This is so cool, yet so sad at the same time. Alneda.com is a pro-Al-Qaeda website. Right when the Alneda.com registration expired, this guy stole it and put up some webpages copied from the original site, creating a decoy site. He informed the FBI, hoping they could use it to gather information about visitors. But the FBI took too long to decide and word spread around other Arabic sites that Alneda.com was a fake.
In the immortal words of Homer Simpson, Doh!
Oh man, this is the coolest application of mathematics I\’ve seen. MC Escher\’s print entitled Print Gallery has a blank spot right in the middle, I guess cause Escher couldn\’t figure out what to draw there. A mathematician and his team first wrote a computer program to create a straightened version of the picture. They hired an artist to fill in the empty spaces, then used some complex math to rotate and scale the picture. Finally they inserted the new piece into Print Gallery. It turns out the center of the picture has a Droste effect, a picture inside a picture inside a picture infinitely. The NY Times has a more detailed article. Incredible stuff.
[ From Slashdot ]
Ex-Sierra Leone Dictator Broke, Living With Mom. This article is just filled with great quotes.
It was well before noon and the former president was doing what he often does on weekdays: Joking around with friends, playing checkers and sipping diligently on a plastic cup of palm wine, a cheap and highly potent alcoholic brew.
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Gone are the crisp military fatigues, new suits and wraparound sunglasses. In their place: A baseball hat worn backward, a Bob Marley T-shirt, dark green shorts and a pair of Nike sneakers.
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Last year, the government called on citizens not to throw stones at the former head of state, who without a car, was wandering around Freetown on foot.
Ha ha, loser. Even I have a car.
I only use Blu-Tack to hold up posters, but some people make sculptures with it. I love the descriptions.
[ From GirlHacker\’s Random Log ]
My old friend Bobby married his longtime girlfriend Heather in a ceremony at the Queen Mary this afternoon. I\’m very happy for them and I wish them a wonderful life together. Have fun in Hawaii guys!
DJs are replacing turntables with iPods at some clubs. They\’re using 2 10 gig iPods connected to a mixer to entertain club-goers. It sounds cool cause now anyone can be a DJ, but an iPod still can\’t do the really cool DJ stuff like beat-matching and scratching.
A father was going to build a playhouse for his kids and somehow it turned into a 38% scale model of a battlemech. The body is made of wood and the legs are made of 500 lbs of steel for stability. They put it in the backyard so neighbors wouldn\’t be pissed off. Personally I would\’ve stuck it in the front yard right next to the street. Nuts to the neighbors.
[ From Slashdot.org ]
Man Dies in Huge Vat of Chocolate
Yoni Cordon, of Philadelphia, was discovered in the vat by co-workers at the Kargher Corporation around 4 p.m. Tuesday, authorities said.
Police said they believe Cordon had been working on a platform near the opening of the vat, which is used for mixing and melting chocolate.
Nobody saw Cordon fall and it was unknown how long he was submerged in the chocolate before he was found, Hatfield Township police Det. Patrick M. Hanrahan said. The vat was about half full of chocolate when Cordon fell in, police said.
Note to self: Avoid chocolate made by Kargher Corporation in the near future.
Apparently there\’s a whole culture of RV nomads who seek out Wal-Marts across the country and camp out in the parking lots. This Is Nowhere documents these travelers. Wal-Mart has a liberal policy for overnight RV parking, and I guess they sell pretty much everything you could want for your RV. The movie sounds interesting, I gotta keep an eye out for it.
I love these panoramic illustrations by Kozyndan. They\’re so detailed and complex, almost obsessive. I wanna get a print just to see what else is in the drawing.