awesome duuuuuuude

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Remember that stunt Jeff Gordon pulled on an unsuspecting car salesman a few months ago?  The one where Gordon was disguised as any off-the-street Joe Shmoe and took a car for a test drive and terrified the crap out of that poor guy?

This is scarier…




Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek – two top-rate hackers out of Indiana -went into the guts of a Toyota Prius, jimmied-around with thirty-something on-board computer units and were able to take charge of dang nearly every function of the car.  Using a wireless laptop they can steer, put on the brakes, honk the horn, fake the speedometer reading, switch on the headlights and even tighten and loosen the seatbelts.

My dad has long proclaimed that “Cars only need gas, air and electricity to work: they don’t need a computer!”  After watching this video, it’s hard to argue with that.

Crash here to read more...

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Adrian Carton de Wiart
Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart
having a jolly good time!

Twitter user Matthew Barrett found what must be “the best opening paragraph of any Wikipedia biography ever”.  It’s the entry for Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart, an officer in the British Army who served in three wars.

From the Wikipedia entry…

Lieutenant-General Sir Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart VC, KBE, CB, CMG, DSO (5 May 1880 – 5 June 1963), was a British Army officer of Belgian and Irish descent. He fought in the Boer War, World War I, and World War II, was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip and ear, survived a plane crash, tunneled out of a POW camp, and bit off his own fingers when a doctor wouldn’t amputate them. He later said “frankly I had enjoyed the war.”

This guy was in the Boer War, World War I and World ...

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This past Friday evening saw musical parody genius, pop culture icon and now bestselling author “Weird Al” Yankovic come to Quail Ridge Books & Music in Raleigh, North Carolina as part of his seven-city book-signing tour promoting his just-released children’s tome My New Teacher and Me!…

"Weird Al" Yankovic, Al Yankovic, My New Teacher and Me!, Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh, North Carolina, signing

My New Teacher and Me! is the follow-up to Weird Al’s acclaimed 2011 children’s book When I Grow Up (available as a standard book and as a newfangled iOS app for your iPad!).

I arrived at the store about three hours before the signing (incidentally, Quail Ridge Books is a really nice independent bookstore: I’m gonna make it a habit of swinging by there any time I’m in the Raleigh area) and bought a few copies to get signed.  I wound up reading My New Teacher and Me! in the interim and found it to be a delightful and well-crafted (and funny...

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“Liquid breathing” from The Abyss.
Do not try this at home.

Remember in James Cameron’s movie The Abyss, where Ed Harris’ character was put into that funky diving suit which got filled with “breathing fluid” and he had to respirate through the liquid in order to survive a deep, deep dive?

(Incidentally, that was in 1989 and at the time it wasn’t far from reality.  The mouse from the earlier scene that the fluid is demonstrated on?  That was not a special effect folks!  The mouse was actually breathing with that stuff!)

How about one better than that?  Say… put a needle in your arm and shoot yourself up with breathable oxygen?

Research scientist at Boston Children’s Hospital have come up with a neat trick and it could revolutionize much of modern medicine: a nanoparticle which can be injected into a person and provide enough oxygen to maintain ...

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Times have been tough for Pauline: the damsel-in-distress that Mario had to climb up those girders to rescue from Donkey Kong way back in 1981.  Mario and DK of course went on to bigger and better things.  Then there were all those women who came into Mario’s life before he settled on Princess Peach.  But whatever happened to Pauline?

Mike Mika, who works at Other Ocean Interactive, was asked by his three-year old daughter if “she could play as the girl and save Mario”.  Mika hacked into the ROM of the Nintendo Entertainment System’s port of Donkey Kong and after fiddlin’ around with the coded innards, he had produced what he calls the “Pauline Edition” of Donkey Kong!  Here’s a clip of it in action and you  have to admit, it’s a really sweet thing to do for a kid 🙂




Jump here for more at Cinema Blend ...

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dachshunds, United Nations, Dachshund UN, dogs, diplomacy, wiener dogs

Dachshund UN, a “a miniature version of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights where the world’s leaders are replaced by dogs”, has opened in Toronto and runs through March 4th.  38 dachshunds represent the United States, Canada, France, Germany and other countries.  Australian artist Bennett Miller chose dachshunds because they come in so many varieties of color and fur (akin to the racial makeup of the real UN) and because they “are impressive but restricted, you can match that to the United Nations”.

CP24.com has an in-depth article about Dachshund UN  that will leave you wondering if the wiener dogs might do a better job at the real United Nations than us humans 🙂...

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You can’t have any doubt: those three kids are going to turn out great! They’re gonna be really thankful someday that they have two awesome parents like the Kings.

Laura King and her husband took their three children – ages two, three and eight – out for dinner at a swanky Italian restaurant in Poulsbo, Washington. And when they got the ticket at the end of the meal… it listed a four-dollar discount for “WELL BEHAVED KIDS”!

From the MailOnline story…

A Washington couple were left stunned after their server handed them the bill for their family’s dinner – and they saw they had been given a $4 discount for their ‘Well Behaved Kids’.

Laura King and her husband took their three children, aged two, three and eight, to an Italian restaurant in Poulsbo to enjoy an early-evening meal last Friday.

As they tucked into their feast of

...
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Whatever faults there might be with American healthcare, you have to admit: it still kicks ass like nobody else!

Retired U.S. Army Sergeant Brendan Marrocco (right) lost all four limbs to a roadside bomb attack while serving in Iraq in 2009. It’s nothing short of miraculous that Marrocco is the most severely-injured American service member to have survived such an ordeal.

It’s also nothing short of amazing that nine weeks ago Marrocco received a double-arm transplant at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. It will take a few more years of his nervous system getting acclimated – to say nothing of the physical therapy that’ll be involved – but in the end Brendan Marrocco will have two fully-functioning arms and hands again.

From The Guardian article…

Sergeant Brendan Marrocco, 26, of Staten Island, New York, said he was anxious to return to an active life after the successful bilateral arm

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There is a Mellow Mushroom that opened up not long ago in nearby Burlington. I’ve yet to eat at that one but now I’m feeling led to. For one thing the pizza is insanely delicious. For another, after reading this next story y’all will agree: this company rocks!

The tale begins with Army National Guard Major Shawn Fulker, who lives in Jacksonville, Florida. At the moment Fulker is deployed thousands of miles from home in Afghanistan. His wife’s birthday was coming up and in spite of the distance he wanted to do something nice for her. Josephine Fulker really loves the pizza at Mellow Mushroom, so Shawn e-mailed the company’s corporate office and asked if one of their Jacksonville restaurants could deliver a pizza and a $50 gift card to his wife. Shawn let them know that he would gladly call the store and pay for it by credit ...

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