Friday, May 15, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Second Rate Snacks
Cheez-Its are one of my all-time favorite snacks. For some reason they go really well with Tab. I thought it was just me but I had some people try the Tab with Cheez-its once and they agreed. I don’t know what it is but I don’t care. Cheez-Its of course do mighty fine on their own too and that’s why I love them so much. I’ve tried other brands but they’re just not the same. For this evaluation, I got the arch enemy of Cheez-Its: Cheese Nips.
Cheez-It
One comment was that these have a toasty cheese flavor. We all felt the saltiness was just right and they have a good crunch to them. I usually like to let these sit in my mouth for a little bit and suck off the salt and then let the “it” soften up and then that’s when I take a swig of Tab (so good!). We all agreed these had a very satisfying cheese flavor and a nice crunchy (one person thought somewhat buttery as well) texture.
Cheese Nips
Cheese Nips were visually different in that they seemed to have less texture, like a saltine. There isn’t the salt presence that Cheez-it has, although some did have a few smaller granules of salt on them. We agreed these lacked the same full-bodied cheese flavor and almost resembled an oyster cracker with a little bit of cheese flavor. Also, these were a little dryer than Cheez-Its and didn’t soften in my mouth the way Cheez-its do.
Verdict
Cheez-It all the way from all of us. Although Cheese Nips claim they have real Cheddar cheese in them and Cheez-It’s don’t, I guess whatever Cheez-It is doing is right (to us anyway) because we enjoyed these much more. I know this is kind of touchy because people seem to get upset over these dueling cheese crackers. I mentioned I was going to compare these to the intern at work (way back earlier this month when I had a job) and she felt very strongly about Cheese Nips and how disgusting Cheez-Its were, almost like she thought people who favored Cheez-Its also ate dog food.
Who Has Pole Position?
Ferrari says it will walk away from Formula 1 next year if the people making the rules adopt a two-tiered regulatory structure and budget cap that sharply limits how much teams can spend each season. Suck on that, Bernie Ecclestone!The legendary automaker joins Toyota, Red Bull Racing and Toro Rosso in threatening to bow out if the Federation Internationale d’Automobile doesn’t back down. While the other teams are only making noise at this point, Ferrari’s board of directors voted Monday to call it quits if the rules are adopted.
“… for the first time ever in Formula 1, the 2010 season will see the introduction of two different sets of regulations based on arbitrary technical rules and economic parameters,” they said. “The Board considers that if this is the regulatory framework for Formula 1 in the future, then the reasons underlying Ferrari’s uninterrupted participation in the World Championship over the last 60 years – the only constructor to have taken part ever since its inception in 1950 – would come to a close.”
It was a ballsy announcement - and one hell of a bluff. Ferrari is the most storied name in F1, but it is about as likely to quit racing as Apple is to quit making computers...right? Ferrari is firing a huge shot across the bow of the FIA and Bernie Eccelstone, who runs the gazillion-dollar enterprise that is Formula 1. FIA boss Max Mosley has long been obsessed with reining in the stratospheric cost of F1 racing. His latest idea to cut spending is a two-tiered set of rules that promotes frugality. Teams that abide by a $60 million spending cap would have far greater technical leeway than those that opt to spend whatever they like. The proposed cap would not include driver salaries, marketing costs or engine development.
Ferrari spends an ungodly amount of money racing and hates Mosley’s proposal. Company president Luca di Montezemolo recently said the new regulations would be “fundamentally unfair and perhaps even biased,” according to one press report. Mosley hasn’t responded to Ferrari’s announcement, but according to the New York Times, he has said before that F1 could survive without Ferrari. Uh...no, it couldn’t.
Anyone with a passing knowledge of the sport knows Ferrari is huge - Beatles kind of huge. It inspires such passion among fans that Alain Prost all but feared for his life when he declared his car undriveable in 1991. Word amongst drivers regarding if the sport can thrive without the cornerstone company and they’ll tell you it can’t. “Without Ferrari I don’t think it would be Formula 1 anymore,” Giancarlo Fisichella, a 12-year veteran who currently drives for Force India, told The Mirror newspaper.
Even if F1 could survive without Ferrari, what will happen if Toyota, Red Bull, and Toro Rosso walk? Renault says it’s ready to bail, and BMW reportedly is considering it. If everyone makes good on the threat, that leaves Brawn GP, McLaren, Williams and Force India. That’s not much of a grid. The teams have until May 29 to file the paperwork needed to compete next year, so this mess will come to a head soon. Ferrari’s threat cannot be taken lightly because Montezemolo is head of the powerful Formula One Teams Association, and so holds great sway. But neither can it be seen as anything more than brinkmanship ahead of the teams’ meeting with Mosley before the Monaco Grand Prix on May 24.
Yes, you're witnessing a civil war within the sport.
Mosley and Eccelstone have to see this and realize no one will win. Eccelstone in particular has to be worried, with his reputation for wringing every cent possible out of F1. If Ferrari and the rest of them quit, F1 will lose tens of millions of dollars at exactly the time it is gaining more attention. Few people will tune in to see Brawn GP - as phenomenal as it is - and McLaren lead Williams and Force India around the track. Who wants to watch a race where everyone scores points? And what’s Ferrari going to do - take up Le Mans racing? Start a World Rally Championship team? F1 is all Ferrari does, and it’s damn good at it. You have to believe the FIA is seriously reconsidering the 2010 rules right about now. And although Montezelomo, as head of the teams’ association, is holding a pretty strong hand, you have to believe he’s bluffing. This will come down to the last lap.
Douchepocalypse
“I can see my reflection perfectly in the camera.”The series begins June 15th. We have one more month as free, happy human beings. Make these final days count, people.
“Every gangster needs a flatiron.”
“Why wear eyeliner? Because it brings out your eyes.”
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Remembering Good Times
The American South may be slipping in unwed pregnancies, but there's still some traditions that they're taking special care to preserve...racism!University of Alabama alumnae are upset after members of Kappa Alpha Order, a white fraternity that traces its roots to the Civil War and Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, wore Confederate uniforms and carried battle flags had a parade. Past a historically black sorority. As the women celebrated the group's 35th anniversary. Uh, whoops!
The fraternity has been forced to halt its "Old South" festivities on some campuses because of claims of racial insensitivity in the past, and Alabama members have apologized for pausing in front of Alpha Kappa Alpha's sorority house during this year's parade. Alpha Kappa Alpha members said there was no confrontation or taunting, but they were shocked to see fraternity members in rebel uniforms and white women from another sorority in hoop skirts. "I don't believe these young folks were in any way trying to be racist," said an alumna who saw the parade (and happens to be associate education dean at Alabama), "but they were being insensitive. I don't think they understood the broader implications of what they were doing." Off the record, she said, "dumb-ass crackers".
While 71 alumnae sent a petition to Alabama President Robert Witt complaining about the use of Confederate flags and uniforms on campus, administrators haven't taken any formal action against the fraternity. Is it because he's a white male? Couldn't be...
Some sorority members said the only solution is to stop the Old South event.
Kappa Alpha was founded in 1865 at Washington & Lee University, and the group calls Lee its "spiritual founder." With 131 chapters from coast to coast, KA's "Old South" events were a fixture on many Southern campuses for years. But those celebrations have met resistance at some schools. The Auburn University chapter ended its annual parades in 1992 after black students confronted white students with Confederate flags. The chapter also stopped a tradition of covering the front of its house with a huge rebel banner. Kappa Alphas at Centenary College in Shreveport, La., moved their Old South events off campus in 2002 after drawing protests from the Black Student Alliance and others over the Confederate garb.
The University of Georgia chapter canceled its Old South parade in 2006 following complaints by residents of a mostly black neighborhood, and administrators worked with the group to come up with a compromise. There, members mounted horses and sorority members donned hoop dresses last month for what is now called the Founder's Day parade, but the festivities no longer include Confederate symbols and haven't created the same controversy as in the past. "The elimination of the Confederate uniforms has helped. They have taken away some of the visual stimuli that led to rage and anger on some people's part," said a staffer who oversees Greek life at Georgia.
At Alabama, Kappa Alpha said it was "sorry" for interrupting the sorority's anniversary ceremony. "The Old South celebration, including the parade, has been a Kappa Alpha tradition at Alabama for many years but we are sensitive to the concerns of students, faculty and the community," said the executive director of the Kappa Alpha Order. And they're aware of the power of tradition and history, like when Gov. George C. Wallace staged his "stand in the schoolhouse door" to protest forced racial integration of the campus in the 60's.
The school now has more than 25,000 students, and university provided statistics show that in 2007, 11% were black. Or 1650 if you're using 3/5th Compromise counting.
The Quarter-Mile High Club
A helicopter pilot who was videotaped receiving oral sex from a woman as he flew her around San Diego acted so recklessly that his license must be revoked, the National Transportation Safety Board said. Apparently, he did not bring a spare battery for the camera.The actions of David Martz were so dangerous, the NTSB concluded in a written ruling, that they put the lives of everyone on his aircraft and on the ground below him in danger. Well, only if she did a bad job. The agency's ruling, reached last week in Washington, D.C., was released yesterday and upholds previous actions revoking Martz's pilot's license by the Federal Aviation Administration and an administrative law judge.
FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said Tuesday that Martz can appeal the NTSB decision in federal court or he can wait and apply to have his license reinstated in one year. The incident that cost the pilot his license occurred on May 29, 2005, but action wasn't taken until earlier this year after the video surfaced on the Internet, likely because nobody believed Martz and he just felt it was "too awesome not to prove" people wrong.
In rejecting his appeal, the NTSB said both Martz and the woman unfastened their safety restraints during the flight and that her body blocked his access to controls vital to operating the aircraft in an emergency. Martz countered she undid her restraints because she was accessing his vital controls. "During substantial portions of the flight in question, it appears to this board that the flight was but a single misstep from disaster," the agency concluded. I believe the term is mis-stroke.
During his appeal, Martz acknowledged he acted foolishly, but said he has become a much more responsible pilot since then. He did admit he still gets blow jobs. Although his license was previously suspended twice and revoked once, Martz had stayed out of trouble since 2005, and those prior offenses were not oral sex related. At least, him being the recipient.
Mega Shit vs. Giant Octo-Crap
Answering the question that's been plaguing as many as six of you - so that's what Lorenzo Lamas and Debbie Gibson are up to?
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Toilet Snake Attack!
A Taiwanese man became a sitting target for a snake, which bit his penis as sat on the toilet at his rural home, local media reported. And contrary to popular belief, "toilet snake attack" is not the secret move from Street Fighter IV."As soon as he sat down, he suddenly felt a knife-like pain and reacted instinctively by standing up," the China Times said. "When he looked down, he saw the big snake." That's what she said. But not there in China.
The 51-year-old man, from Nantou County, was under medical care with minor injuries, a director at Puli Christian Hospital said."As soon as he has passed the risk of infection, he can go," the director, who declined to be named, said. "A snake's mouth isn't always clean." I'm pretty sure that was also in a fortune cookie I had.
Local television images showed the black and yellow reptile, reportedly a species of rat snake, being uncoiled and plucked slowly from the toilet bowl. Snakes regularly enter rural homes in Taiwan and other sub-tropical regions of Asia.
That's one of my worst nightmares come true, but also why I look in the bowl before I sit down. I look in the bowl afterwards for another reason entirely, but even if you're not a bowl checker, dropping a heavy, fast load right away should block your toilet up enough so that any marauding intruders can be foiled. And for the record, Toilet Snake is an awesome email or online handle.
New Search Parameters And Old Tricks On The Interweb
The home page is nearly blank. At the center, just below a colorful logo, you’ll find an empty data field. Type in a phrase, hit Return, and knowledge appears.
No, it’s not Google. It’s WolframAlpha, named after its creator, Stephen Wolfram, a 49-year-old former particle physics prodigy who became bewitched by the potential of computers. He invented a powerful computational software program (Mathematica), built a company around it (Wolfram Research), and wrote a massive book (A New Kind of Science) that claims to redefine the universe itself in terms of computation.
So when Wolfram asked me, “Do you want a sneak preview of my most ambitious and complex project yet?” he had me at “Do.”
The product of four years of development, Alpha is an engine for answers. Its ambition is to delve into “all the knowledge in the world,” Wolfram says, to find and calculate information. Though Alpha’s interface evokes Google ― whose co-founder Sergey Brin once spent a summer interning for Wolfram ― it’s more like the anti-Google.
Type in a query for a statistic, a profile of a country or company, the average airspeed of a sparrow ― and instead of a series of results that may or may not provide the answer you’re looking for, you get a mini dossier on the subject compiled in real time that, ideally, nails the exact thing you want to know. It’s like having a squad of Cambridge mathematicians and CIA analysts inside your browser.
Type in “Pluto” and Alpha calculates the dwarf planet’s distance from Earth at that very instant. Bang out a series of letters like “ACTCGTC” and Alpha recognizes it as genetic code and tells you what strand of DNA that particular gene lives on and what we know about it. Wolfram has licensed ― or created ― a whole library of databases and massaged them so the information is pliable. (To date, they include Wikipedia, the US Census, and “about nine-tenths of what you’d see on the main shelves of a reference library,” he says.) Combined with the near-magical abilities of Mathematica, Alpha is a powerful computational engine that can effortlessly answer queries that no one has asked of a search engine before.
Consider a question like “How many Nobel Prize winners were born under a full moon?” Google would find the answer only if someone had previously gone through the whole list, matched the birthplace of each laureate with a table of lunar phases, and posted the results. Wolfram says his engine would have no problem doing this on the fly. “Alpha makes it easy for the typical person to answer anything quantitatively,” he asserts.
Wolfram needs some prodding before he talks about the business model. “Plan A is to get this out,” he says. “Maybe it will be a giant piece of philanthropy.” On the other hand, he adds, “we’re happy to license this.” He thinks Alpha would be welcome inside applications, on mobile devices, and in a generalized search engine. Wolfram has already shown Alpha to former intern Brin and thinks that it could make sense to have the engine running behind the scenes in Google searches.
Another possible source of revenue: licensing databases. In corralling information for Alpha, Wolfram has frequently been disappointed in the quality of the source material, and he plans to create hundreds of new databases in areas ranging from nutrition to tidal tables.
All of this is only stage one of the project, says Wolfram, who proceeds to get to the “crazy stuff.” Uh, like what? “We’ll actually be able to simulate in real time based on descriptions. The next question is, can we invent things on the fly, create things that have never been created before, in real time?”
This venture is so edgy that even the hyperbolically confident Wolfram is hedging a bit. “There are many things that could go horribly wrong,” he says. Indeed, weeks before its planned launch, the product is still rough, lacking both integrated natural language processing and sufficient data to deliver the Information Singularity that Wolfram envisions. But once Alpha tells you how many Nobel Prize winners were born under a full moon, you’ll know that we’ve moved one step up the evolutionary ladder of knowledge.
And also in the news, a sly serving of justice back on the system by everybody's favorite Scandinavian pirates. After the Pirate Bay founders were fined $3.5 million, they swore
they wouldn't cough up a single cent. Instead, they've come up with a DDo$ plan of attack that'll cost the IFPI instead of themselves.Instead of collecting donations or paying the fee off themselves, Gottfrid Svarholm (aka Anakata), one of the four Pirate Bay founders, has come up with the DDo$—not a DDoS as we know it, but instead, a Distributed Denial of Dollars attack. The plan encourages all people who use the Internet to pay a tiny "internet-avgift" (Internet fee) of $0.13, and send it to the Danowsky law firm, which represented the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) in the Pirate Bay trial.
Because the law firm only has 1,000 free money transfers, if enough Internet users send a fee to them, it will actually end up costing the Danowsky firm and other music companies to handle and process all the payments. So not only will the Pirate Bay founders not have to pay the fine out of their own pockets, but also it could possibly play a role in the outcome of future pirating cases.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Weekend Recap
You're not late to the party, it's just that things happened over the weekend...Stenson Shoots 66 To Blow Away Field At Players - The lengths athletes will go to now just to win. Sportsmanship. Ability. Perseverance. These are things of the past.
Leno Takes Comedy Show To Jobless Ohio Residents - It's bad enough to be unemployed, but then to have Jay Leno force his "comedy styling" upon you? They can't catch a break out there in Ohio.
Pastry Chef Receives Double Hand Transplant - No word on whether he'll continue to lick his fingers to sample the food...or if that blender is going to finally get a safety guard on it.
Bronx Man Killed After Graduating From College - Education...not as well respected in the community as you may think. I think he would have preferred an internship or part-time job over death, but sometimes those are you options...
Flu Exposes Flaws In Mexico's Health Care System - The jewel in the country's crown, tarnished! Not like the drug cartel war against the police exposing a flaw in their civil safety system. Or the countless illegals roaming free across the border exposing the flaw in their national security or emigration system? I could go on and on. Is there a single system in their country that's not hopelessly flawed?
Pakistan Says 200 Taliban Fighters Killed In A Day - What did the Guinness people do today? Weigh the largest toe clipping? Or see how many text messages a teenager could do blindfolded? Here's a real feat you suckasses. Try keeping up with true records.
Cheney Backs Limbaugh Over Powell On GOP Future - Satan backs his puppet minion over this former puppet lackey. He's right - the bloated, hypocritical husk of Limbaugh is who will continue to drive the headless, aimless weakened party further into disarray.
Fido, Frequent Flier, Gets His Own Airline - Let's not have this sickly economy keep anyone from chartering flights for pets only. Besides, would you rather give that money to charity? I think not!
Judge: Men Can Slap Wives Who Spend Lavishly - Is that the only time? Come on Saudi Arabia, go bold! give us the full rundown.
Lost Tourist Search Turns Up Seven Corpses - Congratulations, you now have eight unhappy families!
Iran Moves To Reduce Number Of Executions - As long as they can reduce the number of homosexuals and infidels, they're pretty confident they can execute less
Storm Nixes Amy Winehouse Comeback, Fans Thankful - Even Mother Nature doesn't want to hear a junkie rip off 60's Motown tunes.
Indonesia: Ruling Party Wins Most Votes - Hmmm...militant theocracy maintains power through elections? But of course! (just kidding - it's a unitary presidential republic - like you know the difference)
Venetia Phair Dies At 90; As A girl, She Named Pluto - Great, you're dead, and your main accomplishment is de-emphasised.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Trek Weekend
Scarlett and I saw the revamped, reimagining of Star Trek last night...Like the franchise or not, it's a solid film, and I can't see anyone finding a better popcorn flick to start off the summer movie run. Equal parts reintroduction and revision, the film balances being fresh and compfortable - sounds like an insole or pantyliner, right? I'm not one of those Abrams-o-philes who dotes on his every work, but he certainly earns my respect for tackling a series that has high expectations on it. While not as radical as the Battlestar Galactica reboot, it's still a great example of breathing fresh air into a stagnant property.
Hell, you can even take your mother and she'd enjoy it. It is her weekend too...
Breeding Tiny Assholes
Among certain fashionable 5-year-olds, the Lola et Moi store in Beverly Hills is the place to pick up chic little things you can be sure everybody else will not be wearing ... yet. The line is known for its structured, sophisticated look. “It reminds a lot of people of Marc Jacobs or Marni,” says the store’s thin, impeccably dressed owner, Sherine Taher, examining a green raincoat with red mushrooms. “A lot also say, ‘Can’t you make that in my size?’”
The clothes are happy, girlie and young. They accomplish a seeming impossibility these days: that is, to make little girls look like little girls. There was a trend for a while to make the girl look exactly like the mom. And the ubiquitous and alarming “tweeny” look of making the girl appear older than she really is. Lola et Moi rejects both of these fashion paradigms.
“Our clients really care what their kids look like. We do ages 2 to 6. That is our world,” Taher says. “There is always a whimsical adornment, an overriding sweetness.”
Lola et Moi was started by a young Lebanese woman, Rania Tohme, who began hand-sewing clothes after she became dissatisfied with the unexciting offerings in baby couture.
“For me, it’s like the ’50s in Paris,” says Mirela, one of Taher’s clients, who comes in twice a season, spends a couple of hours and buys everything her daughter needs, often in one sitting. “I usually buy four dresses, two to three skirts, six to eight T-shirts. ...” She turns to Taher. “Am I right on that one?”Taher holds up a tiny cashmere dress in aqua, with a matching tiny cashmere bolero.
“It’s always the exact shade, so your wardrobe works together.”
“Everything works with everything,” Mirela says.
“Exactly. You want things that go with everything, and things that are more special.”
Things that are more special might include a $400 pink Gypsy coat: “It has the wow factor,” Taher says. Or a $300 hand-embroidered fuchsia silk dress: “Appropriate for baby’s first picture.” Or a $145 wool-brocade A-line retro shift with pink buttons: “I call this Jackie O.”
“The couture style is alive and well here,” Taher continues, carefully folding an heirloom-quality “baby bubble,” a cocoon of 100 percent pure silk. “The ‘style leader’ moms are the ones who buy us. We introduced some new silhouettes, like the folk skirt. And Easter dresses,” she says, rolling her eyes, “we’re known for that.
“It’s overwhelming. The people who come in for the first time usually make it to about here,” Taher says, indicating the middle of the store near the jumpers. “Boys’ moms are just not that invested in boys. The boys’ clothes don’t make your heart go pitter-patter.”
Talk of boys sparks a conversation between Taher and Mirela about what style Mirela’s daughter Lena might grow into. “I’m scared!” Mirela says. Lena, who is 5, has already gone through several fashion phases. There was the phase where she wouldn’t wear anything but skirts. Then the pink-only phase, which softened into only pink and purple.
One of the saleswomen comes over with a tiny silk handbag and says, “It just completes the look.” Her daughter has one just like it.
What do little girls put in their little purses? “Oh, she has a juice and a snack.”
A few weeks later, Lena takes time out of her busy kindergarten schedule to accompany her mother to the Lola et Moi shop. Like her mother, Lena is slim, pretty, leggy and blonde. She wears her hair in a little bob and has blue eyes. Lena also has some Burberry in her wardrobe, but this particular designer line has thus far not inspired the intense peer adoration as has the Lola stuff: When she wore a pink, fuzzy Lola jacket to school, her classmates engulfed her in a petting frenzy.
“You can choose anything you like,” says her mom. Lena gravitates toward the same striped dress they bought the last time they were in.
“Do you want to see one of my favorite outfits?” Taher asks. “This halter top with the cherry shorts. So cute. I would wear that. I’m gonna pull your size in this one.”
Lena tries on a purple halter dress with butterflies cascading down her back. “So pretty,” Taher says. “Can you imagine her with a bit of a tan in the summer?”
Next, Lena tries on cotton overalls. “It looks like a snowsuit,” she says dubiously.
“This is called a jumper suit,” says her mom, smoothing the pants.
“A jumper suit. Why? Do you jump in it?”
“Super, supercute,” says Taher, peeping into the dressing room. “And Mirela, you know they all come with the sweater.”
Lena shimmies in the jumper. “Hey, wiggly,” says her mother. “This is a winner.”
“Sometimes you put it on, that perfect piece, and it’s for you,” Taher says. “No doubt.”
Lena allows herself to be squeezed into a pair of scrunchy pink shorts with ribbon details. Her mother stares at it for a long time. “It’s cute.”
In the baby-couture industry, there is a great need for different words to describe the many fine gradations of cute, the way Eskimos are said to have 100 different words for snow.
“Do you wear shorts or dresses, Lena?” Mirela asks her daughter.
“I don’t know. Which one do you think will be better?”
“What do you like?”
“Mama, I don’t know. Which one is better?”
Taher interrupts. “Can you see yourself wearing that dress to a birthday party?” she asks Lena, then says to me, “Whimsical adornments, I tell you. The girls attach. Whether it’s a fish or a bird or an owl.”
For the moment, Lena is attached to a shirt with a big, scribbly heart on it. “She wants the heart because she’s just learned about it in school,” her mother explains. “How to name heart. How to draw heart.”
More and more things are brought over: beach dresses, a cashmere slip, a bird shirt, a balloon blouse.
“This top is too short. The bellybutton is showing,” Mirela notes. Taher grimaces.
“We don’t want to go for that look.”
When another saleswoman brings over a pair of shorts, Mirela examines it critically. “Hmmm. I don’t know. It’s short. You know that scraped-knee thing.”
Other people come into the store: a dad, a mom, several little girls dressed in school uniforms. They beeline for the sale rack.
“Oh, she just robbed a bank,” says Mirela of Lena, on her cell phone to her husband. She hands Taher a credit card. The total comes to $352, which isn’t bad, considering that one time they walked out with $1,300 worth of clothing. The economy may be down in the dumps, but the upbeat, uptown world of baby couture is doing just fine.
And as for Lena, she’s wearing a different outfit from when she came in, a new teal-blue forest-print dress.
She declares, “It’s the prettiest dress I’ve ever seen! Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.”
“It reminds me of Sardinia or something,” Taher says with a sigh. A dreamy look passes over her face. Lena continues to twirl.
“I think somebody likes it,” says Mom.
“Who?” Lena asks.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Space Crime
In 2002, rogue NASA interns stole millions of dollars in moon rocks. This is the story of how they did it, as told by Carmel Hagen:Building 31 North's white halls are empty, because it is the middle of the night. NASA interns Thad Roberts and Tiffany duck inside a bathroom, and tear off their clothing. Then they change into the contents of their duffel bags—2mm thick neoprene bodysuits. Like in a bad movie, the suits will help Thad and Tiffany avoid heat sensors armed to feel out threatening climate changes inside a vault. The adrenaline, their attraction, the smell of rubber suits and the fear of failure is almost overwhelming. After pulling on the thermally shielded gear, Tiffany and Thad step back into the corridor, moving toward the turnstile lock that guards their target: NASA's prized stash of moon rocks.
Building 31 North, which sits on the grounds of Houston's Johnson Space Center, is where NASA keeps all 600 pounds of the moon rocks it has secured. They are the sole property of the government, collected over six lunar missions and protected with the dramatic intensity of national treasures. Building 31 North is one of the few buildings on earth constructed under Class 100 standards—it is a structure that can withstand 1000 years of water submersion, among other durability metrics that should not be tested this side of Armageddon.
Breaking into it is designed to be impossible for normal people. But not harder than building a shuttle, or figuring out how to put a rover on Mars. The agency hires people with the ability to find solutions for intimidatingly large problems exactly like this one. In this regard, Roberts was your typical NASA intern. The 25-year-old was pursuing multiple degrees in Physics, Geology and Anthropology. But while Thad was school smart, he also has an almost unquencheable adrenaline-seeking side, and was consumed with a strange Excel spreadsheet of personal goals that read like he was trying to prove himself to Evel Knievel and a rocket scientist at the same time: Experience zero gravity, check; experience severe dehydration, check; find dinosaur tracks, no problem. The list was long, and as he checked off one after another, maybe Thad's ego began to believe anything was possible.
But Thad wasn't in this alone. He was on his way to a divorce fueled by an affair he was having with fellow intern Tiffany Fowler. Tiffany was equally dynamic—a firecracker and former cheerleader who spoke French in bed and conducted stem cell research on NASA's behalf. Thad wanted her, so when Tiffany begged to hear his idea to liberate the moon rocks, he told her. And when she wanted to follow through with the plan, the romantic and exciting thing was to start hatching a plan as if it were yet another science problem at work. One that would could make them very rich, or ruin their lives.
Soon one more curious co-op, the 19-year-old Shae Saur, had joined in on the heist. After months of preparation, they found themselves embarking on their unauthorized mission, driving for Building 31 North after dark with intel on every security device—and plans to get around them.
When it comes to Thad's story, it is worth noting several things. I was not allowed to quote him directly from my interviews, and the others involved in the crime declined to verify his facts. This is his story as he told it to me. And in the time since, he's written a novel about the heist, which was "based on truth, but it's embellished." So, take the tale for what it's worth.The Space Center had been under 24-hour supervision since the 9/11 attacks, but the guards planted at each entryway are not in the habit of stopping NASA's carefully selected interns—who are always working—from entering after hours.
The guard said, "You get a new car?" Thad replied, "No, sir. Borrowed it to help a friend move."
So with a wave of a hand, Shae, Tiffany and Thad were granted access. Thad guided the Jeep Cherokee on the short journey past Rocket Park—an open sky cemetery of former rockets and spacecraft—then parked near the entryway of Building 31.
Once they were in range, the three set about linking and looping the cameras inside Building 31, a system that they had previously taped between shifts of employees responsible for watching the cameras. It is unknown how Thad and company received the intel required to do such a thing, even if the idea itself is straight out of a heist flick. But Shae stayed in the car to monitor the rewired cameras, to warn Tiffany and Thad if anything went wrong. While they prepped, they watched for the presence of fellow late night co-workers, but Thad timed their arrival well and they are alone. So far so good. Thad and Tiffany crawled out of the Jeep, grabbed their duffel bags, and headed for the entryway. Getting inside the front door was easy—a former coworker had simply emailed Thad the code that would allow them access. Inside jobs are often like this, but NASA doesn't make it easy to steal moon rocks—the puzzle was only starting to get complicated.
Inside the building, an unassuming university-like structure formed by blocks and filled with sterile white walls, Thad and Tiffany walked down well-lit hallways. The milky corridors, warmed by picture shrines to missions past, form the passageway between the offices of full time NASA employees, as well as the route to the inner sanctum of Building 31 North. They stopped to prepare.
In the bathroom, when Thad and Tiffany put on their wetsuits, they also stopped to check their breathing apparatus. The moon rocks were in a chamber devoid of oxygen in order to keep the rocks from rotting by oxidation. They would have 15 minutes of air supplied from their tanks once they entered the nitrogen-filled chamber, past the airlock.
If the interior of Building 31 can be described as white, then the interior of Building 31 North can be described as bleached—immaculate and bloodless in a wash of round-the-clock sterility. During the day, the single lab inside the pearly building buzzes with the movement of white jackets occupied by some of the biggest brains in the world. But at night, once the scientists have passed through the clean room that guards their entries and exits, the lab is nothing but white surfaces, cold metal, glass panels and the unearthly presence of nitrogen tanks. Thad and Tiffany's path took them straight through clean room and across the empty laboratory, leaving them at the edge of a short hall that dead-ended at the door to the vault.
Breaking into the actual vault required a complex series of codes, some of which were cracked using a dusting of calcite, fluorite and gypsum powder. The mix of the three glows under blacklight, and by paying careful attention to the absorption of the powder it is possible to tell which finger came down first and so forth. It doesn't quite make sense that Thad could use this trick to figure out the exact sequence for all the codes, based off such rudimentary information. But once Thad had eventually thrown his whole weight against the vault door, the two were inside.
The vault itself was much like the laboratory, a big room in which core samples and moon rocks are encased in glass and metal, numbered by mission. But they hadn't the time to admire their surroundings. To stay on track—or more importantly, to stay alive—Thad and Tiffany had only 3 minutes to crack the safe, or they wouldn't have enough air to get back outside.
As the seconds crept onward, Thad continued to struggle with the code, so he quickly moved to plan B, which involved unbolting the heavy safe from the ground, loading it on to a small dolly and carting it back out to the car. It wasn't easy, but within the remaining time allotted to them, the two managed to slip out of the vault, through the laboratory, down the hallways, past the rooms, through the doors and out of the grounds undetected—all while dragging over a quarter ton of rocks and metal. No small feat, and I'm unsure of how, even on a dolly, a man and a woman could have moved it all.
NASA didn't realize the safe was gone for two days. A list of suspects was slowly put together. There were no clues left behind—not a fingerprint, a piece of hair, nothing—so the resulting set of names (which was void of that of the actual culprits) looked more like a compiled NASA shitlist than anything else.The samples they took were from every Apollo mission, ever. Sometime between the heist and its resolution, Tiffany and Thad arranged the moon rocks on a bed—and had sex amongst them.
Typically, the life of NASA terrestrial moon rocks is dull. After reams of paperwork get approved, a small fragment of the rock makes its way out of this building and into the hands of a researcher, who for a period of time can coax the moon to give up its secrets. However, when the researcher's time is up, the rock must be returned to the safekeeping of its disaster-proof home, but now permanently compromised by the prods and chemical dousings that so rarely result in something worth talking about.
By this point, the rock is considered too tainted for further use, but is subjected nonetheless to the same eager security as the rest of the contents of 31 North. The rocks, never to be touched again, go in the safe that Thad stole, which is kept inside the same vault where the untested moon rocks rest behind glass panels in a heavily monitored, oxygen-free climate to simulate the moon.It is worth noting that at any point in the vault, Thad or Tiffany could have used glasscutters to get to the untouched moon rocks behind a panel, but stole the much more difficult to carry safe instead. Why?
There is significant frustration among NASA employees regarding the tested rocks. Tainted as they may be, many feel they deserve to be at least on display. Perhaps most irritatingly, they present an obvious answer to NASA's funding issues. Science's trash can be a collector's treasure, and the price on a piece of the moon, chemical-laden or otherwise, mirrors that of any other intergalactic relic. For these reasons, conversations about these stored rocks are as common on the grounds of the Johnson Space Center as the solving of more everyday astronautical problems. And NASA employees like to solve problems. To Thad Roberts, the problem of the underutilized-but-valuable moon rocks had a simple answer. He told me that if they were useless to science, he saw no harm in stealing them. And the fact he stole the safe, not the more easily taken fresh rocks, seems to back this up.
On the other hand, the FBI's case files contradicts this notion:...they also contaminated them—making them virtually useless to the scientific community. They also destroyed three decades worth of handwritten research notes by a NASA scientist that had been locked in the safe.Who do you trust less, a convicted thief, or the US government?
The story, however, does not end here. Gordon McWhorter, a friend of Thad's who was largely unaware of the magnitude of the heist, had helped to find a buyer for the rocks, across the internet.Greetings.A Belgian amateur mineralogist by the name of Axel Emmermann had been coveting moon rocks as an addition to his unusual collection. Emmermann wanted the rocks if the price was right, and Thad had priced a quarter pound of moon far, far under NASA's post-crime estimate of over $30 million. The price was so right, in fact, that Emmermann grew suspicious, and worried that the deal might be less black and white than it seemed.
My name is Orb Robinson from Tampa, Fla. I have in my possession a rare and multi-karat moon rock I'm trying to find a buyer for. The laws surrounding this type of exchange are known, so I will be straightforward and nonchalant about wanting to find a private buyer. If you, or someone you know would be interested in such an exchange, please let me know.
Thanks.
On July 20, 2002—exactly 33 years to the day after the day that Armstrong first stepped on the moon—"Emmermann" met Thad in a Florida restaurant. They chatted, then headed for a hotel where the official swap was to take place. They all stepped out of the car. The Orlando Sentinel reported that Roberts joked, "I'm just hoping you don't have a wire on you." He was. The person Thad thought was Emmermann was actually an FBI agent.In moments, 40 agents, 40 guns and the sound of a helicopter overhead surrounded them. The freeway had even been shut down in case of escape. They'd been made.
Tiffany and Thad were in a holding cell together for 24 hours, but that was the last time they'd be together until the sentencing date. In court, Thad looked back at her from his seat in the courtroom; Tiffany looked down at her feet.
The punishments were doled out in unfair, interesting packages. Both of the girls were simply handed probation, but the boys were both dealt several years. Gordon was served nearly as harshly as Thad, who received 100 months for his planning, execution of the crime (a sentence that was later reduced). As if all of this wasn't enough, Thad was also brought up on charges of stealing dinosaur fossils from a dig site in Utah. The case was folded into this one.
Thad spent his time in prison doing things befitting of an ex-NASA co-op, like teaching his inmates about quantum physics, but also spent a good deal of time mourning the loss of Tiffany. On August 4th, 2008, when his sentence was finished, he was dismayed to learn she had moved on. By that point, however, he had another thing in his possession, a completed book entitled Einstein's Intuition: Visualizing an Eleven-Dimensional Framework of Nature, An Introduction to Quantum Space Theory. That says that the book covers Einstein's theories of truth, the rational complete form of nature, and the interplay of the seen and the unseen. It has yet to be published.
There are rumors of unsolved mysteries. Supposedly, two significant pieces of NASA history went missing during the time of the crime, and have not been recovered: The original video tapes of the 1969 Lunar Landing, and six folders of more mysterious content that were supposedly stored in the safe. Thad claims to have never seen them.
Crappy > Sexy
If you want barely passable jokes, you'd watch the latest "______ Movie" spoof. And if you wanted some T+A, the interweb has plenty of pron. But why you'd want flaccid humor and barely softcore action is beyond me. How is there money to make this? Who is watching it? Horny Fark? I rest my case.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Coco Vrooom
Women around the world lost their shit when they saw the headline "Scientists Unveil Chocolate-Fueled Race Car". Let's hope there's no cheesecake powered rocket in the works.Technically, the car runs on vegetable oils and chocolate waste that has been turned into biofuel, but hey, there's still choclate in there. But that's not where the environmentalism ends. The steering wheel is made out of plant-based fibers derived from carrots and other root vegetables, and the seat is built of flax fibre and soybean oil foam. The body is also made of plant fibers. Basically, you can eat the car if they lose.
Scientists say their car is the fastest to run on biofuels also to be made from biodegradable materials. It has been built to Formula 3 specifications about the car's size, weight, and performance. Those claims could not be independently verified. They hope it can reach speeds of over 145 mph when it is tested on a racetrack in a few weeks time. They have driven it at around 60 mph and are now making final adjustments to the engine before attempting the top speed.
The car, not-so-cleverly-named "WorldFirst Formula 3 racing car," will go on display at several races including the European Grand Prix and Britain's Goodwood Festival of Speed.
Two Of The Most Credible Opinions I Know
Jenny McCarthy is well known as a model and actor, but in recent days she's getting far more publicity for her stance that vaccines cause autism. She has a son who may be autistic, and of course we are sympathetic to her plight. But that can only go so far when Ms. McCarthy appears on endless chat shows, is interviewed in magazine articles, and even writes books encouraging people not to vaccinate their children.
Numerous, well-done studies have shown conclusively that there is no causal link between vaccines and the onset of autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) - the claim that they are connected is spurious, based on anecdotes and the fact that vaccines are given to children around the same time that ASD symptoms begin to appear.
The antivaccination movement has been directly linked with outbreaks of various vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, and there have been numerous illnesses and even deaths associated with these outbreaks. The facts are in, and have been for quite some time: vaccines are an overwhelming modern medical success story, having eradicated such scourges as smallpox, and hugely lowering rates of other diseases such as measles, mumps, rubella, polio, influenza, and diptheria. The evidence is also overwhelmingly against any link between vaccines and autism as well.
Yet all that evidence has been overturned in the public's mind with ease and alacrity by Ms. McCarthy, so she wins the Pigasus award for her contribution to the country's ill-health.
Jenny McCarthy first got famous in 1993 when she showed her vagina in Playboy, but really found her calling when her 2-year old son was diagnosed with not-autism then not-autism then not-autism then autism (1). So clearly her son had autism, and she blamed vaccines for giving it to him. Specifically the measles vaccine, which up until 1999 contained mercury. Jenny's son was born in 2002 and did not receive a vaccine with mercury (2), but she spoke out to have it banned anyway. Again. Extra-banned, and for kids like her son who didn’t get it in the first place to not get it even more in the future. Because now he’s cured. But not really. Or maybe he never had it to begin with. Either way, all that public speaking has led Oprah Winfrey to give Jenny her very own talk-show!
McCarthy has inked a multi-year overall deal with Winfrey’s Harpo Prods. to develop projects on different platforms, including a syndicated talk show that the actress/author would host.McCarthy talked to the chat queen about her struggles with her son’s autism in conjunction with the releases of her best-selling books “Louder Than Words: A Mother’s Journey in Healing Autism” and “Mother Warriors: A Nation of Parents Healing Autism Against All Odds.” McCarthy also was part of Winfrey’s Friday Live panels twice, including this past Friday.
The worst thing about Jenny's baseless hippie ramblings is that it gives people false hope. If I thought for one second the measles vaccine could miraculously transform them into nearly invisible mutes I would stab them in the heart with it.