Saturday, July 18, 2015

Coffee and Provocation


The End of Oil?
When a petroleum magazine puts a Tesla on the cover, can the beginning of the end be far behind?

Reading Glasses for Less
A 4-pack of reading glasses for $8? You bet!

Here's One of the 5 Snake Bite Deaths We Can Expect This Year
As I recently noted, snakes only kill about 5 people a year in the U.S. and less than one of those people is likely to be a sober hiker or hunter just walking along.  More likely, it's going to be someone with an exotic poisonous snake collection like this 18-year-old pet shop employee who was keeping a monocled cobra at his Austin, Texas home.

Lost the Wi-Fi Password to Your Home Network?
Here's how to recover it.

The Ignoble Deaths of American War Criminals
The Oise Aisne American Cemetary hold the remains of U.S. soldiers who died fighting in part of Northern France during World War I. Set across the street unmarked and completely surrounded by impassible shrubbery is Plot E, a semi-secret fifth plot that contains the nearly forgotten bodies of almost 100 American soldiers who were executed for rape and murder committed during and after World War II. No US flag is allowed to fly over the plot and the graves have no names and are only marked by small in-ground stones the size of index cards. Even underground, the bodies are set apart, with each body buried with its back to the main cemetery. The site does not exist on maps of the cemetery, and is not mentioned on their website.

This GMO Moth is Awesome
Will GMO research help us get rid of serious pests without insecticide?  That might be a very good idea!

Pine Marten Seen in England for First Time In 100 years
The large member of the stoat and weasel family has been living in the Shropshire hills unseen for 100 years.

Weed Sniffing Dogs
In Australia, they are using dogs to sniff out invasive weeds.

Will Solar Desalination Plants Fix California?
Is solar energy cheap enough that it could cost-effectively power massive desalinization plants that could solve California's fresh-water crisis? Maybe not yet, but maybe soon,
 
Jack Black's Rats

A nice article on Jack Black, Queen Victoria's rat catcher.

The Flip Flip of Two Political Parties
Why did the Democratic and Republican parties switch platforms and when did that occur?

2 comments:

seeker said...

Update on missing Cobra in Austin. A monocled cobra was found run over multiple times on the local highway. ACO suspects it is the same snake. Poor thing never stood a chance, but I guess the good news is there is one less invasive species. So far, so good. But Abbott wanted his chance at 'just another snake' the little maniac.

relieved Debi and not worried Jack/Rat Pack.

Jeff T. said...

Jack Black's dogs look very similar to my two- these scruffy terrier types have pretty much been unruined...