Do you own an ICBM silo? // Silo makeovers. // USB-powered chainsaw. // A 3-D map of Hong Kong. (h/t, Coudal) // Could you make a toaster from scratch? // A chess set made of vacuum tubes. // Clothing made of leaves. // Origami dollars. // Socialist grades. // Hitchens on evil. // Unusually limber. // LCD monitor porn. It’s curved, it’s big and it’s $8,000. // Fancy a pair of toe shoes? // Modern mega-churches. // Deep zoom the Moon. // Someone didn’t like the Battlestar finale. // The SR-71 Blackbird. A piece of aeronautic art. (h/t, Maggie’s Farm) // More experimental aircraft. // And, via The Thin Man, it’s Mr Richard Cheese.

ABC’s Middle East correspondent Anne Barker visits Jerusalem and feels the presence of the numinous: 

Orthodox Jews are angry at the local council’s decision to open a municipal car park on Saturdays – or Shabbat, the day of rest for Jews. It’s a day when Jews are not supposed to do anything resembling work, which can include something as simple as flicking a switch, turning on a light or driving.

Some of you may recall this story involving strict observance of the Sabbath and some bothersome stair lights. The combination of self-inflicted debilitation and cosmic vanity is not without comic potential. What follows, though, isn’t quite so funny.

I was mindful I would need to dress conservatively and keep out of harm’s way. But I made my mistake when I parked the car and started walking towards the protest, not fully sure which street was which. By the time I realised I’d come up the wrong street it was too late.

I suddenly found myself in the thick of the protest – in the midst of hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews in their long coats and sable-fur hats… As the protest became noisier and the crowd began yelling, I took my recorder and microphone out of my bag to record the sound. Suddenly the crowd turned on me, screaming in my face. Dozens of angry men began spitting on me. I found myself herded against a brick wall as they kept on spitting – on my face, my hair, my clothes, my arms. It was like rain, coming at me from all directions – hitting my recorder, my bag, my shoes, even my glasses. Big gobs of spit landed on me like heavy raindrops. I could even smell it as it fell on my face. Somewhere behind me – I didn’t see him – a man on a stairway either kicked me in the head or knocked something heavy against me. […]

I was later told it was because using a tape-recorder is itself a desecration of the Shabbat even though I’m not Jewish and don’t observe the Sabbath.

When people take it upon themselves to be aggressively offended on behalf of some hypothetical deity, this is rarely a good sign. (You’d think any deities that exist could take care of themselves, such being the nature of deity. And if these hypothetical beings have egos to bruise and a need for vicarious payback then I fear we’re all in trouble.) Electing oneself as a Local Agent of the Lord can easily lead to some fundamental confusion and a sense of grandiose entitlement: “His will is my will, therefore my will is His.” And when the alleged cosmic grievance extends to car parking and tape recorders, I think we can safely assume we’re in the presence not of the numinous but of mortal psychodrama. Being drunk on Jehovah’s breath is, if nothing else, a wonderful license to indulge those vindictive inclinations.

Via B&W.

Or Child of Krakatoa. June, 2009. Photograph by Marco Fulle.

Via. Related.

For newcomers, three more items from the archives.

Freeloading and Snobbery. 

Arts establishment claims to be “suppressed,” sneers at the little people, demands free money.

I’m not convinced that the reduction of taxpayer subsidy for loss-making plays qualifies as “suppression.” And reluctant taxpayers please take note: Despite all the years of providing handouts, you’re now on the side of the oppressor.

Womanier Stuff.

The comedic potential of Women’s Studies newsgroups.

As a result of all this “questioning” and “confronting” of logic perhaps we can look forward to the first feminist computer, which will presumably operate on more “wholistic” non-logical principles. If such a device could be built, I’m confident it would generate answers that are ideologically agreeable, if not actually correct.

Exposure.

Atom bombs and Moon landings. The photographic essays of Michael Light.

One incidental detail… illuminates the unique comic potential of practical nuclear physics. Ted Taylor was a miniaturisation expert involved in many of the early atmospheric experiments. On June 5th, 1952, during the test explosion of a 14 kiloton device in the Nevada Desert, Taylor used a parabolic mirror to focus the bomb’s glare and light his cigarette.

Poke about in the greatest hits.

TDK thinks you may be interested in this:

Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society.

Compulsory population control? Compulsory abortion? I’d have guessed that “concluding” such things, even in the passive voice, might hinder a person’s climb to a position of political influence.

Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. Indeed, this would pose some very difficult political, legal and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems. No such sterilant exists today, nor does one appear to be under development. To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: it must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets, or livestock.

Perhaps you think such totalitarian musings would cast a little doubt on a person’s credibility. Apparently not. 

Related: Infestation.