It's interesting to see the traffic on neworleans.craigslist.org after the hurricane.

Many threads show a huge outpouring of support. Some threads, understandably, haven't had traffic since before the weekend. And there seems to be the occassional shady deal attempting to take advantage of those who have lost so much.

If hopping robot space penguins aren't a reason to continue funding space exploration, I don't know what is.

I usually leave the "wacky Photoshopped picture" posts to other sites, but this one particularly hits home right now and I found it quite amusing...

(Source: mom)

This table is for sale on eBay. How can you tell it is being sold by a man?

Can you solve this riddle? Take a look at the picture (if you need to, click on the pic to expand it) and make a guess. The answer is in the Comments to this post.

(I got this over a chain mail, but unlike most chain mail, this is good enough to share)

If you have any old 5 1/4" floppy disks sitting around, with a snip here and a snip there, they make excellent CD sleeves. Check it out!

Sweet!

I just stumbled across one of those headlines that makes you think: Did I read that right?

Brigitte Bardot Calls for Halt to Use of Puppies as Shark Bait

I had no idea Brigitte Bardot was even still alive. And she sure looks pissed about the whole puppy/shark bait thing. I'm not saying I disagree with Ms. Bardot, I'm just saying it's a weird headline.

Load up this animated GIF (click here - it will open in a new window). Look at the ring of purple dots. One dot at a time will turn invisible, circling around in a clockwise order. No big deal. Now stare directly at the cross in the center, and watch what happens.

FREAKY!

The rotating snake illusion is still my favorite optical illusion, though. Especially if you print it out and hang it on your office wall. It's a great way to freak out unwanted visitors...

(via BoingBoing)

Proponents of so-called Intelligent Design (a.k.a. creationism) used a very clever technique to get people to debate the validity of Evolution vs. Intelligent Design - they convinced people that a debate already existed.

The reality, of course, is that "Intelligent Design" is so inherently nonsensical and utterly contradictory to everything that humanity has learned over its thousands of years of intellectual development, that scientists find it nearly impossible to discuss it. The ID folks, of course, argue that the scientists' silence is due to a secretly-held belief that their so called "theory" of evolution is a lie!

Actually, guys, it more like when I was a kid, and this crazy guy would walk by my bus stop and ramble on about how America was going to be overrun by communist robots (true story). You didn't debate this topic with him. You smiled, shook your head with pity, and walked way.

My point is, bringing your misguided cause into the national debate via this sort of rhetorical slight of hand is a dangerous move - because other folks can enter the debate exactly the same way. Case in point: Flying Spaghetti Monsterism.

The man in the picture is Bill Moyer, a 73 year old veteran who was attending George Bush's propaganda session with the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Idaho. What's that on his ear? Why it's a Bullshit Protector, of course!

If you think such a device could come in handy, WiseAss.org has assorted versions that you can print and cut out for yourself.

BoingBoing has a great post with links to a book and a Flickr pool dealing with Pareidolia, or the phenomenon of seeing faces in inanimate objects.

The Blogosphere is reporting a lovely bit of completely bone-headed tech reporting in the Wall Street Journal (no direct link since it's subscription only, but here's a link to Engadget's mention of it).

SBC's Internet-TV boxes will be smaller than a typical cable box. Cable boxes need to be big enough to store all channel programming at once, but because Internet-based boxes stream only one channel at a time, they don't need the extra space.

That's just awesome. It reminds me of a Dilbert strip where the boss tells everyone to use really small fonts to conserve memory.

You can watch tracks of the Hubble and International Space Station here. See when they're coming to your neighborhood!

Have you heard about the new "Intelligent Falling" theory? It's in opposition to the "fact" of gravity, which is actually just a theory with plenty of holes. And if The Onion reports it, it must be true!

Readers: I'd like your help in coming up with a list of careers that people don't explicitly get educations for For example, nobody gets a degree in Covert Operations, or has a major in Spy Techniques, yet plenty of people are CIA operatives. What kind of educational history must one have to be prepared for a job like that? What kind of experience does someone need to become mayor of a town? Or the guy who plans the routes for public transportation buses?

What are some jobs that you can think of that have no obvious educational path?

Thanks in advance for your contributions!

...when you're surfing on Wikipedia. Dildo: it's not what you expect. I got here from the "Bored of the Rings" entry, from the entry on Deus ex Machina, from the entry on The Architect from The Matrix, from The Merovingian (from "The Matrix"), from Merovingian (the blood line), from Rex Deus, which I just saw a book on in the bookstore.

Dildo.

Oh, and you know what you'll find in fucking Austria? Fucking, Austria.

New research claimes that erotic or violent images can cause "emotional blindness" for a brief period of time - try the test provided with the article. Personally, I think I'm missing the rotated images because they're going by too quickly for me to realize what they are.

Mesothelioma is a rare disease caused as a result of malignant cancerous cells lining the patient's body cavities such as chest, abdominal region or the area surrounding the heart. It is typically associated with exposure to asbestos which has been documented in as many as 70-80% of all mesothelioma cases. I just felt you should all know that. For no real reason.

Keeping with the Happy Days theme, when major characters on TV shows suddenly disappear without explanation, it's called "Chuck Cunningham Syndrome".

One interesting case: Spearchucker Jones (Hey, I didn't name him) - a black surgeon on M*A*S*H who was quietly written out after the producers became aware that there was not a single black surgeon in any Army M*A*S*H unit during the Korean War.

The HP DesignJet 120 and 130 printers have an "error code" scheme that could truly only have been devised by sadists. Sure, things will go wrong with printers occasionally. But instead of showing you the actual problem, the DesignJet simply gives you a four digit code, which you must then look up.

System error codes consist of four digits that explain which component or system is failing and what action should be taken to correct the problem.

OK, that's a little annoying, but they clearly can't cram all the information about every possible glitch into the tiny display on the printer, so I guess that's reasonable.

So, I assume, since the printer has a display screen on it, that it'll just display the number as, you know, a number?

The front panel of the printer can only display graphics, so the system error codes are represented as bars. Determine the error code by counting the bars on the front panel display.

Wait wait wait... It can't display NUMBERS because it can only display GRAPHICS? Last I checked numbers were visual symbols, and visual symbols, as I understand them, are most certainly a type of graphic. Now, I'm not entirely clear if this is an all-purpose dot matrix screen or a screen with fixed LCD elements built into it - but even if it were the latter, I've literally seen toys in gumball machines which manage to display numbers via the magic of the seven segment display. Keep in mind this printer sells for over $1000.

OK, so how does this magic "bar counting" scheme work, then? (Brace yourself)

Each bar represents one numerical unit, and each flashing bar represents two numerical units. The first two columns of bars represent the first digit in the error code, the next two columns represent the second digit, the fifth column represents the third digit, and the sixth column represents the final digit. [...] The first two digits of the error code indicate the failing subsystem, and the final two digits indicate the recovery action.

Did you follow that?

Perhaps this graphic will help:



No? Perhaps you should just read the whole HP Support article. Or see what others had to say about this on This Is Broken.

While doing some Googling for media to back up a snarky comment about "jumping the shark" on the company bulletin board, I discovered this:



I want one. And, incidentally, here's the original "Jumping the Shark" scene in Windows Media format. I don't think I've ever actually seen it until today. Yes, it's as bad as you think.

In what I'm sure is destined to become the next "All Your Base", here's a version of Star Wars: Episode III, with English subtitles that appear to be literal translations of the Chinese translation of the original English. Obi Wan is called "ratio tile". Admittedly, it's hard to tell if this is a farce or not. Regardless, I sure hope Palpatine guarantees the safety of Anakin's cuckoldry.

An open letter to the Kansas School Board, and a Wikipedia entry on the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Would you like to be touched by His Noodly Appendage?

There is a language common to all people. A language which transcends all culture and geography. A language that can unite all peoples, regardless of race or creed. I speak, of course, of the language of the Balloon Hat.

How many punchcards would it take to take to store an MP3 file? And what type of machine would read it fast enough? Some intrepid geeks do the math.

A while ago, to support one of my weird photo-related hobbies, I created a Flickr group called "Unnecessary Consumer Products and Questionable Foodstuffs" (or UCPAQF or short). Having forgotten about it for a while, I just remembered to check in on it. It's up to 14 members, and some excellent pictures are starting to come in! Check it out!