Here is a fun article about loopholes. It starts out with an amusing story about “The Anus Motion” – a legal loophole someone is trying to use to get out of a DUI.
It then continues with descriptions of several other loopholes.
Nancy Regan’s Music Video
In 1986 Nancy Regan made a music video as an anti-drug effort. I don’t know if you all remember the “Just Say No” campaign, but I think this video was part of that effort.
It’s an interesting, star-studded, We Are The World-type video.
It starts out a little heavy and overdone, but turns into a classic mid-80’s style video at the end. It’s worth watching all the way through.
There is a little bit of irony involved in the number of musicians in this video who went on to have drug problems later…
New Blog about Wacky Japanese TV Shows
The Japanese have some of the weirdest TV shows on the planet.
Now there is a new blog that is going to try and keep track of them.
Whee!
Consumer Electronics Association to the RIAA: Suck it!
The Consumer Electronics Association is finally starting to figure out that screwing over your customers is not a good business practice and is running an ad telling the RIAA to suck it.
More details at the EFF website.
Do you like sharp knives?
Here is a very thorough and well written article about how to sharpen your knives. It’s not difficult and does not require expensive equipment.
It just takes a little practice and patience.
Build your own RC Helicopter!
Here is a site were there are instructions to build your own electric RC helicopter. It’s small enough to fly indoors.
The instructions are a little rough, but there are links to other sites with more info.
Fun!
Holy Bend-Me-Over Batman!
It’s starting to sound like the CV joints on the van are dying. It makes a nice crunka-crunka noise when you turn right and a tick-tick noise when you step on the brakes.
Yay.
So if we are going to drive it to Montana this year I guess I need to fix it.
Usually the easiest fix is to just replace the whole axle assembly on both sides. I’ve done this at least once before. (I did it on my Honda CRX Si once, and maybe on something else.)
Usually it’s not very hard. It seemed pretty easy on the CRX and I think the axles were around $180 each.
So I found a parts site on the web – World Parts Express – and looked up the axles.
Holy Shit.
The right axle is $511! The left one is $280! That’s almost $800 just for the parts. And why is the price difference so high?
Guess I need to read the manual – both to try and figure out how hard this is going to be and to see if I can discover the difference between the two sides.
Oy vey.
New Entry for the .sig File
One of the blogs I read is Waiter Rant – the writings of a waiter in a nice bistro in NYC.
He has a wonderful writing style and tells great stories.
Today’s story has a line in it that I just had to snarf up for my .sig file collection!
Dating’s like going on a job interview. You don’t know if you’ll get the job, but if you do, you get to see the interviewee naked.
Luckily for me, I’ve been happily married for 16 years and out of the dating scene. I don’t really miss it.
But I still enjoy going out to dinner.
Photographing Buildings is not a Crime
Here is a really good blog posting about a photographer who was hassled by some security guards while he was photographing the building they work in.
They tried to tell him that it was illegal for him to photograph the building.
This is complete bullshit. And he stood his ground.
Worth a read.
And here is a PDF by a lawyer listing your rights as a photographer. Useful to carry around. I’m going to put a copy in my camera bag.
A Plethora of Rube Goldberg Machines
From JWZ‘s LiveJournal today comes a plethora of Rube Goldberg machines. JWZ kicked it off with this link to 12 minutes of what appear to be interstitials for a Japanese TV show apparently called “Pitagora Suittchi,” or “Pythagora Switch.”
Very cool stuff.
Then of course the comments filled up with other cool machines.
There is The Contraption – created by some students at St. Johns College in Cambridge. I really love the Rubik’s Cube used as a two axis pivot – that’s clever. There is also a second camera angle video here.
Then there is the 30 minute Der Lauf der Dinge – a German machine that is huge and astonishing. And supposedly where Honda got their idea for their The Cog video.
Here is a pretty clean version of The Cog and the parody by 118 118 (which is pretty funny.) There is a cleaner version of the parody on their website.
For more non-Rube Goldberg fun, watch the Honda Power of Scream video and then 118 118’s parody here.