There is a google earth KMZ file that shows the space debris created after the 2007 Chinese test of their anti-satellite technology. Download the file in google earth and you can see the live positions of the thousands pieces of scrap floating in near-space.
[Click here to download the space debris file]
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Header photograph by jared
Story via Google Earth Blog
Ganstagrass is an amazing combination of gansta rap and bluegrass music. For the record I hate gangsta rap and have no particular love of 1920s country music, but together they are hypnotizing. This free CD download has really exploded across the Internet in the past week — and for good reason. The producer, Rench, also has other CDs that cross-breed old country music with modern styles — checkout out Elkhorn Riders and What We Do.
Suddenly I’m desperate for more modernized fiddle music. Any suggestions from the readers?
[Click here for ‘Gangstagrass’]
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Header photograph by johnny jet
Story via Reddit, Digg, Thoof, BoingBoing and just about everyone else on the ‘net.
Well this is the most claustrophobic thing I’ve ever seen: security camera footage of a man trapped in an elevator for 41 hours. What happened to the man afterward is also very sad:
The lawsuit he filed, for twenty-five million dollars, against the building’s management and the elevator-maintenance company, took four years. They settled for an amount that White is not allowed to disclose, but he will not contest that it was a low number, hardly six figures. He never learned why the elevator stopped; there was talk of a power dip, but nothing definite. Meanwhile, White no longer had his job, which he’d held for fifteen years, and lost all contact with his former colleagues. He lost his apartment, spent all his money, and searched, mostly in vain, for paying work. He is currently unemployed.
There’s lots of boring stuff in the article about the history of elevators, but skip though it to read the account of this man’s ordeal.
[Click here to see the video] (Note: I can’t get it to work in Firefox, but it plays fine in Safari)
[Click here to read the article]
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Header photograph by | spoon |
Story via boing boing
Japan is starting a manner squadron to shame people into being polite on the trains. From the article:
the spiraling decline of train-seat etiquette may be about to end with the arrival of an elite, fearless and impeccably polite “manners squadron” - to be unleashed on the Yokohama underground network in an attempt to avert a breakdown of the “Japanese way”.
The unit’s mission is simple: to patrol the length of the train and make sure that any seats - highly prized on Japan’s packed commuter lines - are vacated by the young and offered to those who need them.
the squadron will consist almost entirely of officers over the age of 60.
I quite like the idea of an army of old people giving hell to those young whippersnappers.
[Click here to read the article]
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Header photograph by kalandrakas