youtube .. (Hitting Refresh for videos!)

[Firefox]

Woz on iOS7 and America.

[F-ZeroOne]

[F-ZeroOne]

You'll brick yourself...

[Jonesey]

[youtube]LVKaIFxQa98&[/youtube]

That'll be Gatchaman/Battle of the Planets, then...

[F-ZeroOne]

Apparently they've settled the question of whether or not Zoltar (Berg Katse) was a woman or not [1]... Galactor are like the ultimate anime evil criminal super-organisation; I mean, they once tried to blow up a fresh air factory with JESUS!



[1] The answer, of course, is both.

[pogo]

[Orava]

Manchester Museum bosses puzzled by ancient Egyptian statue which mysteriously turns itself

The 10-inch tall statue of Neb-Sanu, which dates back to 1800 BC, was found in a mummy’s tomb and has been at the Museum for eighty years.

And now a time-lapse video clearly shows it turning on its axis during the day, apparently of its own volition. During the night, however, it remains still.

Campbell Price, an Egyptologist at the museum, suggests the museum may have been struck by ancient curse.

[Istar]

To paraphrase Tim Minchin from 'Storm': Throughout history, Every mystery, Ever solved has turned out to be, Not Magic.

So - a mystical 'curse', or: resonant frequencies set up in the hardwood floor by passing visitors (during the day, but not at night when the exhibit is closed) which are transmitted into the metal-and-glass display cabinet causing the shelves to buzz a little and induce a rotation effect on a small stone statue with a microscopically-uneven defect in its' base somewhere close to the centre.

Yeah, that's a real puzzle.

[KlaxonCow]

It's also illogical by its own standards anyway.

If you're going to "curse" something, then wouldn't you come up with something a bit more impressive than an only-by-day spinning statue?

You know, something more juicy like praying to a malicious deity to bring a vicious pox upon the households of your enemies and their children and their children's children, not "oh Mighty Set, should this statue be displaced into an institution of reverent exhibition thousands of years hence, may it very slowly spin around inexplicably at certain periods of the day, to somewhat ambiguously show them that we're only very slightly irritated by their respectful admiration of the products of our civilisation (which, coincidentally, might help raise visitor numbers to the museum, that'll help them make some more money)."

What sort of "ancient curse" is that? A rather shit one, is what.

As always with such "signs" and "psychic predictions" and the like, it's always so fucking trivial. If we're genuinely dealing with powerful vengeful deities and ancient magicks and curses, then why are they always such petty parlour tricks that even a stage magician would feel rather embarrassed to perform?

If that's the grand extent of the power of these deities, then fuck 'em.

What's Osiris going do about it? Hide my car keys? Steal my socks, so I can't find a matching pair? Nudge a painting on the wall so it's slightly skewed?

Humanity, repent! I've spotted the likeness of Thor burnt into a cheese toasty.

Yes, the mighty God of Thunder could have rained down bolts of lightning that unambiguously burns "Worship me, Thor, because I'm totally fucking awesome and threaten you with immense violence, death and pain, if you don't" (it doesn't have to be in English, of course, as we have experts that can read these older tongues - although, you'd reckon the omnipotent powers of a deity would include basic translation anyway). Even Richard Dawkins would be tempted to grudgingly comply to such an unambiguous display of sheer raw power.

But, no, he decides on the old burnt cheese toasty route to poorly convey his message instead.

It is a little difficult to take the suggestion that "God is great" too seriously, when even that bloody idiot David Blaine has a better stage show than the Almighty.

"...and, for his next trick, Shiva is going to bend some metal spoons with the power of thought alone. You know, like that Uri Geller fellow did before, but to not-quite-so-impressive a level of competence."

Yeah, right. Whatever. There is no spoon.

[F-ZeroOne]

I suspect Mr. Dawkins would be the first to point out that awesome displays of power still do not prevent one from resisting, however short that resistance might last for. (though considering the entity involved, "conducting" might be the more suitable term). And the Discworld series features at least one atheist who has nothing whatsoever to fear from righteous heavenly anger, what with being a clay Golem...

Anyway, Kotaku recently ran an article on 80s cartoon themes. They somehow missed this one:

[pogo]

[Orava]

It is a furryish Lapland song - about reindeers - erm... mostly.

[F-ZeroOne]

Amazingly, less collateral damage than the last time they tried to arrest "Cats Eye":

[F-ZeroOne]

Yes, people are already saying the flaps don't work like that...

[toxibunny]