Posts filed under 'Weirdness'
What the hell? No, really, what the hell???
The Binaural Mic from Otokinoko… is a simple way to record the most realistic sounds possible. Binaural recording allows you to record sounds the same way they are heard in real life by placing the two microphones in the same position as human ears. The resulting playback in omnidirectional 3D sound is more realistic than normal stereo because of the subtle shifts in feeling.
First of all, the mics are not in the same position as human ears unless you have a really really tiny head.
Second of all, is there any technological reason why they have to be shaped exactly like gray human ears?
Third of all, what the hell???
(h/t Engadget)
June 15th, 2008 at 10:29am
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Technology,
Weirdness
Why can’t I ever come up with awesome stuff like this?
‘Passive Aggressive Anger Release Machine’ is an interactive sculpture by Yarisal and Kublitz. Experience the most satisfying feeling when a piece of China breaks into million pieces . All you have to do is insert a coin, and a piece of China will Slowly move forwards and fall into the bottom of the machine, breaking, and leaving you happy and relieved of anger.
*rummages around for loose change*
Ahh, I’m feeling better already. You know, if they had blanketed the country with these during primary season, they would have made a fortune.
(h/t Engadget)
June 10th, 2008 at 08:52pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Coolness,
Technology,
Weirdness
And I thought I was lucky…
A 21-leaf clover discovered on June 3 by Iwate prefecture farmer Shigeo Obara has shattered the Guinness world record for most leaves on a clover stem (Trifolium repens L.). The current official record is held by an 18-leaf clover that Obara found in his garden in May 2002.
The record-breaking clover’s 21 leaves each measure about 1 centimeter long and overlap each other like rose petals on a 3-centimeter stem.
Obara, a former food crop researcher, has been conducting independent research on clovers in his garden for over 50 years. He first became interested in clover mutations after discovering an unusual patch of 4-leaf clovers in 1951. Since then, Obara has been crossbreeding the plants in his garden to research the genes associated with leaf count, color, pattern and size.
Obara plans to file a new application with Guinness, although he is considering waiting a while. “We are likely to find clovers with more leaves,” he says. Last month, a family member claimed to have found a 27-leaf clover, but the discovery was not confirmed.
While some say that 4-leaf clovers symbolize happiness, 5-leaf clovers symbolize wealth and 6-leaf clovers symbolize fame, it is unclear what 21-leaf clovers symbolize.
Huh. I have lots of 4-leaf and 5-leaf clovers, maybe a 6, and definitely a 7, but I don’t think I’m unusually healthy, wealthy, or famous. And all of mine were naturally occurring, and not deliberately bred to be freaks so far as I know.
June 10th, 2008 at 07:36am
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Coolness,
Weirdness
I’m not entirely sure how to describe Woman’s Passions, so I’ll let the shadowy and mysterious Codename V. do it for me:
The author is part of a foreign culture, that much is clear. I have yet to determine which culture, or who her target audience seems to be. It’s safe to say that English is not her first language. I’m not actually convinced she knows English at all. Her writing style suggests someone who knows the basic concepts of English grammar and sentence structure, and who is also armed with a 100 year old thesaurus.
Either that, or she writes in her native language and runs everything through a translator program….
So, without further ado, the Woman’s Passions’ 15 Ways To Tell A Man You Are Not Interested In Him:
1. He: Haven’t we met before?
She: Probably, I work at venereal disease dispensary’s registry.
2. He: It seems, I’ve already met you somewhere?
She: Yes, and that’s why I do not go there any more.
3. He: Is this place free?
She: Yes, and mine will also be released, if you sit down.
4. He: What if we go to my place?
She: I’m not assured we will get together into one dustbin.
5. He: Will we go to your place or mine?
She: Simultaneously. You - to your place, and me - to mine.
6. He: I’d like to call you. What’s your number?
She: It’s in the telephone book.
He: But I even do not know your name!
She: It is also in the directory.
7. He: So than, what do you do in life?
She: I’m a transvestite.
8. He: What’s your sign?
She: Input is prohibited.
9. He: Which eggs do you like for a breakfast?
She: Not impregnating!
10. He: Well, here you are! Do not hide, you are in this club for the same reason, as I…
She: Really? Hooking?
11. He: I’m here to embody your most courageous imaginations!
She: You want to tell you have a goat and a German shepherd?
12. He: I want to score you.
She: Unfortunately, I do not accept cheap gifts.
13. He: If I could see you naked, I would die of happiness.
She: Perhaps, but if I have seen you naked, I would die of laughter.
14. He: For the sake of you I will go down and under…
She: Yes, and maybe you could stay there?
15. He: How do you manage looking so good?
She: I do reverse things to what you do.
Some of these would actually be pretty clever if the language weren’t so incredibly stilted and awkward. V. snarks on some of them individually, so feel free to head on over there - I’m content to just marvel at them in their unspoiled entirety.
June 3rd, 2008 at 07:25pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Weirdness
Well, this is pretty cool. And kinda funny:
The only known edition of the world’s first telephone book has just surfaced in Connecticut.
It will be auctioned along with a collection of noteworthy books and documents covering technology, science, math and philosophy over six centuries.
The 20-page directory was issued in November of 1878, just two years after Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. The phone book contained information useful to 391 subscribers within the New Haven, Conn., area who were obviously still learning their way around the new communication device.
“Should you wish to speak to another subscriber you should commence the conversation by saying, ‘Hulloa!’” it instructs.
Tom Lecky, who is head of books and manuscripts at Christie’s auction house, which is handling the sale, told Discovery News, “The directions start off by amusingly saying, ‘Never take the telephone off the hook unless you wish to use it…When you are done talking say, ‘That is all,’ and the person spoken to should say, ‘O.K.’”
The book goes on to tell readers they should leave the “lower lip and jaw free.” They were also warned never to “use the wire more than three minutes at a time, or more than twice an hour” without first “obtaining permission from the main office.”
(…)
No phone numbers were printed in the Connecticut city’s milestone book — just the names of subscribers. It did, however, list businesses in a separate section at the end, making it the world’s first yellow pages too. The businesses included local newspapers, grocers, physicians and manufacturers.
Wow. I can’t even begin to imagine what they would make of my Treo. Yet another reminder of how far we’ve come technologically. And how goofy the culture of a technology in its earliest stages can be.
That is all.
*waits patiently for someone to say O.K.*
May 30th, 2008 at 09:46pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Coolness,
Technology,
Weirdness
Here’s a little bit of lunchtime coolness/weirdness:
CARRIE DASHOW dropped a large dollop of lemon sorbet into a glass of Guinness, stirred, drank and proclaimed that it tasted like a “chocolate shake.”
Nearby, Yuka Yoneda tilted her head back as her boyfriend, Albert Yuen, drizzled Tabasco sauce onto her tongue. She swallowed and considered the flavor: “Doughnut glaze, hot doughnut glaze!”
They were among 40 or so people who were tasting under the influence of a small red berry called miracle fruit at a rooftop party in Long Island City, Queens, last Friday night. The berry rewires the way the palate perceives sour flavors for an hour or so, rendering lemons as sweet as candy.
The host was Franz Aliquo, 32, a lawyer who styles himself Supreme Commander (Supreme for short) when he’s presiding over what he calls “flavor tripping parties.” Mr. Aliquo greeted new arrivals and took their $15 entrance fees. In return, he handed each one a single berry from his jacket pocket.
“You pop it in your mouth and scrape the pulp off the seed, swirl it around and hold it in your mouth for about a minute,” he said. “Then you’re ready to go.” He ushered his guests to a table piled with citrus wedges, cheeses, Brussels sprouts, mustard, vinegars, pickles, dark beers, strawberries and cheap tequila, which Mr. Aliquo promised would now taste like top-shelf Patrón.
The miracle fruit, Synsepalum dulcificum, is native to West Africa and has been known to Westerners since the 18th century. The cause of the reaction is a protein called miraculin, which binds with the taste buds and acts as a sweetness inducer when it comes in contact with acids, according to a scientist who has studied the fruit, Linda Bartoshuk at the University of Florida’s Center for Smell and Taste. Dr. Bartoshuk said she did not know of any dangers associated with eating miracle fruit.
During the 1970s, a ruling by the Food and Drug Administration dashed hopes that an extract of miraculin could be sold as a sugar substitute. In the absence of any plausible commercial application, the miracle fruit has acquired a bit of a cult following.
(…)
[Aliquo] believes that the best way to encounter the fruit is in a group. “You need other people to benchmark the experience,” he said. At his first party, a small gathering at his apartment in January, guests murmured with delight as they tasted citrus wedges and goat cheese. Then things got trippy.
“You kept hearing ‘oh, oh, oh,’ ” he said, and then the guests became “literally like wild animals, tearing apart everything on the table.”
“It was like no holds barred in terms of what people would try to eat, so they opened my fridge and started downing Tabasco and maple syrup,” he said.
(…)
The fruits are available by special order from specialty suppliers in New York, including Baldor Specialty Foods and S. Katzman Produce. Katzman sells the berries for about $2.50 a piece, and has been offering them to chefs.
Mr. Aliquo gets his miracle fruit from Curtis Mozie, 64, a Florida grower who sells thousands of the berries each year through his Web site, www.miraclefruitman.com. (A freezer pack of 30 berries costs about $90 with overnight shipping.) Mr. Mozie, who was in New York for Mr. Gollner’s reading, stopped by the flavor-tripping party.
Mr. Mozie listed his favorite miracle fruit pairings, which included green mangoes and raw aloe. “I like oysters with some lemon juice,” he said. “Usually you just swallow them, but I just chew like it was chewing gum.”
A large group of guests reached its own consensus: limes were candied, vinegar resembled apple juice, goat cheese tasted like cheesecake on the tongue and goat cheese on the throat. Bananas were just bananas.
Amazing, and hard to imagine. I’m tempted to try this someday.
May 29th, 2008 at 11:19am
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Coolness,
Weirdness
From an amusing NYT story about China’s efforts to enhance its English skills before hosting the Olympics - this is a sample from an “Olympic English” manual:
I have made a reservation for tonight through the telephone. My name is Cable Guy.
Now I want to go to the Beijing Olympics just to talk to people…
May 25th, 2008 at 02:47pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Weirdness
OMG.
Flying peniscopter attacks chess champion Gary Kasparov.
The bar has just been raised several miles - eggs and pies just won’t cut it anymore.
(From news.com.au, by way of Greatscat!)
May 22nd, 2008 at 10:34pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Weirdness
Terrible album covers are one of my favorite things. I’ve seen some great sites that make fun of them, and I’ve even taken a small stab at it myself, but New York Newsday, of all places, has actually managed to put together a gallery of truly awful covers that I mostly had never seen before.
Some more of my favorites:
I defy you to deny the awesomeness. You cannot do it.
May 20th, 2008 at 07:51am
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Coolness,
Weirdness
This is just wrong…
The key to turning the Yankees season around could be under Jason Giambi’s pinstriped pants.
The Yankee slugger revealed Friday he slips on a gold lamé thong with a flame-line waistband when he’s trying to get out of a hitting slump - and he’s shared it with his teammates.
“It works every time,” Giambi told the Daily News after his secret was outed on Portfolio.com.
Derek Jeter agreed that Giambi’s thong works, although “it’s so uncomfortable running around the bases.”
“I had it over my shorts and stuff,” he said. “I was 0-for-32 and I hit a homer on the first pitch. That’s the only time I’ve ever worn it.”
Johnny Damon also admitted donning the golden panties “probably three times.”
“I may need to wear it again soon,” said Damon, who is batting a mediocre .255.
What is the secret of Giambi’s golden thong?
“You’re not worrying about your hands or your balance at the plate,” Damon said. “You’re worried about the uncomfortable feeling you’re receiving.”
In the earlier interview with Portfolio.com, Giambi claimed he also hung his thong in the lockers of teammates Bernie Williams, Robin Ventura and Robinson Cano when they had trouble generating runs.
“I only put it on when I’m desperate to get out of a big slump,” Giambi said.
(…)
“Whoever is on slumps, puts it on,” catcher Jorge Posada admitted yesterday. “I don’t know if it works. I haven’t worn it yet.”
Posada added that “a lot of players have worn it,” but he didn’t name names. Asked if the thong got washed between wearings, he gave a cringe-worthy answer. “Ask Jason,” said Posada. “Jason is a little strange.”
The Daily News also reported that they provided thongs to all the Yankee players and the manager to try to break the team out of its slump, but it’s probably only Giambi’s thong that has the Special Thong Hitting Magick in it.
May 17th, 2008 at 03:13pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Sports,
Weirdness
Spreadable displays/solar panels!
Not satisfied with a future vision that already includes flexible screens and wafer-thin phones, a pair of Japanese companies has pushed the envelope to come up with far-fetched gadgets that do all of the above without ever going near a power socket.
The key to the work by Mitsubishi Chemical and Sumitomo Chemical lies in so-called spreadable electronics – liquids containing molecules of the type used in OLED screens.
Engineers like Tokitaro Hoshijima at Mitsubishi Chemical see the possibility of using spreadable electronics to create both ultra-thin displays and solar panels at the same time [subscription link].
Because solar cells and OLEDs work on similar, but opposite, principles, it is possible to make materials that both take light and turn it into electricity and also do the opposite to provide a controllable display.
Hoshijima and many others are working on a molecular soup that can be spread anywhere and then dried to leave a residue layer that is only 100nm thick. This currently forms the basis for their proposed solar cell.
He explains: “What I want to create is a world that does not need power sockets.” He goes on to describe how his paste applied to the back of a phone could be enough to charge the device when exposed to light.
By the same token, researchers at Sumitomo Chemical have created a similar organic solution that can be sprayed onto a surface to create an OLED screen.
Such a display could be on a rollable piece of plastic or even applied directly to a wall. The solar-charging properties described above mean it would never need to be plugged in.
Blue-sky projects like these typically take years to bear fruit, but both companies are looking at getting usable prototype devices ready within the next two years.
Wow. I really hope they can pull this off. You could paint displays on your clothes - or solar panels to power your iPod and charge your cellphone. A paintable display could also be pretty much any size and shape you want. And if you could actually paint your house with solar panel paint, you could seriously cut down on your electric bills. Amazing.
Probably too good to be true, but I’ve got my fingers crossed.
(h/t OLED Info by way of Engadget)
May 15th, 2008 at 07:27pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Coolness,
Technology,
Weirdness
Well, since I already did a post on Richard Burton’s rugby reminiscences, I think it’s only fair that Peter O’Toole should get a post as well. (Hey, if the LAT can write about the candidates’ handwriting, I can write about Peter O’Toole reattaching his own finger.) I was perhaps most surprised to realized that he was 75 - every time I’ve seen him in the past few years, I thought he was much older. Maybe it was all that drinking.
This was a man who travelled the world yet never wore a watch or carried a wallet. Nor, on leaving his house, did he ever take his keys with him.
“I just hope some bastard’s in,” he’d say.
More than once, when someone was not in, O’Toole found himself having to explain to the police why he was breaking into his own property.
(…)
The neighbourhood where O’Toole grew up was rough, and three of his playmates were later hanged for murder. “I’m not from the working class,” O’Toole liked to say. “I’m from the criminal class.”
Although it was his mother, Connie, who instilled in O’Toole a strong sense of literature, by far the biggest influence in his young life was his father, Patrick, a bookie who was often drunk.
One day, Patrick stood his young son up on the mantelpiece and said: “Jump, boy. I’ll catch you. Trust me.”
When O’Toole jumped, his father withdrew his arms, leaving the boy splattered on the hard stone floor. The lesson, said his father, was “never trust any bastard”.
(…)
In 1959, O’Toole was cast as a Cockney sergeant in the play The Long And The Short And The Tall at the Royal Court Theatre.
His understudy was a young Michael Caine, and one Saturday night after the show O’Toole invited him to a restaurant he knew.
Eating a plate of egg and chips was the last thing Caine remembered, until he woke up in broad daylight in a strange flat.
“What time is it?” he inquired. “Never mind what time it is,” said O’Toole. “What f***ing day is it?”
It turned out that it was five o’clock in the afternoon two days later. Curtain-up was at eight.
Back at the theatre, the stage manager was waiting for them with the news that the restaurant owner had been in and banned them from his establishment for life.
Caine was about to ask what they’d done when O’Toole whispered: “Never ask what you did. It’s better not to know.”
Most evenings after the show, O’Toole would enjoy a long walk around Covent Garden. Sometimes if he was in the mood, he’d scale the wall of Lloyds bank.
The first time he took his future wife, the actress Sian Phillips, on one of these nocturnal jaunts, she was startled when he began his ascent of the north face of the building.
But after a few nights she came to accept that, by O’Toole’s standards anyway, it was quite normal.
(…)
At one after-show party O’Toole held court on stage sitting on a throne, sustained by two pedal bins on either side of him, one full of beer, the other containing hard liquor into which he would alternately scoop two pint mugs.
(…)
Lawrence Of Arabia occupied O’Toole for two years, filming in seven different countries.
By the end of it, he’d lost 2st, received third-degree burns, sprained both ankles, torn ligaments in both his hip and thigh, dislocated his spine, broken his thumb, sprained his neck and been concussed twice.
But his extraordinary performance made him a star. Lawrence Of Arabia was a world-wide smash when it opened in 1962 and was hailed as one of cinema’s true masterpieces.
“I woke up one morning to find I was famous,” he said. “I bought a white Rolls-Royce and drove down Sunset Boulevard, wearing dark specs and a white suit, waving like the Queen Mum.
“Nobody took any f***ing notice, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.”
(…)
The filming of the 1968 historical drama The Lion In Winter, in which O’Toole starred with Katharine Hepburn, was notable for a series of bizarre incidents.
Shooting a scene on a lake one day, O’Toole trapped his finger between two boats. “Bloody agony it was,” he said. “Took the top right off.”
O’Toole carried the tip of his finger back to shore, dipped it into a glass of brandy to sterilise it and then pushed it back on, wrapping it in a poultice.
Three weeks later he unwrapped it and there it was, all crooked and bent.
“I’d put it back the wrong way, probably because of the brandy, which I drank,” explained O’Toole.
Another time, he awoke at 4am to discover that his bed was on fire.
“At first I tried to put the thing out myself, but I couldn’t read the small print on the fire extinguisher,” he said.
“By the time the first fireman arrived, I was so glad to see him I kissed him.”
O’Toole didn’t have much luck with fires. During a cottage holiday in Wales with Sian, he had decided to cook, although she had never seen him do so before.
“I can make the best French toast,” he told her. Minutes later the stove exploded into flames.
They tried to extinguish the fire, but it was impossible, and they were driven out into the garden, where they watched in the rain as the kitchen burnt down.
Awesome. If even half this stuff is true, he’s a complete madman.
May 13th, 2008 at 11:37am
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Coolness,
Movies,
Weirdness
I’m John McCain, and I approve this message. And my mom does, too!
Wow. That was just stilted and awkward and bizarre. I particularly like how his mom refers to him as “this baby” while he’s sitting right next to her.
Adding to the weirdness even further, if you click over to the YouTube page, the keywords for the video are just inexplicable:
John McCain TV AD News mothers day america americans safety mom nice love cool new pink roberta mccain cindy rose
“Safety”???
May 8th, 2008 at 08:50pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Elections,
McCain,
Monday Media Blogging,
Politics,
Republicans,
Weirdness
As of Right Now, my blog has had 120,956 visits over both its incarnations… and 122,187 spam comments.
This is even more depressing when you consider that I’ve been blogging since February 2005, but I’ve only been able to track spam comments since last January.
May 5th, 2008 at 06:54pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Spamoptikon,
Weirdness
What could possibly go wrong? Hey, maybe they should clone some dinosaurs while they’re at it, to really lock in the excitement.
[Llewellyn] Werner, chairman of C3, a Los Angeles-based holding company for private equity firms, is pouring millions of dollars into developing the Baghdad Zoo and Entertainment Experience, a massive American-style amusement park that will feature a skateboard park, rides, a concert theatre and a museum. It is being designed by the firm that developed Disneyland. “The people need this kind of positive influence. It’s going to have a huge psychological impact,” Mr Werner said.
(…)
Mr Werner, who has been sold a 50-year lease on the site by the Mayor of Baghdad for an undisclosed sum, says that the time is ripe for the amusement park. “I think people will embrace it. They’ll see it as an opportunity for their children regardless if they’re Shia or Sunni. They’ll say their kids deserve a place to play and they’ll leave it alone.”
Riiiight. That’ll totally happen.
The project will cost $500 million (£250 million) and will be managed by Iraqis. Under the terms of the lease, Mr Werner will retain exclusive rights to housing and hotel developments, which he says will be both culturally sensitive and enormously profitable. “I wouldn’t be doing this if I wasn’t making money,” he said. “I also have this wonderful sense that we’re doing the right thing – we’re going to employ thousands of Iraqis. But mostly everything here is for profit.”
Wow, what a humanitarian. I’m all verklempt.
The park’s most popular attraction will be Not-Getting-Shot-At-Land, but I hear they’re having some trouble constructing it.
(h/t MoJo)
April 24th, 2008 at 09:42pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Iraq,
Wankers,
Weirdness
I mean, this wouldn’t scar a kid for life or anything, right?
When Deb Roy and his wife, Rupal Patel, learned of their impending bundle of joy, they did what many first-time parents do: They got a video camera. Actually, they bought 11 video cameras and 14 state-of-the-art microphones. Then they built a temperature-controlled data-storage room in their basement and loaded it with, among other gear, five Apple Xserves and a 4.4TB Xserve RAID, backup tape drives, and robotic tape changers. No, Roy and Patel hadn’t instantly become the world’s most doting parents; instead, they had hatched a plan to record practically every waking moment of their son’s first three years.
The high-powered academic couple—he directs of the Cognitive Machines Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab, and she directs the Communication Analysis and Design Laboratory at Northeastern University—scrambled to convert their suburban Boston home into a state-of-the-art research center that would host the most ambitious study ever conducted on how children acquire language. They named the linguistic data-mining odyssey the Human Speechome Project (HSP)…. In addition to their roles as primary investigators in the study, Roy and Patel are, along with their now two-year-old son, the central research subjects.
“My ultimate goal is to understand how language works,” Roy explains. That’s a tall order, and the logical place to start, he maintains, is with children. Decades of inquiry involving video and audio recordings of children interacting with caregivers and psychologists in institutional “speech labs” have laid a foundation to begin answering questions about how children develop language skills. The day-in/day-out interactions between children and adults, Roy points out, are key to the way children grasp language. “But for all of the interest in how children learn language, there’s no comprehensive data of even a single child’s development,” Roy says. “Most researchers rely on speech recordings that cover less than 1.5 percent of a child’s complete linguistic experience.”
And that simply isn’t a dense or broad enough data set to answer the kinds of deep questions that Roy thinks are necessary to uncover the steady process of language acquisition. Truly understanding how human beings acquire language requires “stepping into a child’s shoes.”
So, from the moment he arrived home from the hospital, Roy and Patel’s son has lived under the almost constant observation of the 14 microphones and 11 video cameras that are embedded in the ceiling over every major room of the house. “Somewhere around 80 percent of his waking hours at home are being recorded,” says Roy. For the other 20 percent, privacy considerations permit mom, dad and other caregivers to turn off the cameras or microphones using wall-mounted touch panels in each room. Roy also equipped each controller with an emergency “oops” switch, marked with a giant exclamation point, to erase any particularly embarrassing family moments.
(…)
…Twenty-two months into the project, Roy says the storage network holds approximately 250TB of data, and by the end of the project in another year he expects it to grow to a full capacity of 1.4 petabytes (million gigabytes). That’s enough room to hold digitized copies of every book in the Library of Congress–10 times over.
I’m sure this could end up contributing valuable information to the study of linguistics, but I have to ask how it affects their relationship with their kid when he realizes that he was a test subject for his whole childhood, that 80% of said childhood is on tape, and all without his informed consent. That kid is going to have ISSUES.
(h/t Engadget)
April 24th, 2008 at 07:40pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Science,
Weirdness
GAH!!!
Yes, it’s a Hello Kitty washing machine. Surely we are all doomed. Doomed!
(h/t Engadget)
April 23rd, 2008 at 07:05am
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Weirdness
NY Daily News breaks the story:
There’s one very unusual biography of Pope Benedict - a children’s book, supposedly written by his cat.
“Joseph and Chico: The Life of Pope Benedict XVI as Told by a Cat” is a 36-page illustrated book that chronicles the life of Benedict through the words of his cat, Chico.
“I’m meeting you in the pages of this book to tell you a story about my very best friend, a wonderful man with whom I’ve shared so many happy times,” Chico says.
“I want to tell you about where he comes from, how devoted he is to his studies and his work, what is he doing now.”
The book, of course, wasn’t actually written by a cat. It was penned by Italian journalist Jeanne Perego. It was illustrated by Donata Dal Molin Casagrande and features an introduction by the Rev. Georg Ganswein, the Pope’s personal secretary.
The book begins with the Holy Father’s birth in Bavaria, Germany, in 1927. Chico explains that Benedict and his family moved many times during his childhood. In a surprising passage, Chico describes how Joseph Ratzinger, the man who would become Pope Benedict, joined the seminary in 1939.
“At the beginning, Joseph was not enthusiastic at all about living in a community,” Chico says. “He could not concentrate on his studies and it felt as if he had lost his freedom.”
The book also touches on Benedict’s service in the German Army during World War II.
“During that period, Joseph was forced to do something that went absolutely against his will: join the army and go off to war,” Chico says.
The book’s message is “stay faithful and committed in life, without getting discouraged when difficulties arise.”
Chico no longer lives with the Pope because animals aren’t allowed at his house in the Vatican. [Um, he's the friggin' Pope. Can't he get an exemption?]
The cat now stays with a neighbor near Benedict’s former home in Bavaria.
I’m not sure what’s stranger: That Benedict has a cat, that his cat wrote a book, or that his cat is named Chico.
April 20th, 2008 at 03:23pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Media,
Religion,
Weirdness
Umm… NO.
Laptop interface for privacy, warmth, and concentration in public spaces
I can’t think of any potential downside, can you?
(h/t Mr. Gadget, by way of Engadget)
April 16th, 2008 at 07:06am
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Technology,
Weirdness
You know what commercials need more of? Creepy incest overtones!
First there was this…
I mean, okay, I know it’s not unusual for a mother to profess her love for her son, but I’m pretty sure “Baby you know, my love for you is real” is not the usual phrasing. (Parenthetically, I can’t stand this entire series of commercials, especially the Billy Idol one. It’s a cutesy, precious concept, made even worse by lazy, stupid writing.)
And now there’s this:
This is actually kind of funny, just as long as you don’t think too hard about the fact that the original song is about a guy who promises his girlfriend that he’ll love her forever so he can have sex with her in his car, to his eternal regret. Eww.
Tiffany is the mom in the video, as if it wasn’t weird enough already.
April 13th, 2008 at 08:50pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Weirdness
What the hell? I mean, What. The. Hell???
According to Buchanan, WWII was a bad war because Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev were all even worse than Hitler, and if there hadn’t been a war, there wouldn’t have been a Holocaust(!). Yes, I’m sure if we had left Hitler alone and let him have Poland and whatever other countries he wanted, he would have left everybody alone, including the Jews, and I’m sure all the countries he took over would have been much better off under the Nazis than the Soviets.
Also, Japan’s occupation of China was actually a good thing, because it prevented Mao’s disastrous rise to power. When we foolishly took down the Japanese empire, there was nothing to prevent Mao from taking over China.
It’s true that WWII probably teaches us some lessons about unintended consequences, and possibly opened some doors for amoral opportunists like Stalin and Mao, but to argue that it was actually a bad war, you have to essentially argue that the Nazis and the imperial Japanese (and the HOLOCAUST) were really not so bad, and certainly better than the alternative. You also have to argue that, left to their own devices, the Nazis would never have attacked France or Great Britain or the Soviet Union, and the Japanese would never have attacked the U.S.
IANAH (I am not a historian), but my sense is that while Japan might have left us alone if we promised them a free hand in the Pacific, there’s no way Germany was not going to try to take over all of Europe at the least. Indeed, by forcing the issue, the Allies forced Hitler to overextend and play defense rather than just picking off countries at his leisure - he was also denied the opportunity to fully deploy fighter jets, ballistic missiles, and possibly nukes, which would have been huge difference-makers. Without WWII, all of Africa, Europe, Asia, and probably Australia would be split between Japan and Nazi Germany, and the only Jews left on the planet would be in the Americas. I just don’t see how any of that would be a good thing.
If it were written by someone other than Buchanan, I would think the whole thing was a setup, to trick us liberals into giving conservatives ammunition for their why-Saddam-had-to-be-destroyed-immediately arguments. But crazy and racist and evil as he may be, Buchanan is as opposed to the Iraqupation as we are. I think he sees parallels to WWII, but to him they’re a reason to stay out.
(h/t dakine)
April 9th, 2008 at 08:04pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Racism,
Republicans,
Wankers,
War,
Weirdness
Oh. My. God:
We’ve got an advanced copy of Mark Leibovich’s piece on Chris Matthews, entitled “Chris Matthews, Seriously. (O.K., Not That Seriously),” which will appear in this Sunday’s NYT magazine.
- “Did you get a load of Lou Rawls’s wife?” Matthews said as he left the spin room. Apparently the Rev. Jesse Jackson was introducing the widow of the R&B singer at the media center. “She was an absolute knockout,” Matthews declared. It’s a common Matthews designation. The actress Kerry Washington was also a “total knockout,” according to Matthews, who by 1 a.m. had repaired to the bar of the Cleveland Ritz-Carlton. He was sipping a Diet Coke and holding court for a cluster of network and political types, as well as for a procession of random glad-handers that included, wouldn’t you know it, Kerry Washington herself. Washington played Ray Charles’s wife in the movie “Ray” and Kay Amin in the “Last King of Scotland.” She is a big Obama supporter and was in town for the debate; more to the point, she said she likes “Hard-ball.” Matthews grabbed her hand, and Phil Griffin, the head of MSNBC who was seated across the table, vowed to get her on the show.
“I know why he wants you on,” Matthews said to Washington while looking at Griffin. At which point Matthews did something he rarely does. He paused. He seemed actually to be considering what he was about to say. He might even have been editing himself, which is anything but a natural act for him. He was grimacing. I imagined a little superego hamster racing against a speeding treadmill inside Matthews’s skull, until the superego hamster was overrun and the pause ended.
“He wants you on because you’re beautiful,” Matthews said. “And because you’re black.” He handed Washington a business card and told her to call anytime “if you ever want to hang out with Chris Matthews.”
- “People are a little impressed with themselves,” Griffin went on to say, continuing his commentary about the scene. “It’s a bit of an echo chamber.” Matthews is central to that echo chamber — at the Ritz, as in the 2008 presidential campaign. He is, in a sense, the carnival barker at the center of it, spewing tiny pellets of chewed nuts across the table while comparing Obama to Mozart and Clinton to Salieri. At one point, Matthews suddenly became hypnotized by a TV over the bar set to a rebroadcast of “Hardball.” “Hey, there I am — it’s me,” he said, staring at himself on the screen. “It’s me.”
- “I like the fact that people don’t think of me as famous, but that they know me,” Matthews said. “They come up to me and say, ‘Chris, what do you think?’ There’s no aura. It’s a different kind of celebrity. People assume they have a right to talk to me. They want to know my take.”
Those first two bullets in particular. I mean, wow. How do you even snark on that? The pathology is just… laying there, right out in the open and everything.
(h/t emptywheel)
April 9th, 2008 at 07:20am
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Media,
TV,
Wankers,
Weirdness
NYT surveys the current state of Anasazi research:
Some 700 years ago, as part of a vast migration, a people called the Anasazi, driven by God knows what, wandered from the north to form settlements like these, stamping the land with their own unique style.
(…)
These Anasazi newcomers — archaeologists have traced them to the mesas and canyons around Kayenta, Ariz., not far from the Hopi reservation — were distinctive in other ways. They liked to build with stone (the Hohokam used sticks and mud), and their kivas, like those they left in their homeland, are unmistakable: rectangular instead of round, with a stone bench along the inside perimeter, a central hearth and a sipapu, or spirit hole, symbolizing the passage through which the first people emerged from mother earth.
“You could move this up to Hopi and not tell the difference,” said John A. Ware, the archaeologist leading the field trip, as he examined a Davis Ranch kiva. Finding it down here is a little like stumbling across a pagoda on the African veldt.
For five days in late February, Dr. Ware, the director of the Amerind Foundation, an archaeological research center in Dragoon, Ariz., was host to 15 colleagues as they confronted the most vexing and persistent question in Southwestern archaeology: Why, in the late 13th century, did thousands of Anasazi abandon Kayenta, Mesa Verde and the other magnificent settlements of the Colorado Plateau and move south into Arizona and New Mexico?
(…)
“Climate probably explains a lot,” Dr. Allison said. “But there are places where people could have stayed and farmed and chose not to.”
Some inhabitants left the relatively lush climes of what is now southern Colorado for the bone dry Hopi mesas. “Climate makes the most sense for this big pattern change,” Dr. Lipe said. “But then you think, So they went to Hopi to escape this?”
(…)
Soon after the abandonment, the drought lifted. “The tree-ring reconstructions show that at 1300 to 1340 it was exceedingly wet,” said Larry Benson, a paleoclimatologist with the Arid Regions Climate Project of the United States Geological Survey. “If they’d just hung in there . . .”
Though the rains returned, the people never did.
“Why didn’t they come back?” said Catherine M. Cameron, an archaeologist at the University of Colorado. “Why didn’t anyone come back to the northern San Juan? It was a fine place, and apparently by 1300 it was very fine.”
(…)
Ultimately the motivation for the abandonments may lie beyond fossils and artifacts, in the realm of ideology. Imagine trying to explain the 19th-century Mormon migration to Utah with only tree rings and pollen counts.
By studying changes in ceremonial architecture and pottery styles, Donna Glowacki, an archaeologist at the University of Notre Dame, is charting the rise of what may have been a new puebloan religion. For more than a century, the established faith was distinguished by multistory “great houses,” with small interior kivas, and by much larger “great kivas” — round, mostly subterranean and covered with a sturdy roof. Originating at Chaco Canyon in northwest New Mexico, the formidable temples seem designed to limit access to all but a priestly few.
Though Chaco declined as a regional religious center during the early 1100s, the same architecture spread to the Mesa Verde area. But by the mid 1200s, a different style was also taking hold, with plazas and kivas that were uncovered like amphitheaters — hints, perhaps, of a new openness. At some sites, serving bowls became larger and were frequently decorated with designs, as though intended for a ritual communion. If the pueblo people had left a written history perhaps we would read of the Anasazi equivalent of the Protestant reformation.
But the analogy can’t be pushed too far. The new architecture also included multiwalled edifices — some round, some D-shaped — that might have been chambers for secret rituals.
Though the dogma may be irrecoverable, Dr. Glowacki argues that it rapidly attracted adherents. A center of the movement, she said, was the McElmo Canyon area, west of Mesa Verde. Excavations indicate that the population burgeoned along with the new architecture. An influx of different pottery designs suggests immigrants from the west were moving in. Then around 1260, long before the drought, the residents began leaving the pueblo, perhaps spreading the new ideology.
Other archaeologists see evidence of an evangelical-like religion — the forerunner, perhaps, of the masked Kachina rituals, which still survive on the Hopi and Zuni reservations — appearing in the south and attracting the rebellious northerners. Salado polychrome pottery may have been emblematic of another, possibly overlapping cult.
In an effort to draw together the skein of causes and effects, Dr. Kohler and members of the Village Ecodynamics Project are collaborating with archaeologists at Crow Canyon on a computer simulation of population changes in southwest Colorado from 600 to around 1300. Juxtaposing data on rainfall, temperature, soil productivity, human metabolic needs and diet, gleaned from an analysis of trash heaps and human waste, the model suggests a sobering conclusion: As Anasazi society became more complex, it also became more fragile.
Corn was domesticated and then wild turkeys, an important protein source. With more to eat, the populations grew and aggregated into villages. Religious and political institutions sprung up.
When crops began dying and violence increased, the inhabitants clustered even closer. By the time the drought of 1275 hit, the Anasazi had become far more dependent on agriculture than during earlier droughts. And they had become more dependent on each other.
Fascinating. Although it still doesn’t explain why they didn’t move back when the drought ended.
April 8th, 2008 at 07:31am
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Coolness,
Science,
Weirdness
Okay, so I went to the MyHeritage face recognition page to see which celebrity I look like. In the past, I have been compared to Jan-Michael Vincent, the creepy burnt-hand Nazi in Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Leonard Nimoy, ET, and both Blues Brothers.
So I really didn’t know what to expect when I submitted this picture for comparison…
…But it sure as hell wasn’t Clive Owen.
Must be the glasses. Yeah, that’s it.
Oh, and the second-closest match was… Wesley Snipes. Go figure.
April 6th, 2008 at 03:56pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Coolness,
Movies,
Weirdness
Would you like that? Would you like to jog with Batman?
Holy weight loss, Batman! The Caped Crusader has picked the rural roads of Ellington for his effort to get in shape.
There have been multiple sightings of the man in the costume jogging through town for some time now.
Batman, as always, is keeping his true identity under wraps. But this version says he’s a 41-year-old consumer advocate helping homeowners facing foreclosure.
He says the jogging started as a bet with his three sons: If they bought him a Batman suit, he would start running in it.
He tells the Journal Inquirer of Manchester that he’s lost 56 pounds so far. The first people who saw him stopped their car and took pictures.
Batman says he’s keeping the town’s residents and cows safe.
I can’t decide whether this is totally awesome or kind of sad…
April 5th, 2008 at 11:33pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Monday Media Blogging,
Weirdness
That Kenny Wright was chased by the police?
Cleveland Browns defensive back Kenny Wright was released from jail after posting $5,000 bail following a foot chase and arrest for a disturbance outside a police station.
Wright was charged with unlawful restraint, evading arrest and possessing marijuana. Police said they found marijuana in his vehicle.
Police said they were investigating an argument in the station parking lot Thursday when the 30-year-old football player took off and led officers on a quarter-mile foot chase. He was caught in a nearby subdivision of the Houston suburb.
…Or that he was caught?
I mean, if he can’t outrun the cops, how’s he going to keep up with Chad Johnson?
April 5th, 2008 at 05:04pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Sports,
Weirdness
Well, I just plugged my name into Googlism to see what it’s associated with, and here are some of the results…
eli is preempting child abduction
eli is a rebel
eli is a mighty mongrel dog
eli is in need of a loving home in va
eli is consider livestock
eli is facilitating the work of the latvian lighting norms committee
eli is more than he appears
eli is the magister of tan
eli is a highly agile black and tan youngster whelped march 2
eli is not doing a good job of telling time
eli is one of the most formal and effective foreign language schools in america
eli is right on the issues
eli is the right person at the right time to lead wyoming into the future
eli is designed primarily for those who have not yet served in a presidency
eli is a large system providing almost all the capabilities needed to generate a compiler
eli is great eli is great eli is great eli is great eli is great eli is great eli is great eli is great eli is great eli is great eli is great eli is great eli
eli is a trusted partner of government
eli is on his never
eli is a member of the veiled alliance
eli is beautiful
eli is well known for its high caliber of language instruction
eli is a good man
eli is health
eli is on the ballot as proposition 1
eli is a tool set
eli is stuck doing milk runs on minor ships
eli is an intensive five
eli is slim at polls; hurst voters say pigs are not pets by ellena fortner
eli is getting high nineties in his tests
eli is a pure warrior and accustomed to close melee combat
eli is a web
eli is now 14 months and cruises the furniture
eli is the most beautiful dalmatian in the world
eli is for sale
eli is 45 inches at the withers and 390 lbs
eli is running from the amish tradition he’s never felt fully a part of
eli is a fully integrated environment for the automatic generation of processors of structured text
eli is not shy about the opportunity
eli is usually determined by the value of a single stock
eli is forced to confront reality and ask tough questions about what sort of person he really is
eli is handed a letter telling him that his tutoring position has been cancelled
eli is our own private tech support guru
eli is the top tibetan terrier in canada for 2001
eli is on the same page
eli is that it teaches someone how to be a leader
I am a very busy and complex guy, apparently.
April 5th, 2008 at 02:12pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Coolness,
Weirdness
Eric Striffler / NYT
Even if it didn’t extend my lifespan, I would still totally want to live here:
THE house is off-limits to children, and adults are asked to sign a waiver when they enter. The main concern is the concrete floor, which rises and falls like the surface of a vast, bumpy chocolate chip cookie.
But, for Arakawa, 71, an artist who designed the house with his wife, Madeline Gins, the floor is a delight, as well as a proving ground.
As he scampered across it with youthful enthusiasm on a Friday evening in March, he compared himself to the first man to walk on the moon. “If Neil Armstrong were here, he would say, ‘This is even better!’ ”
Then Ms. Gins, 66, began holding forth about the health benefits of the house, officially called Bioscleave House (Lifespan Extending Villa). Its architecture makes people use their bodies in unexpected ways to maintain equilibrium, and that, she said, will stimulate their immune systems.
“They ought to build hospitals like this,” she said.
(…)
In 45 years of working together as artists, poets and architects, they have developed an arcane philosophy of life and art, a theory they call reversible destiny. Essentially, they have made it their mission — in treatises, paintings, books and now built projects like this one — to outlaw aging and its consequences.
“It’s immoral that people have to die,” Ms. Gins explained.
The house on Long Island, which cost more than $2 million to build, is their first completed architectural work in the United States — and, as they see it, a turning point in their campaign to defeat mortality.
(…)
In addition to the floor, which threatens to send the un-sure-footed hurtling into the sunken kitchen at the center of the house, the design features walls painted, somewhat disorientingly, in about 40 colors; multiple levels meant to induce the sensation of being in two spaces at once; windows at varying heights; oddly angled light switches and outlets; and an open flow of traffic, unhindered by interior doors or their adjunct, privacy.
All of it is meant to keep the occupants on guard. Comfort, the thinking goes, is a precursor to death; the house is meant to lead its users into a perpetually “tentative” relationship with their surroundings, and thereby keep them young.
(…)
For Arakawa, reversible destiny is about more than just a state of mind. By way of example, he described the experience of elderly residents of a building in Mitaka, Japan, that the couple recently designed. Having to navigate a treacherous environment — in some cases by moving “like a snake” across the floor — has, in fact, boosted their immune systems, he claimed. “Three, four months later, they say, ‘You’re so right, I’m so healthy now!’ ”
Like many of Arakawa and Gins’s assertions, it’s hard to know just how seriously this one is meant to be taken. Even those closest to the couple disagree about what they really believe.
(…)
One of their first built architectural projects, a park in central Japan called “Site of Reversible Destiny,” was completed in 1995. Made up of acres of warped surfaces, it offers visitors advice, in a handout leaflet, like “Instead of being fearful of losing your balance, look forward to it.” (Several people who are said to have broken bones there might wish the name of the park were literally true.)
(…)
The finished house consists of four rectangular rooms surrounding a free-form living space. The walls are made of various materials including metal and translucent polycarbonate, which admits a gentle light; the floor is made in a traditional Japanese style, using hardened soil, here mixed with a little cement. For those who aren’t especially sure-footed, there are a dozen brightly colored metal poles to grab on to.
The absence of internal doors creates a dramatic flow — and seemingly insoluble privacy problems. “You make your own privacy,” Ms. Gins said, cryptically. In fact, there are hooks in the ceiling, and someday the house could be festooned with curtains or other dividers.
I had to leave out lots of good stuff, like their philosopher friend who wrote a paper about what his cat might think of Bioscleave House, so be sure to read the whole thing, and check out the slideshow.
April 4th, 2008 at 06:00pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Coolness,
Weirdness
Oh dear:
So I threw open the hotel room curtain this morning and turned on my laptop, only to discover about 50 tiny bugs crawling like crazy out of my keyboard and making a dash for darker quarters.
Most people would be grossed out by this, but I immediately saw the commercial possibilities in this invasion. Many of these little crawling thingies were actually carrying out food crumbs that had fallen into my keyboard over the past couple of years. One of them was toting a little popcorn kernel that probably came from the press tent at the Super Bowl.
I figure if they can sell live bait in vending machines here, I can set up a lucrative business with these cleaning bugs. They’re like tiny elves who work for you overnight, and they don’t even demand your first born child (that’s a fairy-tale reference - first one to identify it wins a bug). I just need the right ad slogan, something like: “Stop de-bugging your computer and start bugging it!”
I, uh, think I’ll just use one of those little mini-vacuum thingies. I wonder if Dyson makes any. Or the Roomba people.
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:05pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Weirdness
This is some seriously strange and fascinating stuff about the shadowy world of secret government agency decorative patches. Be sure to check out the slideshow.
I may need to get this book, for serious.
April 1st, 2008 at 07:21am
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Books,
Coolness,
War,
Weirdness
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