This is one of those “ah ha” moments. The CIA has released some operating secrets from the pre-technology era. Those guys were high tech. You can buy a book filled with awesome tips. Like these. Via the Boston Globe.
That’s not the best one.
Cardboard tube fighting is so passe. All the tough guys are now taking their sporting conflict to the streets with fluorescent tubes. At least in Japan.
Once, at work, after replacing a dead bulb I thought it would be fun to swing the old tube around and ended up whacking it on the big bin outside. They shatter like crazy. I can’t imagine this being good for one’s health.
Some of the pictures at this link are a little disturbing. This is the least disturbing of the bunch.
Here’s a useful guide to always winning at eBay – even when you lose.
Step One:
Find the product you want.
Step Two:
Save the product to your watch list.
Step Three:
Wait.
Step Four:
Just before the item ends, enter the maximum amount you are willing to pay for the item.
Step Five:
Click submit.
From here.
It can be confusing having so many Batman franchises to keep abreast with. Here’s a helpful chart via BookofJoe.
You’ve always had the sneaking suspicion that Steven Seagal was more awesome than you were willing to give him credit. Haven’t you. Well it’s true. Not only has he starred in such awesome titles as Half Past Dead and Under Siege, not only does he do all his own stunts (probably not true), and not only does he have the worst combination of receding hairline and ponytail since, well, ever… he has a new TV show coming out. A reality TV show.
But wait. You say. This is not the blogging fodder I’m expecting at St. Eutychus. An ode to a washed up B-grade action movie star (who also happens to be a blues musician)…
Well, it gets even more awesome. The show, called Lawman, unearths a deep and dark secret. Seagal has spent some 20 years deputising for his local police department, kicking bad guys around for real.
Seagal, 58, who has a second home in bayou country, is a fully commissioned deputy and spends several months a year in Louisiana. While on the force, he usually works five-day shifts.
Jefferson Parish Col. John Fortunato, who partners with Seagal on the 13-episode series, says Lawman captures deputies in a high-crime arena – interrogating suspects, breaking up fights, chasing bad guys and making arrests.
Why don’t we all pretend, for a moment, that it’s Tuesday – and not Thursday. Because you are a gracious readership.
Steve Jobs’ product launch speeches are truly superlative… or full of superlatives.
You’ve seen almost the same video before (here somewhere). Here’s the launch of the iPad. Reduced to adjectives.
I don’t think there’s a figure in history with talents as diverse as Leonardo Da Vinci’s. He was cool. A true renaissance man. If you require proof of this coolness – you need look no further than the fact that he has been featured in popular cultural texts as diverse as Ever After (the Cindarella Story) and Assassins Creed 2. Because his coolness is transcendent.
He was, it appears, an incredible self promoter. Here is a letter he sent to the Duke of Milan when he was thirty years old.
There are eleven points. You can read them all here. But my favourites are:
Where the operation of bombardment might fail, I would contrive catapults, mangonels, trabocchi, and other machines of marvellous efficacy and not in common use. And in short, according to the variety of cases, I can contrive various and endless means of offense and defense.
He was, it seems, a ninja.
I have means by secret and tortuous mines and ways, made without noise, to reach a designated spot, even if it were needed to pass under a trench or a river.
A ninja who made tanks.
I will make covered chariots, safe and unattackable, which, entering among the enemy with their artillery, there is no body of men so great but they would break them. And behind these, infantry could follow quite unhurt and without any hindrance.
It’s funny that Einstein is remembered for his contribution to weaponry though he set out to be a scientist – and Leonardo is remembered for his contribution to art though he set out to be a weapons developer.
Item number 11 on the list says:
I can carry out sculpture in marble, bronze, or clay, and also I can do in painting whatever may be done, as well as any other, be he who he may.
The promises even come with a satisfaction guarantee and demonstration…
“And if any of the above-named things seem to anyone to be impossible or not feasible, I am most ready to make the experiment in your park, or in whatever place may please your Excellency – to whom I comment myself with the utmost humility, etc.”
Clearly, in hindsight, he was both competent and capable. Which is probably the key to being successful. If you’re justone of these things without the other you’re doomed for failure.
There’s a big furore going on over the cost of eBooks now that Apple has entered the marketplace. Amazon is fighting a big publisher, Apple is wanting to charge $15 a book. It’s the neverending story.
Ebooks present all sorts of opportunities for pirates – and new law suit opportunities for publishers and distributors.
But there’s a more serious game afoot that is costing publishers billions in lost book sale revenues every year.
Apparently there are these buildings operating in most cities where you can just borrow these books for free.
These so called “libraries” are running right under our noses – often under the auspices of governments. What’s with that. This blogger has a calculation of the loss publishers face (in the US alone) if these organisations are able to continue unchecked.
Go To Hellman has computed that publishers could be losing sales opportunities totaling over $100 Billion per year, losses which extend back to at least the year 2000. These lost sales dwarf the online piracy reported yesterday, and indeed, even the global book publishing business itself.
Is a wonderful thing that thanks to 3’s paucity of regional coverage I have not been able to enjoy. Until now.
Here’s the list. As promised. There are a lot of food related items. Apart from item number one they are not yet in order of quality. I will be putting these together as posts with pictures and stuff – probably on a separate blog.
My definition of Townsville is the same as Tourism Queensland’s – it includes everything north to Mission Beach, west to Charters Towers and south to the Burdekin.
So, Townsvillians – do you have anything to add or subtract?
I guess that I should state, for the record, that I enjoyed many of these experiences either free of charge or at a significant discount. That did not guarantee them a place on the list – I left a few things off.
The heading is only true if you’re a teenage boy and obsessed with passing gas and want to know more about your flatulence. I learned new things.
Source: Online Education
Ha. Ha ha. Hahaha.
The three/ten/180 second rule is hotly debated. Just how long can food sit on the ground before you eat it? According to the doctors it’s not a long time (if you’re worried about bacteria transfering from surface to surface). But who listens to doctors anyway.
Here’s a handy flow chart that’ll help you know when to hold it, know when to fold it, know when to walk away and know when to run. I found it here.
There are some songs that just don’t need lyrics posted online. This is one of them.
Here’s a sample:
Around the world, around the world
Around the world, around the world
Around the world, around the world
Around the world, around the world
In fact, it doesn’t change at all.
It doesn’t change much.
XKCD came up with this brilliant graph. I shared it in my Google Reader items the other day. It deserves its own post.
The alt text reads: “The contents of any one panel are dependent on the contents of every panel including itself. The graph of panel dependencies is complete and bidirectional, and each node has a loop. The mouseover text has two hundred and forty-two characters.”