31 October 2008

Happy Halloween

No more blogging today. Need to get ready for 80-90 trick-or-treaters due to begin arriving shortly. The photos above are of our "Oh No" and "vomiting" pumpkins from 2006, and the "electric porcupine" pumpkin from last year.

Bilingual road sign in Wales

When officials creating the sign asked for a Welsh translation of the text at the top, they thought the reply they received was what they needed.


How to frame your dog's photograph

Anti-McCain media bias

Chan's megastick - longest insect in the world

Stretching to an extraordinary 22 inches, this newly discovered bug is the longest stick insect in the world. Named the Chan's megastick, it was discovered in the Borneo rainforests by a stick insect enthusiast and has been handed to the Natural History Museum in London…
Almost nothing is known about its biology and lifestyle, although it probably lives in the highest canopies of the rainforest, making it hard to spot. Its body without legs is 14 inches long.

In addition to its size, its eggs may also be unique in the insect world…The female sent to the museum was full of eggs, each had wing-like extensions on either side like a miniature golden snitch - the Quidditch ball from the Harry Potter books.

'Other stick insects lay their 0.5 cm eggs individually and flick them in to the air where they fall to the ground,' he said.

'It looks like these are flicked into the air where they can be picked up by the wind and carried away from the tree.

'It increases the dispersal of the eggs and means that the young don't climb up the same tree as the parents and start competing for the same food.'
Blogged not because of the size of the insect, but because of the remarkable adaptation of winged eggs to enhance egg dispersal. Ingenious and fascinating. Also very cool is the title of the person interviewed for the article: Dr George Beccaloni, curator of stick insects, cockroaches and grasshoppers. (!!)

Campaign sign hooked up to electric dog fence

Story here. I'll defer any commentary.

Interesting architecture

My cousin in Barcelona tells me that this is the Torre Agbar (AGuas de BARcelona), built by the city's water company. It is lit up in the evening for a few hours and is quite striking with its red and blue lights. The conformation of the building has been described in a variety of ways, which I will leave to your imagination... (image credit here)

30 October 2008

Can you guess what this ad is promoting?

Bicycle helmets. (Click to enlarge)

The most important photograph ever taken is...




(thanks, Ovablastic, for posting this video)

The Economist endorses Obama

The Economist, a London-based 150-year-old business and economics publication that in the past endorsed Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole, and George W. Bush, now offers an endorsement of Senator Obama:









Our main doubts about Mr Obama have to do with the damage a muddle-headed Democratic Congress might try to do to the economy... the risk remains that on economic matters the centre that Mr Obama moves to would be that of his party, not that of the country as a whole.


Is incoherency better when set to music?

Anti-aging skin cream advertisement

Wonderful philosophy of life

“If you want to believe in something, then believe in it. Just because something isn’t true, that’s no reason you can’t believe in it … that people are basically good, that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything, that money and power mean nothing, that Good always triumphs over Evil … that true love never dies.

You remember that, boy… doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, you see. A man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in.”

-- Robert Duvall, in Secondhand Lions.

Hooligans maul elderly flamingo

Four teenagers in Australia have been charged with an attack on an almost blind greater flamingo, thought to be one of the oldest of its kind alive.

Police and zoo officials said the flamingo's head and beak were injured and it was bleeding from an eye. The bird, aged at least 75 years, is in a critical condition, zoo staff said. The bird has been at the zoo for most of its life and, with its Chilean partner, has been one of Adelaide zoo's most popular exhibits.

Police said four men aged between 17 and 19 were charged with aggravated ill-treatment of an animal and released on bail to appear in court at a later date.

The exact age of the flamingo remains unknown, as proper records from his arrival in the 1930s do not exist. "The bird arrived at the zoo in 1933 and was a mature bird at that stage..."

Blogged because of the impressive age of the bird. One is not surprised by an aged tortoise or large mammals like elephants and whales. But I had never expected to encounter a bird older than I am.

Cruelty to animals is a known predictor of serial killers. These young men need professional counseling. If I'm judging the mood of the public down under correctly, this might also be a good time to revive the pillory.


"...the photo was just a snapshot in the struggle between a tree-frog and cat-eyed tree-snake that lasted for hours through the night in the tropical forests of Belize."

Excerpts from "Eunoia"

"Eunoia" - the shortest word containing all five vowels - means "beautiful thinking." It is also the title of a book in which each chapter uses only one vowel. Excerpts:






29 October 2008

Autumn foliage

Whenever possible I like to end my blogging day with a beautiful or impressive photo, because that's what will greet TYWKIWDBI visitors when they arrive. The image above (credit here) is that of a Japanese maple in the full glory of its autumn colors. This particular variety is probably a "laceleaf" cultivar. (click to enlarge)

Tsunami of early voting

There are probably many such reports and images from around the country. HuffPo has reports from a dozen different states quantifying the incredible turnout. I didn't find long lines at my local city hall, but when you go to links like this one, you can see collections of photos (like the two above) of lines of hundreds of voters, enduring sometimes 5 hours in line - and this a week before election day.

It wasn't that long ago that pundits and the media used to decry the "apathy" of the American public when it came time for elections. This election will put those stories to rest for a while; when it matters to them, people vote.

The Pont Neuf bridge - a gender test

An example of how men and women view photographs differently.
Pont Neuf is the oldest bridge in Paris and took 26 years to build. Construction began in 1578 and ended in 1604. ‘Le Pont Neuf’ is actually made of 2 independent bridges, one with seven arches and the other with five arches.
In the photo at the link, the bridge (located in Toulouse, not Paris) is partially obscured by foreground material. Women are usually able to see the bridge instantly; men, however, seem to require a much longer time to locate it.

Bicycle accident

More details at the link, including (refreshingly) the patient lying on an E.R. gurney, smiling, and waving at the cameraman. The +2 annotation on his foot means his dorsalis pedis pulse is intact and the viability of the foot is not in imminent danger. The discussion thread at the link includes suggestions that perhaps this image is Photoshopped. No way (and no need to); anyone who has worked in ERs or the military has seen this kind of stuff or worse. It is, however, quite impressive...

Explaining the mystery chord in "Hard Day's Night"

Whether it is the "most famous chord in rock 'n' roll" is arguable, but it certainly is well-known. Don't quite remember it? Here it is (just the first couple seconds, then you can pause the playback...)

The reason it's famous in the musical world is that for 40 years no professional musicians have been able to identify what chord George Harrison was playing. Now a mathematics professor has "decomposed" (??) the sound by applying a Fourier transformation and has come up with the answer:
More explanation at the link.

Raunchy Tarzan toy

He's probably supposed to be beating his chest, but that's not how it looks. SFW, but he looks more like Onan than Tarzan.

McCain in trouble in Arizona

So is that (D-AZ) caption on Fox News a simple typo, or are they trying to help him out... (image credit here)

Goblin shark video

What's really startling are the protrusible jaws. They resemble those of moray eels (or the probably more familiar alien who faced Sigourney Weaver and dribbled drool as the interior jaw reached for her face...) Those jaws reportedly are sold to collectors for thousands of dollars.

That long "beak" on the shark, that looks like an appendage a dinosaur would be proud of, is apparently a "rostrum" (snout) designed to sense electrical fields (and thus help it hunt prey). A great adaptation for a resident of the dark bathysphere.

(Video found posted at Ovablastic)

Obama's birth announcement






Candle technology

A 5-minute science video. Nothing earth-shaking, certainly. This fits more into the category of "you learn something every day." What you might learn (if you don't know them already) are two things:

1) Why does the wick of a candle curve? What problems might occur if the wick went straight up?

2) When you blow out a candle, there is a wisp of white that rises from the wick. That's NOT SMOKE. What is it? I remember decades ago having fun seeing how far down that wisp a flame would travel if you put a lighted match at the top. Now I know why it happens.

Corollary to #1 - go to Wiki (there's a subtle pun there...) and learn that the original candle snuffers were NOT meant to snuff the candle.

Does the video remind you of something on television? Watch Mr. Wizard perhaps? Funny you should mention that...

Watch Mr. Wizard

Part of a half-hour episode from 1954. You'd have to be 60 years old or more to have seen this segment live, but younger visitors may remember later episodes or the Canadian revival in the 70s, or the updated Mr. Wizard's World of the 1980s.

For many adults, this was our introduction to "hard science" and the concept that science could be interesting (and comprehensible). I suppose it would be different now; teacher probably wouldn't be allowed to place a hand on Johnny's shoulder, and they probably couldn't make something explode on live camera by aerosolizing lighter fluid and igniting it.

This segment is about 10 minutes long; try watching the first 3-4 minutes and see if you aren't tempted to watch to the end, even though you already know "how engines work." (If you're totally fascinated you can find the end of the program - and other programs - on YouTube).

Today I was reminded of an old joke...

A man is waking up from anesthesia after a procedure, and his wife is sitting at his bedside.

His eyes briefly open, he looks around, glances at his wife and says, "You're absolutely gorgeous.” Then he falls back asleep.

His wife had never heard him say that, so she stays by his side. A few minutes later, his eyes flutter open again, he looks up at her and says, "Hey, you're cute!"

The wife decides to tease him because of his choice of words: "What happened to 'beautiful'?"

The man replies, "I guess the drugs are wearing off."

I'm having a colonoscopy today

So I won't be blogging. TYWKIWDBI encourages all visitors over age 50 to do the same thing. (Image credit here)

Addendum: colonoscopy normal. Fentanyl worn off; back to blogging.

28 October 2008

Why there are "robocalls"

Baby cockatoo

Image credit to Wikimedia Commons. Click to enlarge.

Kudos to Florida's Governor Crist



The Buzz reports:




Captain Obvious now working at a hotel

(found at Eyesights in Time)

Logging truck vs. power line

Power line wins.

Voting machine flipping votes - watch the video


New world record for apostrophe errors!

But are you on the list - perhaps as a "high fullutent sophisticated swine?"

(Image credit here)

Getting drunk on "superjuice"

Moonshine beverages such as fermented "bean juice" have long been common in the ostensibly "dry" communities, but superjuice, which first started appearing about four years ago, raises intoxication to new, dizzily dangerous heights.

The main ingredient is SuperYeast, a fast-acting yeast available in home-brewing stores. Mixed in a pail with sugar and water, one pouch can make 25 litres of superjuice in just a couple of days. The standard price of a two-litre bottle of superjuice is $80.

People drunk on superjuice are prone to violence, wild emotional outbursts, suicidal thoughts and frequent blackouts, Wood said. "With regular alcohol you can know what you are doing up to a point, but with superjuice you can't control yourself," he said.

"A lot of the times you can hear them screaming in the police holding cells (because) the stuff is still fermenting in their stomach," he said. "It keeps them drunk too because it is still in their system and still cooking..."

Magna Carta revoked

Not the entire document, mind you - just the part about collecting firewood:
The right of people to collect wood from Britain’s forests that was created under the Magna Carta has been overturned due to health and safety fears. The Forestry Commission has scrapped the right, enshrined in the “Great Charter” at Runneymede in 1215, in order to stop people picking firewood from woodland.

Instead they suggest people buy wood from local firewood merchants allowed into the forest...

“The Magna Carta states that a common man is allowed to enter forests and take deadwood for firewood, repairing homesteads, fixing tools and equipment and making charcoal.” He added: “Now they’ve stopped issuing licences and they are giving the reason as health and safety issues."
More details at Arbroath, where there are a bunch of other good things today, so I've linked to the homepage, not the specific article.

(The image above is not a woods in Britain; it's my favorite woods in northern Minnesota, where there is an abundance of "windfall" wood available.)

McCain/Palin support falling in almost every group



(It's over - barring a black ops terrorist attack. The "fat lady" seems to be clearing her throat.)

Addendum: just found an article that reviews the history of October surprises.

Which voters read blogs?


Neave television

I found this after midnight, so haven't fully explored it. It's not television, but rather seems to be more of a video art project, and it appears to be SFW as far as I can tell.

HERE's the link. (The picture above is just a random screencap).
Click to start, then click your mouse to change pseudochannels.

There are also some links at the top to flash games and other diversions.

27 October 2008

Nothing says "autumn" like bush chrysanthemums

This one sits by our front sidewalk to greet trick-or-treaters later this week. It looks almost like a red pumpkin. This display is the reward for the work of repotting plus lots of feeding and watering and judicious pruning by my wife.

I thought about trying to count the individual blossoms, then decided to stop being so compulsive and just enjoy the spectacle. (The picture does enlarge to fullscreen for anyone who wants to try counting or estimating; I would guess something like 800-1000 individual blossoms.)

The delight of voting early







African lioness encounters Hartebeest fetus

The lioness kills the pregnant Hartebeest [from the Dutch hert, meaning "deer" + beest self-evident], and while eviscerating it discovers a fetus. The sequence of events is documented in a series of 12 pictures at this photoblog.

The danger of suction toilets

There are a variety of stories re the hazards of vacuum toilets or suction toilets. Some are urban legends, such as the one debunked by Mythbusters re an obese person becoming stuck to an airline toilet. Others have been validated in the medical literature, including an account of partial evisceration on a cruise ship toilet.

With that unpleasant introduction, we turn to an account of a man getting his hand stuck in the toilet of a TGV bullet train.
A man trapped his hand in the u-bend of a TGV toilet. Firefighters cut him free after his arm became lodged in the u-bend after he tried to retrieve his mobile phone.

"He came out on a stretcher, with his hand still jammed in the toilet bowl, which they had to saw clean off," said witness Benoit Gigou...

The service was delayed for two hours after the 26-year-old victim, hunting for his lost telephone, fell prey to the powerful suction system which drains the loos on board, the rail network's regional office said.
Full credit for text and image to Nothing To Do With Arbroath.

Historic electoral maps

For those who are not bored "up to here" with politics, Gerard Vlemmings at Presurfer today found a fascinating assemblage of maps showing the distribution of electoral votes in U.S. presidental elections dating back to 1789, when Washington beat Adams (back then the runner-up became Vice-President; imagine what would happen today if Obama won and McCain became his Vice President!).

Nothing here relevant to the current election, but for those with an interest in history, the maps are informative.

The Financial Times endorses Obama

This isn't one of the American left-wing liberal newspapers. This is the Financial Times, the London-based paper that is viewed as one of the premier finance/economics newspapers in the world. You can read the entire editorial here, but since it requires a (free) subscription to view, I'll excerpt the relevant portions:




We applaud his main domestic proposal: comprehensive health-care reform...








Warning sign

Bumper snicker

The joy of milkweed seeds

One of the pleasures of youth (or of adulthood when you don't care what people think) is to shake milkweed pods and watch the fluff fly away. The photos above were taken at the Pheasant Branch Conservatory last week.

For the eternally pragmatic-minded there are some other aspects to consider. The milkweed floss itself has excellent insulation properties (actually better than goosedown). In the 1860s, residents of Salem used milkweed as mattress filling, and during WWII, when Japan cut off the supply of kapok, a nationwide drive collected millions of pounds of milkweed for the manufacture of Mae West lifejackets. There have been modern attempts to farm milkweed and process the down, and instructions are available at Mother Earth News to make your own milkweed down jacket.

Blogged for my Aunt Charlotte, who during WWII was one of thousands of schoolchildren who harvested milkweed from the barnyard and took bagfuls to school for the "Two bags save one life" program.

This is why I don't blog celebrities

Republican "change"

A year ago I thought the Republicans could never mount an effective campaign in the face of an unpopular sitting president and a deteriorating economy. During the summer in what I viewed as an inspired tactical move they tried to coopt the "change" theme with a "change is coming" mantra. As this political cartoon from last month illustrates, the public seems not to have been convinced. (Click/enlarge image to read the fine print)

26 October 2008

Sarah Palin "going rogue"

Excerpts from the most-viewed article on CNN today:

Several McCain advisers have suggested that they have become increasingly frustrated with what one aide described as Palin "going rogue."

McCain sources say Palin has gone off-message several times, and they privately wonder whether the incidents were deliberate. They cited an instance in which she labeled robocalls... "irritating" even as the campaign defended their use. Also, they pointed to her telling reporters she disagreed with the campaign's decision to pull out of Michigan...



"She's no longer playing for 2008; she's playing 2012," Democratic pollster Peter Hart said. "And the difficulty is, when she went on 'Saturday Night Live,' she became a reinforcement of her caricature..."

The world's largest nuclear bomb

Not Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Bigger. The 50 megaton yield is equivalent to ten times the amount of all the explosives used in World War II combined, including the Little Boy and Fat Man, the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively.

Illustrative of the insanity of nuclear war.

Bomomo. It's hard to explain...

You go to THIS LINK, and various drawing tools appear; the coolest one is the "fan." You have some control over them, but not completely. Just click, and mouse around, and a drawing emerges. Not a good drawing, mind you...

Queue jumpers

Queue jumpers are generally a weasily and cowardly lot who like to pick on the weak. In contrast, I'm a big stocky bloke with a shaven head. It doesn't matter that on the inside I'm a nerdy bloke who generally wouldn't hurt a fly, when John McQueuejump skulks into view he generally scurries quickly past me avoiding my gaze and looks for better prey.

This was exactly what happened one day, when I found myself part of the aforementioned queuing at Victoria during a Tube Strike.

A suited, and obviously late, business man bustled up from the closed tube entrance, took one look at the queue and then sighed. I was ten feet away from him virtually at the front of the queue, and from that moment I knew he was going to queuejump.

And queue jump he did. He walked to the front, carried on walking past the various blokes and was about to push in ahead of a lady with a push chair who was two people in front of me when he suddenly realised I was looking straight at him with that most dreaded of English expressions - RAISED EYEBROWS (dun dun dun!).

He changed his mind, lowered his gaze and walked quickly past me before cutting back in line ahead of the old lady directly behind me.

I turned round and said, politely, that there was a queue here and that perhaps he'd missed it.

"I'm in a Hurry." He said.

I pointed out that a lot of people in the queue were in a hurry but they seemed to recognise the need to queue, so maybe he should consider heading to the back of it.

"Mind your own fucking business." He said.

Well obviously I did the only sensible thing a man can do in that situation.

I turned to the old lady behind him, smiled sweetly at her and said:

"Would you like to go in front of me madam?"

And she did, the queuejumper being forced to shuffle back as I did to let her in.

Then i turned to the bloke who had been behind her, and said to him:

"Want to go in front of me mate?"

And he did as well.

In fact, the next sixty or seventy or so people all replied in the affirmative as well, and slowly but surely I (and the queuejumper) shuffled further and further back the line until we reached the end of the line and the end of our strange comedic queue-based dance, me holding eye contact with him the whole time.

By the time we got there he was furious, but was still unwilling to risk saying something to me.

Then as the bus finally pulled up, from the front, came a shout. It was the old lady who I'd first let in front of me.

"Young man! Do you want to go in front of me?!"

"That would be lovelly - thanks!" I shouted back, still holding eye contact with the queuejumper. I shot him my warmest (and smuggest) smile...

...and suddenly he snapped.

With a roar of primaeval anger he lunged at me, fist swinging. Luckily I'm quicker than I look and managed to sidestep just in time. His swing whistled past my nose, missing by milimetres. Overbalanced and unable to stop, he tumbled arse-over-tit onto the ground as everyone looked on in a mixture of shock and amusement.

As he fell I felt a strong but firm hand on my shoulder and turned to see a member of the London Constabulary there with a huge grin on his face. Him and his partner had been watching amused from a distance as the whole scene had unfolded.

"You want to press charges?" He said, laughing.

"Nah." I replied, "Not fucking worth it."

"Fair enough," He said, "You better go get your bus. Don't worry about tosspot here - we'll make sure he won't forget today in a hurry anyway."

"I fucking HATE queue jumpers" His partner muttered, as he held the guy down on the ground. "Should be a law against it..."

(story found at Metafilter)

Anchorage, Alaska newspaper endorses... Obama

Anchorage is Alaska's largest city (Wasilla is a bedroom community about 40 miles away). In terms of politics, "Anchorage leans heavily Republican in both State and Presidential elections." Here are portions of the editorial from the Anchorage Daily News, the city's leading newspaper:





Disposing of a dead body

...the national Catholic Cemetery Conference is raising alarms about a potential option for disposing of human bodies in which a lye solution dissolves tissues into a sterile, syrupy substance that can be safely flushed down a drain.

"I guess I don't know how to say it any better than it's a desecration," Deacon Tylutki said. "The process has no dignity and respect for the human body. In our faith, the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit."

...Tylutki said the church accepted the practice of cremation in 1963 but taught clearly that it was not a sign denying the sacredness of the human body. The cremated remains are to be treated with reverence and interred, not kept in an urn in the house, scattered on the seas or kept in a locket.
What utter rot. I have to imagine that such words come from people who think that human bodies after death remain in a state of purity like the preserved saints. They need to familiarize themselves with the process of decomposition. The process is much less dignified than having a corpse consumed by vultures.

And re disposing of cremated ashes, my uncle's ashes have been recycled in the Gulf of Mexico, my father's in the harbor of a lake, and mine will fertilize a woods (or be sprinkled in the cats' litter box if I misbehave).

Source link found at J-Walk. Image credit here.

Brooms banned for Halloween

And these are not even the infamous vibrating Harry Potter broomsticks. These are ordinary brooms. As noted at Arbroath:
Langham Pre-school near Colchester, Essex, announced it was barring brooms from its annual Pumpkin Party on Sunday after a child was hurt last year.

The fancy-dress party has been running at the village’s community centre for more than six years and is the nursery’s main fundraiser, attracting about 100 children and their families.

John Smith, committee chairman and a primary school headteacher, said: “It was not a whim, it was a considered decision. Last year, a child brought a full-size broomstick and another child got hurt."
They are also banning devil forks. Pretty soon, only criminals will have broomsticks and devil forks.

Image credit here.

"Charlie's dead"









Image credit here.

24 October 2008

And it's not really a gooseneck lamp...

(image credit here)

Candidate for the Darwin Awards





(Is "scoffing" the correct slang term? Cause of death ?esophageal rupture secondary to vomiting?)

A restored Raphael



Questions about 9/11 - from an air traffic controller

This is Part 6 of a 10-part series. The other parts can be accessed at YouTube.

Lithopedion - a "stone baby"








(Text and image credit here.)

Words fail me

An explanation of "walking around money"

From the often-interesting Slate Explainer, a discussion of a term that will be heard more frequently as election day approaches:

"It's cash that's given to help get people to the polls. The money can go toward perks like coffee and doughnuts for door knockers, gas for volunteers to chauffeur elderly voters, or pocket money for kids who distribute fliers and sample ballots on Election Day. Also known as "walking-around money" or "get-out-the-vote money," it's most common in poor areas of Philadelphia; Chicago; Newark, N.J.; Baltimore; Los Angeles; and other big cities. Both parties use street money, but it's more common among Democrats, who tend to be better represented in the areas that rely on it...

In Philadelphia, the candidate sends a check to the chairman of the city's Democratic Party, who then divides the money up among the 69 ward leaders, who in turn divvy up their cash among the 50 or so committee people in each ward. In 2004, John Kerry spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Philadelphia street money, and ward leaders received checks for as much as $8,000. Individual volunteers can generally expect anywhere from $10 to $200, depending on the location and the type of work they're doing.

The practice is legal everywhere—it's protected by the First Amendment—but some states have tougher restrictions than others. In Philadelphia, committee people can hand out cash for any reason, as long as they're not paying someone for their vote. (The U.S. Code prohibits vote purchasing.) In New Jersey, campaign officials have to pay the workers in checks and their names, addresses, and amounts paid must be submitted to the Election Law Enforcement Commission. Presidential campaigns are always required to report the money to the Federal Elections Commission..."

(Much more at the link. I've always been amused by the prohibition against buying votes while candidates from both parties compete to see who can promise voters the biggest tax decreases...)

Yes, I know it's a training session...

... but it still looks funny...
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