Not since I first read “Shadows of the Empire”:http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Shadows_of_the_Empire have I been this excited. Like most Star Wars nerds who discover the “expanded universe”:http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Expanded_Universe, I jumped at all the extra plot anywhere I could find it. Whether it was the “many novels”:http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Books, the “video games”:http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Computer_and_video_games, or the “Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels”:http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/The_New_Essential_Guide_to_Vehicles_and_Vessels, I had everything.
In fact, I was looking for a specific piece of information today (the planetary location of Incom Corporation, makers of the X-Wing, if you must know) and stumbled upon “Wookiepedia”:http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page. This Star Wars wiki has absolutely everything. I’m not exaggerating, it really has everything, from “The First Battle of Kashyk”:http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/First_Battle_of_Kashyyyk_%28Galactic_Civil_War%29 to all the fighters in the “TIE series”:http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/TIE_series, Wookieepedia is your go-to guide to everything touched by the Force.
Looking for a place to get started? Read about the founding of the “Alliance to Restore the Republic”:http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Alliance_to_Restore_the_Republic (aka the Rebel Alliance). It’ll drop you right into the original trilogy and carry you through to all of the greatest parts of the expanded universe of Star Wars.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Facebook launches Marketplace
Could “craigslist”:http://craigslist.com/ be in trouble? Social giant facebook’s new “marketplace”:http://facebook.com/marketplace feature will combine the social function of its site with an internet-based community marketing forum in which individual users can buy and sell anything from each other. Of course, this function is perfect for facebook users who are already self-organized into local city, company, or university networks. By combining the business functions with the social network, facebook could bring even more people into internet bartering/trade, assuring everyone on both ends of the transaction accountability. If you’re a facebook user, check out your local marketplace “here”:http://facebook.com/marketplace and see what’s for sale.
Let's Cornhole 'Em!
My alma mater, the “University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign”:http://www.uiuc.edu, recently removed “Chief Illiniwek”:http://www.uillinois.edu/chief/index.html as its mascot. The appropriateness of The Chief as a mascot has been a hotly contested issue for decades, but at long last Illinois students have a solution to the mascot situation that they can all rally behind.
That solution is Farm Bot.
!http://profile.ak.facebook.com/object/911/38/n2200185771_34769.jpg” />
Farm Bot represents Illinois’ rich, agricultural tradition and its commitment to excellence in engineering via its unique, “Mega Man-style”:http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/4766/xpw8.jpg corn cannon, Abraham Lincoln hat that shoots fireworks, and jetpack that also pops popcorn. Not convinced? Let Farm Bot come to life in this nine-minute masterpiece!
First Nat'l Rock-Paper-Scissors tournament in Las Vegas
It’s American superficiality at its best in Las Vegas today as the World Rock, Paper, Scissors final tournament is being held. The prize? $50,000.
Oh yes, the same method you used to decide who had to go over the fence and get the baseball as a kid can earn you more than the annual income of most people in the industrialized world. There’s some very well-written commentary about the event in “The New York Times”:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/14/us/14rock.html?ex=1336795200&en=4ced52bb8421bf8f&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss or you could just watch it on ESPN as it happens. Seriously.
For more about the world of Rock, Paper Scissors I found the “RPS Society website”:http://www.worldrps.com/ to be very helpful. They also have up to the minute tournament coverage on their main blog.
Mercenaries and more
To understand Iraq, we need to know more than the headlines and the sound bites. We need to hear what people there have to say and what they think is happening. Well here’s part of that puzzle. If you care at all about what’s happening in the world, you need to watch this video:
Incensed? Outraged? Well, you probably should be. A lot of what’s going on in Iraq with private contractors is still coming to the surface. I didn’t know that one of the big reasons for poor soldier retention is contractor presence in Iraq, I didn’t even know about the contractors. If you find yourself looking for more information, the rest of the documentary can be found “here”:http://iraqforsale.org/ and of course there’s the new award-winning book from Jeremy Scahill, “Blackwater”:http://www.amazon.com/Blackwater-Rise-Worlds-Powerful-Mercenary/dp/1560259795.
Via “Truthdig”:http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/20070510_legal_stealing/
Save Money – Stop Junk Mail
Although most us all love getting snail mail, some can be dangerous when it comes to “ID theft”:http://duenos.net/article/156/UseProtectionAgainstIDThieves. Pre-approved credit card offers that come through the mail are one of the most deadly weapons ID thieves have against you. After a crook fills in your information (a lot easy to get than you think), they check the box that will have the card sent to another address (most likely theirs). Now they’ve got control of your credit and you don’t know it. Let’s hope at the very least you shred your unwanted offers, but a thief worth their salt can intercept it before it comes your way. A simple solution to protect yourself is visiting “optoutprescreen.com”:https://www.optoutprescreen.com/opt_form.cgi and follow the instructions to take yourself off mailing lists. Keep in mind you can reverse it, but if you still want to apply for a credit card, simply go to “creditcards.com”:http://www.creditcards.com/ for the best and safest offerings available. Thanks to “Frank W. Abagnale”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_W._Abagnale and “his book”:http://www.amazon.com/Art-Steal-Yourself-Business-Americas/dp/0767906845/ref=sr_1_3/102-7252975-2802553?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1178756189&sr=1-3 for this and other tips.
And try the following links if you’re tired of: “telemarketing”:https://www.donotcall.gov/register/Reg.aspx, “other junk mail”:https://www.dmaconsumers.org/cgi/offmailing, and “SPAM”:http://www.spamcop.net/.
Fun with electricity
“Peter Terren”:http://tesladownunder.com/aboutme.htm from Australia clearly has no fear of electricity. Like Ben Franklin with his kite, Terren plays with homemade “Tesla coils”:http://tesladownunder.com/Tesla_coils_intro.htm and “rail guns”:http://tesladownunder.com/Rail_gun.htm like they’re, well, play-things. Also worth checking out are his experiments with far-too-powerful “can crushers”:http://tesladownunder.com/CanCrushing.htm and lots of cool “lasers”:http://tesladownunder.com/Lasers_%20HeNe_YAG.htm.
The above photo was taken by Terren of he and his son sitting in his Hyundai under a homemade 5-kilowatt Tesla Coil. The car and its jolting accessory are profiled “here”:http://spectrum.ieee.org/may07/5053
Retro Robots Recorded
It’s a miracle how social networking can lead to such wonderful treasures as those killer robot pictures above. I followed a link trail from one of my “Last.fm”:http://last.fm neighbours and somehow ended up at “LeSophie’s Flickr stream”:http://flickr.com/photos/25168809@N00/. The highlight of the stream was this “set”:http://flickr.com/photos/25168809@N00/sets/72157600033291647/ featuring retro robot pictures taken with a digital SLR through an old Kodak Dualflex camera viewfinder. That’s why each of these super-sweet robot pictures lies within that retro-looking frame and has a grain to it.
These pictures are so cool that LeSophie ended up turning them into “greeting cards”:http://lesophie.blogspot.com/2007/03/greetings.html for friends. I’ve never wanted to be someone’s friend so much.
Albino Hedgehog
Only one in ten-thousand hedgehogs are born truly albino, with red eyes and completely white skin. Because of the rarity of it, and because it’s so darn cute in a creepy “I could steal your soul” kind of way, here it is.
This particular hedgehog is 11-weeks old from “Bank Mill Nurseries”:http://www.bankmillnurseries.co.uk and was recently “profiled”:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=452760&in_page_id=1770 in the Daily Mail.
More about Jello, from Utah
After the posts about the “Jello model”:http://duenos.net/article/222/JelloSanFrancisco of San Francisco and the “13 lb Gummy Bear”:http://duenos.net/article/221/13lbGummyBear, I was interested in learning a little more about Jello. It turns out that in addition to being made from connective tissue, Jello is also the official state snack food of Utah. The above picture is Jello celebrity spokesman Bill Cosby receiving the official plaque. For a list of other official state snack foods, check out the helpful “State Food List”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_foods on Wikipedia.
Previously on Duenos:
* “13 lb Gummy Bear”:http://duenos.net/article/221/13lbGummyBear
* “Jello San Francisco”:http://duenos.net/article/222/JelloSanFrancisco