"Highway to Hell" performed with tambourine and accordion. Again I declare: truly we are living in the age of wonders!
Seriously though: what a fun cover! And these guys are obviously enjoying their work. Gotta smile about the whole thing :-)
I'd be really cautious about visiting El Reno, Oklahoma from now on. Sounds like the police department there are like too very many in this country: over-equipped with expensive gimmicks and over-eager to use them. In this case the lack of self-discipline almost cost the life of an 86-year old bedridden woman.
Here's the story from LewRockwell.com...
Lonnie Tinsley of El Reno, Oklahoma made a nearly fatal mistake last December 22 when he went to check on his grandma, Lona Vernon.Like Tommy Lee Jones' sheriff character said in No Country for Old Men: You can't make up a story like this and I'd dare ya to even try.Concerned that Lona hadn’t taken her medications, Lonnie called 911 in the expectation that an emergency medical technician would be dispatched to the apartment to evaluate the bedridden 86-year-old woman.
Instead, that call for help was answered by nearly a dozen armed tax-feeders employed by the El Reno Police Department.
Understandably alarmed — and probably more than a little disgusted — by the presence of uninvited armed strangers in her home, Lona ordered them to leave. This directive, issued by a fragile female octogenarian confined to a hospital-style bed and tethered to an oxygen tank, was interpreted as “aggressive” behavior by Officer Thomas Duran, who ordered one of his associates : “Taser her!”
“Don’t taze my granny!” exclaimed Tinsley. According to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, Tinsley’s “obstructive” behavior prompted the police to threaten him with their tasers. He was then was assaulted, removed from the room, thrown to the floor, handcuffed, and detained in a police car. At this point, the heroes in blue turned their attention to Lona.
The tactical situation was daunting; at this point, the police had only a 10-1 advantage over a subject who — according to Duran’s official report — had taken an “aggressive posture” in her hospital bed. The sacred imperative of “officer safety” dictated that the subject be thoroughly softened up in order to minimize resistance.
Accordingly, one of the officers approached Lona and “stepped on her oxygen hose until she began to suffer oxygen deprivation,” narrates the complaint, based on Lona’s account. One of the officers then shot her with a taser, but the connection wasn’t solid. A second fired his taser, “striking her to the left of the midline of her upper chest, and applied high voltage, causing burns to her chest, extreme pain,” and unconsciousness. Lona was then handcuffed with sufficient ruthlessness to tear the soft flesh of her forearms, causing her to bleed.
After her wounds were treated at a local hospital, Lona was confined for six days in the psychiatric ward at the insistence of her deranged assailants from the El Reno Police Department.
It has long been established that the worst thing to do in an emergency is to call the police. In this case, Lonnie Tinsley didn’t call the police, yet they barged in anyway and quite nearly “helped” his grandma to death.
I'll wager good money that all the police "officers" involved in this situation will get a citation for bravery. Along with a raise in salary. That seems to be the standard procedure for "law enforcement officers" who abuse their power: they not only get away with it, they get rewarded for it.
Anything else that I would like to say about the cops involved, is being barely constrained by the angels of my better nature. But here's hoping Lona Vernon and her family sue the hell out of the city of El Reno, Oklahoma.
Popular Science has more about Oscar: the world's first bionically-enabled feline. It's thought that the technology will soon be applicable to human patients.
And here's some video of Oscar strutting his stuff!
He just needs some adamantium claws in his front paws and he'll be all set :-P
And as much as 'twould be nice to have some respite after the past several weeks of work that went into that, there's always something new afoot for The Knight Shift's eclectic proprietor.
Been busy the past few days with... work, on... stuff. Along with... new ummm, "equipment" that will soon be employed toward, errr... "projects". Got to do some field testing with it this week and so far I'm more than a little pleased with the investment :-)
Might be worth noting here that my blogging may be sparse during the next few weeks as I and others are engaged in numerous endeavors. When I am here though, I'll do my best to make it worth your precious time. And to make up for the last few days' absence I'll share this with you: a video from Japan, advertising something that I haven't a clue what it is...
Whatever they're selling, I'd buy it!
Final performance is this afternoon at 2:30, at Rockingham County High School. What better way to celebrate Father's Day than with a performance of The King and I? So bring dear ol' Dad along too! Click here for more information.
(By the way, if you were at last night's show, I was not supposed to have banged my forehead that hard into the stage when I came running on in Act II, Scene 1. But if the real-life Phra Alack had to demonstrate such fealty on a routine basis then it was probably something he had to regularly endure... and hey the audience thought it was funny :-)
Second performance is tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the Rockingham County High School in Wentworth, North Carolina. Third and final show is tomorrow afternoon, same place at 2:30 p.m. Mash here for more information and hope to see y'all there!
If not, get ready for...
No, I didn't make this. Whoever did, deserves major props for such a great piece of work :-)
This was on TCM not long ago and I watched it again. Five full decades later and it still holds its own against anything that has come since.
In celebration of this momentous occasion, feel free to indulge yourself in an extra-long shower tonight.
So... what does your friend and humble narrator look like as Phra Alack, the King's secretary?
This will give you an idea of what to expect...
Nice work on the eyes, aye? :-)
Thanks to Paul Steinbrueck for such a delightful (and clever) find!
New kids on the block Endre Kajari and his crew at the University of Ulm in Germany have now arrived to bust that all up. They have shown that in the realm of quantum physics, there can be wild variations between gravitational mass and inertial mass.
From the article at MIT's Technology Review...
Their thinking begins by pointing out the important distinction between kinematics, which is concerned purely with motion not how it arises, and dynamics which focuses on the origin of motion. In the classical world, this has no bearing on the effects of inertial and gravitational mass.Dare we say "intertial drives" or at least "inertial dampeners"? Hyperspace, here we come! :-PHowever, in the quantum world, the way states are prepared has huge significance. They point out, for example, that the wave function of a particle in a box does not depend on mass at all whereas the energy wave function of a harmonic oscillator depends on the square root of the mass.
That leads to an interesting idea: that it is possible to create combinations of gravitational and electromagnetic boxes and oscillators in which inertial and gravitational mass play different roles.
It turns out that physicists already play with exactly this kind of set up: the so-called atom trampoline, in which a matter wave falls under the influence of gravity but is bounced by an electromagnetic force. They calculate that the energy eigenvalues of the atom are proportional to the (gravitational mass)^2/3 but to the (inertial mass)^-1/3.
That's an amazing result. The kind of energy spectroscopy of atoms or Bose Einstein Condensates that can spot this difference ought to be achievable, if not now, then very soon within the next few years.
If successful, these kinds of investigations will provide an entirely new way of studying the nature of mass and, perhaps more importantly, of investigating the puzzling relationship between general relativity and quantum mechanics.
Seriously though: this is very, very cool stuff and I'm looking forward to seeing what comes of it.
But here's the kicker folks: the Nintendo 3DS pulls off three-dimensional gaming without those funky glasses!
And this highlights the biggest reason why I'm not about to buy into the 3D television "revolution" going on right now (incidentally ESPN's new 3D channel is showing up in the updated listings but it's not only not airing yet, my receiver box is snidely informing me that I need a 3D capable set in order to pick it up at all). This is such a rapidly evolving technology, it makes the least amount of sense to be an early adopter than I've seen with burgeoning new gear ever. Especially given that the glasses needed to enjoy 3D television sets are priced around $150 each.
The cost of the glasses aside, television is much more a casual experience than watching a film in a theater. People don't usually do things like eat dinner and fold laundry while at the local cinema, but they do those things all the time while a TV is going on. Who wants to keep putting the glasses on and taking them off while watching 3D television? And are there going to be enough glasses to go around when friends and family come over for a visit? Do guests get asked to bring their own glasses over for a Super Bowl party?
People by and large won't want to be hassled with things like that. And that's why 3D television isn't going to seriously take off until there is 3D screen technology that doesn't rely on wearing the glasses.
And that, Nintendo and a few other companies are on the cusp of bringing to market. Given the early raves about the 3DS coming out of E3 in Los Angeles, this could be a big factor in encouraging demand for spectacle-less 3D. Hey, Nintendo broke new ground with the Wii, and now Microsoft is rolling out the very promising Kinect for its Xbox 360 console (with Sony to follow suit on its PlayStation 3).
Good money sez that if you ain't plunked coin down for a 3D set yet, you might wanna wait a bit. There promises to be even better stuff in the pipeline and headed to store shelves sooner than later.
Well, this ain't the flaming destruction of a space vessel for once. This is the atmospheric re-entry of the HAYABUSA Asteroid Explorer mission, videoed from a NASA DC-8 over Australia. The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched HAYABUSA in 2003. A few years later it landed on the asteroid Itokawa. Then HAYABUSA scooped up some samples and made the five-year journey back to Earth, using a high-tech ion engine to return its precious cargo.
The capsule containing the asteroid samples has been located at its calculated arrival point in western Australia (gotta love mathematics aye?). And soon the asteroid rocks and dust will be in laboratories undergoing analysis.
That is about as successful a space mission as I have ever heard of in any recent memory. Congrats to JAXA and the HAYABUSA crew on a job well done!
Nokero, a company in Hong Kong, has developed a solar-powered lightbulb with an eye toward markets in developing countries. The N100 solar LED lightbulb "is about the size of a standard incandescent bulb and has four small solar panels in its rainproof plastic housing. Five LEDs and a replaceable NiMH battery inside provide up to four hours of light when the device is fully charged. People hang it outside during the day and then turn it on at night." According to the company, using the lightbulb around the equator will give it a better charge than those in more northern or southerly latitudes. The LEDs are said to last 50,000 to 100,000 hours while the solar panels are good for 10 years.
One bulb is $15. But for $480 you get 48 bulbs.
A solar-powered lightbulb. Truly we live in the age of wonders! :-P
What if Star Wars: The Old Republic is like what Shadows of the Empire was in 1996: everything that comes with marketing a video game, without an actual game?
(Look, Star Wars conspiracy theories are few and far between. Indulge me a bit willya? :-)
But while we're waiting for the game itself to materialize on store shelves, BioWare and LucasArts have just released a new Star Wars: The Old Republic trailer at E3 2010. Check it out!
Dang. That looks as good as anything we've seen in a live-action Star Wars flick. Maybe even better. Dare we hope for a CGI-rendered Episodes VII-IX someday?
If Lucas writes it and gives it to BioWare to animate, I'd buy a ticket for that (something I didn't even do for the Star Wars: Clone Wars theatrical release).
