Birds are smarter than you might think

From AFP, via Repost Us -

 

 
Urban sparrows find new use for cigarette butts (via AFP)

Cigarette butts are widely reviled as an urban nuisance but birds in Mexico City see them as a boon, apparently using them to deter parasites from their nests, scientists say. Local sparrows and finches incorporate smoked cigarette butts in their nests to provide cosy cellulose lining for their chicks…

Everyone Needs Hobby

Scientists play ping-pong with single electron using paddles made of sound

Choi Sung-Bong

You've probably never heard of Choi Sung-Bon.  He was a contestant at Korea's Got Talent.  If even half of what he says happened to him actually happened to him, I suspect most people would have said 'the heck with it' and jumped off a bridge.

Choi also has one of the best voices in Korea, especially when you figure in that he has had almost no training.



I first found this via something called Flixxy, but they don't seem to allow embedding of images, so I chased the video back to YouTube (where else?).

Check it out.  Six million plus hits can't all be wrong.

A Christmas Poem

Just a thought, as Christmas approaches.

A disturbing thought

A disturbing thought on what might otherwise be an interesting improvement in entertainment...

As always, hit the image for a larger view of the comic.  Much easier to read.

A Random Thought

I kind of suspect that this cartoon is going up in restaurant kitchens all over the country.

Just a guess.

PS: For a larger version (much easier to read) go here.

FailBlog.ORG

I've been on the mailing list for FailBlog.org for some time.

But this entry is one of the classics.

Parking Spot WIN - watch more funny videos

http://failblog.org/2010/07/18/epic-fail-video-parking-spot-win/

FedEx trucker crashes under the influence of pork-rinds

Actually, the title pretty much says it all.

BLAINE, Wash. -- A Washington State Patrol trooper says the driver of a FedEx tractor-trailer rig choked on some spicy pork rinds, lost control of his truck on an interstate and jackknifed it before coming to a stop in a muddy ditch.

Trooper Keith Leary says Edward Sutherland was driving his rig southbound from Blaine near the Canadian border Monday when he began choking and veered from the southbound lanes across the median into northbound lanes of Interstate 5.

See Pork Rinds Lead To Blaine Crash for a little more information, or if you don't believe me.

And the Gulf oil spill keeps on spilling

Now This is a FLASHLIGHT

A long time ago, I got myself onto a mailing list from something called ThinkGeek. I'm not sure I've ever actually bought anything from them, but I've spent many an otherwise useful hour browsing around their website. If you haven't encountered them before, let me just say that most of their products are either computer geeky, or science fictiony, or just plain weird. Some, like this Star Trek lamp with a revolving shade, are all of them together.

Anyway, one of the things I just wondered across there was a industrial strength flashlight. This flashlight is rechargeable, but outputs so much light the run time is only about fifteen minutes. This flashlight uses a 100 watt halogen bulb as a light source, and it gets so hot you can cook an egg on the lens.

Don't believe me? Watch this.

Now this is a flashlight.

Some Days Are Better Than Others

Powered by ScribeFire.

Funny, and maybe a bit sad, if true

A long time ago, for reasons I no longer remember, I signed up for Aish.com online newsletter.  It usually has some interesting things in it, even if (maybe even especially if) you are not Jewish.

Anyway, a year or so ago, Aish produced a short video on the Dreidel, which is some sort of gambling toy top.  (I've never seen one in person in my life, so the description is a bit vague.  Sorry.)  Eventually, that video found its way to YouTube, where it apparently was at least a minor success.

Indeed, so much of a success the World Poker Tour complained, and YouTube showed their courage by yanking the World Dreidel Tour video, apparently based upon the fact that YouTube'rs can't tell the difference between a card game and a spinning top.

More information and a Petition are available here.

Never Mind....

Riccardo Riccò tests positive; Saunier Duval team withdraws from Tour de France

Second rider tests positive at Tour

Tour rider Beltran tests positive for EPO - official

sigh....

Tour de France

The Tour de France is starting today.

TV coverage (at least in the US) is on something called Versus. My guess is Versus is a descendant/spin-off of Outdoor Life Network that covered the Tour in the past.

http://www.takebackthetour.com/

Word of warning -- For some reason the Tour web sites are very graphics intensive. Following the Tour on a dial-up line can be painful.

Day of Mourning, Update

A bizarre, slightly addictive video

I keep watching this, and I really couldn't tell you why.

A Day of Mourning

Firefox is planning a world wide Download Day June 17, trying to set a Guinness World Record for downloads in 24 hours.

I have used Firefox V3 off and on in various beta's and Release Candidates for some time. Unless things change dramatically, I intend to stay with Firefox 2.0.0.14 as long as I can, and then likely will go to Opera or even Internet Explorer.

Firefox V.3 is faster, and perhaps more secure than version 2.x. But the user interface is somewhere between annoying and appalling. Indeed, there are so many hiccups I assumed the problems were bugs the developers had not yet gotten around to fixing. Then I tried the first Release Candidate, and realized things I thought were glitches were in fact deliberate 'features'.


Some of the more memorable changes I've encountered:

• Do you keep a list of bookmarks in the Bookmark menu bar pulldown? Under V.3, you no longer have a list of links you can scroll through. You'll have a menu entry labeled 'Bookmarks', under Bookmarks. Hit that, you'll get a page with your ENTIRE bookmark file, expanded, with any comments you or the site supplied. (A hint: Use Find to search for a word or two out of the link. Much easier than scrolling through what is likely several hundred links.)
• Did you use the History in the sidebar? I finally found it, under View. Why they moved it someone else will have to explain.
• The bookmarks can be displayed in the sidebar as well. If you don't mind having the entire file displayed, fully expanded, with comments. Try it. Who knows, you might like it.
• The Organize Bookmarks entry is still around, but it displays all your history, any recent bookmarks you've used, and does not display the contents of your bookmark file. The point of that is not as yet clear to me.

I really hope some of these things can be changed by the user, but so far I haven't found any way to do that.

Amelia Makes Art

She does pretty good work, too. She mostly makes dogs, but she does some pretty impressive cats, as well.

She has an Etsy store, and a blog, both with lots of examples.

Missed It

Dang! π Day was yesterday.

I missed it again!

One heck of a singer you probably never heard of

Jan Werner Danielsen was his name, though he didn't use the "Danielsen" when performing. I came across him on someone's blog, somewhere. (one of the side effects of reading comments on blogs -- you tend to bounce from blog to blog, and half the time you can never find that interesting post when you want to check something)

Jan Werner was one of the highest selling recording artists in Norway when he died in 2006.

RememberJan is trying to keep Werner's name and work alive. This is just a fun piece I enjoyed, and I thought anyone else who wanders by might, too.