Archive for November, 2010
Public USB Drives In The Walls Of NYC
Dead Drops is a project in which USB flash drives are installed on the streets of New York City for anonymous file-sharing by strangers. Thus far, five USBs are hidden around the city. Find them to add or take whatever files you wish.
‘Dead Drops’ is an anonymous, offline, peer to peer file-sharing network in public space. I am ‘injecting’ USB flash drives into walls, buildings and curbs accessable to anybody in public space. You are invited to go to these places (so far 5 in NYC) to drop or find files on a dead drop. Plug your laptop to a wall, house or pole to share your favorite files and data. Each dead drop contains a readme.txt file explaining the project. ‘Dead Drops’ is still in progress, to be continued here and in more cities.
Dick Van Dyke Saved From Death By Porpoises
If ever there were an event that could inspire me to believe in a higher power, this is it. The Guardian reports:
On screen, Dick Van Dyke has been rescued from untimely death by flying cars and magical nannies. Off screen, the veteran star had to rely on the help of a pod of porpoises after apparently dozing off aboard his surfboard.
Van Dyke’s ordeal began during an ill-fated trip to his local beach. “I woke up out of sight of land,” the 84-year-old actor told reporters. “I started paddling with the swells and I started seeing fins swimming around me and I thought ‘I’m dead!’”
Van Dyke was wrong. “They turned out to be porpoises,” he said. “And they pushed me all the way to shore.” The porpoises were unavailable for comment.
Churchill And The Coventry Blitz Conspiracy
Winston Churchill is back in the media spotlight. First off, I encourage everyone to try to get to a screening of the documentary Winston Churchill: Walking With Destiny, narrated by Ben Kingsley and edited by long-time disinformation collaborator Nimrod Erez. The film examines why Churchill’s legacy continues to be relevant in the 21st Century and explores why his leadership remains inspirational to current day political leaders and diplomats.
More controversially, BBC News’s Ian Shoesmith and Jon Kelly drag Churchill through the mud of a decades old conspiracy theory suggesting that he sacrificed the people of the city of Coventry in England’s midlands:
It’s 70 years since Germany launched one of the most devastating bombing raids of World War II, on Coventry. But did Winston Churchill have prior warning of the attack?…
Chemicals in Fast Food Wrappers Show Up in Human Blood
Microwave popcorn bag. Photo: Howcheng (CC)
From Environment News Service:
Chemicals used to keep grease from leaking through fast food wrappers and microwave popcorn bags are migrating into food, being ingested by people and showing up as contaminants in blood, according to new research at the University of Toronto.
The contaminants are perfluoroalkyls, stable, synthetic chemicals that repel oil, grease, and water. They are used in surface protection products such as carpet and clothing treatments and coating for paper and cardboard packaging.
Earlier research by University of Toronto environmental chemists Scott Mabury and Jessica D’eon, established in 2007 that the wrappers are a source of these chemicals in human blood. Their new study shows that perfluorinated chemicals can migrate from wrappers into food.
The specific chemicals studied are polyfluoroalkyl phosphate esters, or PAPs, breakdown products of the perfluorinated carboxylic acids, or PFCAs, which are used in coating the food wrappers.
“We suspected that a major source…
Florida’s ‘Rocket Docket’ Courts Help Banks Force Out Homeowners
The inimitable Matt Taibbi went down to Florida and found that retired judges are rushing through complex cases to speed foreclosures. Guess who the losers are (Hint: it’s not the banks)? From Rolling Stone:
The foreclosure lawyers down in Jacksonville had warned me, but I was skeptical. They told me the state of Florida had created a special super-high-speed housing court with a specific mandate to rubber-stamp the legally dicey foreclosures by corporate mortgage pushers like Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan Chase. This “rocket docket,” as it is called in town, is presided over by retired judges who seem to have no clue about the insanely complex financial instruments they are ruling on — securitized mortgages and labyrinthine derivative deals of a type that didn’t even exist when most of them were active members of the bench. Their stated mission isn’t to decide right and wrong, but to clear cases and…
We Daydream Half Our Waking Hours – Except During Sex
The Times of India says that the best way to avoid daydreaming is to have sex. Okaaaay!:
Mind-wandering turns out to be extremely common – users reported daydreaming almost 50 per cent of the time – mostly during brushing their teeth or doing other grooming, reports New Scientist.
During only one activity – making love – did the frequency of mind-wandering drop below 30 per cent.
Crucially, episodes of mind-wandering tended to precede bouts of low mood, but not vice versa, suggesting that the former caused the latter.
Matthew Killingsworth and colleague Daniel Gilbert of Harvard University conducted the study, and found that daydreams about pleasant things were linked to improvements in mood, but only slight improvements.
Thinking about neutral topics while mind-wandering was linked to a similarly modest drop in happiness, but daydreams about unpleasant topics coincided with a sharp drop.
But the claim that mind-wandering causes unhappiness needs to be further evaluated, they said, because…
Ustream Shows Live Suicide On Web
What kind of sick people encourage someone with serious problems to commit suicide so they can watch him die in real time on the web? The Telegraph reports on a Japanese man who used Ustream to broadcast his suicide to the world:
The 24-year-old man, who has not been named, was found dead in his apartment in the city of Sendai early on Tuesday morning. Police had been alerted by viewers of the Ustream web page and were able to locate the man’s apartment. By the time they arrived at 8am, however, the man was already dead.
The man had announced his intention to kill himself in online chat rooms last week, according to the Yomiuri newspaper, after complaining for some weeks about problems he had been experiencing at work.
Employed by a bank, the man had been suspended from his duties since August. The man, who lived alone, started a live stream on…
Ghosts and Loyd Auerbach
The Infinite and the Beyond — Podcast: Episode #017 — Ghosts and Loyd Auerbach
Website • iTunes • Direct Download • RSS
In the latest episode of The Infinite and the Beyond, we speak to Parapsychologist Loyd Auerbach about his experiences as a paranormal investigator. Loyd runs the Office of Paranormal Investigations out in California and has been consulted and featured on many shows dealing with hauntings and the paranormal. Loyd talks to us about being a parapsychologist and ghosts, educational opportunities, investigating, and we even discuss some of the current television shows that depict paranormal investigation.
I share some of my own personal ghost stories, one of which occurred when I was very young and the other when I was much older. My interest in the paranormal started from this very early experience as a child; while the other experience taught me that you never know when you’re being watched and by whom.
We learn about famous escape artist and medium debunker Harry Houdini in A Corner in the Occult. Can you untie knots with your toes? Houdini could! Learn about this famous magician, his battle with the spiritualist movement during the early 20th century and why he is spotlighted in this episode’s edition of A Corner in the Occult…
Why Conspiracy Theorists Think ‘The Simpsons’ May Have Predicted 9/11
Homer becomes a Freemason
Adam Gell has some fun with that Simpsons 9/11 video, in the New York Observer:
Yes, it’s true. (Or might be.) For years, fringe types have pointed to amazingly sketchy but entertaining evidence that the attacks of 9/11 were actually foretold by the beloved Fox cartoon. Nearly four years before 9/11, in an episode of the show entitled “The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson,” there’s a curious little scene that some conspiracy lovers and “Simpsons” aficionados have long thought might be a warning….
Silly as that seems, members of an online forum run by crackpot David Icke—best known for his theory that various prominent figures (George W. Bush, Kris Kristofferson) are actually shape-shifting “Reptillians” bent on world domination—seem to have bought into it. Noted one: “Rumors are that the creator of the show is a 33rd degree Freemason. Harry Shearer who does 12 voices on the Simpsons…
Google’s Veterans Day Logo Attacked For “Looking Too Muslim”
Via The Huffington Post:
Happy Veterans Day, to one and all, but especially to the folks over at Google, who thought they’d commemorate the occasion by altering their logo to suit the occasion, only to be reminded that the world is full of people who are crazy and freaked-out on a 24-hour basis about Sharia law!
Google’s design today uses the staff of a waving American flag as the “L” in its name, which means Old Glory itself obstructs the “E” in its name, leaving most of the letter obscured, save for the OMGZ ISLAM CREEPING CALIPHATE TAKEOVER CRESCENT, obviously.
And thus we manufacture the only thing Americans make anymore: screaming-meemie controversy. This one guy at Associated Content surveyed all of the “Tweets via Twitter” that have, thus far, been twat:
Reactions on Twitter have ranged from shock to disappointment at Google’s choice of doodle designs for Veterans Day.
More at The Huffington Post …
…
Ted Rall on the Dylan Ratigan Show: Is It Time for a Revolution?
Sharron Angle isn’t the only one talking about Second Amendment remedies. Ted Rall, author of The Anti-American Manifesto, appeared on MSNBC’s The Dylan Ratigan Show on Monday to talk about the need for radical change in order to turn the United States around. He said, “In The Anti-American Manifesto, I argue that violence is a last case scenario…. In terms of passive resistance, the American left has been very peaceful since the early ’60s and where has it gotten us?”
R. Crumb Opens Up
Portrait of R. Crumb by Christian Lessenich (CC)
A new R. Crumb interview is a rare thing indeed. Enjoy his telephone conversation with Deborah Vankin of the LA Times, interspersed with background yells from his wife, Aline Kominsky-Crumb:
DV: What comics are you reading these days?
RC: All I read anymore is investigative journalism. You name it. Scandalous political stuff, the pharmaceutical industry, all that crap. I’m fascinated by that stuff. There’s many heroic underappreciated investigative journalists. Celia Farber, Jon Stauber – “Toxic Sludge Is Good For You” is a great book. Naomi Klein – Jesus, I read her latest book and found that really impressive. “The Shock Doctrine.”
DV: “Genesis,” which was a success both critically and commercially, is behind you, what are you working on these days?
RC: Aline and I are working on a collaborative book together. It’s from WW Norton. Since “Genesis” sold well, they’re up for anything I’m involved in.…
Scientists Discover New Lizard Species – On The Menu
There are a lot of strange animals on the menu in Vietnam, but usually you can tell what they are. This entree wasn’t even documented until recently. From CNN:
It may be an old menu standby to Vietnamese diners, but it’s turned into a smorgasbord of discovery for scientists.
Researchers have identified a previously undocumented species of all-female lizard in the Mekong River delta that can reproduce itself by cloning, and the story of how it was discovered is almost as exotic as the animal itself.
Leiolepis ngovantrii is a small lizard found only in southern Vietnam. A Vietnamese reptile scientist who came across tanks full of the remarkably similar looking reptiles at small diners in rural villages in Ba Ria-Vung Tau province became intrigued when he noticed that all of the lizards appeared to be female.
So the scientist, Ngo Van Tri of the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, contacted an American…
Pedophilia Book Removed From Amazon, but Others Remain
Jennifer Valentino-DeVries writes on the Wall Street Journal’s Digits blog:
Amazon.com has removed a how-to guide for pedophiles that was appearing in its Kindle store, after a day of online outrage and threats of a boycott.
The e-book, “The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure: A Child-Lover’s Code of Conduct,” and its removal raise questions about how Amazon reviews self-published works and what types of books are allowed on the e-commerce site.
Amazon on Wednesday defended the sale of the $4.79 book, telling technology blog TechCrunch that it “believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable.” But by early Thursday morning, the book was removed from the site. Amazon did not immediately return requests for further comment about the book or its disappearance from the site.
Other books about pedophilia remain on Amazon, including those that have previously prompted calls for boycotts. “Understanding Loved…
Are Bacteria Far More Intelligent Than We Realize?
Bacteria can distinguish “self” from “other,” and between their relatives and strangers. They can communicate, prey in packs, and have social intelligence. Are microbes far more sentient than we give them credit for? Miller-McCune writes:
Strictly by the numbers, the vast majority — estimated by many scientists at 90 percent — of the cells in what you think of as your body are actually bacteria, not human cells. In fact, most of the life on the planet is probably composed of bacteria.
These facts by themselves may trigger existential shock: People are partly made of pond scum. But beyond that psychic trauma, a new and astonishing vista unfolds. In a series of recent findings, researchers describe bacteria that communicate in sophisticated ways, take concerted action, influence human physiology, alter human thinking and work together to bioengineer the environment. These findings may foreshadow new medical procedures that encourage bacterial participation in human health. They clearly…
Pennsylvania Debt Collection Agency Created Fake Police Officers, Courtroom, And Judges
ABC Channel 4 in Pittsburgh reports on a Pennsylvania debt collection agency that set up its own private “legal system,” with fake sheriff’s deputies, handing out fake subpoenas, and fake courts with fake judges and phony court hearings:
Grant Morrison On ‘Sinatoro’
Grant Morrison, comics legend and star of the legendary disinfo.con (view clip here), has conquered the world of comics but has yet to crack Hollywood. He’s now writing the screenplay for a live-action independent movie, ‘Sinatoro,’ with director Adam Egypt Mortimer. They tell MTV News‘ Rick Marshall about the project:
MTV NEWS: First off, tell me about the poster image you released for “Sinatoro” during Comic-Con — the one with the astronaut in the middle of the desert and the blackish cloud pouring out his faceplate. Given how little we know about the project, what are you hoping to convey about the film with that image?
GRANT MORRISON: Well, I wanted it to say that we’re dealing with classic material, the American myth, the idea of the road movie and the notion that the road can take you anywhere and adventures can happen. That’s always been at the very basic root of the American imagination. We wanted to show that, and of course it had to be Route 66, which is the daddy of all roads. The idea of the astronaut was to kind of suggest that our character was somewhere that looks familiar, but it’s not really familiar — it’s a place that will be familiar to all of us one day — but he’s kind of an explorer in another land. There’s an actual astronaut in the story, so it kind refers to him a little, but it’s mostly the notion of being an alien on your own planet, and in your own environment…
Robots Explore Tunnels of Teotihuacan
View of the Avenue of the Dead and the Pyramid of the Sun.
Teotihuacan, Mexico, “birthplace of the gods,” is famous for its massive pyramids and the Avenue of the Dead. Now its underground tunnels are revealing more of its secrets, thanks to robot explorers, as reported by AP:
The first robotic exploration of a pre-Hispanic ruin in Mexico has revealed that a 2,000-year-old tunnel under a temple at the famed Teotihuacan ruins has a perfectly carved arch roof and appears stable enough to enter, archaeologists announced Wednesday.
Archaeologists lowered the remote-controlled, camera-equipped vehicle into the 12-foot-wide (4-meter) corridor and sent wheeling through it to see if it was safe for researchers to enter. The one-foot (30-cm) wide robot was called “Tlaloque 1″ after the Aztec rain god.
The grainy footage shot by the robot was presented Wednesday by Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History. It shows a narrow, open space left after the…
Florida Mom Sells Baby To Buy Car
Stephanie Bigbee Fleming, left, and her mother, Patty Bigbee, right.
Hot on the heels of the mother who shook her baby to death so that she could play Farmville, a Florida woman wanted a car more than she wanted her baby, selling it for $9,000, according to Reuters:
A Florida woman was charged with trying to sell her infant son in order to pay for a new car, police said Tuesday.
The baby’s grandmother brokered the deal and initially demanded $75,000 but agreed to cut the price to $30,000 when told the prospective buyer could not get a bank loan, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) said.
The mother of the eight-week-old boy, Stephanie Bigbee Fleming, 22, of Bradenton, Florida, was to receive $9,000 of the proceeds, the FDLE said.
“Fleming planned to purchase a new vehicle from the money received,” an FDLE spokeswoman said.
Fleming also needed money to pay court costs for an…
