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Adam Savage: TSA saw my junk, missed 12″ razor blades

Ok, this is both hysterical and illustrative of why I dislike the TSA security protocols. I don’t personally care if they see or touch my junk. I would happily strip naked and walk through the scanner if it just meant getting through the line faster.

I dislike the TSA security protocols because they don’t actually work. There’s a reason the term “security theatre” was coined, and why it’s appropriate here.

Adam Savage: TSA saw my junk, missed 12″ razor blades

The TSA isn’t the most respected of governmental agencies right now, but at least it comes by the poor reputation honestly. The lack of standards, inconsistent application of searches and policies, and occasional rude agent all combine to make flying an unpleasant experience. It’s often derided as “security theater,” which describes the experience of Mythbuster Adam Savage before a recent flight.

Savage was put through the full-body scanner, and while he joked that it made his penis feel small, no one seemed to notice the items he was carrying on his person. The video tells the rest of the story.

If we try to engineer perfect children, will they grow up to be unbearable? – By Katie Roiphe – Slat

Not being a parent myself, I have no personal insights to add here, but have long wondered at the incredible amount of structure most kids seem to grow up in these days, compared to when I was growing up.

If we try to engineer perfect children, will they grow up to be unbearable? – By Katie Roiphe – Slate Magazine

Can we, for a moment, flash back to the benign neglect of the 1970s and ’80s? I can remember my parents having parties, wild children running around until dark, catching fireflies. If these children helped themselves to three slices of cake, or ingested the second-hand smoke from cigarettes, or carried cocktails to adults who were ever so slightly slurring their words, they were not noticed; they were loved, just not monitored. And, as I remember it, those warm summer nights of not being focused on were liberating. In the long sticky hours of boredom, in the lonely, unsupervised, unstructured time, something blooms; it was in those margins that we became ourselves

A viral transmission

Story about the duo who wrote and produced the NPR rap video I posted the other day.

A viral transmission

Fresh out of Ivy League colleges, a pair of unemployed 2005 Corvallis High School graduates have created a rap parody song about National Public Radio. And in the time it takes to say “Talk of the Nation,” it’s gone viral on YouTube.

The four-and-a-half minute video parody, “Good Radiation,” is the work of Adam Cole and Jenna Sullivan. Since it was made public on YouTube on Monday, as of Wednesday it has drawn more than 28,000 views and comment from some of the best-known names in public radio.

Pretty good for two well-educated college graduates with biology degrees and stellar resumes who can’t find jobs. Both are currently living with their parents in Corvallis. Cole graduated with a master’s degree from Stanford University earlier this year. Sullivan earned an undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College in 2009.
Both public radio fans, they wanted to do something creative. The whole project took about a week to produce, including the writing, recording and filming, which was completed at Cole’s parents house in Corvallis.

mental_floss Blog » The True Size of Africa

Perspective. Let me show you it.

(I love infographics like this. Sometimes, a picture really *is* worth a 1000 words.)

mental_floss Blog » The True Size of Africa

Africa is the world’s second-largest continent (Asia is #1), but gauging the actual size of something that seems so far away can be difficult. Fortunately, Kai Kraus has created this incredible visual aid to help put the mind-boggling size of the land mass into perspective. It is fascinating to see that the U.S., most of Europe, China and Japan still don’t fill up the entire surface area of the continent.

It would be interesting to see a few different models that contain other countries, such as Russia, Canada and Mexico.

(h/t Marian Call)

Fermilab Experiment Hints At Existence of Brand-New Elementary Particle | Popular Science

Fermilab Experiment Hints At Existence of Brand-New Elementary Particle | Popular Science

Physicists working with a Fermilab neutrino experiment may have found a new elementary particle whose behavior breaks the known laws of physics. If correct, their results poke holes in the accepted Standard Model of particles and forces, and raise some interesting questions for the Large Hadron Collider and Tevatron experiments. The new particle could even explain the existence of dark matter.

Working with Fermilab’s MiniBooNE experiment — the first part of the larger planned Booster Neutrino Experiment — physicists found evidence for a fourth flavor of neutrino, according to a new paper published in Physical Review Letters. This means there could be another particle we didn’t know about, and that it behaves in a way physicists didn’t expect.

YouTube – The Sun: Page 3 – the woman you’d love your woman to be like

Whatever you think of The Sun and its “Page 3 Girls”, this is a great lampoon of the Old Spice commercial.

British team send paper plane to the edge of space before it flies back to Earth | Mail Online

Absolutely awesome

British team send paper plane to the edge of space before it flies back to Earth | Mail Online

NASA, eat your heart out. Who needs a multi-billion-dollar spacecraft to study the Earth when you can use a paper plane?

Pictured here is the incredible British mission to send the plane 17 miles into the atmosphere to capture images of the curvature of the globe using a miniature camera.

The plane, which has a 3ft wing span and is made from paper straws covered in paper, was launched using nothing more powerful than a large helium balloon.

The craft soared to 90,000ft before the balloon exploded, freeing the plane to glide back down, taking photographs as it descended.

And the cost of Operation PARIS (Paper Aircraft Released Into Space)? A modest £8,000.

Nashville Musician Shingles His Roof With Records : TreeHugger

This is pretty awesome. (Note that he used *damaged* records to do the roof — no useful music was destroyed *grin*)

Nashville Musician Shingles His Roof With Records : TreeHugger

Nashville Musician Matt Glassmeyer is, according to Jazz.com, a bit of an inventor. Now we learn that he is a repurposer, using 350 damaged records to build a roof on his porch.

Gutsy Goats Caught Scaling Super-Steep Dam (Pics) : TreeHugger

The Goats Must Be Crazy… (h/t to epi_lj)

Gutsy Goats Caught Scaling Super-Steep Dam (Pics) : TreeHugger

Dams are among the most daunting examples of mankind’s engineering savvy, and they’re also perhaps the most environmentally impactful, too — but none of that could keep this brave herd of Ibex goats from scaling the sheer face of one such dam in Italy. While it may be a testament to the impressive climbing prowess of the goats, such displays also speak wonders about nature’s ability to overcome some of the toughest obstacles we can throw at her.

Living in the slow lane: Hundreds of orphaned sloths given a new lease of life at Costa Rican sanctu

“The Real Sloths of Costa Rica” is my new reality TV show….

Living in the slow lane: Hundreds of orphaned sloths given a new lease of life at Costa Rican sanctuary | Mail Online

Tucking into a tasty carrot snack, this bright-eyed baby sloth is making a happy recovery after being orphaned just days into its young life.

The adorable creature is just one of 100 being cared for by volunteers at the Aviarios Sloth Sanctuary in Costa Rica, Central America.

Some are barely the size of a human hand and wouldn’t have stood a chance if left alone in the wild.

But they have been given a new lease of life thanks to the centre which was set up by married couple Luis Arroyo and Judy Avey-Arroyo after an orphaned sloth was brought to their door by neighbours 18 years ago.

Lots of adorable photos with the article.

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