| Military Robot Could Eat Corpses |
[Jul. 15th, 2009|04:21 pm] |
Granted, the source if Fox news here, but still, take note:
"A Maryland company under contract to the Pentagon is working on a steam-powered robot that would fuel itself by gobbling up whatever organic material it can find — grass, wood, old furniture, even dead bodies."
And of course, such a thing wouldn't be complete without a badass acronym to go by. I'm sure whoever came up with "Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot" (EATR for short) was pretty damn proud of themselves. |
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| An Unexpected Guest |
[Jul. 15th, 2009|02:10 pm] |
In the wake of my recent unemployment (which began at the beginning of the month), I had to do a lot of thinning out in my apartment, mostly to make room for the 7 years worth of crap I'd had accumulating at the office which suddenly ended up here in a sizable pile. And so I went ahead and swapped one pile for another bringing in the stuff that would stay and stacking up the stuff that would go.
Among the things that would go was a long-handled butterfly net. Like most treasures in my apartment, I'm not entirely sure why it was here. I think SLF and I had picked it up at Building 19 or the like with the intention of giving it to someone at the office for kicks, but the thing never made it past my front door, and instead was sitting in a corner here for the better part of a year. So into the pile it went. A pile, of course, that I haven't actually gotten around to disposing of just yet.
And so today I'm sitting at my desk, idly poking at my resumé when I see this shadow flit by the corner of my vision. It's a nice day with the curtains open, and I assume it's just the shadow of a passing bird or something. But then a moment later, I see it again and this time hear a light wooshing sound passing just above my head. I wheel around to see a reasonably-sized bat (maybe 7 or 8 inches across the wings), wheeling some laps around my living room.
I was a bit flabbergasted, watching the thing flying around, trying to think of how best to handle the situation. And then I remembered the net! What providence, eh? I grabbed it from the heap by the door and vaulted into the living room, ready to do battle. Battle without doing any actual harm of course, which actually made scooping it out of the air a dicey endeavor. Eventually I just sat and watched a bit, waiting for the thing to settle down a bit, making its capture a breeze.
Around then my Super came knocking at the door, panting and carrying a broom. Apparently he had been chasing the thing throughout the building, trying to coax it out of windows along the way. I guess it had made its way up the building's staircase to the top floor here, where he said some "brave souls" saw it crawl in under my door. I looked over his shoulder to see who he meant, where I saw the wide eyes of a construction crew peeking around the corner from the far end of the hall.
We had a good laugh about it, and he helped me slide some cardboard under the net so we could get the now screeching bat to an open window. It was apparently not thrilled with the way its day was going so far, and it was off like a shot as soon as it hit the open air. The Super and I continued to have a good chuckle about it as we watched the bat dart its way down to a nearby treeline. As I showed him out of the apartment, my Super looked around at the pile of stuff by the door. "I've just gotta ask, what did you have that net for anyway?"
"Catching bats, I guess."
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| Koi2 |
[Jul. 9th, 2009|05:37 pm] |
The object of Koi2 is to poke the girl seated across from you in the forehead.
Because life doesn't have to be complicated. |
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| Sour - Hibi no Neiro |
[Jul. 8th, 2009|05:25 pm] |
SOUR / 日々の音色 (Hibi no Neiro) MV from Magico Nakamura on Vimeo.
This music video was shot for Sour's 'Hibi no Neiro' (Tone of everyday) from their first mini album 'Water Flavor EP'. The cast were selected from the actual Sour fan base, from many countries around the world. Each person and scene was filmed purely via webcam.
Director: Masashi Kawamura + Hal Kirkland + Magico Nakamura + Masayoshi Nakamura
Video link here.
[Edit: Looks like the Vimeo link is down, but here's the video on YouTube.] |
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| Hunger is the Mother of Invention |
[Jul. 1st, 2009|01:08 pm] |
In a moment of educational give-and-take, one of my interns just enlightened me to the fact that an excess of hotdog buns can actually be used to make some excellent french toast sticks. A solid plan, it seems. Probably even better if you swap the hotdog for a sausage.
To step up the class ever so slightly there though, I'd recommend taking a look over at fancyfastfood.com, a semi-ridiculous site about how to reconstitute various fast food dishes into gourmet-looking dishes, often of a completely different food type. It's fascinating stuff, though for better or for worse most of it seems to sit outside the reach of my blenderless life. And like the title says, it doesn't actually make it any better for you, but sometimes it's really just about looking good. |
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| Daybreakers |
[Jun. 30th, 2009|03:39 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | video | ] |
I know I'm a sucker for most things Lionsgate, but this trailer for Daybreakers actually looks like it might be something.
Video link here. |
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| A Note about Michael Jackson |
[Jun. 26th, 2009|06:46 pm] |
So there's of course been a lot of buzzing and boo-hooing about Michael Jackson in the last 24 hours, which of course makes perfect sense. It's certainly an unfortunate turn of events (though I daresay perhaps moreso if you happen to be Farrah Fawcett, Sky Saxon, or John Joseph Houghtaling, inventor of the Magic Fingers).
More directly on the topic of Michael Jackson though, I've gotta say that I really feel like we're not seeing the big picture here. Yes, he did amazing things with music and yes, he had a tragically fascinating life, and yes, his death is a sad thing indeed. However, anyone who takes a good long look at the life and times of Michael Jackson will quickly realize that in the truest sense of the word, Michael Jackson is not dead. His body may have ceased to "live" by all technical definitions, but at least for the immediate interim, I feel that it's painfully short-sighted to think that this is the last the earth has seen of Michael Jackson.
This is a guy who was essentially a shape-shifter. A guy who collected mummies and skeletons and was, at least I choose to believe, planning on building a gigantic robot version of himself in the Nevada desert. He was essentially my one great hope for a real-life Supervillain in our time, and I simply can't believe that a man like that didn't have some kind of backup plan crafted in the event of his death.
We may not see it within our lifetimes, but there's not a doubt in my mind that this world hasn't seen the last of Michael Jackson. If Walt Disney's head is frozen in a jar awaiting reconstitution, then I have high, high hopes for the terror that the reanimated corpse of Michael Jackson will reign down upon the planet once our science and dreams have evolved far enough down that dark technological path.
He will rise again, and he will make us pay. |
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| Me at 100 |
[Jun. 26th, 2009|05:33 pm] |
I thought I'd share my submission for a little contest laid out by this fellow Phil McAndrew over here. The challenge was to draw yourself as you imagine you'll be at 100, assuming science has allowed us all to get there more or less intact. I recommend you peruse the submissions; there's some hilarious, awesome stuff in there.
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| Happy Belated! |
[Jun. 24th, 2009|11:08 pm] |
Oh man, I totally missed Danzig's birthday yesterday. Happy birthday, buddy! |
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| Baby Tapir |
[Jun. 23rd, 2009|06:22 pm] |
I'm not generally one for posting links labeled "cutest thing ever" but I think there's always room for exceptions here and there.
Thanks, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) iandavid. |
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| Friday Time-Killers |
[Jun. 19th, 2009|02:33 pm] |
Those who fondly remember Hedgehog Launch will be pleased to see Hedgehog Launch 2.
And those who fondly remember Magic: The Gathering (or whatever other fantasy card game might be more relevant) will probably enjoy The Necronomicon Card Game, a Lovecraft-inspired online card game. |
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| Unko-san |
[Jun. 12th, 2009|07:24 pm] |
From Pink Tentacle:
“Unko-san,” a new anime series about a brown turd-shaped fairy with lots of luck, is fast becoming the rage among high school girls in western Japan. Short episodes of the anime are now showing in the Osaka area on Kansai TV’s “Otoemon” music program. The stories revolve around Unko-san — whose name is a play on the Japanese words for “luck” (un) and “crap” (unko) — and his quest for happiness on Lucky Island, which is populated by a host of other poo fairies.
Video link here. |
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| Monstrous |
[Jun. 10th, 2009|01:37 pm] |
See, this is how Godzilla is gonna happen. We're gonna kill off all the fish that happen to be keeping some strain of aquatic lizard in check, giving the lizard free reign to eat whatever it wants, grow to an incredible size, and then stomp on downtown Tokyo.
It's already started. |
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| Illustrated Internet |
[Jun. 9th, 2009|05:51 pm] |
After a failure to properly motivate myself for a trip down to NYC for that whole MOCCA thing, I've been taking some makeshift solace in a few bits of semi-relevant internet here and there.
For starters, there's this listing on Hongkiat.com of 50 Beautiful Hand-Drawn Web Designs that got sent around the office, some of which definitely qualify the title's criteria.
Then there's this random assortment of comic pages, many of which seem to be a good little taste of some things to track down. Also sorta makes me wanna grab a few issues of Popgun or something.
On a cuter note, SLF sent me over this cute website for "An Awesome Book" by Dallas Clayton that's worth a look.
I'm also pondering the 24 Hour Comics Day thing for this year, just for kicks. Anybody ever done that before? |
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