The Null Device
2002/12/10
AOL Time Warner have come up with a new form of synergising their recording labels and online service: putting recording artists on their tech support line. If you call AOL's technical support number, you will hear prerecorded messages from Warner artists such as TLC and LeAnn Rimes, instructing you to "listen to the menu carefully prior to making your selection", and then urging you to buy the album "you've been enjoying during this call". (via Plastic)
Warning: your CD-ROM drive could kill you. Modern high-speed drives have the ability to spin discs so fast that they disintegrate, sending shards of shrapnel flying outwards at lethal velocities. If your computer includes a high-speed CD-ROM drive, experts recommend that you sit no less than five metres away from it, and preferably wear protective goggles and kevlar clothing.
In the vein of Little Ayse and the Magic Dwarves, another inexplicably bizarre Turkish remake of a well-known film; in this case, Turkish Star Trek, or Turist Ömer Uzay Yolunda as they say in Istanbul.
The teleportation effects are, like all Turkish special effects, a strange combination of retarded and rad. The four men stand as still as possible while the camera goes out of focus. Ten seconds later, the film gets scratched in their general area and they run out of frame while the guy holding the camera hits pause and unpause. This gives more of the impression that something's wrong with your VCR than of people being transported through space. Miniskirt technology is a much higher priority among their people than visual effects.
Spak finally comes to his senses after the evil licking shapechanger leaves, and Kirk is strangely uninterested in why he just tried to kill him. They avoid discussing it as they walk to the next wasteland where they get attacked by 20 Tarzan karate bots. That's what I said. This sets off a chain reaction of stupidity with naked robots kicking and punching in random directions and Omer almost pulling a face muscle with his mugging. Professor Krater built these robots for love, not karate, so the fight mostly consists of them rushing Kirk and Spak then stopping just short of them to scream "YAAAHHH!" and dance.
(via bOING bOING)
The Perpetual War Portfolio is an evenly weighted basket of five stocks poised to succeed in the age of perpetual war. Lists the companies, the weapons they manufacture, and their political connections, as well as statistics of performance. As you can expect, the PWP comfortably outperforms the stock market in general. (via Reenhead)
Researchers in the Netherlands have isolated a new medical condition: leisure sickness. It afflicts about 3% of the population, who become ill if they stop working, commonly experiencing fatigue, muscular pains or nausea on weekends or flu-like symptoms during vacations.
"Relaxing can be very stressful for a lot of people. When they got off the treadmill of life their immune system collapses. Sometimes that is the only way they can relax. But leisure time can also be stressful because it means the day is unstructured, people have to re-establish relationships and spend time with their families."
Those most afflicted by this syndrome are those with a heavy workload or a high sense of responsibility. Another reason to repent, quit your job and slack off? (via FmH)