Shocking Ideas That Could Change the World (do go and read this!)
Warning: The ideas expressed here may be dangerous. For this year’s list, we walked right past the usual suspects and went looking for trouble. We wanted radicals, heretics, agitators—big thinkers with controversial, game-changing propositions. We found a prison reformer who wants to empty jails, an economist who thinks foreign aid hurts more than it helps, and a military theorist who believes the US should launch preemptive cyberattacks, right now. Then there’s secretary of defense robert gates, who wants to win wars, not just prep for them. Risky? Sure. But this is no time to play it safe.
From Wired Magazine
Russian spies: beautician arrested trying to smuggle night scopes into Moscow
Yes, the above is from Black and WTF.
Paper Mache Masters: From Crafters to Professionals. The medium is easy to use, lightweight, versatile, and can turn out to be way cooler than you might think.
China trains fur farm foxes to combat rat plague
The Mines of South Africa can descend as far as 12,000 feet and reach temperatures of 130 degrees. To produce an ounce of gold requires 38 man hours, 1400 gallons of water, enough electricity to run a large house for ten days, and chemicals such as cyanide, acids, lead, borax, and lime. In order to extract South Africa’s yearly output of 500 tons of gold, nearly 70 million tons of earth are raised and milled. – Provided by RandomHistory.com
North Korean leader transfers secret fund to son: Report
12 animals mistaken for mythical creatures
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (born on this date in 1929)
Onassis was the wife of US President John F. Kennedy and served as First Lady during his presidency from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. Her graciousness, elegance, and beauty endeared her to the American public, and her broad culture and ease in speaking Spanish and French impressed foreign leaders. Five years after her first husband’s murder, she married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. Upon his death in 1975, she returned to New York and became successful in what occupation? More...
The life of a lightning bolt. This one was recorded at 7,200 images per second, producing an eerie but super cool video.
The Aral Sea was once one of the four largest lakes in the world, situated between Kazakhstan in the north and Uzbekistan in the south. In the 1960′s the Soviet Union redirected its tributary rivers into irrigation projects, and as a result by 2007 it had shrunk to 10% of its original size. Once prosperous fishing towns like Muynak were left stranded miles from the retreating waters, their boats high and dry on the salt-encrusted desert sand. go to GALLERY
A Reading List to Put the WikiLeaks ‘War Logs’ in Context
Ten Infamous Islands of Exile. Even a tropical paradise is a prison when you can never leave.
‘Lost’ Ansel Adams Photographs Found, Worth $200 Million.
So who remembers Jayne Mansfield? Besides me.
There are an estimated 1.6 million ants for every human being on earth. When all of them come to live in your home at once, you have to rethink your natural, organic, respect-for-life philosophy. (via Metafilter)
