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flyblown

2007-08-23T20:44:00Z

Never heard of this word before today.

The adjective flyblown has 3 meanings:

Meaning #1: spoiled and covered with eggs and larvae of flies Synonym: maggoty

Meaning #2: foul and run-down and repulsive Synonyms: squalid, sordid

Meaning #3: especially of reputation Synonyms: besmirched, damaged, spotted, stained, sullied, tainted, tarnished

bullet-proof baby

2007-08-23T15:40:00Z

A must for mobile baby protection, the Heavy weight bulllet proof stroller provides 100% protection against all modern ballistics including Armor Piercing rounds. It’s heavy enough to maintain stability even under a heavy barrage, and yet has light steering enabling the stroller to turn on a dime if required. For the smart urban baby.. this stroller is the ultimate in style, comfort and extreme combat protection.

Skeptical? There’s video. The baby looks pissed.

And for the toddler, try my first riot helmet.

Ah, teh interweb. Via about:blank. Aggregate and enjoy.

rational atheism

2007-08-23T01:57:00Z

A higher moral principle that encompasses both science and religion is the freedom to think, believe and act as we choose, so long as our thoughts, beliefs and actions do not infringe on the equal freedom of others. As long as religion does not threaten science and freedom, we should be respectful and tolerant because our freedom to disbelieve is inextricably bound to the freedom of others to believe.

Amen, brother.

peace-loving, matriarchal, and sexually liberated

2007-08-01T04:00:00Z

“I once saw five female bonobos attack a male in Apenheul, in Holland,” he said. “They were gnawing on his toes. I’d already seen bonobos with digits missing, but I’d thought they would have been bitten off like a dog would bite. But they really chew. There was flesh between their teeth. Now, that’s something to counter the idea of”—Stevens used a high, mocking voice—“ ‘Oh, I’m a bonobo, and I love everyone.’ ”

Between the chimps and the bonobos, I’m afraid the socio-biological argument in favor of humanity’s general grooviness has suffered a major blow in my mind.

auto-domestication

2007-07-27T19:05:00Z

“We think what happened is that the cats sort of domesticated themselves,” Carlos Driscoll, one of the study authors, told the Washington Post. The cats invited themselves in, and over time, as people favored cats with more docile traits, certain cats adapted to this new environment, producing the dozens of breeds of house cats known today.

As a long-time cat feeder, I’ve always suspected as much.

william gibson interview

2007-07-10T02:15:00Z

George Orwell’s 1984 is really 1948, the year in which he wrote it. It can’t be about the future. It’s about where the person who wrote it thought their present was, because you can’t envision a future without having some sort of conviction, whether you express it or not in the text, about where your present is.

From a great interview with Bill Gibson, who’s latest science fiction novel Spook Country apparently takes place in the past.

If you have trouble getting to the article (I did) try the google cache. Apparently the origin server is mildly dead.

Via boing boing, via futurismic.

advertising with falling gnomes

2007-07-06T15:37:00Z

The gold farmers created hundreds of identical level 1 gnomes, postion-hacked them into mid-air, and let them fall to certain doom in a way that spelled out the web address of their gold-selling site, which I’m not going to name here because I don’t want anyone to get keylogged or anything.

OK, so I was bugged last night about not posting.

Then, I laughed out loud reading this post in my aggregator. So I decided to share the love. You’ll laugh too. You may also feel a little frisson of fear, especially if at any point in the post or articles you asked yourself “What is this WoW thing?”

Don’t worry, it will pass.

BTW, if you’re interested in a really, really good SF, I can heartily recommend the work of the above blogger (Charles Stross) and the book Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge, which is very much a propos of the subject matter of Charlie’s post. It’s set 30 years in the future, which aligns perfectly with Charlie’s mental stretch back to 1977.

Hat tip to Marc Andressen, who turned me on to both of these authors in a recent post. Go thank him for your means of experiencing teh intarwebs, whence flows much now-shock.

paleo-future

2007-05-08T16:01:00Z

Now, candidly, wouldn’t you like to know what sayers will be saying, thinkers thinking, writers writing, doers doing and plotters plotting at the end of the next hundred years?

via my new favorite stranger-blog, paleo-future. Aggregate and enjoy.

maggot therapy

2007-05-03T14:28:00Z

The maggots then chomped through the gauze while being held in place.

Mr Hughes said: “It’s just like a maggot sandwich.”

And it worked.

hung like a duck

2007-05-02T14:49:00Z

Gazing at the enormous organs, she asked herself a question that apparently no one had asked before. “So what does the female look like?�? she said. “Obviously you can’t have something like that without some place to put it in. You need a garage to park the car.�?

big computer simulates little brain

2007-04-29T05:06:00Z

The vast complexity of the simulation meant that it was only run for ten seconds at a speed ten times slower than real life – the equivalent of one second in a real mouse brain.

apocalypse, on a scale from one to five

2007-01-24T15:03:00Z

I don’t know about you, but this makes me feel a bit better. I think.

You see, it can get worse!

via “http://openthefuture.com/”, via … somewhere. Sorry, blogger.

andy griffith on...the patriot act

2007-01-23T07:10:00Z

I couldn’t say it any better myself.

via emergent chaos

flammable elmo

2007-01-09T05:25:00Z

Ever wanted to see a Tickle-Me Elmo—on fire? Of course you have.

Behold: the interwebs make it so

“Tee hee hee…Oh, stop it! Stop it!”

inflammable christmas goat

2007-01-03T02:39:00Z

The successful flame-proofing of the 2006 goat was not the first time authorities have put their faith in retardants – a substance tried once before washed off in the rain.

Just so you have some perspective, this is last year’s goat:

via the BBC.