Instructional Karate Chop Post

The Basic Chop

Where to chop

Examples:

I'm bringing gruntled back.

Some long-lost words remain in our language as pieces of other words. Take, for example, the word "ruthless." The old word "ruth", meaning roughly, "pity", has dropped out of the language entirely, but "ruthless" remains, its difference from "pitiless" somehow making it still a useful word.
"Unkempt" is another example of an orphaned piece of a word. The word "kempt", meaning "combed", has long since vanished.

"Dismay" is another interesting word. The "may" part of it comes from the Anglo-Saxon "maegen", (the "g" is pronounced as a "y") the word for strength in Old England. It is the same word that is used in the expression "with might and main." Later it was extended to mean "courage". The word "dismayed" meant "deprived of courage or resolution".

As in "maegen", the "g" before a high front vowel (like "i" or "e") was pronounced as a "y". Our word "if" was originally "gif", and you can still sometimes see it written that way in old manuscripts, but since the "y" sound at the beginning was almost silent, it got dropped off.

And are you gruntled yet? The "dis" of disgruntled is not the same as the "dis" of "dismayed." It means "completely", and so "gruntled," just as it sounds, is an old word that means "grumbling." Today, however, "gruntled" has found its way into dictionaries as a word in its own right. If you look at the origin, you will see that it gives "gruntled" as a back-formation from "disgruntled." People assumed that "disgruntled" was a negative and invented the word "gruntled." Similar back-formations add new words to the English dictionary every year. One of the most well-known as a back-formation is "edit, " which arose because the word "editor" sounds as if it should mean "one who edits."

I think I'm in love.

Three white whales in Tokyo (Japan) became famous for their ability to make bubbles.

It all started when one of the whale trainers was diving among the whales. A whale then copied everything the diver did and started to make bubbles. When the whale got rewarded for his “ability” he started to do bubbles every day.

Out of ten white whales in a big aquarium, only three learned how to do bubbles. They are now entertaining hundreds of visitors daily with their new “ability”.

How does it stay on??

TX54 is a disposable timepiece that is worn on the user’s thumbnail. While its translucency makes it blend seamlessly with the hand, a selection of text color options and a glow feature that activates on command make it easy to read.


Timex recently teamed up with Core77 and held a design competition called 2154: the future of time design. It was Timex’s way of celebrating 150 years of making watches. The runner up is a fascinating concept that’s not for nail biters.

Like nails on a…clock board…The TX54 would be worn on your thumbnail, and would remain clear except when you activate it. Then all you do is what you do now. Glance at the time. One thing though. Even those with large hands might find it difficult to read the time on their fingernail from say, half an arm’s length away. Pretty nifty though.

Stop Motion

Press play:

http://www.eatpes.com/western_spaghetti.html

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo." is a grammatically correct sentence used as an example of how homonyms and homophones can be used to create complicated constructs. It has been discussed in literature since 1972 when the sentence was used by William J. Rapaport, currently an associate professor at the University at Buffalo.[1] It was posted to Linguist List by Rapaport in 1992.[2] It was also featured in Steven Pinker's 1994 book The Language Instinct. Sentences of this type, although not in such a refined form, have been known for a long time. A classic example is the proverb "Don't trouble trouble until trouble troubles you".

The sentence is unpunctuated and uses three different readings of the word "buffalo". In order of their first use, these are

c. The city of Buffalo, New York (or any other place named "Buffalo"), which is used as an adjective in the sentence and is followed by the animal;
a. The animal buffalo, in the plural (equivalent to "buffaloes" or "buffalos"), in order to avoid articles (a noun);
v. The verb "buffalo" meaning to bully, confuse, deceive, or intimidate.
Marking each "buffalo" with its use as shown above gives

Buffaloc buffaloa Buffaloc buffaloa buffalov buffalov Buffaloc buffaloa.
Thus, the sentence when parsed reads as a description of the pecking order in the social hierarchy of buffaloes living in Buffalo:

[Those] (Buffalo buffalo) [whom] (Buffalo buffalo buffalo) buffalo (Buffalo buffalo).
[Those] buffalo(es) from Buffalo [that are intimidated by] buffalo(es) from Buffalo intimidate buffalo(es) from Buffalo.
Bison from Buffalo, New York, who are intimidated by other bison in their community also happen to intimidate other bison in their community.
It may be revealing to read the sentence replacing all instances of the animal buffalo with "people" and the verb buffalo with "intimidate". The sentence then reads

"Buffalo people [whom] Buffalo people intimidate [also happen to] intimidate Buffalo people."
Preserving the meaning more closely, substituting the synonym "bison" for "buffalo" (animal), "bully" for "buffalo" (verb) and leaving "Buffalo" to mean the city, yields

'Buffalo bison Buffalo bison bully bully Buffalo bison', or:
'Buffalo bison whom other Buffalo bison bully themselves bully Buffalo bison'.

It made me wonder ...

What would life be like if my legs were Mexican and my torso Irish? Probably awesome.

Get it girl!

Graffiti time lapse

random internet video but kinda cool...time lapse video of graffiti moving over buildings. it's aliiiiiiiiive!!!


MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

quantum physics explained by a cartoon superhero professor

so i remember doing this experiment in physics lab, but i don't remember it being explained like this. if they had explained it like this, then i might have paid better attention. or maybe they did explain it and i just wasn't paying attention. anyway, it was on digg, but i thought i should put it up anyway cause it's pretty cool and just weird to think about.

has anyone been to serbia?

Creatures thinking with their appendages. Now why does that sound familiar??

Octopuses given Rubik's Cubes to find out if they have a favourite tentacle

By A Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 9:33 AM on 07th July 2008

Marine experts have given 25 octopuses a Rubik's Cube each in a study aimed at easing their stress levels in captivity.









Scientists believe the intelligent sea creatures have a preferred arm out of eight that they use to feed and investigate with.

They are now testing this theory with a month-long observation project in which the octopuses will be given food and toys to play with.

Enlarge Experts have launched a study at sea life centres across Europe to find out if octopuses have a favourite tentacle

They will then record whether the creatures use a specific limb to pick up the object or if they are octidextrous.


It is hoped the results of the Sea Life Centre study will shed light on 'handiness' in the animal kingdom.


Claire Little, marine expert at the Sea Life Centre in Weymouth, Dorset, said the study could eventually help to reduce stress among octopuses.


She said: 'It will be very interesting to see the results.


'Uniquely, octopuses have more than half their nerves in their arms and have even been shown to partially think with their arms.


'We hope the study will help the overall well-being of octopuses. They are very susceptible to stress so if they do have a favourite side to be fed on, it could reduce risk to them."


The octopus research will take place in the 23 branches of the Sea Life Centre attractions Britain and Europe.

A diagram of an octopus will sit alongside the tanks with the arms on the right labelled R1, R2, R3 and R4 from front to back. The left arms will be numbered in the same way but with an L instead of an R.

Items such as a ball, a jam jar and lego bricks will be dropped into the water for the octopuses to play with.


Visitors will then be asked to note down which arm was closest to the object and which arm picked it up.


If the octopus uses several arms, they must write them all down but in the order they touched it.


Staff at the centre will also do the same during feeding time.


Miss Little said: 'Visitors will be handed a form asking them to participate in our study.


'We will add the results to all of the data that has already been collected about octopuses. It will also help towards solving the mystery of handiness in the animal kingdom.'

The results will be analysed by Sea Life Centre biologists and the results will be announced in the autumn.

While we're on the subject . . .

...the daily battle for beauty is not only skin deep, but reaches farther down the intestines. Turns out, you’re pretty if your shit also smells pretty, hence the tremendous success of this shit-prettifying product.

“…The Takano Yuri Beauty Clinic sells something called “Etiquette Up,” which proposes to make your insides beautiful. This is accomplished by taking their medicine, which promises to eliminate feces odor. One Tokyo body-aesthetic salon named Grace reportedly “made more than $ 840,000 over a three-year period by giving unauthorized ‘hydro colon cleansing.’ “

We realize it’s just one way of being beautiful inside and out (somebody smart who’s not writing for this blog said that human beauty depends simply on being in the pink of health), but it doesn’t stop us from conjuring wild naughty after-treatment scenarios with this “fecal cosmetic”: is it fair to assume that those who use it don’t really flush after taking a dump; maybe their crap is so beautiful it compels them to gaze at it and call it cute names, like “Little Dumpling.”

Just how much poo are we talking here?

Bacteria that eat waste & shit petrol








Silicon Valley is experimenting with bacteria that have been genetically altered to provide ‘renewable petroleum’.

“Ten years ago I could never have imagined I’d be doing this,” says Greg Pal, 33, a former software executive, as he squints into the late afternoon Californian sun. “I mean, this is essentially agriculture, right? But the people I talk to – especially the ones coming out of business school – this is the one hot area everyone wants to get into.”

He means bugs. To be more precise: the genetic alteration of bugs – very, very small ones – so that when they feed on agricultural waste such as woodchips or wheat straw, they do something extraordinary. They excrete crude oil.

Unbelievably, this is not science fiction. Mr Pal holds up a small beaker of bug excretion that could, theoretically, be poured into the tank of the giant Lexus SUV next to us. Not that Mr Pal is willing to risk it just yet. He gives it a month before the first vehicle is filled up on what he calls “renewable petroleum”. After that, he grins, “it’s a brave new world”.

Mr Pal is a senior director of LS9, one of several companies in or near Silicon Valley that have spurned traditional high-tech activities such as software and networking and embarked instead on an extraordinary race to make $140-a-barrel oil (£70) from Saudi Arabia obsolete. “All of us here – everyone in this company and in this industry, are aware of the urgency,” Mr Pal says.

What is most remarkable about what they are doing is that instead of trying to reengineer the global economy – as is required, for example, for the use of hydrogen fuel – they are trying to make a product that is interchangeable with oil. The company claims that this “Oil 2.0” will not only be renewable but also carbon negative – meaning that the carbon it emits will be less than that sucked from the atmosphere by the raw materials from which it is made.

LS9 has already convinced one oil industry veteran of its plan: Bob Walsh, 50, who now serves as the firm’s president after a 26-year career at Shell, most recently running European supply operations in London. “How many times in your life do you get the opportunity to grow a multi-billion-dollar company?” he asks. It is a bold statement from a man who works in a glorified cubicle in a San Francisco industrial estate for a company that describes itself as being “prerevenue”.

Inside LS9’s cluttered laboratory – funded by $20 million of start-up capital from investors including Vinod Khosla, the Indian-American entrepreneur who co-founded Sun Micro-systems – Mr Pal explains that LS9’s bugs are single-cell organisms, each a fraction of a billionth the size of an ant. They start out as industrial yeast or nonpathogenic strains of E. coli, but LS9 modifies them by custom-de-signing their DNA. “Five to seven years ago, that process would have taken months and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars,” he says. “Now it can take weeks and cost maybe $20,000.”

Because crude oil (which can be refined into other products, such as petroleum or jet fuel) is only a few molecular stages removed from the fatty acids normally excreted by yeast or E. coli during fermentation, it does not take much fiddling to get the desired result.

For fermentation to take place you need raw material, or feedstock, as it is known in the biofuels industry. Anything will do as long as it can be broken down into sugars, with the byproduct ideally burnt to produce electricity to run the plant.

The company is not interested in using corn as feedstock, given the much-publicised problems created by using food crops for fuel, such as the tortilla inflation that recently caused food riots in Mexico City. Instead, different types of agricultural waste will be used according to whatever makes sense for the local climate and economy: wheat straw in California, for example, or woodchips in the South.

Using genetically modified bugs for fermentation is essentially the same as using natural bacteria to produce ethanol, although the energy-intensive final process of distillation is virtually eliminated because the bugs excrete a substance that is almost pump-ready.

The closest that LS9 has come to mass production is a 1,000-litre fermenting machine, which looks like a large stainless-steel jar, next to a wardrobe-sized computer connected by a tangle of cables and tubes. It has not yet been plugged in. The machine produces the equivalent of one barrel a week and takes up 40 sq ft of floor space.

However, to substitute America’s weekly oil consumption of 143 million barrels, you would need a facility that covered about 205 square miles, an area roughly the size of Chicago.

That is the main problem: although LS9 can produce its bug fuel in laboratory beakers, it has no idea whether it will be able produce the same results on a nationwide or even global scale.

“Our plan is to have a demonstration-scale plant operational by 2010 and, in parallel, we’ll be working on the design and construction of a commercial-scale facility to open in 2011,” says Mr Pal, adding that if LS9 used Brazilian sugar cane as its feedstock, its fuel would probably cost about $50 a barrel.

Are Americans ready to be putting genetically modified bug excretion in their cars? “It’s not the same as with food,” Mr Pal says. “We’re putting these bacteria in a very isolated container: their entire universe is in that tank. When we’re done with them, they’re destroyed.”

Besides, he says, there is greater good being served. “I have two children, and climate change is something that they are going to face. The energy crisis is something that they are going to face. We have a collective responsibility to do this.”

Source: Timesonline. See also: Driving on Algue, Arnolds hybrid hummer, Green Blues.

Sweet.

'the wooden mirror' by daniel rozin
---







interactive artist daniel rozin works in a very particular artistic milieu, making mirrors from unreflective surfaces.
one of his creations, 'the wooden mirror' is a testament to his skill in this area. the mirror uses 830 square pieces
of wood which are hooked up to an equal number of small motors which move the wooden blocks according to a
built in camera. the camera picks up movement in light and somehow transfers the signal to the wood. the result
is an eerie representation of reality depicted in tiny wooden pixels. since building 'the wooden mirror' rozin has
experimented with a number of other materials.

http://www.smoothware.com/danny

Imagine how cool you'd look outside of water.

This is just what we've been waiting for. An underwater mask that doubles as a camera. Just what we needed to catch camera-shy fish unawares. And this isn't your average disposable snapper. The Liquid Image Underwater Digital Camera Mask is a five-megapixel digital camera with six megabytes of flash memory.