Monthly Archives: October 2010

(WARNING: No naked chicks below.)

– Boxing: 24/7 for Manny Pacquiao vs Antonio Margarito started on Saturday.  It features one guy who only speaks Spanish versus another guy who needs subtitles for his English.  I miss Mayweather.

– Mythbusters: When the right type of shit hits the right type of fan, shit does get on everyone.  And, surprisingly, you do get cold feet when you’re scared to perform a task.

– So you trust Kim Jong-Il over Richard Branson? According to a recent Gallup poll, 63% of Democrats (compared to 36% of all Americans) surveyed believed that “in general, the way the government does things is fairer and more just than the way businesses do things.”  On the same day, Gallup released another poll showing that 66% of people across Latin America find their governments make it too hard to fill out paperwork and obtain a permit to start a business.  The second hardest perceived place to start a business?  Sub-Saharan Africa.  (Gallup)

– Still don’t believe me? Here’s a fascinating piece explaining why the American school system was designed to churn out idiots.  Why does the author, Jonathan Taylor Gatto, know it was designed this way?  Because the people doing the designing wrote and spoke about it.  Freely:

• From a report by the 1888 Senate Committee on Education: “We believe that education is one of the principal causes of discontent of late years manifesting itself among the laboring classes.”
• Philosopher and educator John Dewey in 1897: “Every teacher should realize he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of the proper social order and the securing of the right social growth.”
• A 1905 dissertation for Columbia Teachers College by Elwoord Cubberly (future Dean of Education at Stanford University): Schools should be factories “in which raw products, children, are to be shaped and formed into finished products…manufactured like nails, and the specifications for manufacturing will come from government and industry.”
• Woodrow Wilson, supreme leader of Progressives… or something: “We want one class to have a liberal education. We want another class, a very much larger class of necessity, to forego the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.”

On that last bit, Dub-Duece is really letting the socialist shit fly, huh?  Anyway, this is the shit that government is capable of: completely keeping a class, or race, or religious sect, or region, of people down.  Whereas if a company tried to do that, you’d just stop spending your money there and they wouldn’t last long.  (Wooten)

– Some penis blowing in from the west: First off, fuck the Texas Rangers.  Second off, thank you, Texas, you can be so much fun:  (Gizmodo)

– Want to not get fired from the NPR? Then just say you hope Jesse Helms, or one of his grandchildren, gets AIDS, as current legal affairs correspondent, Nina Totenberg said in 1995.  Say that you get nervous when you see people in Muslim garb at the airport, then you’re fired.  (Reason)

– Is he really that clueless? At a fundraiser at the home of Marissa Meyer, a Google executive, Barack Obama said that the US was coming out of a decade in which the American “can do spirit had been lost.”  He also said that he had to address the issues “that have prevented more Googles from being created.”  It’s worth posting the next two paragraphs from this Bespoke Investment Group posting on October 22nd:

There’s no denying the fact that the US economy is currently coming out of a decade where economic growth has been sluggish, but to call the last decade void of innovation is puzzling.  Take Apple (AAPL) for starters.  The iPod was introduced in 2001, the iPhone in 2007, and the iPad in 2010.  At the start of the decade AAPL was trading at $25.70.  Yesterday it closed at $309.52.

While GOOG is the king of search, it is no longer the most popular website.  This year, GOOG lost that title to Facebook, a company that wasn’t even around ten years ago (founded in 2004).  In 2006, GOOG paid $1.65 billion for YouTube.  When was YouTube founded?  2005.  Even President Obama’s 2008 campaign highlights the wave of innovation that has taken place over the last ten years, as many attributed his success to the way he mobilized young voters using social media tools like Facebook and Twitter (founded in 2006).

The article also includes a chart of the number of patent applications granted by year (surprise, more this decade than any other).  So yeah, really not sure what Obama missed, but fuck did he not pay attention.  (Think B.I.G.)

– Darkness: Below is a picture of the darkest possible night sky:

The “light” you see along the edges is “sunlight bounced back to earth from particles in solar system.”  Go to this page to see the original posting and to zoom in on the above picture (it’s worth it).  (PopSci)

– Penn Jilette wants the ladies happy: Here’s Penn’s, from Penn and Teller, patent application for a bathtub that “rubs” women the right way:  (Gizmod)

– A gay fish gets diamond teeth: Kanye West, instead of getting fronts, decided to have his lower front teeth permanently replaced with diamonds.  (Gearlog)

– Marijuana soda: Of course, these are technically illegal.  (Discovery)

– More marijuana: Boston.com’s The Big Picture has a series detailing marijuana growing and packaging facilities.  Like this:  (The Daily What)

– LED tattoos? Possibly.  (PopSci)

– Solar eclipse: But from space:  (New Scientist)

– Don King with a panda: ‘Nough said:  (The World’s Best Ever)

– So wait, what’s the problem with the rent? It’s too damn high:  (Dix)

 

(WARNING: No editing below, but plenty of naked chicks.)

– “Charity doesn’t solve anything”: So says Carlos Slim, the world’s richest man according to Forbes.  The man does donate, so he must see some benefit, but during a recent speech he said, “the only way to fight poverty is with employment.”  I enjoyed this quote more though: “There is a saying that we should leave a better country to our children. But it’s more important to leave better children to our country.”  (Look, charity solves something if it’s like handing out free vaccinations, but if you’re trying to uplift a country he’s right.  You gotta give an incentive to be a producing member of society, otherwise malaise will set in as people just expect free shit.  Incentives are king.)  (Ces)

– Capitalism and the Chilean miners: Here’s a piece in the WSJ on how capitalism (ignorantly maligned recently) allowed for a faster, safer, better, etc, rescue of the miners.  Recall that the original estimate was for December, but Center Rock Inc, from Berlin, PA, offered up their special drill after seeing reports of the disaster.  Then companies from around the world offered up technology to help, including bacteria eating socks that got Chile’s health minister to say that he “never realized that kind of thing actually existed.”  The right mix of competition and incentive breeds innovation, and that’s always best through free-market capitalism. (And to those who say, “but didn’t capitalism put them in that mine?”  It was a copper-gold mine, which even commies would need for their electronics.)  (Carpe Diem)

– Mr. T loves gold: And he has for longer than you’ve known him:  (Wooten)

– People only like their government: In 2006, Democrats thought the government “pose[d] an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens” more so than Republicans.  In 2010, that view has shifted:

What do I think this tells us?  That people put on mental blinders.  Government is government, it pretty much sucks and is a threat to our freedoms no matter which bozos are in charge.  At least independents get it (holla at your boy).  (Gallup)

– Obviously you missed the whole point of that story, Brian: You should treat your girl to a pearl necklace for $420:  (The Daily What)

– Krista was in NYC: I have no idea who Krista is, but Terry Richardson took a nice picture:  (Terry Richardson’s Diary)

– Like you’d fall for that: Her name is Krista Ayne.  Here’s her shoot for Sergio K Clothing, her website, and a Bing image search (even “safe search” returns titties for you).  Apparently she’s a “well-established model”, as this picture clearly indicates:

She’s also appeared on Howard Stern, and she was the host of “Pants Off Dance Off”( a show I remember a former-colleague telling me to watch, but not worth linking to.)  Lovely.  (And a note to ladies: go ahead and Google “Terry Richardson Sergio K clothing” and you’ll hit up a lot of gay sites showing the male models.  Oh, I guess gays should be aware of that, too.)

– Why is the sky blue? Yet another reason.  It was once more orange, then algae helped to change that.  (Discovery)

– Water droplets on somethingsomethingsomething carbon nanotube: The good shit is around the :25 mark (2:28 is also worth checking out):  (The Daily What)

– Walk for your brain: Those who walk at least 72 blocks per week have “greater gray matter volume than people who [don’t] walk as much.”  (Discovery)

– And you thought a TV in the mirror was ballin’: Well how about a computer display in your mirror?  Step your game up, Penny:  (Engadget)

– Consider yourself “green”? Then you best be eating kangaroo.  It’s the most eco-friendly meat, if you consider pumping a ‘roo full of bullets “eco-friendly.”  (New Scientist)

– Ladies looking for costumes: Look no further than Victoria’s Secret.  I recommend the nurse:  (The World’s Best Ever)

– NHL Goalie equipment: Uni Watch has this article on ESPN highlighting new paint on masks as well as new equipment/looks of goalies around the league.  (Uni Watch)

– Wood watches: Go here to buy a watch made from wood.  Like this one:  (Julie Sabo)

– Paris: My parents were in Paris for a few days and they claim they took pictures.  According to my dad, though, this is the only picture he actually took:

– The Marks’ Financial update:

• MFL – Mark Lee opened the week at his parents’ house and closed this time period at his grandmother’s condo.  How do you think his stock did?  He was at $14.63 on Chandler, but closed at $14.28 while moving Sharon and himself in to the aforementioned condo.  Mark had already announced the cost cutting maneuver, but still investors are sitting on the sidelines awaiting more positive news.
  
• MAB – Bunk was slightly down these past two weeks, mainly from his two day slide on October 4th and 5th.  The rest of the time was spent playing catch up and ogling his Moonti team.  The ogling did not pay off, however, as More Bang For Your Bunk came out flat, even worse than his chart suggests.  He opened at $15.30 and closed this past week at $15.14, then lost to Harter by 32 fake football points.
  
• MDH – Harter had a nice pattern of one up day, two down days, then repeat for this time period, causing him to finish down 32 cents to $2.27 (from $2.59).  It looks like  a fun chart with jumps along the way.  Investors, while impressed with his undefeated performance in fake football, are not buying the long-term prospects of It’s a Harter Knock Life.  I mean, come on, there has to be a reason he’s hitting everyone for trades.  (I’ve tried reverse jinxing him and that didn’t work, so just a full on attack should be good.)

(WARNING: No naked chicks below.)

– Boxing: The Super Six World Boxing Classic, Showtime’s supper middleweight tournament, is now missing three of the original six fighters.  Andre Dirrell dropped out due to “neurological” reasons, joining Mikkel Kessler and Jermain Taylor.  Dirrell’s been having headaches and experiencing dizziness since his last fight in March, when he was punched and knocked out after he had slipped on the canvas.  Other than that there aren’t any real good fights until at least November 6th when Juan Manuel Lopez fights Rafael Marquez.

– Goats that lactate spider silk: This was first done about twelve years ago by Randy Lewis, from the University of Wyoming.  Now Raaaaaaaandy has mixed spider genes into silkworms to produce even more silk than the goats.  Spider silk can be up to 10 times tougher than Kevlar, and since it’s organic it can be used for replacement tendons and some other brain shit.  Also, we could get t-shirts that are bullet-proof.  All it takes is making silkworms that have red eyes and fluorescent silk.  (PopSci)

– Stretching before running no good: It saps your energy and doesn’t particularly prevent injuries.  Experts suggest using “active stretching” prior to a run/workout.  (Wired)

– Monopoly: The Wire Edition: No, not a real product, but I blew through season 3 of The Wire this week, so might as well toss this in (bigger picture here):  (Brosnan)

– Hydraulic fracturing: This is the technique used to fuck up the shale that holds our massive supply of natural gas.  It’s under pressure because apparently it’s not cool to have chemicals in drinking water.  Natural gas burns cleaner than gasoline, so you can see the dilemma if extracting it kills people (people > birds).  Read this so you can sound somewhat intelligent on the subject.  (PopSci)

– Animals have spiritual experiences: Well, at least their brains fire off in the same way.  We can’t exactly ask them if they saw a light when they almost died.  (Discovery)

– Drunks think you’re a jerk: Surprise, but you’re more likely to think someone’s unintentional action was in fact intentional if you are drunk.  Wait, alcohol affects decision making?  Shocker.  (Wired)

– My Umi said shine your light on the world: Cisco (I had to stop myself from typing CSCO) unveiled a new video conferencing system for your home called Umi.  You’ve most likely seen the Cisco commercials for TelePresence, but this is a box you plug into your TV for about $600.  (Engadget)

– Show your attitude: These leggings will let guys know what kind of mood a chick is in.  From demure to femme fatal, though don’t you think femme fatal should just be whore?  (The Daily What)

– More good news for chicks: Scientists now say it’s beneficial for you to drink one to two drinks a week while pregnant.  If you are wondering what they classify as a drink: “A drink was defined as a small glass of wine, a half-pint of beer or a single serving of hard alcohol.”  So knock back those shots, for the fetus’ sake.  (Discovery)

– Kanye’s new entourage member: His name is Cassius Marcellus Cornelius Clay, and he’s a sophomore at Yale.  Kanye liked the kid’s crests, because according to this article in the NY Post, Kanye “loves crests.”  (New York Post)

This kid is more ballin’ than you.

– Mythbusters: They returned this week with an episode about dogs and how good their noses are.  If running from a bloodhound, give up, even if you are in a scent-less suit.  And if you are smuggling shit then don’t bother masking the contraband in coffee, or perfume, or peanut butter, or citronella, or shitty diapers.  None of those will stop the dog from finding it.

– How to properly celebrate 125 years: By putting every player’s name on your kits:  (Uni Watch)

– Preparing for the apocalypse? Go to Costco to get your 1-year, 4-person supply of dehydrated food for only $3,499.99.  (Dad)

– Need a coat rack? Wintercheck Factory has the hookup:  (Ces)

– Notes on the site: If you find something you think is worth going on here, or you just want to exchange a couple emails, then hit me up at blakesupdate@gmail.com.  I put this here because I realize I never have a true conclusion to any week.  So this is that conclusion.