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I’m looking forward to one that can iron shirts.

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I am not making this up.

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So there, food snobs.

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One of the most ironic aspects of our putative “Age of Obama” is how little impact it has had on the nation’s urban geography. Although the administration remains dominated by boosters from traditional blue state cities–particularly the president’s political base of Chicago–the nation’s metropolitan growth continues to shift mostly toward a handful of Sunbelt red state metropolitan areas.

Funny how that works.

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Apparently C J Cherryh used to teach Latin, and has a course available.

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Using your own stem cells—extracted from your fat or bone marrow—a San Diego company called Organovo is offering a $200,000 bioprinter that prints human tissue in 3D. While the current model, which ships this year, can only handle simple stuff like blood vessels, printing up whole organs is very close.

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We have the technology.

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Manor (MAY-ner; population 6,500), which is 12 miles east of downtown Austin, has turned civic participation into a sort of online game, complete with virtual currency. It uses barcode-like images that can be read by cellphone cameras to give residents everything from historical information to data on municipal projects. And it allows residents to report problems to its public works department by taking a photo with their phones.

Some of the technologies Manor is using are available elsewhere. But Manor is unusual in employing all of these programs in a small city that has a limited budget and no history as a high-tech hotbed. The town has been getting more attention lately for its efforts and generated some buzz at this year’s South by Southwest Interactive festival in Austin.

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Two would-be robbers called a bank ahead and demanded that the cash be ready for them when they arrived, Connecticut officials said, giving police ample time to get to the scene.

Not quite a Darwin Award ….

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I am not making this up.

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Roy, you might want to put this on a piece of clothing.

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SPROUT GARDEN. The crew plans to grow sprouts and herbs during the journey. To avoid salt spray, the garden may be relocated to the rear mast.

Memory eternal.

Watch the clips for the best music of the 20th century.

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It is well established that white people like the past. Vintage clothing, history degrees, and nostalgia are just three examples of how white people show their love for by-gone eras. So when white people think about growing their own food they are reminded of pastoral images of farming, working the land, and growing whole natural foods for their family. This most positive viewpoint comes from the fact that white people have mostly enjoyed  supervisory roles in agricultural production over the years.

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Domino’s Triton No. 1, an experimental pizza-delivery vehicle, at the Pioneer Auto Show, a museum in Murdo, South Dakota. It’s a future that never came to pass, as most pizza drivers use their own cars for delivery.

Hiro Protagonist, you’re on deck.

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Sounds almost like a tabloid headline, doesn’t it?

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137 years of Popular Science, online.

A new word.

O•ba•ma•lar•key (n.):

Rhetorical defense of a dumbass idea, offered by subtly re-directing the discourse from the merits and weaknesses of the idea itself, toward the appealing but meaningless attributes of the personality most prominently associated with it.

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Tremendomeatatarianism  is the ethical stance of vowing only to eat meat that’s tremendously delicious.

Sign me up.

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Darwin Award.

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We have the technology.

Check it out.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back for a Big Mac….

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Somehow, this just says ‘America’ to me. Perhaps it’s the ketchup.

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I don’t care who you are, that’s funny.

Watch it.

Hey, I’m Orthodox. Cope.

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Let’s go surfin’ now
Everybody’s learnin’ how
Come on a safari with meeeeeeee…..

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You know you want one.

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Amazingly enough, the knife only weighs 8 ounces due to the rat-tail handle build and the Kraton grip. You could get a stronger knife in a heavier full-width tang — but with the Ka-Bar Bowie, there’s no reason to be concerned. Ka-Bar has been building prybar strong knives with rat-tail tangs for a very long time.

You know you want one.

Read it. And watch the videos, of course.

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We have the technology.

Lynn Viehl, prolific writer, argues with Chinese fortune cookies.

Well, she’s a writer. They do stuff like that.

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You never know when an Iranian EMP attack will make all of your credit cards just so much plastic.

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I am not making this up.

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Me want.

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German state constitutions require children to attend public or private schools, and parents can face fines or prison time if they do not comply.

Aren’t you glad you don’t live in Germany?

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Dick Cavett, the SWPL reference standard, meets a Real American.

(Warning: Good friends have refused to believe a word of what I’m about to relate. Your credulity is about to be strained.)

Which tells you all you really need to know about Dick Cavett (disclaimer: He and I both went to Yale, the same physical Yale but not the same sociological Yale) and his friends — and his (assumed) readers.

(‘What’s your name?’ ‘Chan Wen.’ ‘John Wayne? That’s a terrible cowboy name.’)

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How often can people mash up the same Hitler-throws-a-tantrum scene? Let us count the ways….

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The guys who run the plant must not be from around here.

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We have the technology.

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The Amish have the undeserved reputation of being luddites, of people who refuse to employ new technology. It’s well known the strictest of them don’t use electricity, or automobiles, but rather farm with manual tools and ride in a horse and buggy.  In any debate about the merits of embracing new technology, the Amish stand out as offering an honorable alternative of refusal. Yet Amish lives are anything but anti-technological. In fact on my several visits with them, I have found them to be ingenious hackers and tinkers, the ultimate makers and do-it-yourselfers and surprisingly pro technology.

The Amish call this pneumatic system “Amish electricity.” At first pneumatics were devised for Amish workshops, but it was seen as so useful that air-power migrated to Amish households. In fact there is an entire cottage industry in retrofitting tools and appliances to Amish electricity. The retrofitters buy a heavy-duty blender, say, and yank out the electrical motor. They then substitute an air-powered motor of appropriate size, add pneumatic connectors, and bingo, your Amish mom now has a blender in her electrical-less kitchen. You can get a pneumatic sewing machine, and a pneumatic washer/dryer (with propane heat). In a display of pure steam-punk nerdiness, Amish hackers try to outdo each other in building pneumatic versions of electrified contraptions. Their mechanical skill is quite impressive, particularly since none went beyond the 8th grade. They love to show off this air-punk geekiness. And every tinkerer I met claimed that pneumatics were superior to electrical devices because air was more powerful and durable, outlasting motors which burned out after a few years hard labor. I don’t know if this is true, or just justification, but it was a constant refrain.

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These ships are just.so.cool.