Month: May 2015

This brief, but eye-opening science experiment illustrates the way that even stagnant air creates resistance against objects. It’s incredible how much longer the top spins when the air is removed from its chamber. (Thanks Vers!)
via The Awesomer
Spinning a Top in a Vacuum

By Craig Raleigh via wideopenspaces.com

We’ve all wanted to do this. Some inner voice, the same one that gives us clarity and reason, seems to want to pick up our favorite shotgun, a few shells, and blast some infernal … Read More

The post Duck Hunting Video Game Done Right appeared first on The Truth About Guns.

via The Truth About Guns
Duck Hunting Video Game Done Right

Tactical Solutions – known for their ever-growing line of .22LR options, now has a Ruger 10/22 takedown bull barrel and kit. Interestingly, the bull barrel is not all steel, its actually an aluminum tube with a rifled steel insert, keeping weight to a scant 18 ounces desipire its girth and length. MSRP for the kits […]

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The post Tactical Solutions 10/22 Takedown Barrel/Stock Combo Kit appeared first on The Firearm Blog.

via The Firearm Blog
Tactical Solutions 10/22 Takedown Barrel/Stock Combo Kit

Scotty Lewis describes bending wood as "one of the most exciting and magical things a woodworker will ever experience," and the lure is easy to see: The ability to shape Mother Nature’s product to our design indicates a mastery of material and allows for unusual shapes.

We’ve looked at plenty of ways to bend wood before, from the Curvomatic to a grand-piano-sized jig, from steaming it within a plastic bag to using a laser. Now we’ll look at a fifth method, this one ideal for smaller-sized pieces. Lewis has a step-by-step tutorial on how he makes his bentwood salad tongs using a propane torch, a piece of metal pipe and some simple jigs.

While Lewis’ tutorial is the best and most detailed we’ve seen, going in depth on getting the correct temperature (and measuring it accurately with a stovepipe thermometer), wood thicknesses and what types of wood will and won’t bend best, we realize some of you will want to see the process in video. For that we turn to Garret Glaser demonstrating how he uses the hot pipe method to make wooden strapping:

via Core77
A Steam-Free Way to Bend Wood: The Hot Pipe Method

Whoa, the average wedding costs $31,213 and brides are wearing dresses they’ll hopefully only wear once that cost, on average, $1,357.

These details come from The Knot’s survey of nearly 16,000 brides and grooms who got married in 2014. The reception hall, not surprisingly, accounts for the biggest part of the wedding cost. Other items, however, seem surprisingly high to me, like $439 for invitations.

The average is likely skewed by people with lavish weddings. If you’re planning a wedding, it might be useful to see at least how each budget item contributes to the total cost. Perhaps you can save tens of thousands on your wedding and not later regret overspending.

Check out the press release from the Knot at the link below for other interesting stats, like the most and least expensive areas to get married in, average marrying age, and more.

Wedding Money: What Does the Average Wedding Cost? | PRNewswire via Bargaineering

via Lifehacker
This Chart Details How Much the Average Wedding Costs, by Budget Item

You can call Bob Paulin ‘Coach’ and he’ll probably respond, because he’s been coaching youth football since 2005. Now he’s also coaching what you might call ‘youth science and technology’ as the Chicagoland organizer of Devoxx4Kids.org. A motto on the group’s website says, ‘Game programming, robotics, engineering for kids in a fun way!’ And that’s what the group is all about, as Bob says in this video (and in the accompanying transcript for those who prefer reading over watching).

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

via Slashdot
Volunteer Bob Paulin Turns Kids on to Tech with Devoxx4Kids (Video)

Last week, as you may or may not have heard, a guy named Jack Ely passed away at the age of 71. The name may not be that familiar, but the voice almost certainly. Jack Ely was — fairly briefly — the lead singer of the Kingsmen, and happened to do a cover song in a single take under poor conditions, that created one of the most memorable songs in rock and roll history, also known as Louie Louie:

You know the song. You also know the lyrics are completely indecipherable. However, with Ely’s death, there’s been renewed attention to the fact that the FBI spent nearly two years investigating the damn song. It is just as ridiculous as it sounds, but the FBI has released the file on its investigation and it’s a rather hilarious read. It turns out it wasn’t just the FBI, but involved the FCC and the Post Office: Apparently, the government was being inundated with claims from people (some of which you can see in the file) insisting that they had heard the indecipherable lyrics were actually "obscene." If you want to see the supposedly "obscene" interpretation of the lyrics, there’s one set on page 14 [pdf] of the document, though I warn you, even the falsely heard "obscene" lyrics are not particularly obscene by today’s standards (and I’m at a loss as to how they’re that obscene by the standards of 1963, frankly). On page 22, there’s another, mostly different set of falsely heard "obscene" lyrics that at least includes the word "fuck." On page 35, yet another version with both "fuck" and "bitch."

There are lots of documents about the FBI playing the record, repeatedly, at different speeds, and all coming to the conclusion that you and I and everyone else already knows: the lyrics are basically indecipherable.

And again: There are a few more times this determination was made, in part because after the FBI had already gone through the whole investigation, J. Edgar Hoover reopened it after a concerned parent wrote him a letter — complaining that whether or not the real lyrics are obscene, it doesn’t matter because teens can hear the obscene lyrics and "every teenager in the country ‘heard’ the obscene not the copywritten lyric." There are also letters to Attorney General Robert Kennedy that include lines like "these morons have gone too far," and "This land of ours is headed for an extreme state of moral degradation what with this record, the biggest hit movies and the sex and violence exploited on T.V. How can we stamp out this menace? ? ? ?" Really. But, in the end, as everyone knows, the song is simply indecipherable, rather than obscene.

And that’s because the band was in a tiny studio with just three mics, played a single take of the song and Ely had to scream at a microphone on the ceiling trying to have his voice heard above the instruments (a task he basically failed at doing). But, the idea that there was a mystery to the lyrics is kind of ridiculous for a few reasons, the first one being that the song is a cover song, and the FBI could have easily listened to a few of the earlier versions of the song, such as the original by Richard Berry, or another popular one by Rockin Robin Roberts and The Fabulous Wailers (the one that inspired the Kingsmen to do the cover). You can hear both those and another one right here. Their lyrics are a lot more intelligible in all of those versions, and you can pretty quickly tell that the lyrics to the Kingsmen version is supposed to be the Rockin Robin Roberts version.

Also, as Marc Randazza notes, it took nearly two years for someone in the FBI to think, hey, isn’t the song registered at the Copyright Office down the street? Maybe we should send someone over there to find out what it says? This was after the FBI had reached out to the record label (who gave them the accurate lyrics) along with the original author of the song, Richard Berry, who told them the lyrics. Oddly, apparently, the FBI never bothered to ask Ely himself what he sang, though I’m sure he would have said the same damn lyrics, which are below:

Still, what a bizarre story of moral panics, FBI and governmental overreach, the First Amendment… and a bit of copyright thrown in just for fun.

Oh, and as a general postscript, for all the hand wringing about possible obscenities in the song… there actually is one. Just not in the lyrics. At 54 seconds into the song, the drummer Lynn Easton actually fumbled his drumsticks banging them together and yells out "fuck." The FBI never caught on to that, but you can actually hear it if you listen…

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via Techdirt.
FBI Spent Years ‘Researching’ The Lyrics To ‘Louie, Louie’ Before Realizing The Copyright Office Must Have Them

I know some of us want to just sort of treat this like any other news story, but it’s actually a huge deal that two ISIS-connected Muslims tried to shoot up a free speech event in Texas this past weekend. Yes, they didn’t succeed because Continue reading →

The post Sorry, But It’s Islam’s Fault If People Are Islamophobic appeared first on The Matt Walsh Blog.

via The Matt Walsh Blog
Sorry, But It’s Islam’s Fault If People Are Islamophobic

After getting Tom Hanks to reenact scenes from his movies, Late Late Show host James Corden convinced Arnold Schwarzenegger to do the same, acting out scenes and catchphrases from his best known movies. The True Lies bit is classic.
via The Awesomer
Arnold Acts out His Films