Omnivore Salt is apparently so delicious that filmmaker Werner Herzog not only did a blurb on the package, but he even narrated a mini-documentary about its creator, blacksmith Angelo Garro, in his classic style: (more…)
The Ray Bradbury Theater was a far out 1980s television series with each episode written by Bradbury himself. With 65 suspenseful (and sometimes terrifying) episodes of dark science fiction/fantasy, The Ray Bradbury Theater shined the freaky flame of The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits down the shadowy path of The X-Files and Stranger Things. And now you can watch all the episodes free on YouTube! Below are two to get you started: Marionettes, Inc. and The Playground:
A family of otters are fascinated with a butterfly. It appears that the butterfly is fascinated with the otters, too, as it hangs around long enough to make a game out of it!
Someone should take this footage and make one of those web toys where the otters’ gazes follow your cursor. Surely the butterfly has existed in enough of the screen area to do that. -via Pleated-Jeans
In these days of computer animation, young people don’t see real engine cutaways as often as we once did. When you can peel away the layers with the click of a mouse, the old art of machining away metal to reveal the moving parts underneath is rapidly giving way to CAD software and 3D rendering. […]
Last week while dining at Denny's in Santa Monica, Dick Van Dyke and his a cappella Vantastix buddies broke out into song. Although not quite a flash mob, it was a surprise performance of the song "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" for the lucky diners at the coffee shop.
"Breakfast at Denny's, with a side of grits makes me want to sing!!" Van Dyke wrote on his Facebook page Saturday.
Van Dyke played the eccentric inventor Caractacus Potts in the 1968 film "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang," which was co-written by Roald Dahl and was based on a story by Ian Fleming, of James Bond fame.
This post was done in partnership with The Sweethome, a buyer's guide to the best things for your home. Read the full article with more details and background information here.
With solar power, there's no one-size-fits-all solution. Before deciding whether we could recommend any components for solar power, we spent weeks compiling statistics, wading through specifications, and getting expert input—and even so, the picks we make here represent only a starting point on the road to solar. Every installation needs to take into account electricity consumption, geographic location, roof orientation, local permits, and a host of other issues. This guide will help you get a rough idea of how much power you'll need, and then, in most cases, the first option you should consider is a grid-tied system made up of Suniva Optimus 335W monocrystalline solar panels paired with SolarEdge P400 power optimizers, plus a SolarEdge inverter at the heart of it all. Suniva panels are efficient, affordable, and backed by a reputable warranty from a company with manufacturing in the US. SolarEdge inverter components, meanwhile, combine the reliability and cost savings of a traditional string-inverter system with the placement flexibility and increased efficiency of microinverters.
In the past five years, solar panels have started to become a commodity item, with small technical differences that are immaterial to most homeowners. The Suniva panels, made at factories in Georgia and Michigan, come with a 10-year warranty and a 25-year power guarantee, though most other top-tier manufacturers offer the same warranty. The Suniva panels are right in the middle when it comes to efficiency rating—not so low as to require the extra space that cut-rate panels may need, but not so high that you're paying 50 percent more for engineering prestige you'll never notice. If you can find panels from a similarly reputable company with the same warranty and similar efficiency but a lower price tag, you'll probably be just as happy with them. But the Suniva panels should be the bar that you try to clear as you shop.
Charges were dismissed for the Madison, Alabama police officer who body slammed a 58-year-old man from India walking on the sidewalk last year. Sureshbhai Patel, who does not understand English, was seriously injured and needed an operation to fuse two vertebrae.
Hank Sherrod, Patel's attorney, told NBC News in an email that the state's decision to drop the assault charge is deeply troubling, though not entirely surprising.
"This decision illustrates how difficult it is to hold law enforcement officers accountable under the criminal laws for brutal acts that would send an ordinary citizen to jail," he said.
[Former Madison, Ala. police officer Eric Sloan] Parker, 27, still faces a civil lawsuit in connection with the incident. Parker encountered Patel last Feb. 6 while responding to a call of a suspicious black man looking at garages and walking near houses. Patel, in from India to visit his son and grandson, testified that he did not understand English or the officers who confronted him while he was out for a walk.
If you’ve seen a Polaris Slingshot on the road, you have to admit, it looks pretty radical. The low profile and angular style is almost guaranteed to attract attention, but what if you swapped the single back wheel for a real push rod/rocker independent rear suspension with a limited slip 3.53:1 differential? You end up […]
My historical thriller The Eighth Day Brotherhood, about an occult scholar, an aspiring artist, and an Irish immigrant investigating a series of murders in 1888 Paris, is available for preorder at http://www.blackrosewriting.com/historical-fiction/the-eighth-day-brotherhood! Use the promo code PREORDER2016 to receive a 10% discount prior to the publication date of August 11, 2016.
“A flat out sprint through the horrors not just of 19th-century Paris but the dark spaces where art, science and spirituality collide. Phillips balances massive knowledge of, and enthusiasm for, the time period with a lightness of touch that should be the envy of other thriller writers. Historical but never stodgy, fast paced but never without weight this is a major debut from a major talent…Somewhere, Poe is nodding approvingly. And wondering why he didn’t think of this.” —Alasdair Stuart, freelance journalist, broadcaster, and host of the Parsec award-winning podcast Pseudopod
This is Bad Angel, an American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft at the Pima Air and Space Museum in Pima, Arizona.
Like many World War II aircraft, it has kill markings on the side. Do you notice anything unusual about them?
Yes, that's an American flag. Lt. Louis Curdes was credited with shooting down an American aircraft while flying Bad Angel. Jim Gressinger, who visited the Pima Air and Space Museum, tells the whole story at Southern Arizona Guide.
Curdes was flying over Batan, the Philippines, in 1945 when he spotted an American Douglas C-47 transport aircraft approaching a Japanese-held airfield, apparently planning to land there. The pilot, Curdes, reasoned, must not have known that it was in enemy possession.
So Curdes tried to warn him off, first through radio, then through visual signals. But the C-47 stayed on course. Curdes had no choice but to shoot out one of the aircraft's engines. Nonetheless, the pilot kept going straight toward the Japanese airfield. Finally, Curdes shot out the C-47's other engine, forcing it to ditch into the ocean.
The pilot and all 12 passengers were rescued. Among them was, to Curdes's shock, a nurse whom he had taken on a date the night before. Curdes, who had fought the Germans, Italians, and Japanese, was shocked:
He later told a reporter, "Jeepers, seven 109s and one Macchi [the Italian fighter plane] in North Africa, one Jap, and one Yank in the Pacific. And to top it, I have to go out and shoot down my girlfriend!"
Curdes was also awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for shooting down the C-47. Read more about his adventures at Southern Arizona Guide.
The Rainbow Gathering still resembles the community-survival parts of this.
It's hard to believe the Woodstock Music & Art Fair happened nearly 50 years ago considering its influence can still be seen at outdoor music festivals like Bonnaroo, Coachella and Lollapalooza.
Woodstock showed the live music loving world that hundreds of thousands of people could gather at an outdoor music festival without food, water or proper bathroom facilities and survive to tell the tale.
But it also taught concert promoters what not to do, and even though Woodstock 1999 was a total disaster it would have been far worse without the lessons taught by Woodstock '69.
These rarely seen photos taken by LIFE photographer John Dominis reveal those three days of madness in glorious color, shedding some light on all the other stuff that was going on while the flower children danced on sunshine.
Don’t be fooled by people using the word “average,” particularly when they talk about income. If you’ve ever come across the “average” salary in your state or nation and wondered why you don’t make that much, it’s because some outliers ruin the math by making obscene amounts of money, while there are no outliers in the other direction, since you can’t have “income” at less than zero. This is only one of several comics illustrating how statistics can be manipulated to say anything you want at Math With Bad Drawings. -via Digg
In 1924, representatives of the world's leading lightbulb manufacturers formed Phoebus, a cartel that fixed the average life of an incandescent bulb at 1,000 hours, ensuring that people would have to regularly buy bulbs and keep the manufacturers in business.
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Stingrays -- the trade name for an "IMSI catcher," a fake cellphone tower that tricks cellphones into emitting their unique ID numbers and sometimes harvests SMSes, calls, and other data -- are the most controversial and secretive law-enforcement tools in modern American policing. Harris, the company that manufactures the devices, swears police departments to silence about their use, a situation that's led to cops lying to judges and even a federal raid on a Florida police department to steal stingray records before they could be introduced in open court.
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The penny-pinching mastermind behind Lowcost Cosplay is back with more amazing costumes made from stuff he found lying around his house, now with a new format and a quality logo!
If this is your first encounter with Lowcost Cosplay let me introduce you- his name is Anucha "Cha" Saengchart, he hails from Thailand, and he constantly improves his costuming skills without spending a dime.
Well, he might spend a little pocket change on a bag of chips here and there...
In the most brilliant marketing move ever "Cha" has added a fuzzy little extra to his photo shoots, allowing him to broaden the range of roles available to him.
Plus, cats were born wearing costumes, so his kitten partner doesn't inflate his budget!
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(Photos: Southern Arizona Guide)
