Orangutan ballet!

He didn't talk to the cops because he's a parrot, not a stool pigeon.

I hate to admit it but my first thought when I saw this was that if someone did something like this in the US the pictures would probably be accompanied by a story about how an Authority Figure questioned the taking of the pictures and insisted that permission was needed to take them.

That said, they are pretty neat.

I think I saw these a year or so ago. Unfortunately I don't think they are anything more than an art project, which is too bad because they are really cool and I work in logistics and they would make great gifts.

@ #18
Both are in there.

Rusty the Boy Robot is the one on the outside ring, about 1 O' Clock, to the left of Servo and Twiki. I think Big Guy is directly under Crow's left elbow.

Tranzor Z is opposite Voltron (sorry animeists, I only know the US cartoons) on the bottom, flanking Maximilian from Black Hole.

I think that's a Terminator between Bender and C3PO.

@ #1
Man the battlestations…

Staff the battlestations…

I guess I'm just not that big of a feminist, even if I think it's fine if women man the battlestations. Maybe I just think there are more important things to worry about than something so pedantic, but then I also think language is for communicating and not empowerment. Yes, yes, words blind us to how precious and special everyone is, etc.

@ #7
Actually, the system was designed with several safeguards. First, the two people in the control room for a group of missiles had to turn their keys at exactly the same time at two stations too far apart for a human to do by their lonesome. This would constitute one launch vote. Secondly, another control room would be in charge of the same group of missiles, and they would also have to turn their keys simultaneously with each other (but not simultaneously with the first crew) to register a second launch vote and thereby launch any ICBMs. Thus, you would have to have four highly tested Air Force officers to launch any missiles, people who had been trained to be part of a chain of command that emphasized that the only way we would launch is if the Soviets had launched first.

From what I've read, lots of crews worked on higher education in the bunkers. Lots of MBAs, stuff like that.

@ #12 Antinous

It was in the tunnels - some of them were criss-crossed with the tubes of teh interwebs.

I'm confused, does the water include the giant white mass of Greenland and points north? And, presumably, extreme points south? I think it would be a clearer graphic if it showed gray for the normally-wet bits there, too.

You bring up Pol Pot; would the Cambodian genocide have been possible without US intervention in SE Asia, especially in the Vietnamese Civil War? Doesn't it give one pause to consider unintended consequences?

I don't like genocide, but I stand by my earlier remarks: don't say, "the government should do something." Be empowered, go there and kill bad guys. If you don't like that idea, tough, because all those Marines and/or soldiers you would send also have mommies and daddies and would regret their dying, too.

It's what galls me the most about neocons and liberals with a neocon attitude toward military power. American military personnel are citizens who have chosen to serve their country with their lives. There is an implicit contract that we should not risk those lives, spend those lives unless it is absolutely necessary for the good of the nation. I think too many view them as dumb grunts, pawns of national purpose. "You are soldiers in order to die and we are sending you where you can die."

I guess I'm a military isolationist, because I don't think the blood and treasure of America should be expended across the world for lost causes like preventing or, more likely, delaying, genocide in Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, wherever. Unless you are going to be a colonial power and stay there forever (which the colonial powers were unable to do, because it's economically unsustainable) eventually you'll have a generation of jackasses who will want to avenge the wrongs done in the 19th century, or whenever.
So, instead of saying "send in the Marines!!!!", why not put your money where your mouth is and, you know, go there yourself. Get your injections, pack some gear, wait until you are in-country to buy guns and ammo (I recommend a nice AK-47, they're everywhere and easy to care for) and fight the genocide yourself. Barring that, feel free to raise money to field a mercenary company or fund other eager beavers who want to fight genocide. Just think, if the Tutsis had a militia with AKs with mercenary advisors, the Hutus would never have come after them with machetes.

America should not be the world's policeman. America should mind it's own damn business.
Put down the white man's burden, and walk away quickly.

To me, this just hasn't been processed enough. It still looks too much like a clarinet for me to take it seriously, or even seriously playfully.

@ Joel

I have (church custodian through college), but I don't feel like giving you any guff.

No one has any idea what anyone else's experience is really like, and given the tricky nature of memory we may not for sure remember what our experiences were really like. All we can have are approximations.

Retarded may not be a nice word, but sometimes shit is retarded.

If you are easily offended, teh Internets may not be right for you.

Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball…

Damn Mattel…

I am reminded of the ship Ford and Zaphod stole in Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the Sundiver, I believe it was called.

The problem with infectious agents as end of the world causatives is at some point the population is too small to carry the contagion. Unless you posit some bioengineered abomination like a super weaponized smallpox that can drift through the atmosphere for years and years and begin infecting anew whenever it infects someone in a previously uninfected population, you will have at the very least small pockets of humans who will not be exposed as our civilization breaks down, taking with it air travel and other disease vectors. Basically, people in bumblefuck will live while those in the cities die.

One very good look at this was in Wired back in the late '90s. They had a great sequence of a multiyear AIDS/smallpox plaque, IIRC, which killed off about 5 billion people. Rural communities instituted sanitation zones, with orders to shoot on site.

Anyway, a mega pandemic might wipe out modern day civilization, but it is extremely improbable that it would kill off all of the human race.

Ideally, we would all be able to follow the diet that worked well for our ancestors, namely, wandering around outside, eating nuts, berries, wild vegetables and occasionally killing and eating a ruminant for meat. Or a fish or fowl.

Whenever I read this type of post about what we should eat or how we should behave, I think about something I read earlier this year: "Pity all those poor healthy people, lying in their hospital beds, dying of nothing."

Unless you've stumbled upon the Garden of Eden and have snuck past the angel guarding it and are happily munching the fruit of the tree of life, you're going to die, just like everybody else. Eat what you like, and if you decide your body is disgustingly fat (with objective proof, you eating disorder people!) or you really want to see how the whole Social Security/global warming/peak oil/steroid scandal/take-your-pick mess plays out, eat less and more healthily. Otherwise, why should you care?

This week's issue of Time has an amusing article by Joel Stein criticizing the whole "eat local" fad, btw.

I've always wondered how hard to operate hydroelectric dams were, as that would be a good source for electricity for my you're-the-last-person-alive scenario. You could operate freezers, microwaves, DVD players, pinball machines, etc. You would also have plenty of fresh water and a solid (hopefully) structure to use for a home.

Aside from the Olympic Park bombing that killed one person, what was disastrous about the Atlanta Olympic Games?

IIRC, there has been discussion about using programs like Second Life as areas to help develop AIs, a way for them to learn about and get used to humans. My immediate concern on hearing this was that there are some messed up monkeys in the world who would gladly torture such a being, especially since it "isn't real". In the Animatrix, the war is shown to be started by humans - the first robots were friendly and kind of weak. The machines wised up quickly. Would an abused AI decide to strike back at the humans who tortured it?

@ Muppet
Maybe you should take up boxing instead.

I am just guessing, but I imagine it could flash the beams around, see what reflects and how large the reflection is. If it is a small point, it could decide it is a camera, as opposed to a large reflection, which would be a window.

@ Help etc.

Because it's freakin' cool? Not a good enough reason for you? People will remember this report for years - and both the company that issued it and the designers who created it.

Personally, I think this pen is pretty neat but I don't know if I could use it; a lot of "ergonomic" writing instruments are specifically for right handed people - as a hooking left hander I find them very uncomfortable to use. I'm not going to drop $150-$200 on a pen but I might have to visit the local writing instrument store to see if they have one I can look at/try out/lust after.