Motivational speaker Tony Robbins has long made a living off of unleashing the “power within” by asking those taking his seminars to walk across a bed of hot coals.
But last Thursday when the “heat without” took their toll on the tootsies of 21 attendees, sending them to the hospital with second and third degree burns. Robbins is now defending the practice.
“We have been safely providing this experience for more than three decades. We continue to work with local fire and emergency personnel to ensure this event is always done in the safest way possible,” Robbins said in a statement released by his office.
All of the sizzle footed followers are expected to make full recoveries from a scene one man described to the San Jose Mercury News as “wails of pain, screams of agony.”
Unveiled in the UK at the annual Designing Interactive Systems conference, the egg-like device has been dubbed Kissenger. Hidden inside Kissenger’s eyeless, Humpty-Dumpty-like body is a pair of pressure-sensitive soft plastic lips that peek through a smooth plastic casing about the size of an Easter egg.
The lips contain pressure sensors and actuators. When you kiss them, the shape changes you create are transmitted in real time over the net to a receiving Kissenger. There, the actuators reproduce the mirror image of the pressure patterns you created– magically transmitting your smacker to your partner.
“People have found it a very positive way to improve intimacy in communications with their partners when they are apart,” claims Hooman Samani of Singapore-based Lovotics, which developed the device.
The device is a prototype and Samani says it will not be commercialised until “all the ethical and technical considerations are covered”. He adds: “I am not interested in sexual uses for it.”
Remember that part where he stated, “I am not interested in sexual uses for it”? He’s obviously been locked away in his lab for far too long and has forgotten what people are like.
Best part of the story from the New Scientist article? THIS little excerpt:
“I think that approach is too much and I find it kind of creepy,” says Samani. “You don’t need to transmit all the parameters of a kiss. The main aim is to improve long-distance relationships. We’ve taken several steps to minimise the creepiness.”
Two things: We’d hate to see this dude’s idea of what he considers creepy and what did this thing look like BEFORE he minimized the creepiness?
We all just collectively shuddered together.
Here’s Lovotic’s actual company video for an earlier version of the device (in case you were wondering about that ‘before’ design mentioned above)…which makes us wonder how going from a cute rabbit-like design to the disembodied mouth of a Cenobite is ‘minimizing the creepiness’. Again…can someone get a search warrant for this dude’s basement? Or are we just not ready for that?
Could this be an alien invasion in the beginning stages?
Millions of little, purple, crab-like creatures have washed up on the coast of O’ahu in Hawaii! The animals are about the size of a large pea and seem to be some kind of crab in its larval state. The problem is that even local biologists have never seen these things before and there are literally millions of them all over the beaches. Most them are either dead or dying but biologists have captured many that seem to be healthy. Those same biologists that will probably be responsible for nurturing the first wave of an alien strike force, are hoping to see what the larva will grow into.
While we all wait for a definitive answer from the scientists and biologists now showing We’ve all seen enough science fiction/monster movies to know EXACTLY what these will turn into…
A mouse is spliced with the genetic essence of one America’s greatest entertainers, will he be scientifically validated a hybrid legacy for the singing legend? A gang of consumers, upset with the product of local merchant decides to take matters into their own hands. And mouths. Will eating a placenta give you super powers? Andrew tells a story of a stinky vagrant who tried to win the JREF Million Dollar Challenge. Cyborg assaulted at French McDonalds.
Support the show by purchasing Andrew’s BRAND NEW BOOK Hollywood Pharaohs just click on the image below.
To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Ralph Records, Penn Jillette took part in a very odd tribute. He agreed to be locked into the Bently Motor Inn in San Francisco and do nothing but listen to the entire decade’s worth of Ralph Records discography.
At 8:00 AM on Monday, March 1, Mr. Jillette entered Room 312 of the Bentley Motor Inn at 465 Grove Street (directly across the steet from the, then, Ralph Headquarters) in San Francisco. The door was locked behind him.
Mr. Jillette was to spend the next six days alone in this room. Each day he received a package of records from Ralph. His job was to listen and comment on these recordings.
60 hours of his commentary on the music was whittled down into a radio special which has now partly been uploaded to YouTube.
This awesome piece of ugly mimicry is all-natural, folks.
It’s a fungus.
Called the Auricularia auricula-judae, this grotesque-looking piece of work is a fungus commonly referred to as Judas’ Ear, Jelly Ear or Common Ear Fungus. Fitting.
Found all over the world on elder trees, the fungus is bland-tasting but occasionally used as a remedy for a sore throat in Asia and Europe.
In America it’s probably beneficial when used as a remedy for freaking out annoying children.
In the movie, Jurassic Park, sound designer Ben Burtt tried to create what he thought prehistoric beasts might’ve sounded like when they walked the Earth. Using currently existing animals and a little exaggeration, no one will ever forget the sounds Uncle George’s sound guru created.
Now an art installation in France created by Marguerite Humeau is bringing us as close as we may get to what they might have actually sounded like and it’s pretty awesome to hear.
Titled ‘Proposal for Resuscitating Prehistoric Creatures’, the exhibit displays the recreated vocal chords of three different prehistoric animals: the entelodont, known as the ‘hell pig’, the mammoth imperator and the ambulocetus, known as the ‘walking whale.’
Because the vocal chords are made of soft tissue, Humeau has spent years working with researchers in various fields from throat specialists to engineers to paleaontologists to get everything in order to recreate as accurately as possible. Humeau also gathered data on these particular animals current ancestors: an Asian Elephant for the mammoth, dolphins and harbors porpoises for the ‘walking whale’ (which is pretty damn frightening to consider this whale had ridiculous teeth…and it walked) and a wild boar for the ‘hell pig’ (again…frightening).
Using foam, similar soft materials and an enormous amount of data collected over several years about these animals, Humeau stated:
“I’m not only recreating a shape, but also the data that has disappeared — we’ll never be 100 per cent sure this is accurate,” Humeau told Wired Magazine UK. “But when I heard it roar, it felt real.”
Why are you still reading this? Press play and listen to what it might’ve sounded like 50 million years ago when a ‘hell pig’, a ‘walking whale’ (again…a walking whale..with freakin’ teeth) and a mammoth just casually strolled the planet.
Grim Reapers, demons and power-hungry Disney villains sure do have it easy nowadays. Instead of going through poison apples, waiting around near future fatality sites or having to track a particularly important living individual who’s lineage might be of importance, all you have to do is plop down in front of an internet-attached device and ride over to ebay.
A woman, who’s going by Lori N. (or LHumanist on ebay), tried to sell her soul on the mega-auction site.
Lori placed her ‘slightly used’ soul on auction for $2,000. Ebay has removed the auction due to their restrictions about selling this type of thing on their site:
“We don’t allow humans, the human body, or any human body parts or products to be listed on eBay, with two exceptions. Sellers can list items containing human scalp hair, and skulls and skeletons intended for medical use.”
So what’s up with Lori that she’d want to sell her soul so badly for?
Five years ago Lori was a passenger in a car that was slammed into by a drunk driver. She suffered a heart attack, a stroke and was thrown into a coma for three weeks. When she woke up she found that she’d also been dealt a broken hip, pelvis, leg, collarbone, sternum, ribs, had a collapsed lung and she’s also lost a breast.
Lori was a freelance writer and now gets by on part-time work and making jewelry.
Emails have been coming in from everywhere. Some people are connecting with Lori and sharing similar stories. Some people are condemning her for selling her soul and claiming that she’ll burn in hell and live in fear and agony for eternity.
It’s hard for her to take those threats seriously and probably a little hard to believe you’re not getting jacked out of a soul to add to your collection in the basement..
Almost 30 people have been arrested during a dawn raid on what’s believed to be a cannibal cult in Papua New Guinea.
Members range from a 13-year-old boy to a teacher in his 50s. Two men are still on the run.
The group has killed at least four men and three women since April according to local authorities.
“The group alleges that there were some deaths related to sorcery in the area.
“They were initiated into a cultural house and believe they could identify sorcerers. It has been an ongoing problem.”
Although sorcery is legally defined in Papua New Guinea, the government’s Law Reform Commission is trying to rid that particular outdated legalese because once a murder is claimed sorcery-related the prosecution process becomes murky.
In this case, however, facts, forensic evidence and statements made by the accused have led invesitgators to believe that parts of the victims were eaten.
The anniversary of that mysterious night in New Mexico when a phenomenon crashed to Earth sparks a debate over how the crash would be different today. Spiro and The Fudge are called back into duty when a possum poison caper is unleashed on a small village. Can lil Fudge save the lil critters in time? A horrifying Vietnam vet story. Are aliens managing our civilization’s advance through radio contact?
FINALLY! An EPIC spoiler-filled battle over Amazing Spider-Man! Be warned true believers, some might not survive this edition of Weird Things!
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Imagine not being able to feel pain. Sounds great, right? Games of ‘Slug Bug’ or ‘Butt Ball’ would be much easier to handle, right? Stubbing your toe wouldn’t suck as much. Banging your head would never be an issue again. You’d feel like a freakin’ warrior because you don’t feel a damn thing.
Now for the downside…
What if you developed appendicitis or something else as internally life-threatening? You’d have no indication anything was wrong until it was seriously too late.
That’s the case with 12-year-old Ashlyn Blocker of Georgia. Ashlyn was born with Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis (CIPA), a extremely rare condition that kills most people born with it when they’re just toddlers. Babies born with CIPA might have something severely wrong, yet they won’t cry because they just don’t feel anything.
As an infant, Ashlyn had a huge corneal abrasion across her eye. Everyone was astonished that she wasn’t crying over what, to most people, would be a painfully excruciating sensation.
CIPA affects about 100 people in the United States every year.
Ashlyn is not letting anything stop her from doing what she wants. Described as a determined girl, she is currently working with doctors at the University of Florida to understand how our brains interpret pain. This tough little girl has also started a summer camp called ‘Camp Painless But Hopeful’ to help other families whose children suffer from CIPA.
Tech-heavy eyewear has always been something that seems like too good-to-be-true science fiction. Various accessories promising amazing visuals for your peepers have included everything from those vintage ads in comic books for X-Ray Specs to the recently buzzing Google Glasses to quantum HUD display mechanics contained in a single drop of saline dripped onto a contact lens.
Currently in their testing phase, 2AI Labs is developing a pair of glasses that allows you to see what early testers are having a hard time believing until they actually put these things on…and see their veins glowing.
The O2Amp glasses are the creation of neurobiologist Mark Changizi who came up with the idea while studying the development of color vision in primates at CalTech.
So how does this work exactly? Bionics? Special computer-controlled lenses? By bellowing latin phrases and waving a wooden stick?
Nope. Our eyes, using certain filters, are able to do this all on their own. Turns out we just have to amplify the process.
Changizi explains “that color vision evolved to sense oxygenation modulations in the hemoglobin under the skin. Once one understands the connection between our color vision and blood physiology, it’s possible to build filters that further amplify our perception of the blood and the signals it provides. ”
There are currently three different filters for the glasses:
– A vein-finder, or oxygenation-isolator, that amplifies perception of oxygenation modulations under the skin (and eliminates perception of variations in the concentration of hemoglobin),
– A trauma-detector, or hemoglobin-concentration-isolator, that amplifies perception of hemoglobin concentrations under the skin (and eliminates perception of variations in oxygenation), and
– A general clinical enhancer, or oxygenation-amplifier, that combines the best features of the first two; it eliminates neither signal (i.e., it retains perception of both variation in Hemoglobin oxygenation and concentration), and only amplifies perception of oxygenation.
Unlike Google’s somewhat infamous video of promises regarding its magical glasses, these amazing goggles are already out in the world, mainly in the medical field, and being tested by real people working in a real evironment.
The results and feedback from those that’ve worn them? Most are ready to order.
For the most part, the current generation of robots are about as mobile as a piece of gym equipment.
Depending on who you talk to, that could be a good thing. It means that our future overlords, unless they begin linking up with the drones we discussed a few postings ago, are pretty much stuck in one place while the surviving humans can hide and make plans to take our world back.
Then THIS happened…
Researchers at the University of Arizona have created the first robotic legs to accurately mimic a human being’s walk.
Innocently enough, the researchers are using the sauntering robot legs to understand how babies learn to walk as well as understanding how spinal cord-injury patients could possibly recover the ability to walk.
Sounds great. Unless of course you’ve seen the Gekkos in Metal Gear Solid 4 (for the uninitiated…watch the first half of the video below). You’ll know exactly where this tech could potentially lead to…mounting an arsenal-laden torso on top of these legs and setting them loose on the streets.
Insects are now climbing the list of things signaling the apocalypse might actually arrive just in time for Christmas.
The LA Times is reporting that the brown widow spider, not to be outdone by the caterpillars in Washington, have had a recent population explosion that guarantees people living in Southern California will be dealing with the less-poisonous cousin to the black widow on a more frequent basis.
Black widows generally hide in darker places like sheds, woodpiles and under porches. Usually they’re tucked away in places people instinctively don’t go. You can already guess where the next piece of information is going…the brown widow is much more extroverted than its deadlier relative.
Brown widows like to relax in peoples’ things outside. Outdoor patio furniture, plastic playground equipment, under the curled lip of a potted plant, your bbq, your ‘outside shoes’ and in drought-free landscaping. Fortunately out of 72 data sites used to get a better understanding of how big this population explosion is, none of the spiders were found in peoples’ homes.
Since 2003, when the brown widow first began appearing in California, the population has exploded compared to the black widows.
Bright-side? Brown widow spider bites generally hurt initially, burn for a little while and then? Really nothing happens. Carry on.
Down-side? These things like to cluster. Turning over a patio chair you’re sitting in to interrupt a small party of these spiders that dwarf their darker cousins in size? Nature’s way of going “Boo!” and making you paranoid about every nook and crannie in your immediate area.
Sitting out in the middle of Death Valley is a grim reminder of one of the most horrific and notable murder stories in American history.
Recently journalist Amy Beddows rolled through Death Valley in search of that grisly reminder.
Arriving in Badwater Basin, the lowest point in North America and one of the most desolate places in the world, Beddows headed down the Trona 178 highway to the dirt road which leads to the isolated town of Ballarat.
Beddows drove past the sign at the entrance to the now-dead mining town which reads, “You learn nothing by sitting in the car.” Her and her fellow traveler got out to explore Ballarat to find the macabre object they were looking for.
The only other person in town? The owner/operator of the “Outpost” camping store which sits quietly in the middle of this long forgotten dot in the middle of nowhere.
He happily pointed out what Beddows was looking for…
A truck…but not just any truck…
Bobby Beausoleil’s truck that the Manson family used both in Los Angeles and to drive out to the Barker Ranch where Manson was caught by the Inyo County Sheriff Department and the California Highway Patrol for vandalism within the Death Valley National Park before they realized who they’d caught.
And there it sat in the fading sunset with the word ‘WAR’ vaguely remaining hand-painted on the door and the interior covered in spray-painted silver stars, a recurring image in the Manson family’s disturbing legacy.
Beddows and her companion left town before the notorious sandstorms began blowing into the basin later that evening leaving behind an old rusted truck.
A truck that sits alone on a small hill in the middle of nowhere where it’s held its ground for almost half a century.
A truck that holds a darkly grim history should the curious care to explore the speck of a town in the middle of nowhere.
Mount St. Helens erupted almost 32 years ago. The Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument area around the base of the volcano is monitored by the U.S. Forest-Service and its goal is to not interfere with the natural processes taking place in the area.
As a result the area that is in the middle of the blast zone looks like something out of the last few minutes of Kingdom of the Spiders when William Shatner’s characters awakes in the morning to find the entire town and beyond covered in layers of webs.
Billions of tent caterpillars have suddenly covered practically every tree, bush and branch along the Hummocks Trail near Coldwater lake in Toutle Valley, Washington.
An extreme population explosion has taken place this year and these things are EVERYWHERE!
Last year, the tent caterpillar population began to show signs of growing exponentially. While many insect species go through this whole boom-and-bust cycle from time-to-time, this year literally looks like the scene from some horror film.
Alder trees, a species of tree capable of growing in an environment where the original forest floor is now covered by over 100 feet of volcanic rock, look like they’re actually pulsating due to the thick masses of caterpillars swarming them for food.
Foresty professionals are not interested in interfering with the natural processes at work and are letting this strange new evolution of the area simply run its course.
Once the caterpillars break from their coccoons the sky will swarm with millions of cream-grey moths which will, in turn, feed local species of bats that’ve been struggling to find food sources as rich as this.
Until then the entire area is a pulsating, undulating mass of inch-long, furrry caterpillars that, while they’re causing no harm, are a site that would freak anyone out if they stumbled upon it in the woods.
