This is the most unbelievably disgusting thing I have ever heard.
It’s Maggot debridement therapy, or basically the medical use of sterilized maggots on open wounds. From the link on Boing Boing:
The larvae preferentially consume dead tissue (steering clear of live), they excrete an antibacterial agent, and they stimulate wound healing.
I think I can speak for everyone when I say: yeeech!
I have some special interest stories to share here today.
First off, there’s a link for us parents, Having Kids Makes You Thick. It’s on The Register, which should be taken with a grain of salt usually, but maybe you should use two grains this time, since they quote a British quasi-tabloid. Here’s an excerpt:
�It explains why parents think their kid is the smartest in class or the best athlete, even if that child is as dumb as a box of rocks or needs a calendar to time a 100-yard sprint. People who before were intelligent and open-minded turn into raving lunatics who want to blame a teacher or sports coach every time their mediocre child fails.�
Funny stuff, but with a bit of truth that I have noticed before.
Here’s an interesting bit: Police in Paris have discovered a movie theatre in the catacombs under the city. It had a stocked bar, power, phone lines and a full size projector and screen. Here’s the link, from Boing Boing. It’s amazing. Once again stealing a quote:
Three days later, when the police returned accompanied by experts from the French electricity board to see where the power was coming from, the phone and electricity lines had been cut and a note was lying in the middle of the floor: “Do not,” it said, “try to find us.”
Recently we had been reminiscing about attacking friends with a toy airplane. Well, in that same vein, here’s a link (again from Boing Boing) to a site that has plans for a paper airplane that flaps it’s wings, which if it works is pretty amazing. And, of course what’s more threatening than a stationary unmanned 20 ft military drone that just whirls around in one place? Scary.
And finally, here’s a link I can’t visit at work since it’s blocked, so visit carefully. I just know Kyle is going to try this, it’s pornogami, or rather sexually explicit origami. Again, The Register is a gold mine for information of this magnitude. Here’s a few links they provide; The Missionary, and Bill and Monica. Please note that I have NOT vetted those links, although I must say I’m a little interested to see what they look like….
that should be enough to keep you going for a little while.
Caught this story on the Globe and Mail today about how they are pumping water out of Lake Ontario to cool buildings in Toronto. It’s pretty neat technology, really. The water at the bottom of the lake is “barely above freezing”, and they pump it up and use it to replace traditional air conditioning. Reduces fossil fuel consumption, emissions, green, yada. Nice job, way to go.
Too bad this is the coldest summer on record worldwide since 1992. Nice timing on that one, pointdexter.
Here’s another article that applies to me. Funny how I only write about articles that apply to me? Maybe it’s because I’m so damn self-centered. Or maybe it’s because I think only of myself. Sometimes I never think about other people, that could be the reason. I find that’s only because I’m a lot more interesting to myself than other people. One thing’s for sure, regardless of what the cause is, I am going to have to take some time alone to consider this and how it could affect me.
Anyway, back to the article and me, it is an article on how they have produced a chemical that turns monkeys from procrastinating layabouts into focussed workaholics. Now that has some really interesting uses, especially since there’s nothing I would like more than a workaholic monkey to get some things done around the house I have been putting off. Those guys can really work, when they have been doped up by scientists.
The article goes on to say that the monkeys were trained to push a level in response to visual cues on a screen. They got a drop of water as a reward each time. They got better at the task when given the drug. The only side effect of the workaholic drug is chronic thirstiness, as reported by the monkeys involved in the test.
Here’s an interesting piece on a volcanic island that could drop a huge chunk of rock into the Atlantic, and trigger mega-tsunamis (huge tidal waves 300 feet high travelling at 560mph).
Apparently nobody wants to listen to the geeks that are trying to warn people about this. It’s like the plot of some sort of natural disaster movie, where the geeks know something terrible will happen and nobody wants to listen to them, you know? It’s something like that.
Since I’m more or less in the IT industry the word “outsourcing” is a point of interest to me.
Here’s an interesting little angle on outsourcing in the restaurant business. In a nutshell, when you are in the McDonald’s drive-through at Girardeau, Missouri and place your order, you are actually talking to someone 900 miles away in a call centre in Colorado. It’s meant to take the errors out of ordering. That’s a little extreme.
Bear with me for a minute here people.
What happens when they ask you to pull ahead and they run your food out to you since it might take too long to prepare? Do they air drop it in using a military chopper? Why would you even need to have a drive through speaker phone anywhere near a restaurant? Just stick them at stop lights anywhere in the city, place an order while you’re waiting for the light to go green, and they’ll deliver it to you at the next stop light. Via dogzooka, or whatever those hot-dog firing air guns they have at hockey games are called. Please remember to open your window before arriving at the light, sir. You don’t want to get any of that vanilla shake on your car’s paint, it will strip it right off. But don’t worry if your limbs are too fat and weak to safely catch projectile Big Macs, flash your lights so that we can have one of our McHomeless People ™ run it over to you through traffic.
Ok, that was a little over the top.