prescience
From the Helsingen Sanomat:
In the evening as the parents were going to bed, the drowsy four-year-old appeared at their bedroom door with a question: "Can I take that magic telephone and put it under my pillow tonight?"
Nokia and the iPhone.
Insightful.
seriously...
LOS ANGELES, California – A song that has made it to the top of Contemporary Christian Music charts has suddenly been dropped after the main soloist announced that it wasn’t a worship song.D.J Trickstar the composer and singer of the song ‘I give my heart to you’ received nominations for best Gospel artist, Worship Song of the year and Inspirational Song of the year awards.
“Well I am not even a Christian. I am surprised my song has received such diverse support. I am just a simple Bhuddist who loves his girl friend so I wrote this song for her,” explained the popular D.J.
Some church leaders were not bothered to hear that the writer is not even Christian.
“Er, it works for us. We have been using the song as a worship song in church for months. It’s a nice song that makes us feel good – even new comers to church love it,” explains Tony a pastor in downtown Los Angeles.
“Come to think of it the song actually doesn’t mention God or Jesus. I think it’s ambiguous. But since every one likes it and we some how got rid of our hymn books, we will just have to continue with it and add ‘Lord’ at the beginning of the song,” said another pastor who preferred anonymity.
biomechanics
With two diminutive legs locked into a leap-ready position, the tiny jumper bends its body taut like an archer drawing a bow. At the top of its legs, a minuscule pair of gears engage—their strange, shark-fin teeth interlocking cleanly like a zipper. And then, faster than you can blink, think, or see with the naked eye, the entire thing is gone. In 2 milliseconds it has bulleted skyward, accelerating at nearly 400 g's—a rate more than 20 times what a human body can withstand. At top speed the jumper breaks 8 mph—quite a feat considering its body is less than one-tenth of an inch long.
allium cepa
A sale on onions in India this week by deal-of-the-day website Groupon was so popular that it crashed Groupon's Indian website.
Yep.
Onions have a long played a symbolic role in Indian politics. In January 1980, the Indian National Congress Party leader Indira Gandhi returned to power, campaigning against rising onion prices. At rallies she waved huge strings of onions and said a government has no right to govern if it cannot control onion costs.
ayn rand
Back in 1980, Ayn Rand wrote in her column in Parade:
Because Ronald Reagan has deposed Jimmy Carter, and I predict that by 2013 my influence will be profound, and a new generation of leaders will hallow my name, and devotion to self-interest and capitalism and the free market will not be the exception but the rule, and these leaders will naturally share my disapproval of religion, my support of abortion rights, and my love of Godiva chocolates.
madness
My abiding memory of tutoring New Yorkers is of sitting with one girl as night fell late in October. Tears coursed down her cheeks and onto the hem of the distinctive skirt of her elite private school. She was too upset to sip from the mug of hot chocolate her housekeeper had brought up. Her parents were working late, as they always did, and other than the staff, we were alone in the house. Spread on a table before us were college essay drafts.“It’s hopeless,” she sobbed. “I’ve got nothing.”
From her bedroom window, where we sat, an unobstructed view of Central Park stretched north to the autumn sky.