it's back...!

tell yer friends, yer cat, yer cousins yer best mate and all yer family... TEOTI is BACK....!!!

http://www.teoti.us/

pass it on.....!!! ;)

Is Iran an Arab Country?

Several readers objected to Slate's characterization of Iran as an "Arab neighbor" in a dossier on the Saudi royal family. Who are the Arabs, and is Iran an Arab country?

The answer to the second question is easy: No. But explaining why Iran isn't an Arab country requires the answer to the first.

HERE

The Gravity Express

About four hundred years ago– sometime in the latter half of the 17th century– Isaac Newton received a letter from the brilliant British scientist and inventor Robert Hooke. In this letter, Hooke outlined the mathematics governing how objects might fall if dropped through hypothetical tunnels drilled through the Earth at varying angles. Though it seems that Hooke was mostly interested in the physics of the thought experiment, an improbable yet intriguing idea fell out of the data: a dizzyingly fast transportation system.

Hooke's calculations showed that if the technology could be developed to bore such holes through the Earth, a vehicle with sufficiently reduced friction could use such a tunnel to travel to another point anywhere on the on Earth within three quarters of an hour, regardless of distance. Even more amazingly, the vehicle would require negligible fuel. The concept is known as the Gravity Train, and though it seems inconceivably difficult to construct, it has received some serious scientific attention and research in the intervening centuries.

The basic concept behind the gravity train is straightforward: At each end of the tunnel, an observer looking into the hole would see a downhill slope. If a train at one end of the tunnel were to release its brakes, the force of gravity would immediately pull the train downhill and cause the train to accelerate much like a roller coaster. Steeper slopes would result in more speed, with the highest acceleration occurring in the straight-down tunnels which cross the Earth's center. The train would continue to accelerate until reaching the halfway point, at which time its inertia would be at odds with gravity and it would begin to decelerate. As Hooke's data indicates, if the train operated in a frictionless environment it would reach the surface on the opposite end of the tunnel at the exact moment that its speed reached zero. Naturally, a gravity train operating in a real-world environment would need to bring along enough horsepower to make up the friction loss.

source/cont: http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=696

Porsche 911GT3 RS Race View

Cool multimedia thing that lets you follow a Porsche 911GT3 RS on a race track, you can even choose the point of view.
source: http://www.porsche.com/all/911gt3rs/flash/default.aspx?language=de&market=PD&pool=germany&browser=other&instance=206&variant=

Most Popular Myths In Science

#1 Chickens can live without a head:
"True, and not just for a few minutes. A chicken can stagger around without its noggin because the brain stem, often left partially intact after a beheading, controls most of its reflexes. One robust fellow lived a full eighteen months. Likely he was a real birdbrain, however."
source/cont: http://www.livescience.com/bestimg/result.php?back=myths_gumballs_03.jpg&cat=myths

Important notice/INFORMATION...

I'm (fingers crossed) glad to say that I am finally going to have some v-important information for everyone at the above date and time..

Be here if you wanna know what it is... ;)

How to hide files in JPEG's

"Here is a tutorial on how to hide files in Jpg's. Please note it isn't the most secure method, because the information is stored in plain text but it's still cool to play with. A simple solution to make this more secure, is to use encryption on the RAR file when your create it, but thats not the point of this tutorial :) The idea is to show how files can be 'slammed' together, to stop the average PC user from finding them."

source: http://www.thetechtray.net/videos/rar/

TV Links..

awesome site.. now you can watch lots of TV at work... ;)

source: http://tvlinks.50webs.com/

In Saturn's Shadow

In Saturn's Shadow:
With giant Saturn hanging in the blackness and sheltering Cassini from the sun's blinding glare, the spacecraft viewed the rings as never before, revealing previously unknown faint rings and even glimpsing its home world.
This marvelous panoramic view was created by combining a total of 165 images taken by the Cassini wide-angle camera over nearly three hours on Sept. 15, 2006. The full mosaic consists of three rows of nine wide-angle camera footprints; only a portion of the full mosaic is shown here. Color in the view was created by digitally compositing ultraviolet, infrared and clear filter images and was then adjusted to resemble natural color.

The mosaic images were acquired as the spacecraft drifted in the darkness of Saturn's shadow for about 12 hours, allowing a multitude of unique observations of the microscopic particles that compose Saturn's faint rings.
Ring structures containing these tiny particles brighten substantially at high phase angles: i.e., viewing angles where the sun is almost directly behind the objects being imaged.

During this period of observation Cassini detected two new faint rings: one coincident with the shared orbit of the moons Janus and Epimetheus, and another coincident with Pallene's orbit. (See The Janus/Epimetheus Ring and Moon-Made Rings for more on the two new rings.)

The narrowly confined G ring is easily seen here, outside the bright main rings. Encircling the entire system is the much more extended E ring. The icy plumes of Enceladus, whose eruptions supply the E ring particles, betray the moon's position in the E ring's left-side edge.

Interior to the G ring and above the brighter main rings is the pale dot of Earth. Cassini views its point of origin from over a billion kilometers (and close to a billion miles) away in the icy depths of the outer solar system. See Pale Blue Orb for a similar view of Earth taken during this observation.

Small grains are pushed about by sunlight and electromagnetic forces. Hence their distribution tells much about the local space environment.

A second version of the mosaic view is presented here in which the color contrast is greatly exaggerated. In such views, imaging scientists have noticed color variations across the diffuse rings that imply active processes sort the particles in the ring according to their sizes.

Looking at the E ring in this color-exaggerated view, the distribution of color across and along the ring appears to be different between the right side and the left. Scientists are not sure yet how to explain these differences, though the difference in phase angle between right and left may be part of the explanation. The phase angle is about 179 degrees on Saturn.

The main rings are overexposed in a few places.

This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 15 degrees above the ringplane. Cassini was approximately 2.2 million kilometers (1.3 million miles) from Saturn when the images in this mosaic were taken. Image scale on Saturn is about 260 kilometers (162 miles) per pixel.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov

The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

source: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/image-details.cfm?imageID=2315

The Ms. Dewey Search Engine...

Try a search engine with a difference... ;)
source: http://www.msdewey.com/

ROCK BANDS & Name Origins

ROCK BANDS & Name Origins:
Bands often have unusual names and here are the origins of some popular bands both past and present. One thing that you will discover if you look into this area is that RUMORS abound! If we cannot confirm an origin, we have given alternatives found in other sources. Some entries contain links to useful band information.

source: http://library.thinkquest.org/4626/rock.htm

How2 : Make Spooky Glowing Water

How2 - introSpooky Glowing Water....
Looking for a new way to spook your trick or treaters? Maybe you have a haunted house that needs some added effects. Whatever your reason is, this is one way to creep people out.I did this by accident when I was younger. I was playing with my blacklight and some highlighters (writing out secret messages and what not) and the marker I was using was starting to dry up. I usually just wet my fingers and use them to wet the tip, but someone had left a small glass of water on the table so I instead dipped it into there (kind of reminds you of a feather and inkwell). After a while the marker would start to go dry again, so dipped it again....and again. I decided to let the marker soak up some of the water in hopes that it would last a little longer so I placed it in the glass and switched over to another colored marker. After about 5 or so minutes, I looked up and saw the water "glowing" a little. I placed my light closer and it started to really glow. That's when I discovered that highlighters make really cool effects when used in water.

Here's what you'll need:

source/cont: http://www.instructables.com/id/EU4KXH7QP3ES9J6OQQ/?ALLSTEPS

Collection of Tongue Twisters

"I wish to wish the wish you wish to wish, but if you wish the wish the witch wishes,

I won't wish the wish you wish to wish."

1st International Collection of Tongue Twisters...
Welcome to the world'slargest collection of tongue twisters!

Tongue-twister:
"A sequence of words, often alliterative, difficult to articulate quickly." (Oxford English Dictionary)
Shibboleth:
"A word or phrase used as a test for detecting foreigners, or persons from another district, by their pronunciation." (OED)
Battologism:
A phrase or sentence built by (tiresome) repetition of the same words or sounds.

source: http://www.uebersetzung.at/twister/index.htm

The HUBBLE Sweeps

The Hubble SWEEPS: Explanation: This crowded star field towards the center of our Milky Way Galaxy turns out to be a great place to search for planets beyond our solar system. In fact, repeatedly imaging about 180,000 stars in the field over a one week period, the Hubble Space Telescope enabled astronomers to conduct the Sagittarius Window Eclipsing Extrasolar Planet Search (SWEEPS). Their search looked for brief, periodic dips in brightness caused as a large planet eclipses or transits its parent star. Since chances of seeing such an eclipse are slim, it was a definite advantage to examine as many stars as possible. In the end, SWEEPS astronomers found 16 candidate stars (green circles identify 11 in this cropped picture) that are likely closely orbited by large Jupiter-sized planets with periods of a few days or less. Large planets orbiting so close to their stars are termed hot Jupiters. Kepler, a future NASA mission, is intended to extend the transit technique to search for Earth-sized planets.

Source: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap061013.html

Google = Napster (for free)

Google is good for so many things, among which is searching for all sorts of files, including MP3's. Here's a quick primer:

* -inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:"index of" +"last modified" +"parent directory" +description +size +(wma|mp3) "Nirvana"

Just substitute the term "Nirvana" for any band or singer you might be looking for, and your search will lead you to open indexes that contain downloadable music files.

Boiled Eggs

She is in the kitchen preparing to boil eggs for breakfast.

He walks in. She turns and says, "You've got to make love to me this very moment."

His eyes light up and he thinks, "This is my lucky day."

Not wanting to lose the moment, he embraces her and then gives it his all on the kitchen table.

Afterwards she says, "Thanks," and returns to the stove.

More than a little puzzled, he asks, "What was that all about?"

She explains, "The egg timer's broken."

Sin City Comic-to-Screen Comparisons

Looks like they were uncannily accurate when they translated Sin City from comic book to the big screen.

HERE

Odd Art...

Just when I thought I had seen everything.....

Notice anything strange about the things in these pics ?

No ?

Well, they are made from an everyday object....but NOT one that immediately springs to mind !

Check it out here...

Troops battle 10-foot marijuana plants

Fri Oct 13, 8:48 AM

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian troops fighting Taliban militants in Afghanistan have stumbled across an unexpected and potent enemy -- almost impenetrable forests of 10-feet-high marijuana plants.

General Rick Hillier, chief of the Canadian defense staff, said on Thursday that Taliban fighters were using the forests as cover. In response, the crew of at least one armored car had camouflaged their vehicle with marijuana.

"The challenge is that marijuana plants absorb energy, heat very readily. It's very difficult to penetrate with thermal devices ... and as a result you really have to be careful that the Taliban don't dodge in and out of those marijuana forests," he said in a speech in Ottawa.

"We tried burning them with white phosphorous -- it didn't work. We tried burning them with diesel -- it didn't work. The plants are so full of water right now ... that we simply couldn't burn them," he said.

Even successful incineration had its drawbacks.

"A couple of brown plants on the edges of some of those (forests) did catch on fire. But a section of soldiers that was downwind from that had some ill effects and decided that was probably not the right course of action," Hillier said dryly.

One soldier told him later: "Sir, three years ago before I joined the army, I never thought I'd say 'That damn marijuana'."

Source

cyriak's animation mix

Another one

Two old ladies are having a smoke outside their nursing home when it starts to rain.

Lady 2 pulls out a condom, cuts off the end and puts it over her cigarette.

Lady 1 : "What's that?"

Lady 2: "A condom"

Lady 1 : "What's it for?"

Lady 2 : "Keeps my cigarette dry."

Lady 1 : "Where'd you get it?"

Lady 2 : "At the drug store."

The next day Lady 1 hobbles herself to the drugstore and announces to the pharmacist she wants a package of condoms. He looks at her kind of strangely (she is in her 80s, after all), but politely asks her what brand she wants.

"Doesn't matter," she says, "as long as it fits a Camel

Joke!

Q: Why do midgets laugh while playing soccer?

A: Because the grass tickles their balls

Poodle Exercise with Humans

Really weird poodle exercise video for humans

HERE

If this is real I'll ... I'll... weep for the sake of humanity

SEAL Falls on Grenade to Save Comrades

CORONADO, Calif. (AP) - A Navy SEAL sacrificed his life to save his comrades by throwing himself on top of a grenade Iraqi insurgents tossed into their sniper hideout, fellow members of the elite force said.

HERE

What Is Telstar Logistics?

The short answer is that it's a scam for parking illegally in loading zones. The nerdy answer is that it's an ongoing experiment in corporate phenomenology, urban camouflage, and identity development. The tale unfolds something like this:

In the late 1980s, I lived in Providence, Rhode Island, where I drove a 1974 Dodge Tradesman 200 van. One day, I had an epiphany -- if I disguised the van to look like a work vehicle, I'd be able to park in yellow-curb zones without getting parking tickets. After a trip to an art-supply store to buy some vinyl lettering, an ambiguous company name was created, the letters were applied to the sides of the van, and indeed, no tickets were received.

The fake company took on a life of its own. In 1987, I bought a new SUV, which was duly accessorized to look like a fleet vehicle, with yellow stripes on the tailgate, a cryptic vehicle number on the sides, and a police-style spotlight.

This vehicle served me well throughout the 1990s, and I'm pretty confident that the commercial camouflage did much to help deter theft and vandalism while parked on the gritty streets of San Francisco's Mission District.

Gradually, Telstar Logstics evolved. In 1999, I appropriated a logo from a defunct 1950s-era nuclear energy mutual fund, and applied that to the sides of yet another new vehicle.

I ordered hundreds of smaller Telstar Logistics stickers, and bought some custom-embroidered Telstar Logistics t-shirts for myself and a few friends. I started to give away Telstar Logistics pens as holiday gifts.

So, in other words, Telstar Logistics is my branded alter ego. Practically, however, it provides useful cover for many of the things I like to do, such as exploring transportation facilities and abandoned military bases.

HERE

Social networking for dollars

The Innovation: Peer-to-peer lending
The Disrupted: Traditional banks

Any industry making a huge profit margin off its customers is a good candidate for disruption. Banking is a classic case -- just think of the 19 percent interest you pay on credit cards and the 2 percent you earn on your savings account.

Zopa is closing that gap by using the Web to allow personal lending on a massive scale. The startup was the first company to introduce peer-to-peer lending in the United Kingdom 18 months ago and is about to launch in America. "What Skype did to telecoms, this could do to banks," says David Cowan of Bessemer Venture Partners, which contributed some of the $31 million in funding the startup has attracted to date.

Scott Anthony, a managing director of Clayton Christensen's consulting firm, Innosight, is intrigued by the disruptive potential of peer-to-peer lending. "Are there ways to loan amounts that banks won't lend because they're too small," he asks, "or to serve customers who would otherwise never be served?"

The idea is simple. People join Zopa online as either borrowers or lenders. The lenders proffer money not to individuals but to a pool of people grouped together because of similar creditworthiness. Zopa assesses the credit risk of the borrowers, pools the capital, and matches consumers who need money with consumers who want to lend it. Since Zopa is not technically a bank and doesn't lend money itself, the capital requirements to run the business are relatively small.

The average interest rate on a Zopa loan is 7 percent. For the lenders, that's much better than even a CD, and for the borrowers, it sure beats a credit card or most bank loans. Zopa takes a 1 percent fee, split between the borrower and the lender. So far, about 90,000 people have signed up, and more than $100,000 is lent every day (totaling more than $10 million so far). And only 0.05 percent of Zopa's loans have turned into uncollectible debts.

"We are moving from a consumer society of mass production to a society where we are defined more as individuals," says Zopa CEO Richard Duvall. Yet in banking, Duvall points out, "there are still enormous corporations controlling our money." Duvall believes that a nimble Zopa can trounce banks in assessing credit by gauging things that banks typically don't review, such as a person's eBay ratings. And he's injecting a social aspect into lending. Just as in a social network, lenders can read the online profiles of the people borrowing their money. "If I borrow from real people," Duvall says, "I'm more likely to pay back than if I borrow from a faceless bank."

Source

SomethingAwful Physics

When psysics goes bad. Watch this. Trust me.

HERE

Largest Free Online Games List

We pride ourselves off saying that we have the world’s largest collection of Free Online Games. Here you will find a comprehensive collection of free online games, no other site has as many free online games as we do, and we guarantee it! Our online games are categorized for you to find them quick and easy. We provide our entire list of games on just one page. Our list is so large; chances are you will never in your entire life be able to play all these games. Another thing that’s great about our free online game list is; since we provide a list of the entire webs free online games, some of the free online game sites may not be blocked from your school, so that means you will probably be able to find some great free online games here that you can even play at school, without the use of proxy sites. Enjoy these free online games, the list will always be here, and don’t forget to bookmark our free online game list, that way you can come back and find games whenever you want. You can also just remember the name, it's simple, FreeOnlineGamesList.com - isn’t that easy? Thank you for visiting the largest free online games list and enjoy your visit.

HERE

Observations on Arabs

In the case of the Kingdom, I went there with a certain sympathy for Arab grievances, a belief that America had earned a lot of hostility from "blowback" from our ham-handed interventionist foreign policy and support for Israel etc.

I came back with the gloomy opinion that over the long run we are going to have to hammer these people hard to get them to quit messing with Western Civilization. And by the way, among "rational, fair-minded" non-interventionist libertarians, not a damn one of them has asked me, "What in your experience caused you to change your mind?" Instead what I get are gratuitous insults followed by insufferably condescending lectures about how wrong I am.

So, with the caveat that one of the first things I learned was that the term “Arab” covers a lot of territory, here are some observations and some tentative conclusions about Arabs, more specifically about Arabs from the oil states about why we have misunderstood each other to the point that we are fighting a war with some of them and are pissing off the rest of them. I suspect that many of these also apply to Iranian Islamists, but I have never been there and note that Iranians are not Arabs and have a different cultural history.

HERE

Well worth a read.

Pilot Problems...Solved !

After every flight, pilots complete a gripe sheet which conveys to the mechanics problems encountered with the aircraft during the flight that need repair or correction. The form is a piece of paper that the pilot completes, and then the mechanics read and correct the problem. They then respond by writing on the lower half of the form what remedial action was taken and the pilot reviews the gripe sheets before the next flight. Here are some actual logged maintenance complaints and problems, as submitted by QANTAS Pilots, and the solution recorded by maintenance engineers.

By the way, Qantas is the only major airline that has never had an accident.

P = The problem logged by the pilot
S = The solution and action taken by the engineers

P: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.
S: Almost replaced left inside main tire.

P: Test flight OK, except autoland very rough.
S: Autoland not installed on this aircraft.

P: Something loose in cockpit.
S: Something tightened in cockpit.

P: Dead bugs on windshield.
S: Live bugs on backorder.

P: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200 FPM descent.
S: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.

P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
S: Evidence removed.

P: DME volume unbelievably loud.
S: DME volume set to more believable level.

P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.
S: That's what they're there for.

P: IFF inoperative.
S: IFF always inoperative in OFF mode.

P: Suspected crack in windshield.
S: Suspect you're right.

P: Number 3 engine missing.
S: Engine found on right wing after brief search.

P: Aircraft handles funny.
S: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right, and be serious.

P: Target radar hums.
S: Reprogrammed target radar with words.

P: Mouse in cockpit.
S: Cat installed.

Source

The Amazing YouTube Tools Collection

YouTube is the most popular site to visit for viewing online videos, sharing your favourite videos with people and commenting on videos you like. Recently YouTube was acquired by Google for a few billion dollars. Here is a collection of several YouTube third party tools which enhance your YouTube experience.
HERE

The Chuck NORRIS Soundboard...

Here's it is! This is what you've been waiting for! "THE" Chuck Norris soundboard! To our knowledge, this is the first Chuck Norris soundboard ever made - This has never been seen before in the world, and CubeSlacker is the only place you will find it!..."
source: http://www.cubeslacker.com/content/view/39/31/

Fancy A Quick Donald Duck...?

"RANDY pooch Goofy is seen ROMPING with Minnie Mouse in a Disney video that’s definitely not meant for family viewing...."

click source for this quite disturbing video....! I've always suspected Dismal employess know how to have fun... ;)
source: http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2006470493,00.html

Playin Chicken... Brit Style...!

as Reported in yesterdays Scum.. here is the video of the British soldiers based in Afghanistan playing chicken with a harrier... :)

Battle of The Bands

class..!!!

Impossible Is Nothing...! The Video...

you asked for it.. so i got it.. deleted off YouTube here is a super special link for the dancing-wood chopping-tennis playing banker... ;)

"Here's the video of Wall Street wannabee Aleksey Vayner, sent in with an 11-page resume to UBS investment Bank in New York. Enjoy....."
source: http://news.hereisthecity.com/news/business_news/6081.cntns

Another Joke

Englishman,irishman and a scot were talking about how stupid their wives were,Englishman says"My wife has bought a car and cant even drive",Scotsman says
"My wife bought a swimming pool and she cant swim",
And the Irishman says, "Call that stupid my wife went on holiday to Greece with 50 condoms and she aint got a c**k".

Joke

What does tightrope walking and a blowjob from Grandma have in common?

You don't look down.

Sliceing Dicein Chickin Catchin Machine...!

just awesome...!
youTube source: http://youtube.com/watch?v=uRwNJxk8LrQ

Carnivorous Plant Eats Mouse

nice...!
Carnivorous Plant Eats Mouse At French Garden
Prey Found After Visitors Complained Of Smell...
Botanists discovered a partially digested mouse inside the plant on Friday after several people complained of a horrible smell.
The carnivorous plant, native to the Philippines, is the first to actually prove that plants can indeed eat small mammals.
Previously, insects were the only things that were known to be in a carnivorous plant's diet.
source: http://www.wlwt.com/news/9981163/detail.html

Retro Laptop

source/more pics: http://ironwork.jp/monkey_farm/computer/pc2.html

Hang The Elephant....

In A Trainyard In East Tennessee
It was 1916, and things were changing fast. World War I raged in Europe. Dadaism, ripe with comic derision and irrationality, took hold in artistic circles. Freeform jazz took hold of the American music scene. Margaret Sanger opened the first birth-control clinic. It was a good year for scapegoats. It was a good year to hang an elephant.

The Place
Erwin, Tennessee seems to be a polite and patriotic town, where campaign signs ask voters to "Please Elect...," then thank them in advance. It's a place where many of the Main Street businesses mark the Fourth of July by closing down for four days, and nobody seems to mind the inconvenience.

In 1916, Erwin was a railroad boom town, home to the Cincinnati, Clinchfield, and Ohio Railroad's repair facilities, "sprouting like a boy growing too fast for his own britches," according to longtime resident Hank S. Johnson. The population of Erwin (which was supposed to be called Ervin, in honor of the man who donated 15 acres of land for the town, but was misspelled by a postal worker) nearly tripled in the first 16 years of the century. Makeshift boardwalks stretched above the ankle-deep yellow mud in the streets.

The Clinchfield line used to carry coal out of the Tennessee mountains; Clinchfield and Blue Ridge Pottery were the major employers in Erwin. For decades, the railroad yards were the busiest place in town.

Now, the yards are quiet: pigeons roost in the old passenger station, and most of the tracks are dull from disuse.

This is where Murderous Mary, a five-ton cow elephant with the Sparks Brothers Circus, was hung by the neck from Derrick Car 1400 on September 13, 1916. The story of why and how Mary died is, of course, obscured by time and countless retelling: an example of the best and worst of oral history. It is tragic, absurd, excessive: quintessential turn-of-the-century America.

The Players
Charlie Sparks, the owner of Sparks World Famous Shows, was a frustrated man. His circus was two-bit, compared to his southern rival, John Robinson's Four Ring Circus and Menagerie. A circus's net worth was measured in rolling stock and elephants: Sparks' dog-and-pony show traveled in a mere 10 railroad cars, compared to Robinson's 42; Sparks could boast of only five elephants compared to Robinson's dozen. Never mind Barnum and Bailey -- 84 railroad cars was beyond Charlie Sparks' reach.

So Charlie did the best he could, traveling around the South, putting up advance posters and enticing folks with a noon circus parade prior to the day's two performances. Sparks posters claimed a certain degree of moral superiority:

"Twenty-five years of honest dealing with the public!"

"Moral, entertaining, and instructive!"

"The show that never broke a promise!"

What else did Sparks offer? Educated sea lions. Greasepainted and powdered dogs and humans, posing like Greek statues. Clowns. The Man Who Walks Upon His Head. And elephants.

Mary was billed as "the largest living land animal on earth"; her owner claimed she was three inches bigger than Jumbo, P.T. Barnum's famous pachyderm. At 30 years old, Mary was five tons of pure talent: she could "play 25 tunes on the musical horns without missing a note"; the pitcher on the circus baseball-game routine, her .400 batting average "astonished millions in New York."

Rumor and exaggeration swarmed about Mary like flies. She was worth a small fortune: $20,000, Charlie Sparks claimed. She was dangerous, having killed two men, or was it eight, or 18?

She was Charlie Sparks' favorite, his cash cow, his claim to circus fame. She was the leader of his small band of elephants, an exotic crowd-pleaser, an unpredictable giant.

On Monday, September 11, 1916, Sparks World Famous Shows played St. Paul, Va., a tiny mining town in the Clinch River Valley.

Which is where drifter Red Eldridge made a fatal decision. Slight and flame-haired, Red had nothing to lose by signing up with Sparks World Famous Shows: he'd dropped into St. Paul from a Norfolk and Western boxcar and decided to stay for a while. Taking a job as janitor at the Riverside Hotel, Eldridge found himself pushing a broom and, then, dreaming of moving on.

Eldridge was hired as an elephant handler and marched in the circus parade that afternoon. It's easy to imagine that what he lacked in skill and knowledge, he made up for with go-for-broke bravado. A small man carrying a big stick can be a dangerous thing.

The Proceedings
No one denies that Mary killed Eldridge in Kingsport, Tenn. on September 12, 1916. The details of why and how it happened, gathered from oral-history tapes from the Archives of Appalachia at East Tennessee State University, vary so wildly that they should be read with skepticism, and no small dose of chagrin.

Version I. After the Kingsport performance, Red Eldridge was assigned to ride Mary to a pond, where she could drink and splash with the other elephants. According to W.H. Coleman, who at the tender age of 19 witnessed the "murder":

There was a big ditch at that time, run up through Center Street, ...And they'd sent these boys to ride the elephants... There was, oh, I don't know now, seven or eight elephants... and they went down to water them and on the way back each boy had a little stick-like, that was a spear or a hook in the end of it... And this big old elephant reach over to get her a watermelon rind, about half a watermelon somebody eat and just laid it down there; 'n he did, the boy give him a jerk. He pulled him away from 'em, and he just blowed real big, and when he did, he took him right around the waist... and throwed him against the side of the drink stand and he just knocked the whole side out of it. I guess it killed him, but when he hit the ground the elephant just walked over and set his foot on his head... and blood and brains and stuff just squirted all over the street.

Version II. As reported in the September 13, 1916 issue of the Johnson City Staff, Mary "collided its trunk vice-like [sic] about [Eldridge's] body, lifted him 10 feet in the air, then dashed him with fury to the ground... and with the full force of her biestly [sic] fury is said to have sunk her giant tusks entirely through his body. The animal then trampled the dying form of Eldridge as if seeking a murderous triumph, then with a sudden... swing of her massive foot hurled his body into the crowd."

Version III. Maybe Mary was simply bored, as a staff writer for the Johnson City Press-Chronicle suggested in 1936. "The elephant's keeper, while in the act of feeding her, walked unsuspectingly between her and the tent wall. For no reason that could be ascertained, Mary became angry and, with a vicious swish of her trunk, landed a fatal blow on his head."

Version IV. Or did Mary kill Red Eldridge because she was in pain? Erwin legend has it that Mary had two abscessed teeth, which caused her such agony that she went berserk when Eldridge tapped her with his elephant stick. The infections were, of course, discovered only after Mary was killed.

Regardless of the details, the end was the same -- a man dead. Justice to be served. And besides, Charlie Sparks was no fool: no town in Tennessee would invite his circus to perform with a certifiably rogue elephant. Johnson City, where performances were scheduled for September 26, had already passed a privilege-tax ordinance restricting carnivals' oper- ations within city limits, in order to protect its citizens from wholesale fleecing; it was common knowledge that Johnson City officials were looking for an excuse to ban all traveling shows. As valuable as Mary was, she had to go.

The problem was, how?

Guns, of course, were the first course of action. Just after Eldridge's death, blacksmith Hench Cox fired his 32-20 five times at Mary; the story goes that the bullets hardly phased her. "Kill the elephant. Let's kill him," the crowd began chanting. Later, Sheriff Gallahan "knocked chips out of her hide a little" with his .45, according to witness Bud Jones. But the circus manager stated, "There ain't gun enough in this country that he could be killed"; another approach would have to be attempted.

Someone suggested electrocution: "They tried to electrocute her in Kingsport -- they put 44,000 volts to her and she just danced a little bit," railroader Mont Lilly claimed. Others report that electrocution was never an option, because there wasn't enough power running in the railroad yards to affect Mary. (Since most American railroads continued to use steam locomotives until the 1930s, it's curious that railroad electrocution was even a possibility.)

Other reports suggest a third execution method: hooking Mary to two opposing engines and dismembering her, or crushing her between two facing engines. Both were dismissed as too cruel.

And so it was decided, instead, that Murderous Mary would be hung by the neck from a derrick car the next day.

The Execution
Mary didn't perform for the matinee performance the day she died. She was chained outside the circus tent, and folks say she spent the entire performance time swaying nervously. The crowd's dissatisfaction with her absence was mollified by the announcement that Mary would be hung in the Clinchfield Railyards later in the afternoon -- with no additional charge for admission.

More than 2,500 people gathered to watch Mary swing near the turn-table and powerhouse on that drizzly afternoon; perhaps the number of eyewitnesses, as well as the unforgettable, sad spectacle of the event, explains the consensus on this part of the story.

One of those witnesses, Myrtle Taylor, remembered that every child in Erwin was at the Clinchfield Yards. "And they took the other elephants and Mary down Love Street from the performance to the railyards, trunk to tail. We kids hung back because we were scared to death, but still we wanted to see it."

Wade Ambrose, who was 20 at the time Mary was hung, recalls that the roustabouts chained Mary's leg to the rail, then drove her companions back around the roundhouse.

"They had a time getting the chain around her neck. Then they hooked the boom to the neck chain, and when they began to lift her up, I heard the bones and ligaments cracking in her foot. They finally discovered that she'd not been released from the rail, so they did that."

It doesn't seem surprising that the chain from which Mary hung snapped shortly after she was raised off the ground. It was, after all, just a 7/8" chain, and Mary weighed 10,000 pounds. She hit the ground and sat upright, immobilized from the pain of a broken hip.

"It made a right smart little racket when the elephant hit the ground," says eyewitness George Ingram, with admirable understatement.

Seeing Mary loose, not knowing that she had broken her hip and couldn't move, the crowd panicked and ran for cover. Then one of the roustabouts "ran up her back like he was climbing a small hill and attached a heavier chain"; the winch was put in motion a second time, and Mary died.

They left her hanging for a half-hour, witnesses say, and then they dumped her in the grave they'd dug with a steam shovel 400 feet up the tracks. (The reports of the grave size vary from a too-small 10 by 12 feet to "big as a barn.")

When Mary's massive and valuable tusks were sawed off is a matter of debate. Some, such as eyewitness M.D. Clark, claim that "they dug down that night and cut her tushes off." Mont Lilly, who helped hang Mary, claims someone made a pair of dice from the tusks.

A careful observer of the one photograph allegedly taken at Mary's hanging will notice that the elephant suspended there has no tusks. So either Mary's tusks were removed before she was hung -- or they were removed after the hanging and Mary was "rehung" for a photo-op. A third possibility -- that the photograph was a hoax -- ought not to be discounted; when it was submitted to Argosy magazine for publication, the photo was rejected as a phony.

Tusks or no tusks, Mary or a superimposed substitute: The photograph revealing the hung elephant is a mirror of the times, in which Old Testament, frontier justice was served (Mary had, after all, killed two or three or 18 men), and people's insatiable hunger for grotesquery was, at least temporarily, satisfied.

Eighty Years Later...
There is an antique shop in Erwin memorializing -- or capitalizing -- on Mary's death. The owners of the Hanging Elephant Antique Shop sell T-shirts emblazoned with Mary's likeness, which also graces the side of their building.

There is also in Erwin a woman named Ruth Piper, who has made it her mission to memorialize Mary, to wash the town clean of elephant blood. Piper believes that Erwin has for too long taken the rap for Mary's death.

"Kingsport, the railroad, and Mr. Sparks are to blame for what happened to Mary -- not Erwin. People feel so guilty about it -- we've got to release it. It is a sad, sad thing that happened, but we have to let it go."

Somewhat paradoxically, Piper wants an elephant statue and fountain built in town, a movie at the visitor center, a memorial wreath laid in the railroad yards. In October 1995, she presented her proposal to the Erwin Bicentennial Committee. Nothing came of it.

There is a final irony clinging to the story of Murderous Mary, one that firmly places Mary's murder in a time and place. In an article published in the March 1971 issue of the Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin, author Thomas Burton reports that some local residents recall "two Negro keepers" being hung alongside Mary, and that others remember Mary's corpse being burned on a pile of crossties. "This belief," Burton writes, "may stem from a fusion of the hanging with another incident that occurred in Erwin, the burning on a pile of crossties of a Negro who allegedly abducted a white girl."

The murder of an elephant: a spectacle. The murder of "a Negro": another spectacle.

It was 1916 -- a good year for scapegoats in America.

source: http://www.blueridgecountry.com/elephant/elephant.html

27 Great White Sharks Vrs whale carcass - Video

HERE

Was I alone in hoping that the asshole on the whale would fall in and be savaged?

Weird Bubble

Not sure what gum they're using for this...Hubba Bubba ?

Anywho...I think the guy on the right needs some Factor 50 for those legs....

Bye Bye

This is bye bye from frog. I don't really understand you lot so I am going!

Infamous Laws

We all know them, and here they are listed with their correct scientific title:

ZYMURGY'S FIRST LAW OF EVOLVING SYSTEMS DYNAMICS
Once you open a can of worms, the only way to recan them is to use a larger can.

ETORRE'S OBSERVATION
The other line moves faster.

THE UNSPEAKABLE LAW
As soon as you mention something ....
... if it's good, it goes away
... if it's bad, it happens.

NONRECIPROCAL LAWS OF EXPECTATIONS
Negative expectations yield negative results. Positive expectations yield negative results.

HOWE'S LAW
Every man has a scheme that will not work.

SKINNER'S CONSTANT (FLANAGAN'S FINAGLING FACTOR)
That quantity which, when multiplied by, divided by, added to, or subtracted from the answer you get, gives you the answer you should have got.

MURPHY'S LAW OF SELECTIVE GRAVITY
An object will fall so as to do the most damage.

JENNING'S COROLLARY TO MURPHY'S LAW OF SELECTIVE GRAVITY
The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.

Source

Tourists bask in blue glow of firefly squid

Toyama Bay is the habitat of the world-famous glowing firefly squid, which surface in large numbers every spring in a phenomenon that has been designated a special natural monument. Peak firefly squid season means big catches for fishermen and brisk business for sightseeing boats that provide close-up views of the magical action.

Fucks per programing language and license.

It’s known that programmers swear a lot. There’s always fucks, shits, cunts, bitches, crap. There’s the kernel fuck count, for example, which shows the number of findings of “fuck” and “love” in the Linux kernel, over different versions of the kernel.
Google recently released the Google Code search (beta, of course), which searches through open source tarballs and zips, and tries to find the number of occurences of a specific query, and then showing them. So, nothing more than a Google which searches through code. Of course, what other use could there be than searching the number of occurences of fuck. In different languages.

So, what language is the most sweared one? I used Python, Perl, PHP, C++, C and C#, to get a wide range of programmers. I recorded the number of found and also the number of entries found without anything, to have a rough view of how many packages in a specific language there are, as Google might not have indexed all, and there may be more packages of C than of C# and others. Of course, there will be more fucks in 4′520,000 results I got for C than the 62,800 that the search returned when searching for C#.

Now, the results.

HERE

How To: Dismantle an Atomic Bomb

Sure, the odds are slim that you'd ever be faced with an atomic device ticking down to zero. But think of how Jack Bauer it'd be if you were. And then who're you going to trust? Us or some do-gooder rock band?

HERE

10 Marijuana Studies The Government Wished It Had Never Funded

10) MARIJUANA USE HAS NO EFFECT ON MORTALITY:
A massive study of California HMO members funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) found marijuana use caused no significant increase in mortality. Tobacco use was associated with increased risk of death. Sidney, S et al. Marijuana Use and Mortality. American Journal of Public Health. Vol. 87 No. 4, April 1997. p. 585-590. Sept. 2002.

9) HEAVY MARIJUANA USE AS A YOUNG ADULT WON’T RUIN YOUR LIFE: Veterans Affairs scientists looked at whether heavy marijuana use as a young adult caused long-term problems later, studying identical twins in which one twin had been a heavy marijuana user for a year or longer but had stopped at least one month before the study, while the second twin had used marijuana no more than five times ever. Marijuana use had no significant impact on physical or mental health care utilization, health-related quality of life, or current socio-demographic characteristics. Eisen SE et al. Does Marijuana Use Have Residual Adverse Effects on Self-Reported Health Measures, Socio-Demographics or Quality of Life? A Monozygotic Co-Twin Control Study in Men. Addiction. Vol. 97 No. 9. p.1083-1086. Sept. 1997

Read the rest at the source

blogs blogs everywhere.. but not a drop to drink...

omg! im like sooooooooooooooooo totally impressed with all of your blogs...!!!
Each of you gets 11 out of 10 for effort and blog making skillz0rz... Oh and a link on teh right... ;)

remember folks... this is why we love YOU...!!!!!

Airplane Sex Guide

For your own safety and comfort and that of your fellow passengers and crew, please observe the following regulations when engaging in in-flight sex. HERE

A Modest Proposal for Saving Our Schools

Swiped this one from Fark. Makes sense to me, I always suspected we were paying for much, much, more than schools and teachers in the 'education' budgets.

A Modest Proposal for Saving Our Schools
By Tom McClintock

The multi-million dollar campaign paid by starving teachers' unions has finally placed our sadly neglected schools at the center of the budget debate.

Across California, children are bringing home notes warning of dire consequences if Gov. Schwarzenegger's scorched earth budget is approved — a budget that slashes Proposition 98 public school spending from $42.2 billion this year all the way down to $44.7 billion next year. That should be proof enough that our math programs are suffering.

As a public school parent, I have given this crisis a great deal of thought and have a modest suggestion to help weather these dark days.

Maybe — as a temporary measure only — we should spend our school dollars on our schools. I realize that this is a radical departure from current practice, but desperate times require desperate measures.

The governor proposed spending $10,084 per student from all sources. Devoting all of this money to the classroom would require turning tens of thousands of school bureaucrats, consultants, advisers and specialists onto the streets with no means of support or marketable job skills, something that no enlightened social democracy should allow.

So I will begin by excluding from this discussion the entire budget of the state Department of Education, as well as the pension system, debt service, special education, child care, nutrition programs and adult education. I also propose setting aside $3 billion to pay an additional 30,000 school bureaucrats $100,000-per-year (roughly the population of Monterey ) with the proviso that they stay away from the classroom and pay their own hotel bills at conferences.

This leaves a mere $6,937 per student, which, for the duration of the funding crisis, I propose devoting to the classroom.

To illustrate how we might scrape by at this subsistence level, let's use a hypothetical school of 180 students with only $1.2 million to get through the year.

We have all seen the pictures of filthy bathrooms, leaky roofs, peeling paint and crumbling plaster to which our children have been condemned. I propose that we rescue them from this squalor by leasing out luxury commercial office space. Our school will need 4,800 square feet for five classrooms (the sixth class is gym). At $33 per foot, an annual lease will cost $158,400. This will provide executive washrooms, around-the-clock janitorial service, wall-to-wall carpeting, utilities and music in the elevators. We'll also need new desks to preserve the professional ambiance.

Next, we'll need to hire five teachers — but not just any teachers. I propose hiring only associate professors from the California State University at their level of pay. Since university professors generally assign more reading, we'll need 12 of the latest edition, hardcover books for each student at an average $75 per book, plus an extra $5 to have the student's name engraved in gold leaf on the cover.

Since our conventional gym classes haven't stemmed the childhood obesity epidemic, I propose replacing them with an annual membership at a private health club for $39.95 per month. This would provide our children with a trained and courteous staff of nutrition and fitness counselors, aerobics classes and the latest in cardiovascular training technology.

Finally, we'll hire an $80,000 administrator with a $40,000 secretary because — well, I don't know exactly why, but we always have.

Our bare-bones budget comes to this:

5 classrooms $158,400
150 desks @ $130 — $19,500
180 annual health club memberships @ $480 — $86,400
2,160 textbooks @ $80 $172,800
5 C.S.U. associate professors @ $67,093 — $335,465
1 administrator $80,000
1 secretary $40,000
24 percent faculty and staff benefits $109,312
Offices, expenses and insurance $30,000

TOTAL $1,031,877

This budget leaves a razor-thin reserve of just $216,703, or $1,204 per pupil, which can pay for necessities like paper, pencils, personal computers and extra-curricular travel. After all, what's the point of taking four years of French if you can't see Paris in the spring?

The school I have just described is the school we're paying for. Maybe it's time to ask why it's not the school we're getting.

Other, wiser, governors have made the prudent decision not to ask such embarrassing questions of the education-industrial complex because it makes them very angry. Apparently the unions believe that with enough of a beating, Gov. Schwarzenegger will see things the same way. Perhaps. But there's an old saying that you can't fill a broken bucket by pouring more water into it.

Maybe it's time to fix the bucket.

Origin of planets confirmed..

Artist's impression of a Jupiter-sized planet orbiting the nearby star Epsilon Eridani. The recently confirmed planet is in fact 1.5 times Jupiter's size and orbits in a disc of dust.

Origin of planets confirmed: SYDNEY: It's official: planets are formed from the debris swirling around a young star, astronomers have confimed, more than 250 years after the idea was first proposed.

In 1755, the philosopher Emmanuel Kant first proposed that planets are born from discs of dust and gas orbiting their home stars. Though astronomers have detected more than 200 extrasolar planets and have seen many debris disks around young stars, they had never observed a planet and a debris disc around the same star. Now, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, in collaboration with ground-based observatories, has at last confirmed what Kant and scientists have long predicted.

The results, due to appear in the November issue of the Astronomical Journal, found that an object orbiting the nearby Sun-like star Epsilon Eridani in a disc of dust was definitely a planet.

"Because of Hubble, we know for sure that it is a planet and not a failed star," project leader, Barbara McArthur of the University of Texas, said. If it had been larger, it could have been a brown dwarf, which would not have confirmed any link between planets and stellar dust.

Epsilon Eridani is located 10.5 light-years from Earth in the constellation Eridanus. The star is familiar to Star Trek fans as the solar system of the planet Vulcan, home world of the character, Mr Spock.

The planets in our Solar System share a common alignment, evidence that they were created at the same time in the Sun's disc. But the Sun is a middle-aged star - 4.5 billion years old - and its debris disc dissipated long ago. Epsilon Eridani, however, still retains its disc because it is young, only 800 million years old.

The planet's orbit is inclined 30 degrees to Earth, the same angle at which the star's disc is tilted.

The planet's true mass, the key to describing the object as a planet, is 1.5 times Jupiter's mass. The planet, called Epsilon Eridani b, is the nearest extrasolar planet to Earth. It orbits its star every 6.9 years.

Although Hubble and other telescopes cannot image the gas giant planet now, they may be able to snap pictures of it in 2007, when its orbit is closest to Epsilon Eridani. The planet may be bright enough in reflected sunlight to be imaged by Hubble, other space-based cameras, and large ground-based telescopes.
Source: http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/749

The Scroll Pan...

what a top idea...! :D

The Scroll Pan ~ designer's own words: Nearly every kitchen has a storage problem with too much room taken up by pots, pans, equipment, and white goods. The Scroll Pan is a product which radically changes the way we perceive the regular frying pan. It folds and rolls and addresses the serious issue of storage. Great for cooking omelettes, bacon, steak etc the Scroll Pan introduces more fun to frying. Folding your omelette, for example, has never been easier. Different shapes and sizes as well as cooking surfaces would be available in the range and each pan comes with a storage sleeve which can be hung up. The rolling base of the pan could be made in a number of ways. Diphenyl silicone (plasma treated and Teflon coated) would produce a heatproof and flexible surface. Safe to cook on, light, durable and easy to clean the Scroll Pan is a modern, stylish and fun addition to the kitchen.

source: http://www.designboom.com/contest/view.php?contest_pk=3&item_pk=1211&p=1

10 Megapixel Camera Phones...

Samsung B600 the first 10 Megapixel camera phone - Samsung continues to amaze us with their cutting edge mobile phones first with the SPH-V8200 a phone with a 8 Megapixel camera then the SGH-i310 with a 8 GB hard drive and now we have the Samsung B600 the world's first phone with a 10 Megapixel camera. Unlike other camera phones which perform only basic functions the B600 includes most of the functions which you will find in a modern digital camera. It includes a LED autofocus feature which assists users to capture clear photos even in dark settings along with 3x optical zoom and 5x digital zoom. Also supported is white balance, manual focus, continuous picture-taking, and interval picture-taking functions. Video recording is done in QVGA resolution at 15-30 frames per second. The B600 has a 2.3” photo-fine chromic LCD capable of displaying 16 million colors. The phone has 80 MB of internal memory which can be expanded further via the Micro MMC card slot. Other features include Bluetooth, USB, Media player and DMB for watching TV on the move. Currently for sale in Korea only the Samung SCH-B600 is available for 900,000 won (about $ 900). The candy bar phone measures 126 x 53 x 20.4 mm weighs 173 grams and is available in Black.

Album Covers Battle

For anyone who spends time organizing their album art in iTunes, this is a must-must-see.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1712031

Dover Graffiti

BACK OFF BRUSSELS !!

Tit-Fer-Tat Adverts

dj's bitchin post

It's funny how many molehills there are on tinternet.....

TEOTI, TEOTI, TEOTI.... There, I said it out loud....

Water our Of Thin Air

Making Water From Thin Air

A company that developed technology capable of creating water out of thin air nearly anywhere in the world is now under contract to nourish U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq. The water-harvesting technology was originally the brainchild of the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which sought ways to ensure sustainable water supplies for U.S. combat troops deployed in arid regions like Iraq.

"The program focused on creating water from the atmosphere using low-energy systems that could reduce the overall logistics burden for deployed forces and provide potable water within the reach of the war fighter any place, any time," said Darpa spokeswoman Jan Walker.

To achieve this end, Darpa gave millions to research companies like LexCarb and Sciperio to create a contraption that could capture water in the Mesopotamian desert.

But it was another company, Aqua Sciences, that developed a product on its own and was first to put a product on the market that can operate in harsh climates.

"People have been trying to figure out how to do this for years, and we just came out of left field in response to Darpa," said Abe Sher, chief executive officer of Aqua Sciences. "The atmosphere is a river full of water, even in the desert. It won't work absolutely everywhere, but it works virtually everywhere."

Sher said he is "not at liberty" to disclose details of the government contracts, except that Aqua Sciences won two highly competitive bids with "some very sophisticated companies."

He also declined to comment on how the technology actually works.

"This is our secret sauce," Sher said. "Like Kentucky Fried Chicken, it tastes good, but we won't tell you what's in it."

He did, however, provide a hint: Think of rice used in saltshakers that acts as a magnet to extract water and keeps salt from clumping.

"We figured out how to tap it in a very unique and proprietary way," Sher said. "We figured out how to mimic nature, using natural salt to extract water and act as a natural decontamination.

"Think of the Dead Sea, where nothing grows around it because the salt dehydrates everything. It's kind of like that."

The 20-foot machine can churn out 600 gallons of water a day without using or producing toxic materials and byproducts. The machine was displayed on Capitol Hill last week where a half-dozen lawmakers and some staffers stopped by for a drink.

"It was very interesting to see the technology in action and learn about its possible implementation in natural disasters," said Rep. E. Clay Shaw Jr., a Republican from Florida whose hurricane-prone district includes Fort Lauderdale.

"It was delicious," Shaw said.

Jason Rowe, chief of staff to Rep. Tom Feeney, another Florida Republican, called the technology "pretty impressive."

"I was pretty blown away by the things it's able to do," Rowe said. "The fact that this technology is not tied to humidity like others are makes it an attractive alternative for military bases in the Mideast where humidity is not really an option.

"It seems like it's a cheaper alternative to trucking in bottled water, which has a shelf life," said Rowe, who described himself as a fiscal hawk.

Once deployed, the machines could reduce the cost of logistical support for supplying water to the troops in Iraq by billions of dollars, said Stuart Roy, spokesman of the DCI Group, Aqua Sciences' public affairs firm.

The cost to transport water by C-17 cargo planes, then truck it to the troops, runs $30 a gallon. The cost, including the machines from Aqua Sciences, will be reduced to 30 cents a gallon, Roy said.

Several systems on the market can create water through condensation, but the process requires a high level of humidity.

Aqua Sciences' machines only require 14 percent humidity, Roy said. "That's why this technology is superior and why they are getting the contracts."

source: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,71898-0.html?tw=rss.index

CBGB's Closing After 33 Years...

Punk Venue CBGB's Closing After 33 Years
NEW YORK (AP) - Legs McNeil remembers the night back in 1975 when he walked into the dingy storefront club perched in the even dingier Bowery neighborhood. The band onstage, four guys in leather jackets and torn jeans, was the Ramones. McNeil sat at a nearby table, watching their set with Lou Reed.

It was unforgettable. But as McNeil would soon discover, it was just a typical night at CBGB's, the club that spawned punk rock while launching the careers of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Blondie, the Talking Heads and the Ramones.

"Every night was memorable, except I don't remember 'em," said a laughing McNeil, co-author of the punk rock history "Please Kill Me."

After Sunday, memories are all that will remain when the cramped club with its capacity of barely 300 people goes out of business after 33 years. Although its boom years are long gone, CBGB's remained a Manhattan music scene fixture: part museum, part barroom, home to more than a few rock and roll ghosts.

The club didn't exit without a fight. An assortment of high-profile backers, including E Street Band guitarist Little Steven Van Zandt, battled to keep the legendary club open. But in the end, it was a simple landlord-tenant dispute - and owner Hilly Kristal saw the handwriting on the club's dank walls.

"I knew the closing was inevitable, because my lawyers said, 'You can't win this case. The law is that your lease is up, and they don't even need a reason to put you out,'" said Kristal.

Kristal sits beneath a platinum record from Joan Jett, a CBGB's clock and a few of the endless band stickers that blanket the interior. Kristal, who is battling lung cancer, wears a black and white CBGB's T-shirt with a matching baseball cap.

He once managed the Village Vanguard, the renowned jazz club where he booked acts like Miles Davis. Things were a bit different at his new club: "In rock, the bands were creative - but at first, they didn't play so well."

The first punk-scene band at Kristal's nightspot was Television, soon followed by Patti Smith. Punk poet Smith will play the closing night as well, a booking that Kristal described as effortless.

Smith isn't the only veteran playing one last gig. The '80s hardcore band Bad Brains and the '70s punks the Dictators are both scheduled for the final week. Blondie's Debbie Harry and Chris Stein are also stopping by.

When Kristal opened his doors in December 1973, CBGB's stood for country, bluegrass and blues - three musical styles that wound up in short supply. Tommy Ramone, drummer for the Ramones, recalled how a new breed of bands gravitated to the space.

"At that time, there were no places to play in New York," Ramone said last year. "It was a very dead time in New York City, doldrums all around. But CBGB's allowed bands - original bands, no less - the freedom to go and play and do whatever they pleased."

Kristal plans to move the club far from its roots with a new CBGB's in Las Vegas. The owner plans to strip the current club down to the bare walls, bringing as much of it to Nevada as possible.

"We're going to take the urinals," he said. "I'll take whatever I can. The movers said, 'You ought to take everything, and auction off what you don't want on eBay.' Why not? Somebody will."

Even a longtime CBGB's devotee like McNeil thinks the best advice for the 74-year-Kristal is go west, old man.

"I always said Hilly should go to Vegas," said McNeil. "Girls with augmented breasts playing Joey Ramone slot machines. It would become an institution."

source: http://www.rawstory.com/showarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fapnews.myway.com%2F%2Farticle%2F20061009%2FD8KL9MHG0.html

Ex TEOTI..?

Well..! buggar me…! (not literally!) but it would appear that this little blog is starting to pick up quite a few of you funky EX teotians…!! tbh - there’s not much to say about anything atm other than what has already been put up on ‘here’ – I know its NOT the same as it was – but what I can say is that this IS only a very small stop gap and that there are a few of us trying to rectify everything… yeah the old site has gone.. but maybe something new will come along & replace all that was.. ;) you never know… always look on the bright side n' all of that..?

anyhoooo - in the meantime please feel free to use this site as you see fit.. If you want adding onto this blog then just drop me a mail at: nq-teoti@ntlworld.com it would be good to hear from you..! dr3n..

testing

fr0g testing

Total Football History

On April 17th 1888 at “The Royal Hotel” in Manchester, 'The Football League' was founded.
The first format was one Division containing twelve clubs. The Current format is four Divisions containing a total of ninety-two clubs.
In the history of the football league there have been one-hundred-thirty-one different league clubs. Up to the end of Season 2005-06, between them they had played, 170,088 fixtures, (including expunged results, Season 1939-40, test matches and play-offs), scoring a total of 502,377 goals, (that is 311,078 by the home side and 191,299 by the away side).
Further details of the development of the leagues over the years are to be found in:-
The History of English Football

Great site this....packed full of history, stats, scorers and an all-time Premiership League Table that covers the entire history of the greatest league in the world.
Can you guess who is top ?
the-english-football-archive.com

Guinness ~ Invented By The Welsh...

stumpy would be rolling in his grave... ;)

Is Guinness a stroke of pure Welsh genius?
WITH its strong, full-bodied flavour and thick creamy head, Guinness is as Irish as a lusty rendition of Danny Boy on St Patrick's Day. Or is it?

A new book claims the archetypal Irish tipple actually has its origins in Wales.

In The Thirsty Dragon author Lyn Ebenezer claims Welshman Arthur Price left Pigeonsford, in Cardiganshire, in the 18th century for Ireland and took his recipe for the drink that was to become Guinness with him. Price went on to become the last Protestant Archbishop of Cashel, in Ireland, where he earned a reputation for the warmth of his hospitality and the strength of his drink. When he died Price left behind the recipe for Guinness in a communion letter, claims Mr Ebenezer.

It's not the first time Guinness has been linked to Wales - previous claims have suggested the drink was originally known as porter and was imported to Ireland from North Wales.

But Mr Ebenezer dismisses this theory and says the scenario citing Price as the drink's original creator is far more credible. He said, "The churches and the abbeys were well-known at that time for their brewing. Pilgrims as well as Christian brothers would be entertained in the abbeys.

"And this fellow (Arthur Price) was well-known, even though it was a Protestant abbey, for his dark-coloured or black beer."

When Price was a simple rector and before he became archbishop he took on Richard Guinness as a servant or "land steward". When Richard had a son he named him Arthur as a mark of respect to his employer and Price accepted his servant's invitation to become the child's godfather. In his book Ebenezer cites an article in the Welsh folk magazine Llafar Gwlad by the author T Llew Jones, which details the connection between the Guinnesses and Price.
In the article Llew Jones outlines how Richard Guinness organised the brewing at the archbishop's palace, overseeing the creation of a drink of a "very palatable" nature. This, claims Jones, shows that the recipe for the "black beer" reached the palace with the servant, or had belonged to the priest for some time and Guinness had found a better method of brewing. When the young Arthur Guinness, pictured inset, grew up he took on his father's role and the drink was gaining a huge following among powerful dignitaries at the palace.

The archbishop bequeathed £100 to Arthur and he used the money to open his first brewery in 1756.

Mr Ebenezer said the story supports the idea of Guinness having its roots in Wales.
"It's got substance - the connection is pretty watertight. Arthur Price is mentioned in the official Guinness story so it's recognised there is a connection.

"The Irish would not go as far as to say it's Welsh, but Arthur Price is mentioned in the official story as a mentor for Arthur Guinness. I'd like to say I've drunk enough of it for it to be Welsh anyway. It's Welsh by assimilation!"

Guinness itself, both on the company website and in a statement released yesterday, confirms the relationship between the Archbishop of Cashel and Richard and Arthur Guinness. But the company departs from The Thirsty Dragon over the drink's origins. It says in the 1770s a new drink, a strong black beer called porter, was being exported from London and finding favour in Dublin. Guinness as we know it today started life because Arthur Guinness decided to brew his own version of the drink imported from London, the company claims.

source: http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0200wales/tm_headline=is-guinness-a-stroke-of-pure-welsh-genius%2D%26method=full%26objectid=17887624%26siteid=50082-name_page.html

RollerCoasters In The Sky...

great time-lapse picture of a plane ascending from an airport.... Click for larger view...

10 Cool Things About Squirrels

1. Squirrels belong to the order Rodentia. There are 365 species.

2. They mate twice a year.

3. Their nests are called dreys.

4. Their sweat glands are on their feet.

5. They can run 20 miles an hour.

6. Their teeth never stop growing. Gnawing keeps squirrels' teeth from growing into their necks.

7. When frightened, they dart back and forth to confuse predators. This doesn't work with cars, however, so most city squirrels don't live longer than a year.

8. Although considered granivores (animals that eat grains and nuts), they will eat almost anything.

9. Gray squirrels bury their acorns all over the place ("scatter hoarding"), then forget where. Forgotten acorns become trees. This forgetfulness is the main way oak and other hardwood forests grow and spread, scientists say.

10. Gray squirrels are called "living fossils" because they haven't changed much in 37 million years.

source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/24/AR2006092400766.html?nav=most_emailed

Ralf Greiner Photography

stunningly beautiful photography...
source: http://www.greiner-photography.de/index.html

Pacman For Excel

give this man a banana..!

"This software works on Excel 97 and 2000. I was absorbed in video game named *pacman* when I was a schoolchild. I would like to reproduce that on Excel. I've held the thought from two years before, and finally...It's realized.All actions are expressed by rewriting of a cell background color. Each one of cells as a dot, and move it by make cell's background color high-speed rewriting. Although I did not think it's possiblele, but now it's possiblele by the favor of the improvement in a performance of a personal computer. The window zoom is 10%, so the each cell can not be seen. But it is A CELL. I'm very happy if you feel Excel & VBA has an infinite possibility!For all I know, It must be meaningful that makes the program works on Excel!!"
souce/download/homepage: http://www.geocities.jp/nchikada/pac/

O'Rly..?

Scientists teleport two different objects

Scientists teleport two different objects

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Beaming people in "Star Trek" fashion is still in the realms of science fiction, but physicists in Denmark have teleported information from light to matter bringing quantum communication and computing closer to reality.

Until now scientists have teleported similar objects such as light or single atoms over short distances from one spot to another in a split second.

But Professor Eugene Polzik and his team at the Niels Bohr Institute at Copenhagen University in Denmark have made a breakthrough by using both light and matter.

"It is one step further because for the first time it involves teleportation between light and matter, two different objects. One is the carrier of information and the other one is the storage medium," Polzik explained in an interview on Wednesday.

The experiment involved for the first time a macroscopic atomic object containing thousands of billions of atoms. They also teleported the information a distance of half a meter but believe it can be extended further.

"Teleportation between two single atoms had been done two years ago by two teams, but this was done at a distance of a fraction of a millimeter," Polzik, of the Danish National Research Foundation Center for Quantum Optics, explained.

"Our method allows teleportation to be taken over longer distances because it involves light as the carrier of entanglement," he added.

Quantum entanglement involves entwining two or more particles without physical contact.

Although teleportation is associated with the science-fiction series "Star Trek," no one is likely to be beamed anywhere soon.

But the achievement of Polzik's team, in collaboration with the theorist Ignacio Cirac of the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany, marks an advancement in the field of quantum information and computers, which could transmit and process information in a way that was impossible before.

"It is really about teleporting information from one site to another site. Quantum information is different from classical information in the sense that it cannot be measured. It has much higher information capacity and it cannot be eavesdropped on. The transmission of quantum information can be made unconditionally secure," said Polzik whose research is reported in the journal Nature.

Quantum computing requires manipulation of information contained in the quantum states, which include physical properties such as energy, motion and magnetic field, of the atoms.

"Creating entanglement is a very important step, but there are two more steps at least to perform teleportation. We have succeeded in making all three steps -- that is entanglement, quantum measurement and quantum feedback," he added.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/10/04/teleportation.reut/index.html

Lunar Wallpaper...

awesome collection of wallpaper sized space/hubble images...
Source: http://images.lunarpages.com/

Best Rejected Advertising

Awsome site... The Best Rejected Advertising was the first book to publish ads that had been rejected by clients on aesthetic, commercial or strategic grounds. This website broadens the original concept by including rejected, banned, spoof and most complained about ads and commercials...

Source: http://www.bestrejectedadvertising.com/html/?page=latest

M&M Dark Chocolate Game

In this M&M Dark Chocolate Flash game, you have to find the title of 50 dark movies using riddles in a Hieronymus Bosch-like painting.

Source: http://us.mms.com/us/dark/

Mean Beans...!

Giant Japanese Jellyfish...!

"This crazy photo from the Yomiuri Shimbun shows a diver swimming amongst a swarm of giant jellyfish. These giant sea blobs, known as Echizen kurage (Nomura’s jellyfish), inflict heavy damage on Japanese fisheries in the Sea of Japan each year.

This year’s invasion appears to be in full swing. The number of jellyfish has risen dramatically off the coast of Maizuru in Kyoto prefecture since Typhoon No. 13 passed over the Sea of Japan in mid-September.

Thousands of the giant jellyfish, which can grow up to 2 meters (6 ft 7 in) in diameter and weigh up to 200 kg (440 lb), become caught in fixed fishing nets each year."

Source: http://www.cdnn.info/news/eco/e051208a.html

England 0-0 Macedonia

same old same old...!
England 0 - 0 Macedonia
England's Euro 2008 qualifying campaign stuttered after a disappointing draw against Macedonia at Old Trafford. Steve McClaren's side wasted several chances, with Gary Neville and Steven Gerrard hitting the woodwork. Macedonia keeper Jane Nikoloski saved well from Frank Lampard and Peter Crouch, but Igor Mitrevski's header was only inches away from shocking England. Wayne Rooney was substituted on his return and Gerrard will miss the clash with Croatia after a yellow card. England suffered a blow before kick-off when Rio Ferdinand was forced to pull out of the starting line-up with a back injury - allowing Spurs captain Ledley King to step in. They made a lively start, with the returning Rooney prominent, but once Macedonia settled to their task they were more than a match for England in the first 45 minutes....

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/internationals/5399364.stm

Top 10 Most Expensive Cars Of 2006...

No surprises for 'what' numero uno is tho... ;)

Most Expensive Car 2006: Bugatti VeyronPrice: $1.192.057

Source/More Pics/Info: http://bulapictures.com/gallery/expensive_cars_2006.html

Mars Orbitor Looks Down At Rover...

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity near the rim of Victoria Crater. Victoria is an impact crater about 800m (half a mile) in diameter at Meridiani Planum near the equator of Mars. Opportunity is the dot at the centre of the zoomed image. (Nasa/JPL/UA)

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5413754.stm

First Set Of Links.... 10/06/06

well - seeing as this site is supposedly all about teh links (!) i thought i'd better post some.. Here's a quick dump of links from the past week... Future posts WILL have more descriptions/better tags... cross my heart n' everything...!

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why...?

ok... why...? why have a set this up..? well... that's a good question..! once there was this site called TEOTI.. and it was great..! There were a million (and one) different people that would share and post different links and things of internet on a daily basis - some of these links would make me smile.. some would make me laugh.. some would make me cry.. some would.. oh.. you get the idea...! anyways... for a long time (3 years+) i would visit this site and spend most of my free time (in an almost OCD manner) there.. it became part of my life and part of me in a big way..! but... a few days ago the rug was pulled from beneath our feet.. with no explanation or word of reason Teoti simply ceased to exist.. one minute it was there.. the next.... well - nobody's quite sure what happened next exactly.. there are plenty of rumours floating around that the main man who ran the site has done a runner.. but i cant see it myself.. i think thats just the ars3holes that whined and moaned about this and that before Teoti vanished now simply shit-stirring..

.

So here i am.. valiantly trying to recreate a little corner on the intranet that was a bit like Teoti.. but maybe just a little bit more dr3nified...

.

quick update: well bang goes my theory..! just read this posted on another board of ex-teotians...

.

"...what happened???
Greetings:In the past week we've seen one of the world's biggest fraternity disapear in a heart beat. Many of you have a lot of questions and have landed here in ********* seeking answers. With authorization from ********* ADMIN I am able to give you some clarity into the situation.I teamed up with a few members of said fraternity and decided to seek asnwers for our own questions. NO, we did not have any type of contact with ***. It would have been a great help if we have. Contacting the host we found out they havent received a payment in the past few months. NO, they have not gotten a DMCA notice nor any legal notice. Attempts to do any back ups was not possible without payment. It hurts to deliver this kind of news to you but these are the answers that we've gotten. I have taken a liking to ********* in the past week and so you will see me here a lot. There are a lot of people I know and enjoy here and I feel at home.I'd like to advise all of you with questions to NOT start any Threads nor comment nor send private messages about this situation or YOU WILL BE BANNED. This thread is comment locked as per my request to ADMIN to do so. What I've told you in this message are the answers we got and hopefully the answers you all seek. If you have any more questions... seek the answers for yourselves, but NOT here in ********* .I'd like to thank you all for your concern. I'd like to thank ********* ADMIN for allowing me to post this massage and giving me such a warm welcome here...."

.

nice....

Fix the damn car..!

My First Post...!

My frist post... right here... w00t... ;)

Not Quite The End Of The Internet..

Wednesday, October 18, 2006