Tuttuki Bako, generously nicknamed "the fingerbang game" by geekologie writer

actually, he's totally right.

Library Headlines

- the graphic novel "Bunny Suicides" freaks an Oregonian mom out to the point of bizarre-o. (it's free speech, lady. sorry you don't think it's funny. maybe you shouldn't read it, y'know?)

- the winning essays for a contest How The Library Changed My Life. I get weepy. I could write a few words on this subject, myself.

- MSN's "America's 10 Coolest Public Libraries" concentrates on snazzy architecture instead of the crazy services rendered within. all librarians now feel pissy and devalued. but it's okay, because librarians rock. and I would totally visit Seattle PL (pictured above) just to visit their insane library and ask a reference question that could somehow be answered with the reference dumbwaiter(!!). Also, woo for the BPL (pictured below) making third on the list with its Renaissance Revival architecture; after all, it was "the first large free municipal library" in the United States, founded in 1848. Info from the BPL's website, history portion.

but first, a watermelon brain.

from boingboing and instructables, we have an impressive brain carved from a watermelon. my first thoughts on seeing this creation were "my goodness, the skill involved!" and then "i wonder if a pumpkin-carving kit could do that?" here is the instructable for melon brains, too.



from boingboing gadgets, we have the winner of a seoul design contest: Life Pebbles! it's a pack that drops glowing green pebbles behind firefighters as they enter burning buildings. Thus, as the boingboing writer says, they are much like radioactive hamsters in a smoking maze.


try watching this video of a danish-built "walking house" art installation. yep, it's like a camper shell that walks. Howl's Moving Castle?

also, neatorama tells me that an octogenarian norwegian man can still see out of the cornea he received via transplant in 1958. that's pretty damn impressive. especially since the transplant came from a man born in 1885. that's a 123 year-old organ transplant.

WHOA, 1885, 1885!!!

i'll show *you* a special character...

so typing special characters is my pet peeve. or shall i say, my pet ineptitude? anyway, i looked up an online chart of key-strokes to create special characters. not the same as making special characters in html or xml - no no! this is for creating special characters - like pound-sterling and umlaats and vowels with niblets on top - in your PC word processor. yes, now i can correctly type the word "résumé" in my résumé. all hail Alt 130.

http://www.forlang.wsu.edu/help/keyboards.asp


also, here is a link to a rather fantastic article from boingboing, called "Xrays made from Scotch tape". apparently when you peel off some Scotch tape in a vacuum, you can create enough x-rays to see some bones through your flesh. picture at the top. researchers stress this happens in a vacuum, and so no one should be dissuaded from using Scotch tape in everyday life.

phew! i was really worried, you guys. here is the link to the original article published in Nature: Sticky Tape Generates X-rays. so it seems you can get the unpeeling tape to emit an eerie light, as well. mechanoluminescence is crazy.

WHAT.

it's funny, i was just fantasizing about my own little hover scooter. you know, for buzzing through the city and flattening pedestrians. i could hover smugly past hipster cyclists and those guys on segueways, too. how awesome would that be. WHAT DOES IT RUN ON, my god, TELL ME. i have $17,000 right here in my pocket... from geekologie and others who wish to hover, too.

oh, but the hover scooter website mentions that "the friction wheel makes contact with the ground, up to a maximum of approximately 15 mph." what kind of sloppy levitation is that?!

[disgruntle]


so here we have an electric, smoke-less cigarette, the "Crown 7 Hydro". wtf? actually, as someone who is quite affected by cigarette smoke, i appreciate their intentions here. let's all be a little less carcinogenic in our personal habits, i guess. and it only costs $80 to save your fellow human beings from second-hand smoke! it's sort of sci-fi, sort of like you're chewing on an expensive pen. it's from geekologie, too!

not too shabby

this playful site is updated daily until the election. click on over and fiddle with the oval office as interpreted by sarah palin. it's, like, totally fun.

http://www.palinaspresident.us/

and then there's this addictive little online video game, MotherLoad. the context is that you're a little drill machine getting started on Mars. you collect minerals, refuel to avoid imploding, and upgrade your vehicle and drill and fuel tanks. more valuable minerals are deeper! you get out with a cute little helicopter attachment. but if you land too hard, your hull will split and explode. upgrades include teleporting devices, nanobots to repair your hull, and DYNOMITES. ultimate time-waster of today.

update: i have basically finished MotherLoad - it has a silly ending, but the tense build-up towards the finish was intense! i heard the scary music in my head throughout the day. and i like that it remembers my computer when i want to play again, just for the fun of detonating plastic explosives, finding martian mummies, and mining amazonite.

as usual, boingboing has cool schtuff

well, amputee David Savage is now a man with a new human hand - which seems to work surprisingly well. read more about his new hand here!

in other news, Jonathan Hennessey and illustrator Aaron McConnell have created a graphic novel version of the United States Constitution. i just requested that my local library purchase it, so i can read it, dammit. too good. except that it does not handle recent law-making higgledy-piggledy like the Patriot Act, but maybe that will be the next book.

and here we have a link to a blog post by an icelander, detailing the surreal milieu of reykjavik the day after all major icelandic banks failed as a consequence of U.S. banks tipping. a horrifying and astounding blog post to read, i might add. suicides beginning to be reported.

in a metaphorical response to the above paragraph, here we have duct tape bandages:



finally, the U.S. Army is working on developing "synthetic telepathy" helmets which will transmit the thoughts of one person to another person in a matching helmet. it will be something along the lines of composing an email in your head, then "sending" it by thinking. lawd, the world makes me tired.

NASA's APOD on RSS, OMG

so i just discovered Astronomy Picture of the Day, or APOD. each lovely photo has a short explanation written by a goshdarn professional astronomer. and it's just kinda cool, y'know? the pic above is a fly-by picture of Mercury taken from the satellite Messenger, Oct 2008. brought to you by NASA.

google makes anti-drunk-emailing app(!!!)

i could totally use this, btw. occasionally, i mean. a few math problems between me and sending a drunk email? GENIUS. and it's kind of cute, too. i like how the app asks you in this concerned text: "Are you sure you want to send this email?" from geekologie, read more about it here.



and what is this? why, it's a recycling egg! "jimmy, give it something, quick. before it demands your pop can!" more here, from boingboing.

finally, an article about the squirrels of washington, d.c. - nearly eradicated by enthusiastic hunters during the turn of the century, then reintroduced for "urban charm" here and there. originally they installed squirrel drinking fountains and squirrel feeding stations, but eventually those weren't really needed anymore...SQWERL MADNESS, LOOK OUT.

golden kate moss, etc

so now i can't remember if it was geekologie or neatorama or boingboing that told me about the solid-gold statue of kate moss as the modern aphrodite: read about it here! this british artist cast 110 lbs of gold into the likeness of kate moss, and used her as a live model, too. (i kinda wish he had just spray-painted kate moss gold. woulda weighed about the same, but much cheaper? except for kate's hourly rate, hmm.) and you know what else? gold is not cheap these days.



and then there's this awesome boingboing post about how a public library dealt with Banned Books Week: they made a sensational window display with Live Readers Reading Banned Or Challenged Books! for the whole week. i love that. it's an especially good picture, too.

finally, you can make acorn pancakes with this how-to for acorn flour; soak to remove the bitterness/tannins! described as "nutty" and "hearty", i wanna try it. surrounded as i am with oak trees and gorging squirrels, seems pert'nent.

the one reason to visit new haven

the cupcake truck makes toothsome red velvet cupcakes, lemon chiffon, salted caramel, and coconut cupcakes. among other awesome flavors. and they sell frosting shots for when you just need that cream cheese frosting to continue living. they drive around and sell their super cupcakes for $2 a pop. why don't they come to boston? they have a mouth-watering blog and stuff. here's the site: the cupcake truck!

cupcakes in the picture are not cupcakes from the truck. they're just cupcakes on the internet that make me hungry. aggggh. i want a chocolate coconut cupcake!

okay, adorable.

this cute little blog makes me fall on my face, it's so cute. and not like CuteOverload cute, but just sweet.

1000 Awesome Things

here are some of the headlines by way of adorable example (i feel closer to humanity at large already):

#930 Finally getting a piece of popcorn that’s been stuck in your teeth all day out

#937 The smell of rain on a hot sidewalk

#946 The first shower you take after not showering for a really long time

#953 When cashiers open up new check-out lanes at the grocery store

the bacon cinnamon bun!

once again, the obsession with bacon! i don't eat it often, i could easily live without it. but i can appreciate it when it sizzles my way. but here we have something so evil and insidious, it could have been created by McD's! the cinnamon bun made with a strip of bacon inside it, and then frosted. one of those tubes of dough that you curl yourself, bake and frost...only it's curled up with some friendly friendly bacon.

i think the picture speaks for itself. salty, yet sweet! in fact, i just died from all the transfats in the above paragraph.

ultraviolet-sensitive bikini is over-rated

when i visited ------------, i had to wear a little paper sticky patch on my shirt. if the sun hit it, or if in other words i went outside, the patch would turn bright purple. i think these bikini beads are the same sort of things. but they're just beads on a bikini. and it can't possibly be that expensive to make UV-sensitive beads, y'know? but still, a nice thought. helpful and all. from geekologie.

exotic meat parties and other roman delights

one of my librarian colleagues recently told me of an "exotic meats party" that she had with her housemates. the party's highlights included a bear pot roast! and there were other amazing things, but all have been eclipsed by her story of the Enormous Ostrich Egg Benedict! for which a custom-made enormous english muffin had to be baked! she had some ingenious way of getting the egg whole out of the shell; her method involved the back of a kitchen knife and much tentative knocking at the shell.

as far as i know, the internet does not have a picture of ostrich eggs benedict for me. but it does have numerous articles and blogs concerning the eating of ostrich eggs. here is one that i liked, called Dessert Comes First. funny captions and glorious photos, i say. also an article about eating monitor lizard eggs...ooo...{puts on reading glasses}

Adventure with an Ostrich Egg

Adventure with Hot Tsokolate

crazy stuff for a crazy day

according to neatorama and probably others, the fitbit is a little clip-on device that tracks your mileage, caloric burn, REM sleep patterns, and motion in general. you can put it in your pocket and it will still function as a pedometer. and it'll upload your info to its website for free. it sounds creepy, but satisfying for the curious. i want one. read more about it on MIT's Technology Review.




and in a complete non sequitur (sp?) extraordinaire, here is Urinary Tract Wallpaper from neatorama and LA Weekly. quite clever, i think.

and in a more drastic tangential tweak, scientists emphasize that HIV was already infecting humans in 1959. and they have samples that prove it, although there's much to be said about shaky computer-time-elapse models and formalin-damanged dna. but still, it's damn interesting. neatorama showed me, and i read more about it here.

and omg, you can spin your dog's hair into yarn and then weave that yarn into a scarf. or have some custom-made "keepsake" whipped up after the spinning, via VIP Fibers. the coyote on dailycoyote.net had his fur spun into yarn by a nice woman in idaho. and i think that is way cool.

did you say "iphone-inspired cupcakes"?

mo' cakewrecks, mo' problems. fondant looks good, tastes bad! but, looks good!