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BUY'M CHEAP'N STACK'M DEEP, I ALWAYS SAY!!!!

What you guise got in your cybervirtual shopping carts?

I got a .22LR/WMR Rough Rider and a 12GA Mossberg 88 Field/Security Combo! HELLS YEAH! NOT EVEN ON SALE OR NOTHIN! BUT I"M WAIT"N!!! MY EYE IS ALL OVE RTHAT SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!@

Savage Arms got a rebates like a motherfucker from now till the end of November! Totally tempted to gets me an 6.5 Creedmoor something OR WHATEVER, WOOOO!!!!!!

Thinken bout goin all A-Team/McGuyyver/DUKES A HAZZERD and mixing me up some explosive crossbow bolts outta some Aguilla Shotshells and roofing nails! I LOVE IT WHEN A PLAN COMES TOGETHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I PITTY THE FOOL THAT TRY TO HUNTING SEASON THIS LIBRUL!!!!!! WHATEVER MURDOCH'S CATCHPHRASE WAS!!!!!!! YEEEEHAAAAAWWWW!!!!!












(also, jesus)

Film at eleven.

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr6054

"To amend title 18, United States Code, to provide penalty enhancements for committing certain offenses while in disguise, and for other purposes."

Punch a Nazi while wearing a hanky over your face, go to jail for no more than 15 years.

https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2018-02-26/georgia-senate-moves-to-punish-delta-for-cutting-ties-with-nra?src=usn_fb


Is this a new thing? I can't remember another example of a state or federal government entity openly imposing sanctions against a company because of their political activity. I mean, maybe they did it before and gave some bullshit reason, but never actually just coming right out and explicitly stating "We are punishing you because we don't like your political stance. Get your politics right or suffer the consequences!"

This seems like something that someone should go to prison over.

In local, regular non-anti-muslim news:

http://murfreesboro.com/news/murfreesboro-man-testifies-in-trial-about-x-ray-weapon-to-kill-president-muslims/

The story according to his own newspaper:

http://www.rutherfordreader.com/fullpaper.asp

Long story short. A guy from New York sends him an email wanting to meet him to discuss a "discreet and powerful solution to the third world invasion you are being forced to endure." Turns out he was looking for financial backers to build an X-ray based weapon to kill Obama and Muslims.

Doughtie, being the paranoid asshole that he is, decides the guy is just trying to set him up for a terrorism conspiracy charge, and promptly forgets what he hears, and ignores the guy when he tries to call him back instead of doing his civic duty, and reporting the incident like a good American. This by a guy who has encouraged his readers to report (to him) every little detail on activity by local Muslims, and went on and on about Muslim family members who own a local car dealership driving vehicles with dealer tags supposedly to avoid having to pay for regular tags like the rest of us good citizens.

But reporting on a white maintenance mechanic from New York who wants to build a radioactive energy weapon to murder the president and Muslims?

Nah, Brah.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/10/20/ordained-ministers-who-refuse-to-marry-gay-couples-in-their-chapel-are-fighting-back-after-reportedly-being-threatened-with-fines-and-jail-time/

So, apparently, since this place isn't a church, non-discrimnation laws apply. I'm thinking that they will still be able to retain the right to not make it a religious ceremony.

"Do you?" "I do."
"Do you?" "I do."
"By the power invested in me by the state of Ohio, you're married now. Cash or credit?"

I have mixed feelings about this one, but lean towards just leaving them alone, and letting the gay couple find someone who doesn't have a religious/moral issue with it.

https://ssl.capwiz.com/aclu/issues/alert/?alertid=63110936&type=ST

Tennessee: Stop the So-Called "Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Act"

While purporting to prevent discrimination against students expressing religious viewpoints, SB 1793/HB 1547 crosses the line from protecting religious freedom into creating systematic imposition of some students' personal religious viewpoints on other students.

Students' right to express and practice their own religious faith in the public schools is already well-protected by the U.S. Constitution and existing law, so the portions of this bill allowing students to start religious clubs and to voluntarily pray and express religious viewpoints, are unnecessary.

But this bill also encourages religious coercion, requiring local school boards to establish a system for selecting student speakers and allow those students to express their beliefs about religion in a variety of inappropriate settings, from the classroom to school-day assemblies and school events. Should this pass, students with a range of religious beliefs, as well as non-believers, would likely routinely be required to listen to religious messages or participate in religious exercises that conflict with their own beliefs.

Tell your Tennessee legislators that public schools are not Sunday schools.

and the text of the form letter the ACLU has written up for people to send to Governor Hasslam:

While this bill is called the "Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Act," it would actually encourage discrimination against public school students who hold a variety of beliefs about religion.

Much of this bill is unnecessary: Students' right to express and practice their religious faith in the public schools is already well-protected by the U.S. Constitution and existing laws. Tennessee public school students cannot be denied, among other things, the right to pray individually or in groups, or to express their religious views as long as they are not disruptive, and to organize religious clubs to the extent that other non-curricular clubs are allowed.

But this bill also encourages religious coercion, requiring local school boards to establish a system for selecting student speakers and allow those students to express their beliefs about religion in a variety of inappropriate settings, from the classroom to school-day assemblies and school events. 

Should this pass, students with a range of religious beliefs, as well as non-believers, would likely routinely be required to listen to religious messages or participate in religious exercises that conflict with their own beliefs. Conversely, if a student of a minority religious faith (e.g., a Buddhist, a Wiccan, etc.) or a non-believer were to obtain a "position of honor," as defined under this bill, that student would be permitted to subject all classmates to prayer and proselytizing specific to his or her faith tradition in connection with school events. In both cases, parents would have no recourse to ensure that their children were not coerced into such religious exercise.

This bill will only cause confusion for school districts that want to comply with the U.S. Constitution and existing federal laws, as well as respect the religious beliefs of all of their students.

I can't wait to see how this works for cities with a significant Muslim population, such as Murfreesboro, and Nashville. I'm guessing it will make it even harder for Muslim students to obtain these so-called "positions of honor".

http://dixienet.org/rights/2013/Murfreesboro_demonstration.php

Building on the success of our recent Uvalda/Vidalia demonstrations, positive news coverage, outrage of anti-Southern activists, and our growing organisation strength, the League of the South and SNN are pleased to announce our next major public event. It's coming up soon so we urge supporters to begin to prepare now to make this another successful event as we build on our momentum!

THE ISSUE: DEMOGRAPHIC DISPLACEMENT IN TENNESSEE

The event will focus attention on and rally opposition to the demographic displacement of the Southern people in central Tennessee, an area which a short time ago was homogeneously Southern. Tens of thousands of immigrants from Islamic countries in the Middle East and Africa have been brought to the area by the Federal Government. This has been done as part of the US Federal Government's 'refugee' resettlement program. The Feds attack countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and then bring vast numbers of the people from those countries and place them in places such as Shelbyville, Tennessee – greatly altering the demographics, culture and politics of such places.

This is from a government which has announced that it is attempting to break up homogeneous areas of the United States by forcing 'diversity' into local neighbourhoods and communities. What is going on in Tennessee is therefore part of a broader anti-Southern and anti-White agenda by Washington, DC. The US government is supported in this program of demographic displacement by Left-wing, anti-White organisations such as the Center for Refugees and Immigrants of Tennessee, the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition and Health Assist Tennessee. Huge corporations such as Tyson Foods (which has, for example, dropped Labour Day for Eid al-Fitr, an Islamic holiday), led by CEO Donnie Smith, have also fought hard to displace Southerners with cheap immigrant labour supported in part by tax-payers' money.

The US media has dutifully produced a vast amount of 'news' and 'information' which present the local Southern people of Tennessee as 'racist bigots driven by ignorance and hate' while presenting the immigrants as 'persecuted, patriotic, freedom loving Americans who are trying to exercise their constitutional rights.' The influx of 'diversity' has touched off a political and cultural struggle between over the construction of a giant mosque for the outsiders in the heart of the Bible Belt. The Federal Government has actively opposed the people of Tennessee and even gone so far as to suggest that anti-Muslim speech (which is protected under the US Constitution) will be punished.

BTW, in that last statement, they are referring to that time that guy from the federal government came and told them it was illegal to threaten people.

Not sure where they're supposedly being "displaced" to, exactly. I still see plenty of idiots whenever I go, you know, outside.

is a Doctor Who reference, right?

Or is the 1987 episode Paradise Towers also a reference to something else?

Possibly something having to do with the 87 stock market crash which occurred during the time Paradise Towers was being aired?


or 

http://www.wbir.com/news/article/283997/2/Judge-orders-babys-name-be-changed-from-Messiah

A Newport mother is appealing a court's decision after a judge ordered her son's name be changed from "Messiah."

Jaleesa Martin and the father of Messiah could not agree on a last name, which is how they ended up at a child support hearing in Cocke County Chancery Court on Thursday.

That is when the first name came into question.

Child Support Magistrate Lu Ann Ballew serves the 4th Judicial District of Tenn. including the following counties: Cocke, Grainger, Jefferson, and Sevier.

The name change was part of Judge Ballew's case; however, the parents did not think the first name would be changed.

Judge Ballew ordered the 7-month-old's name be "Martin DeShawn McCullough." It includes both parent's last names but leaves out Messiah.

"The word Messiah is a title and it's a title that has only been earned by one person and that one person is Jesus Christ," Judge Ballew said.

According to Judge Ballew, it is the first time she has ordered a first name change. She said the decision is best for the child, especially while growing up in a county with a large Christian population.

"It could put him at odds with a lot of people and at this point he has had no choice in what his name is," Judge Ballew said.

Basically, the judge changed the kid's name to protect him from the idiot mafia.

Or something.

So this guy stops at a DUI checkpoint on the 4th. He has his window cracked, and the cop tells him to roll his window down. He tells him it's fine where it is.

The cop tells him to pull over to the side. He asks if he is being detained. That pisses off the cop. He repeats the order without answering the question.

They wind up running the dog around the car, the dog allegedly gets a hit, they search the car, and find no drugs, only the camera, which they apparently left in the car, but not before flipping it over or covering it.

No charges were pressed. It is not yet clear whether he is planning to sue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=w-WMn_zHCVo

It's not something I would have done, I have denied consent to search my car in the past because they had no reason to search, other than the fact that I had long hair and it was a shitty car. Also, the tags belonged to another vehicle which belonged to me.

I'm not particularly sympathetic to drunk drivers, though. I always just go along with it, you know, for the good of society and of course, the convenience.

I try to be respectful, without being too kiss-assey. I don't say "sir".

I find the flashing lights disorienting, especially at night, so I might seem a little googley-eyed to them sometimes. On one occasion, I had to go through the same checkpoint twice because it made me miss a turn. I got extra attention for that.

It all started when a county Comissioner posted a picture to his Facebook page with the caption "How to wink at a Muslim" showing a picture of a guy looking down the barrel of a gun.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/05/01/1206220/-HOW-TO-WINK-AT-A-MUSLIM

A few weeks later, the American Muslim Advisory Council invites some guys from the Federal government out to explain the First Amendment, and what constitutes protected and unprotected speech. The local racist newspaper got wind of this, and posted a page one article encouraging people to come out and let their voices be heard.


Well, they did. They packed the room, leaving a sizeable crowd still standing outside. They heckled the guy for about two hours, screaming about how the feds were trampling all over their free speech, or whatever. I still keep hearing people saying that he told people they could go to jail for making "disparaging remarks" about Islam. So far, all I have been able to find, is that he said that threats are not protected speech. As far as I can tell, it's still legal to say Mohammed, Jesus, Ganesha, and Buddah all suck donkey dicks, and Presbyterians all eat babies.

Here's an article with video of the angry mob heckling the speaker:

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20130605/NEWS21/306050155/Muslim-group-s-TN-forum-feds-disrupted-by-heckling

Apparently, Victoria Jackson was there. She lives somewhere around here now.

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20130404/NEWS0201/304040068/TN-bill-linking-welfare-benefits-grades-passes-House-committee

After a lengthy and passionate debate, a House committee on Wednesday approved legislation that would reduce welfare benefits for families whose children are failing school.

The House Health Committee voted 10-8 in favor of House Bill 261. The measure would cut Temporary Assistance for Needy Families payments if a child fails a grade and a parent does not take an action such as attending two parent-teacher conferences, arranging tutoring, enrolling the child in summer school or taking a parenting class.

TANF payments would be reduced to the child-only grant, about $140 for a family with one child.

This bill was sponsored by Stacey Campfield, the Tennessee state senator known for this gem of a comment on AIDS:

"most people realize that AIDS came from the homosexual community – it was one guy screwing a monkey, if I recall correctly, and then having sex with men. It was an airline pilot, if I recall.... My understanding is that it is virtually – not completely, but virtually – impossible to contract AIDS through heterosexual sex...very rarely [transmitted]."[29][30] He later quoted the odds of heterosexual vaginal transmission at 1 in 5 million.

Also, the "Don't Say Gay" bill which would have banned schools from even mentioning homosexuality, and another bill that would have required teachers to report to parents if a student revealed to them that they were gay. Fortunately, both of those bills failed.

Somebody at least had the sense to add an amendment that would exempt families who attend at least two parent-teacher conferences a year, enroll their child in a tutoring program, enroll a failing child in summer school, or if the student has a learning disability, but that wasn't Campfield's idea.

They're just trying to help, though, of course.

I can't stress enough how my heart goes out for a child that is not getting the support that he needs at home," said state Rep. Barry Doss, R-Leoma. "But I am more concerned about the child starving for a lifetime than I am for a few days, because if these children don't get an education and the parents are not going to be responsible enough, they're going to be burdened for a lifetime.

Because there is in mine.

We got a used washer and dryer last week, but I noticed a burning plastic smell whenever it was running. Sniffing around, I found a leaky joint in the pipe going into the cold side of the hot water heater. Being aware of this, I watched it as I started the dryer and saw a puff of smoke, and what looked like an electrical arc coming from underneath the white translucent plastic around the valve.

Apparently, the current was enough to burn through the Teflon tape, or some other piece of plastic that breaks the continuity of the metal pipe and cause the leak. I've temporarily bridged the joint with a piece of copper wire to keep it from damaging the joint any more, and we now have a house rule against running the dryer while someone is in the shower.

Just now, I broke the link on one side of the copper wire, and stuck a piece of steel wool in between the wire and the pipe. This was the result:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88xlL-8eMAM&feature=plcp

Also, with the voltmeter I get max voltage of 8-9 volts accross the valve.

The dryer is on a separate breaker from the water heater, and I get the same result even when the breaker for the water heater is shut off.

I shut off both breakers, and tested the resistance between the neutral of the dryer outlet and the case of the water heater and found a fraction of an ohm between them. I suspect that something is up with the connection to neutral in the dryer outlet, or that it is simply grounded directly to the plumbing, which would be stupid, since ground isn't meant to carry load current like neutral is.

I also suspect that some section of the plumbing under the house is PVC, rather than copper, which is preventing a good ground.


SCIENCE!

So I needed this mixer with controlled speed, right? And I had a variable speed drill, a cheap drill press, and a mixing blade. I went to Lowes and found a lamp dimmer and hooked it up to my drill to control the speed, and then used zip ties to attatch the drill to the drill press, and to hold in the button on the drill.

The drill press I was using was one like this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/OXWALL-DRILL-PRESS-STAND-ELECTRIC-DRILLS-/350475554061

It was missing the part that holds the drill.

This is the lamp dimmer I used:

http://www.1000bulbs.com/product/64249/LUT-TTCL100HWH.html?utm_source=SmartFeedGoogleBase&utm_medium=Shopping&utm_term=LUT-TTCL100HWH&utm_content=Plug-In+Lamp+Dimmers&utm_campaign=SmartFeedGoogleBaseShopping&gclid=CM7uybLx_7ECFUeR7QodyxIAfg

I also had a crock pot, and I thought to myself "hey, I bet I could use the lamp dimmer on the crock pot and make it into a French Water Grill".

So I did that.

I cooked some chuck steaks in it using those vaccum bags they sell at Walmart. They were ok. I cooked one of the chuck steaks regular for comparison. It was different. I can't say I liked either way over the other, but it was scientifically kind of interesting, I guess.


One good thing did come of it, though. While I was cooking the bagsteak, I needed to use the mixer, but I couldn't, because I needed to use it, like, all night, and I forgot that when I started the bagsteaks.

So I found another way of doing it so that I didn't need the mixer anymore, which is good, because I work late at night, and my roommate has a 4 year old daughter that lives here half the time, and that drill was loud, and in the kitchen.








That's my story about bagsteak.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/03/20/man-flies-like-a-bird-with-home-made-cyborg-wings/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

Our sheriff is apparently an idiot.

http://www.dnj.com/article/20120215/NEWS01/302150027

MURFREESBORO — Local Muslims and a prominent national Muslim civil rights organization are questioning the validity of a seminar being offered to Rutherford County law enforcers by a Virginia-based organization that refers to Islamic centers in its training materials as "potential military compounds."

Rutherford County Sheriff Robert Arnold on Tuesday confirmed that about 25 of his officers — along with one officer from the Murfreesboro Police Department, four from the Smyrna Police Department and one from the La Vergne Police Department — are attending the three-day seminar at World Outreach Church about Islam and the threat of terrorism. The training is being conducted by Arlington, Va.-based Strategic Engagement Group.

Attending officers will receive 24 training hours towards a required 40 per year from the Tennessee Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission, the state agency whose website says it is responsible for "developing and enforcing standards and training for all local police officers" across the state.

Arnold's confirmation came amid concern in the Islamic community that an investigation of local Muslims could be on the horizon as a result of the police participation in the seminar. That's at least partially due to the involvement of a former FBI agent in the seminar who claims Nashville's mosques have no legal right to exist.

John Guandolo, vice president of the Arlington, Va.-based Strategic Engagement Group, spoke at an anti-Shariah law event at Cornerstone Church in Madison on Nov. 11, calling local mosques front organizations for the Muslim Brotherhood with no right to exist.

"They do not have a First Amendment right to do anything," Guandolo said then.

Arnold said his officers are simply trying to learn more about "Muslims" and "Islamic culture." Such interest comes in a county that has wrestled with religious tolerance the past few years following a move by members of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro to build a much larger mosque just outside the city limits.

The new building for the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, under construction near the corner of Bradyville Pike and Veals Road, has been controversial since it was approved in May 2010. The issue has drawn national and international media attention.

Opponents organized marchers, community events and eventually a lawsuit was filed to block the mosque. Counter protesters and others in the community have expressed support for the local Muslim community's right to religious freedom and point to their peaceful presence in the county for three decades.

Chancellor Robert Corlew III denied a request for an injunction to stop the mosque in November 2010.

Still at issue is whether the Rutherford County planning commission published adequate public notice before approving the project. A trial on that matter is set for April 25.

Such local tensions reflect the growing uneasiness within portions of the Bible Belt and elsewhere as Muslim American communities continue to get bigger while radical Muslims around the globe commit atrocities in the name of Islam.

"There are not many classes out there for anything when it comes to Muslims ... but this training isn't just about that, it has many other components to it," Arnold said, pointing out that he and other employees of the sheriff's office also attended a four-hour training on Islam offered by the U.S. Department of Justice Human Rights Division back in May 2011. "My stance is and my office's stance is, we are not here to pick sides. I am here to protect the people of this county, and I am never going to waiver from that."

Officers were paid by their departments to attend sessions held between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday and Tuesday. Today is the last day of three-day seminar.
Sheriff 'not trying to offend' Muslims

Local Muslims such as MTSU professor Saleh M. Sbenaty and the national Muslim civil rights organization, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), were "shocked" to hear that both the Tennessee POST Commission and Arnold were OK with the type of training program being offered by the group.

More at the link.

http://www.examiner.com/architecture-design-in-national/massive-1-100-year-old-maya-site-discovered-georgia-s-mountains

Archaeological zone 9UN367 at Track Rock Gap, near Georgia's highest mountain, Brasstown Bald, is a half mile (800 m) square and rises 700 feet (213 m) in elevation up a steep mountainside.  Visible are at least 154 stone masonry walls for agricultural terraces, plus evidence of a sophisticated irrigation system and ruins of several other stone structures. Much more may be hidden underground.  It is possibly the site of the fabled city of Yupaha, which Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto failed to find in 1540, and certainly one of the most important archaeological discoveries in recent times.

The owner of trollface has recently threatened legal action against Reddit for unfair use of trollface.

http://www.yalelawtech.org/fair-use-of-the-week/fair-use-of-the-week-trollface/

I got a craving for curry hot wings earlier this week, which is strange since I've never had, or for that matter, heard of curry hot wings before.

So I'm winging it.

Right now, I have some chicken wings marinading in coconut milk.

I also have:

Green curry paste
Sriracha
Garlic

Where should I go from here?

I've been talking to a friend of mine at work about the English language. He is from Laos and speaks Laotian, Chinese and English.

Somebody used the phrase "in a minute" and he asked me what that meant. His English seems to be pretty good, so I assumed that he understood what the words minute, second, hour, day, etc meant. I explained that it meant "Soon... within a few minutes".

Then I remember that i had been thinking of phrases in English that make no sense a few weeks earlier just lying in bed one night. The only one I could remember was "have to".



"Have to"

WTF is that shit?

"I have to go to the bathroom."

You mean you need to go to the bathroom?

"Have" and "need" are pretty much antonyms. That phrase should mean the opposite of what it does. It should mean "do not need to."

"Do you need to go to the bathroom"?
"No, I have to."

That make more sense, logically.

"I have to go to the bathroom." makes about as much sense as "I get for go to the bathroom", or "I send at go to the bathroom".



I know there are more, but that's the only one I could think of at the time, or now.

Also, Schpongle and DMT.

I mean, I still know where he is physically, and we're still friends and all, but, well, you know what I mean.

He told me he knew he was going to walk on water some day.

Or, more broadly, is this true-ish.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/13/housing-bubble-subprime-opinions-contributors_0216_peter_wallison_edward_pinto.html

The reason that the most recent bubble created a worldwide financial crisis is that it was inflated with low-quality loans required by government mandate.

TELL ME WHAT TO THINK!

...and post the attack on Youtube.

(This is the news report, but includes edited footage of the attack.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeadI7jieDY

Oh, my. They are going to get such a wrist slapping.




I wonder what would have happened if it had been 3 older boys and a girl.

Can you say sex offender list?


I knew you could.

I'm thinking spam and duck sauce.

Maybe something similar to Spam Musubi, but in Maki form, with duck sauce because of the whole duckroll thing? 

I NEED FOOD PUNS PEOPLE!!!!  HOP TO IT THIS IS YOUR CHANCE!!!!

GO! GO! GO! GO! GO! GO! GO! GO! GO! GO!

This seemed important, but I can't even begin to fathom what it means.

Four superconducting ping-pong balls floating in space have just confirmed two key predictions of Einstein's general relativity, physicists announced in a press conference May 4.

"We have completed this landmark experiment testing Einstein's universe, and Einstein survives," said physicist Francis Everitt of Stanford University, the principal investigator on NASA's Gravity Probe B mission.

The probe, which launched in 2004, was designed to test the effect Earth's gravity has on the space-time around it. According to Einstein, the Earth warps its local space-time like a bowling ball sitting on a trampoline, a phenomenon called the geodetic effect. This effect means that a circle of fabric with the Earth's circumference, about 24,900 miles, would be pulled into a shallow cone with a circumference 1.1 inches shorter.

The Earth also swirls the nearby space-time around with it as it rotates, like water spiraling around a drain, in an effect called frame-dragging.

"Picture the Earth immersed in honey, and you can imagine the honey would be dragged around with it," Everitt said. "That's what happens to space-time. Earth actually drags space and time around with it."

Both effects are minuscule — Einstein himself wrote that "their magnitude is so small that confirmation of them by lab experiments is not to be thought of." But Gravity Probe B measured them both. The results will be published in Physical Review Letters.

The spacecraft orbited the Earth for 17 months carrying four ping-pong ball sized gyroscopes. The gyroscopes were made of fused quartz spheres, which hold the Guinness Book record for "most spherical man-made object." The spheres were covered in a soft metal called niobium and cooled to the temperature of liquid helium.

At that temperature, niobium becomes superconducting, which means that electrons can flow forever without losing energy. When the spheres are set spinning, the circling electrons give rise to a little magnetic pointer.

In Newton's universe, that pointer would point in the same direction forever as the spacecraft circled the Earth. But in Einstein's universe, where Earth twists and tugs the space-time around it, the gyroscopes' pointer was sent atilt at a sliver-thin angle. The north-south tilt measured the geodetic effect, and the east-west tilt measured frame-dragging.

The pointer shifted by just 6,000 milliarcseconds — the width of a human hair as seen from 10 miles away — over the course of a year, Everitt said. Despite the difficulty in detecting such a small tilt, the physicists were able to confirm the geodetic effect to an accuracy of 0.28 percent, and frame-dragging to within 20 percent.

Because general relativity describes the large-scale structure of the universe, the Gravity Probe B results could help improve physicists' understanding of cosmic phenomena from black holes to gamma-ray bursts, Everitt says.

Gravity Probe B is one of the longest-running NASA projects ever. It started in 1963, before men walked on the moon. It took five decades to develop the technologies to build gyroscopes sensitive enough to see gravitational effects. In the meantime, those technologies found homes in a host of other NASA Earth-observing satellites, plus the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite, which measured the cosmic microwave background and provided Nobel Prize-winning evidence for the big bang.

Physicist Clifford Will of Washington University in St. Louis, head of the external review board for Gravity Probe B, called the research team's efforts "heroic" and stressed the importance of testing fundamental theories of nature, not just taking them for granted.

"It is popular lore that Einstein was right, but no such book is ever completely closed in science," he said. "While the result in this case does support Einstein, it didn't have to."

Bend man stabs himself to death after performing at coffee shop

Published: Friday, April 15, 2011, 8:13 PM     Updated: Friday, April 15, 2011, 8:18 PM

By The Associated Press

BEND  -- Police in central Oregon say a 19-year-old man performed a song he introduced as "Sorry for the Mess" at a coffee house "open microphone" event, then fatally stabbed himself in the chest. 

Lt. Chris Carney says patrons at Bend's Strictly Organic Coffee rushed to help Kipp Rusty Walker on Thursday night and police and medics arrived quickly. But the young man died at St. Charles Medical Center from multiple stab wounds. 

Carney says Walker used a double-edged knife with a 4- to 6-inch-long blade. Police reports indicate the crowd of 10 to 15 was clapping as Walker finished his keyboard performance. When patrons saw him hitting his chest, Carney said they initially thought that was part of his act -- until they saw blood. 

Coffee shop co-owner Rhonda Ealy tells KTVZ that "people at first thought it was some sort of theater." 

http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2011/04/bend_man_stabs_himself_to_death_after_singing_sorry_for_the_mess.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1k-7COfL7E&feature=player_embedded

[HANG ON YOU YOUR PANTS LADIES AND GENTLEMEN I'M ABOUT TO GIVE YOU JERRY_FRANKSTER'S PATENTED RECIPE FOR GRUEL WORLD®EXTREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEME POVERTYFUEL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!®1/2 CUP BARLEY1/2 CUP OATS1/2 CUP RICE 1/2 CUP FLAX SEED2 CUP TOFU3/4 TSP GARLIC POWDER3 QUARTS OF WATERGRIND UP THEM OATS, BARLEY AND RICE, AND COOK IN 3 QUARTS OF WATER FOR 45 MINUTES. WAIT UNTIL IT COOLS, AND GRIND THE FLAX SEEDS, AND ADD ALONG WITH THE GARLIC POWDER AND TOFU. BLEND THE SHIT OUT OF IT WITH A BLENDER OR SOMETHING!!!!!SALT TO TASTE!!! WOO!!!DRINK THAT SHIT UP EVERY DAY FOR A FULL COMPLEMENT OF AMINO ACIDS, OMEGA-3 FATTY ACIDS, COMPLEX CARBOHYDRATES, AND SOLUBLE FIBER. DON'T FORGET YOUR DAILY MULTI-VITAMIN!!!GUAREENTEED TO PROLONG STARVATION!!!!!®http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/recipe/1967028/2]

HANG ON YOU YOUR PANTS LADIES AND GENTLEMEN I'M ABOUT TO GIVE YOU JERRY_FRANKSTER'S PATENTED RECIPE FOR

GRUEL WORLD®

EXTREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEME
POVERTY
FUEL
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!®





1/2 CUP BARLEY
1/2 CUP OATS
1/2 CUP RICE
1/2 CUP FLAX SEED
2 CUP TOFU
3/4 TSP GARLIC POWDER
3 QUARTS OF WATER

GRIND UP THEM OATS, BARLEY AND RICE, AND COOK IN 3 QUARTS OF WATER FOR 45 MINUTES. WAIT UNTIL IT COOLS, AND GRIND THE FLAX SEEDS, AND ADD ALONG WITH THE GARLIC POWDER AND TOFU. BLEND THE SHIT OUT OF IT WITH A BLENDER OR SOMETHING!!!!!


SALT TO TASTE!!!    WOO!!!

DRINK THAT SHIT UP EVERY DAY FOR A FULL COMPLEMENT OF AMINO ACIDS, OMEGA-3 FATTY ACIDS, COMPLEX CARBOHYDRATES, AND SOLUBLE FIBER.

DON'T FORGET YOUR DAILY MULTI-VITAMIN!!!



GUAREENTEED TO PROLONG STARVATION!!!!!®



http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/recipe/1967028/2

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/21/norwegian-boy-fends-off-wolves-with-creed-song/?hpt=T2


Luckily for Walter Eikrem, it does not appear Norwegian wolves care for Creed.

The 13-year-old was walking home from the school bus stop in the town of Rakkestdad this week when he noticed something on the hillside near his family's farmhouse, according to Germany's Der Spiegel magazine.

At first he thought they were dogs, but he soon realized they were wolves – four of them – the magazine said, citing Norway's TV2.

The boy, remembering that his mother had told him never to run from wolves, pulled the headphones out of his mobile phone and cranked up the volume on the tiny speakers.

He was listening to "Overcome" by Creed, an arguably Christian rock band, and apparently, the wolves were not fans.

(Initial reports indicated Walter shooed the wolves away with a Megadeth song, but the blog at Gibson guitars cleared up the confusion.)

"They just turned around and simply trotted away," he told the TV station, according to Der Spiegel. "The worst thing you can do is run away because doing so just invites the wolves to chase you down ... but I was so afraid that I couldn't even run away if I'd wanted to."

To be fair, Walter was yelling at the top of his lungs and wildly flailing his arms, so it's tough to say exactly what made the wolves decide the boy might not be delicious.

His mother told the local paper that she was going to pick her son up from school because she knew there were wolves in the area, but she got carried away shopping, Der Spiegel reported.

"I have a completely guilty conscience," she said. "The previous evening, we saw three wolves on the edge of the forest when we were putting our horses in their stall. The horses were panicky."

Um, thanks, mum? ... Well, OK, scratch that. Perhaps sarcasm is a little harsh for the woman who taught young Walter never to run from wolves.



ETA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCiS0jxzlFk&feature=player_embedded

http://www.france24.com/en/20101226-armenian-police-target-teenage-rock-cult

AFP - When police officers arrived at 13-year-old Masha's home, searched her room and inspected her computer, it was not because they suspected her of any crime.

Her offence was simply to be a devoted follower of the angst-ridden punk-rock subculture known as 'emo', in an ex-Soviet state where pressures to conform remain strong.

"It was offensive and frightening at the same time," said Masha, a schoolgirl in the Armenian capital, clearly upset by the experience.

Police in Yerevan have been conducting a campaign against the capital's small but controversial emo community since the recent suicides of two teenagers who were rumoured to have been emo fans.

They claim that the subculture represents a threat to young people's welfare.

Officers have visited schools, searched pupils whose distinctive clothing marks them out as possible 'emos', and mounted surveillance on public places where young people gather.

Several fans have been detained for questioning, despite the lack of any specific legislation against the musical genre or its followers.

In a recent newspaper interview, Armenia's Chief of Police, Alik Sarkisian, claimed that emo could "damage our gene pool". "We should fight against such phenomena because they are morally harmful to our people," he said.

Emo -- an abbreviation of 'emotional' -- is a more melodic and melancholy form of punk rock. It has origins in the United States but has become a well-established global subculture in recent years.

Masha and her friend Ani, also 13, say they started dressing in the unconventional emo style in an attempt to stand out from what they call "the grey masses".

But they now feel that they have to disguise themselves in ordinary clothes for fear of detention or harassment by other youths. "They point and laugh at us. Or even worse, they sometimes beat up our boys," Ani said.

Sensationalist media reports in Europe have suggested that the gloomy lyrics of some emo songs can influence teenagers to harm themselves or attempt suicide, although fans have consistently rejected the accusation.

Emo devotees in Britain and Russia staged protests two years ago against what they saw as negative stereotyping.

Some people in Yerevan not only believe that emo can cause suicidal depression, but also see it as a degenerate Western influence on traditional Armenian values.

Members of the youth wing of a local police association held a march against the subculture in the capital this month, carrying banners that read "No to foreign perversions!"

One teacher in a Yerevan suburb, who asked not to be named, said the directors of some schools supported the police action, and had even been actively encouraging officers to search pupils who dressed unusually and check them for signs of self-harm.

"We suspected one female pupil of being an emo. We invited our district policeman and the pupil's parents to come in, and explained how dangerous the consequences of this could be," the teacher said.

A local human rights activist compared the police's behaviour to a Communist-era witch-hunt.

"It is like the repression in Soviet times, when law enforcement agencies were chasing hippies, punks and rockers -- all those who refused to live within society's limits and be like everyone else," said Mikael Danielian, chairman of the Helsinki Committee of Armenia.

But the police say they are only intervening to protect vulnerable youngsters. "We are simply doing our job," said the police colonel responsible for youth affairs, Nelli Durian.

"We are conducting explanatory, preventative work among teenagers and their parents to prevent children from becoming hooligans and from thoughts of suicide."

However, she said that she could not blame emo music for the reported rise in teenage suicide attempts in Armenia this year.

Young fans like Masha and Ani have been worried by the anti-emo campaign, but they insist that they will not be pressured into abandoning the subculture that they love.

"It is impossible to ban youth movements using repressive methods," Ani said defiantly. "We will not stop listening to our music and dressing how we like. This is my choice."

Anybody know any good Russian/Armenian EMO message boards, and an English/ Russian/ Armenian translator?

I've been on kind of a nutmeg kick recently, and having bought some whole nutmegs and a nutmeg grater, I'm looking for excuses to use it.

For Thanksgiving I made Brussels sprouts with pecans and cranberries, and was pretty happy with the results. I started looking into other things that go well with nutmeg, and two things stood out in my mind; cheese and brassicas.

When I worked at a pizza place here in town many years ago, I would make a pizza for myself using the alfredo sauce, broccoli from the salad bar, and ham. This wasn't something we had on the menu, it was just something I cam up with on my own, I tried to convince the owners to put it on the menu, but being a franchise, they were limited as to what they were allowed to do.

Which brings us to my current experiment.

Ingredients:

One of those pizza-crusts-in-a-can from Pillsbury
A jar of Newman's Own Alfredo Sauce
Approximately an assload of fresh grated nutmeg
Fresh cracked black pepper
Canadian Bacon
Kraft Italian Five Cheese with Philidelphia Cream Cheese for Extra Creaminess
Some Brussels sprouts, sliced into roughly disk-like shapes

Instructions:

Take these ingredients and make a pizza out of them.



I'll have more details on how I did it after I do it.

Maybe some pictures if I can find my camera.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4nSxArk9g8&feature=player_embedded





Amen.

I just tried the recipe for celery soda from this episode of Good eats. (time,13:15)

I have to say, it's not bad. Celery seeds contain fairly high levels of 3-N-butyl-phthalide, which research indicates has certain health benefits:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19616517

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18328624

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15167282

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11270994



Probably not as good for you as just a plain ol' glass of V8, though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScvdFeh1aOw&feature=player_embedded


tl;dw: The futurama is here.

This guy has my vote.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rykcxc5dIts&feature=player_embedded

Sure, he may not be the most eloquent speaker, but neither was Bush and that worked out splendidly.

It's just sad that I had to find out about this from The Daily Show.

Some people are building an Islamic community center in my town, and the right-wing nutjobs are coming out of the woodwork. One of the more hilarious opponents is Lou Ann Zelenik, who is running for Congress in my district:

http://www.votelouann.com/news-room/news-details.php?PRKey=60

"Yes, we are tolerant, but our nation was founded on the tenets of the Judeo-Christian tradition; we have a right to defend that tradition.  Until the American Muslim community find it in their hearts to separate themselves from their evil, radical counterparts, to condemn those who want to destroy our civilization and will fight against them, we are not obligated to open our society to any of them.

There are those in our society who bow before the throne of political correctness, as if it itself were the god that would save our country.  Those people live in a fantasy world that never was and never will be.   Those who cower in silence are equally wrong.  The People of Rutherford County all need to stand together and say, "enough is enough."

As Martin Luther King said, "in the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends," so let us not be silent.  Stand strong for our God, our families, and our country.  God bless you all.

Extra horrormirth points there for quoting MLK Jr. to promote racism.

She also touches on the "Islam isn't a religion, it's a political movement" argument to justify oppression.

This "Islamic Center" is not part of a religious movement; it is a political movement designed to fracture the moral and political foundation of Middle Tennessee.

One jackass at the recent protest by some local mouthbreathers in the Murfreesboro Courthouse suggested that "foreign oil" was funding the construction of the center. Another moran suggests that all contractors should boycott the project, and that any contractors associated with the project should be boycotted.

Video at this link.

There's going to be a march next Wednesday to protest the construction of the mosque. Unfortunately, I have to work that day. 

It's one of those talking cards, and it uses the phrase "Black Holes".  The LA NAACP claim that it says "Black Whores" and are deeply offended. Hilarity ensues. Then hilarity explains itself in greater detail while failing to correctly pronounce or understand the meaning of the word "Ominous".

Also, at about the 3 minute mark, he calls someone an "asshole". You can trust me on this. I listened real hard.

I think the phrase "Black Hole" is now officially a racial slur, since this isn't the first time this has happened.

For some reason, there seems to be an abundance of apples in stores recently, and so I've taken to buying one of each variety whenever I encounter one that I have not tried yet. I have been eating exclusively Granny Smiths for years now, and decided I should give a few of the other bazillion varieties a chance.

So far, Fuji and Cameo are my new favorites with Fuji at #1 good ol' Granny Smith still holding a solid 2^nd place, and Cameo coming in third since I bought a batch of them that were unimpressive (and on sale).

So in conclusion... I like apples, do you like apples?

Apples are great. Don't you think so?

This is cool as fuck! I think the best thing about it is how incredibly low tech this process is; garage level, or even third-world hut level technology.

Basically, they're just making charcoal from chicken feathers instead of wood.


http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_ARTICLEMAIN&node_id=222&content_id=CNBP_022276&use_sec=true&sec_url_var=region1&__uuid=

COLLEGE PARK, M.D., June 23 – Scientists in Delaware say they have developed a new hydrogen storage method — carbonized chicken feather fibers — that can hold vast amounts of hydrogen, a promising but difficult to corral fuel source, and do it at a far lower cost than other hydrogen storage systems under consideration.

The research, presented here today at the 13th Annual Green Chemistry & Engineering Conference, could eventually help overcome some of the hurdles to using hydrogen fuel in cars, trucks and other machinery.

The conference is organized by the ACS Green Chemistry Institute®, a nonprofit organization devoted to promoting and advancing the discovery and design of chemical products and processes that eliminate the generation and use of hazardous substances in all aspects of the global chemical enterprise.

"Carbonized chicken feather fibers have the potential to dramatically improve upon existing methods of hydrogen storage and perhaps pave the way for the practical development of a truly hydrogen-based energy economy," says Richard P. Wool, Ph.D., professor of chemical engineering and director of the Affordable Composites from Renewable Resources program at the University of Delaware in Newark.

The research was presented by Erman Senoz, a graduate student in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Delaware in Newark.

Chicken feather fibers are mostly composed of keratin, a natural protein that forms strong, hollow tubes. When heated, this protein creates crosslinks, which strengthen its structure, and becomes more porous, increasing its surface area. The net result is carbonized chicken feather fibers, which can absorb as much or perhaps more hydrogen than carbon nanotubes or metal hydrides, two other materials being studied for their hydrogen storage potential, Wool says. Plus, they're cheap.

Using carbonized chicken feathers would only add about $200 to the price of a car, according to Wool. By comparison, making a 20-gallon hydrogen fuel tank that uses carbon nanotubes could cost $5.5 million; one that uses metal hydrides could cost up to $30,000, Wool says.

Hydrogen, the most common element in the universe, has long been touted as a clean and abundant energy alternative to fossil fuels. But its physical characteristics make it very difficult to store and transport — as a pressurized gas it takes up about 40 times as much space as gasoline; as a liquid it needs to be kept at extremely low temperatures.

Wool estimates that it would take a 75-gallon tank to go 300 miles in a car using carbonized chicken feather fibers to store hydrogen. He says his team is working to improve that range.

"The problem with hydrogen as a gas or liquid is its density is too low," Wool says. "Using currently available technology, if you had a 20-gallon tank and filled it with hydrogen at typical room temperature and pressure, you could drive about a mile. When we started we didn't know how well carbonized chicken feathers would work for hydrogen storage, but we certainly suspected we could do a lot better than that."

In addition to hydrogen storage, Wool and his colleagues are working on ways to transform chicken feather fibers into a number of other products including hurricane-resistant roofing, lightweight car parts and bio-based computer circuit boards.

###

-- Doug Dollemore

This research, "Hydrogen Storage On Carbonized Chicken Feather Fibers," (paper #14), will be presented at 10:55 a.m., Tuesday, June 23, in rooms 2101/2103/2105 at the Marriott Inn and Conference Center, University of Maryland University College, during the symposium, 'Technologies for a Hydrogen Economy."

Richard P. Wool, Ph.D., is a professor of chemical engineering and director of the Affordable Composites from Renewable Resources program at the University of Delaware in Newark. This research was funded by a grant from USDA-CSREES.

Erman Senoz is a graduate student in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Delaware in Newark.

Episode One:







I recently invested in several cans of dehydrated vegetables and powdered eggs, so that is what I am using here.



First, combine in a bowl:

1/2 cup potato flakes
1 TBSP onion flakes
2 TBSP powdered milk
3 TBSP powdered eggs
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup shredded cheese





Then, add enough water to give it the consistency of mashed potatoes, which for me was about 5/8 cup. Mix thoroughly.



This is the really important step. GREASE THE WAFFLE IRON. If you don't, you will be scraping your waffle out of the waffle iron. Potato waffles are soft and made of mashed potatoes with a thin crust that kind of holds it together.

Dump the mixture into the waffle iron and spread it around evenly.



Cook the waffle. This part is up to you as far as time and temperature settings go. I let it cook until it had more or less stopped billowing steam.



Ta-Daaa!



To get it out of the waffle iron, I had to pick the whole thing up, and dump it into the plate.

Not a structurally sound waffle compared to your typical wheat flour based waffle.

I then topped it with some Salisbury steak and gravy.




All in all, it was pretty good. I think next time I shall cook it a little bit longer and add more onion and salt. The crispy skin is the best part of the waffle, but the gravy made it kind of soggy on top. The crust on the bottom was unaffected.

And yes, that is more or less my entire kitchen you see there, and I am cooking on top of a mini-fridge. It is the only food preparation surface I have to work with, but it works. 

http://www.physorg.com/news145255770.html

Whoever thought that science was a dry subject might change their mind after learning about a new discovery in which tequila is turned into diamonds. A team of Mexican scientists found that the heated vapor from 80-proof (40% alcohol) tequila blanco, when deposited on a silicon or stainless steel substrate, can form diamond films.
The key to the surprising discovery is tequila's ratio of hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon, which lies within the "diamond growth region." The resulting diamond films could have inexpensive commercial applications as electrical insulators, say researchers Javier Morales, Luis Miguel Apátiga, and Víctor Manuel Castaño from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Morales is also with Nuevo León´s Autonomous University).

Originally, the scientists were experimenting with creating diamonds from organic solutions such as acetone, ethanol, and methanol. They found that diluting ethanol in water resulted in high quality diamond films. The scientists then noticed that the ideal compound of 40 percent ethanol and 60 percent water was similar to the proportion used in tequila.

"To dissipate any doubts, one morning on the way to the lab I bought a pocket-size bottle of cheap white tequila and we did some tests," Apátiga said. "We were in doubt over whether the great amount of chemicals present in tequila, other than water and ethanol, would contaminate or obstruct the process, it turned out to be not so. The results were amazing, same as with the ethanol and water compound, we obtained almost spherical shaped diamonds of nanometric size. There is no doubt; tequila has the exact proportion of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms necessary to form diamonds."

In their experiments, the scientists grew the diamond films using "pulsed liquid injection chemical vapor deposition techniques." In a specially made device, they heated the liquid tequila to 280 ºC (536 ºF) to transform it into a gas. In a reaction chamber, they heated the gas to 800 ºC (1470 ºF) to break down its molecular structure, resulting in solid diamond crystals of about 100-400 nm. The crystals fell onto silicon or stainless steel trays, accumulating in a thin, uniform film. The high temperatures removed all of the tequila´s carbon impurities to result in pure diamonds.

The final diamond film was hard and heat-resistant - properties that could make the diamond useful as coatings for cutting tools, high-power semiconductors, radiation detectors and optical-electronic devices, the scientists explained. They plan to begin industrial-scale applications around 2011, and hope to interest a tequila producer in widening its market beyond the traditional beverage.

For now, the scientists are continuing to test different tequilas´ abilities to produce diamonds. They´re also working on creating doped diamonds, which contain impurities, to serve as semiconductors.

So yeah, I have this tiny apartment that I heat by just turning on the oven. I figure while I'm at it I should be cooking something. I can't cook in it most of the rest of the year because the house gets too hot. I've actually been looking foreword to cold weather so I could start cooking again.

I'm especially interested in making every kind of bread ever. Specifically, right now I'm looking for a really good pizza dough recipe.

I'm also planning on making some jerky, so suggestions there would be fucking awesome as well. My neighbor is a deer hunter, so there's a good chance I will have some venison at some point.

One of my wacky schemes for after I graduate college is to build a post-apocalyptic themed soup and bread vending machine franchise called "That Damned Reagan" (yes, my avatar is to be the company logo) which will feature mainly soup and bread, and also different variations of beans and rice.

The basic concept is to use only (or at least mostly) ingredients that have a very long shelf life. i.e dehydrated meats and vegetables, grains, legumes, root vegetables, hard squashes, etc. So I'm also looking for soup recipes that could be made with dehydrated ingredients.

But right now I'm mainly focusing on bread. I'd like to be an expert breadmaker by March before it gets too hot to bake.

This is a simple, cheap recipe that I really enjoy and have been making for a long time. It's been a while since I've made any, but a few days ago I made up a big batch, which I just finished, and I'm still craving more.

1 lb sausage ( I used Purnell's "Old Folks" Smokehouse sausage)
1 large head of cabbage
1 cup dry rice ( I used fragrant Jasmine rice)

Scramble and fry the sausage in a large pot. While this is cooking, start on the rice.

Chop the cabbage into strips, removing the core.

Put the cabbage in the pot with the sausage, and stir it up real good. Stir every couple of minutes to make sure it doesn't burn on the bottom.

When cabbage is done, stir in the rice.

I usually add different seasonings to every bowl as I eat it.I usually just put salt and pepper on it, but this time I tried some Kikoman's soy sauce, and that was pretty damn good. Soy and toasted sesame seed oil is also damn tasty.

Ima hafta fix me up another bucket of this stuff soon. I think I may throw in some browned onion and spinach next time.

I found a recipe on http://homedistiller.org for a cheap wine for distillation.

It costs about $10 and should produce the approximate equivalent of 2 gallons of vodka, or about a keg of beer. Should finish at 14% - 18%. The original recipe is for 25 liters, or about 6.6 gallons. That wouldn't fit in my bucket, so I'm doing a scaled down 5 gallon batch.

Actual recipe used :

Water to 5 gallons
Sugar  10 lb
can of wench's white grape juice concentrate (340ml)
1 pint extra pulp orange juice
2 5G packets of Lalvin EC-1118 yeast
3 tsp yeast nutrient
1.5 tsp yeast energizer
20g citric acid.

Followed original instructions:

Method
Invert the sugar by bringing 2 1.5 L water to the boil in a large pan and adding the sugar
and malic acid. Boil for 15 minutes, stirring well. Turn off the heat, and add water to cool.
Pour into a clean fermenter. Add grape concentrate, orange juice and nutrient. Make up to
25 L 5 gallons with water. Stir well. Allow to cool to 25 – 30 degrees C. Reactivate the dried yeast by
pouring into 50mL of filtered tap water which has been boiled and cooled to 30 degrees C.
Stir well. After 15 minutes add the yeast suspension to the fermenter. Put a fermentation trap
in place. Insulate the fermenter by wrapping it with a towel, or, in cold weather, a sleepingbag.
Partial aeration — by gently blowing air through the ferment for a minute or so — once
daily for the first three days and at the end of fermentation, when the SG is about 0.990 and
the bubbles are becoming infrequent — is beneficial. Allow the wine to rest in a cool place.
Fine if necessary, and rack off the yeast when clear.

Right now it's sitting in my shower so it won't make a mess if it overflows. According to the writer, the brew is drinkable as is. I'm gonna try diluting it with 1-2 parts fruit juice and see how it tastes. If it's crap, meh, I'm out $10 and 2 hours of my time.

Ok, so the collapse of civilization is coming soon, and I want to be prepared for it with delicious recipes that can be made with the food that will be available. Since I don't know the precise details of this approaching doom, I've come up with a few arbitrary conditions:

1.) Farming still happens, but with reduced resources and minimal infrastructure.

2.) Everything has to have been grown within 50 miles of where you live, or plan to live after the shit hits the fan. No processed food.

3.) Refrigeration is impractical and unreliable. No frozen goods, or products that have to be refrigerated. Drying, canning and root cellaring are still viable storage options.

4.) Animal products are scarce. Use sparingly.

5.) Nutritional value is a high priority.


If I have time before doom sets in, I'd like to start a post-apocalyptic themed automated food kiosk franchise.

My main recipe formula goes something like Dried food product + water + heat --> food. These are mainly soups,  breads, and homemade pastas/dumplings.

It's meant to simulate post-apocalyptic wintertime cuisine when fresh produce will not be available, mainly because I don't want to have to worry about food spoilage, and I don't want to have to check the machine more than once or twice a month.

I thought this was interesting. I'm putting it on my list for potential candidates for my senior project at school.

http://www.reprap.org


Look at your computer setup and imagine that you hooked up a 3D printer. Instead of printing on bits of paper this 3D printer makes real, robust, mechanical parts. To give you an idea of how robust, think Lego bricks and you're in the right area. You could make lots of useful stuff, but interestingly you could also make most of the parts to make another 3D printer. That would be a machine that could copy itself.

RepRap is short for Replicating Rapid-prototyper. It is the practical self-copying 3D printer shown on the right - a self-replicating machine. This 3D printer builds the component up in layers of plastic. This technology already exists, but the cheapest commercial machine would cost you about €30,000. And it isn't even designed so that it can make itself. So what the RepRap team are doing is to develop and to give away the designs for a much cheaper machine with the novel capability of being able to self-copy (material costs are about €400). That way it's accessible to small communities in the developing world as well as individuals in the developed world. Following the principles of the Free Software Movement we are distributing the RepRap machine at no cost to everyone under the GNU General Public Licence. So, if you have a RepRap machine, you can make another and give it to a friend...

The RepRap project became widely known after a large press coverage in March 2005, though the idea goes back to a paper on the web written by Adrian Bowyer on 2 February 2004.

We hope to announce self-replication this year - 2008 - though the machine that will do it - RepRap Version 1.0 "Darwin" - can be built now - see the Make RepRap Darwin link there or on the left