Categories
Technology

I am technologically useful

Starting from the year 0, [I] might be able to advance civilzation to the 17th or even 19th century. [I am] technologically useful.

I scored 7 out of 10 on the ‘If I were sent back to the year 0 how technologically useful would I be?’ quiz (though slightly embarrassingly I’m not 100% sure which ones I got wrong), and as Jason says inventing new technologies isn’t multiple choice. And I’d probably succumb to the local equivalent of the common cold. Or inadvertently start a plague. Or be burnt as a witch.

Categories
Photography

Launch

launch

The particular setup for this was sound activated. The lens was destroyed (worth it of course) but the camera survived this one despite being severed from its ratchet straps and thrown to the ground, and the sound device used for this one disconnected from the camera and thrown about 200 feet backwards into the pad perimeter fence (still worked!). All settings are preset manually. No one is allowed closer than several miles from a launch.

(via Gizmodo)

Categories
Animals

Scary Photo

owl

But quite a nice story, and the rest of the photos are pretty awesome. It’s just this one really freaks me out.

(via rocketboom)

Categories
Words

Hear me roar

Members of Panthera are distinguished by morphological features which enable them to roar (link)

Panthera includes Lions, Tigers, Leopards and Jaguars. The name comes from the Greek, pan = all, ther = beast/animal (because they can hunt pretty much what they like!)

The ther root also gives us the words:

  • Theropod (beast-foot) – a group of bipedal dinosaurs including most of the nasty/cool ones in Jurassic Park
  • Therianthropy (part-man, part beast) – the most well-known example we have is Lycanthropy (Werewolves) but as a term it also includes things like animal-headed Gods, Centaurs and animal spirit guides
  • and most curiously Treacle, which comes to us via French and Latin from the Greek word Theriac (pertaining to venomous beasts) and means antidote, a now obselete definition of treacle
Categories
People

Laloo the Hindoo

laloo

Laloo was born in Oudh, India as the second of four siblings in 1874. He was accompanied into this world by his parasitic twin brother who was little more than a headless mass of limbs attached to his breastbone.

His advertisements often billed him as the ‘Handsome, Healthy, Happy Hindoo’ – as ‘exotic’ acts and persons were all the rage in America at that time. Also, in a bit of common showmanship, he would often dress his brother as a girl and advertise the twin as his sister. That is, until that erection issue started to throw a wrench into the act.

laloofly

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Categories
Film

Black Dynamite