Stuff below the fold

Nano bots to the rescue? Cargo carrying, swimming Nano bots...

more HERE.


By See Gadget

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SuperHero Fonts.

(headsup from Col Updraft)

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Strategypage explains: a certain politician was right: It really is the culture


and explains in detail why the war in Iraq might have been a turning point for Arab cultural dysfunction, and that democracy, even a messy democracy, might be the best answer to the problem.

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 The factoid of the day:

In addition to her other attainments, Clara Barton was a crack shot with a pistol (regularly impressing male onlookers at the firing range with her ability to hit targets at 50 yards) and volunteered to help guard Washington during the opening days of the Civil War, in April of 1861. 

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Remember all that stuff about why Johnny can't read? well, maybe it was because they were being fed mush.

Now the Kidlit field (especially via Ebooks) is exploding.
thanks to "geek" books like Hunger Games, Percy Jackson, and Harry Potter clones....

Sounds about right...As a kid, I never could finish the "read a thon" at the library because the books were bland pap about teen angst.... (as a kid, I preferred to read my brother's Heinlein books or the biographies of people like Clara Barton... his was before LOTR came out in paperback and changed the publishing world).

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Factoid of the day take two: Dame Edna is playing the voice of the Hobbit's Goblin King.

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IdleSpeculations points out that John Martin's illustrations, including those for Paradise Lost, have probably inspired more modern illustrators and films

Satan arousing the fallen angels (C. W. 52). Original mezzotint with drypoint, 1824.

 compare and contrast with this one, by John Howe:

Milton's Satan is admired  for his ambition by many who read the poem...Ironically, Milton's prose suggests the fall of the Balrog (and Sauron, and Morgoth):

"He trusted to have equall’d the most High,
If he oppos’d; and with ambitious aim
Against the Throne and Monarchy of God
Rais’d impious War in Heav’n and Battle proud
With vain attempt.     Him the Almighty Power
Hurl’d headlong flaming from th’Ethereal Sky
With hideous ruin and combustion down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In Adamantine Chains and penal Fire,
Who durst defy th’Omnipotent to Arms." 

Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 1, lines 40-49

So why does it fit Sauron better than Satan?

Because the Satan in P.L. is a well drawn character. He represents the modern man who rebels against the traditions that kept him in place. (Milton, after all, was a regicide)...

and alas Milton doesn't show the reality of evil that Satan does in the poem, but we all know what would happen to the Shire if Sauron won...

Before:

 After:

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I had read New Zealand had two recent volcanic eruptions, but the presence of floating lava suggests a third eruption, in the ocean nearby...

so far, our volcanos have been quiet. Floods, but no typhoon winds, or earthquakes...yet...

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If it's too cloudy to watch this week's meteor shower, NASA has a sight for you to watch it on line.