Links

Stuff I find around the web that interests or amuses me.

Bad Erotica Contest

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Nerve.com has posted the winners to their Bad Erotica Contest — these are hilarious!

She had never known a man like Julio before. When he came and boldly sat next to her, the musky scent of his manliness turned her from tigress to gentle kitten. She belonged to him before his supple buttocks pressed aggressively against the tattered faux-leather covering of the barstool.

After sitting nursing his drink for what seemed like a hundred eternities to her already soaked vaginal cavity, he leaned toward her to speak. Her massive, sentimental breasts heaved in sexual anticipation. His breath, a combination of lust and malt liquor, intoxicated her nearly as much as his words.

“My name is Julio, Julio Gottstein,” he said, his smoldering eyes aflame in the victory he would soon celebrate. “And soon, I shall have you.”

And it just gets better (worse?) as you keep reading…

SARS from space?

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Here’s an interesting theory: could SARS have come to us from outer space?

Chandra Wickramasinghe, a professor at the Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology at Cardiff University in Wales, and his colleagues suggest in a letter to the scientific journal The Lancet that the SARS virus may have arrived with the 2,200 pounds of bacterial material that falls to the planet every day. That’s 20,000 bacteria per square meter of the Earth’s surface.

Some of this material is “highly evolved, with an evolutionary history closely related to life that exists on Earth,” Wickramasinghe wrote in the letter.

This, he wrote, “raises the possibility that pathogenic bacteria and viruses might also be introduced.”

So, here’s a fun little idea my sci-fi fed, conspiracy-theory enjoying little brain cooked up…

There were reports a few years back that cosmonauts aboard the Russian Mir space station had found a “mutant space bug” that was damaging the space station:

Engineers later learned that the fungi also damaged electronic equipment on Mir, including a control block for a communications device used on the outpost from 1997 to 1998 during the 24th main mission to Mir.

The microorganisms crept under the steel cover of the block and sat on electrical contacts and polyurethane pieces. As a result, parts of copper cables located nearby also were oxidized.

Subsistence for the microorganisms was certainly not the metal, glass and plastic of those devices, said Natalia Novikova, a deputy chief of the Department at the Institute of Biomedical Problems (IBMP) in Moscow.

“They consume organic stuff which consists of skin epithelia, lipids and other products of human activity,” Novikova said. “These products get into the station atmosphere from human breath, sweat etc.—and stick to the station?s surfaces.”

“Bacteria and fungi eat this stuff and generate products of metabolism, particularly organic acids which can corrode steel, glass and plastic.”

Not long after those reports came out, Mir came tumbling out of the sky, with over 27 tons of debris falling into the Pacific Ocean.

So…what if this mutant space bug that consumes organic matter was carried along on some of the debris on its way down to earth, was released into the ocean, and between prevailing currents and being ingested by or infecting fish, eventually made its way to China? One of the theories as to the source of the virus is that it came from the civet cat, “a fishing cat eaten by some Chinese people.”

So…

Space virus —> Mir —> ocean —> fish —> civet cat —> people —> SARS

Possible?

Winerism of the day

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There are many people far more qualified than I to comment more in-depth on this, but I’ve got to wonder — is Dave Winer actively trying to piss people off?

Movable Type’s new TypePad service is unveiled. It appears to be what UserLand had working (for free) in 1999.

It’s good Dave’s around to keep reminding us that he invented everything. I’d hate to forget.

Patron Saint of…

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There’s a good chance that dad knows that Francis Xavier is the patron saint of the archdiocese of Indianapolis, Indiana. He might even know that Therese of Lisieux is the patron saint of the diocese of Fairbanks, Alaska.

But I’d bet that even Dad would be hard pressed to come up with the patron saint of goitres (Blaise), the fear of night (Giles), or sheep (Drogo).

And if that’s not enough, the Patron Saints Index has many, many, many more.

(via MeFi)

It's real! No, it's a hoax! Wait…

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Microsoft just can’t seem to keep their story straight these days.

May 5^th^, word leaked to the ‘net about their ‘iLoo’ ‘net-enabled portapotty.

On the 13^th^, CNN reported that MS had declared the iLoo a hoax, though there were some doubts.

Well, later on the 13^th^, Wired published an update to the story, where MS admitted the iLoo wasn’t a hoax.

The U.K. division likes to run clever and innovative marketing campaigns, Gurry said, and had thought an iLoo would appeal to the British. MSN typically allows its units to tailor their own campaigns to their regions, she said. But MSN’s executive team, which had heard of the iLoo through news reports, took the unusual step of killing the project on Monday, she said, believing that the portable toilet “wasn’t the best extension of our brand.”

Why, those wacky Brits! What will they think of next?

Skip, skip, skip to iLoo!

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Y’know, for all the times I’ve been tempted to toss Windows where it belongs — into the toilet — I never figured that Microsoft itself would feel the same way! It appears I was wrong, however — at least, according to this MS UK press release…

The UK’s most popular website msn.co.uk is creating the world’s first ‘Internet Loo’. The iLoo will be mobile and is part of MSN’s mission to allow instant logging on ‘anytime and any place’.

In time for the summer festival season, MSN is in the process of converting a portable loo to create a unique experience for surfers looking for an alternative to the bog-standard festival loo experience. Users will be able to sit down, undock a wireless keyboard and conveniently access the first ever WWW.C.

A plasma screen will be located directly in front of them which can be adjusted to a desired height level. MSN is also in talks with toilet paper manufacturers to produce special web paper for those in need of URL inspiration.

Um…yeah. The only problem with a story like this is that all the really good jokes are already taken.

I'm going to hell!

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Looks like I’m aiming for Level 7 of Hell, according to the Dante’s Inferno Test!

Guarded by the Minotaur, who snarls in fury, and encircled within the river Phlegethon, filled with boiling blood, is the Seventh Level of Hell. The violent, the assasins, the tyrants, and the war-mongers lament their pitiless mischiefs in the river, while centaurs armed with bows and arrows shoot those who try to escape their punishment. The stench here is overpowering. This level is also home to the wood of the suicides- stunted and gnarled trees with twisting branches and poisoned fruit. At the time of final judgement, their bodies will hang from their branches. In those branches the Harpies, foul birdlike creatures with human faces, make their nests. Beaond the wood is scorching sand where those who committed violence against God and nature are showered with flakes of fire that rain down against their naked bodies. Blasphemers and sodomites writhe in pain, their tongues more loosed to lamentation, and out of their eyes gushes forth their woe. Usurers, who followed neither nature nor art, also share company in the Seventh Level.

Bummer…I was kind of aiming for Level 2 (for the Lustful)! ;)

The Dante’s Inferno Test has banished you to the Seventh Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers) Very Low
Level 1 – Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers) Very Low
Level 2 (Lustful) Very High
Level 3 (Gluttonous) High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious) Moderate
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy) Moderate
Level 6 – The City of Dis (Heretics) High
Level 7 (Violent) Very High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers) Very High
Level 9 – Cocytus (Treacherous) Moderate

Take the Dante’s Inferno Test

(via D and Jim)

Butterfly alphabets, and much more

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Prepare to get lost for hours in all sorts of linky goodness! Start with Kjell Sandved’s butterfly alphabet, then spend some time in his of natural images, including all sorts of funny faces, and even penguins!

: http://www.butterflyalphabet.com/NatureImage/index.htm “Butterfly Alphabet Gallery”
From there, it’s well worth spending some time at iconomy’s weblog, filled with all sorts of interesting linky bits, from a gorgeous vintage mermaid gallery to the critters that live on our face, tiny chocolate handbags, and — one that I think Kirsten might really like — Jimmy McGrath’s photo portfolio, where mousing over the images switches between the photos and artistic renderings of the photos.

Have fun!

(via MeFi)

Teach backwards!

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CalPundit made a proposal over the weekend that I absolutely love: teach history backwards.

[History] is a subject that I talk about frequently with my mother (an actual teacher, mind you), trying to figure out why it’s such a disliked subject. After all, we like history, but surveys routinely show that it’s the least liked subject, ranking even below obvious suspects like math and spelling.

Why is it so disliked? Who knows, really, but it’s probably because it seems so remote from normal life. It’s pretty hard, after all, for most teenagers to get very enthused about a long-ago debate over the Missouri Compromise that has only the most tenuous connection to the present day.

So in the true spirit of blogging (especially weekend blogging!), here’s my dumb amateur idea about how to teach history: do it backward.

It’s hard for kids to get interested in century old debates without knowing all the context around them, but they might very well be interested in current day events. So why not start now and explain the events that got us here? War on terrorism? Sure, let’s teach it, and that leads us backward to a discussion of how the current state of affairs is the successor to the bipolar world that came apart in 1989. And that leads back to the Cold War, and that leads back to World War II, etc.

In other words, invert cause and effect. Try to get them wondering about the causes of things they already know about, and then use this curiosity to lead them inexorably backward through history.

I have to say, I think this would be such a good approach. History never really caught my attention in high school — in the words of a tongue-in-cheek quote I found somewhere, “You meet all these interesting people, but they’re all dead.” I’m not sure I could have pinned down exactly why at the time, but the perceived lack of relevancy to anything I dealt with on a day to day basis, or expected to deal with in the future, certainly makes sense. Math, much as I hated it, I knew I’d have to deal with throughout my life, and the same with much of the sciences — they were obviously useful subjects. History, at least the way it was presented to me then, wasn’t.

Of course, that mindset has changed drastically over the intervening years, and now I find historical subjects fascinating — enough so that one of the many ideas I sometimes turn over in my head for when I can finagle the time and money to get into school again is exploring becoming a history teacher.

If I ever travel down that particular road, you can bet I’ll see what I can do with this approach. Start with the recent history that ties into current events, then explore the underlying causes of those. From there, work backwards — create that obvious, active link between today’s events and those of the past. While many history teachers have the quote, “Those who do not study the past are doomed to repeat it,” somewhere in their classrooms, I think that an approach like this would actually do more to prove that quote than the current approach does.

(via Atrios)