Archive for January, 2008

Boondocks - Rosa Parks

Cold Ass Football

Because we’re disgusted with hearing the candidates unashamedly quote Dr. King, with no real discussion of race in America, we decided to talk about some football instead.

The Superbowl in Arizona this year will be between the New England Patriots [which was inevitable] and the New York Giants. A lot of people were rooting for the Packers against New York yesterday, hoping to see a rematch of the 1996 Superbowl, but in the end the New York team won out.

It was a cold day at both frozen Lambeau field and Foxboro. The Patriots were playing against a juiced up San Diego team in 11 degree temperatures. The Giants were battling it out in just about zero degree temperatures, likewise.

Okay, so I admit, the real reason for this post was to gloat just a little bit, but I also wanted to point out something odd. What does it say about the Patriots that the last team we beat up on in the regular season is our next competitor? Playing so well against us gave New York the spark it needed to cruise through the NFC.

Oh well, yet another abnormally large-headed quarterback to face… escaped one just to have to fend off another. Congrats to both teams: I know fans on both sides are fired up.

The Future of Science Is: Art?

via greenmnp

SEED: Science Is Culture, pretty much the illest science magazine ever there was, has come out with a myninjapleasiest look at the relationship between science and art - how each draws from and depends on the other and how ultimately, for science to realize its potential (unlock the mysteries of the universe, discover the meaning of life (42), etc.) it will have to break away from the mold of sterile dissection and embrace the lofty, philosophical realities that art can disclose.

Magic Lantern Exhibit

`ambassador for peace’

CAIRO, Egypta€"Omar Osama bin Laden bears a striking resemblance to his notorious father a€" except for the dreadlocks that dangle halfway down his back. Then there’s the black leather biker jacket.

The 26-year-old does not renounce his father, Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, but in an interview he said there is a better way to defend Islam than militancy: Omar wants to be an "ambassador for peace" between Muslims and the West.

Omar a€" one of bin Laden’s 19 children a€" raised a tabloid storm last year when he married a 52-year-old British woman, Jane Felix-Browne, who took the name Zaina Alsabah. Now the couple say they want to be advocates, planning a 5,000-kilometre horse race across North Africa to draw attention to the cause of peace.

via thestar

Crooklyn Dodgers - Reunion

The New Black

[Image: A National Institute of Standards and Technology reflectance standard (left), a sample of the new darkest material (center), and a piece of glassy carbon (right), taken under a flash light illumination]

U.S. researchers have made the darkest material on Earth, a substance so black it absorbs more than 99.9 percent of light. Made from tiny tubes of carbon standing on end, this material is almost 30 times darker than a carbon substance used by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology as the current benchmark of blackness.

The substance has a total reflective index of 0.045 percent — which is more than three times darker than the nickel-phosphorous alloy that now holds the record as the world’s darkest material. Basic black paint, by comparison, has a reflective index of 5 percent to 10 percent.

They’re already talking about the benefits of using this, or a similar material, in future solar panel construction, as it would be incredibly efficient at absorbing nearly all the light that hit it.

::via Reuters::

Greenworks Tower

The tower height is 70 feet; overall rotor size is 6 feet by 20 feet and expected power production is 2000 kWh/yr. The system is supported by a battery optional inverter rated at 3600 Watts and could supply 10 percent of the electric power for the platinum LEEDs facility.

made by aerotecture

Moth by Fi Jae Lee