Clifford Stoll was once just a little bit wrong in 1995. Unfortunately he chose to be wrong in an article he wrote in Newsweek about how this newfangled Internet was a bunch of hooey. He said:
"Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic.
"Baloney. Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth is no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works."
Well, twelve years later (which is like a millennium in Internet Time) the newspapers are struggling, we've more or less moved past CD-ROMs, and the government is slowly trying to stumble toward both computer networks and "working", although not necessarily transparency (see: Diebold).
Ikeahacker is the blog that turns anyone with power tools into an industrial designer - they post photos and descriptions of projects made of hacked and repurposed Ikea products into something else.
Example - the designer bookcase on the left is over $500. The one on the right is $40. An enterprising soul sawed it in half and painted it to make two shelves, saving $960. Sweet!
He suffered a heart attack, and upon his recovery doctors found he had no pulse. He has returned to all his usual activities and seems to have no ill effects.
There is no real explanation for this situation; some believe that if the blood pressure and blood vessel valves are strong enough, the circulatory system can simply push blood through the body without the assistance of the heart.
He has run a barefoot half marathon in the Arctic Circle and swam 80 meters under the Arctic ice wearing just a swimsuit.
Normally hypothermia and frostbite set in fairly quickly in cold temperatures and can quickly turn fatal, but this man suffers no ill effects. The best explanation is that his brain does not trigger the usual response to extreme cold, or that he is able to control his body's response.
Certain Buddhist monks are also able to regulate their bodies' temperature via meditation.
It's a field of fluorescent light tubes illuminated wirelessly using the energy field given off by the power lines overhead.
Ordinary materials used to extraordinary, otherworldly effect.
This rare and complicated procedure is not for the squeamish. A canine tooth is removed (usually from the patient, but in this case from the man's son), A special cylinder is inserted into the tooth, and this is inserted into the eye socket.
Who comes up with these things?
Note: Image after the link may be disturbing
Originally this art idea was proposed through official channels, but when it was denied, an engineer at Grumman installed the art in a secret hatch of the landing module of Apollo 12.
Other "art" smuggled aboard Apollo 12 includes Playboy centerfolds secretly inserted in sleeve-mounted checklists. These were only discovered part way into a moonwalk.
Stay classy, NASA!
