perfidy

Make a Snowflake.

And no, that's not a porn title. These guys here have sent a rocket into actual outer space with a ham radio payload. Well, Low Earth Orbit anyway. I had hoped to scoop Rocket Jones, but he got this up a minute ago. Damn. (Although since our clocks are not synchronized, it looks like I beay him by three minutes. Would I lie to you?) Nevertheless, the groundswell of private space enterprise continues to, well, swell. Next thing you know, me and Mrs. Buckethead will be booking a vacation on the moon. Do you have any idea how cool an amusement park you could create in one-sixth g?

Loyal reader MapGirl alerts us to a disturbing situation, reported over at The Cheese Stands Alone. At first, I could not but believe that this was some sort of allegory, or satirical comment on the failings of modern culture. If true, and I am certainly willing to extend my faith to encompass this, I am frankly stunned.

Go read it. Back?

My father never uttered the phrase, "I'll give you something to cry about." However, a similar thought crossed my mind while reading that post. I don't think I'd be able to avoid intimidating this... person... ever after. I have never lost a game of Trivial Pursuit. (Well, except once. But I was blind stinking drunk and playing seven people on the other team. And even then it was close.) I would make references to things you've never heard of. I'd couch every comment, every request, every passing remark in a thicket of classical, historical, and early 80s pop culture allusions. I would go to absurd lengths to make my every communication absolutely unintelligible to someone who doesn't read as much as I do. Then I'd start making things up. Then mix them together. And if she made a move to file a complaint again, I'd kick the crap out of her. Then I'd say, "Take the hit. That's what intimidation is." On the inside.

My wife doesn't let me be mean anymore.

Popular Science has a fascinating bit up describing some of the technological goodies the DoD is preparing in its secret labs, so that we might smite our enemies with ever greater lethality, accuracy and "Damn, wtf was that?"

Among said goodies are rods from the gods, rocket propelled torpedos, lasers, and million rpm machine guns. Sweet. In the comments to a recent post, GeekLethal made the observation that, "I think it's great that as mankind reaches for the heavens, he is never so bold as to entirely disregard looking cool." The same applies to guns.

By way of Rocket Jones, this nugget of brevity from Mr. Green:

Abu Ghraib represents a betrayal of our principles, while this murder [Nicholas Berg - RJ] represents an expression of theirs.

That's about the best summation of the relationship between the two events as I've seen.

An egghead larva at CWRU has potentially made many sports fans very, very happy indeed.

Adam Hunnell, a first-year student in Case's Physics Entrepreneurship Program has conceived the Keg Wrap, a portable method for keeping beer kegs cold indefinitely.

He has received a $20,000 grant from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) to build a prototype.

Hunnell's idea is to design a wrap, made of nylon or a similar material, using thermoelectrics. The wrap will be cold enough to keep a keg at between 32 and 35 degrees Fahrenheit. It can be powered by a conventional electrical outlet or an automobile's cigarette lighter.

Now that's money well spent.

Well, now you can check at home! Yes, that's right - an egghead at the Oxford University has developed a home alternate universe test. All you need is a red laser pointer, a dark room, a piece of paper and a pin. Well, and this link.

I am so, like, psyched! The director of one of the best movies of all time, the Iron Giant, is teaming up with the best animation studio since the glory days of Disney - Pixar - to make a new movie, The Incredibles.

Sweet!
 

Yeeeha!

Burt Rutan's Spaceshipone makes its third powered test flight, reaching an altitude of 212,000 feet. Kids, that's 41 miles, or over 80% of the way to space. NASA gives astronaut wings to anyone who makes it to fifty miles up.

Well, nearly. The seventeen year plague of cicadas is almost upon us. Well, 'us' if you live in the eastern United States, south of NY, north of Georgia and east of Illinois. And west of the Ocean, naturally.

I have (due to suspiciously convenient absences) never experienced the wonder of a full scale cicada onslaught. To be honest, the prospect of this guy:

and a trillion of his closest friends arriving uninvited for dinner and a little sex leaves me cold. Although I would like to be the first to welcome our new Cicada overlords.

The thought of over a ton of bugs per acre puts me too much in mind of bad fifties movies. I have heard that the critters will generate over a hundred decibels with their interminable mating calls - that's verging on rock concert loud. My dog, though very cute, is not exactly a canine Einstein. Or for that matter even a canine Yahoo Serious. Exactly how sick he's going to get eating bugs is a matter of some concern.

Look below the fold for more info on the critters.

This Virginia Tech page, prepared by actual entomologists, has lots of gossip about the habits of Cicadas.

This University of Michigan site cuts right to the chase:

What is a periodical cicada? Cicadas are flying, plant-sucking insects

This map (obtained here, from Cicada Man) shows which areas brood X plans to conquer:

And of course, no experience is complete without a commemorative mug:

Why not sit down to a nice cupajoe, in your personalized cicada mug (fifteen states and DC!) while you go insane from the noise?

The perfidious Technorati Profile suggests that this site has not been updated since before the invention of webpages, nay, even the invention of the internet.

Source last updated 12551 days 17 hours 44 minutes ago. Query took 1.63 seconds

That's almost 34 and a half years, kids - or looked at another way, slightly longer than I've been alive. Next to that screw up, I suppose it's not really material that they don't have most of our links, either.

[wik] 2:00pm: I hit refresh, and now it's ten links and fifty five days. Wait! Now it's back to 34 years!

[alsø wik] 4:15pm: looks like all the links are back, but still fifty five days since last update.

Fellow Virginian and Ohio expatriot Phil has enslickened his website. Check the new design and the story of a exceedingly clueless Chicago Alderman.

A little while back, we had a post on the list of "great works" that had been feverishly circulating the interweb. Several of us submitted our lists, highlighting the works we had read, or at the very least perused. But after the orgy of metooism had passed, the criticisms inevitably surfaced. Among the complaints: too much Russian lit, too much English romantic drivel, not enough humor or sf, Hemingway sucks, and in general that the list reads like a dead white male's greatest hits - with a few nods to the sob sisters. Johno undertook to start our own perfidious list, which will serve as a useful starting point:

HST: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Miller: The Canticle of Leibowitz
O'Rourke: Parliament of Whores
Stephenson: Cryptonomicon
Bester: The Stars My Destination
Heinlein: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Toole: Confederacy of Dunces
Pynchon: Gravity's Rainbow
Bukowski: Run With The Hunted
Burroughs: Naked Lunch
Hammett: The Maltese Falcon

(Before we go any further, I must establish my street cred by saying that I have read all of these except for Bukowski and Pynchon.) Johno's list has the goes in a completely different stylistic and philosophical direction than the original. I would offer, also a direction much better, reasonable and suited to the tastes of this webthingy.

Before we get really going, I think we need to make several ground rules for our list. If you disagree, savage them in the comments. First, nothing newer than, say, about 1970. Works need some time to settle into a canon, and we should not be thinking about something written after I was born. Second, philosophy and history should be eliminated from the list unless they have compelling literary value. Clausewitz is terrifically important, but nearly unreadable. Gibbon however, is a delight to read as well as being profoundly ensmartening. Third, light on the poetry. And fourth, no matter how painful it is, no more than one example of an artist�s work unless they are a) Shakespeare, b) writing in two distinctly different genres/modes, or c) both. 

If we combine Johno's list and implicit challenge with the flawed but still useful original list that we got from the Oldsmoblogger, we might have something nifty-keen. I would offer these amendations to the original list: No Brontes, and substitute Emma for P&P. No Cooper - read Twain if you are in doubt. Who the hell is Silko, anyway? He's the only one on the list I've never heard of. He's gone. Turgenev? There are several Russians better suited to the list, and likewise Pasternak. Tolstoy, Chekov, Dostoevskiy - that should be sufficient. No Morrison, either. The Shakespeare list should be Hamlet, Taming of the Shrew, History of Henry IV part II, and the sonnets. The rest, they shall stay as they are. If we add Johno's list in its entirety, along with:

Milton, John - Paradise Lost
Chandler, Raymond - The Long Goodbye
God - The Bible
Gibbon - The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Frank Herbert - Dune
J.R.R. Tolkien - The Lord of the Ring

we are heading in the right direction. Everyone pile on in the comments!

Traitorous eggheads at the New York university have succeeded in creating tiny robots made of DNA, and only 10 nanometers long. (10 nanometers is, in human terms, really, really goddamn small.) These robots are so small, we probably couldn't even kill them. And to me, that is a major defect in their design. At least we'd have a chance against the giant fighting robots...

Go here to make your own Mr. Picassohead!
 

What did Michael Jackson say to Woody Allen?

Can I give you two fives for a ten?

Beginning with one of the best ledes I've seen in a long time,

Christian teens are stealing Jesus music

this Seattle Times article tells the sordid tale of Christians pirating inspirational music.

The findings were a jolt to many in the evangelical music industry, who expected churchgoing teens to be mindful of the commandment that states, "Thou shalt not steal."

"I'm surprised and disappointed that the behavior isn't that ardently different between Christians and non-Christians," said John Styll, president of the Gospel Music Association, the leading trade group for evangelical music.

While downloading a Metallica song and putting a metaphorical finger in the eye of Lars Ulrich might give one a certain frisson of excitement; stealing the Word of the Lord should provoke a slightly bigger "hey, wait a damn minute" from the conscience. Or at least make you reassess your commitment to the moral system that motivated the musicians whose music you're stealing.

[hat tip: Sophont.]

GeekLethal found a wonderful toy, with which you can create wonders such as this: 

No, really. Johno's post didn't include a link to the story, so there it is.

Norbizness (who I have not linked in some time, to my shame) has a hilarious post up - rap lyrics translated into middle-management speak. Example:

"Law enforcement officials seem intent on confiscating my current narcotic harvest."

"Please pass me the amplification device, so that I may extend my present line of discourse. The alliance of particular Californian neighborhoods is a portent of imperilment."

Fun, fun, fun