While working late one night in his lab, Alexander Graham Bell made a discovery of utmost importance. Our culture would not be the same had Mr. Bell not had the perseverance and dedication to his craft, which is really sad since so few people know he was the man responsible for such a culture-defining phenomenon.

Click to embiggen. (a lot)

The late-night taco vending service, originally located in the cafeteria of Bell Telephone, eventually expanded into an empire of its own. The rest is history.

[edit: comments were inexplicably bork. Hopefully it is fine now]

While "researching" my previous stupid idea, I had an even stupider one. I now present you with the following 80's sitcom that never was, based around the idea that when your mom is a "ho" -- and dead -- it's never quite clear just who your biological uncle is:

I spent way too much time on something this afternoon, so I figured I'd share the fruits of my labor.

A 16:9 version of the classic "Indian Head" test pattern:
Click for really a really gigantic version (3465x1944)

Perhaps this will be of use to someone.

UPDATE: I've added more explanation and examples at the bottom.

I missed out on the buzz a couple days ago surrounding the latest attempt at sleazy Hollywood poster boob-enhancement, which this time purportedly boosted Emma Watson's chestage to more mammoth propertions. The article I linked to has nearly 2,000 "diggs," so you know it's a big deal.

Here's the image shamelessly stolen from posterwire.com:

Click to view full size

Never one to miss an opportunity to ogle Emma Watson's chest with impunity, I decided to do a little "forensic investigating" to see if there is any explanation that's a bit less sleazy. After many cries of "enhance!" were heard inside my office, I suddenly realized what happened.

See, I was having trouble getting the purportedly "before and after" images to line up properly. Things seemed skewed, shadows didn't seem to fall properly. Then I noticed the young bloke on the right's tie, and how it seemed to be at a completely different angle in the two shots.

"It's almost as if this shot was taken with two cameras at the same time," I said to myself. "Why on earth would they do that??" Then I noticed the overlayed text on the "after" image, and how it proclaimed that some of the movie would in fact be projected in 3-D iin the IMAX theaters.

Eureka! Knowing that 3-D movies are made by filming them with two cameras strategically placed a small distance apart, everything suddenly made sense.

What they're calling the "after" image is actually the shot captured by the camera that was closest to Emma, giving it a view to more of the "profile" of Emma's boob. The "before" image is the camera further away with a more "head-on" shot, making it look flatter.

Here it is as a 3-D anaglyph (that I just generated in The Gimp):

Hopefully you have some 3-D glasses around (mine say Spy-Kids 3D on them) to view this with, but I assure you that I've gotten to the bottom of it. There's no conspiracy here. No one is trying to enhance Emma (nor would the be able to if they tried; she is already a textbook example of perfection as-is), the poster designers just didn't realize that when they 2-D-ified the 3-D promotional poster (I haven't seen said poster, but I am deducing its existence based on my research), the old one used the "left" frame, and the new one used the "right" frame.

I'm sure that no one even thought of this, not realizing that two frames captured mere inches apart would cause any problems. Sadly, with thousands of internet fanboys nitpicking, it can make a huge difference.

Anyway, spread the word. No one is trying to pull anything, it's just an oversight.

Oh, and if you've seen the 3-D poster I'm postulating the existence of, I'd sure like to hear about it.

UPDATE: Some people don't quite understand, so I quickly drew up this top-view approximation of what's going on. It is not to scale.

Does that make more sense?

UPDATE: Apparently not... I thought the 3-D anaglyph would be self-explanatory, but sadly nobody actually owns the glasses required to see it. So I tried to draw a simple drawing explaining it, but that didn't do it either. See, in the drawing, the red/blue lines are meant to show what your eyes are doing when looking at a 3-D scene -- not the cameras. 3-D is all just trickery designed to fool our brains into seeing flat images the way we see objects in the real world. In the real world, each eye sees things from a slightly different perspective, and our brains calculate differences in those perspectives to tell us how far apart things are, how round, etc.

With a 3-D anaglyph, an entire scene is presented encoded in colors so that the special glasses can "filter" the view such that each eye is seeing a completely different view. But the magic really happens when the eyes start to focus at different parts of the picture. The brain is usually fairly convinced that what it's seeing is an actual scene, so your eyes begin to move about the image as they would in a normal everyday view of the world. If a 3-D image is made properly, you can focus your eyes on one element of the composition, then move to one "deeper" into the image, or "farther away" from the camera, never breaking your brain's sense of 3-D.

The 3-D anaglyph above is simply just the "before" image set as the left eye's view, and the "after" image set as the right. Nothing else was done to them, yet the 3-D encoding is perfectly realized when you put on the glasses. This doesn't happen on accident folks. My drawing above was demonstrating what your eyes would do if you'd look over at Emma's side of the composition in such a 3-D scene, to show that the closer eye would see her breast with more of a profile, and the further away one would be more head-on, thus explaining the difference in the curve of her breast and stomach. And if your eyes would behave that way, so would the two cameras.

I decided that perhaps a better explanation would be to try to take 2 similar shots myself. Now, I didn't take these at the same time, and I had to just sort of estimate the exact amount to shift the camera, so it isn't perfect -- but I think you'll get the idea. The subject of the photo was not altered in any way, the only differece between the two shots is shifting the camera about 2" laterally between taking them.

Click to enlarge

Obviously the effect is more pronounced due to the much smaller scale and the inaccurate camera movement, but I think this really concretes what I'm saying. If I had more scale action figures to play with -- and a lot more time -- I could set up the entire shot, but that's way more work than I'm prepared to put in.

How am I doing here? Any more takers?

Ordinarily I'm all for making nighttime blends of my favorite drugs (Tylenol PM is a vital component to my sanity), but even I think this is going too far:

Throughout history, many of mankind's greatest leaders in political and military strategy, rational thought, and respectableness have worn beards. There's Abe Lincoln, General Custer, Col. Sanders, Ulysses S. Grant, and many, many more. The list simply boggles the mind.

It was with this idea in mind that I've decided to take an unconventional look at the candidates for 2008's US Presidential election as they stand now. I've taken the most-viable two (as the radio host and callers I listened to the other day decided) candidates from both the Republican-Americans and the Democrat party and examined them for beard-worthyness. In theory, the one with the best beard will win.

---

First up on the Democrat party side: Senator Barack Obama.

As you can see, his beard is quite distinguished, giving him an air of authority and the look of a debonair attitue. Just a hint of gray to show how wise he is; very well-kempt.

Not bad, Barack. Not bad at all.

First up on the Republican-American side: Governor Mitt Romney.

Mitt has his work cut out for him if he wants to overcome the negative stigma that most Americans give to being a Mormon. From the looks of his beard, however, Mitt is in very good standing. Nice coloration gives him a statesmanly appearance, with only the slightest hint of crazy. (In these uncertain times, I believe that we could really use a bit of crazy in a leader.)

I think he's ahead of Barack at this point, despite his Latter-Day Saint background.

Next up for the Democrat party: Senator Hillary Rodham-Clinton-Brimley.

Being a woman would typically count a contender out of both a beard contest and a Presidential election, but Ms. Clinton has made some incredible inroads this election cycle. Americans are slowly coming around to accepting her vision of the future, and are rather impressed with the amount of growth she can achieve -- both in her poll numbers and her facial hair. Sure, her beard isn't quite up on par with that of a man's, but I think that in light of her not being one, the beard is the least of her troubles.

She's done better than I would have expected, but she's currently trailing behind both Obama and Romney at this point.

Lastly, we have Senator¹ John McClane for the Republican-American party:

As you can very clearly see, despite his reliance on headwear, Senator McClane comes out head and shoulders above the rest of his competition. His beard is incredibly distinguished, very becoming, and has more than enough crazy in there to get the job done.

I'm currently calling the 2008 Presidential election in favor of Senator John McClane. Sure, he's a Republican, but if a member of the Democrat party comes forward with a better beard, I'll gladly throw my vote their way. Nearly every day someone new suggests that they might be throwing in their hat (and/or towel), so we'll have to see how it goes.

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1: I was as surprised as you to hear he was a Senator, but in all the talk on the radio I heard the other day, everyone kept referring to him as "Senator John McClane." Who am I to argue with people who clearly know more than me?

I try to avoid politics as much as humanly possible, but today heard some speculation about possible Republican candidates. One in particular jumped right out at me as a particularly great choice, and I immediately decided to back him.

Unable to find any campaign materials online, I decided to make my own.

Click to embiggen

Please feel free to print out the larger version should you want to show your support as well.

Click to embiggen

I awoke this morning to see that my hits as a result of Charlotte Church searches have gone through the roof, which means I sat on this information for too long.

A week or so ago, my source gave me what appears to be an ultrasound that confirms the news that Charlotte Church is pregnant, and suggests that the father may not be who she is now claiming that it is.

Click for REALLY BIG version.

I was hoping to realease this information just as she was announcing it, but sadly I missed the boat. In any case, it's out there now.

Defined tags for this entry: art, celebrity, Charlotte Church, the GIMP, Wilford Brimley

Do you remember the self-help book I put out a few years back? Well it's in a brand new printing, so I figure it's time to plug it again.

Do you ever wish you could spend your day frolicking about without ever worrying about a thing? Do you wish sex was less relationship-driven and more of a recreational activity? Do you wish you could do a double back flip, and kill sharks with only your nose?

This best-selling motivational book has helped millions lead the fulfilling lives they always wished they could, and now with the new chapter on whistle-based communication, you can do all that and help get ideas across to others in a more efficient manner.

I've had a few people recently point out that I've neglected to post about what the deal is with physical therapy. I keep mentioning it, but never with any kind of explanation.

Well, long story short: I've had troubles with my neck for years, with no easily identifiable reason. It has recently been a lot worse, so I decided it was finally worth trying to do something about it and made a doctors appointment.

My doctor took some x-rays to confirm his "loss of lordosis" theory, then sent me on my way to physical therapy. It seems that my neck doesn't do what a "normal" neck is supposed to; some muscles are too strong, others have atrophied.

They wouldn't let me borrow my xrays to show you, so I made a couple "artist renderings" to approximate what they'd look like if they had given them to me:

See how there's a nice upwards curvature on the neck in this one? That gentle curve allegedly helps act as a shock absorber for your head. Neat, huh?

As you can see, I don't have that curve. This means that the muscles where my neck attaches to my skull are working a lot harder than they need to, causing discomfort, headache and rectal bleeding. Or at least I hope it causes rectal bleeding...

Anyway, I've been going a couple hours, twice a week. While I'm there, I do some stupid neck stretches (that I've dubbed "necksercises") and then get a massage, followed by ultrasonic stimulation, electrical stimulation, heat/cold stimulation, and -- inexplicably -- rectal stimulation. I'm not sure the last bit has really helped anything, but these people are medical professionals, so who am I to argue?

...continuing my efforts to win the Sean Gleeson Researcher of the Century award. If you're just joining us, I'm halfway there..

Since I've already proven the "shadows" portion to Sean's approval, I'll now prove the "left breast lift" portion as well. This solution is incredibly simple, requires no magic garment, and fits completely within what we know about the event.

I've simply extended the photograph below the bottom, using my imagination to fill in the details:

Click to enlarge

Now I'm no painter, and I have considerable trouble with anatomy, but I feel that despite the flaws in my rendering, this is a representation of a completely plausible situation. Sure, we don't know that this is what actually happened, but I feel that anyone would have to admit that a table could certainly account for Harry's "weight bearing" arm, the lifted breast, and the mystery "floating lemon wedge" -- which, inexplicably, was never initially questioned.

Q E D.

Any objections?

UPDATE: Crap! Foiled again. On to the next round, I guess...

I just saw defective yeti's post about the "ashtray mouth" campaign our tax dollars are supporting and was immediately struck by how awesome the picture he linked to is. I decided that I'd go ahead and quickly clean all the branding and text off the image so that creative individuals might put it to better use.

Click for full size

What that better use might be is anyone's guess, but I look forward to seeing what kinds of new captions people might put on it.

Click for larger

This article inspired my creative juices a bit. The above is the net result.

The other night I spent a few hours working on a tattoo design idea I recently had.

Here's the initial sketch:

And here's where I ended up giving up, unable to find the balance between rat anatomy (aratomy?) and yin-yang symmetry:

I may eventually put in some more work on this, because I think the idea is pretty cool, I'm just pretty burnt out on it for now.