Category: True Stories

Finger Pointing Hot Links

DARVO.

Stuff like this disgusts me.

The longest word in the universe.

Dude got punked by his buddy [via].

THIS democrat candidate for POTUS points out a truth.

Witness: “…during a class discussion, another student asked the girl if she could kill five people in the class, who would they be? In response, the girl allegedly pointed her finger pistol.”

The 12 year old was handcuffed and arrested, charged with a felony for possessing an unloaded index finger.

[Story here, with links. Meanwhile, two students who brought REAL guns to school in the same school district were merely reprimanded.]

From the “I Was Just Holding Them For A Friend” Department:

A 27-year-old Florida woman who’d built more than 24 pipe bombs was arrested Thursday, after her parents stumbled across the incendiary devices and called police.

[Story found here, via here.]

Yeah, we had the big black bomb SWAT disposal truck in our neighborhood once. Officer said it was more than just homemade fire works.

A Humble Request. Thanks to all who contribute – every little bit helps.

From the Archives: 1 year ago. 5 years ago. 10 years ago.

[Top image: A retread of an innocent logo I made for fun years ago for a small department in a big corporation that I no longer work at.]

John Harrison’s Contribution To The World

Self-taught John Harrison spent 43 years overcoming engineering challenges to develop the first marine chronometer. Harrison won a British competition to resolve deep sea navigation problems, but it took him several years to win the full prize.

In 1714, the British government offered a longitude prize for a method of determining longitude at sea, with the awards ranging from £10,000 to £20,000 (£2 million to £4 million in 2019 terms) depending on accuracy. John Harrison, a Yorkshire carpenter, submitted a project in 1730, and in 1735 completed a clock based on a pair of counter-oscillating weighted beams connected by springs whose motion was not influenced by gravity or the motion of a ship. His first two sea timepieces H1 and H2 (completed in 1741) used this system, but he realized that they had a fundamental sensitivity to centrifugal force, which meant that they could never be accurate enough at sea. Construction of his third machine, designated H3, in 1759 included novel circular balances and the invention of the bi-metallic strip and caged roller bearings, inventions which are still widely used. However, H3’s circular balances still proved too inaccurate and he eventually abandoned the large machines.

Harrison solved the precision problems with his much smaller H4 chronometer design in 1761. H4 looked much like a large five-inch (12 cm) diameter pocket watch. In 1761, Harrison submitted H4 for the £20,000 longitude prize. His design used a fast-beating balance wheel controlled by a temperature-compensated spiral spring. These features remained in use until stable electronic oscillators allowed very accurate portable timepieces to be made at affordable cost.

£20,000 in 1714 = ±£3,837,000 in 2018 = ±$4,733,000 USD.

$110k/year is not a bad payoff for a 45 year-long side project. Harrison began as a 21 year-old, and was 66 when he resolved the problem and received the full amount of the prize. He died 17 years later in 1776.

[Image and story here & here.]

Petrified Fossil Fuel Baby-Eating Hotlinks

Red Shoes 1.

Red Shoes 2.

Johnny Zero.

The Old Oaken Bucket.

Messing with Dad’s stuff is never a good idea [Sound up].

“A USA Swimming Foundation study found that nearly 70% of African American children have low or no swim ability.” [Source]

<soapbox on>

Occasional Cortex got punked by a girl advocating eating babies, but that’s not the funny part. AOC’s non-reaction and acceptance of the premis IS.

Are you a freelance worker? Are you a tech guru? Are you self-employed? California AB5 should interest you. Employers and consultants are about to get screwed.

There’s a movement to recall California’s Governor Gavin Newsom (Nancy Pelosi’s nephew). Here’s his response as shown on the Petition:

Nah. Can’t be Newsom’s socialist policies that are crippling the State’s economy. No way. Nope. LOL

</soapbox off>

A Humble Request. Thanks to all who contribute – every little bit helps.

From the Archives: 1 year ago. 5 years ago. 10 years ago.

[Top image: Petrified Wood Gas Station is now a used car lot.]

“Mum’s the word. Keep it to yourself and don’t tell a soul, but I heard from a reliable source that someone seems to have said…” Hot Links

THIS should alarm every U.S. Citizen.

[Corrective Update below.]

Racing Babies.

College is stupid.

1926 Baseball Score Card.

Andy Ngo is a real journalist.

Dr. Thomas Sowell dispels some modern myths.

Baal’s grumpy and he’s not touching his breakfast.

I dreamt that I had Flexible Sweat-Powered Biofuel Cells.

A camel sat on her face so she bit him right in the crackerbockles.

Like the series “Black Mirror“? Check out Lockheed Martin’s new toys.

The song of the mole cricket:

A Humble Request. Hip surgery is scheduled, we’re still paying her rent out of pocket. Thanks to all who contribute – every little bit helps.

From the Archives: 1 year ago. 5 years ago. 10 years ago.

[Top image: “How Propaganda Works.” Found here.]

[CORRECTIVE UPDATE: Apparently the story posted by The Federalist on 27 September 2019 (linked at top) is inaccurate. The US Intel Community accepts hearsay (info from second-hand sources) but won’t act on it unless they uncover first-hand corroboration. If there’s no corroboration, the hearsay is dismissed as such. In other words, the rules did not change, but their website and the reporting form did.]

This Fire Escape Goes To 11+

Yeah, that’s really a fire escape for the Edifício Copan, an apartment building in Sao Paolo Brazil. With 1,160 apartments and over 2,000 residents, the Brazilian postal service assigned the building its own postal code. Designed by Oscar Niemeyer, construction took 14 years to complete (1952-1966).

There are about 100 employees in the maintenance department, and I pity the poor sap that has to sweep the stairs every day.

I want to go to the top and release 1,001 little rubber balls.

[Image found here. Related posts here and here.]

Tribes

“World’s last tribes: Shock pics show people in danger of EXTINCTION.”

The title is misleading. No, those aren’t “shock pics,” and those people aren’t “in danger of extinction.” Their cultures are, and it’s happened for millennia.

[Images with captions found here.]

USMC Dental Office, Saipan, WWII

“A Marine dentist sets up his office on Saipan, using a Japanese box as a footrest, a Japanese pail as a waste-bucket, and a Japanese shrine (left background) as decor for his waiting room. In order to keep his dentistry really ‘painless’ a Marine patrol nearby kept on the alert for Jap snipers.” (U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archives)

[Caption and image found here. Story at the link.]

Smokin’ Hot Links

I get this.

SQUIRREL!

Yellow Jello?

Cruel but funny.

Hey, hey. My, my.

This story should piss you off.

Tushar’s Great Adventure [via].

There’s a reason it’s called a ram.

No other word to describe them. Animals.

THIS irritates some folks, but somehow THIS doesn’t.

From The Naiveté Department: Couple Travels To ‘Break Stigma’ Of Countries Getting A ‘Bad Rap.’ Iran locked them up.

A Humble Request. Thanks to all contributors and those of you who continue to donate.

From the Archives: 1 year ago. 5 years ago. 10 years ago.

[Top image: A “kid” was spotted smoking at a soccer game, except the “kid” is 36 years old, and the “kid” next to him is his son. Image and story found here. (h/t Octo).]

Saturday Matinee – The Nablus Soap Factory, WHODAT, Fishing With John & FISHBONE

Amazing. The contents of clay cylinders found during the excavation of ancient Babylon is evidence that soapmaking was known as early as 2800BC, and these guys in Nablus are still doing it the ancient way, by hand. Why?

Nice animation that must have taken a while to make [via].

Fishing with John (with Japanese subtitles). From the Utoobage comments: “The problem with other fishing shows is that they are too polished, too normal. And they don’t have enough Tom Waits.”

Reminds me of “The Fishin’ Musician” series featuring John Candy.

Now for something completely different.

I don’t know what Fishbone was yammering about here, but I like the vibe.

As long as a tune was good, I never paid much attention to lyrics, but sometimes, years later, I found that the songs I liked a lot weren’t about what I thought they were about at all.

Have a great weekend, folks. See you back here tomorrow for stuff.

Державне підприємство “Антонов” 1961

“In the mid twentieth century there was made a series of photographs advertising Soviet “An” planes to western buyers. Some of these photos have been revealed just recently. Party leaders didn’t allow them to be used abroad and the photos were kept in the archives of “Antonov” company.”

[Image and caption found in here. More about the Ukraine-based company here.]