Man catchs 245lbs Catfish

Via Fark - I for one welcome our Catfish overlords. Seriously though..70% of the planets surface is underwater. Who knows whats down there...

Daffy Duck 2011

10$ device from radioshack easily hacks voting machines

Via Salon.Com - a scary story about how easy vote rigging is. Electronic voting machines are the path of greed and laziness. The government is fine with spending xbillion zillion dollars bombing goats in Iraq but we can pay people to count the ballets by hand ? Only 16% of the population votes on average so its not like they are counting 300 million ballots.

White House cant find Colorado on a map

Via the Dori Monsen Show and CNN - a White House press release with Wyoming and Colorado mislabeled

Two headed cat turns 12

slow news week :) video take a moment to load

CERN tracks "impossible" faster than light particles

If this experiment turns out to be reproducible a chunk of Einstein and modern physics can be thrown in the hamper. I've always thought complex thought must violate the light speed limit otherwise you'd get chunks of ideas bleeding in like a train and its cars rather than the whole idea at once. My money is on these neutrinos moving so fast they skip out of our universe and then back in again..like being carried by a faster parallel stream and then falling back into the slow one.

BTW Time magazine profiled a 12 yo boy who had already got the jump on pointing out Einstein's errors

So much interesting news!

Lots of interesting links for thurs(t)day readers

One woman, two uteri, two healthy babies
DSHS ignored warning about "under the table" foster care home
Obama orders new bases built in Africa
SIXTY SIX kids found riding in a 8 seater van
Mother of 5 arrested for sex with boy she met in World of Warcraft
Hurricane to hit crippled Japanese nuclear zone

and finally a great webpage from NASA that shows a new space picture every day with an explanation of what you are looking at 

Jobs plan and gay soliders

I have a few comments on Obamas efforts of late to inspire the people who put him in office.

Angry birds economics

Cnn money is reporting that the popular smart phone game "Angry Birds" has surpassed 350 MILLION downloads. Depending on the version, each game costs between 50 cents and 5 dollars. Even if they are all the 50 cent version this company made 150 million dollars.

Angry Birds is a symbol of what wrong with capitalism today. Personally I found Angry Birds entertaining for about 2 minutes. And it probably took the writers of the game about that long to make. Designers of meaningful, complex games that are playable for years are all jumping ship and going over to facebook/app based game companies because the even the most successful PC games only sells ~500,000 copies. Just to turn a profit they need to charge $50-60 bucks per game. Like Wallstreet, all the incentive lies in the quick meaningless huge profit and early retirement. It also means the leonardo devincis of the industry are shackled to a grossly shrinking number of companies willing to produce these type of games.

Even more random interesting news links

I've been busy and havnt had the time to give each link the tender loving care it deserves.

16 Earth-like planets discovered
Mother steals money donated to pay for son's cancer treatments
Father of 3 missing boys set free after claiming he "gave away" kids
Tribes retroactively purging blacks granted tribal citizenship
School's to require sexual knowlege testing for kids in DC area
Google earth street view takes photo of nekkid woman
Afghani Air force pilot flies combat missions with 5yo daughter
Australian government unviels offical 3rd gender option "X"
FBI agent lesson program calls all muslim violent and radical 

Random interesting news posts

A little something for everyone

Another Star Wars trilogy in the making
Multiple choices in the UK school system
Laser based Fusion power source making progress
Transcontinental Railroad was built to fail but make corporations rich
Long list of skills that have become obsolete

and a SONG OF THE WEEK (remember those?) for 911. This is Toby Keith's "Beer for my horses" and a video from World of Warcraft

Dog sized crabs decimate Arctic ecosystem

As water temps rise large predators are on the move into waters previously too cold for them to survive. I for one welcome our new Crab overlords. Crab-People! Crab People!

5 Million without power

The authorities would like us to believe that 1 employee tinkering with a substation in Yuma, Az has "accidently" cut power to over 5 million people. San Deigo, Yuma and nearby Mexican boarder cities are all reporting blackouts. 2 Nuclear plants went into auto shutdown. Sony Online gaming network, headquartered in San Deigo, collapsed. Several sewage treatment facilities overflowed and leaked into the ocean. Traffic system are all down. I say no way - there are firewalls and trip switches to prevent massive surges across multiple grids. This event stinks of EMP weapon testing.

NPR charts Republican anti-science quotes

Via Fark; I found this chart informative and fairly scary. Whats more distubing though - that the candidates actually believe what they are saying or that they think millions of voters do?

Mel Gibson filming the story of hanukkah

Cant help but respect Mel for this! First - the Maccabees story is one of the great stories never told by like anyone so Mel's really got a chance to do another Braveheart. And Mel - hes like - wanna call me a anti-semite? Fine I'll make a movie about Jewish people. Tyrion Lannister said "If they want to give you a name take it make it your own. Then they can’t hurt you with it anymore." Look like Mel took him to heart. 

NASA tests long range ship engine

This is the one that is suppose to get us to Mars

The price of pot

I thought this map from Wired was pretty interesting as it charts the cost of an ounce of pot per state like gasbuddy does for gas. I'm not advocating usage btw..but if you absolutely have to use chemicals to relax..pot is easier on your body than beer or any other non legal option. As long as you dont smoke it. Costco or other warehouse stores sell humidifiers that are easily converted into bongs.
All the benefits without inhaling the toxic stuff from burning things

History of MMOs

An MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online games) is a game that is capable of supporting 1000s of players at the same time and contains at least one virtual world that remains active when the user leaves. The current largest western MMO is World of Warcraft with 11 million subscribers. China's "Happy Farm" has it beat with 228 million subscribers and an average of 23 million users logged in every day. 

This awesome chart depicts most of the history of massive online gaming. I actually started playing MMOs with a game called Neverwinter Nights (seen in the picture above) which debuted in 1991. This chart has the added effect of making one feel really old.

Random interesting news links

Lots of interesting news links that defy categorization and dont merit their own post. Several are from Fark.

Kids play with 2 headed baby cow
Children with older fathers at greater risk of mental illness
Teen pretended to be ER doctor..why would anyone do this?
Florida has more "pain clinics" than Mcdonalds locations 
Obama scraps new clean air laws
Man-bear-Pig reborn in Guatemala
Molasses apparently is a cure-all for toxic waste
21yo UCLA student joins Libyan resistance; calls it a "vacation"
Blind people using sonar like bats or dolphins 

George Lucus makes changes to Star Wars

Via Evil Avatar, news that Geroge Lucus has added something to the final battle between Luke and the Emperor. Click the link to learn more!

Did Odds On Promotions steal 30k from kid?

So an 11yo kid successfully shoots a puck into the little teeny tiny hole for one of those halftime contests. But because his twin brother's name is on the ticket they get nothing. Lame. Odds On Promotions will instead donate 20k to hockey programs in the area and the kids get to attend a hockey camp at the rink free of charge. Fair trade ?