Berlin is in fact a laboratory for future ways of doing things. This city is not just post-industrial, but post-imperial. It's a divergence machine.

This afternoon, drinking a cup of coffee while sitting in the Jesse Brown V.A. Medical Center on Chicago’s south side, a Veterans Administration cop walked up to me and said, "OK, you’ve had your 15 minutes, it’s time to go." "Huh?", I asked intelligently, not quite sure what he was talking about. "You can’t be in here protesting," officer Adkins said, pointing to my Veterans For Peace shirt. "Well, I’m not protesting, I’m having a cup of coffee," I returned, thinking that logic would convince Adkins to go back to his earlier duties of guarding against serious terrorists. Flipping his badge open, he said, "No, not with that shirt. You’re protesting and you have to go." Read on ...

"The Endless Forest is a MMORPG where everyone plays a deer. And no, the aim is not to shoot other deers. There's no violence, no particular rule to follow, neither does the game feature any chat-functions. All communication happens through deer-body-language. You can roar, sniff other deers, eat mushrooms from the trees, pick up and carry flowers on your antler, etc. Players do not even get "proper" names, but pictograms that represent their characters. The setting is idyllic, the forest is peaceful, you can wander along the Pond or have a nap by the Old Oak Tree."

Gaffer's tape is a vinyl-impregnated cloth tape that is waterproof, abrasion resistant, industrial grade, and has a tensile strength nearing 48 lbs. per inch. Gaffer's tape is conventionally used by a Gaffer. This is an electrician who is responsible for the lighting & sound on a film or stage set. Every movie, every concert and every elementary school play are all held together by this material. The fundamentals of this material are also used in book binding, medical tape and other industrial applications.

Call out Gouranga be happy... Gouranga Gouranga Gouranga That which brings the highest happiness!

The average time taken to kill the end level boss was 20.055 seconds, with the fastest player finishing him off in a mere 10.01 seconds. Six people finished the boss off at nearly identical moments. It would seem that the boss, bored with the player, actually self-destructs after 27 seconds. Beyond the almost perfectly synchronized explosions, further proof of this self-destruction can be found in the videos: no 10,000 point bonus (given to players when the boss is defeated) was awarded to these six players and, in a few of the runs, the boss detonated when when there wasn't a single bullet near it.

Oval Office You are standing inside a White House, having just been elected to the presidency of the United States. You knew Scalia would pull through for you. There is a large desk here, along with a few chairs and couches. The presidential seal is in the middle of the room and there is a full-length mirror upon the wall. What do you want to do now? > INVADE IRAQ You are not able to do that, yet. > LOOK MIRROR Self-reflection is not your strong suit. > PET SEAL It's not that kind of seal.

A friendly warning: It`s often easier to begin sending Cushman HoneyBells than it is to stop.

"When I first came to your planet and demanded your homes, property and very lives, I didn't know you were already doing so, willingly, with your own government. I can win no tribute from a bankrupted nation populated by feeble flag-waving plebians. In 2008 I shall restore your dignity and make you servants worthy of my rule. This new government shall become a tool of my oppression. Instead of hidden agendas and waffling policies, I offer you direct candor and brutal certainty. I only ask for your tribute, your lives, and your vote."

"Tablets made from miracle fruit, which makes sour things taste sweet, went on sale Sunday online. Mitsuharu Shimamura, a 31-year-old horticulturist based in Chita, Aichi Prefecture, established the world's first technology to make tablets out of the tropical fruit, native to West Africa, which contains a sweet-inducing protein called miraculin. One pink-colored tablet is made of three miracle fruit berries, Shimamura said. When people eat or lick the fruit's red berries, any sour thing they eat or drink a minute later tastes sweet for about two hours. This is because the protein miraculin firmly binds to sweet receptor cells in a person's tongue when sour substances are present. The protein then transmits a false message to the brain, resulting in a strong, sweet taste."

i think mr angel chriss is a miraculous magician. Everywhere he goes he makes people smile uncontrolablly or puts their minds in awe. He is very refeshing and exciting. The people that do not enjoy his magic are afraid of the unknown. So they are missing out on something very special within us all. I find chriss to be a beautiful human being you go chriss. I really enjoy you! Don't let nothing stand in your way. Your a beautifull man all around. And if everyone treated the mother and family the way you do this world would be the way it should be. Thanks for being you... from a person who sees the magic in you. Denise Shannon - Canada British Coumbia if your ever in Kamloops bc it would be wonderful to meet you in person stay really...your one of the wonders of the earth, nice.

"When the device was turned on a month after surgery, the first sentence I heard sounded like 'Zzzzzz szz szvizzz ur brfzzzzzz?' My brain gradually learned how to interpret the alien signal. Before long, 'Zzzzzz szz szvizzz ur brfzzzzzz?' became 'What did you have for breakfast?'"- from Wired

"Become part of internet history by helping me fill my room! For every dollar you donate, I will add 1 block to the room! I will not stop until my room is full! Floor to ceiling! It's up to you!"

• Why is it that when using those containers that pour sugar, they always stop pouring after a few seconds?
• Does stirring while holding a full cup reduce the chance of spillage compared to stirring on a countertop?
• How much do those coffee pump dispenser shoot out per squeeze?
• How many pumps does it take to fill standard coffee cup sizes?
• How long does it take for that first sip of coffee to get caffiene into your system?

Even a transparent phenomenon sometimes leaves telltale signs. For shock waves these signs can include moisture condensation, dust disturbance, whitecaps on water, optical distortion and shadows. Certain aquatic predators find their transparent prey by the shadows that the Sun casts on the ocean floor. Robert Hooke discovered this effect more than three centuries ago while observing the shadow of a burning candle cast by sunlight. Above the flame he saw a plume of hot air that was not directly visible but cast a shadow because the heat changes the density of the air, which refracts light rays. What Hooke described is now called the "shadowgraph" method, and it's a simple approach that works extremely well for visualizing shock waves. Hooke also discovered another visible trait of transparent phenomena: They can distort the features of a background pattern that is viewed through them. In this way an antique glass windowpane warps one's view of the world outside. But Hooke was ahead of his time, so this observation principle lay unused until the mid-19th century, when the German scientist August Toepler rediscovered it and used it to observe electric sparks. He saw spherical waves in the air from loud spark discharges and thought he was observing sound, but actually he was the first to see shock waves. Toepler named his optical method the Schlieren method (Schlieren means "streaks" in German). Although the technology has changed significantly, particularly for capturing large fields of view, that name for this method persists today.

I like to point out that there are only two kinds of grownups in modern American life who show up in public with as many contusions, lacerations, and bruises on their faces on such a regular basis as George W. Bush: 1. Prizefighters; and 2. Falling down drunks.

RANK--WORD---------FREQ
100---EVIDENCE------158
110---CRIME---------136
124---BLOOD---------121
158---BODY-----------93
216---PRINTS---------64
377---CSI------------32
220---DNA------------62
586---FIBERS---------19
631---FINGERPRINTS---17
725---TRACE----------15
1752--EPITHELIALS-----5
NOT USED : allele (bet that's a spelling bee stumper!)

The Personal SafetyPac is a self-contained, thermo-formed plastic, handheld pac with easy-to-access compartments that hold emergency evacuation tools. Each Personal SafetyPac contains an Evac-U8 smoke hood, flashlight, light stick, personal alarm and preserved water. These tools were chosen to give users the four critical life-saving abilities during an emergency: the ability to breathe, the ability to see, the ability to be seen and the ability to be heard.

Pair this with a white tank, a tan, some chunky silver and turquoise jewelry and you're movie star fabulous!

9.3.13 Disposal Any parcel of live animals that cannot be delivered to the addressee or returned to the sender within 72 hours (for live day-old poultry) or within the delivery period marked on the parcel (for other animals) is immediately disposed of under the relevant standards. A parcel not marked with the delivery period is disposed of immediately if it reasonably appears that the animals cannot be returned to the sender in a viable condition. [C022.3.13]

"This procedure will help you construct a simple vacuforming device. With it, you'll be able to fabricate plastic parts or make copies of of objects in plastic. Vacuum forming is a popular industrial process for manufacturing hollow, thin walled, plastic parts. In industrial units, a sheet of plastic is heated, usually by infrared lamps. This homemade vacuformer is made by using a piece of perforated circuit board as the platform, and a project box as the vacuum chamber. A heat gun is enough to melt most thing plastics, and a shop vac provides plenty of 'suck'."

From graphic-design.com: Avant Garde -- the typeface -- was born as a logo for a new magazine of the same name in the mid-60s. Ralph Ginzburg collaborated with Herb Lubalin (pronounced "Loo-ba-lin") on four magazines, of which Avant Garde was their second. Ginzburg remembers, "Avant Garde (the magazine) began as the single most difficult collaboration we had -- his [Lubalin's] first logo was in Hebrew. He thought that was funny. Then he did it in Coca-Cola script. We went through a dozen logos, masterfully executed." Graphic Design Publishing - Herb Lubalin's Avant Garde Lubalin and Ginzburg used a collection of Picasso erotica in the promotional materials for the new magazine and needed a complete alphabet for their titles. Lubalin used three assistants to hand draw the 26 characters (only capital letters were needed) very quickly and, with the vital involvement of Tom Carnase, another of Lubalin's partners, many additional fitted character pairs (called "ligatures") were created as their work progressed. It is these upper case character pairs that made Avant Garde one of the most original typefaces of the twentieth century. But Avant Garde, the all-cap typeface, was intended only for use in the magazine by its art director.

What is your favorite Busted Myth and your favorite Confirmed one? ADAM SAVAGE -- I've always been partial to the Penny Drop myth, i.e. will a penny dropped from the Empire State Building kill you when it hits the ground? To me, that was one of the most elegant and simple applications of science to a question that we've done. Until last week. We just worked on a myth called "bullets fired up" -- i.e., will a bullet fired directly vertically kill you when it comes back down. We did tons of research on it, and in the end, added significantly to the body of knowledge that's out there on the subject. I won't give away the ending, but we nailed this one.

The transparent toilet seat GALACTIKA is equipped with tiny ultra bright Chip-LED in 5 cols.: pole-white, sundance-yellow, scarlet-red, amparo-blue and emerald-green. The energy is supplied by 4 pcs. AA 1,5V batteries, that you find in an inconspicuous batterycase taped with a velcro at the backside of the closet or at the wall under the cistern. The real clou of the luminous toilet seat is the very tricky elektronic processor. When opening the cover the LED light will be dimmed on slowlyand kindle their full power after 5 seconds. When closing the cover the LED light will be dimmed off gently. If you leave the cover open the integrated processor interrupts the powersupply after half an hour. One battery filling is good enough for one month run (depending on frequency (c:).

Looks like everything is going full circle. Saw this really cheesey Egyptian themed laser chess set on Gizomodo today and it totally brought back memories of playing laser chess on my Atari ST! Boy, has computer technology progressed a long way since those days! While trawling for images of old skool laser chess, I found this nice set by some college students who put one together for a class. Nice. Now where's my green laser pointer? -------- AUTHOR: spyhunter DATE: 12/09/2005 11:20:00 PM ----- BODY: I've seen more elaborate Christmas light setups in terms of sheer quantity and gaudity (that's gaudiness to the rest of you), but this video shows someone who really took it to a new level! I'm curious how this was setup - using MIDI, or perhaps some kind of professional lighting design gear? Escellent overall, but definately needed a green laser or two! -------- AUTHOR: spyhunter DATE: 12/09/2005 12:59:00 AM ----- BODY: Being a big fan of fansubbed anime torrents, I have to put up with some god-awful typesetting, ass-ugly typefaces, and wost of all, a lack of understanding of video/tv production techniques. While I can decipher yucky script fonts and tolerate bad fake perspective compositing, when the fansubbed subtitles get cut off at the bottom of the screen I am left with no option but to watch on my computer. That is not why I bought my TV. But in all fairness it can't all be blamed on the hard-working fansubbers. I think my TV needs to see the doctor for a case of excessive overscan. Overscan is when tv manufacturers expand the screen image waaaaay past the edge of the visible portion of the tv to compensate for the vast array of video signals the set may need to display. Someone who bought a $2000 set is not gonna be happy if they get video artifacts such as white bars, static remnants, etc on the border of their screen - so many tv makers set the overscan excessively high. There is a way to fix this - if you are brave enough to risk screwing up your TV. Many sets have a 'service menu' that is accessible through a secret power-on button combo. In this menu you can change all sorts of crazy parameters such as geometry, color, etc. But this ain't like your computer monitor's setup menu - one wrong setting and you can render your television useless. Tempting, but dangerous. To calibrate all this stuff properly, check out these DVDs with test patterns, color tests, etc. (The Avia one can be found as a torrent.) -------- AUTHOR: spyhunter DATE: 12/09/2005 12:44:00 AM ----- BODY: Way of The Rodent has an uber-cute Katamari Xmas tee-shirt which I would fully buy if it was availble in the US. I guess it's time to bust out the old xacto knife, masking tape and acrylic paint and make my very own one-off Katamari shirt. What about a series of one-of-a-kind Katamari t-shirts with a different twist on the object being rolled for each design. One day the prince can roll around a ..., and the next he can push 'n' shove the whole globe! Haven't seen the Katamari Indiana Jones clip, check it out! -------- AUTHOR: spyhunter DATE: 12/07/2005 11:45:00 AM ----- BODY: I found these nice examples of retro design at a page that features photos and design from the radio station WINS in the 1970s. -------- AUTHOR: spyhunter DATE: 12/06/2005 12:20:00 AM ----- BODY: Don't know too much about this retro watch other than the fact it is called the "MusicMachine." My friend Rigpa would probably make some comment about 'Does it have midi?' -------- AUTHOR: spyhunter DATE: 12/06/2005 12:18:00 AM ----- BODY: The people over at artificial.dk do the kinda stuff I would love to get into if I was a bigger geek than I already am. Reprogramming retro video game console EPROMs for artistic ends (The pic is a Super Mario game where the only thing left is clouds!) - There are tons of great examples of Art Games as they call them, which involve taking video game tech and repurposing it to artistic ends. One artist took Unreal game data and made a program that re-interprets it as an abstract illustration. Another visually overlays the structure of Goto and loop commands in the code of old games such as PacMan. Other non-visual art related projects include making a dot matrix printer into a music synth. Just moggling. -------- AUTHOR: spyhunter DATE: 12/05/2005 11:06:00 PM ----- BODY: rsstroom reader™[via Spyhunter] A crazy new product out of Taiwan seems to be aimed at the feed dependent of us out there. The 'rsstroom reader' is a bathroom gadget that prints news feeds onto your T-P - that's right, your TOILET PAPER! The best part is the "biometrics" toilet seat that'll figure out who you are based on your weight and prints the news you want - not your roommates tabloid garbage. Going to the rsstroom will never be boring again! Here's the scoop: Yi Tien Electronics enters the digital home with rsstroom reader™ personal news delivery system

TAIPEI, December 4, 2005 - Yi Tien Electronics today announced a breakthrough news delivery system for the restroom. At a press conference, Yi Tien Electronics unveiled the rsstroom reader™, an rss reader for the restroom which prints directly to toilet tissue through RapidResolution® inkjet technology. Complete with wireless connectivity, the rsstroom reader™ will print out up to the minute articles from rss 2.0 and atom newsfeeds. Configurable via web browser*, the rsstroom reader™ can be set up to output an unlimited number of feeds in either sequential, alternating, or random mode. Included with the rsstroom reader™ deluxe package is the biometric seat which allows for customized feed output based on the unique features of users. The biometric seat also allows for tracking & printing the progress of your weight-loss regime. Yi Tien Electronics also announced the future availability of a commercial version of the rsstroom reader™, a more robust model intended for installation in public restrooms. The commercial model allows advertisers to place customized messages targeted to a specific audience through Yi Tien Electronics' online subscription service. * rsstroom reader™ control panel requires Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher on PC or Mac

NEW PRODUCT! - rsstroom reader toilet rss printer! Click to learn more.