover via Amazon

Today’s weird thing, inspired from discussing the ownership of a number of Dr. Seuss books yesterday, is “Green Eggs and Ham Sam i am Jesse Jackson”.  (I apologize for not including the video directly on this blog, but embedding was disabled.)  As a special bonus, there is also a recipe for Green Eggs and Ham Recipe, in which the green color is due to scallions and spinach.  Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of asteroids

Image of something sort of jetpack-like via Wikipedia

Greetings.

Jewish date:  29 ’Elul 5770 (Parashath Ha’azinu).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  International Literacy Day, World Rabies Day.

Worthy cause of the day:  “Protect us from toxic coal ash”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Jetpacks For Sale - Buy a Jet Pack”:  Took them long enough.

Today’s weird thing is “Asteroid Discovery From 1980 − 2010”:

This should give some idea how much in the way of rocks there are flying around the inner Solar system.  If you feel worried about the prospects of collision, do note that the size of objects are not shown to scale.  Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of secret agents¡

Greetings.

Jewish date:  28 ’Elul 5770 (Parashath Ha’azinu).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  “Neither Snow Nor Rain” Day, National Thylacine Day, International Dadaism Month.

Today’s weird thing is “Eagle”:

Enjoy, share the weirdness, and please, don’t do this.

Aaron

May the Force be with Chew

Greetings.

Jewish date:  26 ’Elul 5770 (Parashath Ha’azinu).

Today’s quasi-holiday:  Be Late For Something Day.

Today’s (two-week backlog of) news and commentary:

• “Yellowstone Hot Spot Shreds Ancient Pacific Ocean”
• “Take a deep breath - why the world is running out of helium”
• “Dilbert Creator Scott Adams Tries to Build an Eco-Friendly House (or:  How I (Almost) Saved the Earth)”
• “Got E. coli ? Raw Milk's Appeal Grows Despite Health Risks”
• “A pox on your bank account: failure to vaccinate and its legal consequences”
• “Heaps of Fossils From Evolutionary ‘Big Bang’ Discovered”
• “Large, double-clawed raptor stalked Europe's Cretaceous creatures”
• “10 Ways Your Taxes Pay For Environmental Devastation”
• “The power of anecdotes”
• “How the Washington Shakespeare Company came to offer Shakespeare in Klingon”:  And you will see Klingon Shakespeare, or you will die with no honor!
• “Water Before Meal Means Fewer Calories Consumed”
• “Deadly Whooping Cough, Once Wiped Out, Is Back”
• “Alien Solar System Looks Strikingly Like Ours”
• “Black Fawn”
• “Tropical Glaciers in Indonesia May Disappear by the End of the Decade”
• “Survey Probes Americans' Incorrect Opinions on Energy Efficiency”
• “Patenting The Geophysical Center Of Europe?”
• “Video quality less important when you’re enjoying what you’re watching”
• “Drug-resistant staph infections on the decline in U.S. hospitals”

Image via Wikipedia of the original stuffed animals which inspired one of the things which inspired Wookiee the Chew

Today’s weird thing (if Klingon Shakespeare was not enough for you) is “Chewbacca Illustrated as Winnie-the-Pooh”, describing the book Wookiee The Chew - The House at Chew Corner, with further illustrations at James Hance - Relentlessly Cheerful Art.  No description your humble blogger can give will truly do justice to this, so just click on the links and see this for yourself.  Enjoy, share the weirdness, and may the Force be with you.  Oh, and someone send me a copy of the book, please.

Aaron

Beware of alien cat

Greetings.

Jewish date:  24 ’Elul 5770 (Parashath Niṣṣavim-Wayyelekh).

Today’s quasi-holiday:  Skyscraper Day.

Today’s weird thing (after a break due to me visiting Israel) is “alien cat”:


Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of bizarre coffins

Image suggested by Zemanta for no apparent reason via Wikipedia

Greetings.

Jewish date:  6 ’Elul 5770 (Parashath Ki-Theṣe’).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  Watermelon Day, Bratwurst Festival, International Dadaism Month.

Worthy causes of the day:  “Take Action: Tell President Obama: Make Our Food Safe NOW!”, “GOP: Stop Punishing the Unemployed - The Petition Site”, and “Save the Internet: Take Action!:  Dear Chairman Genachowski: Don't Let Google Be Evil”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Video quality less important when you’re enjoying what you’re watching”
• “Drug-resistant staph infections on the decline in U.S. hospitals”

Today’s weird thing is “Screw It, You're Dead Anyway”, which deals with unusual ideas for how to dispose of dead bodies.  The title refers specifically to a space-saving coffin which is screwed into the ground.  Enjoy (or be shocked or something) and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of overstuffed sentences

Greetings.

Jewish date:  2 ’Elul 5770 (Parashath Shofeṭim).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  Vinyl Record Day, International Youth Day.

Worthy cause of the day:  “ColorOfChange.org:  FCC: Say NO to Google and Verizon / Demand the FCC do its job and protect the open Internet”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “How Star Trek artists imagined the iPad... 23 years ago”
• “Congress About To Pass 'The ______Act of____' (These Are The People We Elect?)”:  I really hope this is a hoax.
• “God's Number is 20”:  (Submitted by Barry.)  Someone has proved that it takes no more than 20 turns to solve Rubik’s Cube.
• “Vending Machines Of The Future” and “Smart vending machines in Tokyo train station recognize age, sex”
• “Ancient Cut Marks Reveal Far Earlier Origin of Butchery”
• “Touchscreens open to smudge attacks”:  I cannot make this sort of thing up, though there is some sense to the idea.
• “A Man, A Plan And A Sharpie: 'The Great Typo Hunt'”

Today’s weird thing, suggested by Barry, is “Do You Suffer From One of These Writing Viruses?”, which should give people an idea of ways not to write.  And if you do not like it, see “Jaws Theme Goes Here” and check under “How sharks DON’T attack”.

Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

All tautologies are tautologies

Greetings.

Jewish date:  30 ’Av 5770 (Parashath Shofeṭim).

Today’s quasi-holiday:  National Duran Duran Appreciation Day.  (Don’t ask me.  I don’t come up with (most of) these quasi-holidays.  I just report them.)

Worthy causes of the day:  “Tell the Obama administration we need more protection from for-profit education rip-offs!”, “Tell the FCC: It's up to you, not Google and Verizon, to regulate the Internet”, and “MoveOn.org Political Action: Stop Social Security Cuts”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Where Did the Carter White House's Solar Panels Go?”:  Thank you, Ronald Reagan, for your retrograde energy policy.
• “Inside Google Books: Books of the world, stand up and be counted! All 129,864,880 of you.”
• “Genetically Modified Crop on the Loose and Evolving in U.S. Midwest”:  This is not as scary as it might sound.
• “Tiny fish evolved to tolerate colder temperature in three years, study finds”
• “Stephen Hawking's Warning: Abandon Earth—Or Face Extinction”
• “Huge ice island calves off Greenland glacier”

Today’s weird thing is “tautology cat iz tautological”:

Not quite tautological, but close to it.  Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Ahmadinejad proves he needs to take a remedial geography class

Greetings.

Jewish date:  28 ’Av 5770 (Parashath Shofeṭim).

Worthy causes of the day:  “Ban New Offshore Drilling - Take Action Today @ The Rainforest Site”, “ColorOfChange.org:  Tell Google: "Don't be evil" / And to stop dealing away the Internet”, “MoveOn.org Political Action: Google: Don't Be Evil”, and “Alliance for Justice:  Congress: Repair the Damage Caused by the Corporate Court”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Crocodile relative might have chewed like a mammal”:  Who knew?
• “Gaming the System: Video Gamers Help Researchers Untangle Protein Folding Problem”:  I cannot make up something like this.
• Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum:  Not news or commentary.  Project Gutenberg put out a new edition with all the original pictures.

Today’s weird thing is “'England Is A Small Island West Of Africa,' Says Ahmadinejad”, courtesy of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s most infamous lunatic, who is apparently too busy being insane to check a map.  Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

“Modded Nintendo Lets You Play Mario With Your Eyes (video)”

Image the relevant game via Wikipedia

Greetings.

Jewish date:  25 Tammuz 5770 (Parashath Re’eh).

Today’s quasi-holiday:  National Mustard Day.

Worthy cause of the day:  “Tell Sarah Palin to Go Back to Alaska - The Petition Site”.

Today’s weird thing, the title of which pretty much speaks for itself, is “Modded Nintendo Lets You Play Mario With Your Eyes (video)”.  Behold the referenced video:

Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of ninjas fighting in public

Greetings.

Jewish date:  24 ’Av 5770 (Parashath Re’eh).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  Coast Guard Day, Emancipation Day/August Festival (British Virgin Islands).

Worthy cause of the day:  “Tell Mott's: get the scabs out of your applesauce!”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Four Deformations of the Apocalypse”:  I knew Republicans were bad for the economy.  Here is why.  In the meantime, I am working to get out of the country.
• “Industry-sponsored drug trials more likely to report positive results”:  This is completely unsurprising to me.
• “Prankster jailbreaks Apple Store display iPhone”:  If one is going to do something wrong, one might as well do something daring.

There may be a ninja in this image from Wikipedia, but you would never know it

Today’s weird thing is “34 Things I Learned From Video Games”.  This list gives valuable information for anyone trying to survive on the mean streets such as:

• “You never run out of ammunition, just grenades.”
• “Ninjas are common, and fight in public frequently.”
• “Repulsive, ugly, cannabalistic, evil beings have just as much right to be loved as heroic fighters.”

Enjoy, share the weirdness, and beware of ninjas.

Aaron

Beware of puzzle-shaped food

Greetings.

Jewish date:  23 ’Av 5770 (Parashath Re’eh).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  Emancipation Day/August Festival (British Virgin Islands), National Watermelon Day, National Night Out.

Worthy cause of the day:  “Save BioGems: Take Action: Stop Shell Oil:  Send a message urging President Obama to impose a 7-year moratorium on Shell's offshore drilling in the Arctic that will give scientists enough time to best determine how to protect the polar bear's home.”

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Extreme Function: Why Our Brains Respond So Intensely to Exaggerated Characteristics”
• “Fact or Fiction: Can a Squid Fly Out of the Water?”:  I had no idea that there was such a thing as flying squid.
• “A Quarter Century after Chernobyl: Radioactive Boar on the Rise in Germany”

Image of the inedible variety via Wikipedia

Today’s weird thing is the Rubik’s Cubewich, a meat and cheese sandwich in the shape of a Rubik’s Cube.  I do not know what possessed anyone to create this, though I myself did once dream of a Rubik’s Cube-shaped kugel.  Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of drugs that give you visions of ancient video games

Image via Wikipedia

Greetings.

Jewish date:  22 ’Av 5770 (Parashath Re’eh).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  Emancipation Day/August Festival (British Virgin Islands), Emancipation Day/August Monday (Anguilla, the Bahamas), International Dadaism Month, Anniversary of Official Signing of the Declaration of Independence (USA).

Worthy causes of the day:  “Ask Your Reps to Support the National Alzheimer's Project Act - The Petition Site”, “Support Clean Energy Jobs - Take Action Today @ The Rainforest Site”, and “Tell the FDA to Come Clean About Gulf Seafood - The Petition Site”.  Also along the lines of something worthy to do:  Save the oak trees.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “A Solar Salamander”
• “Exclusive: I Used BlindType, Virtual Keyboard of the Future”
• “Genes from Ebola Virus Family Found in Human Genome”:  I really could not make something like this up.
• “$20 Wikipedia Reader Uses 8-Bit Computing Power”
• “NASA identifies Top Ten space junk missions”
• “Car Thieves Picky About Color”:  Also titled “Love Pink? Car Thieves Don’t”.
• “They Are Making Battleship Into a Movie. No Seriously, They Are Making Battleship Into a Movie.”:  Submitted by Barry.

Today’s weird thing is “8-Bit Trip: 1500 Hours of Lego Stop-Motion in Four Awesome Minutes”.

Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of alternate histories of Fox News

Greetings.

Jewish date:  17 ’Av 5770 (Parashath ‘Eqev).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  Singing Telegram Day, National Drive-Thru Day.

Worthy cause of the day:  “CARE : Defending Dignity - Fighting Poverty :  Let Congress know you want the Haiti assistance bill passed”, “Working Families » Take Action!:  Sign our letter to NY's State Senators”, and “We want the DISCLOSE Act”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Spread of Deadly Cryptococcal Disease in U.S. Northwest Linked to Global Warming”
• “Asteroid Could Threaten the Earth in 2182”
• “Plastiki finishes Pacific voyage”
• “Trekkers offered cave tours in Klingon”:  Worf will be pleased.  No word on whether gagh will be served.

Logo of the guys being made fun of via Wikipedia

Today’s weird thing, submitted by Nancy and Barry, is “If Fox News had existed throughout history…”.  Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron