That could be me behind the black square

Except I'm not a young Asian woman, and the person picking my pocket is not a young Asian boy, nor is he attempting to be particularly sly about it. Other than that...

The picture to the right, and several other pickpocket pictures, can be found in the thread Street of Thieves at the blog bg11.

"You can’t go that way, It’s toward the road.”

This is an odd little experiment. A woman built a very simple robot, well... not really a robot, just a tiny little electric cart with a cardboard robot-looking body with a goofy smiley face on it.

She then stuck a little flag on it that said the robot needed help getting to a particular destination and left it loose in New York City. She put it down and stepped back, her camera hidden in her purse, and watched what happened.

On her site tweenbots.com she has a video of part of its travel from the northeast to the southwest Corner of Washington Square Park. It took 42 minutes for the little guy to make the trip, and 29 people helped it on its way.

The people who help have interesting reactions. They'll find it stuck against a bench or in a pot hole, read the flag and then fiddle around some trying to get the robot headed in the right direction. The title of this post comes from a comment one of the robot Samaritans spoke to the Tweenbot as he aimed it on then next leg of its journey.

At her site she has information about her future Tweenbot schemes. They're apparently part of a project she is doing for a thesis in her studies.

I've spotted my first Obama Stimulus Package Logo

As you may have read, President Obama has unveiled a new ARRA logo (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) which he intends to stamp on projects funded by his spending spree. I spotted my first today, which is pictured above. Seems kind of brazen to me, but what do I know?

Sides of a coin

Lovely to look at, delightful to ski...

Painful to dig.


BTW, where have all the Yargbians gone?

Jumping Jehosephats!

A body painting done on nude people that's an optical illusion that creates an image of Obama when viewed from a certain angle? Well, OK... I guess...

By the way, when typing the title of this thread I got interested in the origin of the expression 'jumping jehosephats'. From AnswerBag:

Jehosaphat was a wealthy king of Jerusalem. One day an army came from Koopastan to steal Jehosaphat's princess and his mountain of gold coins. Jehosaphat challenged the most feared fighter in the Koopastanian army to one-on-one combat. Right before battle, Jehosaphat ate powerful mushrooms from his kingdom. Legend has it that during the confrontation, Jeosaphat doubled in size and leaped onto the warrior, crushing him flat. Recent scientific studies show that the Basidocarpus todensae mushroom of the desert has certain chemotactic properties that increase hematocrit levels in the myofibrils of muscles, verifying the possible "doubling in size".

The people of Jerusalem created epic songs about "Jumping Jehosaphat". Don MaClean's ballad "American Pie" is a modern take on these traditional mandolin pieces. The saying quickly grew in popularity with the advent of the printing press and the translation of the bible, and the influx of Christianity throughout the world.

Hmmm... maybe it's the mushrooms that connect these two items.

Helloooo American Digest visitors. Weird picture, aint it?

Google hurt my feelings.

Man, a search for 'moron' leads to one of my posts?
Noooo... say it aint so!
Thanks a lot Google, ya bunch of disrespectful PUNKS.

Through the eyes of strangers

It is always interesting to look at drawings of foreign places, and foreigners, from the days that predated photography.

The artists of those eras must have grown up in very homogeneous societies, and as a result they frequently struggle depicting the visible ethnic details of foreigners.

Usually, these drawing are done by Europeans during the Age of Exploration. The blog Japan Post has a post Pictures of foreigners from 17th/18th century Japan that links to a Kyushu University digital archive that has pictures drawn by the Japanese of their view of foreigners.

Europeans are included, but there are also many pictures of other nationalities. Frequently, it is difficult to place where the people drawn were supposed to be from. for example, in the picture to the left, I can't quite decide if they're Polynesians or American Indians (D'oh, the linked website says they're Brazillians).

The Kyushu University site is in Japanese. I think this is the correct link to the gallery page of drawings of foreigners. The complete list of galleries appears to be located here.

Rocky Mountain High

Sure do get chilly sometimes!

Crayon Physics

Crayon Physics Deluxe from Petri Purho on Vimeo.

I've played the Demo Version of this little game for months, waiting for the Delux Version to be released. What you do in it is try to roll a little ball to bump it into a star. The graphics are styled to look like a crayon drawing, and you move the little rock by drawing shapes on the screen that get the ball rolling, and provide a path for the ball to move along.

It sounds simple, but some of the little puzzles are quite maddening to try to figure out. It takes a bit of physics intuition, and to touch of Rube Goldberg imagination, to solve them. If you don't want to spring for the Delux Version, the Demo version will still provide entertainment.

Here's the website for it: Crayon Physics Delux. Below is an example of the type of silliness you can find yourself doing with it....


Crayon Physics - That Darn Pole, featuring Wall-E from Jimmy Gunawan on Vimeo.

Well, it's supposed to glow in the dark

I kid you not, pictured to the left is a Cold War era, nuclear powered, Atomic Lighthouse. A website called English Russia has a post about them, with many more pictures and an interesting comment thread.

Large portions of the Russian northern coastline are above the Arctic Circle and navigable. It is also uninhabited and inhospitable. The Soviets decided to build automated lighthouses as an aid to shipping. Because of the problems getting power to them, they decided to power them via nuclear energy.

They used radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTG, RITEG) to provide the power. Theses devices, which have been used to power space probes, generate electricity from the decay of radioactive materials. The Wikipedia article say that about 1,000 of these RTG power sources were used in Russia. The United States also used, and still uses, them for power at remote radar stations.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union these lighthouses were poorly maintained. Frighteningly, some are even lost due to poor record keeping (and we think our government workers are lazy and incompetent). They pose an environmental hazard. Two woodcutters died after sleeping near one, and several others have been reportedly looted. Not a comforting thought.

Not exactly the Taj Mahal

I got this from Strange Maps. It is the Buenos Aires suburb of Ciudad Evita named after Evita Peron. The Strange Maps website say it was founded in 1947 by Argentinian President Peron by Presidential Decree in 1947. Other sources have it being a project of something called the Eva Peron Foundation. Likely, it was a mix of the two.

Naming a city after a living person is a common enough thing in a Thugocracy, but according to Strange Maps it is supposedly laid out to be a portrait of her. The other sources I've found don't make that claim. I think the likeness is a bit of the stretch. Perhaps one can see the bun, but the lower part of the face just isn't there.

Regardless, I suggest nobody pass this idea on to Michelle. I don't want to risk my street becomming part of her nostril.

Lindsay's Robo-Face

How odd. Not Lindsay Lohan, although I'm sure she's odd too. Truth be told, to me she is just some celebrity that flits about in my peripheral vision. I have some vague notion that she blunders from one embarrassment to another in front of paparazzi and gossip columnists, but this post isn't about her.

Instead I'm quite struck by the fact that somebody viewed piles of her pictures, realized her expression was always the same, and then carefully cropped and sized the photos to assemble the above animated gif. It is quite remarkable. I wonder if we all look so monotonously consistent?

Sadly, I had this picture sitting on my computer for some time, and I can't remember where I got it, so I can't credit the source.

A blast from the past

Today I made one of my occasional visits to Arts & Letters Daily.  I found there, in the New Books section, a link to The great dictators, a review of two books about the The Great Books.

I have the 54 volume first edition sitting on ridiculously overstuffed bookshelves.  

Neither the authors nor the reviewer apparently thinks much of The Great Books.  To be honest, though I've owned them for nigh unto 30 years, I've read very little from them.  They've been useful the few times I've needed to dig in there after some tidbit or other but that has been rare.  The reason I own them differs from what the reviewer claims for other owners.  I own them because they came available to me for a paltry price of some $50 which included The Annals of America - my set of which may be of extraordinary value since it consists of 19 volumes rather than the 18 volumes available from Amazon.  

I have found the Annals useful from time to time.  Certainly moreso that the Great Books.  But I always figgered the Great Books were an investment in the future.  Something I'd be able to drool upon in my dotage.  Alas, it may just have been $50 poorly spent.

New Blog Site for Tech Links

I have created a new blog for pure tech links here. I will be posting all my tech links on that site Instapundit style going forward. I will only be posting political links on this blog going forward.

The Last Doughboy

I needed to cool my heels for a few minutes and spotted The Last Doughboy in the dead tree version (ht: me).   The story of the (should be) esteemed Mr. Buckles is also covered by George Will and the American Legion.

Here's nothing...

Two-party vote: Obama/Biden 53.6% - McCain/Palin 46.4%

11/4 DJIA close: 8,500


Posted by: Patrick Tyson | October 26, 2008 at 01:56 PM @ justoneminute.typepad.com

A month in:

The DJIA closed at 8,376.24 after spending most of the day between 8,500 and 8,600 while New York State (among others) certified with a vote count that sent Obama/Biden thru 53.6% to 53.66% of the two-party vote.

...and so it goes.

Happy Holidays!

Sunday Links

Does Obama scare al-Qaida?

Switching to the WSJ?

Nearly as hard as diamond, slipperier than teflon.

Russian paranoia runs rampant.

Does time exist?

The great British prostitution debate.

Movies of atoms in motion.

Free plane tickets for the Canadian obese.

We sleep to forget.

China steps up its computer espionage attacks on the US military.

Friday Links

The proud and sad history of the Detroit oligopoly.

Now we know: almost all matter is nothing but quantum fluctuations in the vacuum.

Massive glaciers have been discovered on Mars.

Chicago is on a roll.

Bad cars can live almost forever.

Google axes 3D.

Why worry about a little trillion dollar deficit?

A new Ebola virus has broken out in Africa.

China's expanding sphere of influence in Latin America.

Learning math causes massive reorganization of the brain.

Shades of Stalin: Iranian blogger "confesses" to spying for Israel.

Introducing GlassDoor.

Is the universe teeming with aliens?

Japan is itching to take on the pirates.

Limitless clean energy for the taking.

Is the US going down the tubes in the next two decades?

Wednesday Links

Why people are lucky. (H/T: Jeff)

An Estonian spy passes NATO's cybersecrets to the Russians.

A vaccine for skin cancer?

Let it go to a happier home.

The body's secret network of tunneling nanotubes.

MIT open courseware—in video.

Controlling your time.

A new generator that can boost wind turbine power output by 50%.

Botnet control passed to Russia.

Success begets success.

The case against Hillary.

2 million dead?—oops! Sorry!

Podcasts from Oxford.

The leader of the year.

Godzilla meets King Kong: both dead.

US physicist sends secret military information to China.

Sunday Links

Global warming mongers embarrassingly debunked.

How much per second?

Is there a genius in all of us?

Chromosome division is different between women and men.

Putin: why do we need so many stinkin' elections?

North Korea gets tough.

Can ancient Chinese medicine yield a cure for AIDS?

Some transitions are more equal than others.

Is China its own worst enemy?

How to hide molecules.

Venezuela down the tubes.

How to bail out GM.

Why ant colonies don't have traffic jams.

Dictatorship in Nicaragua.

Time travel in Google Earth.