Spider-Dan

 "Dan Goodwin, aka Spider-Dan, was filmed by a news helicopter using suction cups to haul himself up the glass and steel building.
Goodwin unfurled a United States flag upon reaching the roof before being escorted away by waiting police.
Veteran skyscraper climber Dan Goodwin scaled San Francisco's 58-story Millennium Tower to publicize the dangers of skyscrapers and to raise cancer awareness."
viaTelegraph

How Much Money Do We Need to Be Happy? Just $75,000?

 "People say money doesn't buy happiness. Except, according to a new study from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, it sort of does — up to about $75,000 a year. The lower a person's annual income falls below that benchmark, the unhappier he or she feels. But no matter how much more than $75,000 people make, they don't report any greater degree of happiness."
Study: Money Buys Happiness When Income Is Below $75,000 - TIME read more

Orphaned chimpanzees in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

An 18-month study of remote human settlements deep in the Congolese jungle warns that chimpanzees are are being subjected to a 'wave of killing' by hunters pursuing them for bushmeat.

One consequence is the continual growth in the number of 'bushmeat orphans' - those infants who are too small to be killed for meat, and are often put on the black market for sale as pets.

These pictures tell the story of just a few orphaned Eastern chimpanzees that researchers encountered.

Mystery and Evidence By TIM CRANE

"Religion commands and absorbs the passions and intellects of hundreds of millions of people, many more people than science does. Why is this?"
via - NYTimes.com read more

Cyanide & Happiness #2161 - Explosm.net

It followed me home, can I keep it?

 Loldogs, Dogs 'n' Puppy Dog Pictures - I Has A Hotdog!

Italic

via BigFun.be

Brains

"A man finally realizes that there is something abnormal about him and goes to see a doctor.

The doctor examines him and says, “Like everyone else, your brain is divided into two parts, the left and the right.'

'The abnormality is that on your left side there is nothing right, and on the right side there is nothing left.”"
via BigFun.be

Carrot shaped like Buzz Lightyear

 "A grandfather unearthed a carrot bearing an uncanny resemblence to the Toy Story character Buzz Lightyear while digging up his vegetable patch."
viaTelegraph

Iron Maiden - When The Wild Wind Blows

Reddit's summer of 2010

via

via

Rules To Live By

1. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

2. Don't worry about what people think, they don't do it very often.

3. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian anymore than standing in a garage makes you a car.

4. Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

5. If you must choose between two evils, pick the one you've never tried before.

6. My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance.

7. Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious.

8. A person, who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person. (This is very important. Pay attention! It never fails.)

9. For every action, there is an equal and opposite government program.

10. If you look like your passport picture, you probably need the trip."
more here

Lane Smith's Children's Book Explains What A Book Is

 "Growing up in the digital age, kids these days sure know how to tweet and text. But, what ever happened to good old fashioned dog-eared paperback books from the library? You know, the kind you can drip ice cream on without worrying that it will short out or give to your next door neighbor without your mother yelling 'YOU GAVE YOUR WHAT TO WHO!? DO YOU KNOW HOW EXPENSIVE THAT WAS!?'

Children's author Lane Smith -- who also penned/illustrated the hilarious The True Story of the Three Little Pigs -- has written It's A Book to remind the youth of today what good old print and paper looks like.

'Do you scroll down?' asks the confused bunny.

'No, you turn the page. It's a book,' says the ancient, wise monkey in the outdated t-shirt.


The bunny looks even more confounded."
see video Techland - TIME.com

Finally

Chihuahua Makes Great Escape

xkcd: The Carriage

xkcd: The Carriage

Emily Dickinson--Death

"Because I could not stop for Death,

He kindly stopped for me;

The carriage held but just ourselves

And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,

And I had put away

My labor, and my leisure too,

For his civility.

We passed the school, where children strove

At recess, in the ring;

We passed the fields of gazing grain,

We passed the setting sun.

Or rather, he passed us;

The dews grew quivering and chill,

For only gossamer my gown,

My tippet only tulle.

We paused before a house that seemed

A swelling of the ground;

The roof was scarcely visible,

The cornice but a mound.

Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each

Feels shorter than the day

I first surmised the horses' heads

Were toward eternity."

Wild chimps outwit human hunters

 "Across Africa, people often lay snare traps to catch bushmeat, killing or injuring chimps and other wildlife.
But a few chimps living in the rainforests of Guinea have learnt to recognise these snare traps laid by human hunters, researchers have found.
More astonishing, the chimps actively seek out and intentionally deactivate the traps, setting them off without being harmed.
The discovery was serendipitously made by primatologists Mr Gaku Ohashi and Professor Tetsuro Matsuzawa who were following chimps living in Bossou, Guinea to study the apes' social behaviour."
BBC - Earth News -continue reading

Four Pieces part1 Astor Piazzolla by Ana Vidovic

Professor Frink Will Make You Think

via Comixed

Stephen Hawking says universe not created by God

"God did not create the universe, the man who is arguably Britain's most famous living scientist says in a forthcoming book.

In the new work, The Grand Design, Professor Stephen Hawking argues that the Big Bang, rather than occurring following the intervention of a divine being, was inevitable due to the law of gravity.

In his 1988 book, A Brief History of Time, Hawking had seemed to accept the role of God in the creation of the universe. But in the new text, co-written with American physicist Leonard Mlodinow, he said new theories showed a creator is 'not necessary'.

The Grand Design, an extract of which appears in the Times today, sets out to contest Sir Isaac Newton's belief that the universe must have been designed by God as it could not have been created out of chaos.

'Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing,' he writes. 'Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.

'It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.'"
via Science | The Guardian/read more

Mac on... Reaction to Blair's book

via

Terrified mother confronts 'noisy burglar' in her kitchen only to find... an orphaned baby otter

 "Sheila Manisier , 44, discovered the three-month-old mammal foraging for scraps after her daughter Laura Manisier-Hilton, 13, heard noises at their home.

Brave Sheila crept into the kitchen fully expecting to find an intruder but instead spotted the foot-long juvenile otter cowering underneath her kitchen table.

Healthcare manager Sheila fed the female otter a piece of raw cod and has now handed it over to the RSPCA."
read more

World's ugliest fish nicknamed Shrek by scuba divers

 "Some divers who came across this unusual-looking fish off the Japanese coast have now nicknamed it 'Shrek' because of its bizarre features.

'Shrek' is a type of Asian sheepshead wrasse which are well-known for the odd protrusions on their head and are relatively common in the waters around Japan."

see video here| Mail Online

Cat Door - Snotr

Cat Door - Snotr

King Kong's kid

BizarroBlog

Charles Darwin's ecological experiment on Ascension isle

"A lonely island in the middle of the South Atlantic conceals Charles Darwin's best-kept secret.

Two hundred years ago, Ascension Island was a barren volcanic edifice.

Today, its peaks are covered by lush tropical 'cloud forest'.

What happened in the interim is the amazing story of how the architect of evolution, Kew Gardens and the Royal Navy conspired to build a fully functioning, but totally artificial ecosystem.

By a bizarre twist, this great imperial experiment may hold the key to the future colonisation of Mars."
BBC News - Charles Darwin's ecological experiment on Ascension isle / read more

Busted!

Forgetful

 "I forget things, All the time.

Even important stuff, like my wife's birthday and our anniversary.

This year, I had an idea for solving my dilemma.

I set up an account with the florist, with instructions to send flowers to my wife for every important event -- Mother's Day, Valentine's, birthday, anniversary... even the anniversary of our first date.

And with each batch of flowers there was a note: 'From your loving husband.'

Needless to say, I screwed it up.

On my wife's birthday, I walked in the door, noticed the bouquet on the table, and promptly said...
'Nice flowers honey! Where'd you get 'em?'"