Desktop Defender
M4 Sherman Model Tank from Tamiya, 1/48 scale, my first ever model, built and painted in two days.
Homeric Greece
The location of Ithaca, home island of Odysseus as mentioned in Homer, has long been a matter of debate, since Homer’s description doesn’t match the topography of modern Ithaca.
There’s an interesting Channel 4 video at CNN about team of British scientists including Professor John Underhill of Edinburgh University and Robert Bittlestone of the ‘Odysseus Unbound’ project, who think they’ve found the location of the Homeric Ithaca.
It’s actually a remarkably dull video, which is why I’ve uploaded this amazingly cool map of Homeric Greece from Wikipedia instead of a screencap.
Anyway, the team has used soundwave data to determine that an area that’s now a valley might once have been a channel, and might hide the buried remains of a lost Greek city.
CNN Video:edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2008/09/07/rush.ithaca.mystery.itn
Procrastination Flowchart
Found Here: projectsidewalk.com/blog/2008/08/13/procrastination-flowchart/
A site whose admin also seems to have a great affinity for beer… Hmmm… You moonlighting on us Tiki?
Curta Mechanical Calculator
A nifty little mechanical calculator from WWII. A really powerful tool for what it was. Only thing was, you actually had to know your mathematics in order to use it effectively…
Found Here:
www.darkroastedblend.com/2008/09/stunningly-intricate-curta-mechanical.html
Demo Clip:
Simulator:
www.vcalc.net/curta_simulator_en.htm
More Info:
www.vcalc.net/cu.htm
Unpatriotic American
Anyone else notice who wasn’t wearing an American Flag lapel pin? Yeah, it’s McCain.
Mazda Furai Concept Vehicle
Ugly as all get out, but definitely taking off.
www.motortrend.com/future/concept_cars/112_0712_mazda_furai_concept/index.html
Bacon Twinkie Stonehenge
If allowed to sit, in the correct Galactic alignment, for 1 hour before consumption, this WILL get you will high…
Big Horse Nose, No dammit…
Tags:Cute As Hell Animals, Wallpaper
…it ain’t a horse it’s a cow. It’s amazing how many not-horse nose pics are on the internet. Perhaps it should be a new tag.
McCain Wins Debate!
Although the fate of tonight’s presidential debate in Mississippi remains very much up in the air, John McCain has apparently already won it — if you believe an Internet ad an astute reader spotted next to this piece in the online edition of the Wall Street Journal this morning.
“McCain Wins Debate!” declares the ad which features a headshot of a smiling McCain with an American flag background. Another ad spotted by our eagle-eyed observer featured a quote from McCain campaign manager Rick Davis declaring: “McCain won the debate– hands down.”
DARPA Discopter Concept
So this is an artists rendition of a possible implementation of one of DARPAS newest babies, the Discrotor copter.
The idea being to eliminate the speed limitations of rotor based aircraft by making the rotors retract into a disk at high speed, and thus circumventing the problems associated with rotor tips going supersonic.
OK, So my physics/aerodynamics may be a little rusty, but I’m missing the part about how efficiently the resulting disk is going to generate lift, even at high speed…
Info
www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/05/darpa_disco_copter/
Concept renderings
www.vranek.ch/dragonfly.htm
Giant Spider Attacks London!
A giant mechanical spider hangs from a disused building in the centre of Liverpool, England, Wednesday Sept. 3, 2008, in readiness for the start of a five-day piece of street theatre as part of the European Capital of Culture.
The spider has been built by French company La Machine, which in 2006 displayed a similar artwork called The Sultan’s Elephant, in London.
ANIMORPHS FTW!
Tags:Books, Fantasy - Science Fiction
Darwin didn’t see this shit comin!
SUP DOG
Tags:Cute As Hell Animals, Sexy, WTF
Sup.
Are You A Total Loser?
Mark off all the spaces that apply to you. If you can connect 5 in a row, or mark off more than 15 spaces…well, I have some bad news for you.
Golden Gate Bridge at Night
Tags:Aerial, Golden Gate Bridge, Wallpaper
Birds do It. Bees do It. And, apparently, Dragonflies do It too!
Male dragonflies grab females by the head, using special appendages at the end of the abdomen. If the fit isn’t quite right, the female will not cooperate in the aerial mating, and the male will soon let go. In a sense, the female dragonfly is choosing a mate by this act of noncooperation. Females may also “choose†which packets of sperm fertilize their eggs.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_fly
Tin Foil Hat Time
During lunch today, one of my friends says “Did you hear they’re going to be deploying an Army group here in the US”, to which I reply, ‘no, that’s against constitutional law’. After lunch was over I did a bit of googling:
“They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.”
Ok, my tin foil is firmly on, but if you combine this ArmyTimes.com story with the previous stories we’ve heard of massive detention centers, what does this mean?
We now have places to put malcontents, and now we’re training war hardened soldiers to put them there?
Opinions?
The Real Teletubbies
Tags:Sexy, Technology, Television
