human made

BP Fucks With Photographer

From Marco we hear about this gem:

A photographer took these photos of a BP oil refinery while standing on the grass median of a public road. (With very few exceptions, it’s perfectly legal to take pictures of anything visible from a public place, even if the subject is privately owned.)

BP’s security noticed, called the city police, and followed him by car to a gas station.

The police forcefully detained, harassed, and threatened him for more than 20 minutes for something that is not a crime and that they did not witness.

The police disclosed all of his personal information, including his Social Security number, to a BP security guard.

The police effectively forced him to reveal the photos he had taken and continued to detain, harass, and threaten him even after an officer had evaluated them and decided that they were not a threat to Homeland “Security”.

He was further detained, harassed, and threatened by a Homeland Security agent who arrived at the scene and forced him to reveal the publication he was working for.

The original article Marco blogged about is here.

This is ridiculous. I don’t like to make comparisons to police states too often, but really no other notion fits.

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» Solar-powered plane lands safely after 26-hour flight

This is amazing. The Solar Impulse is an experimental solar powered plane. The Swiss team responsible for it has been gearing up to to do a 24 hour flight, which introduces the big hurdle of flying through the night. How did they do?

The plane emerged from the darkness of night with three hours power remaining in its batteries, more than had been expected.

Hell yes.

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“ I demand that science do its job and allow us all to indulge in a consumer experiment: are humans the most delicious meat of all? Furthermore, I think there’s an easy way to access more funding for this goal: celebrity cell donation. Memory RNA may have been a fallacy, but I think a lot of people will tell you that Nigella Lawson looks fantastically chewy and probably tastes very good.

— Warren Ellis: On cannibalism

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Dressing Like an Adult: Revisited

In my ongoing attempt to morph myself into the kind of adult I want to be, one step has been the theoretically shallow attempt to dress a bit better. To that end some time ago I brainstormed about a minimal “adult” wardrobe.

I’ve actually pursued this some, and since some people seemed interested, I thought I would update.

Here’s the original list:

Two well cut dark wash jeans
One dark color non-jean pair of casual pants (chino’s, I guess)
One pair of proper “dressy” pants
One good suit
Six or seven nice, but casual button down shirts
Two dress shirts
A handful of nice ties
Good black shoes
Good brown shoes
Two good blazers/jackets

Of that, I have:

One well cut pair of dark wash jeans.
One pair of gray flat-front slacks
One really nice button down dress shirt
Two nice casual button downs
Good balck shoes
One black blazer

It’s a start. The most interesting thing I found was that much of this was already in my wardrobe. I just needed to pull those pieces out and not combine them with cruddy, baggy clothes, since then they looked awful. And in more than one instance I found actually taking them to the tailor to get the fit improved was incredibly helpful. Seriously, if there’s a lesson here, it’s that tailors are your friend.

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» American Drink

We’ve become spoiled and lazy here in the States. Instead of crafting cocktails from scratch, many turn to pre-made mixers full of food coloring and high-fructose corn syrup to help mask the taste of vodka—OF VODKA, a drink that’s rated based on the lack of taste. Meanwhile, the vodka industry pumps out flavored varieties to appeal to the juvenile tastes of a nation that is number one in the world in soft drink consumption. America, we can do better.

The opening volley from a fantastic new blog.

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» Vuvuzelas for BP

Freaking fantastic.

BP is not feeling the pain they are causing in the Gulf. BP is spending millions on PR. In order to put a bit of public pressure on them, we plan to buy 100 vuvuzelas and hire 100 vuvuzela players off Craigslist to play in front of BP’s International Headquarters in London for an entire work day. Ideally, the players will keep coming back every day until they fix the gusher.

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» The Abominable Charles Christopher

A fantastic webcomic. I laughed. I cried. And I mean that without irony.

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» FIFA Apologizes for Bad Calls

England’s and Mexico’s misfortunes prompted a previously recalcitrant Sepp Blatter, the president of FIFA, to apologize on Tuesday for refereeing errors and to announce that he would reopen the discussion about the use of goal-line technology in soccer.

I’m of two minds on this. Goal line tech seems like a no brainer, but the FIFA notion that the poorest team should be able to play the game on their home field exactly as it would be played in a cup game is appealing.

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» The Cold War, Again

They had lived for more than a decade in American cities and suburbs from Seattle to New York, where they seemed to be ordinary couples working ordinary jobs, chatting to the neighbors about schools and apologizing for noisy teenagers.

But on Monday, federal prosecutors accused 11 people of being part of a Russian espionage ring, living under false names and deep cover in a patient scheme to penetrate what one coded message called American “policy making circles.”

Seriously?

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Non-newtonian fluids (aka cornstarch in water) are creepy.

Non-Newtonian Fluid on a Speaker Cone

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