@random

I used to have a horrible commute. I spent at least 2 hours in the car on a daily basis. I often wished I could hit auto-pilot so I could kick back and read or sleep. This car would have been awesome.

Loren Coleman on how he started investigating cryptozoology cases when he was 12:

I started investigating crytpozoological cases then. Because I was so small, I would do this with the help of a game warden so people would actually talk to me. I investigated black panther reports in Illinois, mystery cat reports in Indiana, Bigfoot cases, giant snake reports and other strange cases throughout the Midwest…anything that was a little abnormal that newspaper people wrote up as weird animal stories. I understood them as cryptozoology.

So this is why people love wrastlin’ (including me in my younger years). By the way, the guy getting kicked in the face is Mick Foley and he actually has written a couple books (he also lost an ear while wrestling).

Up to $30,000 will get you the services of Frank Ahearn, a private eye who specializes in helping people disappear. He doesn’t help people trying to run from the law or out to fake their own death, so who does that leave:

I still go to bookstores sometimes and observe people reading about offshore banking. I’m not looking for clients, I just do it for fun. It’s usually men in their forties or fifties who dream about leaving all their responsibilities behind. There is something romantic about the idea of starting a new life and walking away into the sunset, but for most people it’s just a daydream.

A photographic history of Paul’s Boutique, the spot made famous by the cover of the Beastie Boys album by the same name. It’s now an Israeli Restaurant called The Three Monkeys (which is oddly still sounds Beastie Boy’esque). [via Khoi Vinh]

Mad money schemes.

Speaking of mad billionaires. If I had loads of money to burn I think I would pay the Beastie Boys to perform the whole Paul’s Boutique album from start to finish without using the turn-table skills of Mix Master Mike.

Meaning they would have to actually re-create any sounds or samples used in the songs using the actual original mechanism as they perform. To illustrate let’s look at the samples used to create the track Sounds of Science:

“I do not sniff the coke, I only smoke the sensamilla” - Pato Banton’s song “Don’t Sniff Coke”

“Right up in your face and dis’ you” - “My Philosophy” by BDP

James Brown’s, “Get Up, Get Into It, Get Involved”, when MCA says “that’s right my name’s Yauch”

Jet flying overhead from The Beatles “Back in the U.S.S.R.” off the White Album

The Beatles, “The End” is scratched throughout the song

The crowd noise in the break is from the beginning of SPLHCB

The drum track underneath the guitar sample is a sample of the Beatles “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)” from SPLHCB

The guitar track at the end is a sample from the Beatles “The End” from Abbey Road.

The oboe track you hear at the beginning is a sample of the Beatles “When I’m 64” from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

The occasional beeps and bass lines during the first half of the song is from Issac Hayes’ “Walk from Regio’s”, on the “Shaft” soundtrack

The sounds at the beginning is from the small toy in a can that would make a “mmmoooooooooo” sound each time it was turned upside down.

The violin and other orchestral tuning you hear in the middle (I believe when AdRock says “Rope-a dope…”) is a sample of the intro to the Beatles “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” from SPLHCB

So to perform this one track the Beasties would need to have an actual airplane fly over at the exact point in the song, a performer whose only job would be to turn the Cow in a Box toy to produce the moo sound, a band that would be able to perform precise cuts of James Brown, the Beatles, and Issac Hayes, and a walk on by KRS-One to say the one line “Right up in your face and dis’ you.”

This would be a herculean task that would rise above a concert, involve theatrics, and precise planning. An amazing site to behold and something only a mad man would use his sizable wallet to support.

What useless but extravagant ploys would you support if you were a mad billionaire?

The Atlantic looks at geo-engineering ideas to save our ass from the coming environmental apocalypse. On the list are sun reflecting frisbees launched into space, ocean water spouts to create more cloud cover, and sulfur dioxide spewing blimps:

If we were transported forward in time, to an Earth ravaged by catastrophic climate change, we might see long, delicate strands of fire hose stretching into the sky, like spaghetti, attached to zeppelins hovering 65,000 feet in the air. Factories on the ground would pump 10 kilos of sulfur dioxide up through those hoses every second. And at the top, the hoses would cough a sulfurous pall into the sky. At sunset on some parts of the planet, these puffs of aerosolized pollutant would glow a dramatic red, like the skies in Blade Runner. During the day, they would shield the planet from the sun’s full force, keeping temperatures cool—as long as the puffing never ceased.

Monster by A. Lee Martinez is a fun and fast read about a monster catcher who gets wrapped up in end of the world as we know it happenings. The back cover even provides a number to call in case you are having trouble with monsters: 212-364-1177 (give it a call, it gives a pretty good flavor of the book).

The Economist let’s you look inside creative people’s work spaces. Not only cool in the voyeur/curiosity sense, but the floating navigation and combination of sight and sound makes for an interesting trip. [via]