blacksundae

Coal torpedo

The coal torpedo was a hollow iron casting filled with explosives and covered in coal dust, deployed by the Confederate Secret Service during the American Civil War, and intended for doing harm to Union steam transportation. When shoveled into the firebox amongst the coal, the resulting explosion would at the very least damage the boiler and render the engines inoperable, and at most cause a catastrophic boiler explosion that would kill crewmen and likely start a fire that would sink the vessel.

Read on.

Alan Kay presenting Ivan Sutherland’s Sketchpad, one of most influencial programs in the history of graphical user interfaces. Sutherland developed Sketchpad in 1963.

Via Reddit.

According to the completely infallible trivia section of IMDb*, Christopher Walken was offered the role of “Rico” in Judge Dredd, a part that subsequently went to Armand Assante.

Isn’t that bizarre? Christopher Walken turned down a role!

RIMSHOT

*It’s like Wikipedia, sans any effort at attribution.

Sue Jones-Davies, the actress who played Judith Iscariot in Monty Python’s Life of Bryan, is now mayor of the Welsh town of Aberystwyth* and is trying to lift the town’s ban on… The Life of Brian!

Some religious groups picketed cinemas which screened the film, and it was banned from being shown in some towns and cities, including Aberystwyth.

Nearly 30 years on, Mr Bell, vicar of the town’s St Michael’s Church, said the restriction should remain in place.

“There’s been no change in attitude or response to the film amongst the Christians who have spoken to me in Aberystwyth,” he explained.

“The film at its root is poking fun at Christ and we don’t want that to happen. I don’t think that the film should be shown. Why should the ban be removed?”

Asked if he had ever seen the film, Mr Bell said he had “seen a small clip, that’s all”.

Surprise, surprise. Read the whole thing.

*Gesundheit!

The paper finds that there is a serious flaw in how these [media industry] trade groups finger alleged file-sharers. It also suggests that some people might be getting improperly accused of sharing copyrighted content, and could even be purposely framed by other users.

In two separate studies in August of 2007 and May of this year, the researchers set out to examine who was participating in BitTorrent file-sharing networks and what they were sharing. The researchers introduced software agents into these networks to monitor their traffic. Even though those software agents did not download any files, the researchers say they received over 400 take-down requests accusing them of participating in the downloads.

The researchers concluded that enforcement agencies are looking only at I.P. addresses of participants on these peer-to-peer networks, and not what files are actually downloaded or uploaded—a more resource-intensive process that would nevertheless yield more conclusive information.

In their report, the researchers also demonstrate a way to manipulate I.P. addresses so that another user appears responsible for the file-sharing.

An inanimate object could also get the blame. The researchers rigged the software agents to implicate three laserjet printers, which were then accused in takedown letters by the M.P.A.A. of downloading copies of “Iron Man” and the latest Indiana Jones film.

Read on. [via Boing Boing]

Seen near South Park in San Francisco. NOOOOOOOOOO THEY BE STEALIN MY BUCKET KITTEH!

Graffito in Montgomery BART station. I tend to agree.

I’m clearly an immature doofus, ’cause this shelved Super Bowl ad had me laughing out loud.

The Sleep Waking robot acts as a way to play-back dreams by using recorded brainwave activity and eye movements during REM sleep to determine robot behaviors and head positions.

This reminds me of a joke I made up a while back:

Q. What should you do if you injure yourself while sleep walking?
A. Call the somnambulance.

Read on. [via Posthuman Blues]

As obsessed as I am with all things LOL, I know internet memes have a short shelf life. That being said, maybe THIS is the lolcats phenomenon’s last valiant attempt at bringing the funny.

…or if we’re lucky, maybe it’ll never get old!

(Especially hilarious: Taft)

[via some commentor on the Comics Curmudgeon]