via
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Affair
A woman was in bed with her lover when she heard her husband opening the front door.
'Hurry,' she said, 'stand in the corner.'
She rubbed baby oil all over him, then dusted him with talcum powder.
'Don't move until I tell you,' she said. 'Pretend you're a statue.
'
'What's this?' the husband inquired as he entered the room.
'Oh it's a statue,' she replied.
'The Smiths bought one and I liked it so I got one for us, too.'
No more was said, not even when they went to bed.
Around 2 AM the husband got up, went to the kitchen and returned with a sandwich and a beer.
'Here,' he said to the statue, 'have this.
I stood like that for two days at the Smiths and nobody offered me a damned thing.'
Shocked Ginger
Beyonce on top of an iPhone
Beyonce, a Dachshund mix female puppy, is pictured on an iPhone. Beyonce, who weighed just one ounce and could fit into a teaspoon when born, could be the world's smallest dog, according to animal rescuers in northern California. The puppy was born at the home of Beth DeCaprio, executive director of the Grace Foundation. The rescuers have submitted an application to Guinness World Records for Beyonce to be considered the world's smallest dog.
Picture: REUTERS/Lisa Van Dyke/El Dorado Dog Photography
Picture: REUTERS/Lisa Van Dyke/El Dorado Dog Photography
Friday, March 30, 2012
Five great films with terrible endings
A good ending can perfectly cap your experience of a film, be it brain-tweaking twist (Planet of the Apes, The Others) or an emotionally satisfying yet arresting resolution (Casablanca, The Godfather). But a terrible ending leaves you wanting less, not more. It can destroy in two minutes the film you've been loving for two hours. It's like sitting down to a delicious five-course meal with the man/woman of your dreams, only to discover at the end of the evening that dessert is e.coli pie and your friend has buggered off, leaving you with the bill.
Here are some examples of brilliant films that leave the audience staring, bruised, at the mortar.
Here are some examples of brilliant films that leave the audience staring, bruised, at the mortar.
Van Gogh's Sunflowers Are Mutants
The whimsical appearance of some of the sunflowers in Vincent van Gogh's paintings isn't the result of the painter's alleged mental illness. Researchers have found that overly-bushy sunflowers are actually the result of a genetic mutation in some strains of the flowers.
The typical sunflower has a brown, seed-filled middle and a ring of yellow petals, but some seem overgrown with petals in "double rows" — like one variety called the "Teddy Bear" — and others have scrawny petals and seeds extending nearly to the edge of the flower.
The researchers discovered that a genetic mutation is to blame for these differences.
The researchers discovered that a genetic mutation is to blame for these differences.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Elephant escapes from circus and heads for Costa coffee in Cork
Baby, a 40-year-old Asian elephant, shocked people in Cork when she escaped from a circus at bath time and went for a walk around the city centre. Using his smartphone, onlooker Paul Dunbar filmed the elephant outside a coffee shop and running through a busy car park before being brought under control by her handlers. see video
RIP Edd Gould, 1988-2012
"I would like to share a few thoughts of mine regarding the awful passing of Edd Gould, a brilliant mind and endlessly-vigilant person in the face of a horrible illness. Edd, who I consider a friend and wonderful ally in the world of internet entertainment, passed away on Sunday the 25th of March after a long battle with leukemia. I’d been aware that his disease had made a return and that he’d been struggling with it for the past few months, yet I also felt he was winning the fight. We all did. I didn’t think for one second that he’d ever be taken from us. It’s just all so sudden." By Dave / more
Lego Surfer
Picture: Alberto Seveso / Rex Features
A Lego minifig surfs a wave of blue ink underwater. Illustrator Alberto Seveso from Portoscuso, Italy, perches his submerged minifig on a wooden stick and then pours ink into the water.So what do you do?
Pope Benedict and Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, both octogenarians, joked about their age in a brief meeting on Wednesday and then Castro popped the question: so what do you do?
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Life brought to Earth by comets
"Life on Earth may have been sparked by comets carrying with them the key ingredients for our existence, scientists claim."
via Telegraph / more
via Telegraph / more
Have We Evolved to Be Religious?
"We humans have many varieties of religious experience. One of the most common is self-transcendence — a feeling becoming part of something larger, grander and nobler. Most people experience this at least a few times in their lives. When the self thins out and melts away, it not only feels good but can be thrilling.
It’s as though our minds contain a secret staircase taking us from an ordinary life up to something sacred and deeply interconnected, and the door to that staircase opens only on rare occasions. The world’s many religions have found a variety of ways to help people find and climb the staircase. Some religions employ meditation. Others use spinning, dancing and repetitive movements in combination with music. Some use natural drugs. Many secular people have used these methods too — think of the popularity of rave parties, which combine most of these techniques to produce feelings of “peace, love, unity and respect.” As the great French sociologist Emile Durkheim put it, we are “homo duplex,” or a two-level man.
The big question is, Why do our minds contain such a staircase?"
Haidt: An Evolutionary Explanation for Religious Faith | TIME Ideas | TIME.com /more
The big question is, Why do our minds contain such a staircase?"
Haidt: An Evolutionary Explanation for Religious Faith | TIME Ideas | TIME.com /more
These Boots Were Made for Dancing
In northern Mexico, the pointy boots trend is more about flash than fashion. Photographers Alex Troesch and Aline Paley traveled to Matehuala, Mexico to see the boots with their own eyes.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Eye-tracking computer programs and privacy.
"Eye-tracking, which uses images from one or more cameras to capture changes in the movements and structure of our eyes, can measure all of these things with pinpoint accuracy. There are many benevolent applications for eye-tracking, most notably in providing disabled people with a way to interact with objects on a screen. But recent advances are taking the technology into the mainstream, with the biggest initial applications likely to be in user interfaces and gaming. Apple, for example, has filed a patent application for a three-dimensional, eye-tracking user interface, and European company Sensye aims to have its eye-tracking software built into smartphones next year. As eye-tracking becomes increasingly deployed in laptops, tablets, and smartphones in the coming years, it will open a new front in the fractious digital privacy debate."
via Slate Magazine / more
via Slate Magazine / more
Just One Word ... Plastics
"1933: Two British research chemists miss an important detail … and make polyethylene.
Reginald Gibson and Eric Fawcett worked at Imperial Chemical Industries’ research laboratory at Winnington, Chesire. Their equipment was faulty when they attempted to react ethylene and benzaldehyde under high pressure. They produced a waxy lump of what the British call polythene.
Unbeknownst to the researchers, oxygen had leaked into their apparatus and catalyzed the reaction. Using better equipment two years later, ICI scientists M.W. Perrin and J.C. Swallow detected a leak. It took several months before they figured out that it was trace oxygen in their ethylene that played the key role.
American chemist Carl Marvel actually made polyethylene by a different method before the ICI team, in the early 1930s. He just ignored it, because “nobody thought polyethylene was good for anything.”"
via This Day In Tech | Wired.com / more
Reginald Gibson and Eric Fawcett worked at Imperial Chemical Industries’ research laboratory at Winnington, Chesire. Their equipment was faulty when they attempted to react ethylene and benzaldehyde under high pressure. They produced a waxy lump of what the British call polythene.
Unbeknownst to the researchers, oxygen had leaked into their apparatus and catalyzed the reaction. Using better equipment two years later, ICI scientists M.W. Perrin and J.C. Swallow detected a leak. It took several months before they figured out that it was trace oxygen in their ethylene that played the key role.
American chemist Carl Marvel actually made polyethylene by a different method before the ICI team, in the early 1930s. He just ignored it, because “nobody thought polyethylene was good for anything.”"
via This Day In Tech | Wired.com / more
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