Burly.Thurr

A New York Times piece (as carried by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) outlines a fascinating project operating in unlikely circumstances for a quixotic goal. They want to control, and return to earth, the International Sun-Earth Explorer-3, launched in 1978 but which "appears to be in good working order." Engineer Dennis Wingo, along with like minded folks (of whom he says "We call ourselves techno-archaeologists") has established a business called Skycorp that "has its offices in the McDonald's that used to serve the Navy's Moffett air station, 15 minutes northwest of San Jose, Calif. After the base closed, NASA converted it to a research campus for small technology companies, academia and nonprofits. ... The race to revive the craft, ISEE-3, began in earnest in April. At the end of May, using the Arecibo Observatory radio telescope in Puerto Rico, the team succeeded in talking to the spacecraft, a moment Mr. Wingo described as "way cool." This made Skycorp the first private organization to command a spacecraft outside Earth orbit, he said. The most disheartening part: "No one has the full operating manual anymore, and the fragments are sometimes contradictory." The most exciting? "Despite the obstacles, progress has been steady, and Mr. Wingo said the team should be ready to fire the engines within weeks."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In the Soviet Union, western antibiotics couldn't make it past the Iron Curtain. So Eastern Bloc doctors figured out how to use viruses to kill infectious bacteria. Now, with antibiotic-resistant bugs vexing doctors, that eerie yet effective method might come our way. In post-antibiotic world, infection cures you!

Read more...

koobaxion:

itscolossal:

A Giant Twisting Serpent Skeleton Emerges from the Loire River in France

it’s a fucking sculpture I almost shat a goddamn cathedral I thought the serpent lords had come to reclaim the fucking earth

damnthatswhack:

You what your dog?

dennys:

With abs these hot he’ll never have to spend money on skillets again.

febricant:

adhoption:

river-b:

motherfuckinoedipus:

abnels:

memeguy-com:

You win this round cheese

actually that is a rectangle cheese

[oxford comma laughing in the distance]

[vocative comma wondering what oxford comma thinks it’s doing here]

I already reblogged this for the pun but I’m reblogging again for the sick punctuation banter

it’s wild times on tumblr tonight

“

One helen is sufficient good looks to launch one thousand ships, and to cause the destruction by fire of an entire city. The objective standards of Ship Launching and Arson may now be used to analyze feminine beauty. […] The table below will be of assistance:

- Attohelen (ah) 10-18 helens: Light up a Lucky While Strolling past a Shipyard

- Femtohelen (fh) 10-15 helens: Burn a Dinner Candle & Spit a Toothpick into a Water Glass

- Picohelen (ph) 10-12 helens: Barbecue a Couple of Steaks & Toss an Inner Tube Into the Pool

- Nanohelen (nh) 10-9 helens: Send the Old Man on a Canoe Trip & Build a Good Roaring Blaze in the Fireplace

- Microhelen (µh) 10-6 helens: Christen a Motor Boat & Start a Grass Fire

- Millihelen (mh) 10-3 helens: Launch One Homeric Warship & Burn Down a House

- Centihelen (ch) 10-2 helens: Incinerate a City Block & Launch Christopher Columbus’ Entire Fleet: The “Niña” (40 tons), the “Pinta” (50 tons) and the “Santa Maria” (100 tons)

- Decihelen (dh) 10-1 helens: Torch the Central Business District of Oakland, California, & Launch the Clipper Ship “Flying Cloud” (1783 tons)

- Helen (h): Raze One City & Launch the WWI US Battleship “Delaware” (20,000 tons)

- Dekahelen (dah) 10 helens: Oversee the Incendiary Bombing of Ten Cities and Launch the Aircraft Carriers “Theodore Roosevelt” (91,487 tons) and “Dwight D. Eisenhower (91,487 tons)

- Hectohelen (hh) 102 helens: Instigate a Major Modern Conflict & Launch the Oil Platform “Stratfjord B” (with ballast, 899,360 tons), the Supertanker “Seawise Giant” (624,038 dead- weight tonnage); the Oil/Ore Carrier “World Gala” (282,460 dwt tonnage) and the Bulk-Ore Tanker “Hoei Maru” (208,000 dwt tonnage)

- Kilohelen (kh) 103 helens: Launch the Equivalent of One Million Greek Warships & Spark a Nuclear Confrontation

- Megahelen (Mh) 106 helens: Launch the Equivalent of One Billion Greek Warships & Blow Up the World

- Gigahelen (Gh) 109 helens: Launch the Equivalent of One Trillion Greek Warships & Destroy the Solar System

- Terahelen (Th) 1012 helens: Launch the Equivalent of One Thousand Trillion Greek Warships and Make Serious Inroads on the Welfare of the Galaxy

It is to be hoped that beauty exceeding the Hectohelen class evades even the most ambitious.

”

- the Table of Helens and Equivalents, from “ON THE INEFFICIENCY OF BEAUTY CONTESTS, & A SUGGESTION FOR THEIR MODERNIZATION." by David Lance Goines. (via penthesileas)

akeppleaday:

I can’t imagine why Google prefers their FIFA World Cup Doodles over my well-researched one. Oh well, their loss I guess.

time enough

"All Our Patent Are Belong To You" -- Elon Musk

I never imagined I was going to see something like this: A video of a star bursting in space, illuminating the interstellar dust around it at the speed of light. This is not a computer simulation. It's an actual time-lapse video taken over four years by the Hubble—and scientists don't know its origin yet.

Read more...

A reservoir of water three times the volume of all the oceans has been discovered deep beneath the Earth's surface. The finding could help explain where Earth's seas came from. The water is hidden inside a blue rock called ringwoodite that lies 700 kilometres underground in the mantle, the layer of hot rock between Earth's surface and its core.

thegodofhellfire:

feed me.

myersandbriggs:

INTJ weaknesses

• Arrogant. There is a fine line between confidence and arrogance. Some less mature INTJs may overestimate the importance of their knowledge or analytical skills, seeing most other people as irrational or intellectually inferior, often making their opinion known.
• Perfectionists. INTJ personalities loathe inefficiency and imperfection, trying very hard to iron out all the flaws and analyze all possibilities. If left unchecked, this trait can easily become a weakness, slowing down their work quite significantly and frustrating people around the INTJ.
• Likely to overanalyze everything. INTJs tend to believe that everything can be analyzed, even things that are not necessarily rational, e.g., human relationships. They may seek logical explanations and solutions in every situation, refusing to rely on improvisation or their own emotions.
• Judgmental. INTJs reach their conclusions very quickly and stick to them. Even though people with this personality type tend to be open-minded, they have little patience for things they consider illogical, e.g., decisions based on feelings, irrational stubbornness, emotional outbursts, etc. An INTJ is likely to believe that someone who behaves in this way is either very immature or irrational; consequently, they will have little respect for them.
• May be insensitive. INTJ personalities often pride themselves on being brutally honest and logical. However, while their statements may be rational and completely correct, they may not take into account another person’s emotional state, background, individual circumstances, etc. Consequently, the INTJ’s directness and honesty may easily hurt other people, thus becoming a major weakness in social situations.
• Often clueless when it comes to romantic relationships. Many INTJs are likely to have difficulties dealing with anything that does not require logical reasoning, and this weakness is especially visible in interpersonal relationships. They may overanalyze everything, get frustrated trying to understand how the other person thinks, try to use a nearly scientific approach to dating, or just give up altogether.
• Loathe highly structured environments. INTJ personalities do not respect rules or regulations just because they are there; they need to be confident that those restrictions make sense. Consequently, INTJs strongly dislike environments that are built on blind obedience, traditions, or respect for authority. They are likely to challenge the status quo and clash with people who prefer stability and safety.

Either this dude has no idea how group messages on iPhones work or he genuinely didn’t care that 32 of his Tinder girls were going to see that he sent the same message to each of them. For his sake, I hope it’s the first one.

found-liquorstore-and-drank-itt:

ohmykarma:

miscreantive:

onlylolgifs:

Giant Gummi Bear dropped into boiling Potassium Chlorate

YES

I love his reaction

like, “Yeah bitches we gonna do some sciOH SHIT TOO MUCH SCIENCE ABORT ABORT FUCK”

TOO MUCH SCIENCE 

http://imgur.com/wwPJxqQ

Original Source

Kanye West is renowned for, among other things, his self-confidence. Never shy to let others know how awesome he is, Kanye has gone on record over and over with his high opinion of himself.

USA Today has gone through the archives and compiled some of his most outlandish hubris.

Here are some highlights…

Via AutoBlog:

Distracted driving continues to be a scourge to road safety around the world. In the US, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ran a graphic commercial in April appealing to young people about the dangers of texting and driving. In Hong Kong, Volkswagen helped with a technologically savvy way to make people understand the peril. For the innovative ad to work, a movie theater was equipped with a location-based broadcaster that could send a mass text to everyone in the room at once. At the same time, a special short film aired before the feature. In case you don't see where this is going, we aren't going to spoil the outcome.

by Ivan