Archive for September, 2011

September 30, 2011

*Light* Plane Hits Ferris Wheel [RESCUED!]

Oh holy cr*p. Nightmare headline, luckily with no injuries reported so far:

A light plane has crashed into a ferris wheel at a local fair on the NSW mid-north coast.

[...]

Emergency services are currently working to remove the trapped people.

At this stage no serious injuries have been reported, a police spokeswoman told AAP.

This is a very new story, but there’s a pic:

Here’s hoping eveyone’s alright.

More when we get it.

Update: More here, with better photo.

Update 2: It’s a light or ultra-light plane apparently, and I’ve updated the title too.

Update 3: It’s a Cheetah “Light Sport,” we believe. Here’s a video of one landing - not an insignificant aircraft, “light” aside.

Update 4: Two children on ferris wheel reported rescued. Whew.

UPDATE 5: We are very happy to report that both the two kids stuck on the ferris wheel and the pilot and plane passenger have been successfully rescued. And they are all, amazingly, reported “not injured.” Wow.

Posted by Thom

Tags:

September 30, 2011

Jar Jar Binks Killed Grandma

Hoo lordy, this is funny.



Background here.

Posted by Thom

Tags:

September 29, 2011

Email From Overlords to the Little People

Well, well, it seems someone from the Ruling Class has blessed us with a moment of his or her valuable time. How enchanting.

Set up: Bride-to-be Keara O’Neil of Melbourne, Australia, goes shopping with bridesmaids-to-be for clothes for the big day. They go to GASP, a high-end dress and jeans shop. They are treated rudely—the clerk tells them, among other things, “I knew you girls were a joke the minute you walked in”—so Ms. O’Neil, who has 12 years retail experience, sends GASP an email letting them know about said clerk.

She got an email in return. Translation:

We love emails like this, because it proves we’re doing our jobs. You see, we appeal to stars like Kim Kardashian, and not to a “broad customer base,” meaning dirty little mole people like yourself. The reason you were treated rudely: You were wasting our “superstar” shop assistant’s time. Now go back to your filthy little existence and leave us alone.

You think we’re exaggerating? Think again: You can read the email exchange here.

P.S. to the GASP spokesperson who wrote that reply: We’ve forwarded your email to a home for abused commas and semi-colons. You’re welcome.

Posted by Thom

Tags:

September 29, 2011

10 Million Yen Donation Left in Public Restroom

That’s equivalent to about $130,000 U.S., and it is assumed to have been left for people left in need by March’s devestating earthquake and tsunami:

An anonymous donor in Japan has left 10m yen ($131,000; £83,000) to charity by dumping it in a public toilet.

The money was found with a letter saying it should be donated to victims of the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in March.

The neatly wrapped bills were found in a plastic shopping bag in a toilet for disabled people in the city hall of Sakado in the Tokyo suburbs.

The note read: “I am all alone and have no use for the money.”

Posted by Thom

Tags:

September 28, 2011

Pictures of Hummingbirds in His Underwear

We understand that this story would be a bit too hard to pass up for news organizations (it has “briefs” right in it; get it? news briefs? never mind…), but did they have to show us not one, but two “down the smugglers pants” pictures? Did they?

This picture we understand, because it’s just darn cute:

The others: just wrong.

P.S. You can almost picture those hummingbirds taken out of their wrappings, swished in a little beer batter…

Posted by Thom

Tags: ,

September 27, 2011

Founding Mother: Daphne Oram, Electronic Music Pioneer

Fascinating story at the technology blog, ReadWriteWeb:

Daphne Oram was the first woman to direct an electronic music studio, the first woman to set up a personal studio and the first woman to design and construct an electronic musical instrument. This happened back in the late 1950s when she used sine wave oscillators, reel-to-reel tape decks and other electronics that most of us vaguely remember. She went on to invent a machine in 1965 called Oramics that used hand-drawn patterns that were converted to music that would be stored magnetically.

Much more at the link, including a video that shows how Ms. Oram’s Oramics machine worked—very cool—and a place you can go to see a display on her work (if you’re going to be in London) until November.

Posted by Thom

Tags: , ,

September 26, 2011

1. “Goldman Sachs Rules the World” [updated]

2. “I have a confession: I go to bed every night, I dream of another recession.”

3. “In less that 12 months, my prediction is, the savings of millions of people is going to vanish. And this is just the beginning.”

If you guessed, “Three things I hope to everything holy a respected stock market trader [not as respected as we figured] never, ever says!” well, sorry:





Update: BBC has apparently looked into whether this interview was a hoax:

“We’ve carried out detailed investigations and can’t find any evidence to suggest that the interview with Alessio Rastani was a hoax. He is an independent market trader and one of a range of voices we’ve had on air to talk about the recession.”

Posted by Thom

Tags:

September 25, 2011

Neil Young’s Bridge School Concerts: 25th Anniversary Compilation

All we can say is “Beauty way!”:

 

 

 

 

 

More on Neil and Pegi Young’s Bridge School concerts over here.

[pic]

Posted by Thom

Tags:

September 25, 2011

Sly Stone Homeless, Living in Van

What the funk?

Stone appeared on an episode of “The Mike Douglas Show” and promised, “I’m going to do one more album real quick, and if it’s not instantly platinum, bye-bye.” Sly & the Family Stone’s 10th and final album, 1982’s “Ain’t But the One Way,” flopped.

Stone kept his word and mostly vanished.

[...]

Today, Sly is disheveled, paranoid — the FBI is after him; his enemies have hired hit men. He refuses to let The Post into his camper, but, ever the showman, poses flamboyantly with a silver military helmet and a Taser in front of his Studebaker.

That is just a strange, sad story.

Here’s a song Mr. Stone gave us a long time ago:

Posted by Thom

Tags: ,

September 24, 2011

“Non-Disease Virus Kills Breast Cancer Cells”

It has so far been tested on three different types of breast cancer, and, more significantly, on all four stages of cancer—and it goes after all of them:

A virus that infects humans without causing disease kills breast cancer cells in the laboratory. Researchers from Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) College of Medicine in the US, tested an unaltered form of adeno-associated virus type 2 (AAV2) on three different human breast cancer types representing different stages of cancer and found it targeted all of them. They hope by uncovering the pathways the virus uses to trigger cancer cell death, their work will lead to new targets for anti-cancer drugs. A paper on this work appeared recently in the journal Molecular Cancer.

Just think: A cousin of the common cold may one pay for every sniffle, sneeze, and ache its kin ever caused. Let’s hope soon.

More at Penn State Live.

Posted by Thom

Tags:






McDonald’s originally served hotdogs, not hamburgers.

View More Running Feet