Thursday, February 28, 2013

SUPER TROOPERS 2 ANNOUNCED

(sorta)
























I really hope they figure out a way to work in Syrup races.

From Guyspeed.com:

This week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Kevin Heffernan and Steve Lemme of the comedy group Broken Lizard. Kevin and Steve sat down to discuss their careers, facial hair, which member of the group would be the most edible and their new stand-up special ‘Fat Man Little Boy’ which hits Netflix this Friday, March 1st. The entire interview will run this Friday, but one piece of news was just too good to sit on. While discussing their early days making movies, ‘Super Troopers’ was brought into the discussion. So I had to ask “will there be a ‘Super Troopers’ sequel?” 

Here is what Kevin told me. “There will be a Super Troopers sequel. We put it off for a while and then came back to it. We wrote the script and handed it in to Fox and now we’re just negotiating the time and the place and hopefully shoot it some time this year. I have to start growing my mustache now.” 

 Team Ramrod rides again!

Source -> http://guyspeed.com/super-troopers-sequel-news/

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Nazi Bunkers still holding up

During WWII Hitler knew that an Allied invasion was inevitable. His plan included hundreds (?) of fortified concrete bunkers built all along the Nazi-controlled coastline with the English Channel and North Sea. These Bunkers were dotted along several regions from the French Coast all through Scandinavia.

In addition to bunkers he also had projects that included the largest land-based ground weapon... ever. That massive gun (still visible on google maps, but now I can't find the link) actually started out as plans for an absolutely massive tank. The turret portion was built but the vehicle portion was deemed unfeasible, that's where the plans to install it in a fixed position arose.

Due to the sheer scale and features like 9-foot thick walls in some places, most of these structures, while covered in graffiti, vegetation or converted for other uses by local residents are still recognizable. Click the source links for more.


































Sources -> http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2013/02/world-war-ii-bunkers-jonathan-andrew/ &
http://jalopnik.com/5864615/the-secret-behind-norways-massive-nazi-coastal-cannon

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Cruising to HELL

I feel like I could make comments about why anybody in their right mind would ever get into a lawless, dangerous, closed system pseudo-city, run by a private organization with thousands of strangers for a few weeks when they could've just flown to Europe... but I'll just let Mental Floss do it for you.

























By Lauren Hansen
Cruises are often advertised as luxurious escapes from the grinding tedium of our everyday lives. These moving, all-in-one vacations boast entertainment, dining, adventure, relaxation, and a world of postcard-worthy sights. And of course, most cruises are terrific. But when the rare disastrous event strikes, those giant vessels of portable fun go from Jekyll to Hyde just like that, and can even become prisons of panic. Passengers can't easily leave their confined spaces, limited supplies dwindle far too quickly, and help isn't exactly forthcoming on the open sea. We may be more likely to die in a car crash than go down like Jack and Rose, but with the harrowing (if not utterly disgusting) stories emerging from Carnival's latest disaster, let's take a moment to review all the bad things that can happen while vacationing on a big boat.

1. ADRIFT AND POWERLESS

The Carnival cruise ship Triumph was hardly triumphant as it labored into an Alabama port on Feb. 14. After spending five fetid days adrift in the Gulf of Mexico, the 4,200 passengers and crew rushed down the planks, some even sinking to their knees to kiss the dry land. A fire in the engine room had knocked out the ship's propulsion, power, sewage, and heating and air-conditioning systems. So instead of lounging poolside, stocking up at the Asian-themed buffet station, or indulging in a relaxing massage, passengers spent four nights sleeping on sewage-soaked carpets, eating ketchup on buns, and pooping into plastic bags. Just making some memories, really.

2. PIRATES (!)

In April 2009, The Melody set off from Durban, South Africa, with about 1,000 passengers and 500 crew on a 22-day luxury cruise that would end in Genoa, Italy. Early in the trip, while the ship passed through waters north of Seychelles, pirates surrounded the boat and opened fire. The cruise ship's security detail returned fire, which was enough to keep the intruders at bay. The Melody's distress call alerted nearby Coast Guards which, with the help of the Spanish navy, were able to apprehend the nine attempted hijackers and escort the ship to safety.

3. RUN AGROUND AND CAPSIZED

The Costa Concordia suffered one of the biggest disasters in recent cruise-liner history when it ran aground in January 2012 off the coast of Tuscany. The ship eventually sank, and dozens of the 4,229 passengers and crew died. The ship was only three hours into its voyage through the Mediterranean when the ship first hit rocks. Survivors reported hearing a loud bang before the liner was plunged into darkness and shuddered to a halt. It wasn't until the enormous vessel began to list dramatically that its passengers erupted into complete panic, with people stealing life jackets from one another and opting to jump into the sea instead of waiting for lifeboats. One passenger compared the terrifying ordeal to Titanic.

4. A FLU OUTBREAK

Over the Christmas holiday, hundreds of vacationers embarked upon luxury cruises only to find themselves trapped with an unsavory bunkmate — a viral stomach bug. On the Emerald Princess cruise ship, for example, 5 percent of the passengers came down with some sort of gastrointestinal flu. The sick had to be quarantined in their rooms with the threat of "unnamed consequences" if they dared to leave. Those who managed to escape the virus' nauseating effects were asked to stay away from the buffet and eat only at the full-service restaurants. The sick did enjoy the comforts of room service, however. On the prestigious Queen Mary 2, 194 passengers and 11 crew members also came down with the suspected Norovirus bug, which is highly contagious and typically transmitted from person to person.

5. GOING MISSING

Occasionally, passengers just vanish. In April 2011, John Halford was enjoying his last night of a week-long Egyptian cruise. His bag was packed, he had texted his wife, who was at home in Britain, to say he'd see her the next day at the airport, and went off to dinner. Passengers reportedly saw him have a cocktail later in the evening. And then he was gone. Worryingly, Halford's story is far from unique. That year there were at least 13 people who went missing and, as the Cruise Victims Association reports, some 165 people have disappeared while at sea since 1995. While some suspect accidents, suicides, and even sinister crime waves, in the end, most cases go unsolved, the families left in limbo.

6. CRIME

Cruise ships are like floating foreign islands where laws shift like the tides. The way criminal matters are dealt with can depend on the ship's location in the ocean, its home port, or the nationality of its passengers. And prosecuting these crimes can be difficult. Crime scenes are often contaminated, since no police are onboard the ships. And if the ship is in foreign waters, it is often up to the captain to decide whether to incarcerate someone suspected of committing a crime. If a U.S. citizen is involved, the FBI will investigate, but some victims of crimes say that the action is often too late. In the end, some 16 percent of all murders and 7 percent of sexual assaults aboard cruise ships lead to convictions or plea bargains, according to FBI statistics. Lawyers for cruise liners maintain that crime statistics remain low, and are roughly equivalent to the chances a person has of being struck by lightning.

7. COLLISIONS

In March 2012, a luxury cruise ship collided in deep fog with a container ship about five miles from the coast of Vietnam. Passenger Andrew Lock said he and his wife suddenly heard the ship's foghorn alarm. Startled, they looked out their window and saw a container ship appear out of nowhere directly in front of them. They braced themselves for the impact. "It was a horrifying moment," he said. Within five seconds of the ship appearing, their cruise liner collided into its side. The Silversea Cruises maintains the damage was limited, but passengers say it felt like a "major collision" and watched as the container ship rolled over at a 90-degree angle. Lock said it looked like the cruise liner had "crushed" the other ship.
Source -> http://mentalfloss.com/article/49001/7-reasons-never-ever-ever-vacation-cruise-ship

Monday, February 18, 2013

The Internship

Something tells me this will have quite a few product tie ins... Due to be released June 7th, 2013.


Clickable link -> http://youtu.be/a8DjuGlVknQ

Saturday, February 16, 2013

20 times the force of Hiroshima...

***Update*** another view from space





...and here's what Hiroshima looked like right after





















As I'm sure you've heard/seen/read about, a meteor hit Russia the other day with an incredible force. I've seen 20 times the force of Hiroshima, 30 times, it exploded right before it hit the ground, details are still being reported but regardless it was a big. The weird thing is how many dash cams people had running as it came down.





From the Telegraph:
The 55-foot rock, said by Nasa to have a mass of 10,000 tonnes, plunged to Earth in the Urals region on Friday morning, causing shockwaves that injured 1,200 people and damaged thousands of homes in an event unprecedented in modern times. Nasa estimated that the energy released by the meteor's impact with the atmosphere was 500 kilotonnes, around 30 times the force of the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. It entered the atmosphere and broke up at an altitude of around 32 miles, causing a shockwave that blew out windows and set of car alarms in Chelyabinsk two and a half minutes later. Divers were this morning searching the Chelyabinsk region's frozen Lake Chebarkul for a fragment of the meteorite. No fragments have been found in the region so far - despite some 20,000 rescuers and recovery workers being dispatched to help the hundreds of people injured. An army of glaziers were also being transported to Chelyabinsk to urgently repair the thousands of broken windows in homes as night time temperatures fall below -15C. Scientists from Nasa, the US space agency, estimated that the amount of energy released from impact with the atmosphere was about 30 times greater than the nuclear bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima during World War II. 

Reports are saying over 1,000 people were injured directly as a result of the impact, a good portion of those injuries are due to flying glass after the shockwave. Click below for some more info.

 Sources -> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/9874662/Russian-meteor-hit-with-force-of-30-Hiroshima-bombs.html
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2013/feb/HQ_M13-033_Russia_Meteor_Teleconference.htmlhttp://www.cnn.com/2013/02/15/world/europe/russia-meteor-shower

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Calvin and Hobbes is still the best

I honestly can't see any comic ever being as entertaining as Calvin and Hobbes... was.

Michael S Den Beste creates wallpapers inspired by Calvin and Hobbes, updated with photo backgrounds. Its hard to explain, so check out a few below.









Source -> http://www.thehighdefinite.com/2013/02/calvin-hobbes-irl-wallpapers/

Terrifying snowmen...

Starting with more real-life Calvin and Hobbes snowmen, these are worth the effort to make!
























Why bother with "normal" snowmen? This is what happens when imagination meets precipitation at a particular atmospheric temperature and dew-point.... Click the source link for all of them (not all are SFW-ish...)


















Older (related) links -> http://www.dannyfinnegan.com/2011/12/tribute-to-calvin-style-snowmen.html & http://www.dannyfinnegan.com/2011/01/7-snowmen-that-would-traumatize.html 
Source -> http://www.happyplace.com/12689/hilariously-disturbing-snowmen-we-hope-never-come-to-life

Sunday, February 10, 2013

7 Seinfeld episode plots that actually happened

I know how lazy this is, but I'm just going to paste the entirety of the MentalFloss page I found it on...
Its Sunday night and I'm tired.

7 Seinfeld Plots That Happened in Real Life

The Week
filed under: Listspop-culturetv
IMAGE CREDIT: 
FACEBOOK.COM/SEINFELD
By Lauren Hansen
Seinfeld was hardly a show about nothing. Sure, Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer spent much of their nine-year run chatting in Monk's Diner, but they still somehow managed to get themselves tangled in some truly peculiar situations. Often, these storylines seemed to border on the ridiculous. (George trying to impress a girl by pretending to be a marine biologist only to find himself shamed into wading into the ocean to save a beached whale injured by Kramer's stray golf ball — c'mon!) And yet, several similar storylines are all too real. Indeed, whether by accident or because they were directly inspired by the classic sitcom, some people have played out several Seinfeld moments in real life. Enjoy.

1. THE LITERARY FUGITIVE

Seinfeld plot: A New York Public Library investigations officer named Mr. Bookman comes after Jerry to track down a copy of the Tropic of Cancer that Jerry took out in 1971 and never returned. At the cost of a nickel a day for 20 years, Kramer surmises, such a long-term offense will cost Jerry $50,000. After conducting his own investigation, Jerry finds that it was the Tropic of Capricorn he returned so many years ago, not the missing Tropic of Cancer. He relents and writes a check (for much less than $50,000) to the library.
Real-life story: On Feb. 4, a branch of the New York Public Library received a long-lost copy ofThe Fire of Francis Xavier, 55 years after it was first checked out. While the real-life literary fugitive wasn't apprehended by the dedicated efforts of a humorless library cop, he or she clearly felt some shame, opting to send the book through the mail instead of dropping it off in person. 

2. THE FALSE POSITIVE

Seinfeld plot: Elaine has the opportunity to accompany her boss J. Peterman to Kenya, but a pretrip physical reveals traces of opium in her urine. Believing Elaine to be a drug addict, Peterman bans her from the trip and fires her. Elaine begs for another test and fails again. Down and out at Monk's Diner, Elaine orders her regular poppy seed muffin and airs her grievances to no one in particular. One customer speaks up and tells her it's the poppy seeds that are causing her trouble. Reinvigorated, Elaine tries for a third test but is thwarted again by those tasty little seeds and, despite hoodwinking Peterman with someone else's urine, still isn't allowed on the trip.
Real-life story: After Elizabeth Mort gave birth in 2010, her baby was taken away from her as doctors found trace amounts of opium in Mort's blood stream. Mort immediately lawyered up, saying that the tiny amount of the supposed drug was caused by her having eaten a poppy seed bagel before going into labor. The county hospital realized its mistake, and the baby was returned to the mother after spending five days in foster care. Mort moved forward with her lawsuit, which she won in November 2012.

3. THE BEACH COLOGNE

 
Seinfeld plot: Kramer is a man of many of ideas, most of which don't go anywhere. But one invention — a cologne that makes you smell like the beach — actually seems promising. Kramer pitches the idea to Calvin Klein, but gets shot down. In a later episode, however, Kramer finds that Calvin Klein stole the idea and produced the perfume. 
Real-life plot: Leave it to high-concept perfumer Christopher Brosius to follow Kramer's lead. Included in his eclectic array of literal scents — ranging from Basil to Doll Head — is The Beach 1966, which carries the prime notes of Coppertone 1967 blended with the North Atlantic, wet sand, seashell, driftwood, and "just a hint of boardwalk." When combined and worn, it will smell as though "you've been swimming all day in the ocean." 

4. THE NOISY NUISANCE

 
Seinfeld plot: Elaine is at her wits end with a barking dog, and mulls hiring someone to kill it. She even meets with the fixer — Newman, of course — but takes the offer back, realizing that she can't stomach hurting the dog. But still desperate for a good night's sleep, Elaine, along with Newman and Kramer, kidnaps the dog and tries unsuccessfully to set it free in the country.
Real-life story: A city in Australia once considered a plan that would shut canine nuisances up permanently. At first, owners who couldn't control their pets would be steeply fined. Then, if owners continued to thwart the system, agents would make an in-home visit. Should the agent find the owner not at home and the dog barking, said agent would have the license to take the dog away. Once in the shelter, the pets would be euthanized if not collected within a certain time. I suppose rounding the dogs up and setting them free in the country would be too much work with too little payoff.

5. A FESTIVUS FOR THE REST OF US

 
Seinfeld plot: Festivus is a holiday invented by George Constanza's father, Frank. It's celebrated annually on Dec. 23, and instead of a decorated tree, an aluminum poll stands unadorned in the living room. Instead of gathering around for presents, family members lash out at each other and the world during the "Airing of Grievances." The final tradition is the "Feats of Strength," in which the head of the household selects one person at the celebration and challenges him or her to a wrestling match. Festivus does not officially come to a close until said patriarch is pinned. 
Real-life story: Festivus actually existed before this Seinfeld episode aired — but only in the home of one of the show's writers. After the 1997 airdate, Festivus spread its wings, and instances of the bizarre holiday popped up all over the country. The D.C. neighborhood of Adams Morgan, for example, has for at least three years running held Festivus festivities that include a homemade pole, the annual airing of grievances, and Festivus T-shirt giveaways. In 2005, then-Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle set up a Festivus pole in the executive residence. And Denver is home to the Festivus Film Festival.

6. THE LOST CAR

Seinfeld plot: One Saturday afternoon, the gang goes to a mall in New Jersey to get cheap air conditioners. They return to the garage at 5 p.m. to find they can't remember where the car was parked. The four desperately search the parking garage, each getting themselves in their own distinct pickle. They finally find the car nearly three hours later and the disgruntled group heads back to New York City. (See the episode here.)
Real-life story: While anyone with a car in close proximity to a mall has lived some version of this nightmare, one British man takes the cake for losing his car in a parking lot for the longest time. In 2008, 80-year-old Gerald Sanctuary parked his silver Honda in a garage in Britain while running some errands. When he was done, however, he couldn't find the car. Frustrated, the man, who reportedly suffers from dementia, eventually got a ride home. But when his grown children took up the search for him, they too came back empty handed, and assumed the car had been stolen. But in December 2010, an attendant at the garage noticed a silver Honda that was unusually dirty and alerted the police who successfully matched the car to Sanctuary, who had reported it missing years earlier. The two were finally reunited in January 2011. "It's just amazing that it was right under our noses the whole time," his son Nigel said. Ain't that the truth.

7. THE SCOFFLAW

Seinfeld plot: An eye-patch-wearing New York City cop spends the bulk of his career searching for a ticket-dodging "white whale." The scofflaw in question was first ticketed by the cop in 1979 for parking in a church zone. That fine was never paid, and over the next 16 years, the culprit piles up more parking tickets than anyone in the city. And just when the cop gets close, the driver gives him the slip again. Kramer figures out the scofflaw is Newman and gets him to finally turn himself in.
Real-life story: In 2008, Alexander Khamish earned Gotham's unenviable label of driver with the most unpaid parking tickets, according to the New York Department of Finance. Khamish, who lives on Long Island, had 415 unpaid tickets, which amounted to an $80,000 debt. When confronted, Khamish said it was all a misunderstanding and that someone registered the offending car under his name. The DMV, however, never received any paperwork about his supposed stolen identity.

Saturday, February 9, 2013

toddler sad because of snow...

Haha.







































From BoingBoing.net:

News networks are scrambling to "curate" the best blizzard photos and Nemo videos and blurry vines from "citizen journalists," but here's the only crowdsourced analysis of #zomgsupersnowstormpocalypse2013 you really need. That's @jeremy_boston's adorable little girl.

Source -> http://boingboing.net/2013/02/09/toddler-sad-because-snow.html

Snow, Snow, Snow, Snow - Snowtorrrrrrius

Snow-racaine Nemo is currently pounding the NE United States with accumulation from 1-3" as far south as Delaware to several feet in New England. Here's a link to an interactive map of how much snow is supposed to fall this weekend -> http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/02/07/nyregion/how-much-snow-will-fall-this-weekend.html?smid=pl-share

Want to see some pictures of it?

Care of the NY Times (via Instagram):

The Storm on Instagram

A continuously updated selection of Instagram photos from the winter storm affecting the Northeastern United States on Feb. 8 and 9.Instagrammers: tag your images of the storm and its aftermath with #NYTstorm and we may feature them below.

cagilly
17 hours ago
The Snowdogs


Daniel Piwowarczyk
33 minutes ago
#nytstorm

Ashley Mayo
an hour ago
NYC dogs are loving the aftermath.

jengoldfinger
2 hours ago
Lexington, Massachusetts over 2 ft. #NYTstorm

Cinthia Romero
17 hours ago
NYC snow blizzard day 1 #nyc #snow #blizzard

Nima Lhamo
8 hours ago
Taking a little stroll at 1:38 AM! It's so beautiful outside. I think I like that fact that there is no one outside.

emmanuelle
9 hours ago
Branford blizzards #nemo #nytstorm

rrpictures
10 hours ago
The City is beautiful tonight. Go play. #nyc
- There's a cool NASA video of #Nemo from space that I'm having trouble embedding. If you can see it on this page click here to see it on another site -> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/08/nemo-brewing-space-nasa-winter-storm-video_n_2648230.html?utm_hp_ref=green Well, I've got to go finish shoveling...




-

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Skyfall was awesome but-

This is funny


Clickable link -> http://youtu.be/5FWfg__wKSY

Earlier Bond links: http://www.dannyfinnegan.com/2012/10/skyfall.html
http://www.dannyfinnegan.com/2012/10/007s-fighting-each-other.html

Are today's "humans" actually a sapiens-neanderthalensis "genetic cocktail?"

Did Neanderthals not actually die out, but were instead absorbed into the DNA of what are now modern Humans? If Neanderthals exists later into history than originally thought, their chances of coexisting (and interbreeding) with Homo Sapiens is measurably higher.

From the BBC:

The length of time modern humans (Homo sapiens) and Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) overlapped in Europe has been a keenly debated topic in recent times. A long overlap raises important questions about the extent to which we might have interbred with them, and possibly even contributed to their eventual demise.

Successful re-dating was conducted on specimens from the Jarama VI cave site Research published in 2011 indicated modern humans were living in the lands now known as Italy and the UK as far back as 41,000-45,000 years ago. This may have put them in contact with European Neanderthals who, according to previous dating studies, persisted on the continent for many millennia after these dates.

On the Rock of Gibraltar, for example, it has been suggested that Neanderthals could possibly have hung around until as recently as 28,000 years ago before finally dying out. But the new Oxford study finds such a timeline, and especially the notion of an Iberian refugium, to be problematic. The research team screened more than 200 fossil bones from 11 Iberian Palaeolithic sites, looking for traces of collagen. This major structural protein in bone is the most suitable target for radiocarbon dating, but the PNAS authors could only identify 27 specimens out of the haul that met the necessary standard. And of these, only six would yield a usable date.

A few years ago DNA from 5 (living) human samples was tested. What was found was (depending on the sample source) in 3 of the samples, between 1-4% of their DNA was common with those of Neanderthals.
This tells us that there is a CHANCE of measurable overlap.

A Harvard Geneticist wants to see what he can find now with a LIVE Neanderthal, not just samples of their DNA so he placed a help wanted ad. "WANTED: ADULT FEMALE HUMAN TO ACT AS SURROGATE FOR THE INTENTION OF BIRTHING THE FIRST NEANDERTHAL IN OVER 35,000 YEARS" (I may have taken some liberties with the headline but that's the gist.


Sources -> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21330194 http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1987568,00.html 
http://www.livescience.com/26447-neanderthal-clone-church.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_genome_project