Apparently the entry requirements for the US will require an electronic registration with the US government at least 3 days before travel. El Reg is there.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/03/us_visa_scheme/.
Keep in mind this is on top of the anal probe, DNA swipe, taking of fingerprints, retinal scan, drug use inquiry and all the other fun stuff potentially awaiting you at the US border *as a citizen of an allied country*. WTF?
“Painfully polite and hilariously hostile writing from shared spaces all over the world”
http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/2007/09/01/ps-bacon-is-life/.
Bacon is life, indeed.
Identical twins exchange body parts. Real or fake? Click on the link and decide for yourself…
http://www.bmezine.com/news/people/A10101/addsub/
.. no, actually. Sorry. These are Network Operation Centers. But don’t you just see Bond walking into one of these while battling SPECTRE minions?
For people who hate fun and have serious issues.
http://www.wholesomewear.com/page-3.html
(Double-layered, full-body bathing suits for women).
LOLCODE.
Clean syntax, consistent capitalization and Internet ready. It’s the language for the new web, baby.
HAI CAN HAS STDIO? I HAS A VAR IM IN YR LOOP UP VAR!!1 VISIBLE VAR IZ VAR BIGGER THAN 10? KTHXBYE IM OUTTA YR LOOP KTHXBYE
Harrr! His ‘n hers!
http://www.zoogstercostumes.com/landing/pirate.php.
Help combat global warming and get yours today!
I sometimes spend 14 hours a day working behind a PC. Any action that requires me to push the rodent around annoys the crap out of me.
So I’ve ditched the mouse and gone with a Wacom pen for the times that I can’t avoid it.
I also use Ratpoison as a window manager, so I can perform basic UI operations without resorting to the rodent. Also, Ratpoison doesn’t clutter up my interface with useless crap like “window decorations”, “window buttons” or “interface themes”. I don’t like them, I don’t use them and I really have a better use for my screen real-estate.
Because I do a lot of web development stuff, I use the Firefox plugin Conkeror most of the time.
I email with mutt, read feeds with snownews, edit anything non-binary with VIM, edit binaries with BIEW, read Usenet with tin, watch movies (on a remotely controlled display) with mplayer, I play music with mp3blaster and manage my ipod with gnupod.
For experiments with alternative inputs that do require pointing devices, I’m interesting in Dasher, which you really should check out if this is your kind of thing.
.. and of course he does.
http://www.thesneeze.com/mt-archives/cat_steve_dont_eat_it.php.
Mold, fungus, silkworm pops, prison hooch, you name it. He eats it, describes it and has colourful photos to go with it.
The distant world whose discovery prompted leading astronomers to demote Pluto from the rank of “planet” has now been given its own official name.
Having caused so much consternation in the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the object has been called Eris, after the Greek goddess of discord.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5344892.stm
All hail Discordia!
I’d heard rumours that David Hasslehoff made music and had some ego problems, but that left me unprepared for his latest foray into the realm of popular culture.
Japan is probably the only country in the world where you could pull something like this off.
http://ethnorotica.com/article/129/500-person-japanese-orgy
Go Japan!
omfg! pictures on the intarweb!
(Open at work, don’t open at work, I don’t care – but check out one or two of the nastier images).
.. of Ultimate Destiny!
http://ldopa.net.nyud.net:8090/wp-content/uploads/TheUltimateShowdown.swf
They certainly needed a lot of superheroes to defeat Chuck!
You can grab the mp3 here –
http://www.eviltrailmix.com/lemondemon/downloads.html
In the Second World War people at home with loved ones spread far away around the world with the forces were fed a diet, often government backed, of “how it works” or “how we will win” technical information leaflets. Very often these would have contained superb cut away and sectioned diagrams, showing the “insides” or as was said at the time “the works!” of the machines that were winning the war for us!
http://www.cyber-heritage.co.uk/cutaway/
Google has a calculator built into its search engine. Apart from the basics it can also be used for unit conversions, etc. Usually I’d say that’s very nice and can be handy considering just about everything has a google query form attached to it these days.
However..
What do you think would be the result of
1 - 0.9 - 0.1
?
Depending on the order of evaluation you’d say either 0 or 0.2, right? Well, you’re wrong. It’s -2.77555756 × 10e17. Because Google says so. Try it.
http://www.google.nl/search?q=1+-+0.9+-+0.1
It gets the answer to 1 – (0.9 + 0.1) right, but anything else is off.
1 - (0.9) - (0.1)
(1 - 0.9) - 0.1
etc.
A mountain full of PhDs and what do you get? A variation on pi = 3.
Aptly enough, it’s named “Don’t bomb us” – probably because Washington’s resident chimpansee wants to blow them up because of their annoying habit of reporting on current events in Iraq.
Magazines, billboards, internet, the television – every day we are exposed to more and more media celebrities. Most of whom make money off of projecting a totally fake, manufactured physical identity. I often find that annoying, to say the least, so articles like this make my day..
The unforgiving clarity of high-definition television has induced paranoia among celebrities obsessed with their appearance.
The technology, soon to become available in Britain, produces images so sharp that even subtle imperfections, usually hidden by make-up or flattering lighting, are brutally exposed.
So, for your viewing pleasure,
Celebrities without makeup
More celebs sans makeup
Awful plastic Surgery
Index of celeb candids, excellent!
And a couple of harsh celebrity gossip and news sites,
The Superficial
What Would Tyler Durden Do?
I don’t like you in that way
How do objects and images move? Why do animals move? What is motion? […]
This site publishes a free physics textbook that tells the story of how it became possible, after 2500 years of exploration, to answer such questions. The book is written to be entertaining, surprising and challenging on every page. With little mathematics, the text explores the most fascinating parts of mechanics, thermodynamics, special and general relativity, electrodynamics, quantum theory and modern attempts at unification.
Coolest thing I’ve seen all week.
You can download it by chapter or grab the whole 40 MB pdf in one go.
http://www.motionmountain.net/
http://sae.cside.com/sae/kat/pc/ern005/ekana.htm
I’m just glad people like this don’t spend their time trying to put “lasers” on the “moon”.
Random roundup of political news and opinion sites
The Power and Interest News Report (PINR) is an independent organization that utilizes open source intelligence to provide conflict analysis services in the context of international relations. PINR approaches a subject based upon the powers and interests involved, leaving the moral judgments to the reader.
PINR, it’s what’s for breakfast.
Someone went and remixed Green Day’s American Idiot and threw in the Doctor Who theme, Bush ranting about evil, hip hop, samples from all over and some other random stuff. Although sounding like a recipe for disaster, this stuff actually works. Fire up your iPod and give this one a shot: