Bill Gates complains about Microsoft products in this week’s rant of the week.

It is common knowledge in the Ethereal Land that the Japanese have expensiveness tastes in toilets. But I never would have guessed that it was popular in Japan to play a catholic prayer while making potty noises.

From the Washington Post……

There is a hiccup, though, in this world-beating record. It happens inside the Japanese home, where energy use is surging. And nothing embodies the surge quite like the toilet — a plumbing fixture that has been reengineered here as an ultracomfy energy hog.

Japanese toilets can warm and wash one’s bottom, whisk away odors with built-in fans and play water noises that drown out potty sounds. They play relaxation music, too. “Ave Maria” is a favorite.

High-end toilets can also sense when someone enters or leaves the bathroom, raising or lowering their lids accordingly. Many models have a “learning mode,” which allows them to memorize the lavatory schedules of household members.

Dumb Flies Live Longer Than Clever Ones, Discovery News says. How many dumb flies plague your life?

I hadn’t realized that the Onion ran a network news channel. It’s so much easier to get than reading the Onion. I am not sure which one is the funniest. I’ll link to Iron Man trailer clip.

Wildly Popular ‘Iron Man’ Trailer To Be Adapted Into Full-Length Film

h/t Defense Tech

From the Smithsonian Magazine….

The stories and the record scores accumulated in a fast pile. Not only did this John Montague play great and goofy golf, he seemed able to outdrink, out-eat, out-arm wrestle the world. His appetites and abilities seemed almost superhuman. He routinely showed off his strength. Need to change a tire? No jack was necessary. Montague could simply hold the proper end of the car aloft while someone else attached the spare.

In a town of interesting characters, he moved rapidly toward the top of the list. He became someone to know.

As it turned out, John Montague turned out to be a thief from upstate NY. Follow the link to find out more.

Heard of a plague of grasshoppers? Well, there are enough birds (I’m assuming they’re starlings) in the sky in this video taken in California to be a plague of starlings. But what is even more intriguing is the sight they make when they fly around. It’s a huge number of birds making changing formations in the sky, swirling around and ballooning out making various elliptical shapes. There are many groups of them, and as they fly around it makes undulating black patterns as all the birds move to one spot or another.

For example, at one point, there are four sections of birds: a neatly-contained elliptical shape at the top, two smaller groups underneath, and a more scattered-apart group coming in from the bottom. The bottom group moves upward and forms a bulging “head”, compresses down into a dense mass and then puffs outward and dissipates. The top section of birds flies upward, condensing as it goes into a small black blob. Meanwhile one of the smaller, side-groups pushes a narrow arm into the other side group, which spreads out, swirls downward, thickens as it moves up, rushes forward and collides (or seems to; they’re really two distinct layers) with the small dark blob, which is so thick with birds it looks black. The group thins on one side as some birds go behind the dense blob, which seems to fall apart and collect again, undulating with the added birds; meanwhile on the other side, it swells out. That was only a few seconds worth; at another point there are even more groups. Anyway, you can go see for yourself!

Around the middle of the video they seem to disappear, but keep watching; they come back in an even more impressive display.

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