Something has been bothering me.
I have my facts about religious holidays straight: Christmas is about Santa and a tree; Halloween is ghouls, death, and candy; Independence Day is about how God loves America best; and Easter, perhaps the most holy of them, is the season of the Reese’s Peanut Butter Egg.
This year, with this commercial, the good people at Hershey have inspired me to plumb the depths of origin of that most sacred of symbols, their hallowed peanut butter egg.
Unstoppable Force, Immovable Object
Mack Truck vs. Concrete Barrier.
From the video’s comments (I’m not sure why):
Why does everyone here hate Chuck Norris all of the sudden?
I think Mary will like this video.
quote out of context
If you get killed by a rock and you were carrying a gun, but didn’t shoot, you don’t get into heaven.
Advice to the lovelorn?
“She had never been made love to after this fashion before. She knew, or half knew, that the man was a scheming hypocrite, craving her money, and following her in the hour of her troubles, because he might then have the best chance of success. She had no belief whatever in his love. And yet she liked it, and approved his proceedings. She liked lies, thinking them to be more beautiful than truth. To lie readily and cleverly, recklessly and yet successfully, was, according to the lessons which she had learned, a necessity in woman, and an added grace in man.”
Anthony Trollope, The Eustace Diamonds (Oxford, 1973; vol. ii, p. 367)
Swiss Chard
If I were a real photographer like Deron or Phil or Barry–I would take many pictures of Swiss Chard growing tall and back-lit by afternoon sun. I saw this batch at a local nursery and went home to get my point-and-shoot camera. That red! That green! The glow coming through made me imagine other worlds, and the way the sun looks from behind closed eyelids.
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The Cutest Little Dictator Around
“We all have evil within us. Even small children are evil towards each other,” Danish-Norwegian artist Nina Maria Kleivan tells Haaretz as she explains why she chose to dress up her baby daughter as the most evil historical figures of the 20th century.
Dear Clusterflock
I appreciate you guys.
the latest on the cloak of invisibility
Researchers have been able to construct a device that hid a tiny bump on a piece of gold.
The cloak is a structure of crystals with air spaces in between, sort of like a woodpile, that bends light, hiding the bump in the gold later beneath, the researchers reported in Thursday’s online edition of the journal Science.
In this case, the bump was tiny, a mere 0.00004 inch high and 0.0005 inch across, so that a magnifying lens was needed to see it.
“In principle, the cloak design is completely scalable; there is no limit to it,” Ergin said. But, he added, developing a cloak to hide something takes a long time, “so cloaking larger items with that technology is not really feasible.”
“Other fabrication techniques, though, might lead to larger cloaks,” he added in an interview via e-mail.
searching for the house of Ruben Bustes
Daryl, Sheila and I saw something today we think is the setting for a story. Driving through an old Oak Cliff neighborhood, looking for the house of Ruben Bustes (that’s a story in itself), we came across a one story ranch on a corner lot. The back was fenced with low chain link fortified inside with cactus. Inside the yard was another fence, also fortified with cactus, that housed a small dog house. I think that’s all we’ve got. Please tell us what it means.
supersized quantum mechanics
The day I see ”double-decker buses simultaneously stopping and going” is the day I remove my cat from its hermetically sealed box:
Cleland and his team took a more direct measure of quantum weirdness at the large scale. They began with a a tiny mechanical paddle, or ‘quantum drum’, around 30 micrometres long that vibrates when set in motion at a particular range of frequencies. Next they connected the paddle to a superconducting electrical circuit that obeyed the laws of quantum mechanics. They then cooled the system down to temperatures below one-tenth of a kelvin.
At this temperature, the paddle slipped into its quantum mechanical ground state. Using the quantum circuit, Cleland and his team verified that the paddle had no vibrational energy whatsoever. They then used the circuit to give the paddle a push and saw it wiggle at a very specific energy.
(via kottke)
Dogs as Typefaces
I feel like the combination of these two things constitute a perfect storm for Deron and Amy.
The Smurfette Principle
via Drew
a play in infinite acts
The Daily Caller: Yesterday you said the self-executing rule was unconstitutional. Is that correct?
Mike Pence: Well I think it’s probably unconstitutional. I know that there are leading legal scholars who believe it is unconstitutional. My background in law and constitutional issues suggests to me it’s unconstitutional.
The DC: My question is, though, that Democrats say you voted for self-executing rules yourself on three occasions.
MP: Yeah, sure.
Home Taping is Killing Music
Harry Potter and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Warner Brothers is counting on adaptations of L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz series to fill the void left when the Harry Potter series ends.
L. Frank Baum’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” — the book that “The Wizard of Oz” is based on — is just the first story in a series that spans 14 books. All fourteen books are now part of public domain. The original film, however, is not in public domain. In other words: Any reproduction of an element that was solely a part of the film’s story and not the book will have rights fees still associated.
the Brink’s pill heist
Thieves in Connecticut cut a hole in a warehouse roof, rappelled inside, and made off with $75million in — antidepressants.
“This is like the Brink’s pill heist,” said Erik Gordon, a University of Michigan business professor who studies the health care industry. “This one will enter the folklore.”
temporary marriages in Islam
“Temporary marriages must be bravely promoted,” the interior minister said at a clerical conference in Qom in 2007. “Islam is in no way indifferent to the needs of a 15-year-old youth in whom God has placed the sex drive.”
(via marginal revolution)
from the comments
Augustine House and Lowell Roman, tomb plunderers, were found dead today, apparently having succumbed to the effects of Aspergillus flavus. Both were discovered in an unheated apartment, where they had apparently wrapped themselves in ornate textiles removed from graves.
Y’all were missed.
I had a fantastic time in San Francisco with Amanda Mae, Kelsey, and India. We broke bread and ate goat.
In Ike’s Wake. US 87, Port Bolivar, TX 77650
Ireland, a couple of weeks ago
I can report that it’s still here. I took a lot of photos of Connemara earlier this month, which are up on Flickr. I’m still building the set.
dear clusterflock
Spike Lee.
On the inadvisability of getting a haircut in a NJ seafood restaurant
So, I should start by saying that I am not making this up. Any of it. I will not name names on this one for fear of retaliation–I plan to return to this place after a respectable period of time, and being in New Jersey… well, one just never knows.
The story is this: on Monday night I went to a restaurant in a small town in New Jersey, primarily because it had the appearance of local character. The restaurant did not disappoint. One of the owners–the wife–waited on my table while her husband held court at the bar, shaking hands and giving Swedish fish to the handful of children there. The food was quite good, the atmosphere friendly, and the local character abundant. For those seeking that kind of thing, I will provide details if you are ever in the greater Parsippany area.
Truth In Advertising
Got to love Hulu‘s choice of tags for the “Seaver-Fever” segment on NBC’s Today Show.
let he who is without sin cast the first one-eyed wonder worm
Members of the Atheist Agenda, a student organization at the University of Texas at San Antonio, are encouraging students to trade in religious texts for pornography this week with their “Smut for Smut” campaign.
A few weeks ago actually.
