Beware of hungry bookshelves

Greetings.

Jewish date:  24 Tammuz 5770 (Parashath Maṭṭoth-Mas‘e).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  National Fried Chicken Day, Take Your Webmaster to Lunch Day.

Worthy cause of the day:  “Tell the FCC to Protect the Open Internet - The Petition Site”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Special Report: Europe finds politics and biofuels don't mix”

Today’s weird thing, finishing off my Pac-Man material, is “Books Eat TV!”:

This may be the coolest bookshelf ever created.  Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of subliminal Pac-Men

Greetings.

Jewish date:  23 Tammuz 5770 (Parashath Maṭṭoth-Mas‘e).

Today’s quasi-holiday:  Independence Day (celebrated) (USA).

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Homeopathy”
• “Quitting smoking during pregnancy may not be enough to prevent harm to baby”

Today’s weird thing, still on the Pac-Man theme and definitely a form of trick-photography, is “More Subliminal Pac-Man”:

Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Pac-Man vs. Cobra Commander?

Greetings.

Jewish date:  22 Tammuz 5770 (Parashath Maṭṭoth-Mas‘e).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  Independence Day (USA), National Country Music Day.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Ostriches Offer Clues to Dinosaur Motion”

Image of a former ghost from Pac-Man (maybe) via Wikipedia

Today’s weird thing, still on the Pac-Man theme, is “LOL: Cobra Commander in Pac-Man”, which may be the only Pac-Man crossover with G.I. Joe ever.  Whether this suggests anything about the motivations of Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde is left unresolved.  Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of crocheted Pac-Man and ghosts

Image via Wikipedia

Greetings.

Jewish date:  20 Tammuz 5770 (Parashath Pineḥas).

Today’s quasi-holiday:  I Forgot Day.

Worthy cause of the day:  “Stop Antibiotic Abuse on Factory Farms”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Buy your own Tron Lightcycle: US$35,000”
• “Newfound Fossils Suggest Multicellular Life Took Hold 2 Billion Years Ago”
• “Distressed Ravens Show That Empathy Is For The Birds, Too”
• “A whale of a fossil is named in honor of Herman Melville”
• “The coming shortage of helium”
• “First Direct Photo of Alien Planet Finally Confirmed”
• “Invasive Asian carp on verge of entering Great Lakes”

Today’s weird thing, still on the Pac-Man theme, is “pacman and his ghost softies - Now with free pattern! - CROCHET”.  Now you too can spend a lot of time crocheting your own Pac-Man and ghosts.  Note:  If you want to be really original, consider crocheting dots, power pellets, fruit, and a maze, too.  Enjoy, share the weirdness, and Shabbath shalom.

Aaron

Beware of Pac-Man amigurumi (or just wonder what it is)

Greetings.

Jewish date:  18 Tammuz 5770 (Parashath Pineḥas).

Today’s quasi-holiday:  Leap Second Adjustment Time.

Worthy causes of the day:  “Save dairy farms from big agribusiness”, “Alliance for Justice:  Tell Congress: Repair the Damage Caused by the Corporate Court”, and “Make Sale of Crush Videos Illegal Again!”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “What happens when coal is gone?”:  This is a very serious question which needs to be dealt with.  There is only a finite amount of coal on this planet, and unless it is being created a lot faster than anyone seems to be suggesting these days, we will run out of it sooner or later.  This is regardless of such issues as global warming and pollution.
• “Climate Change May Exacerbate Hot Cities”:  Also a big problem.  Last I heard, more than half of all humans on the planet live in cities.
• “Strength in naughty or nice”
• “Too Much Salt Eaten by Almost Everyone”
• “What McChrystal’s Firing Says about American Values”
• “Shifty Science: Programmable Matter Takes Shape with Self-Folding Origami Sheets”

Image of something like today’s weird thing, only with a different subject matter, via Wikipedia

Today’s weird thing is “Pac Man Amigurumi!”, which is knitted or crocheted stuffed Pac-Man and ghosts.  Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of Pac-Man’s father’s ghost

Image via Wikipedia

Greetings.

Jewish date:  16 Tammuz 5770 (Parashath Pineḥas).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  Paul Bunyan Day, Please Take My Children to Work Day.

Worthy cause of the day:  “BP is burning endangered sea turtles alive.”

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Raytheon turns swords into plowshares”

Today’s weird thing is what may be the only Pac-Man-Shakespeare crossover ever, “Pac Man Hamlet”.

Enjoy, share the weirdness, and do not come back as a ghost.

Aaron

Beware of ghosts (again!)

Greetings.

Jewish date:  13 Tammuz 5770 (Parashath Balaq).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  Take Your Dog to Work Day, Log Cabin Day.

Worthy cause of the day:  “Obama: Keep Your Promises to End Hunger! - The Petition Site”, “JCRC-NY Write to Gilad Shalit”, “Join financial titans in telling Congress: Crack down on Wall Street abuses. | Progressive Change Campaign Committee”, “Save the Internet: Take Action!:  Stop the Secret Meetings at the FCC”, “Tell Hillary Clinton: Stand up to Blackwater”, “Health Care for America NOW! | Stand Up for Your New Rights”, “Repower America | Tell Our Leaders: Clean Energy Now!”, “Take Action: Call on BP to pay for all cleanup costs and fines”, “action.firedoglake.com | Tell BP to Protect Gulf Cleanup Workers”, “"Drill, Baby, Drill" comes to Discovery?”, and “Less than 10 Days before a Yeshiva Will Be Destroyed”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “A wizard's words finally set free”
• “Make-A-Wish turns one child's backyard into the Millennium Falcon”
• “Experto Crede: Climate Expertise Lacking among Global Warming Contrarians: Scientific American”
• “Little Man, What Now?: Peanuts and the Existential Crisis”
• “Finding the "Weapons" of Persuasion to Save Energy”
• “7th-Graders Discover Mysterious Cave on Mars”

Today’s weird thing is “PAC-MAN The Movie trailer”:

(I’ve got a whole bunch of Pac-Man things, and you're going to have to suffer through all of them.)  Enjoy, share the weirdness, and Shabbath shalom.

Aaron

Beware of Pac-Man cornering the cherry market

Image via Wikipedia

Greetings.

Jewish date:  8 Tammuz 5770 (Parashath Balaq).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  Father’s Day, World Refugee Day (UN), Ice Cream Soda Day.

Worthy causes of the day:  “End Violence Against Women - The Petition Site”, “Friends of the Earth U.S.”, “Action at Oil Change”, “Obama, Say No To Commercial Whaling! - The Petition Site”, “ONE | 3.5 Million Healthworkers Needed”, “Support Women's Health with the Global MOMS Act - The Petition Site”, “Please Include the Temple Mount in the Heritage Plan - אנא הוסף את הר הבית לרשימת אתרי המורשת Petition”, “Working Families » Take Action!”, and “What President Obama should have said.”

Today’s news and commentary:

• “The Living Matrix: A Movie Promoting Energy Medicine Beliefs”
• “How We Fool Ourselves Over and Over”
• “White rice raises risk of type 2 diabetes”
• “Real names of 23 fictional characters”
• “10 Things the Internet has Ruined and Five Things it Hasn't”
• “WickedLasers Unveils "Lightsaber" Powerful Enough to Set People on Fire”
• “The Real Science Gap”, which is described as “It’s not insufficient schooling or a shortage of scientists. It’s a lack of job opportunities. Americans need the reasonable hope that spending their youth preparing to do science will provide a satisfactory career.”
• “Fact or Fiction: The Days (and Nights) Are Getting Longer”
• “Solar Powered Shrub Car is Not Your "Garden Variety" EV”
• “Climate already helping disease spread north: study”
• “The brain thinks hands are wider and stubbier than they actually are”
• “Were some gigantic Jurassic sea creatures warm-blooded?”

Today’s weird thing is “Pac Man Movie”, which deals with the lives of ghosts and their war on Pac-Man.

Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of Pac-Dog

Greetings.

Jewish date:  1 Tammuz 5770 (Parashath Ḥuqqath).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  National Juggling Day, International Puzzle Day.

Worthy causes of the day:  “Tell Boehner: No BP Bailout”, “Take Action: Support ECEA - Hold Big Oil Accountable!”, “A victory for the Clean Air Act... for now.”, “JCRC-NY State Dept Petition:  Urge State Dept to Investigate Flotilla Passengers”, “Make Alzheimer's a National Priority! - The Petition Site”, and “Take Action: Urge your Senators to support the Appalachia Restoration Act | Rainforest Action Network”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Eyeborg Bionic Eye Camera Shows Winks and All”
• “Astronomers see exoplanet orbiting its parent star!”:  We live in an age of wonders.  Never forget that.
• “Back in style: An ancient shoe from 3500 B.C. looks like moccasins worn in the 1950s”
• “Farmer fires home-made cannon to defend land”

Today’s weird thing, still on the Pac-Man theme, is “Pac-Dog”.

Pac-Man is extremely difficult to recast in terms of our universe or ones like it, but this is an interesting attempt.  Enjoy, share the weirdness, and happy new month.

Aaron

Beware of robotic vacuum cleaners

Greetings.

Jewish date:  26 Siwan 5770 (Parashath Qoraḥ).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  National Taco Day, World Ocean Day, World Brain Tumour Day, Upsy Daisy Day.

Image of Roomba via Wikipedia

Today’s weird thing is Roomba Pac-Man, in which Pac-Man is implemented using robotic vacuum cleaners.  Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of Pac-Man the Superhero

Greetings.

Jewish date:  25 Siwan 5770 (Parashath Qoraḥ).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  International Clothesline Week, Daniel Boone Day.

Worthy causes of the day:  “Save BioGems: Take Action: Stop the Pebble Mine”, “74 Democrats sold you out to AT&T, Verizon and Comcast”, “Stop Shell Oil's Offshore Drilling Plans in the Arctic - Take Action Today @ The Rainforest Site”, “Congress: close the hedge fund loophole”, “DCCC | Oil Spill is 'not an environmental disaster'? Sign our petition to set GOP Rep Young straight”, and “Save the International Affairs Budget - The Petition Site”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Obese Sydney bird sent to birdy bootcamp”
• “Restaurant tells diners to eat up or else”
• “Peak Wood: Nature Does Impose Limits”
• “Jedi Mind Tricks: Scientists Probe the Psychology of Darth Vader”׃  I find your lack of faith that this is a real article disturbing.
• “How The U.S. Government Killed The Safest Car Ever Built”
• “Quick tips to foil Mac break-in attempts”
• “Windows, Mac, or Linux: It's Not the OS, It's the User”
• “Go veggie, cut fossil fuels to aid planet: study”

Image of the wrong Pac-Man via Wikipedia

Today’s weird thing is “Pac Man: The Movie” (actually a trailer for a non-existent movie):

Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of Pac-Man

Greetings.

Jewish date:  22 Siwan 5770 (Parashath Shelaḥ).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  Emancipation Day (Tonga), International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression (UN), Clean Air Day, Mary Church Terrell Day.

Worthy causes of the day:  “Support Israel In Gaza Flotilla Incident Petition”, “Take Action: Letter to Vice President Biden | Save Darfur”, “End Corporate Control of Our Food Supply - The Petition Site”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Best astronomy-related college prank ever”
• “Chicken death foul reflection of crime wave”:  I do not make stuff up like this up.  I just report it.

Image via Wikipedia

Today’s weird thing, again in the theme of Pac-Man, is “Pac-Man: The Movie”, the tale of ghosts caught in a maze and hunted by a yellow, spherical, psychopathic killer.  Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of ghosts near Washington Square Park

Greetings.

Jewish date:  20 Siwan 5770 (Parashath Shelaḥ).

Worthy cause of the day:  “Take Action: Tell Your U.S. Senators: Senate Leadership Must Act!”

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Is Organic Food More Healthful?”:  The answer is:  not really.  Note that the author explicitly does not consider the ecological benefits, which are another matter entirely.
• “Construction: Don't Hold the Rice”:  I cannot make up something like this.

It looks a lot better than this image from Wikipedia

Today’s weird thing is Pac Manhattan, a game in which Pac-Man is played on city streets.  Enjoy, share the weirdness, and feel free to confuse people by implementing this where you live.

Aaron

You, too, can eat a ghost (sort of)

Greetings.

Jewish date:  19 Siwan 5770 (Parashath Shelaḥ).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  National Go Barefoot Day, International Children’s Day, Doughnut Day.

Worthy causes of the day:  “Too extreme even for FOX.”, “Take Action: Take action for human rights!”, “Demand transparency in Wall Street reform negotiations.”, “Working Families » Take Action!”, “PETITION TO CONGRESS: Save Net Neutrality! | Progressive Change Campaign Committee”, “Repower America | Tell BP: Spill the Truth!”, and “Tell EPA: Take away BP's billions in federal contracts”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “The hidden health power of spices and herbs is revealed in recent studies”
• “Herbal Supplement Sellers Dispense Dangerous Advice, False Claims”
• “Archaeo-alcohology”
• “Toyota’s Robot Violinist Wows Crowd At Shanghai Expo 2010 (Video)”
• “Red Meat: Is It Hazardous to Health?”
• “Sacking Plastic: Are Restrictions on Plastic Bags an Effective Way to Slow Landfill Growth and Save Petroleum?”
• “Nearby planetary system is seriously screwed up”

Today’s weird thing, still on the Pac-Man theme, is “Pac-Man Candy”, which makes some sense since one of the goals of the game is to eat stuff.  Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of Blinky

Greetings.

Jewish date:  18 Siwan 5770 (Parashath Shelaḥ).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  Memorial Day (USA), What You Think Upon Grows Day, World No Tobacco Day, Speak in Complete Sentences Day.

Image via Wikipedia

Today’s weird thing, continuing the Pac-Man theme, is “Pacman at UNC”, which explores the idea of live-action Pac-Man.  Sorry, no embedding.  I blame Blinky.

Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde

Image of the infamous 256th level bug in the original Pac-Man via Wikipedia

Greetings.

Jewish date:  12 Siwan 5770 (Parashath BeHa‘alothekha).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  Towel Day, Nerd Pride Day, Star Wars Day, African Liberation Day, National Tap Dance Day, International Missing Children’s Day.

Today’s weird thing is Google Pac-Man, Google’s tribute to the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man in the form of a fully-playable version of the game with the maze shaped like the Google logo.  Google Pac-Man reportedly wasted 4,820,000 person-hours when it was launched on Friday.  That is how addictive this game/logo is.  Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

☠☡☢☣⚠⚡☹

Greetings.

Jewish date:  11 Siwan 5770 (Parashath BeHa‘alothekha).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  Brother’s Day, Victoria Day.

Worthy causes of the day:  “ColorOfChange.org:  Tell Fox: "Fire John Stossel"”, “Blackwater is just the tip of the iceberg”, “Stop the Comcast-NBC Merger | Free Press”, “Stop The Drill | Oceana North America”, “American Insurance Companies: Stop Canceling Women's Policies - Take Action Today @ The Breast Cancer Site”, “Save Gulf Sea Turtles - Take Action Today @ The Rainforest Site”, “action.firedoglake.com | Sign the petition to President Obama: End plans for offshore drilling”, “Take Action: TrueMajority.org:  NO BAILOUT FOR BP”, and “MoveOn.org Political Action: No Bailouts for Big Oil”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “From bad to worse: Hard-luck planet gradually being devoured by its host star”
• “How Many Cancers Are Caused by the Environment?”
• “It's Not Just You: Hearing Half a Phone Call Is Annoying”
• “Crystal iPhone dock will help rid you of your excess cash”:  I just post stuff like this.  I do not explain them.
• “Alcohol and Pregnancy”
• “Securing your Facebook privacy settings”

Image of the flag of Esperanto, which is a zillion times better than iConji via Wikipedia

Today’s weird thing is “New iConji language for the symbol-minded” and the actual site of this new language, iConji. Connecting the world.  The idea behind iConji is something in the way of a universal icon-based language for text messages.  The problem with it is—and I say this with all the emphasis it deserves—WE DO NOT NEED YET ANOTHER UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE.  There have been a host of would-be international, artificial languages, and so far the only one with a decent number of speakers is Esperanto—and Esperanto speakers are rare.  iConji has two huge problems:  small vocabulary (1,100 word-symbols) and no grammar.  The creators intend for people to contribute to the vocabulary, but the site does not seem to give even the barest outline of an iConji grammar.  For all its faults, Esperanto is starting to look great by comparison.  Furthermore, the very fact that iConji has so many symbols is going to make typing a big pain.  I think I will stick to English for international communications for the moment; in many respects it is a terrible language, but at least you can type it and find a lot of people who speak it.  Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of ridiculously ostenatious iPads

Image in lieu of a picture of an iPad via Wikipedia because Zemata refused to give me something I considered acceptable; this is Mary McLeod Bethune, FYI

Greetings.

Jewish date:  5 Siwan 5770 (Parashath Naso’).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  Mary McLeod Bethune Week, International Museum Day, Visit Your Relatives Day.

Worthy cause of the day:  “Friends of the Earth U.S.:  Say 'No!' to Offsets, 'Yes!' to Real Climate Solutions”, “Repower America | Tell Your Senators: Time to act!”, “An inconvenient truth about the climate bill”, and “Help Wild Tigers Survive - The Petition Site”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Stanford’s Robot Car Slides into Parking Spot Like a Badass (video)”
• “Harvard Starts Heart Outside Body, Preserves Organs for 10 Days”
• “British Medical Association: homeopathy is witchcraft | Bad Astronomy”
• “Texas congressman uses porn to kill science funding”
• “Why I Steal Movies… Even Ones I'm In”
• “Neanderthals not the only apes humans bred with”
• “Fat lips evolve at record speed”
• “"Google Flu Trends" Found to Be Nearly on Par with CDC Surveillance Data”
• “Baby Coral Home In by Sound”
• “Passwords, scams, and you”

Today’s weird thing is “Solid gold, diamond-encrusted iPad for the truly 'elite'”, which seems to your humble blogger to be ridiculously ostentatious and more likely to make the owner look like an idiot than impress people.  Enjoy (or mock), share the weirdness, and ḥagh sameaḥ.

Aaron

The hazards of laser pointers

Greetings.

Jewish date:  29 ’Iyyar 5770 (Parashath BeMidhbar).

Worthy causes of the day:  “Support Clean Energy Jobs - Take Action Today @ The Hunger Site”, “End the Pet Primate Trade - The Petition Site” and “Take Action: Tell Obama to stand up to Big Oil!”

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Why do we focus on the least important causes of cancer?”
• “Where Do Old Appliances Go after They Die?”
• “Weird wonders lived past the Cambrian”

Today’s weird thing is “Laser Pointer”:

Enjoy, share the weirdness, and, please, don’t tease your cat.

Aaron

Beware of retro telephone handsets

Greetings.

Jewish date:  28 ’Iyyar 5770 (Parashath BeMidhbar).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  National Lab Day, International Nurses Day, National Third Shift Workers Day/National Nightshift Workers Day, and (inexplicably) Limerick Day.

Worthy causes of the day:  “ONE | Fix This Budget”, “Heart Disease and Stroke. You’re the Cure.:  Tell our Senators to get moving on Child Nutrition”, “Congress is 0 for 9 - The Petition Site”, “Take Action: Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing | Save Darfur” and “Save BioGems: Take Action: Save Yellowstone/Greater Rockies”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Jupiter Loses A Stripe”
• “Not So Conservative When It Comes to Saving Energy”
• “National Lab Day Seeks to Leverage Hands-on Learning to Broaden Science's Appeal”
• “Working overtime: Good for the wallet, but bad for the heart”
• “"Murdered" Chinese man reappears after 10 years”:  Yes, people, torture does not produce reliable information; threaten or inflict enough pain on someone, and you can expect him/her to say whatever he/she thinks you want to hear that will make the pain stop, even if it bears little resemblance to the truth.

Today’s weird thing is the ThinkGeek Bluetooth Retro Handset.  This should be useful for those wanting classic telephone style or interested in confusing others.  Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of whatevers

Greetings.

Jewish date:  27 ’Iyyar 5770 (Parashath BeMidhbar).

Today’s quasi-holiday:  Eat What You Want Day.

Worthy causes of the day:  “CARE : Defending Dignity - Fighting Poverty :  International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act”, “Stop Terrorists from Buying Guns and Explosives - The Petition Site”, “Friends of the Earth U.S.:  Tell President Obama to Support a Financial Speculation Tax”, “Save BioGems: Take Action: Stop the Pebble Mine”, “Ban New Offshore Drilling - The Petition Site”, “Working Families » Take Action!:  Sign the petition to Albany”, “Take Action: TrueMajority.org:  Mr. President, THIS is why drilling is bad.”, “Empowering Women Can Save Children - The Petition Site”, and “Heart Disease and Stroke. You’re the Cure.:  Ask Your Legislator to Override the Veto!”

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Comprehensive study of 'time twins' debunks astrology”:  Completely unsurprising.
• “World's Biggest Beaver Dam Visible From Space”
• “U.S. Farmers Cope With Roundup-Resistant Weeds”:  Yes, evolution is at work here.
• “A Single Molecule Computes Thousands of Times Faster than Your PC”
• “Unconventional thinkers or recklessly dangerous minds?”:  About AIDS denialism and the question of how to deal with it.  This is not a trivial issue since AIDS kills people.
• “Robots With Knives: A Study of Soft-Tissue Injury in Robotics”

Today’s weird thing is “grand lunar after ur tang”:

Enjoy, share the weirdness, and keep that whatever away from your Tang.

Aaron

Beware of time travel in this or any other timeline

Greetings.

Jewish date:  23 ’Iyyar 5770 (Parashath BeHar-BeḤuqqothay).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  No Pants Day (with no clue why this is worth celebrating), International Tuba Day.

Worthy causes of the day:  “Take Action: Support Faster FOIA”, “Take Action: Benchmarks Report Card | Save Darfur”, and “Save BioGems: Take Action: Say No to New Offshore Drilling”.

Questionably worthy cause of the day:  “The Time Traveler Convention - May 7, 2005”.  Pass on to future generations that when time travel becomes possible, they should attend.  Or in the meantime, just read the disturbing report of what happened there, “Grandfather Paradox”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Neandertal Genome Study Reveals That We Have a Little Caveman in Us”:  Unsurprising.
• “Seven more Dictionary tips”
• “Silicone Tally: How Hazardous Is the New Post-Teflon Rubberized Cookware”

Today’s weird thing is “A Guide to SF Chronophysics”, which contains more information on time travel in science-fiction than most people probably realizes exists.  Enjoy, share the weirdness, and Shabbath shalom.

Aaron

Beware of Spider-Man

Image which Zemata decided was relevant for absolutely no good reason via Wikipedia

Greetings.

Jewish date:  22 ’Iyyar 5770 (Parashath BeHar-BeḤuqqothay).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  No Diet Day, Nurses’ Day.

Worthy causes of the day:  “Sign the Petition | Terror Gap” and “Samsung: Come Clean About the Hazards in Your Workplace - The Petition Site”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “General election 2010: Information is Beautiful goes poll dancing”:  Polls can be substantially inaccurate, especially long before elections.  Never forget “Dewey Defeats Truman”!
• “A thousand trillion suns”:  The message:  awe and humility.
• “In Deep Water: Can we afford to spill any oil?”
• “Deniers abuse power to attack climate scientists”
• “Top 10 things Hollywood thinks computers can do”

Today’s weird thing is “Spider-Man foils comic book thief in Australia”.  The title does not quite mean what it sounds like, but the incident is rather amusing.  Enjoy, share the weirdness, and thank your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

Aaron

Beware of the government

Greetings.

Jewish date:  20 ’Iyyar 5770 (Parashath Behar-Beḥuqqothay).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  International Respect for Chickens Day, Kite Day, International Firefighters’ Day.

Worthy cause of the day:  “Save BioGems: Take Action: Put an End to Commercial Whaling”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Mosquitoes inherit DEET resistance”

Image via Wikipedia

Today’s weird thing is “Politics Explained”.  This is a humorous look at politics, in terms of a farmer who has two cows, which has been wandering the Internet for years and being modified.  The version I saw before this one was even more cruel.  Enjoy, share the weirdness, and keep the government away from your cows.

Aaron

Beware of derivative markets

Greetings.

Jewish date:   19 ’Iyyar 5770 (Parashath Behar-Beḥuqqothay).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  World Press Freedom Day (UN), National Two Different Colored Shoes Day.

Worthy cause of the day:  “Don't let the climate deniers drown out science”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Evidence based smear campaigns”:  Very depressing.
  
• “Just Deserts”
  
• “The Vaccine War” and commentary on it
  
• “Aphids Pilfered Red Genes from Fungus”:  I did not make this up.  Reality is bizarre at times.

Today’s weird thing, submitted by Harold is “Easily Understood Explanation of Derivative Markets (In plain language, even a drunk can understand)”.  This should help everyone understand what went horribly wrong.

Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron

Beware of Rubik’s Cube-solving robots

Greetings.

Jewish date:  16 ’Iyyar 5770 (Parashath ’Emor).

Today’s quasi-holidays:  Hairstylist Appreciation Day, Queen’s Day.

Worthy causes of the day:  “We want the DISCLOSE Act - A project of Senator Russ Feingold, Senator Patrick Leahy, and Senator Chuck Schumer” and action.firedoglake.com | Sign the petition to President Obama: End plans for offshore drilling“”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “The mystery of the mega-selling floppy disk”:  Don’t look at me.  I can’t remember the last time I used my USB floppy disk drive.
  
• “New maps show how 1889 Russian flu rode the rails to circle the globe in months”

Image via Wikipedia

Today’s weird thing is “Lego Robot Solves Bigger and Harder Rubik’s Cubes (video)”.  They now have robots made of Legos which can solve cubes as large as the V-Cube 6 (6 × 6 × 6).  Enjoy, share the weirdness, and Shabbath shalom.

Aaron

Do not beware of cow tippers

Greetings.

Jewish date:  15 ’Iyyar 5770 (Parashath ’Emor).

Today’s quasi-holidays:   International Dance Day, Duke Ellington Day, Poem in Your Pocket Day.

Worthy causes of the day:  “Break Goldman Sachs' Republican filibuster”, “Save BioGems: Take Action: Protect Yellowstone's Wild Buffalo”, “Heart Disease and Stroke. You’re the Cure.”, “Save Funding for Interstitial Cystitis - The Petition Site”, “Take Action: TrueMajority.org:  Stand Against Racism”, “Ask Eric Holder to block Arizona's racist law”, “ColorOfChange.org:  Stop Racial Profiling:  Tell Arizona's Governor that SB 1070 is wrong”, and “Don't let big banks gamble away our money! | Progressive Change Campaign Committee”.


Today’s news and commentary:

• “Underage, Overweight: The Federal Government Needs to Halt the Marketing of Unhealthy Foods to Kids”:  Protest all you want about freedom of choice.  We have a public health crisis and cannot afford to do nothing.
  
• “Ancient artifacts revealed as northern ice patches melt”
  
• “Extinction Countdown: Giant spitting worm not so giant--or prone to spitting--after all?”
  
• “One Person's Trash Is Another's Technology: Recycling or Donating Discarded Electronic Equipment Help Reduce E-Waste Pollution”
  
• “Do Chimpanzees Understand Death?”
• “Feathers developed differently in dinosaurs' life cycles than in those of modern birds”
  
• “Water Ice Found on the Surface of an Asteroid for the First Time: Scientific American”

Image via Wikipedia

Today’s weird thing is cow tipping.  Apparently it is a lot more legend than reality, with it being physically impossible for a single human being to accomplish.  Two humans might be able to tip over a rigid cow, but since cows are not rigid, four would actually be necessary.  Someone even went to the trouble of creating a diagram with calculations of the physics relevant to tipping over a cow.  Enjoy, share the weirdness, and rest assured that your cows are safe.

Aaron

Beware of pretty colors

Greetings.

Jewish date:  12 ’Iyyar 5770 (Parashath ’Emor).

Today’s quasi-holidays:   Hug an Australian Day, World Intellectual Property Day (UN), Shuffleboard Day, National Pretzel Day, Landscape Architecture Day.

Worthy cause of the day:  “Close the Gun Show Loophole - The Petition Site”.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “HDTV”:
  
  
  
  
  
  
  You know, this cartoon makes a good point.  For comparison, my computer’s screen has a resolution of 1,440 × 900, not much less than 1080p, which translates into a resolution of 1,920 × 1,080.
• “Facebook privacy changes: Five can't-miss facts”
• The Patchwork Girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum:  Not actually news or commentary.  Project Gutenberg came out with a new edition with all the color pictures, which is cool enough to deserve mention.

Today’s weird thing is “Colours In Cultures”, which gives a handy diagram of what colors different cultures use to symbolize various ideas.

Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron