Archive for May 15th, 2009
A tree frog ripped apart by a lawnmower has been stitched back together after undergoing life-saving surgery in Australia.
The unfortunate amphibian was given emergency anaesthetic and operated on by doctors in the Northern Territory.
Full Article

May 15th, 2009
DUBLIN (AP) — When Dublin university student Shane Fitzgerald posted a poetic but phony quote on Wikipedia, he was testing how our globalized, increasingly Internet-dependent media was upholding accuracy and accountability in an age of instant news.
His report card: Wikipedia passed. Journalism flunked.
The sociology major’s obituary-friendly quote — which he added to the Wikipedia page of Maurice Jarre hours after the French composer’s death March 28 — flew straight on to dozens of U.S. blogs and newspaper Web sites in Britain, Australia and India. They used the fabricated material, Fitzgerald said, even though administrators at the free online encyclopedia twice caught the quote’s lack of attribution and removed it.
A full month went by and nobody noticed the editorial fraud. So Fitzgerald told several media outlets they’d swallowed his baloney whole.
Full Article
May 15th, 2009
A little investigating turned up the news that IMAX and some theaters have started marketing IMAX’s new digital theater projection system as an IMAX-branded experience, despite it being nothing like what most people think of when they hear the word IMAX. It’s difficult to see how that’s not a deceptive and unfair business practice by IMAX and AMC — especially when they’re charging an extra $5 for it.
Full TechDirt.com Article

May 15th, 2009

To give them full credit, I shouldn’t say that China’s National Space Administration ripped off a Star Trek logo. They actually ripped off two Star Trek logos.
Full InventorSpot.com Article
May 15th, 2009
We purchase refrigerators the way we fill them: out of necessity—to preserve the milk; to keep the greens from wilting. But from the right vantage point, an open fridge is the perfect staging grounds for a discussion of consumption. And if the aphorism holds true—if we really are what we eat—then refrigerators are like windows into our souls. It’s that sentiment that’s at the heart of Mark Menjivar’s inventive exploration of hunger, “You Are What You Eat,” for which he photographed the contents of strangers’ refrigerators. As you can see, whether it holds neatly ordered rows of labels-out condiments or zip-locked stacks of shot-and-gutted buck meat, there’s almost certainly a narrative to a fridge’s arrangement.
View the complete photoset at Good.is
There are a lot of Texas refrigerators in this collection, it’s easy to spot the Mrs Baird’s Bread bags. Oh, and the frozen snake is darn interesting.

May 15th, 2009
NYMag.com put together some interesting Saturday Night Live data.
For instance, Kristin Wiig appeared in the most sketches this year with 124 appearances, followed by Jason Sudeikis with 99.
It’s also broked down by average sketch appearances by episode, most frequently impersonated celebrities (Obama 9, McCain and Biden 7) and who made the most guest appearnaces (no surprise, Tina Fey and Justin Timberlake).
May 15th, 2009

The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence – an intense ratcheting up of one of the group’s longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police officers and firefighters.
“This is about being a true-blooded American guy and girl,” said A. J. Lowenthal, a sheriff’s deputy here in Imperial County, whose life clock, he says, is set around the Explorers events he helps run. “It fits right in with the honor and bravery of the Boy Scouts.”
The training, which leaders say is not intended to be applied outside the simulated Explorer setting, can involve chasing down illegal border crossers as well as more dangerous situations that include facing down terrorists and taking out “active shooters,” like those who bring gunfire and death to college campuses.
Full NY Times Article
May 15th, 2009

Toxel.com
May 15th, 2009