Book Of Norm

In the search for the perfect sphere, something very very small has just taken the lead. The wee electron has gotten its most thorough physical examination yet, and scientists report that it is almost, almost a perfect sphere. Researchers at Imperial College London have determined the electron is just 0.000000000000000000000000001 centimeter off from being perfectly round. Put another way, if the electron was magnified to the size of the solar system, it would deviate from immaculate rotundity by a magnitude equivalent to a human hair. That's pretty damn incredible. Note: Not at all what electrons look like. These are creepy sperm/snake electrons, apparently from  an alternate universe... 

Ok, not quite - but UPS is planning on building plastic trucks which snap together in innovative ways... so basically lego trucks. Not sure why no one has done this before, but basically, this truck is built using ABS plastic instead of metal and paint, which reduces the cost of maintenance significantly (though somewhat increasing the build cost). What it means is that for small scrapes, nothing is needed, and for bigger accidents, body repairs can be done cheaply and easily, simply popping off one plastic panel and popping a new one on. Finally, and most importantly, it saves 1,000lbs off the usual 10,000lbs weight of these trucks, which also lets them use a smaller 150hp mill rather than their usual 200hp unit (and yeah... 150hp does seem mighty small for 9,000lbs, or about 3 normal small cars).

Jail in China is not a place that you want to be. Unfortunately, it is pretty easy to end up there, simply by saying things like "gee I wish the govt. did not take away my house without paying me, to build a new highway in my garden". But if  you do perhaps question the right of the government to run over your house, or limit the number of children you have, or decide where you live, where you work, what you buy, what you write or what you read, then you could quickly end up in a forced labor camp (because China really does not want to have to pay for its prisons). You will be spending 12hrs a day in a coal mine, which is not exactly a wonderful way to spend you time. Especially when this is a Chinese prison coal mine, where human labor is cheap, abundant, and replaceable. However, at night? Yeah, you don't get to sleep. You have to spend your time playing World of Warcraft to farm gold, for that to be sold at a profit online. Which is, well, pretty damn messed up. ...

So, there is spicy... and spicy. It turns out that on the scale of spicy, Jalapenos are basically for babies and grandmothers - or most white kids. Watching Man vs. Food, I saw the host (who is usually very good with spicy food) get taken down by Ghost peppers like most of the rest of us would be put down by habaneros. My business idea? Pepper spray wings. People would be stupid enough to order them, you have them sign a waiver, and damn they would be easy to make... Scoville heat units Examples 15,000,000–16,000,000 Pure  capsaicin [ 9 ] 8,600,000–9,100,000 Various capsaicinoids (e.g.,  homocapsaicin ,  homodihydrocapsaicin ,  nordihydrocapsaicin ) 5,000,000–5,300,000 Law enforcement grade  pepper spray , [ 10 ]   FN 303  irritant ammunition 855,000–1,463,700 Infinity Chilli , [ 11 ]   Naga Viper pepper , [ 12 ]   Naga Jolokia pepper (ghost chili) [ 13 ] [ 14 ]   Trinidad Scorpion Butch T pepper [ 15 ] 350,000–580,000 Red S...

So, this is a little different than my usual BoN posts - but I thought this was interesting to point out. To anyone who has a boat - this is pretty sweet. I have been sailing for years, and I did not know this existed until today. NOAA puts out free charts that you can use with your laptop, but I never thought there was an easy way to print them off. It was nice to have a backup on a laptop, but not something I really used. It is annoying how much chart companies chart for what are basically paper printouts of something the Govt. provides for free to aid navigation. But now, to help small-boaters etc, NOAA has put together booklets which you can print off of an 8x10 printer and create some quite good navigational charts. Are they a replacement for a really good chart book or a GPS nav system with charts? No, but they do provide a good level of detail, especially for the recreational boater. http://www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/staff/BookletChart.html Now you know there is at le...

Quick: Globally, does Audi sell more A6 sedans or wagons? Turns out that around the world, 60% of all Audi A6s sold are in fact wagons. Why? Well, the A6 is a relatively sporty and very nice car, which when you get the much more useful wagon version, is probably a more capable all around vehicle than almost any crossover. Now, when my Mom was looking for a new car, I sadly came across the fact that Audi would not sell a wagon in the US with a stickshift, which was pretty annoying. But now? We are not going to get the new A6 wagon at all. First, I will definitely say that Audi is going with evolution, not revolution. But this is still a nice looking car (though really - it has nothing on the CTS wagon...), and more than that, it is a very practical car - beating out most crossovers for interior space. And lets face it folks, rear hatchbacks are far, far more useful than trunks. They just are.  But, because American's born within the last 40 years have somehow come har...

I think that just like micro-brewed beer started to make a comeback about 30 years ago and is now an established part of the market, eating "traditional" foods which have fallen out of favor will also come back in. Now, I am not going to be one to say that you should head out and have some sheeps head, but on the other hand there are a number of foods which we have ignored because.. well.. they are a little odd. Alternately, you can just think of this as a cookbook for the post-crow-zombie apocalypse.. May 20th, 2011 09:15 AM ET Share Comments  ( 867 comments ) Permalink Give squirrel a whirl I have a squirrel guy. His name is Buddy and by trade he's a sound engineer, but in his heart of hearts, he's a hunter. Buddy doesn't hunt simply for sport; he, his girlfriend and his son cook only meat and fish that they have personally dispatched. If Buddy's willing to share meat with me, I say, 'thank you' and take what he's offering. I know his kill...

The second amazing fact coming out of Amazon today is that the $115 Ad-supported Kindle is outselling the $140 normal Kindle. That means people are willing to save $25 in return for having to see some moderately annoying advertising on their mobile devices. Well, yeah, this has already been made pretty clear by the apple and android app stores - but that is kind of different, you can close the app and then no longer have to see the ads. In the case of the Kindle - advertising will become your screen saver. So when you lay your kindle down on the coffee table, you are going to get some great offers on new bedding or cheap tickets to Timbuktu. I wonder then how long before other manufacturers hop onto this bandwagon. Ad supported phones are the most obvious next step - would you be willing to live with that? Personally, I would just pay the damn $25. Or, better yet - buy a used one on eBay for $75...

In April, Amazon sold 105 ebooks for every 100 paper books. That is amazing, and somewhat terrifying. And the numbers are "real" - they do not include free ebooks, so the numbers are not artificially inflated. Does this mean that paper books are going to dissapear? No - just like peak oil, we are not going to see the end of real books any time soon. But it is a sign that, well, they are on their way out. And that kind of sucks. Because while I love gadgets, and while I see a place for ereaders, I just cant get past the fact that ebooks are fundamentally temporary. Sure, you can keep them on your device as long as you want, and you might even be able to transfer them to a new device when you get one, but in the long run, those books are not going to stick around, just as the papers you wrote in college on a computer are much less likely to be around when you retire than the crappy drawing of a turkey with you hand as feathers you did in 1st grade. Depending on the qualit...

I really can't stand France.  Fed up with a President who is pro-capitalist, stands up for Democracy, and has tried to tackle the laziness of the French workforce, it has been widely expected that Sarkozy would not win his bid for reelection.  The person who was tipped to replace him? Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the current (update - nope, he resigned) head of the IMF.  Now, he was just arrested in New York for assault and sexual harassment of a hotel maid. The maid, a 32-year-old immigrant from Guinea, told police that Strauss-Kahn, 62, came out of the bathroom naked, chased her down, forced her to perform oral sex on him and tried to remove her underwear before she broke free and fled the room. And how does France react? By defending his rampant sexual abuse and claiming that France is the victim here: Jean-Marie Le Guen, a Socialist party MP who has known Strauss-Kahn for 25 years, said the story was "not credible" and inconsistent with what he knew of ...

F1 has decided that instead of big expensive V8's they are going to start using small, economical, fuel-efficient turbo charged 4 cylinder engines. Which means yes, F1 is basically like your Aunt Mary. And it means no more of this: It is, quite simply, an idiotic idea. F1 is F1 - not your sunday grocery getter. What makes sense for Aunt Mary does not make sense for the highest-powered all-you-can-handle racing league in the world. Granted, F1 cars have been on a decidedly downward trajectory since the v10s of the mid-90's, but this is not just a step down, it's more tripping and falling into a half-dug grave. Really, what the hell are they thinking? I have a 4-cylinder turbo and it's great... if you want to balance fuel economy with fun-to-drive. F1 should not be giving a shit about fuel economy. It would be like running the Kentucky Derby on donkeys, because, well, they are just more economical. Somehow... it's just not quite the same...  So why is F1 do...

Ever since Alfa Romeo left the US market in 1995, they have been saying they will be back. In a very un-Schwarzenegger kind of way, they never actually have been back. Now that Fiat owns Chrysler, it seems like there is a good change we will actually be seeing Alfas.. but their launch just got pushed back another year. The underlying problem is this: Alfa makes beautiful cars which are really not that good. But damn are some of them good looking. Here is a kind of funny timeline of all of the promises made by Alfa since 2000 about coming back to the US

There are many different theories about what to drive after the apocalypse. Some fall into the dirt-bike/motorcycle school. Others, the beat up wrangler/suburban/range rover school. However, here, I think we have the best vehicle for the apocalypse: The Ram HD Long-Hauler What makes this truck so special? Well, apart from the fact that it is built on the new and much better Ram HD frame, it can hold 170 gallons of diesel to fuel the flamethrowers its 350-horsepower, 6.7-liter Cummins diesel inline six spitting out 650 pound-feet of twist. So no, its not the most powerful. And yeah, that incredibly long wheelbase means this is not much good off-road nor easy to parallel park between the burnt-out shells of lesser cars, but it does have a range of over 1,600 miles. And that means each time you criss-cross the country looking for some sign of the survival of human civilization, you only have to fill up twice.

Mmm, that's the spot Hawtie... that really tickles my turbo... Ok, so the real story here is that.. Saab has gotten in bed with Hawtei. Really.  Yeah... I have no idea who Hawtai is either, and I am really into cars. But basically, Saab was having a real hard time making a go of it, and was not able to pay suppliers etc a few times in the last few months. So they have called up a Chinese partner to help. The best part? This is Hawtai's logo... Yeah.... I think they may have gotten a little... inspiration... from somewhere. There is also of course the Hawtei Cayenne (it's unofficial but commonly used name) Actually it might be better looking than the real Cayenne

Hell yeah. First of all, this took way too long. Second, the fact that he was living in some posh mansion really pisses me off. Third, it makes me really damn happy that this was done by special op ground forces, not a predator strike. He showed himself to be a coward, and spent his last moments facing utter fear, which considering what he had done to so many others, is more than deserved (actually - what he deserved is probably a lifetime of punishment and humiliation, but this is better). Finally, I want to say that I am a little disconcerted at much of the response I have been hearing from others my own age. War weary and not interested any longer in "war on terror", a lot of the reaction has basically been "it does not really matter." The theory goes, just as Hollywood has told us about terrorist groups so many times, that if you get rid of the leader, then someone else will just pop up. I disagree. Al Qaeda is not a well-run, highly-organized group with s...

I am not a fan of Rhode Island. It is a small pocket of trash tucked between MA and CT. It has few redeeming features, and with the exceptions of Portsmouth and Block Island, it basically has none (though I have heard that Providence is getting better). First up, Rhode Island Pizza.. Basically, it is a cold, cheese-less slice of Sicilian pizza.. yeah... what the hell is wrong with you people. But more than that, and the reason I am writing this post: RI has the highest rate of dangerous bridges in the country: 53% are either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete... so yeah, if you have to spend time in RI, try not to cross any water.