Category Archives: Weird

Technology and Society, Weird

The Bees

33 Comments

Sometime over the past few months or years, our house in California had become a haven for honeybees. They found a tiny hole in the flashing of the roof, and set up shop inside a wall, just below the ceiling of the living room. They managed to find a small crack inside, so once a day or so one would find its way into the house, which was obviously a problem for the tenants.

I got one ridiculous quote of nineteen hundred bucks (this included opening the wall, removing the bees, and restuccoing) to remove them, but I got separate quotes for bee removal and stucco replacement, which got the cost down to six hundred or so total. Anyway, the bees were removed today, and through the magic of the Internet and my tenant’s videocamera, you can watch.

[Update a few minutes later]

Sorry, the video’s been taken down, at least temporarily. I think he wanted to reedit it. I’ll update if it gets uploaded again.

[Update about 8 PM Eastern]

OK, it’s back up and I’ve updated the links.

Space, Weird

“Audacious”

16 Comments

That’s one word for this plan, that Tariq Malik uses, presumably to be polite:

The co-founder of a rocket launch firm has proposed an audacious plan to send astronauts on a one-way trek to Mars using a pair of tethered U.S. space shuttles that would parachute to the Martian surface.

Inventor Eric Knight, a co-founder of the rocket firm UP Aerospace, detailed the plan – which he’s billed “Mars on a Shoestring” – in a thought exercise designed to encourage unconventional thinking for future human spaceflight.

“My thought paper is a mental exercise to encourage new ideas,” Knight told SPACE.com in an e-mail interview. “I also hope it spurs a re-evaluation of the timeline for human exploration of Mars. Twenty years seems like an eternity, given that we were able to get to the moon in less than 10 years – and we were essentially doing so ‘from scratch.'”

I’m less polite, so I’ll just call it what it is — insane. I don’t have time to detail all of the things that are wrong with it, but have at it in comments.

Humor, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society, Weird

Kermit Feels Their Pain

4 Comments

It’s not easy being green:

The unexpected discovery of a nest of red-cheeked squirrels amidst the huge, partially constructed MegaPyre Solar Power plant has halted construction, casting doubt on the viability of what has been considered to be the environmentalist’s crown jewel of renewable power facilities.

The 20 gigawatt plant was expected to provide electricity to much of southern California, and was only 6 months away from completion when the nest of squirrels, which are on the endangered species list, was found. Due to federal regulations regarding endangered species, moving the nest to another location is not permitted.

The situation has confounded local environmentalists, who are now evenly divided on whether the solar power plant or the nest of squirrels is more important to their cause.

Hear that little sound? That’s the sound of the world’s tiniest violin.

[Yes, I know it’s a joke. The twenty gigawatts, if nothing else, is a dead giveaway.]

Political Commentary, War Commentary, Weird

Suicide Terrorists

2 Comments

Mice finally get their revenge on cats:

An initial report from the fire marshal says mice or rats chewing through electrical wires in the ceiling are likely to have sparked the blaze.

Offers of help have been pouring in from animal lovers across Canada.

“It’s unfortunate and ironic that mice caused the fire that killed the cats,” Toronto Humane Society spokesman Ian McConachie told the BBC News website.

The cats need to ask themselves why the mice hate them.

General Science, Humor, Weird

First A Purple Cow

6 Comments

…and now this:

Dr Mike Edwards, an English teacher at Meoncross School in Stubbington, Hants, first spotted the squirrel outside his classroom window.

He said: ‘I was sitting in my classroom and looked out the window and saw it sitting on the fence. I had to do a double take.

‘Since then it’s been a bit of a regular at the school – everyone’s seen it.

‘We thought it might have been paint or something but then when you look at it up close, it’s an all-over coat, not in patches like you’d expect if it had been near some paint.

‘Its fur actually looks purple all the way through. It’s an absolute mystery.’

But I can tell you any how, I’d rather see than be one.