Monday, September 30, 2013

Lounging Green Lanters



Green Lanterns by Giancarlo Volpe.

Saturday, September 28, 2013

"International hit team" arrested

Gawker:
A team of alleged mercenaries comprised of former American, German, and Polish snipers and soldiers, were arrested this week after DEA informants successfully hired the team to provide a variety of security, surveillance, and assassination work.

According to a release from the DEA, the five former soldiers — most with sniper experience — formed an "international hit team" across four continents.
...
The team also accepted $700,000 to assassinate a DEA special agent and an alleged confidential source in Liberia.

Friday, September 27, 2013

Antiquated desktop


Computer by Datamancer on sale at ebay.

Link roundup

1.  ESPN suggests an act of arson saved the Packers franchise.

2.  "Los Angeles school district officials say 71 iPads distributed to students as part of a 13-school trial run have gone missing. Of those, 69 were from one campus."

3.  ATF can't account for $127 million worth of cigarettes.

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Link roundup

1.  Gizmodo:
Long ago, in the region surrounding Nevsehir and Kayseri, in central Turkey, an ancient people built, or rather dug, over 200 underground cities. The deepest of these, under the present day town of Derinkuyu, delves over 250 feet below the Earth’s surface, and boasts numerous tunnels, halls, meeting rooms, wells and passages.
2. Funny to any dad coaching little league:
Let Hunter Pence Teach You How To Play Baseball Like An Idiot
3. "Was the infamous 'White Widow'—the British woman whose husband bombed the London Underground in 2005—present at the Kenya Mall Attack?"

Monday, September 23, 2013

If Jurassic Park featured Dr. Seuss's creations

Sillof:
To celebrate their 100 percent renovation as a dinosaur and natural history themed hotel, The Best Western Denver Southwest commissioned me to combine their love of dinosaurs with their love of Dr. Seuss. You can learn more about the Dino Hotel on their Facebook page.


Vertigo and Re-Cycle posters



By Rafal Topolski.

Mascots based on the Nickelodeon series/game NFL Rush Zone

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Link roundup

1.  6 Real Islands Way More Terrifying Than The One On 'Lost'.

2. Here's how to make your own iOS 7 parallax wallpapers.

3. "On April 5th, 1960, Oakland’s new American Football League franchise – the team we now know as the Raiders – announced that they had chosen a nickname. To much surprise and outrage the team unveiled they would be called the Senors. Evidently the team didn’t care or know that the plural form for Señor is Señores. That’s just one of the many reasons why they chose a bad nickname."

4. ESPN:
Suspended Denver Broncos Pro Bowl linebacker Von Miller unsuccessfully attempted to corrupt the NFL's drug-testing program with the help of a urine collector before each was caught in a matter that will affect how the NFL's collection testing procedures are done moving forward, league sources said.

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Link roundup

1. "Carpet designer threatens cosplayers with legal action"

2. Hammunition: ammunition that's been laced with pork.

3. The Dream Team:
I had about eighty basketballs in my room in Barcelona and had to get the players to sign them all. Bird was the last guy, and he says, "What's the quickest anyone's done it?" I said, "Anywhere from eight minutes to twenty." And Bird said, "I'm going to be the fastest. Time me." So he signs them, and he throws me the last one: "Okay, what is it?" "Whoa, four and a half minutes!" And he goes, "Yes!"

TV series Batman and Robin by Hot Toys


Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Link roundup

1.  Gawker:
U.S. District Judge Katherine B. Forrest ruled today that the owners of 650 Fifth Avenue, a 36-story building near the Rockefeller Center in Midtown Manhattan, used the property to launder money for the government of Iran. Though open to appeal, the ruling authorizes the federal government to seize the tower and donate the seizure’s profits to the families of Americans harmed by terrorist attacks aided by Iran.
2.  From a list of Puritan names: "Die-Well. A brother of Farewell Sykes, who died in 1865."

3.  "19 Real Sinister Conspiracies That Actually Happened."

4.  Bloomberg:
The two Mexican couriers were hauling a tractor-trailer full of cash: $3 million collected for drugs sold on the streets of Chicago. Juan Gonzalez and David Zuniga were driving their rig through Indiana in October 2011, transporting the money to Mexico. As they stopped to fix a flat tire, three members of the Gangster Disciples, Chicago’s biggest street gang, held them up at gunpoint.
5.  Seth Green says there are 39 finished episodes of the Star Wars cartoon Detours, but they shelved it to avoid damaging the brand.

Monday, September 16, 2013

Elysium concept art



Aaron Beck posted a huge gallery of Elysium concept art.

Link roundup

1.  NY Times:
But scientists are finding that it’s quite common for an individual to have multiple genomes. Some people, for example, have groups of cells with mutations that are not found in the rest of the body. Some have genomes that came from other people.
2.  "In the spring of 1930, a biologist named Israel Aharoni ventured into Syria on a mission. He was searching for a rare golden mammal . . . Today, the hamsters you see in pet stores are most likely descendants of Aharoni's litter."

3.  Johnny Appleseed:
The trees that Chapman planted had multiple purposes, although they did not yield edible fruit. The small, tart apples his orchards produced were useful primarily to make hard cider and applejack. Orchards also served the critical legal purpose of establishing land claims along the frontier. As a consequence, Chapman owned around 1,200 acres of valuable land at the time of his death.
4.   The Onion on GTAV:
Like previous installments, gameplay immerses players in alternate reality where their lives are rich and meaningful

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Link roundup

1.  How to recognize the authors of paintings.

2.  There is no such thing as healing.

3.  The bizarre warty prowfish.

4.  "This Insect Has Gears In Its Legs."

5. "The Chinese town of Defang was rocked to its core when a million cockroaches managed to escape from a medical facility and spill out into the unsuspecting countryside."

Friday, September 13, 2013

Tales from Lovecraft Middle School #4: Substitute Creature



The Tales from Lovecraft Middle School series is very popular at my house.  Book 4 in the series comes out later this month and is 18% off at Amazon.
When a giant nor’easter dumps a blanket of snow on the village of Dunwich, Massachussetts, Robert Arthur and his friends find themselves marooned inside Lovecraft Middle School. The kids have no choice but to spend the night—while snacking on cafeteria food, sleeping on classroom floors, and facing off against a mysterious substitute teacher who may have a sinister secret.

Firefox poster



Japanese Firefox poster available at ebay.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Seinfeld's parking garage episode



Omni looks at Seinfeld's parking garage episode:
The Parking Garage was shot, like almost every episode of Seinfeld, on the same soundstage that normally contained Jerry’s apartment. The set was small, but the garage was meant to appear infinite, and so each shot in the episode was a different angle on the same set. The production employed mirrors, lined around the perimeters of the soundstage, to give the illusion of space. In some scenes, the mirrors bend and distort the concrete pillars of the garage, creating pockets of the surreal. Eagle-eyed Internet Seinfeld fanatics have taken the episode apart, finding M.C. Escher-esque continuity errors: cameras reflected in parked cars, and even the cast itself accidentally reflected twice in the same shot. It’s enough to conjure a quantum (or Bizarro) Seinfeld universe to mind, one where the characters are still refracted in mirrors, trapped in this concrete prison for all eternity. Indeed, the more I reflect on The Parking Garage, the more it evokes a specifically Ballardian nightmare: this so-called pornography of infinity, contained within a New Jersey mall.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Link roundup

1.  Some farmer ants benefit by sharing space with a different type of warrior ant:
Unlike their hosts, the parasitic ants are far from defenceless. They raise their stings and release a powerful venom directly into the air—an airborne chemical weapon that kills the raiders and befuddles any survivors. “Rather than uniting as an efficient infiltration squad they turn on each other and attack, sometimes killing their own kin,” says Adams.
2.  Great story about Larry Hama.

3.  "Groupon says its website crashed due to the number of customers in India vying for a once-in-a-lifetime deal on onions."

4.  From Cracked's list of video game glitches:
Dragon's Dogma had the rare ability of allowing you to "romance" any character in the game by doing things like giving them gifts or drawing your sword in front of them (in real life, that usually gets you arrested). However, due to a glitch in the system, the only requirement for raising someone's "romance level" was talking to them -- meaning the game would unilaterally decide that whoever you talked to the most must be your lover, whether you liked it or not. So, upon reaching the crucial part of the game where you have to fight a dragon that has kidnapped your beloved, many players were surprised to find out that their beloved was ... the guy who runs the inn. Or the old shopkeeper. Or even the mustachioed midget in the jester suit you kept talking to because you were stoned and his voice seemed amusing.

Monday, September 9, 2013

Link roundup

1.  From a detailed look at what Aaron Rodgers does between plays:
Rodgers' first experience with helmet electronics was a dud. The offensive coordinator for his eighth-grade team illegally wired Rodgers' helmet through which the coach called every play. 
... 
The foundation of the Packers' huddle is the five offensive linemen standing parallel to the line with their backs to the defense and facing Rodgers. That leaves the five skill-position players to fill the ends of the oval between the tackles and Rodgers. 
Rodgers insists on having three of those players on his right and two on his left.
2.  Good collection of Joey Tribbiani jokes.

3.  RPS reviews Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs:
this is a marvellous, revolting, disturbing sequel to Dark Descent. I am certain that it will be loved and feared. It coils atmosphere around the player, and the central metaphor of the pigs is one that you will be repulsed to explore. Its aim was to create horror. And from the moment I exited the mansion and began to find my way into the dark interior of the game, I knew they’d succeeded.
This is from Kotaku's review: