Oh, No! They Have Tasers!!!!!

This is kind of creepy: robot-taser-attack drones. The only comfort is that while the guy looks big and 'dangerous', he doesn't move at all and so is therefore pretty easy for the robot to hit. I'd like to see another one in which he tries to do some kind of flying-kick-attack on the robot and then see how the robot makes out. Still, a disturbing situation to imagine:

Le Taser iRobot PackBot Explorer
Uploaded by npesblog. - News videos hot off the press.

Oh Yes, We Have Lasers!!!!!!

I can't believe I haven't posted this yet. I never had the laser background, myself (and I don't remember even having the option at my school) though I am sure that some of my dorky outfits/haircuts could compete with those on this page.

And, as always, Toothpaste for Dinner has tapped into the zeitgeist:

Lessons in Sturdy Construction Practices

This seems to not be possible:

Manhattan Street Photos

Here is a nice slideshow from my old friend, Stephen Taylor, of photos taken the other day while walking through lower Manhattan:

Street Photos - 072709 - Manhattan - Stephen Taylor from steve taylor on Vimeo.

'Lets Just Sprinkle Some Crack on Him and Get Outta Here'

I have sorta been following the Gates/Police thing in the news lately. I think Chappelle illustrates the situation nicely here (even though this tape looks pretty old, I guess things don't change too much):

Detroit: City of the Feral Houses

Wow, detroit just keeps the hits coming. here are some photos by James D. Griffioen documenting what calls 'feral houses' -- houses that have been abandoned by humans and which nature is slowly engulfing. For those who read 'The World Without Us', this is the real thing in action. [via Boing Boing]

Pork Chop Sandwiches, cont'd

Ah, but of what must we know in order to succeed in battle?

Pork Chop Sandwiches

Yeah, Let's Do This [or, Yet Another Reason to Move to Utah and Get a Government Job}

I've always sorta felt this way (and it helps if you work for yourself/freelance, of course): as long as you get the work done, why does it matter when it gets done? If you're supposed to work 40 hours a week, why does it need to take 5 days to accomplish it? I mean, how lazy is that, really? I could just as easily waste 10 hours a day for four days as I could 8 hours a day for 5 days. Then I could have three days to actually live my proper life. It may even get the economy going again (if you give people three days with nothing else to do, they won't be able to resist going shopping and buying needless crap).

So this comes out of Utah, via Scientific American. 4-day work weeks (but still 40 hours long). Apparently it even saves money and energy while also letting people live their lives:

Local governments in particular have had their eyes on Utah over the last year; the state redefined the workday for more than 17,000 of its employees last August. For those workplaces, there's no longer a need to turn on the lights, elevators or computers on Fridays—nor do janitors need to clean vacant buildings. Electric bills have dropped even further during the summer, thanks to less air-conditioning: Friday's midday hours have been replaced by cooler mornings and evenings on Monday through Thursday. As of May, the state had saved $1.8 million.

Perhaps as important, workers seem all too ready to replace "TGIF" with "TGIT". "People just love it," says Lori Wadsworth, a professor of public management at Brigham Young University in Provo. She helped survey those on the new Working 4 Utah schedule this May and found 82 percent would prefer to stick with it.

The environment seems to like it, too. "If employees are on the road 20 percent less, and office buildings are only powered four days a week," Langmaid says, "the energy savings and congestion savings would be enormous." Plus, the hour shift for the Monday through Thursday workers means fewer commuters during the traditional rush hours, speeding travel for all. It also means less time spent idling in traffic and therefore less spewing of greenhouse gases and other pollutants. The 9-to-5 crowd also gets the benefit of extended hours at the DMV and other state agencies that adopt the four-day schedule.

Some Words from Some Sponsors

Duke University has a project that collects vintage TV commercials and posts them online, called AdViews:

AdViews is a digital archive of thousands of vintage television commercials dating from the 1950s to the 1980s. These commercials were created or collected by the ad agency Benton & Bowles or its successor, D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles (DMB&B). Founded in 1929, Benton & Bowles was a New York advertising agency that merged with D'Arcy Masius McManus in 1985 to form DMB&B. Major clients included are Procter & Gamble, Kraft, Schick, Vicks, and Post, among others. Commercials will be added in phased batches over several months in 2009. The commercials are a part of the D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles Archives found at the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History in Duke University's Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library.

This archive also does something I've never seen before. You watch all of the videos through iTunes, and you can download them all for free, too. Pretty slick.

Oh, and note this:

The television commercials in the AdViews collection have been made available for use in research, teaching, and private study. Content from this collection may not be used for any commercial purpose without prior permission.

A Brief History of the Past 80 Years of the American Economy

The Economist has the informative little video about the US Economy since World War II, focusing on savings vs. consumption, and government deficits, and national exports. No wonder we're in the midst of an economic crisis, massive government deficits, and a thoroughly wrecked credit system. Did nobody think that the 80s were a bad idea?

Since the Economist doesn't seem to do embedding, here's the link.

Detroit: City of Just

So it seems that Jorge Just was recently in Detroit. We turn to him for some insight on the city of the future [for the uninitiated, read the twitter posts backwards to put them in chronological order]:

And You Thought Tina Fey Was Good

She may look and sound like, Sarah Palin, but I think William Shatner has some special insight into the deep meaning hidden in that woman's mysterious words. A friend of mine recently reminded me that it is important in life for there to be things that we don't fully understand....

We're Gonna Need a Bigger Blog

This HD is killing me. Again, the video is too wide for this blog. This is what I pictured in my mind before I went to the supposedly awesome Boston aquarium years and years ago. This is NOT what the Boston Aquarium is like:
The video is here.

U Can't Touch Vader

What I really want to know is what happened AFTER this little number? Was this part of an extended performance? A guided tour? A battle re-enactment?

Total Eclipse of the Sun

There was a total eclipse of the sun a couple of days ago, visible only in asia, and fortunately, their camera technology has advanced beyond my iPhone. Since the video is too huge and awesome for my narrow little blog, you'll have to follow the link.

And what about our comptroller?

The latest news is that the Naked cowboy is running for mayor of New York.

"No one knows how to do more with less than yours truly, and that's the kind of thinking I plan on sharing with my fellow New Yorkers when you elect me," said Robert Burck, announcing his bid to run against Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

I'm sure that Michael Bloomberg is actually very happy that the Naked Cowboy's candidacy may cut into Reverend Billy's support base; nobody knows what William Thompson thinks about this development, though he will only find it even harder to get in a word edgewise, running against a billionaire, a street preacher, and a cowboy in his underpants.

Turns out, the Cowboy has some political roots.

Some Words from Woody Guthrie

So I've been away a little while (I'll post a photo of the kidney stone soon). Here is a letter from Woody Guthrie to the Library of Congress. Note the return address in the upper right:

Written for Men by Men

First of all: Google Books? Who knew? (probably most of you- assuming there are any of you).

I will be making Warren G. Harding's Waffles this weekend.

Detroit: City of the Future, Gilden-Style

Bruce Gilden, one of the great street photographers, portraitists, and New York-attitudes I have ever come across, has a recent essay on Detroit on the Magnum In Motion website:

As part of his work on the effects of foreclosures in America, Bruce Gilden recently traveled to Detroit, Michigan. What he found was a desolate landscape where the subprime mortgage crisis is the latest blow hitting the "troubled city" already on its way to collapse and insurrection.