Archive for 2009
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[ 3 Comments ]Posted on March 11, 2009 by admin in Clean & Green, Lifestyle & Culture
Wednesday, March 11th, 2009When It Comes To Water, The Choice Is Clear
I think it was WC Fields who said “Water? Never touch the stuff. Fish f*** in it, you know”. In spite of the fact that bottled water makers continue to suggest that their product is somehow pure, there’s really no assurance this is true, and oddly, L.A. tap water often beats out bottled water brands in blind taste tests. Add to this the fact that it takes 17 million barrels of oil annually to package and transport America’s bottle water consumed (tap water has 1/100 the environmental impact of bottled water) and you have a big loser all around. It also is ironic that it takes 3 liters of water to package every 1 liter of bottled water, and that while people fret about the economy, they pay $0.89 to $8.26 per gallon for bottled water, while tap water costs a mere $0.002 per gallon. Duke University did an insightful study that outlines the drawbacks of bottled water; they took the results seriously enough that they’re petitioning congress. If you still really want bottled water and your local tap water sucks, see if maybe your area has a product like NYC’s Tap’d, or until Segway creator Dean Kamen’s amazing Slingshot purification system catches on, consider finding your own home water purifying
Audi Shark Flying Car
[ Comments Off ]Posted on March 10, 2009 by admin in Technology
Tuesday, March 10th, 2009Which unfortunately doesn’t fly. Or exist, for that matter.
People always give me a hard time for not having a car. They usually either think I lost my license in some drug-induced tragedy involving small children and senior citizens, or that I’m a tree-hugging peacenik trying to save mankind. Neither could be further from the truth; I’m just incredibly disappointed that they don’t fly! That’s why I like the idea that people still at least ponder the idea; the Audi Shark (pictured left) is only a design contest winner submitted by Turkish car designer Kazim Doku, but captures in a stylish way the essence of the Blade Runner hover cars I dream of. Which is cool, because if you’re going to spend your life making pretend cars that may never work, they shouldn’t be hideously ugly and bankrupt you. The press manages to forget about the Moller Skycar just linked to every eleven months or so, so sit tight and you’ll probably see it in the news again soon. The equally ugly Terrafugia at least has the technical and financial backing of MIT, so may actually get off the ground. You can see more of Kazim Doku’s Audi Shark in this YouTube clip; he also has apparently won a Peugeot design contest with the üstüminki concept car. And he has more interesting work on his DeviantArt page.
Monday Demotivators: The “Toss A Cat For No Reason” Mystery
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on March 8, 2009 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Sunday, March 8th, 2009Why Do Game Designers Enjoy Torturing Kittens?
Getting up and going to work on Monday morning is extremely over-rated, which is why every Monday, we bring you the Monday Demotivators that are meant to make you late once you do get up. To add insult to injury this week, here are Ten (probably useless) Geeky Tricks for Getting Out of Bed in the Morning, courtesy Wired.com. The list includes ingenius tips like “Go to bed when you’re tired” and “Pick out clothes the night before“. If those do work, here are 5 Reasons Why Sleeping In Every Day Will Boost your Productivity. Just go back to bed, will ya? Whenever you’ve managed to wake up, sit your butt back down here and enjoy the wonderful hand-picked games we never really try, but then eagerly recommend to you anyway. First up: after trying Don’t Look Back, well, I won’t. Designed with a slightly eerie, pixelated style and a moody synthesized cello soundtrack, at first I was a little intrigued. I gave up after about ten attempts at the first obstacle though. Nothing more demoralizing than getting killed by a pixelated snake ten times in a row. For a little pick-me-up, try the annoyingly loud Atomic Racer. Kind of like that “Easter Egg” Spyhunter game in Excel or something, except you have to get used to driving a car moving horizontally across the screen to blow up a nuclear transport. Not sure why that’s something one would want to do, but I guess these game developers don’t always have a grownup around to troubleshoot their concepts. Which would explain games like Kitty Throw, which although not quite as pointlessly brutal as the classic Kitten Cannon, still involves throwing a cat around for no particularly good reason. And they wonder what’s wrong with kids these days. Finally, if you at last ARE awake, and more amazingly still reading, try Electric Box, which actually requires that you do a little reading and thinking. Which is probably more than you would have accomplished by now if you’d gone to work. And cetainly more than I’ve accomplished by finding this crap for you. Happy Monday!
What’s Drunk, Green, And Probably Not Irish?
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on March 8, 2009 by admin in Holidays
Sunday, March 8th, 2009St. Patrick’s Day 2009
  Is he Irish? He mitre he might not be. But I bet he’s drunk. |
I must confess, I’ve never really understood St Patrick’s Day. According to Wikipedia, typical St. Patrick’s day celebrations include: attending mass parades, wearing shamrocks, wearing green, and drinking alcohol. Which, except for the shamrocks, sounds like a cast and extras reunion for the movie Elf or something. Back when I DID drink, I certainly didn’t need a holiday, and although I did dye my hair green once, it was really an accident. In the 80′s, you see, they hadn’t perfected that whole blue hair dye thing yet. And parades? Please. It mostly strikes me as odd that an Irish religious holiday is mostly celebrated by hard-drinking atheists who aren’t even Irish. So if you’re Irish, go ahead, get your blarney on by kissing stones and whatnot. Well, maybe avoid THIS whatnot (NSFW). And if you’re neither Irish nor religious, you might enjoy this secular jab at the holiday. Here at Dissociated Press, we’ll be treating March 17 like so many other sacred days: as an opportunity to gratuitously link to Amazon product pages that never seem to make us any money. For those of you who are trying to be classy about the whole thing (and failing), we have this stylish St Patrick’s Table Centerpiece
New Improved GOP: Rush Limbaugh And Teenager Jonathan Krohn
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on March 8, 2009 by admin in Politics
Sunday, March 8th, 2009With Ann Coulter For Vice President!
Watch the creepy little Mr. Krohn Channel Michael J. Fox’s Alex Keaton |
Some of my friends are a little suspicious of my support of Rush Limbaugh as the GOP presidential candidate for 2012. Well, let’s get realistic for a moment. I voted for Barack Obama, and am mostly trusting my gut that he has a little more integrity than the average politician. I’m still tracking the ObamaMeter though, and if Washington continues on its self-serving path of enrichment and protectionism of the already-wealthy, my faith in the two-party system will finish its long, downward spiral with a catastrophic impact into the metaphoric Mount Rushmore in my head. At that point I’ll be voting more for sport than actual results, and what could be more fun than watching the latest darlings of the GOP – Rush “Bonehead Gangster” Limbaugh, Bobby “Mr Rogers” Jindal, and the 13-year-old punk in the clip featured here, Jonathan Krohn – duking it out for dominance of the party base? If Obama is miraculously able to provide the inspirational leadership to keep the country moving forward during these difficult economic times, it will be no contest. If he can’t, this should prove to be the biggest free-for-all since Smokey and the Bandit