Kennric

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• Commented on Chickens terrified of dried sunflower head
  I had some volunteer sunflowers in my chicken yard, it was quite fun to watch the hens leap up to peck at the seeds in the lower blossoms, bouncing up and down like feathery superballs. Chickens are weird. Novelty plus...
• Commented on Video of Tiny Tim performance mentioned in Pynchon's Inherent Vice
  Yes, Pynchon is the man we need to put this into context. A lot of context. Please....
• Commented on 100-word fiction competition — win an HP MediaSmart EX495
  Found in space: sector nine, twelve nine two zero three. Boot, left, pressurized, male size nine. Bottle, one liter, plastic; label: Old Apollo Whiskey, Budget Style. Photoholograph, subject: female, earth standard human, brown hair, brown eyes. Label: "Tracy" Letters, small...
• Commented on 100-word fiction competition — win an HP MediaSmart EX495
  The shell was a work of delicate appearance, engineered to withstand the heat of solar fusion. It was cratered but nowhere breached, nascent ghosts of a distant civilization safely enclosed. They slept as their ovoid capsule rolled from gravity well...
• Commented on What MP3 player should I buy?
  I love how whenever someone on a forum asks for a recommendation and lists as a requirement that it absolutely NOT be product X, half the recommendations will be for product X. Usually with a side order of disdain and...
• Commented on Freemasonry, Dan Brown, and the New New Age
  Too bad Brown's writing is so lackluster - with all that fascinating history to work with, there could have been a good book in there. Sorry, I suppose that's not nice, but I really don't understand the popularity of these...
• Commented on Science fiction as a predictor of the present
  "Asimov's robots were not supposed to be metaphors, but they sure acted like them, revealing the great writer's belief in a world where careful regulation could create positive outcomes for society. (How else to explain his idea that all robots...
• Commented on Science fiction as a predictor of the present
  I think I have to respectfully disagree with this as an assessment of -all- science fiction. Certainly many classic examples can be seen as allegories of the time period in which they were written, but many more, not so much....
• Commented on Secret copyright treaty leaks. It's bad. Very bad.
  I like an indignant panic-fest as much as the next guy, but yeah, I'd really like to know the sources here. Oh, and zyodie: "The more powerful you make government, the more powerful you make corporations." True, but unfortunately the...
• Commented on Brit business secretary promises to punish accused file-sharers' families with Internet disconnection by 2011
  "Or so the record companies and movie distributors fondly hope. After all, if people didn't have the Internet, they'd buy more records and go out to more movies, right?" You may have put your finger on something there. If big...
• Commented on Reversing the brain impairments caused by sleeplessness
  Ah, yes, that's it....
• Commented on Reversing the brain impairments caused by sleeplessness
  If you do not sleep for a certain amount of time, you die. I haven't heard whether science has discovered exactly what mechanism causes this, and I have no idea how that mechanism may relate to 'cognitive impairments'. Point being,...
• Commented on Anvil Shooting: using explosives to fire anvils -- yes, ANVILS -- into the air
  According to my quick and possibly erroneous arithmetic, that's only about 27,088 joules, with an initial velocity of about 34.5 m/s (77 miles per hour), neglecting air resistance. More energetic, if you consider the air resistance....
• Commented on Anvil Shooting: using explosives to fire anvils -- yes, ANVILS -- into the air
  As an amateur blacksmith with a family history of smithing, I of course heard tell of how the village blacksmith, "back in the day" would put some gunpowder between two anvils and make a big bang for fourth of July...
• Commented on Conservapedia proposes de-liberalized Bible
  Kind of points out the whole farce that is the "literal bible" - after all, what we call the bible today is just the end result of centuries of exactly this kind of translation and editing. Of course the edits...
• Commented on Cydwoq: handmade shoes designed by an LA architect
  I thought, for the first sentence, that I was about to learn of some iconoclastic late 19th century architect that had designed some interesting, perhaps unusually modernly styled shoes, and that the pictures were of some recently excavated examples of...
• Commented on Money for Nothing: One Man's Journey through the Dark Side of Lottery Millions
  I'm skeptical. Every week or so, someone in this country wins millions from state or multistate lotteries, there are thousands of such millionaires - we hear a handful of stories (often some repeats) about miserable and foolish lottery winners, but...
• Commented on The rise of the Flapper
  I've always been somewhat attracted to Flappers. Not that any particular part of the look is sexy (though there is something about short hair...), and I am not a smoking and dancing kind of guy, so I think it must...
• Commented on Stupid pitfalls of social media
  Interesting article - I suppose I knew, intellectually, that there must be some formal analysis going on of patterns and models in social networking sites, but I had never run across it before. Funny how naming the beasts suddenly makes...
• Commented on Strange Architectural Typeface Choice
  I like it too. If you can relax your eyes a bit and look at the whole facade without thinking about the building as being "Greco-Roman" specifically, then the font shape actually plays fairly well with the other design elements....
• Commented on Slate reports on animal onanism
  At the Oregon Zoo in Portland, it is not uncommon to see the sea otters float gently to the surface on their back, unwrap their furry little otter-pop and go to town, as the say, orally. It looks rather like...
• Commented on Socialstructing: Statement of Social Currency
  I am somewhat fascinated by the concept of social currency and whuffie, and specifically the symbolization or abstraction of reputation (or, more usefully perhaps, contributions to the social good) into some kind of number that can be presented to someone...
• Commented on Merlin Mann on Getting Creative Things Done
  Definitely a good talk, and Merlin is fun to listen to. This is a subject much on my mind lately as well, having started a short-story-per-week project (link in my bio, check it out) and trying to figure out how...
• Commented on Free CC-licensed kids' fantasy short story every week
  Dang it! I just started such a writing project myself, I was just waiting til I got 10 or so done before seeking BoingBoing fame for it. Though my challenge is a bit different, as I intend to write the...
• Commented on The New Brighton Archeological Society
  @seanjordan: I was thrown by the phrase "an outlet to introduce kids to the world of picture-based story telling" for a bit, but you seem to have closed the cognitive gap. I still have an image of the toddler in...
• Commented on Silicone rescue tape -- "a reel of fanbelt"
  @9 - not the same stuff, not the same stuff at all. Bondage tape is vinyl, more akin to thoe removable window decals. This stuff is a thick sticky band of silicone that would be, in my estimate, about 8.3...
• Commented on Web Zen: from the street zen
  Or Dan Witz - thats some cool stuff. Someone doing what I wish I was in the right place and had the right talents to do. So often, looking at a wall, a sign, a bit of sidewalk, I think...
• Commented on Web Zen: from the street zen
  Uhg. For most people, "the earth" consists of the living parts of their environment which they interact with. It's a perfectly legitimate way to use the word, in my opinion. You know -precisely- what the person means when they say...
• Commented on Thematically composited photos of New Yorkers over time but not space
  Kennric'd Golden Rule: Do unto the guy who thought of the brilliant idea you should I have thought of, and would have too, if you didn't have so many other things going on, what with the breakup and the move...
• Commented on Magnetic Movie (2007)
  The probing, non-closed field lines were disturbing to me, as a physicist. Otherwise, I quite like the feel of the animations - very reminiscent of tesla coil or jacob's ladder vibrating-but-fluid energy flow. Would it have been so hard to...