Monkey-Picked Tea

Nothing quite like a hot cup of FOO Joy Monkey Picked Tea.

I'm glad that unskilled monkeys still have access to quality jobs. I guess the FOO Joy food company has just as much right to advertise the techniques used to produce their products as the 'Made in X' crowd does.

Art From The Inside Out

Some very talented flash artist has produced a sketch of a person from the inside out. Very much worth a quick viewing. I watched it at x16 playback speed, the default was far too slow on my system.

If anyone knows who the artist is who did this, I'd like to know, the site I reached this by did not include any information about the origin of the shockwave.

This and the music timeline are the only two valid uses of flash/shockwave that I have ever encountered online.

Wonder Box

I'm considering building one of these Wonder Boxes. The box is basically a long contraption with a drawer pull on the end. When the drawer is opened, you find, a drawer. However, if you roll the box 90 degrees and open the drawer, you get another drawer. Roll it again and you still get a drawer. All the way around, no matter which of the four sides is up, you get a drawer. Granted it's the same drawer, there are no multidimensional properties at work, but it's still a clever device.

The design is straightforward and it appears to be a nifty toy. The only real question is whether or not I have sufficient woodworking skills to pull it off. The tolerances required for fine cabinetry are extremely tight. Also, not having a workshop will make it tough, but I'll find a way. It may have to wait until next spring though.

Using Annoying Noise to Control Teens

An inventor, Howard Stapleton, has developed a device "The Mosquito" used to annoy the young. Essentially it constantly produces an annoying chirping sound at high frequencies. It relies upon the fact that as we age, our hearing diminishes in the high ranges, therefore to adults the sound is imperceptible but annoys the young.

The device, called the Mosquito ("It's small and annoying," Mr. Stapleton said), emits a high-frequency pulsing sound that, he says, can be heard by most people younger than 20 and almost no one older than 30. The sound is designed to so irritate young people that after several minutes, they cannot stand it and go away.

While it is a creative solution to a difficult social problem, I doubt its use will become widespread. The social problem I refer to isn't loitering, it's not providing young people with safe environments to grow into adulthood.

What's the Buzz? Rowdy Teenagers Don't Want to Hear It - New York Times