Alien Long Pig

"Eating E.T." is a mock alien barbecue, because... well, I really don't know.

Eating E.T. is a hands-on exploration of our intimate relations to other species, real and fictional. A life-size, gluten replica of E.T. The Extraterrestial, roasted whole on a spit and eaten together at festive social events, provokes discussions and questions on what is a stake in our practices of eating.

Oh.  That explains... nothing, really.

Linked List

Glanced at briefly, filed away for future reading, and presented here for your edutainment.

• Idaho's most expensive home goes up for auction.  $21.5 million, no minimum bid.  Time to crack open the piggy bank and hope that nobody else shows up.
• The IEEE talks about Lessons From a Decade of IT Failures.
• The nuclear black market is alive and well in Eastern Europe.  Paging Doc Brown...
• You'll soon be able to buy Fallout's Nuka-Cola.  Remember to save the bottle caps!
• Due to a gang war, the Yakuza have had to cancel Halloween.  Yes, those Yakuza.
• The Laws: If Jews Celebrated Halloween.  Religiously hilarious.
• I never played Tribes, but I hear it was pretty good.  And now it's free.
• China has ended their one-child policy.  They are also considering allowing citizens to laugh without government approval, but they don't want to just rush into these things.
• An interesting data visualization that shows how large Europe's immigration crisis really is. 
• Emperor Palpatine won an election to the Odessa, Ukraine city council.  No, really.
• Even more shocking: Chewbacca has gone over to the Dark Side, and was arrested for campaigning for him.
• Apparently those cookies really are that good.  (Seriously.  Check out that recipe.)
• A man showed up at a Virginia middle school, started singing Justin Bieber songs over the PA, and they put the whole school on lockdown.  Seems reasonable to me.
• Freefall discusses essential life skills for the serious AI.

Rules For Being Human

Came across this today.  I don't entirely agree with #9, but man, #10 is spot on.

1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire time you are here.
2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called life. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think of them as irrelevant or stupid.
3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial and error, experimentation. The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately “works”.
4. A lesson is repeated until learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can then go on to the next lesson.
5. Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons.  If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.
6. “There” is no better than “here”. When your “there” has become a “here”, you will simply obtain another “there” that will, again, look better than “here”.
7. Others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and sources you need.  What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
9. Your answers lie inside you. The answer to life’s questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen and trust.
10. You will forget these rules.

– Author Unknown

Historical Swordfighting

Flagging to watch later.  This is a subject that has always fascinated me.  I have always wanted to see about seeking out some instruction in saber fencing, and this looks much, much more interesting.

Linked List : rand() % interesting

Just the links, m'am.

Well, with some commentary and snark, obviously.  I mean, we're not barbarians.

• Han Solo in carbonite Pop-Tarts.  Sadly, not edible.
• 23 Best Military Science Fiction Books.  I've read 16/23, which means I now have seven new books to add to my reading list. Very pleased to see Dan Abnett on the list, because man, that guy can write. If you have never given him a shot, go grab Eisenhorn and start in on it.  Go ahead, we'll wait for you.
• The High-Tech Toilet That Sank a Submarine.  'nuf said.
• Tha Illiad of MC Homer.  Translated from the original Greek by MC Lula.  Seriously - it works. Who could not love a translation that contains phrases like "...Achaeans with greaves that are pimpest"?
• Moscow's stray dogs are selecting for intelligence, have learned to ride subway trains, and are learning and teaching new behavior patterns for dealing with the humans they share their habitat with.
• This Is That profiles "Smoke & Flame", a Vancouver artisanal firewood company that is selling bundles of kindling for $1000.  Locally sourced, organic, pesticide free, hand-crafted. Bummed that they didn't mention whether the ginger rub was a basic part of the process or an extra touch.
• Jim Butcher has a new novel coming out on September 29th.  Already planning for a couple of sleepless nights as I pounce on it and devour his writing, in accordance with The Prophecy.
• My brother and his business partner are going to be appearing in the upcoming season of Shark Tank.  Which product?  Here's a hint: watch the clip, and pick out the two most incredibly goofy looking pair of guys in it. Yep, that's them. They are, indeed, complete goofballs, but they are smart goofballs.
• Dashcam footage of instant karma.  Cut someone off, and you just might get sucked up by a mini-tornado as they get to watch.
• Tone Deaf Choice of the Year: "Xignite Picks Brutal Founder of Firing Squads and Labor Camps as Icon of New API Ecosystem".
• A Reflection on a Room, Part I and Part II.  Stories and lessons learned from time in the command & control center for Desert Storm, as told by a man who was there.

Linked List : Curiosities

There is an angel on Mars:

She is standing on a small rock and, calculating from the scale of the picture, she is just shy of four inches high... I would say the "parasol" is actually a flaming sword. She is, after all, a Martian angel, not an Earthling angel, charged to defend the honour of that planet, and not ours. Notwithstanding, an angel is an angel, and the family resemblance between theirs and ours is plain enough.

When Danes were under Prussian rule, they were forbidden from raising the Danish flag.  So they bred the Protest Pig instead. (H/T: Scandinavia and the World)

Anyone can call the International Space Station:

... there is a ham radio on the space station like the ones used by amateur radio enthusiasts around the world. It is how space station astronauts conduct Q&A sessions with students, for instance. The space station's ham radio frequencies are publicly available and you too can try to call the space station when it passes 250 miles above. That does not mean anyone will answer, but sometimes one of the astronauts will be there and will converse.

What are the odds that a plane will be hit by a meteor?  About one in a billion.

"It was a dark and stormy night..."

The Bizarre Lives of Congress's Global Treasure-Hunters

The little-known Library of Congress’s Overseas Offices are tasked with getting information from some of the world’s least hospitable places...

I limp wearily through the door, stopping to let is shut with a merry little jingle as I lean against the jamb. There were three of us when we started. Optimists. You have to be an optimist in this job.

Jackson and I lost McHenry to a pack of wild newspaper boys in the night. One moment, he was there running beside us; the next, gone, with only the raucous cries of "EXTRA! EXTRA!" fading away behind us as a mix of fear and adrenaline pushed us onwards.

Jackson... I shudder and try not to think about Jackson. Disemvoweled is a horrible way to die. I know that if I don't keep moving, his pitiful cries will come back to haunt me... "HLP! HLP! GD HLP M! HLP!"

Heaving a ragged breath, I straighten and stumble towards the counter, my wounded leg almost giving out. Almost, but not quite. The clerk looks up from his cell phone, a bored and slightly annoyed expression on his face. "Copy of the Sun Journal Good Day Times." I manage to croak, reaching for my wallet.

He shrugs. "Sorry, man. Just sold the last one." He gestures vaguely in the direction of a small, in-store café, where a short, balding toad of a man sits, folded paper in his lap and a smirk on his lips.

"Lubyachev," I snarl under my breath, pulling out my snub-nosed .45 hand-held photocopier instead of my wallet. There was no way I was leaving without that paper this time; and after the 2014 International Trade Conference Minutes incident in New Dehli, there was no way I was letting Lubyachev leave, period.

Eldest Daughter Approved

The Stubby Thumb builds a TARDIS Murphy bed.

The finished product:

And yes, it is bigger on the inside!

Definitely a project to keep in mind for the new house.  Eldest Daughter would approve.

Starting My Christmas List

Saw this on Cheezburger, but I can't seem to find them on sale anywhere!

Guess I will just have to console myself with a Tetris Stackable LED Desk Lamp:

Meanwhile, I would love to get da goils their own Tardis, but I would prefer to find one in wood, rather than cardboard...

Who Ya Gonna Call?

Huh.  Apparently this is A Thing.

Professional Paranormal Investigations is a group of paranormal investigators who try to assist in the unexplained activity taking place in homes or businesses.

Really.  I guess if Seattle can have real-life super heroes, a bunch of guys in Indiana making a living as real-life Ghostbusters makes some sort of sense.

Beam Me Up, Opie

A member over at TAGSRWC (The Andy Griffith Show Rerun Watchers Club) posts a couple of pages of photos from Star Trek episodes that made use of the set for good ol' Mayberry:

On this web page I will be showing some of the buildings of Mayberry that were used in 2 episodes of Star Trek, the original series. The Episodes are "Miri" and "The City on the Edge of Forever". Both have some great glimpses of Mayberry that we normally never see in a TAGS episode.

I would have loved to see Mr. Spock encounter Barney Fife.  "You only carry one bullet?  How illogical."

"And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder..."

Rugged men rise to stand for one of their own.

The moon turns to blood.

Tax day cometh, shrouded in unseasonal snow.

These are the things that myths are made of.

And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder:

One of the four beasts saying: "Come and see." And I saw.

And behold, a white horse.

SCP-000

Item #: SCP-000

Object Class: Safe Euclid

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-000's DNS name and IP address locate a publicly known web site ("SCP Foundation") on the internet.  As it was is referenced by over 2 million different web pages and a popular independent video game at the time of discovery, actual containment is problematic, if not impossible at this point.  Instead, an active disinformation campaign (DI-████████) depicting SCP-000 as a "shared reality" fictional work is being pursued, with excellent results so far.

As part of new employee orientation procedures instituted as of ██/██/19██, SCP personnel are required to read orientation publication SCP-Alpha-1337 ("Shared Reality: Fact to Fiction") as they may be called upon at any time to support DI-████████.  D-class personnel, of course, are exempted from this requirement.

Description: SCP-000 is a website, reachable via the web address http://www.scp-wiki.net. It was initially published as a site purporting to be an exposé of the SCP Foundation, "a secret organization dedicated to containing anomalous artifacts and entities that can threaten the normality of our world."  The author or authors of the original web site content are unknown; however, the amount of accurate detail present on the original site strongly implies that at least one high-level administrator within the Foundation was involved in its creation.

After taking control of SCP-000, determination was made that elimination of the site would only result in certain common personality types taking this as proof of the Foundation's existence.  Instead, the SCP-000 site was repurposed and actively developed as a "shared reality" fictional work, designated DI-████████.

SCP-000 is being run as a wiki, which allows outside editing.  Allowing non-Foundation personnel to participate in the construction of the "shared reality" is an integral part of the DI campaign centered around SCP-000.  However, despite extensive monitoring, improved site security, and frequent changes in the hardware and software used to run SCP-000, unapproved articles taken directly from Foundation records have continued to spontaneously appear on the site every 28 days, concurrent with observed full moonrise at 25°20'41S, 131°02'05E.  These unapproved articles appear even when the hardware running the site is powered down, disconnected from all external systems, partially disassembled, and enclosed within an evacuated chamber equipped with a Faraday cage. As a result, while SCP-000 was initially classified as safe, the continued appearance of these articles has resulted in SCP-000 being reclassified as euclid.

Foundation folklorists, documentation specialists, and DI personnel may request assignment to SCP-000 for a period of up to five (5) years, during which time they will be responsible for releasing scrubbed and altered DI versions of Foundation records and assisting in the maintenance of the "shared reality" fiction.  Additional duties will include monitoring content for  non-Foundation edits that may indicate potential security breaches, and ensuring that information related to [REDACTED] (or related categories such as: [REDACTED]) does not reach active XK status in the population at large.  As of ██/██/20██, approximately four percent (4%) of Foundation records have been altered and released on SCP-000 as part of DI-████████.  These text-only records consist of 300+ hours worth of reading material.

While the ultimate goal of DI-████████ is to provide a screen of plausible deniability for Foundation operations, locating and identifying potential Foundation recruits (Addendum SCP-000-A) is a high-priority secondary goal.

Addendum SCP-000-A: Recruiting

As Dr. ██████ has shown, interest in SCP-000 correlates strongly with the basic personality type profiles [1] used to select Foundation researchers and field team members. Foundation recruiting efforts have seen positive results simply by considering repeated access to SCP-000 as a preliminary HR screening tool.  Over the past ████████ years, this has been reflected in a 22% increase in the number of recruits progressing past initial Foundation contact, a 14% decrease in the five-year attrition rate for new researchers, and an amazing 63% reduction in the number of kinetic interview terminations.

New recruits sourced through SCP-000 tend to show strong interest in similar media, for example:

• Television: The Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone, The X-Files, Warehouse 13.
• Movies: The Indiana Jones movies. [2]
• Books: Charles Stross' "Laundry" series, Larry Correia's MHI series.
• Authors: Manly Wade Wellman, H. P. Lovecraft.
• Web: tvtropes.org, Scarfolk Council, The Ancient and Noble Order of the Gormogons, Creepypasta. 
• Other: Night Vale (podcast).

[1] As Doctor ██████ commented, "SCP-000 is like crack cocaine popcorn for these guys."

[2] Several recent recruits felt the need to qualify this with the statement, "minus that last one, it was complete garbage".

"Thus it ever was..."

Ancient Egyptian soldier's letter home deciphered

A newly deciphered letter home dating back around 1,800 years reveals the pleas of a young Egyptian soldier named Aurelius Polion who was serving, probably as a volunteer, in a Roman legion in Europe. 

In the letter, written mainly in Greek, Polion tells his family that he is desperate to hear from them and that he is going to request leave to make the long journey home to see them... 

The situation seen in this letter, a young man serving as a volunteer in a military unit far away from home, facing tensions with his family and seeking leave to see them sounds like something that happens in modern-day armed forces. 

Although soldiers today have an easier time communicating and traveling back home (Polion would have had to travel for a month or more to reach Tebtunis from his posting in Europe), there are some themes that connect both ancient and modern soldiers, Adamson said. 

As my friend Chap G. pointed out, "Thus it ever was and is."

Renaissance Age Super Heroes

Modern Renaissance Superhero Designs: Altered Art

Worth1000 hosts a variety of photo-editing and illustrative contests. One of their contest series, Superhero ModRen, challenges users to incorporate superheroes into fine art pieces. 

The gallery includes quite a few images - some well done, some not quite so, but all inspired.  Some of my favorites:

"Wonder Woman" by FlashDaz

"Rembrandt vs Joker" by Valgio

Justice League? by Briman222

I particularly like the Escher image.  However... if I had the skill and ability to do something like this, I would have had Elijah Snow holding the globe, with Jakita Wagner and Ambrose Chase in the background.

Sigh.  I would love to see a Planetary movie.  Unfortunately, though, it's a D.C. property, so it's probably best left off the big screen until such time (if ever) they learn how to produce a decent movie.

"Very dangerous. You go first."

Explorer plans hunt for Genghis Khan’s long-lost tomb

The tomb of Mongolian emperor Genghis Khan -- who created the world’s most powerful empire by raiding and invading across Eurasia -- is a lost treasure archaeologists have sought for years. And one man thinks he knows where it is. 

“Ghengis Khan’s tomb is my obsession,” Nichols, a noted authority on the emperor, exclusively told FoxNews.com. “I couldn’t stop thinking about it. But I’m not happy just reading about it, or knowing about it. I need to have my feet on it.”

Be very careful, Mr. Nichols.  You may find exactly what you are looking for...

To seek the sacred river Alph,

To walk the caves of ice;

To break my fast on honey dew,

And drink the milk of paradise...

I had heard the whispered tales 

Of immortality –

The deepest mystery –

From an ancient book, I took a clue

I scaled the frozen mountain tops 

Of eastern lands unknown,

Time and Man alone,

Searching for the lost – Xanadu.

Xanadu...

To stand within the Pleasure Dome
Decreed by Kubla Khan!
To taste anew the fruits of life
The last immortal man!

To find the sacred river Alph!
To walk the caves of ice!
Oh, I will dine on honeydew
And drink the milk of Paradise!

A thousand years have come and gone,
But time has passed me by;
Stars stopped in the sky.
Frozen in an everlasting view

Waiting for the world to end,
Weary of the night;
Praying for the light.
Prison of the lost – Xanadu.

Xanadu...

Held within the Pleasure Dome
Decreed by Kubla Khan...
To taste my bitter triumph,
As a mad immortal man.

Nevermore shall I return,
Escape these caves of ice;
For I have dined on honeydew,
And drunk the milk of Paradise...

Bohemian Gravity

From a link at io9:

Question: What do you get when you mix a cappella, sock puppets, string theory and Queen? Answer: The geekiest (and astonishingly good, musically speaking) cover of "Bohemian Rhapsody" EVAR. Easily the greatest physics-themed cover of the classic we've ever heard. Seriously. The thing's a masterpiece.

Wonder what he's talking about?  Let me ‘splain… no, there is too much. Let me sum up.

"This is madness!"

"This is PHYSICS!"

Well, physics with a dose of crunchy Bohemian goodness.  Done a cappella.

Oh, geez.  Just go watch it.  For the meeping Einstein sock puppet, if nothing else.

Learn To Speak The King's English, Ya Limeys!

Have you ever wondered, "Why Do Americans and Brits Have Different Accents?"

No?

Oh.

Well, in case you ever do wonder, here's the answer for you:

In 1776, whether you were declaring America independent from the crown or swearing your loyalty to King George III, your pronunciation would have been much the same. At that time, American and British accents hadn't yet diverged. What's surprising, though, is that Hollywood costume dramas get it all wrong: The Patriots and the Redcoats spoke with accents that were much closer to the contemporary American accent than to the Queen's English. 

It is the standard British accent that has drastically changed in the past two centuries, while the typical American accent has changed only subtly.

As a Pittsburgh native, I would like to point out that one of our sacred linguistic duties - along with the eliminating the use of the verb "to be"[1] in order to maintain the strategic US Verb Stockpile - is to combat the insidious danger of non-rhotic speech whenever possible.

Those seemingly gratuitous "r" sounds you hear from us when we talk about "warshing up", or tell you that something is "old fasherned"? Yep - that's the noble citizens of da 'burgh, protecting yinz fellers from that there non-rhotic English n'at.

Thankfully, we do not have to stand alone in this task.  Our brethren in the Auld Country are also doing their part to fight the scourge of non-rhotic speech:

The lofty manner of speech developed by these specialists gradually became standardized — it is officially called "Received Pronunciation" — and it spread across Britain. However, people in the north of England, Scotland and Ireland have largely maintained their traditional rhotic accents.

Loverly!

[1] Thusly: while the majority of the country would squander precious verbs, saying things like "the porch needs to be painted", your noble Pittsburgh brethren would simply point out that "the porch needs painted".  This allows the US to stockpile these verbs so that the State Department always has a large quantity available for writing strongly-worded, yet oddly ineffective, diplomatic notes.

Witch? BOO!

The Pixar Theory

Every Pixar movie is connected. I explain how, and possibly why. Several months ago, I watched a fun-filled video on Cracked.com that introduced the idea (at least to me) that all of the Pixar movies actually exist within the same universe. Since then, I’ve obsessed over this concept, working to complete what I call “The Pixar Theory,” a working narrative that ties all of the Pixar movies into one cohesive timeline with a main theme. This theory covers every Pixar production since Toy Story.

A wonderful example of how people manage to find reasons and patterns in everything. 

This Is What Hamlet Meant

The Atlas Obscura - your source for "Curious and Wonderful Travel Destinations".

Definitive guidebook and friendly tour-guide to the world's most wondrous places. Travel tips, articles, strange facts and unique events.

Di you know that there's an H. R. Giger museum?  Curious about where you can (supposedly) find Thomas Edison's last breath?  Does the idea of visiting Vuclan Point - "An island in the middle of a lake, in the middle of a volcano, in the middle of a bigger lake, in the middle of a bigger island, in an archipelago, in the Pacific Ocean" - tickle your fancy?

I'm going to have to spend some time exploring this site.  It's reportedly not quite as much of an addictive time sink as TV Tropes [1]... but close.

[1] Why, yes.  I did provide you with a link to tvtropes.org.  To the "Xanatos Gambit" article, as a matter of fact.  Oh, go on - it's the weekend.  You weren't going to do anything productive with those three hours, anyways.