The Associated Press reported this morning on the value of new radiation detectors the federal government is purchasing.
The monitors now in use can detect the presence of radiation, but they cannot distinguish between threatening and nonthreatening material.
Radioactive material can be found naturally in ceramics and kitty litter, but would be of no use in making a bomb, for instance.
That’s not really as comforting as I imagine they wanted it to be.
A couple years ago, I went with a friend to Wildcat Mountain in New Hampshire, which offers visitors the unusual opportunity to leap from a mountaintop, suspended from a zip line, soar through thin air (and in my case, a stiff breeze) down the mountain, and then bounce off a tension spring at the bottom. Staff at the time said everyone reaching the bottom laughs aloud upon hitting that spring, and we were no exception.
I notice, however, that the residents of Los Pinos, Columbia aren’t laughing when they invoke a similar zip line suspended 1,200 feet over a river as part of their daily commute.
(via Kottke)
The only thing that could possibly make Hulu better has just arrived: Hulu Desktop! (Yes, it comes in Mac.)
I love that the only menu option in the entire application is “Fullscreen.”
On the other hand, I’m somewhat disturbed by this sentence, which appears in the license agreement exactly as written here (including the capitalization):
THE HULU SOFTWARE IS NOT INTENDED FOR USE IN THE OPERATION OF NUCLEAR FACILITIES, AIRCRAFT NAVIGATION OR COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL SYSTEMS, LIFE SUPPORT MACHINES, OR OTHER EQUIPMENT IN WHICH THE FAILURE OF THE HULU SOFTWARE COULD LEAD TO DEATH, PERSONAL INJURY, OR SEVERE PHYSICAL OR ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE
Unfortunately, I moonlight as an controller for nuclear-powered aircraft carrying patients on artificial respirators, so I’ll really have to limit my usage to only one or two shows per shift.
This has to be the best job in the world:
We stopped by the giant piano the last time I visited FAO Schwarz with my girlfriend, but quite apart from being unable to play a rhapsody of any nationality on a piano of ordinary size, we refrained from trying upon seeing the line of patiently-waiting children, who surely deserve to act child-like more than adults do.
Plus, I imagine if I’d tried, there stood a reasonable chance I would also have had to leave alone.
Rob Stein reports in this morning’s Boston Globe on a recent genetic modification scientists have made to some laboratory monkeys:
In this case, the Japanese researchers added genes that caused the animals to glow green under a fluorescent light and beget offspring with the same ability in order to test a technique they hope to use to produce animals with Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, and other diseases.
First, let me state clearly and unequivocally that I want a gene that makes me glow green under fluorescent lighting. That would kill at parties.
Second, proponents of animal testing would probably prefer not to describe it in terms of, ‘we really hope we can give this monkey some Parkinson’s or something.’
I detest “fast food” (even having never seen Super Size Me) so Fast Food: Ads vs. Reality is particularly interesting to me. The site shows side-by-side pictures of how food looks in advertisements and how the same food looks in reality. Absolutely nobody will be surprised to learn there’s a difference. In fact, I was rather surprised a couple pairs look so similar. Wendy’s Chicken Club might even look a bit better in reality with its melted cheese than in the advertisement.
I’m delighted to see that the only entries that look acceptable in reality are from the two establishments I might consider actually eating (including Subway, where I now eat regularly).
(via Lifehacker)
Spring Awakening now comes with the strongest of recommendations.
This musical manipulates what we know as traditional musical theater to tell a real story, with literally nothing held back. While the family behind me rushed their preteen daughters out the door before the first act had ended, I stayed to the end and have seldom found anything so enthralling.
A saleswoman roamed the aisles during intermission hawking CDs of the soundtrack, but this wasn’t the sort of catchy score I’d want to take home. More like the instrumentation underlying a motion picture, I considered the music merely a backdrop to the story: a way of conveying the necessary level of emotion.
And the story… I saw on stage simultaneously myself and everyone I knew in high school. While women may identify less strongly with a story principally about adolescent boys, Martha and Ilsa’s interlude was painfully moving, and the central plot surrounding Wendela is universal.
I discovered this show first through Kimiko Glenn, whom I liked before and like now. Steffi D, of Canadian Idol fame, wonderfully portrayed Ilsa, and Kyle Riabko, reprising his Melchior from Broadway, won me over entirely. But complete credit for the show’s hardest emotional pull goes to Christy Altomere as Wendela.
I want into the theatre knowing little more than that this musical has some graphic moments, including the simulated sex that drove that preteen family from the theatre, but left understanding parenthood, adolescence, and the compelling power of a well-told story about first love.
I wanted to write a simple post, inspired by the article about Craigslist I just mentioned, with a simple link to a film trailer. It’s called The Girlfriend Experience, and tells the story of a high-priced call girl. The trailer is vague, but intriguing.
However, I accidentally searched “Girlfriend Experience” on Google instead of Hulu. Oops. Some results were… let’s just say “not about the movie.” Others were, though, and I opened a blurb Lane Brown wrote for New York magazine about the same trailer. It quips:
Be aware… her apartment appears to be located near a popular hangout for street drummers.
Funny. Then I read the first comment (by a first-time commenter):
Holy Mackerel! The drummer is Shakerleg! He drums entirely with his hands. He’s incredible. Google him.
Let’s follow that advice (after admiring the complete sentences and punctuation) and Google the man.
You can start by watching him on YouTube. It’s quite good. You can even buy his CD from iTunes or CD Baby. You evidently cannot read about him on Wikipedia. Even the Internet has its limits.
Megan Woolhouse reports in this morning’s Boston Globe on Craigslist’s “personal encounters” listings in the wake of recent crimes connected to them.
There certainly is nothing subtle about many Craigslist ads. For instance, a woman in Waltham this week offered “Wild N Crazy LippService” for $80. She did not specify what that entailed but also offered a half hour for $120, a full hour for $170, and an additional act that cannot be printed in a newspaper for $60 extra.
First, that phrasing is hilarious. Second, my curiosity is now begging for me to figure out what, exactly, costs $60 extra if only because it’s information omitted from the article, but I know if I did Google would never forgive me for it. I’d be getting “Wild N Crazy” ads for years.
Last night’s Harvard Pops concert, Pops Sells its Soul, was a triumph musically, comically, creatively, and (in classic Pops style) cinematically, over even November’s Pops Risks it All or the ultimate measuring stick, 2006’s Pops Gets Cursed.
In this episode, the Devil (“Err… Mr. Cifer — call me Lou”) buys the Pops’ soul, which turns out to be masestro Allen Feinstein. “Come on. Your kazoo, accordion, bagpipe, and viola orchestra is waiting.”
The concert arced from Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld to Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven, with stops at Devil Went Down to Georgia, Danse Macabre, a certain AC/DC song appropriate to the theme, and even a hilarious and unexpected (despite being plainly listed in the program) rendition of Limbo Rock.
Violinists Nora Ali, Anne Michael Langguth, and Martin Ye (collectively portraying the three-headed dog Cerberus guarding the gates of Hades), competed cooperatively over a single challenging solo part in Zigeunerweisen (there in a Vienna Philharmonic Women’s Orchestra performance); Nicholas Ward brought out the electric cello at one point; Tom Compton sang an absolutely hilarious number titled I’m Wearing the Pants; and before the night was over Rebecca Gruskin played a solo on a garden hose with a funnel attached in a composition Mr. Feinstein titled cleverly Hoseanna.
And they somehow managed to conceal until the last moments of the concert what should have been a painfully obvious play on words: the Devil hopes to sneak through the gates of heaven because he knows Faust — you know, Harvard president Dr. Drew G. Faust. Blinding, isn’t it?
The only question, really, is why you haven’t given them money yet.