Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Kim Peek, the original Rain Man, dies

For those youngsters out there, there was a movie in 1988 titled Rain Man.
Rain Man is a 1988 comedy-drama film written by Barry Morrow and Ronald Bass and directed by Barry Levinson. It tells the story of an abrasive yuppie, Charlie Babbitt, who discovers that his estranged father has died and bequeathed all of his multimillion-dollar estate to his other son, Raymond, a savant, of whose existence Charlie was unaware.
I did not know that Rain Main was based on a real person, Kim Peek. Mr. Peek passed away on December 19, 2009.

The blog BagOfNothing posted a series of five videos about Mr. Peek. I am posting video one below, along with links to videos 2-5.


Kim Peek - The Real Rain Man [2/5]

Kim Peek - The Real Rain Man [3/5]

Kim Peek - The Real Rain Man [4/5]

Kim Peek - The Real Rain Man [5/5]

Thanks To Keith at BagOfNothing

Are You This Good With A Tape Measure



This is probably fake, but it is impressive nonetheless.


Thanks To Keith at BagOfNothing

Reason # 1098 Why You Shouldn't Share A Stage With Children




Thanks to Lee Ann

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

KooKoo, the GPS-Enabled Kitty

I am not a fan of cats, but I am a fan of creative uses of technology. Click on the picture to watch the video.

To track his wandering cat, Mark Spezio rigged up a cat collar with a lightweight GPS logger. Here's what he discovered about KooKoo's secret habits


Thanks To Keith at BagOfNothing

Some in $4.6B Christian industry copy designs, logos

American retailers sell about $4.6 billion worth of Christian products annually, and some are spoofs or spinoffs of commercial logos or brand names. Many such goods are illegal, trademark attorneys say, but companies often are unaware their names are being copied or don’t put up a fight for fear of being labeled anti-faith.
Click the image to read the article.







Thanks To Keith at BagOfNothing

Monday, December 21, 2009

2009 News Wrap-up In Christmas Carol Form

Helping small minds understand big news.
Last year's Singing Review went viral, in a GOOD way (not like H1N1). Re-live the year's news and sing along with Uncle Jay! Oh wait, you can't he changed all the words. See you in January!

Solar Powered Camels?

Kenya’s camels recently started sporting some unusual apparel: eco-friendly refrigerators! Some of the African country’s camels are carrying the solar-powered mini fridges on their backs as part of a test project that uses camels as mobile health clinics. Organizers hope the eco-friendly transport system will provide a cheap, reliable way of getting much-needed medicines and vaccines to rural communities in Kenya and Ethiopia.


Thanks To Keith at BagOfNothing

Big Picture: The decade in news photographs

Call it what you will, "the noughties", "the two-thousands" or something else, the first decade of the 21st century (2000-2009) is now over. Looking back on the past ten years through news photographs, it becomes clear that it was a dramatic, often brutal decade. Natural disasters, terrorist attacks and wars were by far the most dominant theme. Ten years ago, Bill Clinton was ending his final term in office, very few had ever heard of Osama bin Laden, the Taliban ruled Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein still ruled Iraq - all that and much more has changed in the intervening time. It's really an impossible task to sum up ten years in a handful of photographs, but below is my best attempt at a look back at the last decade - feel free to let me know what I missed in the comments below. (50 photos total)
Click the picture above to see the full collection. Warning: Some images are graphic.