Category: Link Dump

Mistress of the Dark Hot Links

Halloween Stories For Children includes “The Hairy Toe” but I never heard of it. It’s similar to “Der Vinder Viper” without the punchline “I’m Der Vinder Viper man, come to vipe der vinders.”

The first link above says there’s a pun in the story title, but I didn’t catch it. All I could come up with was “Jarritos.” It means “little jugs” in Spanish, and its anglicized pronunciation is “hairy toes.” It’s one of the better soft drinks to come out of Mexico, and Jarritos Tamarindo is the best.

1978 UFO drone. “The problem was not getting it to fly… The problem was getting it to land.”

Here are some examples of skeuomorphism.

Here’s jaw-dropping evidence that President Trump colluded with Russia to throw the 2016 election after a year of investigation by the DNC, DOJ, FBI, CIA, MSM and others.

The greatest voice in cartoons: Mel Blanc described the business to David Letterman in 1981. At 03:28, Blanc described how Porky Pig’s voice came to be – he went to a pig farm and listened.

A kilowatt hour is the distance a kilowatt can travel in 60 minutes and it’s faster than a cheetah. (Okay, it’s not, but it is because I just said it is.)

From the Hoodathunkit Dept.: 47 year-old Filipino man was rescued after living three years in a coconut palm. His body was covered in blisters and insect bites, suffers from muscle atrophy and his spine became deformed after so much time spent crouching in the tree. He exhibits symptoms of psychosis, including delusions, hallucinations and paranoia.

[Top & bottom images: Cassandra Peterson, (aka Elvira, Mistress of the Dark) is ending her long-running Halloween show at Knotts *Scary* Farm at the age of 66.]

Right-Justified Hot Links

Nice groove: The Gaylads‘ 1967 rocksteady version of The Sounds of Silence.

This source states that wombats poop bricks.

This source explains how and why wombats poop bricks.

This source explains what wombats’ poop bricks are used for.

Nice precision paper work.

Nice precision wood work.

Nice precision tile work.

Art. It’s sometimes a misnomer.

“What do you think of Bernie’s tax plan?” These students like it .

[Top image: Animated .gif of Frederica Wilson’s hats.]

Sculpted and Vitrified Hot Links

Got a notice this week from the gas company. For the past two months we’ve used 9% less gas than our most energy efficient neighbors, so tomorrow we’re going to wash the dishes, do laundry, heat the house to comfortable degrees Fahrenheit and break the streak. May we refuse to participate in the divisive shaming of our neighbors on behalf of the anthropological global warming fascists, and let’s work to make Greenland green again.

Maybe sea levels are rising and falling because the tectonic plates don’t sit still.

I never forget a face, and I wouldn’t know if I did.

I’m over 8-1/2 in dog years but I went to elementary school with a girl whose birthday is February 29. She’s as old as I am, and she just turned 15 a few months ago. Go figger.

About goose eggs [SFK, SFW].

About butt-dialing [SFK, SFW].

About voice-overs [NSFK, NSFW].

In mathematics, rules may be tossed to the wind when you employ one or more of these time-tested proofs., but they also work for any serious discussion on any topic. Related stuff was posted a few months ago:

Schopenhauer’s 38 ways to win an argument exposed underhanded and dishonest tactics in The Art of Being Right (1831). Intended as acerbic snark, how many have you seen used in modern political discourse?

Beware of The Nanny/Caregiver Scam.

Here’s an interesting (yet incomplete) timeline of events relevant to slavery.

Is the end of Moore’s Law coming soon?

British author Naomi Jacobs was 32 when she woke up with a rare form of amnesia. She thought she was still 15, even forgetting she had a son. Her memory came back gradually over eight months or so. Story here [via here]. Not sure if it’s a hoax/fraud to sell a book, but it’s an interesting story.

Sybil, Sybil, Sybil, Sybil, Sybil, Sybil, Sybil, Sybil, Sybil, Sybil, Sybil, Sybil, Sybil, Sybil, Sybil and Sybil.

[Top image: “Woman In Thought” 1958. Sculpted from leftover sewer pipe clay and vitrified. That and more sewer pipe vitrified clay sculptures here.]

 

Totally Brainwashed Hot Links

The Hickory Horned Devil is the largest caterpillar in North America (except for this one).

Watch this first.
Now watch that next [via].

Ondes Martenot was a precursor to the Ondioline which was a precursor to the Moog synthesizer.

Early electronic music pioneer Jean-Jacques Perrey ‎released an EP  entitled “Mister Ondioline” in 1960.
1. Parade Des Soldats De Bois – 0:00.
2. La Gavotte Des Vers Luisants – 3:04.
3. Le Siffleur Et Son Chien – 5:42.
4. Nola – 8:01.

Here’s my favorite version of “Nola.” Jonathan Edwards was brilliant.

It holds the record for the smallest brain-to-body weight ratio of all vertebrates, and the latin name of Acanthonus Armatus translates into “Bony-Eared Ass Fish” according to this site. (Any chance that some wag tunneled under the fact-checkers at Wikipedia? Nope. Never happens.) On the other hand, the Bony-Eared Ass Fish is real.

Amateur photography: A collection of people who snapped.

[Top image found here, with no explanation.]

 

Big ‘Ol Honkin’ Hot Links

Soviet anti-U.S. posters.

Everybody wants to talk with Pee-Wee! Here’s your chance!

Choose a name for your game. Choose wisely, as it can’t be changed later.

Spiral-cut pinapple demonstration vid is pretty cool [via].

Fun Facts To Know And Tell: Take a regular deck of playing cards, shuffle them, and spread them out face up. IIRC, the odds of getting that particular sequence is calculated by factorial:
n! = 52! = (1 x 2 x 3 … x 52) = 8.065817517 E+67, or 1 in
80,658,175,170,943,878,571,660,636,856,403,766,975,289,505,440,883,277,824,000,000,000,000, and you just nailed it. The ex post probability of getting that particular sequence is always 100%.

Hypershock vs. Warrior Clan is amusing. The winner took out the other Battlebots with brute force… and a rake.

[Top image from here.]

Live From Pyongyang, It’s Saturday Night Hot Links

THIS is just wrong.

There’s a bronze statue of Lt. Frank Columbo (Peter Falk) with a bronze beagle in Budapest. TRUE.

Robot prototype fail [via].

Tower Records was awesome. We’d spend hours in their Buena Park store combing through their vinyl, but the L.A. store was huge. I never knew the history until now [via].

Always order the largest pizza. Here’s why.

What do you need to know to become a Citizen of the United States? Here’s a practice test.

Guy moves massive concrete blocks by himself using only gravity and leverage [via].

I found this Tweet amusing.

[Top image made with I Can Haz Cheeseburger Meme Generator.]

Mono-polyrhythmical Hot Links

Kabardian, also known as Circassian, is spoken in the Caucasus. In the sentence “The men saw me,” the word for “saw” is sǝq’ayǝƛaaɣwǝaɣhaś, pronounced roughly “suck-a-LAGH-a-HESH”  [via].

Classic barking cat vid here.

Check out the Paterson-Zwick Construction. Need something a bit easier? Try this.

Untangle the web.

Your Colon Smells Great is the best blog post title I’ve seen so far this year.

I do not like them, Sam I Am.

Oktoberfest began Saturday and a man fights with his shoe.

[Top image from here.]

Homogeneous Diversification Hot Links

Sebastian Junger’s “The Perfect Storm” was one of the best books I ever read twice. The movie version was kinda okay, but it ignored significant details IMO.

Top Ten Finalists for Best Illusions of 2016.

Communists are illegally crossing our southern borders. TRUE.

For only a few hundred dollars you can eat and study Greek philosophy at the same time.

Here’s an interesting Princeton Senior thesis. It explains a lot.

Launched on 17 October 1997, The Cassini Spacecraft has been messing around near Saturn for about thirteen years now, and it’s scheduled to crash and burn on 15 September 2017 after 20 years of service [via].

Making a very stressful salad.

[Top image found here.]

Anthropogenic Global Hot Links

From Twitter: “I had a floppy disk on my desk and my student said, “Oh cool, you 3D printed a SAVE button.'”

Twitterer plays the drums.

Looky what we found in 2016! It’s an interactive map of discoveries!

¡Viva La Venezuela! Ami Horowitz discusses income equality with NY millennials.

Spin a shiny new penny 10 or more times in a row and it will come up tails approximately 80% of the time. Here’s why [via]. What about flipping an undoctored coin ten or more times in a row? Are the odds 50-50? Not if I do it. It just takes practice – same flip, same height, same catch. Any bets? More coin-flipping cons here.

“Oops. Pardon me.”

“These work as screwdrivers, knives and various other multi-tools at the tip of your finger…  also you can shine them with Brasso.” DIY bullet casing hack is cool.

Paul Reubens (aka Pee Wee Herman, pictured in 1968 at top) named his stage persona after this. TRUE.

I’ll See You on the Dark Side of the Hot LInks

“Look, I got this. Just gimme a coupla minutes.” –Cristobal Columbo circa 1492

The Great American Solar Eclipse is tomorrow. Plug in your location here to find out what time you need to start banging your pots and pans to drive the dragon away. If anyone tells you it’s safe to look at with the nekkid eye, he/she is a fool.
Don’t do it.

Apparently The Ancients blamed dogs for the temporary darkness of a solar eclipse.

Every time I hear it, it seems she’s singing about her cat. On the other hand, it’s a good Solar Eclipse party song.

The Mystery of the U.S. Navy’s Ghost Blimp is still unsolved after 75 years.

84 year-old folk artist Denny Lunn tells some stories [via].

The last Blockbuster store is still open for business.

An honorary statue in New Orleans, depicting a famous military figure on a horse, was defaced with the words “Tear It Down” recently. The honored warrior was captured, tortured and killed by fire decades before Europeans even knew about this continent, and centuries prior to the founding of the United States of America. TRUE.

Walter E. Williams on Rewriting American History.

[Top image from here.]