Manhole covers are flying in the air in Atlantic City. "Fire Chief Dennis Brooks said he was giving an interview... when another of the 200-pound manhole covers on a sidewalk near him shot 10 feet in the air trailed by a yellowish-orange arc of electricity." I didn't know manhole covers weigh 200# ?? It seems in the movies people always move them aside with one hand...
Some people feel I post too many Jon Stewart monologues. So for his take on the Ground Zero "mosque" I'll just offer this Gawker link, where it's embedded.
If you've missed any of the "Simon's Cat" cartoon videos, they are all assembled at Simon Tolfield's website.
On Labor Day, one poster at Reddit asked "How bad are American labor practices?" and offered an analysis. The discussion thread contains additional indictments.
A brief video of the Huashan plank walk.
A professional photographer's gallery of photographs of the striking karst topography of Madagascar's "Stone Forest" and the beautiful lemurs that live there.
Some people totally don't trust RFID tags. NPR interviews a man who can remotely read the tags in your wallet. "...information on an RFID tag can be useful; the numbers that can be deciphered give away the state where the tag was issued, what type of card (credit card, social security, phone, etc.) it is. He claims that it is a start to build a database on a person."
This has to be one of the most remarkable hospital nightmare scenarios I've ever encountered. "A man who was hurt in a car crash but was misidentified as a cancer patient claims security guards at Prince George's Hospital beat him up when he tried to leave the hospital to avoid chest surgery he didn't need - "to have a potentially cancerous mass removed from his chest." They apparently assaulted him because he wouldn't give them back the incorrect wristband.
Boston.com's The Big Picture has several dozen photos of the Russian wildfires and an even more tragic set of the landslides in China.
The Telegraph has photos of the twelve most common butterflies in the U.K.
If you rent a car from Hertz (and maybe from their competitors), don't sign up for the PlatePass service, which apparently is a total ripoff.
A baby Cyclops turtle has been found in Taiwan (videos at the link).
ABC News reports that an FBI investigation reveals that a North Carolina crime lab has been falsely reporting results for years.
Glenn Beck compared to Martin Luther King, side-by-side.
The BBC explains how Charles Darwin, Kew Gardens, and members of the Royal Navy essentially "terraformed" Ascension Island.
Electronic Village has a compilation of 102 Taser-related deaths.
Perhaps as many as 20,000 women a year are murdered to preserve their family's "honor."
The nation of Belgium may be broken into two parts: the Dutch Flanders and the French Wallonia.
When someone tells you "There is no 'I' in 'team," you should reply, "It depends on the font."
This week's smorgasbord has included an unusually gloomy set of links. To finish on a lighter note, here is a "Midichlorian Rhapsody," combining the prequels to Star Wars with the music of Bohemian Rhapsody.
Photo credit.
One of your links is a repeat:
ReplyDeleteThe US labor practice link (I am a Reddit addict myself so it wasn't a bad experience) is the link for 'walking the plank' as well? Rather than doing the ironing on this overcast Sunday, I need to see what this is all about of course!
Thanks for the heads-up, Newbie. I had already tossed today's bookmarks, but I found another video at YouTube.
ReplyDeleteThe TASER link is interesting, but so obviously biased as to be almost not worth reading. They blatantly state that they believe that police are targeting minorities, and give the example that blacks account for 13% of the population overall, yet 35% of those who died from police encounters involving TASERs. Correlation does not mean causation, and all of that.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I am disturbed by the mere increase in the use of the tool for purposes not really in line with the intended use of the device.
"Text without context is pretext."
I worked most of my professional life in civil engineering and land development. We were always told that the reason manhole covers are so heavy (by design) is to prevent women from abandoning new-born babies in the sewers. This apparently was a problem in the late nineteenth century.
ReplyDeleteI don't have time tonight to check them all out. You can never have too many Jon Stewart clips, IMHO--his is the only TV show I watch. I'll be back.
ReplyDeleteto Nathan, youre certainly right that the taser site has an "agenda" so to speak, but are you saying the data is wrong? If the numbers are correct, then maybe that's why they are mad.
ReplyDeleteHave you seen any other data that is different? Are they making up any of these deaths or listing wrong races etc.
P.W.
P.W. - I'm simply saying that taking the blog at face value won't give anyone the whole story. In order to say that there is a systemic problem of death involving the use of TASER devices AND that minorities are targeted more often than not, you'd need to do more than simply list name, race, date of death.
ReplyDeleteThe circumstances in which the TASER was deployed and the coroner's determination of cause of death must necessarily come into the equation as well.
For instance, I could tell you that statistics from a study with a very large sample size show that people who drink a glass of red wine every day have a lower rate of heart disease. But that does not mean that drinking a glass of red wine every day makes your heart stronger. The circumstances of each wine-drinker's life might be important to such a claim, right?
Manhole covers weigh about 50 kilos, or 110 to 130 lbs.
ReplyDeleteNathan, yes you are right about that. And what I am saying is that even though some one is biased - and politically incorrect - that that doesn't mean their data per se is invalid.
ReplyDeleteP.W.
RE: RFID article's statement - "Some critics of the technology, he says, are convinced (with no evidence) that there is a conspiracy by big business and big government to spy on people, and that just isn't true."
ReplyDeleteEither Spencer Michels has no notion of the proposed Information Awareness Office and DARPA mass-surveillance projects (in which case he hasn't done his research) or he is writing with an agenda toward hiding the truth... it's ugly either way.
One need not invoke "conspiracy theory" to suggest that law enforcement already uses cell phones signal triangulation (and E911 GPS data) to track down suspects - RFID signature tracking simply complements existing tools.
Businesses are already using biometric data to accept payment, register your "pass" at theme parks, and to target advertising - and that's far more invasive than reading the contents of whatever's in your wallet.
Interesting and readable post and I do like the photo on top, since it's mine!
ReplyDelete