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Category Archives: Fun
351 ft. Cliff Drop
Guy ski’s off a cliff on the wrong spot by accident and sets the world record for a cliff drop. After they dig him out of the snow, Ski’s away. Doctor’s evaluation: You mildly damaged your liver. Take it easy for a few days.
Fred Syversen 107 Meters Cliff Drop
Speaking of drops, I bet this guys heart was in his throat as he broke this record (watch for the ending):
Robbie Madison’s Amazing Record Jump – Watch more Sports Videos
Best Off Hand Slam Of The Week
Not a regular feature but perhaps it should be. From In The Pipeline…
One of my favorite parts of the paper is the mention (found in much of the recent high-energy materials literature) that high-nitrogen compounds are worth investigated as “green” explosives, which makes me think that the whole environmental-rationale business must be reaching its end points. The notion of a more environmentally friendly way to blow things up aside, I have to salute the paper’s authors.
You have to read the whole post to really get why that is so funny. Somebody was really reaching to come up with a worthwhile justification for some really dangerous stuff.
For All The Fans Of Pearls Before Swine
Alarming surveys have come in that indicate that most people failed to get the reference in the latest Pearls Before Swine Comic strip.
So here is the reference….
Apologies to those who don’t follow Pearls Before Swine.
You Can't Make This Up
From the Telegraph….
“You can’t make this up” is a catch phrase of Inspector Gadget. I faithfully follow his blog and I read various British publications and I have gotten kind of use tales of total absurdity coming out of the United Kingdom. But every now and again, I come a crossed a story that still shocks me. This is one of them.
Figures released by the Conservatives show that 2,196 foreign offenders have been invited to take part in the early release scheme, called End of Custody Licence, since its introduction 15 months ago in response to prison overcrowding.
As well as walking free having served less than half of their sentence, each released prisoner is entitled to around £7 a day in compensation to make up for missing out on the state-provided food and lodging they would have received had they remained in jail.
Offenders released on End of Custody Licence receive an initial discharge payment of £46, followed by the subsistence allowance of £47.12 a week, up to a cap of £168.24.
If all those eligible received the full allowance, the taxpayer would by now have paid out £369,455 in compensation to foreign prisoners who had been released early.
Dumb
The city’s approach means crews clear the roads enough for all-wheel and four-wheel-drive vehicles, or those with front-wheel drive cars as long as they are using chains, Wiggins said.
The icy streets are the result of Seattle’s refusal to use salt, an effective ice-buster used by the state Department of Transportation and cities accustomed to dealing with heavy winter snows.
From later on in the article….
Seattle also equips its plows with rubber-edged blades. That minimizes the damage to roads and manhole covers, but it doesn’t scrape off the ice, Wiggins said.
That leaves many drivers, including Seattle police, pretty much on their own until nature does to the snow what the sand can’t: melt it.
The city’s patrol cars are rear-wheel drive. And even with tire chains, officers are avoiding hills and responding on foot, according to a West Precinct officer.
I could almost understand this if the stated reason was to save money. Seattle does not get that much snow and everyone has to pinch pennies these days. But the stated reason for not using salt is the desire to protect the Puget Sound.
This does not make any sense to me. To best of my memory the Puget Sound is a body of salt water so what harm could a little salt do to it?
6 Camel Jump
World Record For a Downhill Bike Ride
Complete Calvin And Hobbes On the Net?
This seems to be the complete Calvin and Hobbes. But it does not come with a lot of description.
Almost Brilliantly Evil?
In short, swoopo is about as close to pure, distilled evil in a business plan as I’ve ever seen. They get paid for everything up front, and as they drop ship everything there’s no inventory or overhead to worry about. It is almost brilliantly evil, in a sort of evil genius way. You can’t stop people from endowment effect fueled bidding when they have the individual chance, however small it may be, to win a $2,000 television for $80 — while collectively sending the house $10,000 or more.
Read the whole post to get the details of what Swoopo does. I have to say that I don’t understand what this guy is getting on his high horse for. Does he call casinos evil and get all outrage by them?
I would not call these people honorable businessman out to provide a needed service. But there are a lot of companies out there there who rip people off in worse ways. At least these people are up front about how everything works.
Still, I share his sneaking admiration for their brazen upfront manipulation of human psychology for their own profit. But I don’t think they will make money for long. If they don’t get shut down under some obscure hypocritical law (How can any state that has a lottery prosecute these guys with a straight face?) they are going to face a whole bunch of competition from other people looking to do the same thing. That will drive down profit margins in a big way. Why pay 75 cents for a bid when some other site will let you do it for a nickel or less?
I also think that greed got the better of them when they started offering cash auctions. That is just asking to be shut down. They would have been better off sticking solely with auctions that gave you an actual product. At least then they would a have a little bit of a fig leaf to hide behind when they got accused of being a gambling site by some regulator.