FTC Mothersday Card

Happy Mothers Day from the FTC.

EU bosses told: no 'reckless competition' in the sauna

"Ever the masters of punctilious regulation, the European Union's 25 Commissioner have outdone themselves with a code of conduct for their new and beautifully-appointed Brussels sauna.


"

Wittingshire: Pope Benedict XVI Rejects Neo-Darwinism

"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."

30 must-have PC skills - Part 1 - vnunet.com

"30 must-have PC skills "

Orange - Gold Spot - Darth Vader

"Darth Vader's heart of evil is no match for Hollywood executives'."

MMOGCHART.COM

"These games are envied by all game developers. The average monthly
charge is around $13 for WOW. So they're pulling in ~$15m-17m a month
for running some servers that store players hit points and armor
class, not even including the $75m in sales revenue they've made
up-front. Also look at Ultima Online, it was released in 1997 and is
still making money."

"Yes, you CAN make a fire from a can of coke and a chocolate bar!"

PCTHiker.com: Pepsi Can Stove Assembly Instructions

A camping stove.

Dewey Decimal Classification System

"Dewey Decimal Classification System" no decimal places

The Story Spine

"The Story Spine was originally created by playwright Kenn Adams as a tool for creating well-structured stories. Participants fill in a template of sentence-starters to create a story with a clear structure."

Once upon a time…
Everyday…
But one day…
Because of that…
Because of that…
Because of that…
Until finally…
And ever since then...

http://www.creativityzone.ca/ResourceZone_Subpages/Games_Subpages/01.html
http://www.thestorynet.com/articles_essays/storyuse.htm
http://www.jasonohler.com/pdfs/storybook11-v2.pdf
http://learnscope.anta.gov.au/LearnScope/golearn.asp?Category=11&DocumentId=5544&Password=Y

HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS IN BUSINESS:

"But sarcasm is always resented and seldom forgiven."

roachfiend.com -- How to create Firefox extensions

"Basically, this tutorial will show you how to create your first extension from scratch. "

Sun Microsystems: The Java Problem

"While the Java language provides many advantages over C and C , its implementation on Solaris presents barriers to the delivery of reliable applications. These barriers prevent general acceptance of Java for production software within Sun. A review of the problem indicates that these issues are not inherent to Java but instead represent implementation oversights and inconsistencies common to projects which do not communicate effectively with partners and users."

Buzz Game: Markets

"Buy shares of your favorite products or technologies – and see if you can influence some small piece of the future. "

Nvu - The Complete Web Authoring System for Linux, Macintosh

"A complete Web Authoring System for Linux Desktop users as well as Microsoft Windows and Macintosh users to rival programs like FrontPage and Dreamweaver."

Motion Induced Blindness

"What to see

On the right you see a rotating array of blue crosses and 3 yellow dots. Now fixate the centre (watch the flashing green spot). Note that the yellow spots disappear once in a while: singly, in pairs or all three simultaneously. In reality, the 3 yellow spots are continuously present, honest!"

Web Only News

"Rather than hurried improvisation, saving the crew of Apollo 13 took years of preparation"

STRATEGY AND EXECUTION: ADVICE FROM A FIELD MARSHALL

"Too often, the relationship between strategy and execution is thought of as a 'handoff'...one individual or group of individuals come up with the strategy, which others then execute. In reality, strategy and execution are much more tightly intertwined, and many times strategic options will only become visible from within the details of the execution work."

Patrick Ruffini :: Calculator Slugfest Redux

"The right is finally getting serious about giving Americans an accurate sense of what Social Security reform means to them, and are putting up their own web-based PRA calculators."

timewaster otd: High Wheels

"High Wheels"

LILEKS (James) The Bleat -- remembering doom

"It’s the same old story, those careless scientists opening up portals to Hell again – will they ever learn? What’s the point?:

Stefan Beck on Political Diversity on National Review Online

"These were not unintelligent students, and I only mean to mock them a little. What they were — and still are — is woefully misled about the underpinnings of the ideas they espouse and of the ones they attack."

Center for Naturalism

"Naturalism as a guiding philosophy can help create a better world by illuminating more precisely the conditions under which individuals and societies flourish, and by providing a tangible, real basis for connection and community. It holds that doctrines and policies which assume the existence of a freely willing agent, and which therefore ignore the actual causes of behavior, are unfounded and counter-productive. To the extent to which we suppose persons act out of their uncaused free will, to that extent will we be blind to those factors which produce criminality and other social pathologies, or, on the positive side, the factors which make for well-adjusted, productive individuals and societies."

Postmodern Areopagus: what is this "religious right" in America?

"To many thoughtful overseas observers, the 'religious right' in America seems to be a dark, nefarious force threatening not only the political landscape of the US, but also to denigrate authentic christianity."

Misc/Pennies - Pictures of Pennies

"All stacks of pennies were done without any glue. Only the weight of the pennies provides the support.

Behold the humble Penny!"

Idaho Commends Makers of Napoleon Dynamite

"WHEREAS, any members of the House of Representatives or the Senate of the Legislature of the State of Idaho who choose to vote 'Nay' on this concurrent resolution are 'FREAKIN' IDIOTS!' and run the risk of having the 'Worst Day of Their Lives!'"

NEWS.com.au | Restaurant blown apart by roach bombs (07-04-2005)

"A COMBINATION of 36 cockroach bombs and an oven pilot light has blown apart a Thai restaurant in Perth, injuring three men, two seriously."

The Sokal Hoax

The Sokal Hoax: "The Sokal Hoax

But why did I do it? I confess that I'm an unabashed Old Leftist who never quite understood how deconstruction was supposed to help the working class. And I'm a stodgy old scientist who believes, naively, that there exists an external world, that there exist objective truths about that world, and that my job is to discover some of them. --Allan Sokal

"

Obituary: Jacques Derrida

http://books.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,11617,1324460,00.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/10/obituaries/10derrida.html?ex=1255147200&en=bc84f1b2c5f092c5&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/miller_molesky200410130841.asp

Carnival of the Recipes Archives

All of them...

"precalculus bingo"

"precalculus bingo"

Davids Medienkritik: Stern's Gallery of Stereotypes: USA: The Divided Land

"America According to Stern: Good Versus Evil"

Norman Borlaug: Forgotten Benefactor of Humanity -- Center for Global Food Issues

"Norman Borlaug, the agronomist whose discoveries sparked the Green Revolution, has saved literally millions of lives, yet he is hardly a household name.

"

Yahoo! News - NYC Recalls Math Guides Full of Errors

"Several answers in the guide were wrong. There were also sloppy diagrams and improper notation of exponents. There were at least 18 errors in the guide, and grammar and spelling issues proved just as problematic as the math. For example, the word 'fourth' was misspelled on the cover of the 4th-grade manual."

Newswise | Did Use of Free Trade Cause Neanderthal Extinction?

Free trade may have contributed to the extinction of Neanderthals 30,000-40,000 years ago, according to a paper published in the “Journal of Economic Organization and Behavior.”

Underground Extra-terrestrial UFO bases all around the world – a mind boggling theory

"the UFO bases need to be deep under the ground because the UFO crafts need to be close to the mantle of the earth. Servicing of these crafts can be done in that electromagnetic environment only."

presidental pics

Ten ways Dick Cheney can kill you

The 1000 Styles of Rumsfeld

You may have defeated my Southern Hook Palm technique, but can you defeat the 1000 styles of Rumsfeld?

Flannery O'Connor Country

Flannery O'Connor Country
The amazing story of how Ashley Smith stopped Brian Nichols's killing spree.

"Ashley Smith and Brian Nichols were together for seven hours. This is Nichols's mug shot. This is Nichols's face after he gave himself up to police Saturday.

Something changed.

Something happened."

air traffic animation

Churches with a Kingdom Focus

"Several types of churches have gotten a lot of attention in recent years because of their incredible rates of growth, with big conferences and best-selling books effectively publicizing their miraculous development. The place where these popular church models and the kingdom-focused church intersect is absolutely crucial."

Games, Gold Miner

Games, Gold Miner

USATODAY.com - Townes leads life where science and faith coexist

"When Nobel Prize-winning physicist Charles Hard Townes was a professor at Columbia University during the 1950s, a colleague, Willis Lamb, asked him if God ever helps him in the lab. Dr. Townes gave the question some thought. 'Well,' he recalls telling Lamb. 'I think so.'"

101 Zen Stories

101 Zen Stories: "101 Zen Stories"

Guardian Unlimited | Life | It's not just the hormones ...

"The remodelling of the cortex helps explain another feature of teenagers: their astonishing level of self-centredeness. For a while, as their brain is undergoing changes, they find it hard to recognise other's emotions. If you show teenagers pictures of faces, they will be some 20% less accurate in gauging the emotions depicted, not recovering this ability until they are 18 or so. This may be one of the reasons why they seem unable to read the signs, when treading on thin ice with their behaviour, with no appreciation of the impact of what they are doing on those around them. Teenagers exist in a universe of one."

Anti Banana Society

"The Anti-Banana Society (ABS) is a new subdivision of the United Nations, designed to 'purify' the world of all Bananas. It combines all the world's resources, outstanding technological superiority, and military forces to rid the world of what has become a very serious threat to the survival of humanity and our freedom."

Why we love LA

PursuitWatch Network - Get notified during live TV police pursuits and high speed chases!

Digital Cameras Help and Tips

"Digital Cameras Help and Tips"

Dieter Steffmann @ typOasis

Dieter Steffmann font collection.

Early Modern Texts

"Here are versions of some classics of early modern philosophy, prepared with a view to making them easier to read while leaving the main arguments, doctrines, and lines of thought intact."

The Top 100 Gadgets of All Time

# It has to have electronic and/or moving parts of some kind. Scissors count, but the knife does not.
# It has to be a self-contained apparatus that can be used on its own, not a subset of another device. The flashlight counts; the light bulb does not. The notebook counts, but the hard drive doesn't.
# It has to be smaller than the proverbial bread box. This is the most flexible of the categories, since gadgets have gotten inexorably smaller over time. But in general we included only items that were potentially mobile: The Dustbuster counts; the vacuum cleaner doesn't.

Mad #33, June 1957

The Potrzebie System of Weights and Measures

The Bleat, 01/31/05

"I’m just glad I’m stupid enough to be hopeful...."

Crazy Rich

Are Americans rich because they're nuts?

That's the thesis of a new book, The Hypomanic Edge: The Link Between (a Little) Craziness and (a Lot of) Success in America, by John D. Gartner, a psychotherapist and clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University Medical School. America may be the dominant force in the global economy because we're a nation made of somewhat Crazy Eddies—gonzo businessmen and -women who may be genetically predisposed to take big-time risks.

A Likely Story: THE Cinnabon Recipe

Rolls:
1-1/4 oz. pkg. Yeast
1 c. warm milk
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1/3 c. melted butter (do not subsititue margarine- blech!)
1 t. salt
2 eggs
4 c. all-purpose flour

Filling:
1 c. packed brown sugar
2 TBS. cinnamon
1/3 c. butter

Icing:
8 TBS. butter, softened
1-1/2 c. confectioners sugar
1/4 c. (2 oz.) cream cheese
1/2 t. real vanilla extract
1/8 t. salt

Rolls: Oven to 400 F.
(1) Disolve yeast in milk.
(2) Mix in sugar, butter, salt, eggs, flour. Mix well.
(3) Turn dough out onto lightly floured surface. Knead into a large ball. Cover; let rise 1 hour.
(4) Roll dough into a 21' x 16' wide rectangle. Load 'er up with the filling (see below).
(5) Roll from long-side to short-side. Pinch the ends.
(6) Using very sharp knife (I prefer a serated one) cut into 1 inch wide rolls, making sixteen. If want fewer, bigger rolls, cut them wider.
(6) Grease your preferred baking pan (I like mine to be all squished up next to the other)- I generally use an 11'x 13' pan. Then place rolls in pan and into oven.
(8) Bake until the rolls are slightly browned and not doughy. This will vary according to your oven. Just don't overbake.
(9) When done, take 'em out and cover them in the delicious icing.

Filling:
(1)Soften butter, so that it is spreadable.
(2) After dough has been rolled out to the gigantic rectangle, spread the softened butter all over.
(3) Sprinkle brown sugar over entire buttered rectangle. Use more if you like more.
(4) Now sprinkle the cinnamon over the now sugary, buttery, doughy, rectangle.


Icing:
Cream it all together with an electric mixer. Spread on hot rolls.

THE Cinnabon Recipe

"THE Cinnabon Recipe"

The Guardian | Political protest turns to the radical art of knitting

"Knit your own purse grenade: Should be knitted in chunky army green and gunmetal grey on 4mm needles. Grenade is fastened with a kilt pin and keyring."

Welcome to The Neti Pot Company (tm)

"The nasal passages are lined with a thin layer of mucus that is one of our body's first lines of defense against disease. A nasal wash keeps this layer of mucus moist, clean, and healthy."

INDC Journal: That's a Bad Day

"Back up your critical files before you send a computer away for maintenance or repair"

BBC NEWS | In Pictures | In Pictures: Fantasy coffins

"Isaac Adjetey Sowah's showroom in a suburb of Accra has some of the most colourful coffins to be found anywhere."

The Skeptical Optimist: a1. National Debt

Some of you who have seen the new National Debt Thermometer might be curious about the history of our debt burden.

American Prospect Online - ViewWeb

“There is no crisis in Social Security,” said Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois. “We know that left untouched with no legislative changes, Social Security will make every single payment, with cost-of-living adjustments, for at least 37 years. People seem not to be buying the White House’s crisis argument.

Google Fight : Make a fight with Googlefight

"Make a fight! Type 2 opposite keywords:"

Project Implicit

"The demonstration site for the Implicit Association Test."

Googlism

"Googlism.com will find out what Google.com thinks of you, your friends or anything!"

THE ECONOMISTS

___ THE ECONOMISTS ___________________

What You'll Wish You'd Known

"When I said I was speaking at a high school, my friends were curious. What will you say to high school students? So I asked them, what do you wish someone had told you in high school? Their answers were remarkably similar. So I'm going to tell you what we all wish someone had told us."

Two Minute Offense

"I think it was Charles Krauthammer who first said that the difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans believe that Democrats are wrong and Democrats believe that Republicans are evil.
"

McDuck Capitalism

'For simple, readable, easy to understand examples of how the capitalist system actually works (as opposed to how Marx and Keynes claim it works) libertarians laud “Economics in One Lesson” by Henry Hazlitt. For my money, though, you can’t beat “Capitalism in One Comic Strip” by Scrooge McDuck.'

The Man in the Arena - April 23, 1910 - Theodore Roosevelt Speeches- Roosevelt Almanac

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

Squirrel Fishing

"A new approach to rodent performance evaluation"

An Alternative Inaugural Address

"What if George W. Bush weren't a compassionate conservative . . .
by P.J. O'Rourke "

CAMERA STABILIZERS

"It's really very simple for anyone to build for their Mini-DV camera and is superior to a full-blown vest & arm for steadying Mini- DV shots"

Bottle Cap Tripod for Digital Camera by Yodobashi (6 Colors)

"The world's first bottle cap tripod by Yodobashi. It magically turns a bottle into a tripod, ideal for night shot and self protrait. The bottle cap tripod fits bottles with 28.5 to 30.5mm diameter."

Take-apart Camping Cooking Tripod.

"It cost $22.64 to build this tripod and its carrier. "

Build a tripod head

"Occasionally, you have a special need for a sturdy tripod head that can be used to support many different instruments."

Jake Ludington's MediaBlab - DIY Bottle Cap Tripod

"These step-by-step instructions for creating a digital camera tripod from a Pepsi bottle are inspired by the Bottle Cap Tripod for Digital Camera From Japan as featured in Gizmodo."

YOUR OWN TRIPOD, CHEAP!

"using crutches to make a tripod"

$14 Steadycam

"The Poor Man's Steadicam"

The Comfy-Chair Revolution

"I've noticed a gradual change in public surroundings over the past few years, and I think it's driven in part by personal technology. Unlike the hard, unappealing settings of traditional retail space (ground rule: 'get 'em in, get their money, get 'em out'), more and more places instead appear designed actually to encourage customers to linger. "

(LILEKS) James : the Screed

"NOTES FROM THE OLIVE GARDEN

I thought this would be quick - another Guardian column taking some snide swipes at the rude Colonials."

The Red Sea (washingtonpost.com)

"Want to know why George Bush won? Set sail into the crimson heart of America"

BMI Calculator at Keep Kids Healthy

"Fill in the following bmi calculator form to figure out your child's body mass index (BMI) and his or her risk of being overweight or underweight."

BMI - Body Mass Index: BMI for Children and Teens

"In children and teens, body mass index is used to assess underweight, overweight, and risk for overweight. Children's body fatness changes over the years as they grow. Also, girls and boys differ in their body fatness as they mature. This is why BMI for children, also referred to as BMI-for-age, is gender and age specific."

Marginal Revolution: Blink

"In one study we were watching newlyweds, and what often happened with the couples who ended up in divorce is that when one partner would ask for credit, the other spouse wouldn't give it. And with the happier couples, the spouse would hear it and say, 'You're right.' That stood out...for a marriage to survive, the ratio of positive to negative emotion in a given encounter has to be at least five to one."

Bach Cantatas Website - Introduction

"Welcome to the World of Recorded Bach Cantatas"

Rob Galbraith DPI: A look back at the NC2000

It boasted a 1.3-megapixel CCD — and the unprecedented advance of removable storage media — in a digital sub-assembly built around a Nikon N90 (F90) film SLR. All for a cool US$17,950.

Infothought: CBS Report file has been modifed! Cut and Paste now prohibited!

"Encrypted: yes (print:yes copy:no change:no addNotes:no)"

Dave Barry Official Website

"The Pulitzer
Sunday, August 30, 1987
CAN NEW YORK SAVE ITSELF ?
DAVE BARRY"

Vodkapundit - How I Spent My Christmas Vacation

"Because my wife loves me very much and understands sometimes I need to spend 15 hours in the basement doing 'cool' things, she got me a Lego Star Destroyer for Christmas."

FACEANALYZER

"THE ONLY AUTOMATED FACE READER IN THE WORLD"

100 things we didn't know this time last year

"Each week the Magazine picks out snippets from the week's news - interesting newsbites that we learn along the way, and find their way into 10 Things We Didn't Know This Time Last Week every Saturday. So at the end of the year, here is an almanac of those things we learned."

Kristof: It's Time to Spray DDT

"If the U.S. wants to help people in tsunami-hit countries like Sri Lanka and Indonesia - not to mention other poor countries in Africa - there's one step that would cost us nothing and would save hundreds of thousands of lives.

It would be to allow DDT in malaria-ravaged countries."

The Sentinel Online - Archived Story

"The Mechanicsburg Middle School eighth-grader scored a perfect 1600"

OODA Loop

"'OODA Loop' (Observation, Orientation, Decision, Action)."

Internet Anagram Server / I, Rearrangement Servant

All the life's wisdom can be found in anagrams. Anagrams never lie."

Winds of Change.NET: The Toyota Taliban

"I've often seen the term 'Toyota Taliban' used to refer to non-governmental 'aid' agencies and U.N. bureaucrats. I've even used it myself on occasion. What does it mean, and where does it come from?"

Simon World :: Parents' prayer

"O Lord, let me give thanks to the makers of all Toy Story movies and water-based paint."

In the middle of Iraq, it's gaming, gaming, gaming for the American military

"Soon after the battle for Fallujah ended in November, U.S. Marines brought their Xbox consoles, Gameboys and laptops forward and started fighting the Covenant hordes in ''Halo,'' Mario and Luigi's worst enemies and those irksome roommates from ''The Sims.''

"