This is a mosquito being killed by a laser

Behold:



Found on the Gizmodo website (which all you wanna-be superheroes and villains should be constantly checking out for all the neat stuff found there), via Metafilter.

COMIX CONNECTION IS CLOSED TODAY!

ATTENTION: BOTH COMIX CONNECTION STORES ARE CLOSED TODAY DUE TO THE ENORMOUS AMOUNTS OF FROZEN PRECIPITATE BLANKETING THE REGION! DO NOT COME IN, WE ARE NOT THERE! STAY TUNED FOR TOMORROW'S STATUS!

Comix Connection's Annual Halloween Sale offers a harvest of values!

That's right, reap a harvest of incredible bargain values! Scare up the savings at this spooktacular yearly event! Something something holiday-themed pun! Treat yourself to the trick pumpkin witch black cat graveyard oh forget it.

Just make sure you come in for this:

TWO DAYS, ALL DAY, BOTH STORES!

Saturday, October 31st 10AM - 9PM
Sunday, November 1st 12 Noon - 5PM

ALL BACK ISSUE COMICS IN THE BINS - $1.00 EACH!
ALL 2/99¢ COMICS - 10¢ EACH!
ALL COLLECTED EDITIONS, GRAPHIC NOVELS AND BOOKS - 20% OFF!
ALL STATUES, TOYS ...T-SHIRTS AND POSTERS - 20% OFF!
ALL OLDER BACK ISSUES ON THE WALL - 25% OFF!

Special costume offer - Show up in costume and get 10 comic books (your choice) out of the bins ABSOLUTELY FREE!

FREE GOLDENBERG'S PEANUT CHEWS! (The official Snack Candy of Comix Connection!)

Mystery on South Street

If this image looks familiar to you, then you may know of the history of the mysterious Toynbee Tiles. I'd heard about them some time ago thanks to a story on NPR, but I had never actually seen one. Today though as my girlfriend and I were out and about on South Street in Philly before the Camera Obscura concert, I happened to look down and saw one as we were crossing the street.

These tiles started appearing nearly thirty years ago in Philadelphia, but have since been reported all over the world. Initially the tile was about the size of a license plate, but the one we saw today for example was only maybe two inches in height by four inches in length. But as intriguing as the geographical placements and differences in size and materials may be, the real mystery lies in the basic inscription that has been a part of each tile since their first appearance in Philadelphia all those years ago.

TOYNBEE IDEA

IN KUBRICK'S 2001

RESURRECT DEAD

ON PLANET JUPITER.

The tile's meaning has been theorized by connecting the references made in the tile. It is believed "Toynbee" refers to Arnold J. Toynbee, a famous 19th century English religious historian and of course "Kubrick's 2001" refers to 2001: A Space Odyssey, co-written and directed by the late great filmmaker Stanley Kubrick. Wondering what's the intersection though between the works of Toynbee and Kubrick? Toynbee's writings spoke of a man named Zoroaster who conceived the idea of monotheism. Looking at the musical score to 2001: A Space Odyssey its theme song is curiously entitled "Thus Spoke Zoroaster." But what of the "Resurrect dead on planet Jupiter" business? Well, around the time the tiles first showed up writer David Mamet published the one-act play 4 AM, which depicted an odd interaction between a radio host and a strange caller who wants to talk about a plan to resurrect the dead on Jupiter.

While Mamet has always claimed he invented this caller, in 1983, a real caller identifying himself as James Morasco, a Philadelphia city social worker, rang Clark DeLeon at The Philadelphia Inquirer. DeLeon then published his remarks of that exchange.

Wanna run that one by me again?
By Clark DeLeon

Call me skeptical, but I had a hard time buying James Morasco's concept that the planet Jupiter would be colonized by bringing all the people of Earth who had ever died back to life and then changing Jupiter's atmosphere to allow them to live. Is this just me, or does that strike you as hard to swallow too? Morasco says he is a social worker in Philadelphia and came across this idea while reading a book by historian Arnold Toynbee, who's theory on bringing dead molecules back to life was depicted in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

"There are no scientific principles I've found that can make this possible," Morasco said, "especially colonizing the planet Jupiter, which has a very poisonous atmosphere. The possibility of giving that planet an oxygen atmosphere is beyond even science fiction writers' imaginations."

Now that quote may sound as if Morasco doesn't believe it can be done, but that's not true. He thinks that between Toynbee and Stanley Kubrick there is a way to pull it off. That's why he's contacting talk shows and newspapers to spread the message. He's even founded a Jupiter colonization organization called the Minority Association, which he says consists of "Me, Eric, Eric's sister who does the typing, Frank. . ."

You may be hearing more from Morasco. And then again, you may not.

Weird, huh? But trust me, this mystery only gets weirder the more you read on the topic. So if I have piqued your curiosity and you'd like to read more on this, there's a great write up here. I know I've enjoyed mulling it all over in my brain since seeing it earlier today. This concludes my odd little side note of a very entertaining and fun day!

DANCE THE "LURCH"!

It is Saturday night after all:



You're welcome.

Star Trek apartment!

This guy is serious about his Star Trek Geekdom:


CLICK HERE to read the article and see more pictures of the ultimate Star Trek Next Generation apartment. Crazy.

And if they had opposable thumbs, we'd all be dead

Never let your guard down around your pets:

Click HERE to see what I'm talking about.

Watch out! Fido might be trying to kill you!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Poodle

Sometimes the world in general leaves me speechless. And then sometimes the world fills me with fear. Behold:


Yes, that's a real poodle.

I have to go lie down now. Like a good doggie.

A York, Pennsylvania Christmas tradition

If you live in or near York, Pennsylvania, you've certainly heard the haunting sounds of the New York Wire Company's steam whistle playing traditional Christmas favorites:



It's a very spooky sound that fills up the valley and reverberates against the hills surrounding York. Did you hear it last night?

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Better than a Spider Tracer?

I'm sure you know about Spider-man's little gizmo called the Spider Tracer, a tiny tracking device that emits a homing signal, right?

Well, check this out:

The DelFly Micro is a 'Micro Air Vehicle' (MAV), an exceptionally small remote-controlled aircraft with camera and image recognition software. The Micro, weighing just 3 grams and measuring 10 cm (wingtip to wingtip) is the considerably smaller successor to the successful DelFly I (2005) and DelFly II (2006). The DelFly Micro, with its minuscule battery weighing just 1 gram, can fly for approximately three minutes and has a maximum speed of 5 m/s.

(CLICK HERE to read the whole article.)

Technology continues to catch up with fiction. (Ask me about Buckaroo Banzai and crew's "Go-Phones" sometime. OK, don't.)

Or:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Arthur C. Clarke, "Profiles of The Future", 1961 (Clarke's third law)

The coolest clock ever

Behold, The Corpus Clock:

(Inventor) Taylor deliberately designed it to be "terrifying": "Basically I view time as not on your side. He'll eat up every minute of your life, and as soon as one has gone he's salivating for the next.

More info HERE!

You wanna roll those dice?

I ran across THIS STORY last week and it's been bumping around in my head ever since:

But Walter L. Wagner and Luis Sancho contend that scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, have played down the chances that the collider could produce, among other horrors, a tiny black hole, which, they say, could eat the Earth. Or it could spit out something called a “strangelet” that would convert our planet to a shrunken dense dead lump of something called “strange matter.”

I wish we had a Superman to keep an eye on us in case things go south.

More on the Large Hadron Collider HERE!

OK, this frightened me

I imagine this thing relentlessly chasing me through the woods as I struggle to stay ahead of it while becoming more and more exhausted as my food and water slowly run out:



Pretty amazing robotics.

UPDATE: Play THIS while watching that, I dare you!

The best auction on Ebay ever.

For this week anyway.

Click Here!

You're welcome.

(No, that's not me selling those. I never even ate one.)

For all your Bobblehead needs

Check It's YOU Small and BINKLEY CUSTOM PRODUCTS out!

You know, if you ever want to have some bobblehead dolls made of yourself.

For some reason.

Michael Turner's Supergirl Action Figure

A while back DC Comics released a set of action figures based on the artwork of Michael Turner. They certainly represented Turner's style, but didn't translate well into three-dimensional objects in my opinion. Then the other day Jason Resh and I were talking about how freakishly weird the Supergirl figure looked, when he said

His women remind me of that actress, whatshername? She was in Sin City...

Uhhh...

Brittany Murphy!

That struck me like a thunderbolt because here's the action figure in question:


And here's a photo of Brittany Murphy:


Weird, huh? Thanks, Jason!