Exactly why he picked a spider, I'm not sure. A cheap, small, pretty car to use as a base, I guess. The rattling is a bunch of loose stuff banging around when the car goes over rough pavement. A 76 model was saddled with huge steel battering rams for bumpers, so without those and the engine, even with all the batteries it might actually not be all that heavier.

One of his students asked Buddha, "Are you the messiah?"
"No", answered Buddha.
"Then are you a healer?"
"No", Buddha replied.
"Then are you a teacher?" the student persisted.
"No, I am not a teacher."
"Then what are you?" asked the student, exasperated.
"I am awake"

Heck, I would've watched it if all they did was just knock a bunch of stuff over. The music just happens to be pretty good too. I only saw one possible cut in the whole 3:50-ish shot, and I'm not sure of that. One helluvan achievement!

Mark gets a no-prize shaped like Davy Jones' locker for bringing us news of the discovery of a bunch of centuries-old shipwrecks. The wrecks were found at the bottom of the Baltic during routine surveying for a gas pipeline being built between Germany and Russia. All are apparently in remarkable condition, and one may be as much as 800 years old.

Here we go again (~ on our own ~): Rock Band 3 has been officially scheduled for release during the 2010 holiday season. Scheduled is not the same things as actually released, but consoles seem to have a much better track record of hitting their deadlines than do PC games.

A California start-up has created a new kind of fuel injection which could increase an automobile's efficiency by as much as 50%. The key to the tech is to heat and pressurize the gasoline, and then injecting it directly into the cylinder. A whole host of benefits accrue from this seemingly straightforward change, but it's still not clear just what, exactly, would be required to implement the idea in a production engine.

Anyone in the market for a DeLorean? I think $57,000 is probably close to what they cost back in 83, adjusted for inflation. I see DeLoreans from time to time around here. It'd be nice to see even more.

Looks like the 70s "folded paper flying saucer look" is coming back again. All the Italian design firms were rendered nearly useless in the early 70s by this fashion trend. Let's hope this one remains a one-off. I like curved, not folded ones.

Problem: You're a hyper-rich oil magnate who loves boats and entertaining lots of guests.

Solution: Port-a-Island.

Ellen has entertained the notion of living on a boat for years, but was never sure where the cat boxes would go. This would solve that problem rather neatly, no? It's checkbook time!!!

Is it a hovercraft? An airplane? A boat? See for yourself. That seems to be the best part of Oz and Kiwi-land... if you want to try creative and exciting ways to kill yourself, well, good on ya mate, we'll have some beer waiting if ya manage ta make it back!

Pininfarina has revealed the concept car it created for Alfa at this year's Geneva auto show, and it's definitely full of win. The shape of things to come? Oh hell, nobody's sure Alfa's even going to be around in two years. Still, if they manage to stick it out, they could do (and often have done) a lot worse than basing a production car off of such a slick piece of artwork.

It looks like Google really wants all us Android-based phone users to be on the same version. Understandable, really. Good news: Looks like it'll come down to us this quarter. Bad news: seems the only phone that definitely WON'T need to be reformatted is Motorola's Droid. Meh, we put backup widgets on ours weeks ago, they should be fine either way.

It's like watching a slide show of a fish bowl... you just can't stop. I'm at least as impressed with the people who've managed to keep the same house, sometimes the same decorations, for such a long period of time.

What do you get when you combine 2250 tongue depressors with a whole lot of time and determination? Something like this. I'd never heard of stick bombs either. Sounds like a potential father-daughter project to me!

'“We had a lot of luck with the weather,” said André Gierke from the radio station 89.0 RTL. “A proper winter for naked sledging.”' Pictures are NSFW, but I bet you probably figured that part out on your own.

Nothing like an ordinary bit of meteorology mixing with an extraordinary bit of technology to start the day. Bonus: even though it's a "duh" sort of thing, I still thought it remarkable how different the trajectory of this rocket is than that of the shuttle. Yeah, they're going different places, but still...

Folks, it just don't get no better than this: the Python is a 500 meter tube of explosives tethered to a rocket on one end, and an armored truck on the other. I keep thinking, but I just can't figure a down-side to this one. Well, except for all the moanin' and complainin' of the condo comittee. I mean, really, just because it tears the street apart and shatters everyone's windows...

Not content with massive subsidies, Japanese rice farmers are now turning their fields into forced-perspective art. Leave it to the Japanese to take something annoyingly stupid and rush it right out the end, so it comes back around to being cool.

Up next: CSEG Barbie! Olivia took one look and started threatening to kick my butt if I didn't get her one. My wife's child, let me show you her...

Just ahead of the Geneva auto show, images of Bertone's Alfa Romeo Pandion concept have been leaked to the press. There's a reason people hire Italians to design their cars. Building them, not so much, but in for a penny, in for a Lira, that's what we think around here. It certainly doesn't look like anything else out there. I actually think I like it.

Mark gets a no-prize that'll be vigilant until someone steps on it for bringing us this look at where the future of UAVs may be headed. The article is very long on "look what'll happen if it all works like it's supposed to", and very short on, you know, an actual vehicle. Still, I remember this sort of thing being discussed in AvWeek back in the late 90s, so it does seem progress is being made.

And now, a crab that measures 10 feet across. And it's not done growing yet. Predictably, this big-strange-ugly is considered a delicacy in Japan.

Owners of Series 2 (or earlier) Tivos may want to hold off upgrading until after March. Then again, like Apple, Tivo is not shy about charging a premium to pay off its R&D, so the new ones probably will come dear. Of course, that probably means price-cuts on the ones current today.

Mobile middleware developer Dalvik has announced a new virtual machine for Android which claims higher performance and longer battery life. As an all-Android-phone household, we're for it!

And in my day, we had a turbo button on the outside of the case, and you had to push it. And we were lucky!

It seems DARPA is testing the feasibility waters for an unmanned sea drone. The idea seems to be to make the robot do all the hard, dangerous work of tracking and harassing aggressor subs, leaving the rest of the Navy to do whatever the heck they'll have left. Fling airplanes at the water, that sort of thing.

Google has admitted it's working on technology that could provide spoken-word translation in a phone some time in "the next few years". Which could, of course, mean next year, the year after, or fifteen years from now. Still, since both our phones are droid-based, one would suppose we'd be ideally positioned to take advantage of whatever actually materializes.

And now, a gallery of photos of manta rays. Gigantic airplane-like fish that are too big to care if the naked ape blowing the bubbles is dangerous or not. Not sure why, but I just think that's about as nifty as it gets.

It seems spray-on liquid glass will be the next big thing. Anything that makes hospitals safer for patients is fine by me.

Mark gets a no-prize that'll slot right into place for bringing us this fine demonstration of parking control. The spider almost certainly would fit. Thing is, the Milano just might too. They're both just about that narrow.

So I've had a Pioneer Elite receiver for the better part of five years now. All I ever did was a single 5.1 auto-MCACC calibration. Then, after I found a home theater forum, it suddenly occurred to me maybe doing an advanced calibration for just the two fronts and the sub might make a difference in how I listen to 2-channel music.

Yeah, I know, "DERP DERP DERP." The difference is startling, easily on the level of a component upgrade. And I got it for free!

So let that be a lesson to you. There's a reason why you get all those MCACC presets. Use them!

It's my blog. I'll post what I want to!

This week's Boston Globe photo essay revolves around vikings, horses, and fire. Here's to high-speed CCD photography!

Like most cars that look amazingly fast, you can't afford this one either. Danged Europeans get all the cool cars!

Hey, if Wikipedia can't provide a list of papal tombs dating right back to the beginning, well, what good is it anyway? History nerd? Me? Guilty as charged.

Me, I want to come up with some sort of scanner thingy that will let me peer inside without disturbing the occupant. There's lots to learn from a skeleton!

Alfas unreliable? Not according to race-day results! What? They're stripped junkers only lunatics with too much time on their hands drive? Why, you say that like it's a bad thing...

Boeing has released videos of an IED-killing laser. Seems long on "ideal conditions" and short on "clever hajji" to me, but I guess everyone's gotta start somewhere. I especially liked how they put fake dummies next to the mortars.

Nothing like a little forced perspective, strange sculpture, and the occasional human oddity to start the week. It's a curious, albeit not particularly surprising, conceit of people in their twenties that the only way to make a strange picture is with Photoshop. Photography's more than, what, 150 years old? People were making twisted photos before the grandparents of the designers of Photoshop had been born.

Mark gets a no-prize that's just flat had enough for bringing us this timely bit of advice to the currently ruling political class. One thing I think doesn't get enough notice on either side of the aisle is just how important the debt and deficit has become to most centrists. A very large number of people in the US were very happy when the country started to run surpluses. Failing to reign in spending is bad enough with such folks. Explosively increasing it makes it even worse.

Seems like the Japanese have some competition. A Korean firm has debuted a robot that'll do the laundry. I gotta get me one of these. Holy crap, how domestic is that?!?

Man bites dog. Redskins beat Cowboys. Shoeless Joe says its so. In the annals of heinous impossibilities, all pale against the realization that the one seat in the senate the Democrats never had to worry about, the one who's long-time owner made government-run health care his primary concern, now belongs to a Republican. Now if that doesn't just scream, "appropriate irony," I don't know what does. 2010 is going to be a lot of fun. Well, for my side at any rate.

Agreed: If Pontiac had been allowed to build cars like this, there would never have been a question of closing it. I don't even want to know how much it costs to create a bespoke version. But it sure is interesting to look at!

A++++!!! Would kill Nazzi scum again!!!

Mark gets a no-prize chock-full-o'-hope for bringing us this amazingly clever video.

And this was second prize???

Problem: A poor country with rickety infrastructure has just been shaken "like a Polaroid picture," making airlift relief very difficult.

Solution: Drive an airfield over and park it just off-shore.

Big-deck aircraft carriers: expensive, but darn well worth it.

Nothing ends the Yuletide season better than mounting the ol' Christmas tree on a rocket. You'd think they would've used something lighter than a big ol' hunk of rebar to brace it. Would've flown farther, been more dangerous, that sort of thing.

I've always thought statistical anthropology was one of the more fascinating, and little-known, aspects of the field. I guess it has to do with anth being the place where people fled from numbers. But when you read stuff like this, it suddenly becomes a lot more fascinating. As for why it's not more widely reported in the media... DUH!!! It's optimistic and doesn't mention Obama by name once. Why would they pay attention to that?

Making the rounds: a local car club fished a complete pre-war Bugatti from the bottom of a lake. I'm actually a little surprised they're parting it out. These cars are rare, and simple, enough that skilled artisans can recreate what's rotted. Yes, it will be a $250,000 restoration, but at the end you'd likely have a $2.5 million dollar car. If you wait long enough, almost any interesting car will be worth restoring. And Bugattis are very, very interesting.

Mark gets a no-prize hungry for brains for bringing us this nifty mod for your next trip to the shooting range. I wonder if it makes a splattery mess of the range itself?

Looks like Florida just got its decennial snow storm. The best part is watching this tie the global warming crew up in knots. No wonder they switched the name to "climate change."

Ellen has always insisted The Weather Channel is the most interesting channel on the dial. If stuff like this happened more often, I'd be more likely to agree. One thing we both do agree on: if Jim Cantore shows up in your neighborhood with a camera, head for the hills!

When we went up to Maryland to visit Uncle Jeff, Olivia was most impressed with their Nerf chain gun. Yes, there is a nerf gun which shoots... oh, hell, I dunno, a lot of Nerf darts per minute. It's freaking belt fed! Apparently bouncing several dozen Nerf darts off one's cousin's head pretty much defines a good time. I'm not sure, because I was busy bouncing the same off her uncle's. He told me there were mods that made it even more awesome, but I didn't believe him. So he went and proved me wrong.

Ok, just to repeat: A belt-fed Nerf gun. It just don't get much better than that.

I love the smell of markets at work. Smells like... victory. High prices, driven by demand, which allow profits that are not confiscated by the government create incentives for efficiency and exploration. The result? Commodity prices always go down over time. Times when this has not been the case are usually rooted in government policies which either distort demand or destroy incentives for innovation.

What I remember most was, later on, discovering that Omni looked so damned much like Penthouse. Omni was a regular read of mine all the way through high school. I remember the antimatter section being gold, not red, but that's likely just faulty memory.

The world's tallest building has officially opened its doors. The mile high skyscraper was considered a pipe dream when I was a kid. Who would've thought the first one to exceed half that distance would be built in the Persian Gulf? And why not? Now that they've got their own F-1 race, Dubai just seems that much cooler.

NASA has kinda, sorta, but not really decided where the space shuttles will go after retirement. Common sense has said "Smithsonian, Houston, and Kennedy" for quite some time, and this just confirms it. Or does it?

Best. Esoteric. Speaker. Description. Evar: For many years electrostatic loudspeakers had a reputation as a generally unreliable and occasionally dangerous product.

I know, I know. It's just that I've been flittering around electrostatic speakers for nearly thirty years now, and I've never seen such an appropriate description.

Scientists are working on an alcohol substitute that only gets you pleasantly buzzed and can be fixed with a pill. It's based on Valium derivatives, so I'm pretty suspicious, but if it passes nanny state and obama-ite regulatory tests, I'm all for it!

Just in time for the holidays, Michael Shumacher is now definitely-for-real back in F-1, this time with Brawn Mercedes. Ross Brawn and Michael Schumacher were most of what made Ferrari so dominant in previous years. Will they do it again? Who knows, but it sure will be fun to watch!

This week's Boston Globe photo essay is dedicated to all that global warming that keeps falling outside. Composition is particularly strong with this set. I would've tried for something similar, but I was too busy shoveling.

LG has announced the creation of "the world's thinnest TV". The 42-inch unit is only 2.6 mm thick. If I recall correctly, I think that's slightly less than two nickles glued together. It also weighs not quite 9 pounds, making it much simpler to mount on a wall. No word on price, but I'm sure a premium will be charged to defray the R&D costs.

Latest silly season rumor: Danica gets an F-1 ride. Ok, brutal honesty time... the reason why the mainstream media celebrated her only win was because they didn't know much about racing. That was a team strategy win, had nothing to do with her speed. That said, conventional wisdom is she's plenty quick enough, and just has to find the right ride (shaddup, you). It would be amazingly good for the sport if the first genuinely competitive F-1 US driver in a generation was a woman, and a hot one at that. However, common sense says she'll sign a NASCAR contract and be disappointed in her open wheel "failure" all the way to the bank.

A submersible autonomous gilder recently completed its first transatlantic crossing. As I recall, Global Hawk did the same sort of thing about ten years ago, but it didn't have to contend with sharks. There's all sorts of implications, aside from the generic cool factor involved.

Sometimes the shot is just that important. There's a similar picture sequence from a 50s road race, but Google searches won't turn it up.

The engineers at Lotus have created a new type of internal combustion engine (ICE) that, it's claimed, is 10% more efficient than the best existing ICE. People have been trying to make 2-stroke engines practical in an automobile for more than a century, and it hasn't happened yet. Still, it seems to be a lot more than just plans in a computer.

F- having a stone medieval mug, I want one I can mount a bayonet on. Like all military-grade things, it has eye-watering specs and an eye-watering price. Still, it's fun to look at!

Have digital graphics suite, will travel. As a demo, it's pretty darned cool. As a story? Hey, if we couldn't criticize other's people's creations, the internet would be a much, much quieter place.

Virgin Galactic's first commercial space ship had its coming out party on Monday. I could've done without the revelation that the hot chick painted on the nose is actually Branson's (now 90-something) mom. I know, I know, but still...

What better way to while away the rest of the weekend than using Google Maps to explore Pompeii. What always surprises me is how small ancient cities were. Then you get used to looking at cities which can be encompassed in a 100m scale, you go chasing Rome's old Imperial walls and realize just how BIG that city was back in the day.

The center of the maelstrom. Except nowadays we run 5 speakers with 2 amplifiers per. It's a good life.

Boeing's latest attempt at justifying that big ugly 747 with the laser in its nose? Kills IEDs dead. A weapon with infinite ammo that only takes about 5 minutes to cook off a hajji-wired 155mm shell? Sign me up for 12! Ain't technology grand?

These were the cars modeled in Grand Prix Legends. If that simulation was even vaguely accurate, these little beasts are very fast and very scary. But they do look oh-so-right, eh?

In the on again/off again saga of Alfa coming back to the US, it seem things are back on again, and with a very nice looking sedan. "Milano" wasn't really much of a name anyway. Giulietta is much nicer, evokes all sorts of things for people who've never heard of the marque, and is spelled just weirdly enough to make it challenging. Will we actually see it? I'd like to think so.

Fast forward to the 3 minute mark, then enjoy. Ellen knew what it was because she thought it was someone driving a Milano around without a muffler. Sorry, yes, they really are all of that, and a bag of chips.

So Scooby Doo is on the TV. Me, I think it would be interesting to look up Casey Kasem, see what he's up to nowadays. Turns out he's doing fine. His kids are doing fine too. So I go look up the first one, Kerri Kasem. Wikipedia doesn't have any pictures. Being male, and therefore visually-driven, I wanna see how his kid turned out. Which turned up this. So all of you who were thinking Cher and Chastity/Chaz were causing a great karmic imbalance? Well, there ya go.

So, are these 50 CGI portraits really that amazing? On the one hand, yes, I certainly couldn't come close. On the other, I think all but one have something ever so slightly wrong. Most of them seem to be made of wax, in my opinion. It may be intentional, but it's definitely something noticeable. It'd be even more interesting to see if they can animate these things.

Ok, on the one hand, it's... well, it's complicated, but it comes from a good place, that a teenager with terminal cancer is having his dream classic car restored by his fellow car-nut fans. Then again, it totally sucks that this car was built when I frakking graduated high school. I remember lusting after Fieros as a teenager, and now this teenager's last wish is to see one restored.

I have no idea what to make of this. I guess that's part of being a grownup?

Remember when all we really wanted was a clear view of the Earth from space without all the clouds in the way? That's only because nobody'd figured out how to capture a film of those clouds. Until Now. Reminds me of Jupiter, only with friendlier colors.

Latest rumor: Schumacher's back with Mercedes ne' Braun next year. To my knowledge, the only superstar who retired and stayed that way was tha wee Sco'sman, Jackie Stewart. Otherwise, the ones who retire at the top of their game always seem to come back.

A very neat encounter with a leopard seal.

Best... Game... Show... EVAR!!!

Fans of Command and Conquer should find this full-sized recreation of a Tesla coil of interest. Those things saved my rear more than once in that game. Dasvadanya, comrade!

If only Olivia had been around, this guy would've helped make a really cool picture. Star Wars geeks descending on us to tell why it isn't possible in 3... 2... 1...

Classic-car ensurer Hagerty recently posted this nice article about why certain owners are so fascinated with the cross-and-serpent. Those are some very nice cars in there, but the owners seem to be of a kind with the rest of us.

I guess this means we'll soon have a whole new set of T-shirts to choose from. Just about every purely mathematical concept has proven to be useful somehow in the real-world. Things like 3-D Mandelbrot sets have the potential to be useful and pretty.

Most Alfisti consider the things they drive to be race cars. Others turn theirs into race cars. A precious few talked the factory into building them a race car. By all accounts, it's actually much more fun to drive than it looks. And that's saying something.

One of my MOST FAVORITE people that comes to see me at work.

Rock on lady! Your new Snow White legs you showed me today are awesome!

Google has recently announced Go, a new computer language, licensed under a BSD open source license. I guess I must've finally graduated to programming middle school, because I recognize and understand about 80% of what they're talking about in there. I do still love my C# something fierce though, especially after tinkering a bit with VB.

I know, I know, I should be posting more stuff. Instead, I'm watching Olivia learn to touch type by using Dance Mat Typing. It's a BBC production, so all the characters sound like Paul McCartney and John Lennon. Home row keys, FTW!

“Nick, you like Alfas? Why don’t you take the 8C for a spin[?]” Yeah yeah yeah. And you don't want that motorcycle, or those coins, or that Chevelle, or those diamonds, or that resto-mod, or to drive down a 60 degree grade into the canyon, yadda yadda yadda. Tell me you don't want this car, and I'll shrug. Say it to my face without glancing away.

Didn't think so.

What better way to begin this set of year-end lists than with the "best 101 music videos of the decade?" I haven't heard of about sixty percent of the list, and about half of the rest seems to be made up of White Stripes videos. Meh, pop culture fun at its finest!

The article doesn't explicitly say it, however I can't help but think these must be the oldest identical twins alive in the world today. Pretty wild to think these two retired back in the 70s, eh?

Nothing like catching a fish bigger than your boat. Like bow hunting or whaling with hand-held harpoons from an oared launch, I respect this sort of hunter. Skill, risk, and just a whiff of nuttiness is where it's at!

Imagine trying to wipe your butt with these!

Pretty neat, but the pointy ones... OUCH! I bet they make good cat scratchers though!

Fingers??? Who needs fingers?

It's sorta like what I went through getting the Milano's belts back on, only REALLY REALLY fast.

Ok, well, when some nut-job hotrods up your car to go ripping around the Nurburgring, maybe we'll talk. Yeah, I know, it's because they're well engineered and nobody wants them anymore. But still!

P.S.: It makes a neat noise, too:

Nothing like a top 10 list of astronomical objects to start the day. Sometimes I'm actually glad we orbit an unremarkable star in a boring corner of the galaxy. There is such a thing as too interesting, ya know?

If nothing else, this site is proof our grandparent's parents were every bit as goofy as we are. Comparing these spectacularly unselfconscious bits of whimsy to the stunts the boomers pulled in the 60s is quite instructive.

Toyota has developed two flower species which help absorb CO2 and cool their Prius plant. The plants are part of a long-running effort to reduce the carbon footprint of the factory which creates everyone's favorite "smug" emitter.

National Geographic is featuring the first known images of a sperm whale eating a giant squid. Well, looks more liked "eated", since it seems to be an extremely ex-squid.

From coffee bean to carbon atom, we got it all. I had no idea the bits that make up our immune system were so tiny.

Nothing like a POV camera to show you that, yes, extreme mountain biking is every damned bit as scary as it looks. And how about that course? What, did they build this town on a wall or something?

Lord bless Wikipedia, without which it would be much harder to access the straight dope on the Philadelphia Experiment. Ron likely wishes that could be, "what happens when you lift one corner of the city and dump it all into the river?" but alas, it's not.

Well, they may have been a part of the only empire worse than, well, any other one in the world, but those Soviets sure knew how to paint a picture. Then again, suffering in war is universal, so maybe that's the reason these compositions are so effective.

Now, if it were in the US, a "body painting festival" might make you run for the eye bleach. They'd probably run out of paint before the third contestant and then it'd get really bad. But since they're in New Zealand, hey, it's not so bad after all. Video is tasteful but not particularly safe for work.

All those folks who think I'm obsessive about my hobby are pleased to be sitting down and shutting up now. Me, I'd go for replicating the cockpit of a Pan-Am 747, but that's me and it's been done before. I can't quite think of anything like this ever being mentioned anywhere.

Now reports are saying the MiTo and the new Milano are scheduled to reach our shores in 2012. Previous reports were holding these two models to be "too small" for the American market. Considering the number of those spam-can Smarts I see roller-skating around our area, I'm glad Fiat has reconsidered. For now, at least.

And now, some photo-realistic pencil sketches. Best I ever managed was a few steps beyond stick figures. Ellen's actually quite good, but hasn't been able to sit still for the lengths of time required in years. ~ Art isn't easy ~

Of course it would be Attenborough who'd end up catching humpback whales beating the crap outta each other over a chick. I first saw this sort of cinematography in The Blue Planet. As I recall, it's made possible by a new sort of camera and microphone. Whatever it is, it's spectacular.

I first saw something like this in 2003, 2004. I'm just about certain we linked it up here, but I can't quite figure out how to make it pop out of the archives. There's more than one sort of dirty fun, I guess. The artist is Kseniya Simonova, who apparently recently won "Ukraine's Got Talent."

A 32-carat flawless, colorless diamond just sold at auction for $7.7 million. Bonus: The billionaires who owned it were well-known philanthropists who donated almost all their fortune to charity after they died.

Most people would just have a bunch of blurry white blobs if they tried to take pictures without a lens on their camera. This guy is not most people. Likely this sort of esoteric stuff will be all that's left of film photography in a few more years.

By using plagiarism-detection software, one scholar has found strong evidence that a previously unattributed play really is part of Shakespeare's works. I've often thought that it would be interesting to try similar techniques on, for example, the books of the New Testament, who's authorship is (in my opinion) a more interesting question.

1983 wasn't a particularly good year for performance cars. That said, people in the know can find at least one that was available. Calloways were incredibly expensive when new, and as far as anyone knows only perhaps 100 are still around. Last time I saw one go by, it was the #5 prototype. As I recall, the owner was asking for something in the high 20s, and as far as I know it did not sell. But they are definitely fun rides.

Me, I don't think these "re-imaginings" of Disney princesses makes them look like superheroes. I think it sorta makes them look like zombies. Disturbingly hot zombies. I need to get out more...

Latest rumor says Alfa may be toying with the idea of a 3.0L V8 twin turbo with Multi-Air technology. That would likely end up being a 500+ hp motor getting 35+ mpg and a carbon footprint about the size of a couple of cat farts. Heading toward our shores! Definitely something to consider blowing the child's college fund on.

Nothing like ten minutes of large-caliber bullets hitting various kinds of armor plate to start your Friday. I think it's especially wild when it seems to liquefy when it hits the angled plates.

Looks like submarines won't be completely helpless against airplanes for much longer. As I understand it, a big part of anti-submarine tactics, from the planes used to the attack tactics, are premised on the idea the sub can never, ever shoot back. Literally attacking this basic idea will likely cause many late nights for the ASW bad guys.

Meet George Sweeper, who manages to maintain a 1968 Jaguar in downtown Brooklyn. From what I've read, a 68 is one of the better years to have... ergonomics and overall comfort are much improved from the earlier models, and they had yet to be strangled and mangled by those lovely progressive policies from the 70s. Good for him!

Another week, another interesting photo montage from the Boston Globe. This week's subject is Afghanistan, and the images are no less powerful than normal. Something for those who think these people aren't worth helping to mull over, no?

Ok, I'm not asking you which one is prettier. The 80s weren't kind to anyone's car design. And I'm not asking you which one you'd want. Since you're not nuts like we are, your answer will be "c) none of the above." What I'm asking you is which one is more interesting looking. Less dated.

Thing is, even I didn't realize the contrast until I saw an 80s era 5-series parked in our church's lot during the Fall Festival. Trust me, a BMW of the same era is ridiculously dowdy when compared to our goofy little Italian box. Bah, I'll let you be the judge. Oh, I know what you're going to say, but I also have a feeling I know what you're going to think, especially when you compare the roof lines...

Hey, if you can't share someone's small pleasures, what good is life? Haven't had a really memorable moment lately. I hope that means fate is saving up. In a good way.

Presenting VictorySiren.com, a site which provides pictures and details of the air raid sirens which were scattered across the country during the cold war. Turns out they were powered by Chrysler V8 engines. One of them seems to be in the process of restoration for use on the air show circuit. Now that'll make for an interesting experience, eh?

The latest Alfa Romeo has a 1.4L, 170hp motor that powers it from 0-60 in less than 7 seconds and gets nearly 50 mpg. The secret? A revolutionary induction system that actually does away with a conventional throttle. Now if we can somehow lure Fiat into bringing them over...

Hey, at least they're saying nice things about the goofy pictures. I've worn t-shirts and jeans since about... forever I guess. It's the hairstyles that'll be my downfall.

Hey, man, what good is an HD camera if you can't stick it to a balloon and loft it up past 100,000 feet. It's sort of like watching a fish tank, going in the other direction.

While a little meandering and ultimately pointless, like the classic car hobby itself this story of one man's barn finds is nonetheless entertaining. Me? I've never really had a proper place for the classics I already own, so I'm not constantly on the prowl for more. That said, when I am looking to buy, the perfect has always found me, and in a surprisingly short amount of time.

While I'm not completely sure why someone would want a life-sized paper model of Link, the hero from the Legend of Zelda video games, I think the result is nonetheless impressive. Hey, everybody needs a hobby!

Good: Finding nine of the rarest gold coins in the US in a safe deposit box left to you by your parents. Bad: The feds snatch them away because they were "stolen". Good: looks like the feds are going to be forced to give them back. Maybe. One of the reasons the feds are, well, the feds is because they have a nasty habit of doing just whatever they see fit.

Today's Boston Globe photo montage takes the aftermath of hurricane Ike as its subject. It took me a little while to realize clicking the pictures made them switch from before to after. Oh, and -1 to the Globe for not mentioning the irony of a lion being protected by a Christian church.

Ever wanted to know what a a trillion bucks looked like?

And now, a fire truck being towed out of a sink hole. Something tells me the total immersion will be... unkind... to the electronics.

While more than a bit pretentious, Food in Real Life was still interesting enough for me browse it all the way to the bottom of the first page. Back in my bachelor days I was a real connoisseur of all foods boxed. The quality defines "hit and miss." I sure could've used this back then.

As with most big-security projects, launching ultra-secret spy and communications satellites generally is rather hard to conceal. Freedom sometimes means using your free time to annoy bureaucrats, donchaknow?

Presenting Star Raiders, a game my brother and I played to absolute mastery on our old Atari 5200. Strangely, the article does not mention the 5200 port, nor the earlier 2600 port of the strategy game on which Star Raiders was largely based. Activision came out with a simpler, and better, adaptation of most of the same concepts, although the name of that game escapes me. Game developers, it would seem, have been stealing ideas from each other for decades.

It's pizza, on a stick! Olivia's not much for pepperoni, but I sure am. Looks pretty darned yummy to me.

Today's take on which Alfas will show up on our shores takes a much more optimistic view. What raises my hopes is Fiat seems to be looking to take on established niches by building high-quality vehicles and undercutting the competition's price. That's always a winning combination.

Yes, yes, it's the color of a 1972 Frigidaire, but what a Frigidaire! Now that, my friends, is a car that'll make the security guards over at the DARPA building remember me.

Nah, not any time soon. But after Olivia graduates high school? All bets are off!

It would seem everything I've heard about the S2000 is true. Well, maybe not everything, since (miracle of miracles) this one does seem to have its share of flaws.

These cars command a brand loyalty very close to that of Alfas, and since they're much cheaper and better built, there are a whole lot more, well, "Hondisti" than there are Alfisti. It's not for me, but I've driven a riced-up one and I must say I still think it's a sewing machine, but it's definitely a sewing machine with heart. And anyone who questions their pedigree nowadays doesn't know what the heck they're talking about.

Ah geeze. Somebody get a mop. Damion's head just exploded.

Felipe Massa's return seems now set to be the opener of the 2010 season. When hit on the head with a full soda can at 160 mph you are, look as good you would not.

Hey, if I knew how to cast iron, I'd probably want to make a cannon too. I don't know enough about Civil War tech to figure out if a 4"-er was a standard sized gun or not. Meh, it'll shoot golf balls 600 yards. That's plenty good enough for me!

And now, a baby chimp taking care of a baby puma. No better way to start the week!

Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly, best known as the stars of Cagney and Lacey, are reuniting for an upcoming episode of Burn Notice. A good combo on a good show. What's not to love?

Fans of computers or old electronics may find this collection taken at the Computer History Museum in California of interest. I think the control panels from the 60s and 70s are pretty nifty, in a "looks like Star Trek wonder what that button does um no I don't and I didn't touch it and let's get out of here" sort of way.

The latest rumor seems to indicate the 169's replacement will be based on a Maserati chassis, not that of the Chrysler 300. The 300's platform is well-regarded, but old and difficult to adapt to the needs of European markets. The Maserati chassis will be sweet, but the resulting vehicle will almost certainly be too much for us to afford new. Ah well, maybe after depreciation does the deed we'll pick one up. At least this one is nice looking!

All petrolheads should own an Alfa if they want to know what differentiates a car from a toaster

-- Jeremy Clarkson

Nuff said.

Well, maybe not. If you genuinely wonder, "you know, you seem quite rational. Except for your choice in cars. Dude, wtf?!?" Well, read this, but skip past the bits about the watches. That's what I feel, and God help her I'm pretty sure Ellen feels, about Alfas.

We're coming up on a very specific anniversary very soon. Like, now. We'll all need to badger Ellen into talking about it.

And now, a shredder so bad-ass it's able to eat a whole car. Now that's recycling.

HardOCP answers the question we've all been asking: how many hard drives does it take to stop a .50 sniper rifle round? The answer is as cool as the question.

When is a spiral not really a spiral? When it's a bunch of differently-colored squares, that's when. It's likely our visual centers evolved in response to the pressure of finding ripe fruit in a tree, not to counter some clever damned scientist in a lab. Fun!

Hey, why not drive four supercars across the country? There was one in there even I didn't know what it was, other than pretty. You'll have to scroll down to the start and read up, but I thought it was worth it.

So how many years did Bill Murray's character spend in Punxsutawney? The answer seems to come close to what the director just threw out there in an interview long ago. Go to see what nerds like me (and most of the guys who read this site) do when they get the bit in their teeth. Stay to watch the NERD FIGHT!!!

Ron gets a no-prize filled with genuine buttery goodness for bringing us this past tale of a future that didn't come to pass then, but could today. How could someone be so prescient? Well, 1978 was the first time in the past thirty years when the economy was in the crapper, confidence was low, and progressives held all the cards. The second time had a better politician at the helm. The third time... well, let's all hope the third time is not the charm, in this case at least.

Oh, and I can cast each role in the story using a buddy of mine. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out who ends up in which role.

Look who they're fitting with artificial limbs now. Apparently it's a permanent one, which answered the question of how they were planning to deal with contact sores.

Fans of secret and abandoned places should find this collection of pictures of abandoned subway stations of interest. I'm pretty sure the Toronto station was used in the filming of the Matrix, but it's too early in the morning for me to research and be sure.

Coming to an obsessive blog about science fiction, anger, and cats near you: the Alfa BB video series. Sharp eyes will note the lack of a shift knob and the non-stock steering wheel. Even though it's fuel injected, mine sounds pretty much the same, but only if I pull the air cleaner off first. And I'd love a garage like that. LOVELOVELOVELOVE!

Problem: You work at a place where accidents happen at very high speed around a race track that's more than twenty miles long.

Solution: Horsepower. Leave it to the Germans to over-engineer something to the point it goes right out the other side and becomes amazingly cool.

Go to watch goofy Italian sedans going balls-out down various medieval donkey trails. Stay to see if those Italian sedans end up collecting any of the insane Frenchmen crowded on the sides of the road (minute 9-ish). And the song at minute 4-ish.

While a bit "fluffy", this editorial about how women are turning to motorcycles in increasing numbers was still of interest, even to a guy like me. Mainly, I guess, because it includes brief advice on the sorts of bikes one should look at as a beginner.

No, not for me, I'm askeered of those things. A few other people I know either are getting or want to get one. Those people.

Ah, progress. It now appears that, for the comparatively affordable price of $8,000, you, too, can get your own satellite launched. The press release makes it sound like a grown-up version of those electronics kits you used to get from Radio Shack. Except, of course, this eventually gets to go into space. Progress is good!

And now, a building that falls over and rolls across the street. No, really!

Everyone knows F-1 team principles make big bucks. That's very nice. Nicer still are the benefits. The latest rumors have Renault pulling out after this season, so ol' Flavio may end up out of a job soon.

Shumacher's coming back to Ferrari! At least, that's what Bild is saying. For those who're not following the sport (philistines), lead Ferrari driver Phillipe Felipe Massa got hit in the head by a spring roughly the size and weight of a full soda can at 155 mph last Saturday during practice at Hungary. Amazingly, he's still alive and in guarded condition, with doctors hopeful for a full recovery.

That said, he almost certainly isn't coming back very soon. It will be very interesting to see how ol' Shumy does. Ferrari built cars around him to his very particular tastes, and the current car isn't one of those. That said, he didn't win 7 world championships just because everyone else moved aside.

See you next Sunday!

Remember those stories about the "sky deck" in the Sears Willis Tower in Chicago? Yeah, it's about as spectacular as you'd think. Seems on the day it premiered it was raining. That'd be just my luck. Supposedly convention-after-next will be in Chicago, so I'll have to pencil this in on my, "to do" list.

Coming in second isn't always a great thing, but if you're Alfa Romeo, and your competition includes brands like BMW and Mercedes, second place, well, it' ain't so bad. And yeah, I think having Daihatsu on the top spot is a little strange myself, but I'll take what I can get!

Well, they may not have won the latest round of the, "24 Hours of Lemons" race, but check out who took the next four three spots! They may be goofy Italian cars, but, when prepped right, they can definitely be fast goofy Italian cars.

Presenting Yellow-Yellow, the bear smart enough to defeat "bear canisters" most campers can't get into. The in-laws will not be surprised to find out this bear, is from New York.

Ron'll have to go to the shoals of Orion to pick up the no-prize he gets for bringing us this graphic example of what happens when Welshmen have too much time, and way too many Christmas lights, on their hands.

No, it's not bad. It's actually pretty darned funny. And I know they're not exactly Christmas lights, but that's what they looked like to me.

E-mail? Who needs e-mail. I need this. Heck, it even picked the restaurant I was jonesing for as a supper pick tonight. Technology is a wonderful, wonderful thing.

Remember, folks, quad turbos and a thousand-and-one horsepower mean never having to say you're sorry. It actually looks like the GT-R beats the Veryon in the first few hundred feet. After that it would seem the Veryon gets it all hooked up and lined up and then it's just freaking gone.

Which is what I'd expect if I were driving a car that cost ten times what a $100k-ish competitor cost. eh?

While the site itself seems to be critical of the restaurant conversions it features, personally I have no problem with it. Then again, I work in Arlington, who's re-use zoning laws are famous in the way they limit what can and cannot be done to the exterior of a building. Still didn't save that cool dealership over at Ballston, though.

Whale shark? Your aquarium has one whale shark? But does it have three? And, from what I could count, three manta rays as well. Can't say I've ever even heard of those living in captivity. Now if this was the tank in my doctor's office, I might be more likely to visit!

From someone who is supposedly related to someone who works at Chrysler:

From my brother Steve who works in the Prototype Shop at Chrysler........ New fun facts and such.....Fiat 500 will be badged as a Chrysler The Abarth version is in AND will be marketed. There are also some NEW oddities.....Full ELECTRIC 500 (not hybrid). Steve says it is pretty cool. The Abarth 500 has 17" wheels with extremely low profile tires. He said it took two (2) guys PLUS the tire machine to get the tires on the wheels because of the "very ridgid" sidewall. Now he says this one is a monster and is very quick. Also lurking around is a Lotus Elise that is full electric. It may OR may not be produced and marketed as a Dodge. He also says that with all the Italians involved; English has become the 'secondary' language. He is STILL trying to interpret "hand and arm" gestures and as yet can't decipher whether the "yelling" is normal or frustration or madness or just being "Italian",,,,,Ed K.

Bah. Ellen read it over my shoulder and couldn't understand how someone couldn't understand "language-plus-gestures".

Nothing like full motion video to ensure the guys you're sending to their 72 virgins really deserve it. At least nowadays they're blanking the HUD info, which I always found quite informative as to what was taking the pictures, and where it happened to be.

While these things are certainly interesting looking, I don't know how well they'd do holding books. Probably expensive too. Still, it is a step up from some planks and a couple of cinder blocks, eh?

Via Violins and Starships.

She ended up in Kenya:

In many ways, the setting is just a typical family breakfast.

Young children and their mother enjoy croissants and orange juice while sitting around a table together.

But things become a little different when you notice a giraffe poking its head through the window to join them for a drink and a bite to eat.

Note to hyper-literal relations: "lost sister" is a literary device. Except when Nina's GPS unit runs its batteries flat.

Mark gets a no-prize that contains the receipts of all his past Ren Fair tickets for bringing us news that one of the most extensive collection of medieval accounting records in the world is now on-line. These records provide very valuable cross-checks to the various chronicles of the time, and allow the tracking of sometimes very normal men throughout their lives, something that is not possible anywhere else in Europe until perhaps the late 18th century.

The Codex Sinaiticus, one of the oldest three bibles known to exist, is now available on-line. The interesting thing about Sinaiticus, and its other contemporaries Vaticanus and the somewhat later Alexandrinus is how unique they are. At this period Christian writings, and the Old Testament documents they were usually based on, were distributed in collections of books, many examples of which survive today. These three are the only "whole" bibles known to have existed for seven or eight centuries.

Looks like the Air Force has a new toy. "Translator" doesn't seem quite right for a system that connects a bunch of disparate data networks together. "Ultimate bridge" seems more appropriate to me. But wtf do I know?

The New York Times is now getting in on the act with this road test of the Alfa Romeo MiTo. The review's conclusions, that the car is heaps of fun but a bit crude and harsh, tracks pretty well with other road tests I've read. The nice thing is suspensions can be refined and steering can be fixed. In other words, it would appear to be no worse than any other new model, and in many cases is much better.

All for (supposedly) around $20k. They may just have gotten it right this time.

Four words: rifle mounted cup holder. I love America! Not sure I recognize the gun though, maybe an H&K?

84 lb. girl catches 190 lb. fish. We watch the Animal Planet show River Monsters pretty avidly, and so knew such monstrous critters did in fact ply fresh waters. We did not, however, know any of them lived in Spain. Aye ca-rumba!

And in the, "if you have to ask..." category, we have this 1962 Alfa Giulietta Sprint Zagato. I actually saw one of these a very long time ago at an owners club meet in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. They're amazingly small cars, with a really neat, blatty exhaust note. The owner had restored it himself, and said it was like driving around inside a drum. But a fun drum! I had no idea the things were so valuable. Then again, that was right around 20 years ago, so this may be a case of "when appreciation attacks!"

Update: Don't miss this even pricier TZ-1, the follow-on to the Sprint Zagato featured above. Vintage race cars, FTW!

If CNet is to be believed, the first Alfa Romeo on our shores will actually be the "new" 4-door Milano. The article includes a new phone picture of the pre-production line. Can't say I find it particularly stylish, but this "foam squishy" look is actually the result of a raft of progressive legislation intending to protect pedestrians. In other words, they're ALL going to look like that soon. I guess if it saves one idiot who doesn't look both ways...

While I'm sure having a big ol' telephoto lens helped make this all look a lot closer together than it actually was, this is still a really nifty air show picture. Andrews AFB, where I take all my shots, is of course emphatically not surrounded by various buildings, so I'll just have to pass on trying for one of these.

Another installment in the MechWarrior franchise would appear to be on the way My brother and I spent hours and hours blowing up various teams of "other" nerds with the last version. Will this be a worthy replacement? Only time will tell.

Outback (not the steak house) once served dinosaurs.

Nasty once of course!

The spy pictures, they keep coming. Slightly off-kilter styling: check. Big booty: check. Not likely to be mistaken for anything else: check. Yep, that's an Alfa my wife would love. Except she'd have to give up her PRESENT Milano, or her nearly equally beloved PT Cruiser, so I don't see one of these in our future. Now, if either got smashed in 2012? All bets would then, my friends, be quite off.

Land Rover, of all people, has unveiled what it bills as the "worlds toughest cell phone". Unfortunately no phone is so tough it can't be lost in the side pocket of a back pack. Not that I'd reveal someone who actually did something like that...

Three words: Bikini. Fireworks. Stand. Did I mention how much I love the USA?!? Amazingly, this did not originate in Texas, but rather in Tacoma, Washington. I guess all those stories characterizing the great North West as a bunch of screaming liberal hippies sipping Starbucks in their yurts complaining about "flyover country" and regulating their own children out of the local housing market was a bit of an exaggeration, eh?

Well, probably only a bit...

Leave it to the Kiwis to come up with an airline safety tape even I'd pay attention to. Go for the flight attendants wearing body paint. Stay for the flight attendants f-ing up their lines in body paint. Heck it even includes something for the ladies.

I can think of no finer send-up to the center-left elitism I find so common with so many folks I know. The discussions on his board about this one are epic.

I'm laughing precisely because you don't think it's funny.

It seems Chrysler and Fiat are beavering away at getting the new 500 over here as soon as possible. If it's even vaguely in the price range of the Smart, they likely won't be able to build them fast enough. Not so sure about a wagon with that body type, but who knows?

Presenting the Falkirk Wheel, what has to be the most spectacular solution to the problem of getting a boat from one body of water to another at a different elevation. I'd read about this thing years ago in a travel magazine, but they only had a single picture of it. This site has video!

Details are beginning to emerge about exactly what Fiat tech Chrysler is already working to integrate into new models. Interesting tech in what would otherwise be pedestrian cars is what makes Italian automobiles so neat to me. It's nice to read such things will soon be in American cars as well.

If I had a four car garage, and a whole helluva lot more money than I have right now, I'd make this guy an offer. I've read, more than once, that owners of pre-war Alfas like nothing more than to take their cars to shows which feature pre-war Cadillacs. "It's so much fun to make them cry," was what they kept saying.

It's an Italian thing. Ellen understands.

Yeah, it may be old news to you, but this clip from (yet another) British "real science" show was still pretty impressive to me. I was a little disappointed they only dropped it from the top of a big crane. The Mythbusters guys must have a bigger budget, as I'd expect them to work out a way to at least drop it from a helicopter or something.

Problem: Jet packs are a neat idea, but it's just not possible to carry an adequate fuel supply

Soultion: Use the most common reaction mass candidate on the planet, and tow a pump behind you.

Since I haven't seen these things everywhere, there're bound to be hidden issues. The two I think I see are noise and the tendency to power-wash the skin off the pilot's legs.

I know, I know, the ISS makes for one helluvan expensive camera platform. But sometimes the results are still worth it. I especially like how the volcano punched a hole in the cloud cover around it.

And now, garagantuan trees shaped like mushrooms. You'd think after running this place as long as we have, we'd know all about these places. You'd be wrong.

The new Acropolis museum has opened at the foot of that very famous hill. Predictably, lots of mentions of the Elgin marbles and almost no details on just what is actually on display in this new space.

Lest you think they're all sparkling, like new... this is how most Alfas meet the end of their days. The first one I owned wasn't much nicer than this one. Ah well. I wonder if he'll sell me the tail lights?

The pictures remind me of Joshua's old barn photos. Here's to hoping he finds images as compelling at this Sunday's show!

Turns out it's ridiculously easy to hack those flash-message road signs. Except, of course, that it's illegal.

RON.

The thing is, they're not actually toys. I forget exactly how this is done, but as I recall it can be done with just about any SLR.

Presenting Atlas Obscura, a site which attempts to chronicle every weird or obscure bit of interesting architecture and geography, well, anywhere. Personally I think the Los Alamos surplus store is the most interesting. Knowing how the feds work, that's the most likely final resting place for the Roswell aliens.

Ron gets an indestructible no-prize for bringing us this entertainingly translated article about what appears to be Russia's latest effort in military mobility. Hey, Hajji, eat this!

An entire page from the Weather Channel dedicated to TORNADOS!

Finally I can say, the next Alfa Romeo bound for the US looks to be shaping up nicely. This would seem to quash rumors that the next 169 vehicle would be based on the same platform as the Chrysler 300. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, since that platform has the rear wheels driven as God and Jano intended. Still, it'll be interesting to see how it turns out. They may even end up naming it "Milano."

And now, how about a bunch of pictures of one of the prettiest cars ever made? Say what you will about Italians, they certainly know sculpture.

Me, I call this "journalists as bait." Really fast, really expensive bait.

People sometimes wonder why I like Formula 1 so much. This is why.

Oh, and I would definitely be able to take off from a standing start.

It's the barriers I'd be worried about.

Now that the deal is done, more and more details about which Fiat platforms will be heading, and even built, here are coming out. The Jeep brand has always been a jewel for whomever happened to own it at the time, so it's nice to see them continuing it. Putting an Italian-designed body and an Alfa-designed engine into one makes it extremely tempting, IMO. Heck, they'll still be built in Detroit. But I won't hold that against them.

Alfa Romeos being built in the USA. Will wonders never cease?

Now that it's done, the models Chrysler and Fiat will be producing together are being detailed. Howabout this:

Alfa Romeo: Fiat plans to build the upcoming Alfa Milano sport sedan and station wagon in one of Chrysler's plants. Another Chrysler plant could build a sporty midsize crossover for the iconic Italian brand. Alfa may also get a larger sport sedan based on the next generation of Chrysler's excellent 300 platform.

Two Milanos in our future? One of which without boged up electrics? Well, stranger things have happened. I can't think of any off hand, but I'm sure they're out there.

The fat lady would finally seem to be taking the curtain call:

DETROIT — Italy's Fiat is the new owner of most of Chrysler's assets, closing a deal Wednesday that saves the troubled U.S. automaker from liquidation and places a new company in the hands of Fiat's CEO.

Good luck to them!

They're gonna need it.

Ares has a fun little guessing game any armchair defense weeny would love.

Ok, this is one "first response" team I'm quite happy to have missed:

A crack team of "rapid response" volcano experts scrambled to the South Pacific Ocean last month to find something rarely seen by human eyes: an underwater eruption exploding into the inky, cold depths and spewing lava onto the ocean floor.

Ron gets an explosive no-prize for bringing us news of this rare and spectacular example of nature's fury.

Sometimes mash-ups are lame. Then someone goes and combines SEM images with a Google Earth interface. Let me just say I'm glad bugs are small. If they weren't, they'd be much freakier than they really are.

It would seem that, at least in the opinion of one attendee, Nintendo was the big winner in this year's E3 show. Since the Wii is the only console we own, that sounds like a big deal to us!

Most of the time, science tells us this is bad, or that is bad. Sometimes though, it tells us something very good indeed. Sorry, Ron, no mention of Southern Comfort being good for after-weights recovery.

Kinda cool when your family finds the classic car you used to own and gets it running and back in your possession again. Ellen and I don't have this problem. Cars come into our possession intact, and either stay here (White Spider, 13 years and counting), or depart bound only for the yard (previous Spider & Milano).

I wonder where that Duster I had back in 1988 got to...

Fans of Wii fitness should find all these recently announced expansions of interest. The opportunities scanning one's body into the Wii for Ron to embarrass Amber may just be enough to tip them over to purchase one.

It would seem the hit movie Heathers is on for a sequel. Since it's been [evil laugh]21 years[/el] since the original, it'll be interesting to see just how it plays out. Slater is on board, apparently as a sort of ghost adviser or something. Here's to hoping it doesn't suck!

Holy crap! She played Spock's MOM?!? Dur. I didn't even recognizer her.

I have no idea what to make of this clip. Well, other than it's nice to see Montreal in motion, watch some really cheesy in-car effects, and nice driving.

And watch the French threaten to gum it all up. A Citroen cock-block!

Nothing like a coil gun to get your day started. Unfortunately the video isn't working for me at the moment, but just from the look of the capacitors it seems pretty interesting.

While definitely nifty, I know Olivia would never actually let me use something like this as a computer. He'd end up with hearts and unicorns and, well, Wall-e stickers all over him.

Jeff gets a swirling no-prize Ellen will want to chase for bringing us news of the latest-and-greatest tornado chasing project. The article also includes 2 other bits of good news: Storm Chasers is on track for a third season, and they're going to be covering this project, at least for one episode.

While I'd known of most of these "10 Geological Wonders", it was still neat to look at. And guess what... the Soviets created at least one of them.

Hopefully they won't park it in the convention center garage:

The Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione is one of Fiat Group's latest and most ambitious supercar projects. Sold by the team at Maserati of Baltimore, the exotic modern classic is sure to become a legend in the motorsports world for it's sharp design. As a new resident in Baltimore, she will hopefully be the photo focus of exotic spotter cameras and video sightings all around the charm city region and Washington DC Metro glam nightclubs.

If nothing else, it greatly increases the chance one will be around next year's Owner's Club convention, which is happening in Maryland.

With bells on, baby, with bells on!

Artificial Owl seems to be a website dedicated to pictures of abandoned things. It's surprising that, even in the modern world, ruins have both power and beauty. Case in point, the SS America, which is the subject of one of the remarkable pictures on the masthead of the Owl site. Sadly, America seems to have been pounded to bits now, and no longer stands sentinel over that lonely bit of beach.

There's no better way to start the day than looking at a whole passel of shuttle pictures. I think the shot with both of them mounted on their pads is the most impressive. That would've made our visit to the cape a lot more interesting. Unfortunately I think they wouldn't've let us get even that close if the shuttles had been out then.

This month marks the 40th anniversary of Apollo 10, who's lunar module Snoopy orbits the sun to this day. Now that would be an interesting snag for some future space archeologist!

Nothing like a little back-light to really punch up the shot. There must be some reason why nobody's ever tried this with the ISS, which is a lot bigger than either of these things.

Turns out it's just as interesting to stare into other people's refrigerators. Hopefully that critter was dead before he was put in the freezer. I'm not holding out a lot of hope, though.

While sinking a zodiac-like inflatable boat at 100 yards via remote control sounds pretty nifty, it's when they start talking about mixing pepper spray into the stream that it suddenly turns into a lot of fun. Well, if you're not a pirate, at any rate.

If the ship already has high pressure water available, I can literally see no down side to this, other than perhaps expense. Now that insurance rates for shipping through pirate-infested waters is presumably on the rise, I'm not sure that impediment will hold out for long.

No, it's not quite as satisfying as picking them off with a Barrett .50, but it has the advantage of shutting up all the bleeding hearts in Berkeley and Brussels. Anything that puts a cork in those particular bungholes is all right by me.

Can't see how we missed this one: on Friday it was announced the songwriting duo behind ABBA have reunited, albeit only for one song. If loving kitschy pop songs is wrong, I don't want to be right.

[Ellen]: “Is it pretty?”

Dude: “What is?”

Me: “The engine. Is it pretty?”

Dude: “Why do I want to see if the engine is pretty?”

Me: “Exactly.”

If only the second set of movies had been this clever. I guess we'll have to go out and see this at some point. If we ever get back to Florida (it is in Florida, right?), that is.

Everyone please stand for the fat lady to sing her song:

Chrysler LLC today announced that, as a result of the comprehensive restructuring plan agreed to by many of its stakeholders, it has reached an agreement in principle to establish a global strategic alliance with Fiat SpA to form a vibrant new company. It will allow Chrysler and Fiat to fully optimize their respective manufacturing footprints and the global supplier base, while providing each with access to additional markets. Fiat powertrains and components will also be produced at Chrysler manufacturing sites.

The MSM is finally glomming onto the fact that Fiat really never has made particularly sturdy cars. Truth is, Italians don't consider screwing a car together correctly all that important. Design, beauty, performance, and heritage are all far more important. If it means the trim falls off, well trim doesn't make it go faster now, does it?

Thing is, Americans will put up with a surprising amount of this sort of foolishness as long as they feel they're being taken care of, and the whatever it is doesn't keep breaking the same thing over and over again. Fiat's quality is supposed to have picked up dramatically in just the past four years or so. Will it be enough? Who knows?

I'm just happy they're back!

There's camouflage, and then there's camouflage. Since it's not active, it only works from one specific spot, but still.

Hey, she's a college student. She's supposed to have too much time on her hands.

[Ellen]: “Is it pretty?”

Dude: “What is?”

Me: “The engine. Is it pretty?”

Dude: “Why do I want to see if the engine is pretty?”

Me: “Exactly.”

First it was a "sky bridge" over the Grand Canyon. Now it's observation rooms on the soon-not-to-be Sears Tower. I'm not particularly acrophobic, but I think I'd have to peer out from the side on this one. And how'd you like to work that construction job?

Well, now they've moved on to actual production plans:

The first Fiat car to arrive will be the 500, known as the Cinquecento, an update of the Italian classic from the 1960s that has earned comparisons to the more expensive Mini Cooper and has been a big hit since its introduction in Europe two years ago.

...
In Europe, the Fiat 500 sells for roughly 9,000 euros, or $12,000, on average. The Mini, made by BMW, sells on average for $25,600 in the United States.
...
Alfa Romeo will return with the MiTo, a compact now on sale in Europe, as well as the Milano, reviving a name from the 1980s and 1990s.

The Italians' saving grace has always been price, and their downfall was always taking direct aim at the likes of BMW and Mercedes. If they can mesh successfully with Chrysler, make cars at least as reliable as a Toyota, and priced less than their European competitors, they won't be able to build them fast enough.

Is a new Alfa in our future? Not immediately. Our current automotive need, such as it is, is not for a sedan or a micro-car, but instead for a truckster. If the oft-rumored Alfa crossover becomes a reality we'll likely be at the dealership with bells on. Until then, well, until then it'll just be nice to see the ol' cross-and-serpent in US dealerships.

Here's to hoping they have a long, happy relationship, with new cars for all!

Fiat and Chrysler would appear to have reached a final deal. New Alfa Romeo cars would seem to be heading our way, if rumors are true as early as next year.

An ironic twist, really. It was a deal with Chrysler back in the mid 1980s that was widely seen as instrumental in Fiat pulling the marque out of the US. Here's to hoping this deal turns out better than that one, and the one after with Mercedes. After all, when more choices show up, the consumer is the one who wins.

Enter Alfa:

Chrysler LLC and the U.S. Treasury Dept. have reached an agreement with banks and private equity firms holding $6.9 billion of the automaker’s debt. Those firms have agreed to take $2 billion and a small equity stake in the company, paving the way, it seems, for Chrysler to avoid bankruptcy and with Italian automaker Fiat.

No, the fat lady hasn't sung, but I think I can hear her warming up in the wings.

Why pay big bucks for some super-reliable modern Japanese Q-ship when you can spend it on one of the quirkiest automobiles ever built in Britain? I remember lusting after these cars as a kid not because they were pretty, but because they were really expensive and made it look like you were driving around in an Atari game system. I think the car failed in large part exactly because of this.

Ron gets a no-prize with a striped vest and one of those funny flat straw hats for bringing us this most distinctive of tributes to John Williams. Personally, I think Joshua does a better Wookie.

A university project has created a Formula 3 race car built with as many renewable resources as possible. The fiber and foam replacements sound interesting, but I wonder how flammable they are? If you have to treat your nice green car with nasty artificial chemicals to keep it from crisping the driver in an accident well, that sort of seems to miss the point, doesn't it?

Now I know what we'll take on our next hike. What? Why no, I don't think the park rangers will have a problem with it. Why do you ask?

The first road test of the Alfa MiTo explicitly written with an eye for the US market is up, and things would seem to be very, very good. It's a little fan-boyish, yes, but the cars tend to do that to people. And hey, what's not to love about a car like that which can get 40 mpg and starts at perhaps $15k? Beats the hell out of a Mini!

And if Ellen didn't want one before, she'll probably want one now:

Another great feature of the Blue&Me system is the telephone integration, allowing you to pair up Bluetooth-enabled mobiles so you can use your phone with your contacts directly via the steering wheel-mounted controls. Alternatively, and this is quite slick, you can use the voice-activated commands. Depending on mobile phone type, it will even read out SMS messages for you. Once the set-up process is completed, the system recognizes your phone the minute you get in and start the car.

It appears someone has finally come out with an honest-to-God powered armor suit. Personally, I'll believe it when I see one of Nippon's finest hopping around like a giant grasshopper. Until then, it's as real to me as the suit Ellen's latest "I definitely don't think he's cute oh Amber isn't he dreamy?!?" crush wore in Iron Man.

They look like hay bales made of ice. Now for some snow cows and snow horses to eat them!

It seems New Yorkers aren't anywhere near as nasty as their reputation would have you believe. And by "New York," I mean the city, and by the "city" I of course mean Manhattan. What to the rest of us is obvious requires a great deal of clarification when one's relatives live near the city.

Even though, by rumor, they only brought exactly 6 of them over, I definitely think one of these will end up in my garage (warning: French video). Then again, I'm cheating, because I know one of the six owners, who's only looking for a loon who'll pay what he's asking.

What? Why's everyone looking at me all of a sudden? Do I, like, have a "cross-and-serpent" t-shirt one right now?!?

Oh... wait...

I don't know what it is, but I like it. The best games are the ones that are easy to learn, hard to master.

Apa, 49, has become increasingly concerned about the damage inflicted on the world's highest mountain by both climate change and the waste left by careless climbers.

This spring season he hopes to conquer Everest for the 19th time, and he will use the trip to focus attention on how climate change is affecting the Himalayas -- and also bring back down as much rubbish as he can carry.

No Scott, just because I can carry 10 bags at once and a cat carrier and Olivia does not make me a sherpa.

It seems the famous bust of queen Nefertit has a hidden secret. Yes, Ron, I said "bust." Would someone please give him a glass of water or something?

It's getting so even the turtles are coming to the US for health care. Personally, I blame Rahn whatsisname...

Meet Liam Hoekstra, one of the very very rare people to have myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy, or muscle enlargement:

Liam has the kind of physical attributes that bodybuilders and other athletes dream about: 40 percent more muscle mass than normal, jaw-dropping strength, breathtaking quickness, a speedy metabolism and almost no body fat.

Lest we all become too envious, it's important to keep in mind that, while his soft-tissue changes make him seem almost superhuman, his skeleton, and most importantly his joints, have not changed at all. Like a car, the human body is an intricate, inter-related system. Also like a car, beefing up the power without simultaneously strengthening the support structures results in something fun, but fragile.

To put it another way, there's a reason professional athletes in strenuous sports end up being forced to retire due to injuries, and it's not always the fault of physical contact.

Robert H. gets a red, juicy no-prize for bringing us news that you, too, can plant your very own Campbell's tomato soup tomato. People learn to fear Ellen in the fall when she totes paper sacks around, for they know this means a large number of home-grown tomatoes are headed their way.

The Science Museum in London has a new exhibit opening which features Nick Park's best-known characters hosting "what every aspiring inventor needs to know." Here's to hoping the show goes on the road, and over the pond, some time in the future!

Blockbuster's on-line rental service is coming to Tivo. Unlike the Netflix service, this new one is available to Series 2 users. We've been using the Amazon download service for about six weeks now and are very pleased with it. More selections is a good thing!

Tired of gloom and doom? Take a look at what might be coming down the ol' technology pike soon. Exploitable zero-point energy sounds just way beyond fantastic. That is, if it's not just fantastic.

Ol' Harry finally coughed up a ring for Calli.

I distinctly remember all the papers playing up the "Did you know Harrison Ford's dating a girl more than 20 years younger than he is?" when they got together. The papers neglected to mention his "girl" was in her late 30s at the time. Grownup celebrities are only allowed to be so if the MSM allows them.

Let me show you it... my latest obsession.

Ok, obsession's probably too strong. My latest "makes me itch & makes you think I'm weirder than usual." As if that were possible.

At any rate, it really captures what's so artful about these one-off Italian GTs. 0-60 in just under 6 seconds is only reasonably quick by today's standards, but with those curves...

Nobody's sure if it's coming to our shores, but the next Alfa to bear the name "Milano" seems to be coming along nicely. I hope one day it does, just so I can park ours next to one.

F- taking pictures of whales... this is the kind of "get inna boat & go lookit" adventure I'd want to try. No scuba for you, there's undersea volcanoes about!

Leave it to the Japanese to create the ultimate Italian car memorabilia store. Not just Alfa (although there's a ton of that in there), but just about any Italian car-related badge seems to be in there. A few Germans too. Don't delay, the chotchkee-lover you please next could be you!

Well, they may be old news to motorcycle fans, but I'd certainly never seen a "hubless" motorcycle before. And, since my opinion is the only one that counts, it means nobody else has either. So there you go!

Sometimes, when I think about touring Italy one day, I do a little daydreaming about what it would be like to haul the Spider back to the land of it's birth and go for a drive. Turns out I can get rather close to that dream, without having to rent a container and wait for a transatlantic boat trip. I do think having a repair truck following me around would be a bit tacky.

So, will this be one of the new Alfas to land on our shores? In all honesty, I can't say that I find it pretty. Then again, when I think that its main competition is supposed to be the Mini and that godawful Smart car, well... suddenly it becomes a whole lot prettier. You certainly wouldn't mistake it for any other car on the road. Considering how hard it is to tell any new car from any other new car nowadays, that's a real achievement.

The folks who revolutionized auto diesels are now bringing a new valve train technology into production. Actuating valves with something other than a spring smells a lot like F-1 technology. Considering Fiat has underwritten the Ferrari F-1 team for decades, it's not that far of a leap.

Ron gets a no-prize that'll spout "verily" a lot for bringing us news that a portrait of Shakespeare made during his lifetime has been found. Found here being a relative term... the painting has apparently been in the possession of the same family for generations. It was only when one of the family members saw the famous copy of the painting in the Folger Library in Washington DC, in 2006, that the connection was made.

Jack Hayes, director of NOAA’s National Weather Service, included a researcher from the National Center for Atmospheric Research Societal Impacts Program on the assessment team to examine why many people did not take action to protect themselves.

See! It was the presidental primary elections after all!

It would seem tomorrow's Space Shuttle launch may just be visible to those of us in Northern VA. Unfortunately we live in the bottom of a shallow bowl, next to a big bright busy airport. Still, might be worth a look.

Ron gets the famous pinky-to-mouth-corner no-prize for bringing us this set of illustrations that graphically demonstrates what a trillion dollars really means. It's my understanding that one of the biggest problems bank robbers have is not security, but transportation. It's all well and good to hold up an armored car, but it's often not understood they're big for more than one reason.

The remains of William Shakespeare's first theatre have been found in East London.

Archaelogists from the Museum Of London unearthed what they believe to be part of the original curved wall of the first Globe Theatre in Shoreditch.

Concession stands unearthed next.

I think I would flush all sorts of stuff with this.

My goldfish would finally fit and I would not have to tell my nice neighbor where NOT to dig in my garden!*

*Nice neighbor likes to plant flowers and stuff in my garden. He weeds it too. I'm not complaining. Just stay away from kitten corner.

Ron gets a no-prize that'll rumble the kitties off their perches for bringing us this Star Wars-based bit of hi-fi componentry. I don't want one because I don't feel like going through all the damned work. Others, maybe not so much.

How neat!

The finger was removed when the astronomer's body when it was exhumed from his unconsecrated grave and transferred to a mausoleum in a Florentine church in 1737. It is usually on display at Florence's Museum of the History of Science.

Slashdot linked up news that LEGO has come up with a robotic kit targeted for kids aged 5-10. Being the owner of one unit of same, and always looking for something Olivia and I could do together, I was a bit disappointed to find out the product seems (at least for now) to be targeted, and priced, for teachers with classrooms. Oh well. Still, it'll be something I'll keep my eyes out for, perhaps this Christmas?

Ron gets a very edible no-prize for bringing us the 11th annual chocolate fashion show. It's exactly, and exactly not, what you think.

Personally, I can think of no better application of applied sciences than re-creating old cannon and firing them. Turns out they're more powerful than previously thought.

Looks like at least one British car tester likes the MiTo. If it out-performs a Mini, is priced a little less than the Mini, and most important of all is built at least as well as the Mini, they won't be able to make them fast enough to meet US demand. If they bring them over here, that is.

While I think it's a bit of a stretch to call some of these gizmos and technologies Formula 1 spin-offs, they're still pretty neat and hey, who knows?

It would seem at least one person thinks Halo's transition from FPS to RTS was successful. Ok trust me, if you don't know what that means it means you don't care. For the rest of us... well, RTS's can be pretty darned nerve wracking to me, but they're still fun. I'm just nowhere near as good at them as I am at shooters. We'll see...

Look what I found!!!

We couldn't find a tire pressure placard on the car itself, so this morning I had Ellen fish the owners manual & paperwork out of its hidey-hole on the parcel shelf behind the rear seats. No, really, that's where Alfa put it! Anyway, this afternoon, waiting for Ellen to gather Olivia out of Tai Kwon Do, I got bored and started digging around, and found this! Yep, that's the Holy Grail of classic car nut-dom, the Original Window Sticker. And get this, the car was originally sold in Rapid City South Dakota!

In other news, there was once an Alfa Romeo dealership in Rapid City, South Dakota.

1988 Price: 21,150. Adjusted for inflation: $40,010.

I found a few other things that seem to indicate the car sat in a dealership for four years before being sold. Carfax's report was nothing like this, which makes me seriously call into question that service's accuracy, at least in the early years.

Ain't classic car ownership grand? :)

Today's "uppity Italian sedan staying with cars it should instead be worshiping" is brought to you by Laguna Seca raceway. Special guest star: an Acura NSX. Race starts at 3:50, the fun starts at 11:50.

For me, there's nothing wrong with 17,000 square foot of cave-house. Ellen's enchanted with big, open windows all over the place, A/C bill bedamned, so I'm not so sure about her preference. Oh, and I don't see an obvious garage, so that might be a deal breaker right there.

Hey, a man's gotta have priorities!

I'm not sure there's enough trouble in the world to describe what I'd be in if this followed me home (auction link, "moar pix" are here...) That said, if all my goofy ravings have given you a virtual bite on the head*, well, this is definitely one helluva piece of zombie food. When new, I think they were ~ $40k. I do not know but suspect the reserve will be somewhere around half that.

Oh shaddup, and start breathing again. It's a Q4!!! AWD, FTW!!! Probably still smells new! Someone I know must buy it so I can get a ride in it, dammit!

No?

Philistines....

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* Except for Joshua, who doesn't fit in Alfas with roofs on.

Today it's at Jay Leno's garage. Tomorrow, it could be in mine. Be sure to hang on until the half-way point, when they show off a working crescent wrench that was scanned fully assembled, and printed exactly the same way.

There are dozens of little parts for the Milano that are NLA*. Maybe they won't be for much longer.

----
* No Longer Available.

Oh come on. It's 60 seconds. If nothing else, a preview of what Ellen would have done to the last Milano, had it lasted.

It's probably for the best I don't know anyone with a big shooting range or access to any sort of explosives. If I did, I'm pretty sure I'd try a stunt like this. Only, you know, dumber. Personal injury FTW!

Which is why I like road course racing best. All the horsepower in the world, and in this case I'm just about certain that Corvette has got at least a 100 hp advantage, won't do you any good if you don't know how to turn and brake.

I've told the owners of various overpowered or overmodded cars that yes, their car is quick and yes, it will definitely beat mine in a quarter mile drag race. Thing is, I'd tell them, there's always a left or right turn at the end of the quarter miles I want to run on, and that'll be where I'll say, "buh-bye."

Now, I have proof.

And yes, I know the driver made those passes in spite of his car, not because of it. He also overcooked it in turn 6. Hey, if you're not spinning out occasionally, you're not trying.

It's official: if they actually bring Alfas over here, one of 'em's gonna be called Milano. An Italian-language article has some speculative pictures on what the new models might look like. I've worked too dratted hard on Ellen's car to give it up any time soon, but I must admit the 2011 timing of a purported crossover SUV would be a mighty tempting replacement for the family truckster, especially if it's VW-priced instead of BMW-priced.

Meh. Fun to think about, that's all.

Ron's Mark's next no-prize will fall out of the sky on him because he let us know about the EDIS map, your one-stop-shop for everything disaster. Worldwide!

I know from experience these little monsters are fast:

A turnstile-jumping tot, who can't even speak yet, gave his mom an 11-minute scare Tuesday when he slipped out of a Queens restaurant and jumped on a No. 7 train.

Olivia pulled her disappearing act when she was 4, stayed gone for about five minutes until I found her a few dozen yards down the beach. I called it a "powerful, cheap lesson."

About a great many things.

Mark gets a dusty yet very valuable no-prize for bringing us news of a discovery that would warm any descendant's heart:

A classic Bugatti car, which gathered dust in a Tyneside garage for half a century, has been sold for 3.4m euros (£3m) at an auction in Paris.

Bonhams had listed lot 17403 as a "motoring icon" with an engine that has not been fired up for 50 years.

Relatives of reclusive Newcastle doctor Harold Carr found the 1937 Type 57S Atalante in a garage after he died.

I'll wager it'll take quite a bit of work even to get the engine to turn over. Of course, with a car like this, getting it running is always the easiest part.

As I'm sure you all know, the 2009 F-1 season is right around the corner. Even those in the peanut gallery who aren't waiting for Melborne should find this 2 minute explanation of what's been changed at least mildly interesting, if nothing else for the way-cool computer graphics. Something not mentioned, but which seems obvious to me, is that the cars seem to be getting, well, pretty again. With all the wings, barge boards, and shark gills, it was hard to see the car, let alone appreciate its wickedly functional beauty. No more. And it promotes overtaking! Could this herald the end of the endless, changeless parades that too many races had become? Only time will tell.

If, and let's all admit it is a monstrously big if, the stars align, Fiat's plan to bring two Italian models to the US next year may actually come to pass. A tiny Fiat and a smallish Alfa? Well, why not? To make it even spicier for your friendly local Alfa nuts, the model that may get shipped over is (apparently) due to be named Milano.

In other words, this is not a cool photo, it's an after-the-fact shot of a leprechaun's last moments. Ah well, I guess the pot of gold buried in the grill means you won't need to explain it all to the insurance adjuster, eh?

I know, I know... I'm on my own if I go chase.

No wait....Ammmberrrr.....

Finally, the intartubes^tm are living up to their "anarchic" expectations: Wikileaks has just released several tons of kinda-sorta-as-long-as-they-don't-find-out-secret Congressional reports on, basically, everything. It remains to be seen whether the party of "hope and change" will move decisively toward business as usual and actively attempt to close this firehose of potentially explosive information. Being a cynical, card-carrying member of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, I think you already know what I think will happen.

I, of course, need no justification, because I'm nuts. Oh stop nodding, that's not funny. Anyway, those of you with a more green bent who feel a pang or two of angst about keeping an old, "inefficient" classic car (or motorcycle, or boat, as the case may be) on the road may find this heartening:

[W]hile many newer cars operate with far greater efficiency, producing very few hydrocarbons at the tailpipe, etc, the amount of resources required throughout the production life-cycle when assembling a new car is astonishing when you consider the development and machining of all the tooling equipment, the refining of raw resources, and sheer volume of oil required to fuel that process before any gasoline ever even enters a tank.

Yes, getting a new car will generally produce fewer emissions and consume less fuel than an older one ... but I just simply can't justify supporting the idea that next year's model is the best one yet, and that we need to keep disposing, trading, our cars in for new ones to be 'responsible'. If I can reasonably maintain a car so that it is at peak efficiency and already using relatively little fuel, what justification is there for spending more money to use more resources to purchase something that will probably perform around as well as the old model did?

So, if you're pining for something old and gasoline powered, but have a tiny Al Gore on your shoulder bitching at you, give this argument a whirl. The next classic vehicle you save could be your own!

Via yet another poor bastard who fell victim to the Alfa Entry Drug.

Explorers have discovered the wreck of HMS Victory. No, I hadn't heard of it either, but according to the article it's a mid-18th century British warship which was separated from a fleet in a storm on the English channel and sank with (apparently) all hands. She also sank with some 4 tons of gold coins in her hold, which has yet to be found.

If nothing else, this should explain why the cars are so narrow. And there's also that whole, "gorgeous old roads in a gorgeous old country" angle, donchaknow?

We won't see the 159 over here, but the follow-on has a better chance of showing up than anything built previously. Top Gear has it's always unmistakable take on the cross-and-serpent's current mid-sized sports sedan. The walk across water thing is an interesting irrelevancy, but boy, does that guy need a hair cut or what?

NASA has unveiled the new final assembly building for the Orion spacecraft. On the outside, it apparently still looks like the old Operations and Checkout Building (which, if I recall correctly, isn't all that much to look at), but on the inside it's a completely new building. Now if they could just build the damned rocket...

Looks like Fiat wants to bring seven models over as a result of the Chrysler deal. The Fiat products would appear to be headed for a re-badge, while the Alfa stuff (including the MiTo!) keeps the cross-and-serpent. On one hand, this sounds like a much better pairing than the previously rumored BMW alliance. At least here it's quite obvious the product lines are complimentary. On the other hand, Fiat is signing up with the weakest of the big three, a company that's already failed with one European merger, and is saddled with tons of UAW members.

(With apologies to Pournell & Niven) On the third hand, rumors of a return have flown thick and fast since almost the last car rolled off a boat in '95. Those all came to naught, so chances are very good this one will too.

Dammit.

While its consequences for Alfa are still unclear, nearly everyone is saying the recently announced Fiat-Chrysler deal will result in re-badged Fiat 500s hitting Chrysler dealerships. No, I'm not familiar with it either, but this was pretty interesting:

No, I don't think it's all that pretty, and no, it wouldn't be my first choice for a car. Like you, I kept squinting at the picture, trying to figure out where the wind-up key goes.

Then again, all I need to do is remember this thing is aimed squarely at the SMART and suddenly I go from "whut?" to "oh hell yes." Unlike that tennis-shoe-on-wheels, this thing seems able to get out of its own way, and then some.

Happy 25th birthday, Macintosh! In other news, 1984 is now officially 25 years ago. Kids born in that year aren't even in college anymore. Some have kids that are 8 years old.

Bah, I tell you... bah....

That's mister funny-looking Italian sedan to you, bub.

I better not catch Ellen doing this. The operative word being "catch," I suppose.

Although it would be funny if she did it with her ma riding along.

"Not with me in the car! Not with me in the car!!!"

I think this brings "unintended use" to a whole new level: sniper rifle software has been launched for the iPod Touch. It's a music player, and a ballistics computer. Whatabahgain!

Ron gets a no-prize that'll get him a great parking spot at the next car show for bringing us the "ten craziest concept cars of all time." The fact that Alfa topped the list has absolutely no bearing on my willingness to link it up.

StickingToIt(MyStory);

Nothing like an entire blog dedicated to medical oddities and diseases to start off the morning. Just in time for breakfast!

Nothing like some hi-rez shots of good ol' planet Earth to give you some quiet contemplation in the afternoon. Every time I think I've seen every unique bit of landscape this place has to offer, I'm proven wrong. It's a good thing!

It may have taken attending the Detroit Auto Show to see it, but it would seem the latest iteration of the Alfa Romeo B.A.T. cars is worth it.

For you philistines* scratching your heads, the original B.A.T. cars were 3 Bertone design experiments done on Alfa chassis in the 1950s. As most Alfa show cars and prototypes were wont to do in that era, these "escaped" and ended up in private hands, eventually becoming some of the most coveted cars in the world.

This one seems to mostly be a Maserati under the skin, but it's not like that's a bad thing, either.

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* See definition 2b.

One more reason to seriously think about getting a new TV: lunatics back-flipping trucks on New Year's Eve. Even though the clip cuts off before you're sure, the driver was completely OK.

Mark gets a no-prize with a parachute attached for bringing us the story of a man who intends to fly and drive from London to Timbuktu. The catch? He'll never change vehicles.

Best of luck, and here's to hoping Hajji decides you're not worth an RPG that day!

See! See! we're not the only ones who love these goofy, boxy cars:

Sir Edmund Hillary needed to climb Everest "because it's there," and the same can be said for every racing junkie about "The Green Hell."

"Hell"? Think 13 miles, dozens of corners, 1000 ft. in elevation change and a hotly debated number of annual fatalities among those brave enough to tackle it. Online fan forums mention anything from five to 50.

...

Enter Ron Simons, owner of 75Experience, the de facto official Nordschleife driving school. It holds the largest collection of Alfa Romeo 75s in the world, and one look at the Alfa's boxy shape immediately explains why.

That's right, folks... for a price, you too can tear around the world-famous Nürburgring in a race- prepped Alfa Romeo Milano! Even if they are called 75s over there. Luckily, they also provide an instructor!

According to my sources, the Milanos in use are tattered but still a whole lot of fun. One more thing to add to the list of "to-dos" when we finally make it over there.

Hey, man, why not turn a surplus 747 into a dorm-style hotel? If it makes money and provides a cheap, safe, clean place to stay, I'm all for it!

As with most things in television, drawing that simple yellow line on the football field is more complicated than you'd think. Computers are wonderful things!

So, how old is your car? Or cars, as the case may be. Ours:

• '71 Alfa Romeo Spider: 51 "people years" old.
• '88 Alfa Romeo Milano: 27
• '01 Chrysler PT Cruiser: 77

Not too shabby!

There's nothing like finding a 1932 Bugatti in the garage your dead uncle left you to pick up your day. Not to mention the E-type and the Aston.

This is most likely something my descendants will not have to worry about, as the cars I leave behind in my garage (hopefully) a long time from now will most likely be in boxes.

Ever wondered just wtf?!? is up with all these multi-dimensional theories? This might help. One of the exciting things about the Large Hadron Collider is, if they can keep it from exploding at any rate, that it will be able to reach energies which should allow us to prove, or disprove, at least some of these "multi-D" theories.

Or create a black hole that'll swallow us all. I forget.

All's I can say is, I sure am glad they're using dummies. Testing all the gear the Navy & Marines use to ensure it all works, using way cool explosives and sleds? Sign me up!

Never worry again about fried tootsies with this new air-conditioned beach. Bonus: project was announced in time with the opening of yet another loopy environmentalist conference. Let the press releases begin!

While they didn't actually prevent the boarding, these excerpts from a Somali pirate assault on a Chinese cargo ship show that at least some crews are not willing to go quietly. And a big thumbs-down to Malaysian helicopter gunners. If that were me, hey, I'm out to turn those pirate skiffs into flinders scattered across the ocean, not just chase them away. Poverty and piss poor government ain't no excuse for terrorizing the seas.

Reactionary? Me?

Ron gets a no-prize that looks like it should backfire but doesn't for bringing us the story of the very first land speed record. Said speed? 39.24 miles per hour. Which doesn't sound like much to modern ears, but considering the state of automotive engineering at the time (1898) and the average speed of a horse-drawn coach of the era, I'm sure it was plenty exciting for all involved.

Just watch.

You remember reading the reason why everything in the 50s seems to be shaped like a jet airplane because it was the technology? Yeah, I guess it's a little like that. I've never even bothered to find out how much one of those dratted things must cost.

Way to potentially p*ss off the in-laws, moms, grandmoms, and various other hovering relatives, #412: a Halo-themed wedding. Back when we got married, best they had was the PlayStation. A Gran Turismo theme would've been cool, but way beyond our budget.

On today's Price is Right: The Power of The Price Compels You. How Joshua missed that one I'll never know. Guess he's not a game show nut like me.

And yes, I am stuck at home, sick with some plague of some sort introduced either by child or work. Worst part: entertainment news TV. It's very discouraging to try and scream, "WHO THE F--- CARES!?!?" when each attempt triggers a coughing spell. Best part: Watching Price is Right on Tivo delay. No commercials!

This is the first time I've done this in years. Is Judge Judy even on any more? Want to know what my wife will be like in 30 years? Yeah, like that. Hopefully with a big beefy syndication deal thrown into the bargain!

Oh yeah, one other thing. Most disappointing: I stink at The Price is Right. Back when I was a kid, and spent hours pouring over Sears Wishbooks and watching dozens of different game shows during various vacations and breaks in the 70s, I was a freaking guided missile on Price. So far today I'm not even close.

Can you say, "sick and tired of being sick and tired?" I knew you could...

I must admit I can't think of a better way to recycle a deux chevaux. With video!

If I didn't already work for a charity, this one would certainly be a worthy cause. Oh heck, it still is. Save those tatas! Ron gets the coveted Evenrude no-prize for bringing us this truly worthy charity.

He... OMFG... he actually... liked something!!! Will this be enough to get me back onto Steam? Not at first, but (as I recall), if you buy the CD version the code you get is a "get out of jail free forever" card. We'll see...

It seems, after all this time, Microsoft is looking to leverage its Flight Simulator engine to cover, well, everything. Falcon 3.0 took a run at this sort of thing way back in the mid-90s, and the result went exactly nowhere. In fact, the resultant sim was so buggy it almost literally took a decade to get right.

Microsoft is of course a bit richer than your garden variety game developer, and this is after all more than ten years later. We'll see...

The US Missile Defense agency has released this video of Lockheed Martin's Multiple Kill Vehicle (MKV-L) during a recent hover test. It's a good thing it's meant to be used in (or near) space... watch how the cameras shake. It looks to be really loud.

I'll see your bayonet and raise you a chain saw. I'm pretty sure it'd be useless in a real fight, but it sure does look good. For the zombie hunter who has everything!

Mah Alfa lust, let me show you it.

Mah Alfa lust.

Thing is, these cars were hand-built out of a bunch of tube steel and some parts out of a bin. The blueprints are public domain. If they were as popular as Cobras, there'd be a cottage industry in S. Africa making them. With me as a customer.

Ah, well. This is the real deal. There's a reason they don't put the price where you can find it.

Me, I wanna see what Carfax says about it. I'm not completely sure it has a proper VIN. I know our 71 spider doesn't, and it was mass-produced.

After a 15-month overhaul period, the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle is underway again. Hopefully it won't get towed right back as it did so often before this latest re-work. That thing seemed to be puttering around on a hook more often than it ever sailed under it's own power.

Look out, Hajji! Israel's deploying new toyz:

The Israeli Army is already operating the Sentry-Tech pillbox towers, mounting remote controlled weapon stations from an operational command center
...
As suspected hostile targets are detected and within range of Sentry-Tech positions, the weapons are slewing toward the designated target. As multiple stations can be operated by a single operator, one or more units can be used to engage the target, following identification and verification by the commander.

The sad thing is, it'll probably require sending a brace or two of Palis to their erstwhile reward before they learn these things mean business. Of course, there's always underground...

I guess proof doesn't get any more concrete than seeing a 2008 Alfa on Ebay. Yours for (so far) $190,000. Whatabahgain!!!

I need to find a richer set of friends...

Mark gets a no-prize that actually can dance on the head of a pin for bringing us the story of Willard Wigan, a man who's entire life's work can fit inside the eyes of needles. Now that, friends, is patience.

The inelegantly named but always useful NR-1 nuclear research submarine is finally being retired. Taken down not by obsolescence or wear-and-tear, but rather by the same whimper that gets all unique and uniquely useful machines... a lack of spare parts. Right now she's scheduled for a bone yard. It would be nice to see her in a museum some day.

Fans of how movies get made, or those who want to drool at pictures of Robert Downey Jr. being pensive [*cough*]Ellen[*cough*] should like perusing Jeff Bridges' scrapbook of the making of Iron Man. And what a strange site he has, too!

Score one for Coke's marketing department:

Dr Pepper is making good on its promise of free soda now that the release of Guns N' Roses' "Chinese Democracy" is a reality. The soft-drink maker said in March that it would give a free soda to everyone in America if the album dropped in 2008. "Chinese Democracy," infamously delayed since recording began in 1994, goes on sale Sunday.
...
Beginning Sunday at 12:01 a.m., coupons for a free 20-ounce soda will be available for 24 hours on Dr Pepper's Web site. They'll be honored until Feb. 28.

Well, I thought Dr. Pepper was owned by Coke. Seems it's owned by Snapple. Did I dream that, or did they get sold at some point?

Ron gets a no-prize that still has all its fingers for bringing us this graphic (but not gross!) demonstration of the "SawStop", a very valuable safety option for table saws. I seem to recall hearing about these quite some time ago, but I'd never seen anyone with the guts to actually try it themselves. And, while I can't blame the guy, it looks more like he touched the side of the blade than the teeth. Meh, still pretty spectacular stuff. I certainly wouldn't want to use a table saw without one.

Sometimes it's lighting, sometimes it's the subject, and sometimes all that's required is the "right" angle. Ellen and I try to do this occasionally, but we can't quite get it all to line up.

Me, I like the one that doesn't look like it has a drain. I definitely don't want to know how much any of them might cost, if they're for sale at all.

Via Violins and Starships.

Honda: the good news is, it's run by engineers. The bad news is, it's run by engineers, although just how that's bad isn't explained in the article.

Alfa used to be like this, making lots of different models and coming up with all sorts of interesting solutions to all kinds of problems. Unfortunately the company was eventually destroyed when the government bureaucrats who ran it decided to use it as an instrument of social justice instead of a company with which to make and sell cars.

Mike P. gets a 1/72 scale no-prize for bringing us this anime visualization of a tortoise tank. If it were ours, it'd munch up a bunch of fuel and then hide in its hangar the rest of the day.

Ares: "German forces in Afghanistan have received over a million liters of alcoholic beverages this year, according to press reports."

Who knew?

Most of the time, when making the final cleanout of the grandparent's home, you find things you will treasure. Sometimes, though, you find something the whole country will appreciate:

Tony and Albert Fagler didn't know too much about Grandpa Albert, except that he did something with photography in the armed forces during World War II.

When Grandma Betty died in 2000, the boys had the task of cleaning out their grandparent's home in Englewood.

In the basement, they found an old cardboard drum, mostly full of junk and old pictures. They also found three sealed canisters of very old 16mm film.

Turns out the film, which had to be quite carefully digitized, was gun camera footage, scenes of ground combat aftermaths, and a color film of their grandparent's honeymoon. Sweet!

Exactly how a 200 hp 2L four banger is able to confidently pick off, well, everything on the track from Porsche to Ferrari to (no, really!) Chrysler I think perhaps is more about the driver than the car. But it sure does make a sweet sound, eh?

The weapon in question is...

A "1970 GTA Stradale Replica". More pictures are here: http://bertonebilder.alfatreter.com/#home

The event is "onboard salzburgring sounds of speed 2008".

After an absence of nearly 15 years, Alfa Romeo is once again selling cars in the US. $200,000+ cars, mind you, so I'm not looking for one in my driveway any time soon. Well, unless Bill Gates or someone like that reads this thing, in which case, black seems a nice color!

Oh, and it's good to see Keith's Stradale ended up somewhere nice in the US.

Google has added ancient Rome to the list of cities which can be accessed via Google Earth. In spite of the company's "do it all, with magic" reputation, they did not in fact invent a time machine. Instead they worked with scholars and modelers to create a virtual version.

...this is a knife:

A Royal Navy warship has rescued a Danish vessel after it came under attack from Somali pirates.

HMS Cumberland and the Russian frigate Neustrashimy repelled the attempted raid in the Gulf of Aden on Tuesday.

Meh. I bet they were hoping to shoot the big gun this time.

Ron gets a weird hybrid no-prize with a mullet on for bringing us this strange yet strangely cool amalgam of some classic 90s sh-tbox cars. Question the motives? Sure? Admire the craftsmanship? Definitely.

So what does one do with all the bits that make up "big science" after big science has moved on? Well, this! Just about any complex machine can be turned into attractive sculpture*, and since these are much more complex than most...

I bet those are some of the most expensive garden sculptures in the world.

----
* C.f. Romeo, Alfa.

Congratulations to Alfa Romeo and its parent company FIAT for snagging the 2009 European Car of the Year award for the MiTo. This is quite different from the award Motor Trend gives out. Instead, this one is awarded by a consensus vote of European automotive journalists.

The latest in the rumor mill is that, if they ever come back, the MiTo will be sold alongside the Mini, using that marque's dealer network. We'll see...

Those "buried-in-the-back-yard" nuclear power plants we talked about a few years ago seem to be coming along nicely. Even as gas prices fall, it's just possible the oil bubble stuck around long enough to get these alternative energy sources past their R&D financing hump, making them much more likely to be put into production. Like I've said before, anything that gets Hajji and his oil-rich financiers closer to a bread line is fine by me.

Alfa 169, anyone? Even if they did manage to bring them over here, I doubt I'd be able to afford it. But it's fun to dream!

Some of the facts read like they're from the "pulling numbers out of my rear end" dept., but they're still fun to think about.

Mark gets a fun, fact-filled no-prize for bringing us this quick ditty not only about how far we've come, but how much farther we're going to go.

Ron gets a no-prize he can holster a gun in for bringing us The Box of Truth, a science-driven site dedicated to investigating just about every question anyone's ever thought of about firearms. It's a good thing!

Televisions capable of showing 3D images without requiring the viewer to wear special glasses are on the way. If the article is accurate, the effect works but has limitations. Additionally, as with all new electronic tech the first generation is expensive, with the bigger sets scheduled to start at ~$15,000.

Mark gets a no-prize that'll squawk at the touch of a button for bringing us this video of a penguin doing whatever it takes to avoid becoming a whale snack. And boy, you can really tell those whales aren't happy about it one damned bit.

Forget Tacitus, Suetonius, or either of the Plinys. If you really want to know what the average Roman was like, just look at their graffiti. Turns out they weren't all that much different from us after all.

Sic 'em girl! Sic 'em!

I do have to admit, Bill Burton and Megyn Kelly are very good at their jobs. Watch the jujitsu-like way he bypasses Kelly's questions and hammers home his talking points. Then watch Kelly simply not let him off the hook. Masterful performances, masterful!

And yes, I know it's Fox. No wonder most of you seem to hate them so much... I'd never seen such a clear example of a right-leaning press corps using standard MSM tactics so effectively. It's only fun when you get to spray the water hose, eh?

Keep remembering folks... it's not "95% get a cut", it's "95% get checks", and something like 40% of that 95% don't pay any freaking taxes anyway. What an awsome idea!

And hey, Ellen, I guess I owe you a pizza or something... as you predicted, they're already defining down what constitutes "rich". I wouldn't want to be a small business owner if Obama manages to take the prize, because I bet they'll move what they define as "big" business downward even faster.

Fans of weird wildlife may find this list of 20 "very strange" endangered species of interest. I personally didn't know the anglerfish was considered endangered.

While this home-made amateur Bumblebee Autobot costume is impressive, IMO it's not how it looks when it stands still, it's how it moves that determines just how sophisticated the build is. Then again, as I recall from watching Robocop out-takes, a lot of "selling" this as a massive robot has to do with the way the actor inside the thing is moving around.

Why buy a Lamborghini Countach when you can just build one yourself?

There are a lot of classic cars which could be built up this way producing a car that is essentially identical to the original. This isn't one of them, but hey, everyone's gotta have a hobby, no?

Jeff gets a purple heart no-prize for bringing us news of the opening of a new military hospital for dogs wounded in war. The Walter Reed reference was worthy of a cringe, but otherwise this seems nifty enough. Here's to hoping it doesn't end up filled with $100 per shot rabies vaccines!

Just in time for the market's collapse, Fiat has announced they're moving Alfa's introduction to the US up to 2010. It's encouraging to finally see the deadline move closer than further away. I just hope there's a market for the cars when they get here, because this thing sure does look nice.

Update: Alfa, Porsche, and Audi are being wooed by the IRL. Turbocharged inline 4s may not sound like much, but that's what F-1 ran in the 80s and 90s. Those were, as I recall, 1.5 liter 4 cylinder engines with output estimated to be 1200 horsepower in qualifying trim.

I guess there are worse hobbies than teaching eagles to fly. Bonus: noble eagle birdy looks just like goofy green chicken parrot birdy when he climbs out of his travel cage.

Sarah Palin has confirmed she will be putting in an appearance on this Saturday's Saturday Night Live. Risky, but if it works it could pay off big time. Here's our onside kick, let's hope we're able to recover it and keep the momentum going.

C# Problem:

You have one generic list of type<T>. Each T in turn contains two generic lists of type<A> and type<B>. A and B implement interface I. A method exists which requires a generic list of type<I>. From the parent list of type<T>, how do you feed the method its required list of <I>?

(My) Solution:

List<I> il = new List<I>();
topList.Select(x => x.ListOfA).ToList().ForEach(x => x.ForEach(y=>il.Add((I)y)));
topList.Select(x => x.ListOfB).ToList().ForEach(x => x.ForEach(y=>il.Add((I)y)));
Result r = SomeMethod(il);

Bonus:

Is there a way to implement this by re-casting the objects in listofA and listofB to I without using a ForEach() call?

Can both lists be combined into one using a single line of code instead of two?

Is it necessary to instantiate il before proceeding?

The above code actually does work. It worked on the first try, even! And I am genuinely curious about the questions. S'my site, I'll talk about what I want! :)

Fans of monster trucks and all things military transport should find Navistar's latest and greatest of interest. The comments (one of which from our own regular DensityDuck) are also quite perceptive.

No, Ellen, you can't have one.

The Army is testing a "heavy fuel" engine which could end up powering a variety of different vehicles. I'd never heard of "opposed piston, opposed cylinder" engines before, but the concept certainly sounds interesting. The new proposal makes it sort of sound like lego engines... you just keep stacking more in until you get the power output you want.

Alternate title: sometimes you're the earthquake, sometimes you're the engineer. Boingy boingy boingy!

Making the rounds: a new kind of robot that assists the elderly and disabled getting around is now for rent in Japan. Bonus: the company's name is Cyberdyne. So if any elderly people are seen chasing after anyone named Conner, well, there you go.

Double the engines, double the fun? Seems to me it would be "double the engines, double the weight and expense," but wtf do I know?

Builds fitness, enables reenactment. Just don't get no better than that!

Just in time for election, science news is carrying the closest thing we can get to 1908 debates. What I think is remarkable is that these men have obvious accents which I simply can't place, because they don't exist anymore.

Allstate is examining if playing computer games makes you a safer driver. The thinking goes that older people who play computer games are kept mentally sharper than those who don't. It's still an experiment, but if it pans out the insurance company plans on offering special discounts to folks who complete an approved course of games.

See, mom? I told you playing video games would pay off some day!

Jesus pulled rabbits out of his hat!

*Really neat article.

Hey, if desktop video editing can't be used to put Star Wars objects in the skies of San Francisco... well, what good is it anyway?

I especially liked the "Death Star on the horizon" shots. I wonder if Olivia's great-great-grandchildren will be able to look up in the sky and see something man-made on that scale?

Bonus: Parrots!

Those of you curious as to just WTF kind of car it is we've bought should find this old Motorweek Illustrated segment of interest. Even if you don't, it's still a hoot to see the old 80s graphics, John Davis with hair, and note that MWI has been using the same test track for at least 20 years. Ours is black, but otherwise is identical to the car being tested.

And, while we can do this with ours, we won't.

Ellen.

Yves Rossy has become the first man to fly across the English Channel with a jetpack. I'm just as impressed that he engineered the thing to fold up enough to allow him to jump out an airplane, and then unfold and lock together in-flight. That is one neat piece of kit right there!

Mark gets a no-prize that breaks up into four pieces for bringing us this time lapse of a Boeing 720 being scrapped. It surprised me just how long it seemed to take them to get around to the engines. You'd think those would come off first of all.

Self-guiding para-sail with a 30,000 pound cargo capacity, anyone? If you drop it from a high enough altitude, it'll guide itself to a landing 15 miles away.

In other words, it would now seem possible for someone to deliver 15 tons of crap to your location in complete silence via a robot with a wingspan the size of a 747's. I LOVE THIS COUNTRY!!!

Ron gets a well-crafted no-prize for bringing us a most unique sort of engineering project. Building a super car out of wood? It's closer than you think!

Those wacky Japanese are at it again, this time offering personal airbags for the elderly. Meh, who am I to make fun? If they'd add a module that blew up around knees, I'd probably order three for a certain someone in my own life.

Hunters in the audience may find this article about a new sort of deer camouflage of interest. The hunters I know are a bunch of guys who go out hunting with other guys, and it's the one who brings home the biggest buck who's considered the coolest, not the one who looks the best. I think this stuff'll do well if it works as advertised.

A revolutionary new landing craft design is taking the world by storm. Anything that gets a soldier out of a vulnerable landing craft and onto a beach where they can shoot back is fine by me. Maneuverability is nice too!

An entire day's worth of broadcast in Latin? Ok. Includes a Latin rap tune? Well... maybe not so much.

Anybody know if they speak Latin much in Vatican City anymore?

NVIDIA is looking to change how you think about 3-D games. I suppose I'm one of the lucky people who've never been made motion sick by a shooter. Turning my monitor into a 3D window instead of a movie screen may just change that. It'll sure be fun to find out!

Jeff gets a no-prize with a hole in its roof just big enough to let God watch for bringing us news of yet another of Jerry Jones' clever marketing ploys. Ron'll probably pick up three sets.

Those wacky Finns are at it again, this time cooking up an Alfa-based 4x4 extreme off road vehicle. With a US V6 no less!

It would seem that, perhaps some day, everyone's network could be parked out on the ocean. Boy, that sure would make those remote "shutdown -h now" mistakes a pain to correct, eh?

Actually, I'm surprised it's taken this long for someone to gin up their very own landspeeder. Even though the article says it's a 1:1 copy, it looks a little small to me. Maybe I just never looked that closely at the original.

Fans of old buildings may find this pictorial exploration of an old abandoned brewery of interest. Remember folks, it costs money to tear something down, and nothing to leave it standing.

Then again, that building would seem to be chock-full of all sorts of useful bits, not to mention what I would suppose to be tons of Not Cheap copper. You'd think someone would've salvaged it by now.

I can barely imagine seeing one of those monstrous strip-mine dump trucks trundling around with a driver. It would seem that, pretty soon, they'll do it all by themselves. Those things are emphatically not cheap, so it remains to be seen how Caterpillar would warranty one to not drive itself off the edge of a pit. It would, however, make a for a really amusing video!

There's detailing a car, and then there's Detailing a Car. The closest I ever got to something like this was removing my car's bumpers to polish them. Heck I only ever did that once.

Nothing else says "speed" in quite the same way as 40 mph+ runs downhill on a skateboard. Of course, nothing else would likely say "road rash" as crashing on a run like this, even though they didn't.

I wouldn't do it, but it sure was interesting to watch.

Reviews of the new MiTo continue to roll in. It's especially heartening to hear the automaker is deciding not to build Alfas in southern Italy any more. The marque's serious decline began with the government decision to use the automaker as a tool for social change instead of making cars. The result definitely confirmed the old saying, "If you want to send a message, use Western Union."

Personal dolphin-shaped watercraft, anyone? Seems to me the jumping would be fun, but not the landing.

Inkjet printer, meet the concrete jet printer. Does this mean that even illegal labor is now too expensive to build houses economically? Or, perhaps, construction demand is now so high worldwide there simply aren't enough skilled mason to go around?

Olivia would want to feed these to her plush dinosaur.

Olivia: "Daddy, what do t-rexes eat?"

Me: "I dunno, other dinosaurs I suppose."

Olivia: "No they don't! They eat guts!!!"

Me: "If you already knew the answer, what'd you ask me for?"

Olivia: "Silly daddy!"

Chicks...

Via I Speak of Dreams.

Coming soon to a hookup near you: hyper-speed internet access. Hollywood has been largely ignoring the Internet's piracy potential because, right now at least, it's problematic for users to download entire movies in a hi-def format. If this sort of speed ever becomes commercially available, that restriction will perforce be removed.

In other words, you only thought that whole RIAA vs. college kids thing was a giant fiasco. Hollywood's got a lot more money to throw around, and they're much less subtle about it.

Ron gets a no-prize that'll have to buy two plane tickets for bringing us a very large man firing a very tiny pistol. That'll be, "do you want fries with that, sir?" to you, bub.

I'm sure you'll all be shocked, shocked to know I occasionally cruise E-bay to see what Alfa spiders are going for at the moment. I'm not in the market for another one, but it's very helpful to know what the current market value is in case mine gets in an accident. Really!

At any rate, this morning I was browsing around and found this 71 spider.

It's a "nice" car, probably one of the very last around in this precise sort of condition. "Too nice to be a parts car, too rough to be cherry" cars start evaporating around the 20 year mark, typically ending up as parts, and occasionally ending up as cherry.

But what absolutely floored me was this:

The significance? Ours is 5022. It was the car just in front of ours on the assembly line, nearly forty years ago. And, after all this time, it not only has survived, "lives" in the same area as ours!

I tell ya, there have been some damned strange coincidences involving Alfas in my life lately. Hell this isn't even the first one.

Kismet I tell you. Fate, even.

Hey, field stripping and reassembling an AR-15 in less than 60 seconds is a pretty nifty accomplishment for an 11 year-old girl. Well, I think it is anyway. Everyone's gotta have a hobby!

The new Nikon D-90 is out, and boy does it look sweet. At $1200 for the full kit, it's not anything we'll be picking up soon, but that "SLR video camera" thing sure does sound interesting. Maybe next year?

I guess if you dive in exotic locations long enough, you're bound to see something really unique. Like, say, an albino whale shark. I don't know how many factors had to come together all in the right place at the right time to get those pictures. I'm just glad they did.

Bah. You can have your medals for gymnastics, diving, track-and-field, whatever. I've found a contest we can all participate in. 76 wpm on a QWERTY keyboard. I'll take it. I bet the super high scores are on Dvorak keyboards or something like them.

First plug-in car fridges, now plug-in car microwaves. It's getting to the point people are going to be able to tailgate party in one of those goofy little micro cars. Not as much fun as a gun-shaped barbecue, but it beats the heck out of eating cold food.

Fans of those neat "as it happens" camera shots at the Beijing Olympic diving contest may be interested to know how they get those shots. Once I saw the big tube I pretty much figured it out, but it turns out it was both simpler in general and more complex in detail than I'd imagined.

Mark gets a no-prize so ugly and slow you can't help but love it for letting us know France's iconic Citroen 2CV is turning 60 this year. Road and Track made endless fun of the car when I was in high school, and yet they still shed an editorial tear when the production line finally closed up.

The Navy's new soopa-ship is just about to be turned over to the service for trials. It was built by the well-known shipwrights at Lockheed Martin.

Yeah, I had to look at it twice too. This sort of partnership was mentioned briefly in the book Skunkworks, but the author said the Navy was so entrenched in "the Navy way" they were impossible to deal with. I guess anybody can get along if enough money is put on the table.

... smells like victory:

Boeing announced today the first ever test firing of a real-life ray gun that could become US special forces' way to carry out covert strikes with "plausible deniability."

Go for the news, stay for the description:

Precision engagement of a PID [Positively Identified] insurgent by a DEW [Directed Energy Weapon] will be a highly surgical and impressively violent event.

If it actually works as advertised, I imagine there will be more than a few of these mounted on a certain wall with a certain blue star painted on the side of it.

Sometimes the ball clears the wall, sometimes the wall grabs the ball. Proof positive that if you wait long enough, the weirdest plays can and will happen.

It seems Canon is bringing a fuel cell-based SLR to the market. If previous patterns are any indication, it won't be something mere mortals can afford, but after a few years? Who knows?

Annie gets a crystal-clear no-prize for bringing us news of further developments in "invisible cloaks". The example definitely doesn't make the subject disappear, but it's weird enough to certainly warrant further research.

Fans of big science should have some fun with this collection of pictures taken in and around the soon-to-be-activated Large Hadron Collider. I'm not sure science gets much bigger than the LHC.

New Scientist: "'We look like prats, but at least we're all prats together". On the one hand, I can see having a cellphone that can locate a person to within a foot or so a real safety boon. On the other, well, can see having a cellphone that can locate a person to within a foot or so a real safety hazard. Like any tool, I suppose it's all in the implementation.

However, I can't help but think of several lurid murder cases in the past which had the doomed victim calling police from, say, a locked trunk asking for help. With one of these things, they'll get it, and fast.

That's definitely going to leave a mark. JASSM: helping Hajji meet his 72 virgins for 13 years.

Or, if you prefer old school, JASSM means never having to say you're sorry.

Being a member of a rather insular fan base, I've long known several extremely rare Alfa prototypes have ended up in private hands through the company's curious habit of selling them to random used car dealers across the US. It's part of the charm of the marque! What I didn't know was lot-find BAT-9 had an even more interesting story attached to it. Money quote: "Kaberle had no idea he owned a handmade masterpiece. He just loved the car. He drove it to work at the popcorn stand."

It just don't get no better than that.

While I personally wouldn't go through it, reading about someone else's attempt to re-create "The Real Thing" was nevertheless a fun diversion. Me, I'm all about various adult-class beverages, but if home-brewing sounds interesting and a combination of health, religious, or other factors prevent the more common sort of brewing, I suppose one could do worse than re-creating Coca Cola for the f- of it. The article even includes the recipe!

A new company is offering 3-D printing services for affordable prices. At $50-$150 a shot, you too can have your very own, well, whatever the heck you want. Artist friend Damion will probably just sign over his paycheck once he finds out about it.

Mark gets a no-prize he'll have to get out of the tank with a net for bringing us news of a very particular kind of pedicure. Having tiny fish nibbling away bits of dead skin is something that's been around forever, but this is the first time I've heard of it available here in good ol' N. VA.

Mark gets a head-banging no-prize for introducing us to brother Cesare, who almost certainly is the only Capucin monk who fronts a heavy metal band. In Italian, no less. Really!

It's beer. On a steek. And in good ol' Alexandria VA no less. Sign me up!

Seems that Nintendo is improving the Wii controller's 3D tracking. Hyper-accurate aiming is a must for any sort of action game (well, that I play anyway), and I did notice the Wii lacking this the few times I've played one. And to think a few years ago everyone was writing Nintendo off the console map...

Ron gets a no-prize that can star in its own Sea World show for bringing us news of the development of a new sort of wind turbine based on, of all things, a hump backed whale fin. By modeling the bumps which appear on that whale's fin, scientists found they could increase the efficiency, reduce the noise, and increase the power of a wind turbine without risking potentially destructive stall-induced vibration. Ain't nature grand?

Catholics and other pope-watchers should find this brief list of "Papal trivia" of interest. I'm not sure what I'd make of it if I saw Benedict with those iPod buds in his ears. Who knew?

Where untold government regulations have failed, incentive succeeds:

Skyrocketing costs of scrap metal have created a silver — or should we say steel — lining to economic and environmental woes. Collecting scrap not only brings in extra money, but also encourages citizens to clean up unsightly refuse.

Stick that in your "stupid plebes will always be polluting monsters so we have to get the government to force them to clean up after themselves" pipe and smoke it!

I've never been a fan of recycling because, if it really did cost less to recycle something, someone would pay me to recycle. It doesn't, so nobody does.

Joshua gets an explosive no-prize for bringing us a look at what 3.2 million fireworks going off looks like. I don't want to know how long it took to fuze all that together.

Look at it this way... You never have to worry about garbage building up underneath your balcony.

I found the one with the abandoned waterslide especially poignant, I guess because Olivia and I spent many fun hours at various (indoor!) water parks around here last winter, and seeing one abandoned made me realize I won't always be able to do that.

Via Violins and Starships.

All I ever found was a couple of rocks and some bits of cast iron. This guy went digging around in his back yard and found an entire abandoned Nazi bunker. I haven't gone through the whole site yet, but it looks as if the man may very well have stumbled on a right nice treasure in his own yard.

In a kind of reverse geocache, scientists have come up with a way to quickly locate an earthquake by tracking the locations of IP addresses on a major earthquake watch site. It even seems to provide at least some information on areas that got hit so bad they don't have electricity or internet access.

Who would've thought that would be possible back in 1996?

It's taken a helluva long time to complete, but it seems a massive archive of WWII Nazi documents is finally being mined for information. From the article:

The gray metal shelves and cabinets contain 16 miles (25 kilometers) of transport lists, camp registries, medical records, forced labor files and death certificates of some 17.5 million people subjected to Nazi persecutions.

It'll take lifetimes to pry out everything the archive can give, but it definitely seems like a project worth doing.

A Greek company has come out with a paint-on product that substantially reduces the IR signature of anything underneath. If the company's claims are to be believed, they've got another product that'll do the same for radar cross-sections. I wonder if it'd be any good at defeating laser speed guns?

I thought the pictures I glanced at today that had a waterfall pouring from the Brooklyn Bridge were photoshopped. I'm sure you will all be surprised that I was wrong. It happens so infrequently!

Bacteria-diesel seems to be on its way to becoming the darling of the science press. Now people are openly discussing introduction dates (2010 and 2011 seem to be the favorites). Here's to hoping the product lives up to the hype.

Abstracting the federal budget into a poster definitely sounds like a neat idea to me, I just wish they made their example a bit larger. Then again, considering they're out to sell the things, maybe it's for the best. A poster you can stare at for hours, that gets refreshed once a year. Not too shabby!

Annie gets a no-prize Ellen can't have for bringing us this top 10 list of new species discovered this year. Fans of Terry Pratchett's The Last Continent will be little surprised to find out most of the new Australian species found are viciously venomous.

It's not (necessarily) the cereals in this retrospective of kid's cereals that's fun for me. It's the toys. I swear, I remember just about every single one. Even (especially!) the Nautilus. You had to put weird pills in it to make it work!

155mm Howitzers. Deadly, and cool. Seems to me the trick is not pulling the trigger, the trick is keeping the camera shake down. But WTF do I know?

Ron gets a beautiful yet obscure no-prize for bringing us news that what is widely considered one of the most beautiful sports cars from the 1950s is available again in sophisticated kit form.

Which, of course, you've never heard of. Because you're a philistine with totally screwed up priorities.

Damion gets a no-prize he can captain a starship with for bringing us the absolutely ultimate in gaming workstation setups. I particularly like the clamshell adjustment. Hey, you think if I stuck a cat sticker somewhere on it???

Ron gets the coveted Mountain Goat No-Prize for bringing us news of the ELSORV, the army's for real off road vehicle. Considering the Humvee's reputation for best-of-class off roading, I can only think this thing must be able to climb trees or something. Just how nasty are those freaking Afghan mountains?!?

Leave it to BMW to come up with a car who's body hearkens back to the days of SPADS, Camels, and Triplanes. Will we ever see anything even remotely like this on a production car? Oh hell who knows? I just like the whole concept of a morphing car!

Anti-submarine aircraft get away with being fat, slow, and clumsy because their prey can't shoot back. Leave it to the Germans to come up with what would appear to be the first workable solution to that problem. Having a missile pop out of the water and head straight for you while you're in a hover 50 feet off the water holding up 1000 feet of cable and a dipped sonar would seem a pretty good way to increase the ol' pucker factor, donchaknow?

Looks like Alfa's Mini-killer, the MiTo (mee-too), will be heading our way for 2010. The rumored price target seems to be in the mid-20s, which, if true, makes it a darned tempting idea for me. The Cruiser's getting a little long in the tooth as a daily commuter, and since Ellen's been looking at Minis for awhile, well, maybe this will be a much nicer storm than we had yesterday, sort of thing. :)

This month marks the Intel x86 architecture's 30th birthday. What started out in 1978 with the 8086 has, with time, money, and innovation, ended up the de-facto standard for desktop computing. Considering the radically different environment at the time, it's remarkable the instruction set has survived. The article goes into at least some of the reasons why.

Problem: In public-transit-friendly Germany, seniors affected with Alzheimer's can end up half way across the country before anyone knows they're gone.

Solution: Decoys.

This probably wouldn't work well in the US, because our public transit systems aren't as strong or extensive. But it is a thought.

Mark gets a no-prize Renaissance Italian scientists will want to use to drop various objects from for bringing us news that the leaning tower of Pisa has been stabilized. For now, at any rate, and for the next 300 years, according to the engineers in charge.

Which is all well and good, but to me the lesser-known leaning towers of Bologna are much more interesting. Statics: there's a reason why it's a required course for engineers, ya know?

What with the Northeast's reputation for meddlesome property activism, I'm rather surprised this guy's neighbors didn't object more strenuously to his building a castle on his property. Here in good ol' Northern VA, our anti-development professionals would by now have tied him down with six or seven lawsuits, complete with dramatic "granny showing up with a noose around her neck and her mouth taped shut" appearances at zoning board meetings.

Well, actually, probably not. Like most rich American communities, it's not ostentatious construction by a like-minded (and usually, but not always) like-raced fellow gentry owner that is treated so dramatically here in NVA. Rather, it's the housing for all the brown people who service said demesnes which undergo draconian scrutiny. We Must Not Have the Wrong People Moving Next Door to Our Mansion, that sort of thing.

Using freshly sampled material from ten Viking skeletons from around AD 1,000, from a non-Christian burial site on the Danish island of Funen, Dissing and colleagues showed that it is indeed possible to retrieve authentic DNA from ancient humans

How soft your fields / so green can whisper tales of gore / of how we calmed the tides of war / We are your overlords...

Consumer Reports has posted their first impressions of 'Wii fit'. In a nutshell: entry level fitness. Definitely better than nothing, but not particularly challenging if you're already reasonably athletic. They've even got video!

Annie gets an ancient no-prize for bringing us news that the Vatican has opened the largest pagan tomb found under St. Peter's for public tours. Recently restored, the second-century mausoleum is considered one of the best-preserved examples of stucco sculpture to survive antiquity.

Wearable motorcycle, anyone? And I thought the regular ones were deathtraps...

Finally, a contest worth winning:

Ask most people where the best beer in the world comes from, and they'll probably say Germany or England. More worldly folks might mention Belgium.

But ask a beer aficionado these days, and odds are you'll get an answer that might surprise you – the good old U.S.A.

Woot!

While this business report on Alfa's re-entry into the North American market is understandably biased toward Canada, a bit of reading-between-the-lines seems to indicate there's a very good likelihood of an Alfa plant being built in the US. I wonder if they'll need a .net software engineer with a 20 year history of involvement with their marque?

The folks over at Ares have dug up some reports on new widgets from DARPA being deployed in the field. I think the radar that lets people look through walls sounds the neatest. Robocop lives!

Another day, another English eccentric with a trebuchet. Joshua gets a no-prize he'll have to go way long to catch for bringing us UK goofiness at its best.

I'm just about certain I've seen this guy around, I just can't quite place where.

Slashdot link up news that after a painstaking recovery process, data from one of Columbia's hard drives was retrieved and used to complete a physics experiment performed on the doomed space ship. Considering what the thing looked like when the lab got it, it's amazing they found anything at all.

While I'm sure armchair historians will have a bit of fun with this colorful language map of Europe, I think it may emphasize the differences a bit too much. From my readings, the map shouldn't be this jigsaw puzzle of different colors. Instead, it should be more like a series of colored gels, overlapping each other around the edges in diffuse but notable bands.

Robert H. gets a really noisy no-prize for bringing us this video of the demolition of NASA's Launch Complex 40. It does sorta seem to fall over like a monstrous slinky, eh?

Were it me taking a voyage anywhere near the pirate-infested waters near Somalia, this would be a damned comforting thing to see. Just bring the bass boat a little closer, Hajji, I only want to spend one shell on you today.

Look, it definitely seems to me it would suck ass to have a volcano go off in your general vicinity. But man oh man, does it make for one hullva picture. Wait for the download, (I think) it's worth it.

Owners of Xbox 360s should be happy to hear Microsoft has finally come clean about supporting the victor of the hi-def wars. It definitely was just a matter of time, but it's nice to find out just what that time is.

Jeff gets a no-prize with a lightsaber hidden in it for bringing us yet another example of George Lucas's marketing brilliance. There's even a video!

The only problem I'd have is Olivia would adopt it and take it to school.

While essentially unfinished, this video segment does provide more detail on that algae process that produces biofuel. It still sounds extremely promising. If they can somehow hook up with that guy building those biofuel stills, it'll blow the lid off the whole system.

Something like this is inevitable as long as gas prices stay high in the US. As a nation, we're legendary for simply not tolerating it, and unlike the last time around the technology, incentives, and most importantly the free capital are available for someone... hell anyone... to come up with an alternative. So I'll make a prediction: barring any truly cataclysmic event*, $1 pump fuel by 2013 is not just possible, it's inevitable. Let's meet back here in five years and if I'm wrong, I'm buying.

Via Instapundit.

----
* Aliens landing, some hajji nutball finally lighting a nuke off in downtown DC, Jesus himself walking across the Hudson, dogs and cats sleeping together, that sort of thing.

The Navy's first radically new ship design in more than fifty years has finally reached the water. Let's hope the shake-down and development go more smoothly than the development and construction.

Journalism, being the penultimate "too much time on your hands" career, can sometimes generate the darnedest things. Like finding out what happens if a (pseudo) ten year-old boy sends notes to a variety of celebrities, both nefarious and otherwise. Surprisingly, I can provide some verification for the authenticity of the Clarence Thomas letter. There's a guy in our office who has a letter from Mr. Thomas on his wall, and it's composed in exactly the same way.

Turns out that I, too, am a Rocketing Rabbit. Well, I was once. When I'm sober, at least.

Reminds me a lot of that old WKRP in Cincinnati episode. Hmm? Oh get off my lawn... you either remember it, or you're too young to remember it.

Via Siflay.

Friend Damion sent us this board link to his new PC case-mod project. It's not quite done, but far enough along to see how it'll turn out: lots of detail, industrial-grade parts, and enough rivets, nuts, and bolts to screw together another Titanic. Way neat!

Looks like the army is getting ready to field some nifty toys:

The NLOS-M, which is technologically about three years behind the NLOS-C, is equally high-tech. It fires the same 120 mm projectiles as other large-caliber mortar launchers, but it does so with a fully automated, breech-loading system. Traditionally, guys had to stand up in an open vehicle, hold a 36-lb munition up until the “Fire” order was given, drop the munition and then get the hell out of the way. Obviously lots of opportunity for injury. In the case of the NLOS-M, mounted on the same chassis as the NLOS-C, soldiers sit protected in the vehicle and auto-launch the mortars using an advanced software system and touch-screen computers. The mortar is also an MRSI (multi-round, simultaneous-impact) system, with the capability to launch 16 rounds in the first minute and 8 rounds per minute thereafter. The first prototype of the NLOS-M will roll out in 2011 and be fielded in 2014.

MRSI is seriously cool. The computer calculates a bunch of different trajectories and then fires a sequence of shells. Each one follows a different ballistic track to ensure all the rounds land at the exact same time. Think of a shotgun, but with mortar shells instead of pellets.

P. J. O'Rourke got to spend 24 hours on U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt recently, which earned him a cover on the latest issue of Weekly Standard. He's come a long way from writing about the Mexican badlands for Car and Driver, eh?

Another team of researchers has announced another technique for producing biofuel from cellulose. This bunch is also promising $1/gallon production, if they can get the efficiency up. With the price of fuel so high, one would think they wouldn't need to boost efficiency too much for the process to be profitable.

This is, what, the second or third announcement of this sort we've seen in the past year? It may be a tough target, but if enough guns are shooting it's bound to get hit eventually. Anything that gets us closer to putting Achmed and his merry band of jihadists closer to a bread line is fine by me.

Pat gets a no-prize she can stick to her refrigerator door for bringing us this remarkable video of an elephant painting a portrait. According to Snopes, it's not quite as miraculous as it would at first seem. But then again, isn't everything?

Now this is an Alfa I could afford. If they'd only bring the dratted thing over, that is. Definitely nicer looking than a Mini!

It would appear military grade powered armor is much closer than ever before to becoming a reality. As noted in the article, the biggest problem is (and as far as I know always has been) a power supply with enough juice to make the device useful without weighing more than it can carry.

Scientists have created an innovative "omni-directional treadmill" which promises to allow people to actually walk the streets of ancient Pompeii. Ancient Pompeii as it existed before Vesuvius buried it like a cat in its box, that is. Coming to an amusement park near you!

Alfa appears to be on-course for a limited debut in the US market this summer. This article states Fiat is looking to build a factory "in North America." Previously the place mentioned most often was Mexico, so if true it would appear that a) the weak dollar is again working in our favor and b) Americans may end up "stealing jobs" from Mexicans. Everyone wins!

Half-scale Tiger tank replica, anyone? Now that's a paint ball tank if I ever did see one. Coming to a WWII reenactor near you!

Mai Cave.

Well, ok, not actually mai ahem... mine. Mine is a lot smaller and sparser, filled mostly with an old Italian sports car. But it is mine! :)

Annie gets a no-prize that'll double as a machine shop for bringing us these fine examples of manly fortresses.

Bigwig: “A naturalist is someone who is interested in and knows a lot about the natural world. An environmentalist is someone who hates people.”

I know lots of naturalists. By what I've seen and read, I'm not particularly interested in meeting environmentalists.

I dunno though... a remote that looks like an anime turtle and actually asks to learn tasks might just bring me closer to my inheritance if I were to give one to my mom. Olivia'd just want to take it upstairs and play with it in her room. Meh. Give me a giant black monolith with a zillion buttons, all the same size shape and color. Real men don't need assistance!

At least until their mothers need to watch TV while baby sitting.

Go Toshiba!

Via Violins and Starships.

I wonder if they had to pay them scale? Strapping cameras to elephants for safe, up-close candid shots is all well and good, but did they really tie that big thing to the poor beast's tusk? Those must be some pretty laid-back pachyderms!

Those who originally read this forty year-old account of what life would be like in 2008 would get a mixed bag from the reality. Big TVs, remote shopping, and a near-cashless economy are definitely found, but where's my 250 mph car? It always seems the coolest predictions are the ones least likely to come true.

Hey, Mr. Super-storm! Smile! You're on candid camera!

Fans of all things Apple Computer may find this in-depth article about how the company ticks today of interest. It would appear from the article not much has changed since I first read in the early 90s about how no-one at the Cupertino offices had the guts to get on an elevator alone with with Steve Jobs. It will be quite interesting to see what happens to the company when they finally carry him out the door, feet first of course.

No, really: a seeing eye horse. As in "don't cross the street woman or you'll get pasted. Ok go" seeing-eye assistance.

No, Ellen, you can't have one.

Tivo has released a new version of its desktop software. There's a whole lot of extra content Tivo provides that we don't use, mostly because it's agonizingly slow to load. "Spreading it out" to the PC may help solve the problem. Besides, loading content back and forth sounds like it might be handy.

The things single guys do with their spare time, I tell ya. Why Damion doesn't have one of these on his door I'll never know.

The remains of HMAS Sydney, a light cruiser who's loss in WWII represents the largest single loss-of-life incident in the history of the Australian navy, have been found. Sited more than a mile deep, it's not expected to become a target for scavengers, but the Australian government is already taking steps to protect the site. Pictures via remote vehicle are expected as early as Wednesday.

It would appear there's a little bit of good, and a little bit of bad, news about the upcoming Battlebots show. The good? No more wedge fights, and more destruction. The bad? We don't get to see it until maybe November.

A long-lost British destroyer was recently found during exercises in Norway. HMS Hunter was sunk by the Germans during the first Battle of Narvik in 1940.

Everyone's favorite straight-talking Brit is at it again, ranting oh-so-deliciously about Europe's infatuation with appeasing those who would destroy them. Even better were the comments from the "so-left-they-can't-even-turn-right-on-a-street" message board I picked it up from. The easiest way of judging the effectiveness of someone from the right is how shrill the left gets trying to counter them. This guy's got them shrieking like turkeys getting tossed in a wood chipper.

A nerve-tapping neck band has been developed which promises the ability to have seemingly telepathic chats. The main focus right now seems to be on voice-free cell phone calls, but there must be many more applications.

General Electric has demonstrated the world's first "roll-to-roll" OLED display manufacturing system. OLED is the technology which promises things like computer displays you can roll up and put in a tube.

Everyone's favorite robotic destructo-fest is coming back to TV. I spent many a late night watching these things go at each other after Ellen had rolled her eyes and gone to bed. It'll be interesting to see if Olivia thinks they're neat.

Mike J. gets a no-prize that'll help him search for Sarah Conner for bringing us the latest tech Israel is using to facilitate Hajji meeting up with his 72 virgins.

No, really, umbrellas in space:

The demand for high-speed, non-line-of-sight mobile communications - with the military tagging along behind the commercial market - has led to the "outing" of a fascinating set of technologies that were long confined to the world of black programs.
...
The challenge is to furl [a signal] antenna into the tight confines of a launch vehicle's payload fairing and have it open, with 100 per cent reliability, into exactly the right shape, and the video shows how it is done. These are large antennas - as the video notes, the most complex hoop-type structures are needed only when the antenna is more than 18 m (60 feet) in diameter. Harris' facilities can handle 30 m (100 foot) antennas.

I think it's always fun to hear about stuff nobody was ever supposed to hear about, even if it's decades after the fact.

Even though a lot of it is puerile, I still couldn't stop scrolling through picturesofwalls.com. At its best, there's definitely a zen-like quality of surprised contemplation. The street-level walls of Pompeii are covered with stuff just exactly like this, proving we really haven't changed all that damned much.

For whatever reason, I especially liked this one. And the jazz one. But you probably already knew that.

I still think like most things, the Earth looks prettiest at night. Be sure to scroll down and examine the captions to understand what all the different colors mean. And check out the two Koreas for an example of what an exclusive focus on "social justice" actually ends up achieving.

While perhaps not the coolest science toy ever, Phun certainly looks like an interesting sort of art/3D physics program. I'm pretty sure I'm not smart enough to play with it, though.

Sometimes "Top n" lists are lame, but not always, especially when they detail some of the most spectacular ancient cave art ever found. From reading books and seeing some documentaries, the ancient artists utilized the shapes of the cavern walls themselves to enhance their creations, giving them an even greater "presence" than you get from seeing them in pictures.

Not to mention the fact that, when they were composed, the artist was painting in near complete darkness, and likely couldn't see the entire composition at one time.

Another year, another TED conference with insanely cool technologies on view. This year, an early notice comes from slashdot about Microsoft's upcoming "world wide telescope", an internet-connected system which promises views of the universe which utilize all the latest and best telescope pictures available. Go for the cool video, stay (for a moment) to browse the "MICROSOFT BAD!!! OPEN SOURCE GOOD!!! BILL GATES DIF!!!" ranting in the comments. Sometimes folks (and corporations) just can't get a break.

For Sale: the ultimate in war souvenirs. Yours for only 100k euros. Whattabahgain!

Fits in purse, blows bad guys away. What's not to love? There's self defense, and then there's self defense.

Of course, in most places the second a cop found one of these on you it'd be a short trip to a jail cell and a damned long series of court cases to get it back. Yeah, it's wrong, but them's the breaks.

Mark gets a no prize that, if a cop asks him about it, he must reply "yes sir I do sir and I'm keeping my hands on this steering wheel until you tell me what to do" for bringing us the ultimate in fashionable self-defense.

Amber gets a six-million dollar no-prize for bringing us the story of the bionic turtle. The potential for cheesy 70s TV in-jokes alone is worth the price of admission.

Classic video game fans with a do-it-yourself bent should find Project MAME of interest. Back when the ROMs were a little easier to come by, I spent several weeks going through various classic video games with a joy known only to those who've had to cut a day short because of a lack of quarters. Having it all in a cabinet would be just that much better.

It appears that Viking women dressed rather differently before they converted to Christianity:

"It's easy to imagine that the Christian church had certain reservations about clothing that accentuated the breasts in this way and, what's more, exposed the under shift in front," Larsson said. "It's also possible that this clothing was associated with pre-Christian rituals and was therefore forbidden" once Christianity became established.

Of course, considering the climate, it may also be likely they gave it up because Sweden is frikkin cold! But that's just me.

What a difference 20 years of technology makes! People want to be prosperous via wealth. What markets provide is prosperity through discounts. It's taken almost all of history for people who understand the truth of the latter to beat into submission the former. The fact that people still praise Castro and take Democrats seriously shows how much still is to be done.

To avoid bar fouls, know the rules!

Mark gets a no-prize that will wobble into walls and apologize to potted plants for bringing us this oh-so-important list.

Alfa Romeo has unveiled the convertible version of its 8C supercar. I still can't have one, but they are awfully pretty to look at!

Lots of folks have sent us video of the recent satellite shoot-down, so no-prizes to all! Sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug.

Those who took the HD-DVD plunge may be interested to find out it's possible to convert an HD-DVD disk to Blu-Ray. Possible, but not simple and definitely not particularly cheep at the moment. Hopefully by the time this sort of thing becomes a real issue for people the prices of all the devices will have dropped.

The famous "Amber Room" from the Czar's palace in St. Petersburg may have been found. Then again, from the article it could be just as likely that a press release was found on a slow news day, and not much else. We'll see...

Every once in awhile, every photographer gets lucky. Some I'd seen before, most I hadn't.

Ron gets an enormous, obsolete no-prize for bringing us yet another guy trying to make money off an abandoned missile silo. If that doesn't count as beating swords into plowshares, I'm not sure what does.

Damion gets a no-prize that simply shouldn't exist for bringing us the Civette, a Honda Civic-Chevy Corvette hybrid.

No, really!

A microwave can melt a hole in a beer bottle. Who knew? And give that guy a blue ribbon for "nastiest microwave insides" while you're at it. Microwaving beer bottles is probably all I'd do with that one!

2' 9" bodybuilder, anybody? Hey, gotta earn a living somehow!

I, for one, welcome our new short disco-dancing overlords. I can remember when it was really amazing that Honda had created a walking robot. It was huge and moved very slowly. Now we've got dancing kiddie-sized robots. And yet I still have to badger my kid into getting me a beer. I think it's well past time to commercialize these products!

Please choose regular or super. You have fifteen seconds to comply. Yet another automotive innovation the ol' Spider will happily ignore.

Thomas Sowell's got a new one out! Those of you who want a clear, concise, and interesting summary of how economics really works should definitely consider it. Those who want to know where the F--- I get all these idiotic, wrong-headed ideas should most likely stay away. Disillusionment is, after all, something I try to avoid with people who mistake watching TV news for actual learning.

No, not you, the other one.

There, but for the grace of God and six million free bucks, go I:

While the KSS is technically an 8.8-channel audio system, it uses a lot more than eight speakers and eight subwoofers. Kipnis felt that a lone center speaker sounded a tad undernourished compared with the eight Snell THX Cinema & Music Reference towers, so he opted for three Snell LCR-2800 center-channel speakers. The original contingent of eight subs sounded "really good" but, unfortunately, didn't deliver the full earth-moving-under-your-feet effect he wanted. So, he wound up with 16 18-inch Snell subs! To balance the other frequency extreme, and for the ultimate in transient speed and transparency, the Snell speakers' treble has been augmented with MuRata ES103A super tweeters.

Meh. Gives me a goal on which to spend my child's inheritance.

An intrepid group of Chinese has set up a telescope on a high plateau in Antarctica. Advantages: unparalleled atmospheric stability, absolute darkness with no conceivable threat of urban light polution. Disadvantages: Dude, it's Antarctica! They had to shlep it all across the world's most inhospitable desert on sleds.

So raise a glass, and here's to hoping that damned frozen bit of optics discovers something amazing.

With blade lengths over 400 feet, I do not doubt the E-126 wind turbine is the largest in the world. I wonder how tall the tower itself is? I couldn't spot a citation.

Now if we can just convince ol' Teddy it won't ruin his fishing off the Vineyard...

NASA is working with the Discovery Channel to produce a miniseries. The hook? This time the footage will be in HD, which as far as I know is the first time said footage will be generally available in this format.

Well, they may never take the place of powder, but damn, railguns sure do look good when they're fired. Like Glenn, I got nothing on what seems to be some sort of plasma trail behind the round. Maybe at those speeds it just burns the air?

Via Instapundit.

Update: AvWeek watched it live.

Mike P. gets a digitized no-prize for bringing us this look at how digital movie wizards make their magic. It would seem that what once took weeks to shoot, involved dozens or even hundreds of extras, and cost millions of dollars can now be done by four guys in costumes in a day or two.

Oh, and do be sure to mute the sound. Nobody needs that much techno in the morning.

Ron gets a no-prize everyone will want for their next football party for bringing us this timely look at just how far NFL obsessions can go. Tastefulness: NOT YOURS.

Pioneer debuted two new technologies at this year's CES: an "infinite contrast" display, and an ultralight/ultrathin display. The former displays images with no idle luminance*, while the latter is, well, this.

At 9mm thick and 41 lbs, the second one sure does seem sexy. At this time no price or date for a production product, which usually means "expensive." Still, barring exceptional circumstances, we'll be in the market for a "ya, srsly" new TV around Christmas time. Maybe by then we'll know if one of these could be in our future?

----
* Imagine a TV image of a flower on a black table. Turn the lights off. On this display, all you'll then see is the flower.

Looks like F-1 is going to jump into hybrids in a big way. Considering the open way they're handling it, it may change F-1 from the esoteric exotica it's been lately to something it was in the past: a place to test high-performance equipment which could one day actually end up in a passenger car.

And what's not to love about a 450 hp 50 mpg Alfa Spider?