"In the hands of its 25-year-old creator, Texas University law student Cody Wilson, the gun looks like an absurdly large Lego piece. Called the liberator, it is very real, very deadly, and very important: It is the first gun printed entirely with 3-D-printed parts (except for a single common nail that can be bought at any hardware store) and it is not hyperbole to call its firing a historical event." —MAN: Remember the historic moment when that guy fired the first 3-D-printed pistol? [Sound of gunfire.] WOMAN: [Dies.] MAN: Oh, sorry, I keep forgetting that I need to be more quiet now that everyone has their own little [...]
"An article on Feb. 17 about a decline in field trips for students because of the New York City school bus drivers’ strike referred incorrectly to the 280-pound albino Burmese python at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum. The python, a favorite of schoolchildren, is a 'she' (Fantasia), not a 'he.'" —The NYT is taking this accountability thing very seriously, when it comes to enormous albino zoo animals that are a favorite of children.
"Cardinal O'Brien has been accused of committing 'inappropriate acts' in his relations with three priests and one former priest from the diocese of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, British newspaper The Observerreported Sunday. O'Brien has been an outspoken opponent of gay rights." —Britain's top Catholic cardinal is skipping the papal election because of new revelations that he tried to bone four different priests. I wonder if reporters laugh when typing this stuff the way I laugh when reading it.
Remember "Watson," the fancy IBM computer that appeared on Jeopardy as Alex Trebek a contestant? A scientist at IBM tried to teach it the slang used by the kids, probably so the supercomputer can write the next Twilight series or maybe churn out a three-volume slash-fiction series loosely based on Twilight or À la recherche du temps perdu. In order to make the genius computer speak in a way modern idiots would understand, researcher Eric Brown forced Watson to digest the entirety of UrbanDictionary.com—the whole filthy thing, with its Boston Steamers and Donkey Punches and King James Versions.
Brown attempted to teach Watson the Urban Dictionary. [...]
When [Ken] Feinberg finally came back to him with a plan that dictated, among other things, that AIG slash salaries by 91 percent for its top dozen executives and pay all bonuses in stock, [Bob] Benmosche called him, pissed. “You said you weren’t going to fuck it up,” he yelled. “And you are fucking it up!” PricewaterhouseCoopers, he told him, was threatening to sound alarms over the company’s inability to retain employees, and now four key people were threatening to walk. “He said, ‘Robert! I am not your problem.’ I said, ‘Ken, you are the pay czar.’ And he said, ‘I am telling you I am not your [...]
It's kind of cute how the Roomba moves around your filthy floors, methodically getting every corner and high-traffic area, until the battery dies and it stops in exhaustion because it couldn't make it back to the self-charging station, its red light blinking helplessly, as it calls out in that polite third-person voice, "Please charge Roomba." Please!
And then there's the "BigDog," an evolving series of terrifying robots designed by Boston Dynamics. Early versions of BigDog were impressive enough, with their ability to carry heavy loads through deep mud and across icy slopes. And when that video of someone kicking BigDog hit the Internet several years ago, you could [...]
The murdered remains of another scrawny Englishman found in the rubble of a "car park" is actually the long-dead hunchback king, Richard III. This is why the United Kingdom continues to cling to its quaint system of royalty, so that a wayward stabbed king can occasionally be found in the sodden ground beneath a parking lot, to give people hope.
A skeleton found beneath a Leicester car park has been confirmed as that of English king Richard III. Experts from the University of Leicester said DNA from the bones matched that of descendants of the monarch's family …. Richard, killed in battle in 1485, will be reinterred in [...]
"For many, the sound of Christmas is the dulcet tones of choirboy voices singing Once in Royal David’s City or The Holly And The Ivy. But it seems the ‘sweet singing in the choir’ may soon be silenced – by increased levels of testosterone in young boys."
The winner of a Florida roach-eating contest collapsed and died immediately after downing piles of filthy roaches and worms. Why did the man do this? To win the grand prize! (The grand prize was "a python.") This is what happens when an entire generation of Americans grows up believing the key to success (in the absence of hard work or talent) is doing something disgusting for media attention. Thanks, Survivor!
Police said a 14-year-old stole a car on Sunday then led officers on a chase that ended in a crash on a Parkway East ramp…. "My son was wrong for taking that vehicle but someone jumped out of their car and a 14-year-old seen the opportunity to take the car. He didn't break the car to steal it. They left the keys in the car. I think as an adult we [...]
"Sgt. Dennis Coleman bought the nugget Sunday at the Dion's Quikmart at 63rd Street and U.S. 1 in Marathon. He says 'I was about to start eating when I noticed one of the nuggets resembled a cowboy boot.' So his first thought was preserving the nugget and putting it on eBay. Minimum bid is $5." —Thank God we have newspapers.
"If someone shouts 'look behind you,' tadpoles in Michael Levin’s laboratory may be ready. The tadpoles can see out of eyes growing from their tails, even though the organs aren’t directly wired to the animals’ brains." —If a scientist offers to put an eye in your butt, and you're a tadpole, then it's probably legit.
Having trouble with iCloud? Confused by CrashPlan? Today's smart tech consumers are getting ready to purchase the sturdiest backup media of all: human DNA. The mad scientists behind a weird new study say that the double helix of genetic code has been successfully used to store all kinds of documents, including audio files and text of Shakespeare's sonnets and "a picture of their office," because most of what we digitally save is silly garbage. (Future archeologists will likely be baffled by the discovery of, say, a flash drive holding nothing but hundreds of weirdly filtered pictures of somebody's entrée with a glass of wine in the background. "These [...]
"Sprint is doing for mobile phone numbers what internet handles did for electronic mail. For $3 a month, customers can register for a personalized cell phone number. All the numbers begin with two asterisks and end with a name or another word between 5 and 9 letters or numbers." —Mobile number **SEXTATTOO awaits you!
"I love Brooklyn. It's adorable, with great places to eat, but they also have that in Manhattan." —And that was the day that everything stopped making sense forever.
