Rainbow Boys are leaving

We are going somewhere over the rainbow...

well actually Croatia, but we'll be back in ten days.

22 Annoying Things To Do On An Elevator

Yes, this is my first post in two weeks, but here are 22 Annoying Things To Do On An Elevator.

Map of countries with universal health care

EO censureert natuurfilms Attenborough

De Evangelische Omroep censureert uitzendingen waarin de evolutietheorie aan bod komt. Dat zegt evolutiebioloog Gerdien de Jong van de Universiteit Utrecht. Zij vergeleek uitzendingen van de BBC-serie Het Leven van Zoogdieren in Engeland, België en Nederland. In de Nederlandse versie van de EO was geknipt of sprak de Nederlandse stem een andere tekst in. Het gaat om passages waarin de maker van de serie, de wereldberoemde natuurfilmer David Attenborough, verwijst naar de evolutie of het feit dat het leven op aarde al miljoenen jaren oud is. De laatste aflevering, over de afstamming van de mens en de mensaap, werd zelfs helemaal niet uitgezonden en is ook niet opgenomen in de DVD-uitgave van de reeks. Uit onderzoek blijkt dat 61 procent van de EO-leden gelooft dat God de wereld in zes dagen heeft geschapen. Slechts 1 procent steunt de evolutieleer.

Drug Dosage Chart (Business Card)

I'm working on a drug dosage chart (in business card size :) ). I've never seen such a chart before, please let me know if you've seen one.

What drugs should I add? Other suggestions?

I plan to make a trip duration table on the backside of the card. Any other useful information that should be on the card/chart?

Border Fence Project

Vertebrate Evolution Tree

Tour de Energy

Ever wondered what the average(over a 5 hour stage) power of a Tour de France cyclist is? No? 1.2 kW heat and 0.5 kW mechanical. Energy expended in stairs climbed: 70,000 (source: Scientific American, July 2007)

Creationists should listen to the Pope!

It's no secret that the Catholic church doesn't deny science, but it's still blogworthy to quote some sensible words from the Pope. Pope Benedict XVI said the debate raging in some countries — particularly the United States and his native Germany — between creationism and evolution was an “absurdity,” saying that evolution can coexist with faith. “This clash is an absurdity because on one hand there is much scientific proof in favor of evolution, which appears as a reality that we must see and which enriches our understanding of life and being as such.” “This obedience to the voice of the Earth is more important for our future happiness ... than the desires of the moment. Our Earth is talking to us and we must listen to it and decipher its message if we want to survive,” he said.

Team sets solar cell record

Using a novel technology that adds multiple innovations to a very high-performance crystalline silicon solar cell platform, a consortium led by the University of Delaware has achieved a record-breaking combined solar cell efficiency of 42.8 percent from sunlight at standard terrestrial conditions. ... Barnett and Honsberg said that reaching the 42.8 percent mark is a significant advance in solar cell efficiency, particularly given the unique small and portable architecture being used by the consortium and the short time – 21 months – in which it was developed. Modern solar cell systems rely on the concentration of the sun's rays, a concept similar to youngsters using magnifying glasses to set scraps of paper on fire. Honsberg said the previous best of 40.7 percent efficiency was achieved with a high concentration device that requires sophisticated tracking optics and features a concentrating lens the size of a table and more than 30 centimeters, or about 1 foot, thick. The UD consortium's devices are potentially far thinner at less than 1 centimeter. "This is a major step toward our goal of 50 percent efficiency," Barnett said. "The percentage is a record under any circumstance, but it's particularly noteworthy because it's at low concentration, approximately 20 times magnification. The low profile and lack of moving parts translates into portability, which means these devices easily could go on a laptop computer or a rooftop." Honsberg said the advance of 2 percentage points is noteworthy in a field where gains of 0.2 percent are the norm and gains of 1 percent are seen as significant breakthroughs. More...

Solar power for the win! I hope they can manufacture it cheaply.

Solar System Moons in Google Earth

A Google Earth add-on containing 34 real scale 3D models of the largest natural satellites in the Solar System crammed around Google Earth.

34 Moons in Google Earth (4.5MB)

Why have I done this? Well, think of it as an interactive 3D size comparison chart, contrasting the size of the Earth with every moon greater than 100km diameter.

Pretty cool add-on. I also noticed that in the Google Earth standard layers you can enable a night time city lights view of the Earth under the NASA layers.

Chinese man undergoes surgery to remove facial tumour

HONG KONG (AP) - Chinese surgeons said Tuesday they successfully operated on a man with a massive 15 kilogram tumour that hung down from his face, obscuring his features and warping his backbone.

Huang's facial tumour became noticeable when he was four years old, the hospital said. It grew bigger and more quickly as he grew older, blocking his left eye, pushing his left ear to shoulder level, knocking out his teeth and deforming his backbone.

Huang is only four-feet-five-inches tall and had trouble speaking, hearing and eating before the surgery.

I can't believe this poor guy has had to live with this for so long. I hope he'll be able to live a relatively normal life again.

Fox News On The Netherlands

I love how they talk about many things that I hold dear about Europe in such a negative tone.

Mr Woo Robots

chinees farmer who makes robots.

La Cambe, "the forgotten".

During my holiday in Normandy I visited some sites of D-Day, most of them well known to all of us (at least I presume). Places like Omaha-Beach, Pointe du Hoc and Arromanches are all discussed before. Yet one place was new to me, La Cambe, a German cemetery.

I'll compare an American Cemetery (near La Cambe) with La Cambe just to explain the title of this post. I'm not implying that the people who took care of this cemetery back in 1947 didn't pay enough respect nor am I implying that there is any injustice. I'm only describing that there was also a huge tragedy going on on "the other side" of the battle, which hasn't been told for a long time.


The American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer is also a monument, 9387 graves and a "Garden of the Missing" stating the names of 1557 missing soldiers. Perfectly mowed grass and a curving red tarmac road surrounding the graveyard give it (imo) a typical American sub-urban vibe. Compete with chapel, visitors center and guides in all languages. The length of the graveyard including the monument is about 700 meters.


La Cambe on the other hand was a cemetery for both American and German soldiers until 1947 when all American soldiers were transported back to the United States and the German graves were fitted with actual stones. The whole cemetery is about 300 meters in length with only a entrance and a large hill in the middle.

Over 21.000 graves of German soldiers are at La Cambe, two soldiers per grave, most of them unknown soldiers or missing dates of birth/death. Those who did have this information told me that they where younger then us when they died. A plaque at the entrance stated that most of them "probably didn't choose neither the fight nor the cause".

Frozen Deer

Rinpa Eshidan

"Rinpa" is a word created by the founders of the group meaning "to bring people together, while "Eshidan" essentially means "art crew." The Rinpa Eshidan is a team of artists brought together by a common creative expression. Led by Noiz-Davi (Yoshiaki Kusunoki) and Daisuke Yamamoto, the group's main activities are performing in live painting events and creating videos of art in action. Instead of focusing on the finished project, we believe the process of creation itself is where art comes to life and our videos aim to engage our audience in that process.

More videos at their YouTube page...

Gordon Ramsay

Gordon ramsay is one of the biggest chefs in the world and the first one who owns 10 michilen stars. on differend restaurants ofc. with one 3 star michilen star restauran.

I watch his program sindce 10 years or something and first i watches it because his agrassion was fun. later i watched it because his incredible sense of quality. specially the program (kitchen nightmares) that he travels around the world to help restaurants that are almost going bankruptcy. He almost know to bring them back on the track within a month. Most of the time not even with hot cuisine but with just simplicity and an incredible sense of what the customer wanted. This program is even intresting if you don't give a fuck about food.

Anyway he mostly is know by his anger in the kitchen. and thats where this movie is about to bad its peeped :S

i put some other links with some recipe movies,

fast food: sticky chicken.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srPSYZGhL98

pork

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W-s-dLFcV8&mode=related&search=

Homer Simpson and the Cerne Abbas giant

Pagans have pledged to perform "rain magic" to wash away a cartoon character painted next to their famous fertility symbol - the Cerne Abbas giant.

A doughnut-brandishing Homer Simpson was painted next to the giant on the hill above Cerne Abbas, Dorset, to promote the new Simpsons film.

Many believe the ancient chalk outline of the naked, sexually aroused giant to be a symbol of ancient spirituality.

The painted Simpsons character has been painted with water-based biodegradable paint which will wash away as soon as it rains.
More...

Cerne Abbas giant @ wiki

After 7 years, $4.7 billion spent, and massive fumigation -- there is 27% more coca in Colombia

Ohhhh no, not another drug war post.... YES!

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Since 2000, under the banner of, "Plan Colombia," the American government has spent $4.7 billion fighting drugs and helping the Colombian military counter armed groups in the country. More than 900,000 hectares of coca, the base for cocaine, have consequently been fumigated or manually eradicated. Yet, according to the U.S. State Department, there is 27 percent more coca in Colombia today than at the onset of Plan Colombia. White House Drug Czar John Walters also recently admitted that the price of cocaine in the United States fell 11 percent from February 2005 to October 2006, with a gram now available in cities like New York and Los Angeles for $30 or less.

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The cocaine war in Colombia did a lot of damage though. Read more here.
Torrent: Plan Colombia - Cashing In on the Drug War Failure.

Rotating Girl Illusion

This girl rotates, clockwise or counterclockwise? It might be hard to believe at first, but your brain can see it both ways (like the Necker cube)... I had a hard time to see it, but you should try!

Here is the same image with a face on it turning counterclockwise to help you see it.

OMG teh internets have crashed!!!1!!1!one

My Future Home

I found my future home on my vacation in southern france last week.

It is build in 1860 and based on gothic architecture (I love castles). This "modern" castle has large windows, a large old library with science books and an observatory. It is currently owned by the France academie of sciences.

Its location is more than beautiful. It is located at 400 m from the edge of a cliff, on top of a hill, looking out over the Atlantic ocean. It is in the middle of an 1 square km nature reserve. Grassfields and untouched nature both cover half of the reserve.

Here are the pictures (All AutoStitched) I made of the Chateau and its surroundings:

A private beach, not that bad :)


Part of the garden.

The Fetishism Book, Chapter 8: Balloon Fetish

Reviving The Fetishism Book series on our blog...

Wiki Balloon fetish is a sexual fetish in which a person has an unusual fascination of, or pertaining to, balloons, which provides sexual arousal or stimulation. Many persons with this fetish casually refer to themselves as looners (from Ballooners). The fetish itself varies greatly from person to person, some people enjoy only the act of inflation itself or viewing members of their desired sex inflating balloons, while others enjoy the act of popping by various means, while yet others simply find stimulation in the color, clarity, smell, tactile sense, sound, and movement of the balloon itself. There are several known female balloon fetishists, however the vast majority is made up of men.

From Deviant Desires For many looners, the primary jolt of sexual arousal comes from the fear/ anticipation / shock of a balloon popping. Looners divide themselves up into occasionally contentious camps around the issue of "to pop or not to pop." Non-poppers sometimes say that they "just want to give the balloon a chance" whereas for poppers, if the balloon doesn't pop, neither do they. Poppers often have preferred popping methods. Some want to see popping by over-inflation, enjoying the buildup of tension and pressure in the balloon as it parallels their own physical arousal. Others prefer a more "wham-bang" approach, with multitudes of balloons exploding by pins, cigarettes and high heels. In the case of cigarettes and high heels, the looners are combining the balloon fetish with smoking and shoe fetishes respectively. In quite a few cases, balloon popping is imagined within the context of a dominance and submission scenario -- the looner might imagine him- or herself tied down and subjected to popping by a powerful, fearless partner.

Realising you fetish can be hard:

all the shirtdesigns

This is actually for Kamiel, but I figured you guys might wanna check them out as well Wiki Rens Annom Cybrbeast Pimp Wiggles Dekus EA

the current design of the shirt

I've photoshopped the current design on a shirt so you can get an idea of what we're trying to achieve here.



I've gone to YOUR-STYLE to see if they have the clothing we wanted (in a wide variety of colors). Blouses were a problem coz they didn't have all the colors and the blouses differ from design at some points.
The shirts have a similar problem. Most t-shirts they use to print their stuff on are those with the white body and colored sleeves.
They do have Polo's in every color imaginable, the rainbowboys 2.0 used the polo's coz it was the only thing they could find in all the colors of the rainbow.

So I'm suggesting we follow their lead and go with the polo's. (But then again, I like polo's and I know some of you don't.)

If You Drop It, Should You Eat It?: Scientists Weigh In on the 5-Second Rule

URBANA--High-school student Jillian Clarke investigated the scientific validity of the "5-second rule" during her apprenticeship in Hans Blaschek's University of Illinois lab this summer. You know the rule: If food falls to the floor and it's in contact with the floor for fewer than 5 seconds, it's safe to pick it up and eat it.

According to Clarke, a senior at the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences, the 5-second rule dates back to the time of Genghis Khan, who first determined how long it was safe for food to remain on a floor when dropped there. Khan had slightly lower standards, however; he specified 12 hours, more or less.

Among Clarke's findings:

• Seventy percent of women and 56 percent of men are familiar with the 5-second rule, and most use it to make decisions about tasty treats that slip through their fingers.
• University floors are remarkably clean from a microbial standpoint.
• Women are more likely than men to eat food that's been on the floor.
• Cookies and candy are much more likely to be picked up and eaten than cauliflower or broccoli.
• And, if you drop your food on a floor that does contain microorganisms, the food can be contaminated in 5 seconds or less. Continue reading...

This stunning piece of research even won an Ig Nobel prize!

Amount of porn you watch

Students Trade Bibles for Porn

SAN ANTONIO — A group of atheists at the University of Texas at San Antonio is putting a novel twist on the toys-for-guns programs run by many urban police departments. But instead of toys, they are handing out porn in exchange for bibles.

“We consider the bible to be a very negative force in the history of the world,” student Ryan Walker said. Walker is part of a student group that calls itself the Atheist Agenda.

Club members this week posted fliers promoting what they call the “Smut for Smut” campaign then set up a table in the student union to collect religious materials and pass out adult magazines such as Black Label and Playboy.

The group is not officially sanctioned by the university and has raised the ire of several religious organizations on campus. Continue reading...

Cueva de los Cristales, Mexico

The Naica Mine of Chihuahua, Mexico, is a working mine that is known for its extraordinary crystals. Naica is a lead, zinc and silver mine in which large voids have been found, containing crystals of selenite (gypsum) as large as 4 feet in diameter and 50 feet long. The chamber holding these crystals is known as the Crystal Cave of Giants, and is approximately 1000 feet down in the limestone host rock of the mine. The crystals were formed by hydrothermal fluids emanating from the magma chambers below. The cavern was discovered while the miners were drilling through the Naica fault, which they were worried would flood the mine. The Cave of Swords is another chamber in the Naica Mine, containing similar large crystals.
More...

Their future will be dependent on the fate of the mine.
At the moment, access is restricted to prevent damage to the soft crystals.
And humans can only get in the caves at all because of the continuous pumping operations that keep them clear of water.
If, when Naica's ores are no longer viable, the mine is closed and the pumping is stopped, then the caves will be submerged - and the crystals will start growing again.
"I've recommended to the mining company that they try to preserve them and I would like to see Unesco get involved," explained Professor Garcia-Ruiz.
More...

It was hard finding high quality pictures online but I've found a few.
More pictures: 1, 2, 3

Unexpected Crash

Our blog wouldn't be complete without this :)

TED: Journey into the Earth ... and beyond!

Another great TED talk. Bill Stone talks about his work as a deep cave and abyss explorer and about using cave exploration technology to explore Europa, the moon of Jupiter.

Change Blindness

A really interesting effect:

What's the Difference between Looking and Seeing?

A large fraction of traffic accidents are of the type "driver looked but failed to see". Here, drivers collide with pedestrians in plain view, with cars directly in front of them (the classic "rear-ender"), and even run into trains. (That's right -- run into trains, not the other way around.) In such cases, information from the world is entering the driver's eyes. But at some point along the way this information is lost, causing the driver to lose connection with reality. They are looking but they are not seeing. What's going on? Our findings indicate that the critical factor is attention: To see an object change, it is necessary to attend to it. To show this, we developed a flicker paradigm in which an original and a modified image continually alternate, one after the other, with a brief blank field between the two (see Figure 1 below). The onset of each blank field swamps the local motion signals caused by a change, short-circuiting the automatic system that normally draws attention to its location. Without automatic control, attention is controlled entirely by slower, higher-level mechanisms which search the scene, object by object, until attention lands upon the object that is changing. The change blindness induced under these conditions is a form of invisibility: it can become very difficult to see a change that is obvious once attended.

To see this effect for yourself, try out the following:

Examples that can be viewed or downloaded (as QuickTime movies)

Can you spot the differences? All the changes are quite big, but I had quite a hard time with some of them. Change blindness @ wiki

Wikipedian Protester

HBO Voyeur Project

The HBO Voyeur Project is a collection of multi-media stories that HBO has built around the theme of voyeurism.

See what people do when they think no one is Watching

is the tagline that they have used to describe the experience that starts in the streets of New York City, behind the countless windows that we pass everyday. It comes together in a silent film that will be projected on the side of a building, and extends to the HBO channel, HBO on Demand, and online at HBOVoyeur.com. There are also “artifacts” of the characters everywhere, pieces of story which have been sprinkled around the web and in the real world to heighten the experience for those who like to get involved. However it is experienced in whichever medium, the point of the HBO Voyeur Project is to get the viewer to confront the uncomfortable question: “Do You Like To Watch?”

Watch it here. In the main apartment building there is a button on the bottom so you can see into all rooms at once. You can also go to a city view where a couple of more detailed apartments can be seen.
Here is a blog about it.

It's quite fascinating.

And another cool interface

This might also have some nice applications for porn :)

Invisible Rope

Very original prank :)

Hans Rosling: New insights on poverty and life around the world

This is a continuation on the first post ever on the blog. Hans Rosling presents new insights on statistics and the ways to visualize them. The program he uses, Google Gapminder, has had considerable updates and is even more fun to play with. Dollar Street is also featured in the presentation.

Visualization of the inner workings of a cell

A company called xvivo has presented an innovative way to show the inner workings of a cell, a white blood cell in this case. The video here is more of a tech demo. An 8 minute video with explanation, which hard to understand if you're not a biology student, can be found here. It created quite a buzz a couple of months ago. The Wachowski brothers (Matrix) have even approached the company to see if they can use the technology for special effects in a remake of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". Wired article...

Real transformers

The lord of the rings and the starwars geeks get some concurrence for theire waiting line outfits!

Keith Olbermann's comment on commuting the sentence of Scooter Libby.

A spiteful and insightful comment on the Libby affair. Keith Olbermann uses quite a rich vocabulary so it may be a bit hard to understand. He also refers to Joe Wilson who has this to say about it.

I believe that the President is corrupt to the core, and his administration is corrupt from top to bottom. I think, in doing this, he has actively subverted the rule of law and the system of justice in our country, which has undergirded our democracy for 231 years. It's a disgrace. I believe that it casts a pall over him and his office and begs a question of what was the quid pro quo and whether or not he is now an active participant in an ongoing obstruction of justice in the cover up of the lies that they used to justify our invasion, conquest and occupation of Iraq in the first place. ...the special prosecutor in this case, representing the US government, said that Libby had blatantly and repeatedly lied, and as a consequence, sand had been thrown in the eyes of the umpire, by which he meant he was unable to get to the facts surrounding the underlying crime, the betrayal of the national security of our country. And Mr. Fitzgerald said that there remained a cloud over the Vice President and over his office. Now, with his sentence commuted, Mr. Libby now no longer has any incentive whatsoever to begin to tell the truth to the special prosecutor, to wipe that sand from the umpire’s eyes, and to either lift that cloud over the Vice President or let it rain on him. So this is much more than just a commutation of Mr. Libby's sentence. This is a cover-up of the Vice President's role in this matter and quite possibly the role of the President and/or some of his senior White House advisers.

Space Navigator

Another computer interface tool. I want one of those :)

Microsofts Multi Touch Surface

Video demo

This might become pretty big. I can see tons of cool applications for this.

Giuliani in Drag, Smooching Donald Trump

and again... I would guess this kind of behavior would tarnish his reputation as a republican presidential candidate.

Letter of the day

This I believe.org, by Penn Jillette

I believe that there is no God. I'm beyond atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy -- you can't prove a negative, so there's no work to do. You can't prove that there isn't an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word ''elephant'' includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire? Full essay here. Listen to the essay: -------------------------------------------------------------------- An interesting view on belief, by Penn Jillette

Man shoots at his lawyer

This is old, but I hadn't seen it yet, amazing.

Bush commutes sentence for Libby

President Bush commuted the sentence of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby on Monday, sparing him from a 2 1/2-year prison term that Bush said was excessive. "I respect the jury's verdict," Bush said in a statement. "But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison."

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"I don't believe my role is to replace the verdict of a jury with my own," - George W. Bush on why he signed death warrants for 152 inmates as governor of Texas.

Comparison of our Sun to the largest known Star

VY Canis Majoris (VY CMa) is a red hypergiant located in the constellation of Canis Major. This is the largest known star and one of the most luminous stars known. Roberta M. Humphreys (2006) estimates the radius of VY CMa is between 1800 and 2100 solar radii. If our sun were replaced with such a star, its surface could extend to the orbit of Saturn.

Click image for full resolution!

Dutch bicyclists

funny site about bikes in Amsterdam from a foreign perspective.