Using Your Head

I'm sure that many of you kidz have had the opportunity to inhale helium and hear your voice go up several pitches like Alvin the chipmunk. Sulfur hexafluoride is heavier than air: what do you think will happen to your voice if you inhale it? If helium eventually leaves your lungs because it can easily be breathed out, how will you get the SH₆ out? Hint: you have to use your head.

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What's that soul sucking sound? Ah, it's Black Friday.

Black Friday is the shopping day of the year here in the US where companies go from "being in the red" meaning that they are losing money to "being in the black". Typically retailers discount heavily, especially on consumer electronics, in a hope that in the post-Thanksgiving haze of stuffed tummies and dulled brains, that we pour the contents of our wallets out onto their counters in exchange for goods.

As Mr. Spanky is always on the prowl for the interesting and amusing, he came across this "coupon" that celebrates Black Friday.

The talented illustrator here is poking fun at our rampant materialism and reminds us that this obsession can never be satisfied and in the end becomes your owner. The picture of the cow is in reference to the golden calf created and then worshipped by the Israelites while Moses was up on the mountain getting the ten commandments from God (Exo 32:1).

It made the Spankster snort with suppressed laughter, much to his embarrassment, while riding the train home.

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Never Gonna Give You Up

The word acrostic comes from the Greek words "akros" or top and "stichos" or verse. It is comprised of a series of letters, words, or letters at the beginning of every sentence or line of text that form a hidden message. Acrostics are commonly used as mnemonics so that we can remember things. Surely you know ROYGBIV for the colors of the rainbow or the sentence All Cows Eat Grass which denote the space notes on the left hand of the piano?

An enterprising college student decided to hide the lyrics to Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" in his paper on computer networking. It took him five hours. His father was quoted as saying "If only he had spent as much effort on his chores..."

Does anyone know of any other funny acrostics? If so, post a comment in the blog.

Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna around or desert you...


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Giga Pudding

Some things defy description. Mr. Spanky is at a total loss, mumbling "gigapuddinggigapuddinggigapuddinggigapuddinggigapudding" over and over again.

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Is it just me or did anyone else find the horde of gigapudding gobblers sticking their germ ridden spoons over and over into its bucket-sized jiggling mass, ignoring basic hygiene, incredibly disturbing? I need to go rinse my mouth with bleach.

The Elements Song

The elements in the periodic table sung in Japanese. It's saccharin sweet!

This is an Easter Egg in the popular The Elements electronic book/application on the iPad which has now been translated to Japanese.

And here Mr Spanky thought that the elements were salt, sugar, fat, and caffeine. Go figure!

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Creepy Snake Robot

According to Wikipedia, Biomimcry or biomimetics is the examination of nature, its models, systems, processes, and elements to emulate or take inspiration from in order to solve human problems. The brainy students at MIT have created a robot that mimics the movement of a snake not only on the ground but also climbing a tree. It's vaguely unnerving to see a machine act like an animal as it falls outside of what we typically expect based on our experience of typical gears and wheels.

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Internet Breakfast in Your Car

It's amazing what they're putting into cars these days:

Here's a whole set of design questionable car doodads: link

The Lifestyles of the Rich and Liverliving

The Oatmeal is the type of comic that Mr. Spanky can really laugh at. Often with liquids streaming out his nostrils if he's drinking and reading it at the same time. It can be somewhat irreverent: consume with caution kidz. Today the Oatmeal brings us the lifestyle of the parasitic flatworm known as Dicrocoelium dendriticum which is depicted nattily in all its gruesome hilarity!

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Water Balloon Time Warp

A water balloon and a high speed camera. You can't get any more fun that this.

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Don't mess with Bambi's mother

Kidz,

I'm pretty sure that we'd all be curious if we saw a fawn. We might want to touch it. GO would want to take it home and keep it in his room under the bed for fun. This video demonstrates why you have to be on the lookout for Bambi's Mom.

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BP Oil Disaster

I'm pretty sure that most of you kidz have heard about the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. From wikipedia: On April 20, 2010, a semi-submersible exploratory offshore drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded after a blowout and sank two days later, killing eleven people and causing a massive oil spill threatening the coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, and Florida.

The actual well is almost a mile under water and spewing oil into the Caribbean at the rate of 12,000 - 100,000 barrels (500,000 - 4,200,000 US gallons) a day. This is the worst oil disaster to ever happen in the US. Although BP has been trying to stop the flow of oil since the blowout, they have had no success.

To get an idea of the size of that disaster, there is a site called IfItWasMyHome, that maps the spill onto different parts of the world in a mashup with Google Maps. I've mapped it onto Calgary, Toronto, and San Jose so that you can see just how big the spill really is.

The original spill can be found here. If this isn't a good reason to get us off of oil and onto more sustainable and environmentally friendly alternatives, I don't know what is.

Baby Sloths

Tremendous cuteness. Baby sloths at the Aviaros del Caribe sloth sanctuary in Costa Rica. The babies' mothers are typically are either run over or get electrocuted by powerlines.

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Meet the sloths from Amphibian Avenger on Vimeo.

A computer and a telephone went into a bar...

Quote from Bjarne Stroustrup, the creator of the C++ programming language for computers:

"I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone.

Feel the power: Saturn V liftoff

Boing Boing has recently posted a video that shows a Saturn V launch (the first 30 seconds) as a full HD slo mo 8 minute video along with a commentary. Nerdtastic!

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Apollo 11 Saturn V Launch (HD) Camera E-8 from Mark Gray on Vimeo.

Mother Nature Roars

It's not often that the output of a volcano can shut down the entire European airline system and cause governments to issue health warnings. The ash from Eyjafjallajokull in Iceland has drifted over Europe and has effectively made it impossible for planes to fly through the ash without clogging their engines. There are some eye popping photos of the eruption here.

Cicada Molt

From Wikipedia:

A cicada (pronounced /sɪˈkɑːdə/ or pronounced /sɪˈkeɪdə/) is an insect of the order Hemiptera, suborder Auchenorrhyncha, in the superfamily Cicadoidea, with large eyes wide apart on the head and usually transparent, well-veined wings. There are about 2,500 species of cicada around the world, and many remain unclassified.

Better yet, there is a time lapse photo of the cicada molting about half-way down the page that is pretty darn cool from a bug lover's perspective. Mrs. Spanky expressed her concern over my hemipteric musings as follows: "Yew daft man, by all that is gud in dis werld, yew be the biggest wastrel I hever laid me eyes on."

(M.A.Y. this link is especially for you. Click it, no really, click it!)
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Teddy Bear Invasion

Neat blending of real video and animation by Cyriak. Never ever be alone with a teddy bear.



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Why You Are Not As Awesome As A Dog

Just found this cute comic called the Dog House Diaries. Mr Spanky is seriously amused.

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Ecofont: Save Ink, One of the Most Expensive Liquids on the Planet

Did you know that printer ink is one of the most expensive liquids on the planet? It's about $500 a gallon, slightly more than champagne, nasal spray, and blood. Perfume is 5x as expensive and gasoline is about 40x cheaper. As his children print off glorious full color sheets on the home printer, Mr. Spanky's wallet is shrinking in concert.

Fortunately, the folks at Consumer Reports have lead the Spankster to Ecofont. Ecofont is to a regular font like swiss cheese is to cheddar. Is its nutty, sweet flavor is perfect with turkey and mayo on whole wheat? No! It has holes. The crafty engineers at Ecofont take every day fonts and punch holes in them. The holes are only visible close up--they tend to get partially filled as the surrounding ink seeps into them. The result, however, is less ink used! Although they have fonts for sale, they also have a free sans serif font, Spranq, for download. Now that's more in line with my budget!

Skeet for Big Boys

Skeet. The sport of shooting at clay "pigeons" that are hurled upward in such a way as to simulate the flight of a bird. The pigeon must be 4.25" in diameter, 1 1/8" in height, and weigh 3.5 oz. It is thrown at high speed from a "trap" and then the sportsman tries to shoot it with a shotgun. Much more humane that using real birds and much less messy than using frozen ones. Mr. Spanky has many great memories of Pappy Spanky taking him down to the creek for some skeet shooting. Most of the pigeons escaped into the waves unscathed. Mr. Spanky usually wound up with a tired arm (our trap was manually activated, that is, I had to throw the pigeon using a hand thrower) and a bruised shoulder (due to his tender skin being pummeled by the recoil of the shotgun).

Alert reader SO recently made me aware of the technological advances of the sport especially in those with access to military hardware. This is skeet for real men or women.

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Happy Palindrome Day!

Happy Palindrome Day, Phunkidz! When you look at today's date it reads as a palindrome, that is, something that reads both forward and backward the same way.

Can you tell me when the next palindrome day will be? First one to do so will receive 10 limited edition Phunkidz moo cards. You can give these to your friends and be the coolest kid on the block.

Simply comment on this post on the www.phunkidz.com site with your answer.

Christmas Tree and Rockets, Enough Said

Reduce, reuse, recycle. We're starting to live these words more every day. These two bright lads took their Christmas tree, re-used it as a rocket, and then recycled it. I am torn between giving them award for cleverness and their environmentally friendly approach to the holidays. Ok, they get Mr. Spanky's green award of 2010.

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