Sanka: because your old man beats you when he’s got the jitters.
Craigslist, the popular classifieds Web site, has blocked access to its “adult services” sect
The Big Bertha drum was named for the the Big Bertha Howitzer, a German cannon used in World War I, and its low rumble punctuates each University of Texas football game. Known as the “Sweetheart of the Longhorn Band,” it was originally commissioned by the University of Chicago in 1922.
C.G. Conn Ltd. built the drum from the largest animal hides they could find in the Chicago stockyards, and the completed drum was so huge that part of a wall had to be removed just to get it out of the factory. Used at the Chicago football games, Big Bertha also made a trip to New York at one point in 1938, just to play one note in a performance of Verdi’s Requiem directed by Toscanini in Carnegie Hall.
When Chicago’s football program was canceled, the giant bass drum was abandoned beneath the stadium. During the 1940s, scientist Enrico Fermi worked on the Manhattan Project in the stadium, creating the first nuclear chain reaction. The atomic bomb research left the big bass drum radioactive.
In 1955, a wealthy Texas oilman and UT alumnus bought the drum for $1, believing that Texas should have the biggest drum in the world (“everything is bigger in Texas,” after all). The oilman “strapped that sucker into a trailer” and drove it all the way back to Texas, where it was decontaminated and restored before being donated to the Longhorn band.
The EADS all-electric Cri-Cri made its official maiden flight on 2 September at Paris Le Bourget airport.
The four-engined aerobatic aircraft – jointly developed by EADS Innovation Works, Aero Composites Saintonge and the Green Cri-Cri Association – flew for 7min without a hiccup. “Take-off and climb were smooth, no vibrations could be felt, manoeuvrability was excellent and all systems performed well,” says EADS, adding that the aircraft will begin aerobatic manoeuvres after 5h of flight and 15 landings.
The single-seat Cri-Cri – based on the Colomban Cri-Cri homebuilt aircraft – uses composites to reduce weight and compensate for the extra mass of the lithium batteries.
It is powered by four brushless electric motors driving counter-rotating propellers. EADS says the Cri-Cri emits no carbon dioxide, will be able to cruise for 30min at 60kt (110km/h), perform 15min of aerobatics at speeds up to 135kt and climb at 980ft/mom (5.3m/s).
Who in their right mind wouldn’t want a Crystal Jellybean Skull for only six dollars? Get yours now in the Boing Boing Bazaar.
BuzzFeed created an ironic infographic that tells the truth about infographic spam based in information provided on reddit by an infographic spam whistleblower.
Security software maker Norton has hired rapper Snoop Dogg to be the face of a new contest that asks people to upload to “hackiswack.com” a 2 minute videos of themselves rapping about cybercrime. Winners get to hang out with the Snoop Dizzle, free tickets to his concert, and a new laptop preloaded with Norton Internet Security 2011. The partnership makes sense, as computer on Norton runs as fast as if you “smoke weed everyday.”
Seven videos have been uploaded so far, so you might even have a good chance of winning.
I guess Snoop hasn’t been putting his cashizzles in a Roth IRA, this celebrity endorsement marks a new desperate low for the once venerable rhymesmith.
Hackiswack
Snoop Dogg Joins the War on Cybercrime [SecurityWeek] (Thanks to Wayne!)
Salon’s got a blood-boiling interview with Aaron Kupchik, author of Homeroom Security: School Discipline in an Age of Fear, a close look at four very different US schools. Each school has a different demographic and different location, but the thing they all share is a set of zero-tolerance policies that turn them into Kafka-esque nightmares:
They started in the ’90s, and they were spurred by the federal government’s Safe and Drug Free Schools Act, which required schools to implement zero tolerance for certain things like weapons. What schools have done across the country in the last 15 years is to expand greatly what falls under zero-tolerance policies. So they extend to not just deadly weapons and drugs but sometimes fighting and prescription drugs and other types of substances. What they mean is that if you’re caught violating this broad rule, there’s no discussion and no elaboration of why you did this. No investigation. We just punish you with the one-size-fits-all punishment.We’re teaching kids what it means to be a citizen in our country. And what I fear we’re doing is teaching them that what it means to be an American is that you accept authority without question and that you have absolutely no rights to question punishment. It’s very Big Brother-ish in a way. Kids are being taught that you should expect to be drug tested if you want to participate in an organization, that walking past a police officer every day and being constantly under the gaze of a security camera is normal. And my concern is that these children are going to grow up and be less critical and thoughtful of these sorts of mechanisms. And so the types of political discussions we have now, like for example, whether or not wiretapping is OK, these might not happen in 10 years.
America’s real school-safety problem
Homeroom Security: School Discipline in an Age of Fear
(Thanks, Pete_Darby, via Submitterator!)
