Dave's shared items
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A couple of weeks ago AT:LA blogged Sure Fit's Ugly Couch Contest. Well, the votes are in, and Julie Lee of San Francisco is the winner! Can you guess which of these 20 semi-finalists has been crowned ugliest of the ugly?
Here it is! Yikes.
Julie's submitted the hideous 30-year old couch to the contest four years in a row. She says, Here was my chance to finally make my living space more presentable and tasteful. It's time for the couch to go. It's functional, but it really is just so ugly. It’s ‘loud’ and screams of the 70s. It’s orange, yellow, brown and…greenish? It has a floral pattern all over. And the fabric is some kind of chenille or velour or something strangely fuzzy.
Julie won a $5,000 home makeover with Kim Myles, designer/host of HGTV's Myles of Style, and Sure Fit. We're looking forward to seeing the results.
Congratulations, Julie! 
Hint: It's not clothes, games or groceries. It is a perfect small space solution...
For as long as I can remember, my dad has worked at least two days a week out of this converted closet, located in my parents' bedroom. Equipped with a desk lamp, a drawing board and every color of pencil imaginable (he's an illustrator), he's got everything he needs...plus the added bonus of a really short commute.
Though the yellow color scheme could use an update, I think some of his ideas are timeless. In particular, the curved laminate allows for a desk chair to be stored out of the way inside the office and the window allows natural light into what could be a fairly desolate space.
One side note: Dad is a compulsive neat freak, so even though he packs a lot of stuff in his space, I assure you that it's all neat and tidy and perfectly organized. If he had known I was taking photos, I'm sure he'd have trotted out the drawers of color coordinated pencils!
Aquarium Drunkard posted MP3s of the terrific recordings that two of my favorite songwriters, Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash, made together during three 1969 sessions. Several tracks were are even quadraphonic mixes. The Dylan/Cash Sessions (Thanks, Mark!)
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LoHud.com has an article about the pleasure of keeping chickens in your back yard. I agree with the people interviewed in the piece -- I bought my chickens (above, click for big) for eggs and fertilizer, but it turns out their primary benefit is amusing me and my family. I love spending time with them.
Chicken owners liken it to having their very own widescreen TV in the backyard, with an always-looping Chicken Channel. Chickens are curious and very involved in their surroundings, following humans and dogs and cats around the yard and seeking attention, even a backrub.Backyard chickens find new popularity in suburbiaFiona Mitchell says the four hens she got in July for her Bedford Hills yard fit right in with her two dogs and two cats. "Everybody seems to find their own space," she says. "We're one big happy family now."
Demetra and Sal Restuccia couldn't be happier with the five Rhode Island Reds they got last year. "Oh, I love my chickens," Demetra says. "They have such personalities. They're funny - they talk all the time. They'll tell you everything that's been going on for the day. They're hysterical."
Michael Vick, the allegedly herpetic former NFL quarterback and dog lover, has filed paperwork detailing the decent into financial ruin that lead to his bankruptcy filing in July of this year. Vick blew through $17.7 million dollars in two years preceding his Chapter 11 petition. If that sounds like a lot of money in a short amount of time, consider the fact that Vick has been imprisoned since November 2007. For those of you looking for some insight into Vick's attitude towards money, the Smoking Gun points out that one of his check memos reads, "chump change."
The check was made out to Vick's mother, Brenda Boddie, for the sum of $1,000.
Michael Vick's "Chump Change"[The Smoking Gun]
Imagine going to the doctor for a severe migraine and ending up with your right arm amputated. That's what happened to Diana Levine when her doctor injected her with Phenergan, it seeped out of the vein into an artery, and gave her gangrene.
Vermont courts found that Wyeth hadn't given adequate warning to doctors and patients that one particular injection method, the one used on Diana, greatly increases the risk of gangrene. Wyeth is trying to use Federal preemption to win the case, arguing that patients is that consumers can't sue a pharma company if the drug has been approved by federal regulators. The case, Wyeth v. Levine, is before the Supreme Court. The Alliance for Justice has made a 22-minute documentary about Diana Levine so you can learn more about her story. Watch it in its entirety, inside...
Access Denied [Alliance For Justice]
PREVIOUSLY: Big Pharma Goes Before Supreme Court To Get State Lawsuits Banned
"Buy one new dodge ram, get a second dodge ram at no additional cost," reads the ad for Rob Lambdin's University Dodge. The auto industry is officially totally fucked. In response to the ad, a commenter on Bimmerclassics.net quipped, "Well at least one of the Big Three is admitting that if you buy one of their new cars you will need a second one as a parts car for the first." I can't read the asterisks but our tipster says the deal is you buy one Dodge Ram Quad Cab 1500 and you get a Dodge Ram Single Cab for free. Full ad inside...
Here's what the fine print says (thanks to Mac-Phisto's eagle-eyes):
Bottom left: Prices & discounts include all consumer rebates & incentives. Prices plus tax and license. Offers available on select models. Some offers may require financing through Chrysler Financial with approved credit. Offers valid on the day of publication only and cannot be combined. Due to early publication deadlines, factory programs and incentives may change without notice. Not responsible for typographical errors. Pictures are for illustrative purposes only.Bottom right:
Prices plus tax, tag, title and dealer installed options and include all factory rebates & incentives, including Lease Loyalty. List price = M.S.R.P. + dealer installed equipment. Must finance thru CFS with approved credit. Offers valid on the day of publication only. Advertised offers cannot be combined and are not available for [report?], Not responsible for typographical errors. Due to early publication deadlines, factory programs and incentives may change without notice. Must present this ad upon arrival at University Dodge to receive advertised offers. Pictures are for illustrative purposes only.
Rob Lambdin's University Dodge(Thanks to Stephan!)
Via Discovery News:
Scientists in California have developed a software algorithm that automatically creates a physical key based solely on a picture of one, regardless of angle or distance. The project, called Sneakey, was meant to warn people about the dangers of haphazardly placing keys in the open or posting images of them online.
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When Savage and his students searched online photo sharing Web sites, like Flickr, they easily found thousands of photos of keys with enough definition to replicate. A more social person could simply use their cell phone camera to snap a quick picture of stray keys on a table top.
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the researchers set up a camera with a zoom lens 200 feet away. Using those photos, they created a working key 80 percent on their first try. Within three attempts they opened every lock.
Check out the researcher's site here, where you can learn more and read their paper: "Reconsidering Physical Key Secrecy: Teleduplication via Optical Decoding."
So, if I'm understanding this correctly, you could have a camera with zoom hundreds of feet away from a door and leave it recording. If you've achieved the right angle, you could capture a few frames of the key pre-insertion-into-the-door that let you then make your own copy!
This amazing mod crams an entire Nintendo Entertainment System from the 80s into one of it's cartridges complete with power and reset buttons, controller ports and composite video and audio output jacks. This is equivalent to the gaming version of the "clown car" where there is so much stuffed into such a small physical area that it's pretty hard to understand how this could work.
via Technabob
