Papa Got A Brand New Bag Of Something

Southern Icon meets Drunk History


Dance Lessons


Night Train

Where's the Beef or Entrepreneurship?

Full Article at Forbes.com, By Sramana Mitra

A growing concern is the current lack of policy to support entrepreneurship from this administration, especially bootstrapped entrepreneurship. As the government tries to assess what might stimulate entrepreneurship, I don't see many "practitioners" of true entrepreneurship represented on President Obama's advisory council. Who represents the voice of the bootstrapped entrepreneur in the government? Who understands the extreme cash-strapped conditions under which entrepreneurs operate? Without understanding, how can they design an effective system?
...In fact, this week, there was some whining from the venture capital industry about a tax increase for carried interest per the Obama budget proposal. The administration proposes raising taxes on these firms' general partners by treating carried interest, the portion of profits they take from successful investments, as ordinary income instead of capital gains. That change would increase the tax rate, starting in 2011, to 39.6% from the current 15% level.

Give Up That Twitter For Lent!

From AP, Full Story Here

ROME - Roman Catholic bishops in Italy are urging the faithful to go on a high-tech fast for Lent, switching off modern appliances from cars to iPods and abstaining from surfing the Web or text messaging until Easter.

The suggestion goes far beyond no-meat Fridays, giving a modern twist to traditional forms of abstinence in the five-week period Christians set aside for fasting and prayer ahead of Easter.

So Bad It's Good : Heavy Metal Parking Lot

Just watched Heavy Metal Parking Lot the other day, and was pretty amazed by it. Just a camera, a parking lot, and the crowd waiting around getting trashed before a Judas Priest/Dokken concert, when Metal was still proudly Heavy Metal, and leather and big hair were the rage. . It's remarkably amateur and simply put together, but it captures a lost culture from the 80's that no longer exists.

Confuse Your Bum - Lo-Res Chair

From OOOMS Design
Why not? You know, why not? Usually Comfort and Style have trade-offs but not anymore with the Lo-Res chair. You have lots of padding for comfort, along with both a blocky 8-bit Nintendo chair and a stylishly modern Eames chair hidden in the negative space. I mean, everyone that comes to your house will know without a doubt you know whats going on. You Sir or Madam have Style, Taste, and are a Hip/Modern individual too. Who needs subtility?

Found on Design Milk

When Good Things Break.......Skype

RANT: I believe in Skype, I really do. I even canceled my cellphone and switched to using my Skype service as my only phone.
It was a choice I made for a large part to save money but just as importantly because I believe it's a remarkable service. I had virtually no complaints until about two weeks ago when it just stopped making calls. Everything has been paid for, and I changed nothing on my computer that would prevent calls from connecting, it just stopped working to landlines and cellphones. The service is only 2.95 a month, so there is only so much you can expect, but as a true alternative to whats out there, waiting over two weeks to get your phone working again is pretty sad. I want to believe in them, I want something cheap and affordable and as a service I still absolutely recommend it, just don't go canceling your cellphones just yet.

Shanghai Rock Quarry Gets Hotel Make-Over

Full Story at E-Architect
"The innovative design of the 400-bed resort hotel stands two levels higher than the rock face of the 100 metre deep quarry and includes underwater public areas and guestrooms. It will incorporate conference facilities for up to 1,000 people, a banqueting centre, restaurants, cafés and sports facilities. Sustainability is integral to the design ranging from using green roofing for the structures above the ground level to geothermal energy extraction.

An aquatic theme runs through the design both visually and functionally. Curved wings of the main body of the guestrooms enclose a naturally lit internal atrium, which uses the existing rock face with its waterfalls and green vegetation. This will be overlooked by guestroom balconies and contain restaurants and cafés at the base. Two underwater levels will house a restaurant and guestrooms facing a ten-metre deep aquarium. The lowest level of the hotel will contain a leisure complex with a swimming pool and water-based sports."

Found at Grinding.Be Blog

Fish With Tubular Eyes Can See Through It's Own Head......

Full Article & Video at MBARI.ORG

"Researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute recently solved the half-century-old mystery of a fish with tubular eyes and a transparent head. Ever since the "barreleye" fish Macropinna microstoma was first described in 1939, marine biologists have known that its tubular eyes are very good at collecting light. However, the eyes were believed to be fixed in place and seemed to provide only a "tunnel-vision" view of whatever was directly above the fish's head. A new paper by Bruce Robison and Kim Reisenbichler shows that these unusual eyes can rotate within a transparent shield that covers the fish's head. This allows the barreleye to peer up at potential prey or focus forward to see what it is eating."

From the
...
...........Moe Raw
......
....
...................Brain Feed

Fashion Designed for Covert Planting

"Earrings for Spontaneous Seeding"

"A seed here. A seed there. You never know when an opportunity for planting might present itself. Be prepared with these tiny glass bottles filled with vegetable and flower seeds. Great for secretively planting in friends' yards, medians, and those boring beds full of petunias outside your doctor's office. Includes refill seeds. Note: these are very high quality seeds - many of them heirloom. They come from Seed Savers Exchange."

Get them at Leafcutter Designs

*Found at Grinding.be

How Technology Will Help Reboot the Economy

I've been watching through the released TED 2009 talks which is always amazing, but found this one by Juan Enriquez’s over at Grinding.be blog. Pretty fantastic look at where the world might be heading, and quite funny as well.