homeopathy called out

Interesting idea. Read about it here.

hooray!

No cars in The Village for the summer, it's a start.

another reason why the usa is the best

How is this even remotely legal?

big ass moon

Please read this so I don't have to argue with you about it. Thanks

100 things

I am so going to do this.

another reason to love Montreal

This just adds to the reasons I love living here. Read about it here

back again

Hey both of you that read this, it's been a while since I last posted. Sorry about that, I've been drinking again. Anyway I found this little article very interesting. Land of the free!

hockey riot myths

Here are a few myths about the recent hockey riots cleared up. Read about it here.

montreal... we steal toronto's children

Watch out Toronto. Read it here.

elevators

Great New Yorker article about elevators. I hardly ever am in them but I do find them fascinating. Read it here.

engineering mistakes

Now I don't feel so bad if I leave a shutter closed or make some other dumb mistake. Read about it here.

large hadron collider

Another great article about the LHC, this time from National Geographic. Read it here.

9 less things to stress about

The one about catching a cold is my favourite. Read about it here.

oops

Disregard this.

happy birthday to the portable cellphone

1973: Martin Cooper of Motorola uses the first portable handset ... to make the first cellphone call ... to his rival at Bell Labs. Read about it here.

facebook

Facebook has 59 million users - and 2 million new ones join each week. But you won’t catch Tom Hodgkinson volunteering his personal information - not now that he knows the politics of the people behind the social networking site. Read more here.

pre edison audio recording

For more than a century, since he captured the spoken words "Mary had a little lamb" on a sheet of tinfoil, Thomas Edison has been considered the father of recorded sound. But researchers say they have unearthed a recording of the human voice, made by a little-known Frenchman, that predates Edison's invention of the phonograph by nearly two decades. Read about it here.

neat but slightly creepy robot

I'm not too worried about it creeping up on me though. Check it out here.

eiffel tower temporary reno

Yes they may be adding to the Eiffel Tower. Read about it here.

science 1, black magic 0

On 3 March 2008, in a popular TV show, Sanal Edamaruku, the president of Rationalist International, challenged India’s most “powerful” tantrik (black magician) to demonstrate his powers on him. That was the beginning of an unprecedented experiment. After all his chanting of mantra (magic words) and ceremonies of tantra failed, the tantrik decided to kill Sanal Edamaruku with the “ultimate destruction ceremony” on live TV. More here.

firetruck!

I saw a firetruck yesterday and noticed it had what I thought was the Toronto Fire Department logo on its door. I was stumped as to why this was until I read this today.

obama

So a friend sent me the transcript of a Barack Obama speech she found impressive. I have to admit I found it pretty impressive too, he's a really good speaker and has some great speech writers, but I found the highlighted portion below a bit annoying.

"I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners - an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible."

This is funny though.

tiny bones of tiny ancient people discovered

Here's an article from National Geographic about the tiny bones they found.

usa usa usa

I always wondered what they meant by "moral turpitude" when I filled out those ridiculous immigration forms.

financial analysis even i can understand

This is quite funny and very informative.

the most complicated thing humans have ever built

The Large Hadron Collider at CERN is about to be activated. I'm excited. More about it here.

usa usa usa

NSFW: VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED. As an expert witness in the defense of an Abu Ghraib guard who was court-martialed, psychologist Philip Zimbardo had access to many of the images of abuse that were taken by the guards themselves. For a presentation at the TED conference in Monterey, California, Zimbardo assembled some of these pictures into a short video. Wired.com obtained the video from Zimbardo's talk, and is publishing some of the stills from that video here. Many of the images are explicit and gruesome, depicting nudity, degradation, simulated sex acts and guards posing with decaying corpses. Viewer discretion is advised.

beatles

I've always said The Beatles sounded a bit like children's music, here's proof.

goodbye duke's

I have been reading about the fire that happened in Toronto yesterday, more about that here and here, and I am quite saddened to see that Duke's cycle shop was totally destroyed. I bought my current bike there 16 years ago and always took it back there for servicing. I'm glad nobody was killed, but I do know what it's like to be made homeless by fire so my heart goes out to those who were made homeless yesterday. Toronto is not going to be the same without those businesses that were lost and the historic buildings that were destroyed. So sad.

end of an era

Fidel Castro, who is looking more and more like Willie Nelson these days is resigning as El Presidente of Cuba. Read more about it here. Hm so the bastards at the New York Times changed the picture of Fidel to one that looks decidedly less Willie Nelsonish, their campaign to make me look foolish scores another point. You win this time New York Times but I'll be back! I'll beeee baaaaaccck!!!

ancient computer

A 2000-year-old mechanical computer salvaged from a Roman shipwreck has astounded scientists who have finally unravelled the secrets of how the sophisticated device works.
Read about it here. Fascinating.

links

Ok, this is cool.

rib

So now I'm home after a hard day of focusing lights in the Centaur 1 space (that's the small one) and I think I bruised a rib, ouch! Good news though I think my cold is gone, no more sore throat. Just a painful rib. Bitch bitch whine whine. Was a good productive day of ladder climbing and catwalk crawling. Also I found out that there is going to be a lunar eclipse on Wednesday, how cool is that? Go check it out to see the moon turn a scary scary red colour. I must compile the List of Things Steve Finds Annoying as I go through my day because I'm too tired to think of anything coherent right now. I must eat and then watch Top Gear.

insomniac thoughts

Ok, so it's 4:30 in the morning right now and I am awake (obviously). It would be quite something though if I could do this in my sleep! But I can't so here I am, awake. I'll be climbing ladders and crawling around on catwalks in less than 5 hours, so not good. I really must sleep. I've been laying off the booze this past week, (thank you poverty) when I say laying off I mean not getting drunk, so that should be good for my sleep cycle yes? No? Urhn. So do I have anything sparklingly brilliant to say? Nope, sorry. I did have a strange dream about Theatre Passe Muraille though just before I woke up, it had glass doors, the theatre not the dream. Oh yes ok, here's something sort of useful, some of you people who I like and who barely tolerate me have suggested that I compile a list of things that piss me off or annoy me. I know you were being sarcastic when you said that but I am going to do it here so ha! I haven't come up with a suitably witty name for it yet but I am considering "stuff Steve hates" as a possible contender. Well that's it, my sore throat is almost gone thanks in part to my 300 a day Halls habit, had to switch to sugar free, I was getting twitchy. I shall have a drink of water then do some aimless web surfing. Who knows, I might find something useless to post here.

hello world

Hey everyone. So I left Facebook™ almost a week ago and some people complained that they were going to miss my posts of fun links and videos and stuff. So here is my Useless blog. I'll try to post stuff regularly. I don't feel like it right now though, I'm going to watch Top Gear.