Robot Suit Enters Production

This sounds pretty cool. Almost too cool to be true:


a) They chose to name it Robot Suit HAL (as in HAL, from 2001: A Space Odyssey).
b) They chose to name their company Cyberdyne, Inc. (as in Cyberdyne from the Terminator movies.)

So I'm going to need a little more evidence before I'm convinced this isn't a joke.

Posted By: Alex - Wed Sep 10, 2008 - Comments (3)
Category: Inventions, Technology

The Mighty Powers of Hagfish Slime

My high-school pal Sherry Mowbray, who grew up to be a top-flight biologist, points me with glee to this video illustrating how powerful is the slime secreted by the awesome hagfish.

Posted By: Paul - Wed Sep 10, 2008 - Comments (11)
Category: Animals, Science, Experiments, Body Fluids

Nancy Luce, Chicken Lady of Martha’s Vineyard

A few years ago, visiting the island of Martha's Vineyard off the Massachusetts coast, I learned of Nancy Luce (1814-1890). An eccentric loner artist who self-published her own poetry--mainly devoted to her beloved pet chickens--and buried the birds with fully engraved headstones, she is the subject of a biography still available on the island at various gift shops: Consider Poor I by Walter Magnes Teller. You can read what The New York Times had to say about the book here. You might even be so moved as to purchase a lovely woodcut print of Luce here.


Perhaps we should commemorate Luce with a sample of her poetry:

POOR LITTLE HEARTS
Poor little Ada Queetie has departed this life,
Never to be here no more,
No more to love, no more to speak,
No more to be my friend.
O how I long to see her with me alive and well,
Her heart and mine was united,
Love and feelings deeply rooted for each other,
She and I could never part,
I am left broken hearted....

Posted By: Paul - Wed Sep 10, 2008 - Comments (10)
Category: Animals, Domestic, Eccentrics, Literature, Books, Writers, Regionalism, Nineteenth Century

Chuck’s Hand-Picked Overnight Weird News for Wednesday

The F State's rappin' granny
Angela Pusateri, 79, of the east coast's Hallandale Beach, has a CD out (Who's Your Granny?) and makes a few personal appearances in the area (wearing hockey jersey, bling, sunglasses, and baseball cap): I can bring the noise better than P-Diddy/I am older and wiser, I ain't a disguiser/I am condo commando in a high-riser, Who's your granny? Or, how about, Move over, Trick-Daddy, 'cause this is my town/I gotta shuffleboard posse and we're known to get down "Sometimes it's embarrassing," said granddaughter Jenna, 13, in New York, "but she really is a cool grandmother." South Florida Sun-Sentinel [Link Corrected]
Comments 'rappin_granny'

How three naive Chinese men brought uranium into the country
The scrap merchants were on a trip to Kyrgyzstan and found this neat, 600-lb. rock with a little glitter in it, suggesting gold in there somewhere, and brought it home to Xinjiang, in the boonies. They're noticing that, when the lights are off at night, the rock . . well . . stays on. So one guy chipped a piece off and took it all the way to Beijing for an assessment, and, yeah, it's "depleted uranium." Initial reaction: Huh? WTF? Bonus: It's illegal, and you're under arrest for smuggling it in, but finally the prosecutor dropped the charge. "To date, the three [men] had shown no 'physical abnormalities'." The Times (London)
Comments 'uranium_smugglers'

People who really, really want gov't benefits
"Swedish prostitutes want to pay taxes," read the headline on Stockholm's TheLocal.se, because of course the key to the kingdom of generous pensions, sick leave, etc., is filing a tax return. (On the other hand, umm, they're gonna have to give receipts for services, and charge value-added tax.) In North Port, Fla., which is actually nowhere near the north of Florida but does have a port), John Lynn, 52, shot himself in the chest just so he could claim disability benefits (telling cops he had been shot in a robbery). TheLocal.se // Tampa Tribune (with mug shot; might be innocent!)
Comments 'government_benefits'

Various gov't crises for Wednesday
In Thailand, the prime minister got kicked out because, let's see, he had sex with an intern in his office (no), or maybe, he orchestrated a crime cover-up from his office (no)? Actually, he';s out because he kept appearing on his TV cooking show even after taking office, which, according to the constitution, is a disqualifying conflict of interest, whether or not he was merely reimbursed expenses for his appearances. In Iran, Interior Minister Ali Kordan is being investigated for résumé fraud, after Oxford Univ. said they never heard of him and his supposed degree. Associated Press via Los Angeles Times // Washington Post
Comments 'cooking_resume'

Update: Charles Hood's execution postponed, after his trial judge and his prosecutor finally admit they had a secret affair
The now-retired judge still denied that she was actually hooking up during the Hood trial, though. Furthermore, Texas's highest court for criminal cases, which until now almost couldn't dismiss Hood's challenges fast enough, coincidentally . . yeah, that's it, coincidentally yesterday managed to locate an independent reason to postpone the execution, concluding that, let's see, maybe the jury instructions might have been flawed. New York Times
Comments 'hood_update'

Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict must be based on mugshot only]
Christine Semeraro, 37, Bossier City, La., might have been illegally topless in public on the Red River that afternoon (and possibly she's someone who would permit kids to have sex at her house). Hard to tell. Presumption of innocence.. KTBS-TV (Shreveport)
Comments 'christine_semeraro'

More Things to Worry About on Wednesday
Jews Needed in Alabama: They're down to about 50 Jewish families in Dothan, Ala., so the Blumberg Family Relocation Fund offers forgivable loans (up to $50k) to Jews who'll move there and get active in the temple . . . . . A baggage-handling screwup at American Airlines (and by "baggage" I mean Miguel Olaya's late wife's corpse) caused by a clerk's mistyping the destination (GUA for GYE) (Bonus: New York Daily News twice misspelled the airline) . . . . . Tropical Storm Fay's aftermath along the F State's central Atlantic coast: tree frogs in your toilet! . . . . . In Britain, a Botox substitute is available for the injection-squeamish: a cream made with Malaysian viper venom, to puff out your skin sorta like you've just been bitten . . . . . Britain's Ministry of Defense disclosed that since 2004, it has lost (or had stolen) 120 working portable-memory devices. Today's Newsrangers: Joe Littrell, Candy Clouston, Sandy Pearlman, Paul Blumstein
Comments 'worry_080910'

Posted By: Chuck - Wed Sep 10, 2008 - Comments (0)
Category:

Hair Club Infomercial

Continuing the baldness theme, there's something disturbing about this recent Hair Club for men infomercial. Don't Mike and his stepdaughter seem to be a bit too flirtatious with each other?



(via Presurfer)

Posted By: Alex - Wed Sep 10, 2008 - Comments (2)
Category: Body Modifications, Sexuality, Advertising

Alternating Baldies

NPR reports on a puzzling pattern in the hair growth of Russia's leaders. Its bald leaders (such as Lenin and Khrushchev) always are followed in power by hairy men who, in turn, are followed by bald men. The full line of succession:


What could this mean? Probably nothing. But it is an odd coincidence.

America, by contrast, almost never elects bald presidents. NPR calls this our "baldness barrier." (Thanks to Big Gary!)

Posted By: Alex - Wed Sep 10, 2008 - Comments (2)
Category: Politics

Harvey Comics

I loved reading Harvey Comics as a kid, and into "adulthood." (They're not published anymore, alas.) Their universe was quintessentially wacked and weird. As famed comics scribe Grant Morrison has remarked in an interview, sometimes the willed naivete of Silver Age writers following the Comics Code produced much stranger stuff than any consciously avant-garde writer could.

Take the two page strip to the right for instance, from an old digest-reprint of some Casper stuff. To parse it is to risk madness.

Is Nightmare indeed a mare, ie, female? if not, and even if so, is that the gayest hairdo ever, on horse or human? Why does a forest gnome like to hang out with a ghost horse? Why is playing human cowboys popular among the gnomes? Likewise riding an airplane. And finally, how demented does a ghost horse have to be, to stick planks up its butt and into its chest, and then purr like a cat, all in an effort to emulate a mechanical device so as to placate a gnome?

How I miss Harvey Comics! Thank goodness Dark Horse is reprinting some.....

Posted By: Paul - Tue Sep 09, 2008 - Comments (15)
Category: Animals, Art, Comics, Pop Art, Surrealism, Body Modifications, Drugs, Entertainment, Flight, Games, History, Inventions, Pets, Writers, Cartoons, Hair Styling

Chuck’s Hand-Picked Overnight Weird News for Tuesday

Intelligent Design!
Indiana University researchers studying, umm, dung beetles' penises, are marveling at beetle species' rapid metamorphoses. Why, they found, the penises are of all different sizes within the same species! Beetles in Western Australia had small horns and big genitals, with U.S. beetles just the opposite. Turns out horns are great for running male competitors off of females, but then, if you win the gal, you don't have much to work with. Small-horned beetles shirk fighting and try to sneak access. (But when they get access, they have the equipment to work with.) New Scientist
Comments 'intelligent_design'

The new face of the Church of England
Rev. Skye Denno, 29, a newly ordained deacon and married mother of two, often dresses like a punk rocker (dog collar, hot pants, biker boots) to make herself more approachable. It's just a style, though. Just trying to avoid becoming "another stuffy, middle-class vicar." Daily Telegraph (London)
Comments 'skye_denno'

Your Daily Loser
Mario Carlos, 27, invented a roadside-robbery story for police in Ocala, Fla., to account for losing $8k cash, but after some questioning, he finally admitted that he made the story up. What happened was that he had fallen for a spiritual healer's "blessing" of the $8k (put the money into this-here sock and leave it in the trunk of his car for a week) (but of course the healer had an identical sock with $1 bills inside and switched 'em). So Mario had to tell the missus about this, after all. Star-Banner (Ocala)
Comments 'mario_carlos'

People Whose Sex Lives Are Worse Than Yours
Jason McRoberts, 30, who's being held in Grand Junction, Colo., for a Texas incident in which he was demonstrating to a 7-yr-old boy the proper technique for having sexual intercourse with a dog. Summit Daily (Frisco, Colo.)
Comments 'jason_mcroberts'

Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict must be based on mugshot only]
Amy Whitman, 25, might have committed felony hit-and-run (but see photo #2 on the page to determine whether she's innocent or not). WRAL-TV (Raleigh-Durham)
Comments 'amy_whitman'

More Things to Worry About on Tuesday
Oh, jeez, another Fritzl case, in Poland (locked his teenage daughter up for 6 yrs and had his way with her, producing 2 kids)? . . . . . What sex fiends ought to be doing, according to a travelogue in The Times of London on Sunday, is head to a village south of Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh state on the Indian coast because that's where a subcaste (including the gorgeous members) has for decades been exclusively sex workers . . . . . Ad agency drinking too much coffee: Air New Zealand's new campaign is to hire 50 bald men at the equivalent of about $750 each for noggin messages touting the airline's new speedy check-in services (Seriously) . . . . . It's Good to Be a British Prisoner: After a heinous baby-killer escaped from a locked mental hospital near Bristol, and raped a teenager, it was revealed that the hospital had allowed him to build "a vast collection of horror and pornographic DVDs." Today's Newsrangers: Bobby Stout, Joe Church, Bob Adams
Comments 'worry_080909'

Posted By: Chuck - Tue Sep 09, 2008 - Comments (0)
Category:

Civilizing Pears Soap

During the nineteenth century Pears Soap managed to brand itself as the quintessentially British product. Part of what this meant, of course, was bringing "civilization" to all non-white people. Thus, these rather bizarre ads that appeared in British papers.



This ad refers to an actual event. The British soldiers who invaded Sudan wrote the phrase "PEARS SOAP IS THE BEST" on a rock to mark the point of their furthest advance into the country. The ad fantasizes about how the "Dervishes of the Desert" must have reacted when they stumbled upon this piece of imperial graffiti.




This ad is captioned, "The Birth of Civilization -- A message from the sea." The message presumably is: the British are about to invade your country!

Posted By: Alex - Tue Sep 09, 2008 - Comments (1)
Category: Hygiene, Advertising

Follies of the Mad Men #25

Didn't you enjoy the vivacious and perkily sexy Tad Tadlock in yesterday's DESIGN FOR DREAMING? How could anyone resist a sequel?

Let's watch A TOUCH OF MAGIC.

Posted By: Paul - Mon Sep 08, 2008 - Comments (8)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Domestic, Marriage, Family, Husbands, Wives, Food, Futurism, History, Inventions, Movies, Pop Culture, Technology, Sex Symbols, 1960s, Dance, Cars, Yesterday’s Tomorrows