Everything isn't Under Control

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

@ 04:03 PM CST [Link]

Odder still was that he was wearing a makeshift doctor's uniform consisting of a stethoscope, a pager-like gadget and latex gloves stuffed in his back pocket.
But then things started getting really strange when they saw a dead deer, fully stretched out and wedged in the back. Some said there was an intravenous line attached to the animal and there was evidence a defibrillator had been used.

Also: "Piano Man" faked his amnesia for fame. Remember this guy? He just washed up on shore and drew little pictures of pianos.

Grassl eventually got a column in a local newspaper in which he dwelt scornfully on the instant fame of pop stars and reality TV contestants and said he would "so love to be a millionaire". He achieved a different kind of fame during four months of psychiatric treatment in Britain. He refused to speak, expressing himself only by drawing and playing pianos. The mystery prompted a hunt across Europe to identify him.

@ 01:59 PM CST [Link]

Congress Abandons WikiConstitution.

@ 01:35 PM CST [Link]

Reality Manga over at worth1k. Lots of good stuff here.

reality-manga (23k image)

@ 01:27 PM CST [Link]

Sunday, September 25, 2005

Pro-war bush supporters manage to raise 600 dollars for the war effort. Pathetic. Gotta love the hypocrisy of American conservatism.

@ 11:53 PM CST [Link]

Depressing Guardian fluff piece about being too old to be creative. I have to disagree with this. In my mind masterpieces are usually accomplished by the older crowd. The biggest exception is in pop-music which is largely youth oriented. Someone could easily have written the opposite using these examples:

Special Relativity. Einstein age 40.
Guarnica. Picasso age 50.
Crime and Punishment. Dostoevsky age 44.
Mona Lisa. Leonardo age 52.

etc

@ 11:51 PM CST [Link]

Keith Moon's birthday party or Car meets swimming pool. I'm usually blown away at how difficult it is to get out of a submerged automobile. The water shorts out the power windows and the pressure from the outside makes it almost impossible to swing the door open.

The woman was unable to figure out how to open the car windows to escape and was trapped in the sinking car. A resident of the complex had attempted to rescue the woman by breaking a window with a baseball bat, but was unsuccessful.
Redmond firefighters, who were the first on the scene, got on top of the car as it was sinking and broke out the sunroof and rear window with their fire axes and pulled the woman out through the sunroof.
Witnesses say the woman’s shrinking air pocket as about 8” when she was pulled to safety.

@ 11:38 PM CST [Link]

Flu shots really work. I've always assumed this, but there seemed to be some disagreement on their effectiveness because of how difficult it is to verify a flu related death. Sweden's social security system, which is tied to its healthcare system, allows for some better datamining.

But at a meeting in Malta last week Ake Ortqvist of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, reported that flu vaccination in Stockholm cut overall deaths among the elderly during the flu season by 15 to 20 per cent.
"We could measure this because of Sweden's unique social security system, in which everyone has a number," he told New Scientist. All people over 65 in Stockholm county - and not just those in nursing homes as in other studies - could be followed meticulously, and differences in illness and death rates between vaccinated and non-vaccinated people measured accurately.

@ 11:34 PM CST [Link]