Clipmarks | Odd Clips

100 Unbelievably Useful Reference Sites You’ve Never Heard Of

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:39:16 GMT

clipped by: Socratoad
clipper's remarks: Impressive list of resources.
Go to site as it is impossible to clip more than a small portion.

Clip Source: www.teachingtips.com

100 Unbelievably Useful Reference Sites You’ve Never Heard Of

Dictionaries and More

OneLook: This no-frills online dictionary lets you look up basic definitions, related words, phrases and more. You can even customize your experience with different searches.

RhymeZone: Type in a word to find rhyming words, synonyms, definitions, Shakespeare references and more.

Strange and Unusual References: Head to this site to look up all-vowel words, magic words, magic archetypes, how to identify unicorns and other odd material.

freedict.com: This online translator can find words in Dutch, Afrikaans, Russian, Portugese, Swedish, Japanese, Hungarian and more.

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: Search through topics like technology, American history, literature in English, proverbs and more to become a more "active citizen in our multicultural democracy."

mate/ king hit

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 09:17:59 GMT

clipped by: zadoz
clipper's remarks: odd combo

Clip Source: www.news.com.au

Chess boxers slug it out

A RUSSIAN man has been crowned world champion in the novelty sport of chess boxing, a game that requires equal skill at moving pawns and throwing punches.

The loser said he was simply too punch-drunk to fend off checkmate.

"I took a lot of body-blows in the fourth round and that affected my concentration. That's why I made a big mistake in the fifth round: I did not see him coming for my king,'' he said.

The match began over a chess board set up on a low table in the middle of a boxing ring.

A chess boxing match consists of six rounds of chess and five in the ring but it can also end suddenly in knockout or checkmate.

Alternatively one of the players can be disqualified for taking too long to make his move in the chess rounds or breaking the boxing rules.

Perhaps fittingly, the sport had its beginnings in a comic strip by the French author Enki Bilal, titled Equator Cold that hit shelves in 1992.

Tags: chess

ERISA Nags Universal Coverage

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 20:42:31 GMT

clipped by: revtj
clipper's remarks: Corporations use the Act to deny benefits...

Clip Source: www.npr.org

Spherion's decision to deny benefits to Amschwand-Bellinger turned on an odd set of facts. Spherion, which employs about 300,000 people, switched insurers after Thomas Amschwand was diagnosed with a rare form of heart cancer. The new policy did not take effect until an employee worked one full day. Spherion never informed Amschwand of the requirement.

Man found in WI basement covered in BBQ sauce

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 03:27:41 GMT

clipped by: alientwilight
clipper's remarks: lol

Clip Source: www.wwmt.com

APPLETON, Wisc. (NEWSCHANNEL 3) - A couple telephoned police in the middle of the night after finding a man in their basement covered head to toe in barbecue sauce.

Tags: bbq, odd news, bizarre, offbeat

Fake DEA Or FBI Agent Cleans Up Meth Problem In Small Town

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 04:38:26 GMT

clipped by: yojoe
clipper's remarks: A man poses as an federal agent and makes arrests of drug dealers in small town.

Clip Source: dreadnaught.wordpress.com

Federal Bureau of Investigation or a member of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, one would think. As it turns out, this “agent” is neither. In reality he is the owner of a failed trucking company, former wedding minister, and former cop for a number of small towns. But, Bill A. Jakob aspired to be more, so he assumed the pseudonym “Sergeant Bill,” headed for the town of Gerald, Missouri, and,

Tags: odd-news, humor, meth

The Oddest Spa in the World - soak in wine, sake, coffee!

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 06:40:32 GMT

clipped by: hitchhiker08
clipper's remarks: I'm going to get my fill, if you know what I mean, hic!!

Clip Source: blog.hotelclub.com

Like wine? Soak in it! - The Oddest Spa in the World

Hakone Kowakien Yunessuni has everything one would expect to find in a spa, with a touch of Asian eccentricity.

25 different kinds of spa related activities, including huge waterfalls and water slides

The main facility, the God’s Aegean Sea,

two Mediterranean themed spas: the Turkish Hamam and the Ancient Roman Bath.

Kids have the Rodeo Mountain, fun water slides that can be used even in the winter, thanks to the water heating systems.

Adults have other types of attractions, including a Sake spa, filled real Japanese sake and a wine spa - a unique spa containing real red wine.

For those that cannot drink, they can enjoy the other two wacky spas - filled with coffee and green tea. The 2m huge tea pot pours green tea from the Hakone Mountains

Other odd attractions include a floating bath, a shallow pool for barefoot massages, an aromatic spa, a charcoal spa and a hot spring cave.

Tags: spa, organic, relaxation, destress, japan, turkish bath, roman, entertainment, kids, health

China's Segway SWAT team

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:18:56 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman
clipper's remarks: This is just odd. ...Isn't it?

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Members of China's armed police unit practice using the 'Anti-Terror Assault Vehicle' during an anti-terror drill in Jinan

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

Who needs an armored, mine-resistant fighting vehicle to fight terrorists when you have a two-wheeled, self-balancing electric scooter? In Jinan, Shandong province yesterday, armed Chinese police were photographed executing counter-terrorism drills riding Segways, reports Danwei. For months now, China has engaged in secret defense training exercises in preparation for an attack in Beijing during the Summer Games. Spectators at the Games can now rest assured that if there is terrorist activity, Chinese forces are equipped to "lean-steer" to the scene of the crime at a maximum speed of 12.5 miles per hour

The Sunspot Enigma: The Sun is “Dead”—What Does it Mean for Earth?

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:23:12 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks:

And here's the kicker--We may have an ice age while preparing for global warming---are you cackling in glee yet, Willhelm?

Geophysicist Phil Chapman, the first Australian to become an astronaut with NASA, said pictures from the US Solar and Heliospheric Observatory also show that there are currently no spots on the sun. He also noted that the world cooled quickly between January last year and January this year, by about 0.7C.

"This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record, and it puts us back to where we were in 1930," Dr Chapman noted in The Australian recently.

If the world does face another mini Ice Age, it could come without warning. Evidence for abrupt climate change is readily found in ice cores taken from Greenland and Antarctica. One of the best known examples of such an event is the Younger Dryas cooling, which occurred about 12,000 years ago, named after the arctic wildflower found in northern European sediments. This event began and ended rat

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

Dark spots, some as large as 50,000 miles in diameter, typically move across the surface of the sun, contracting and expanding as they go. These strange and powerful phenomena are known as sunspots, but now they are all gone. Not even solar physicists know why it’s happening and what this odd solar silence might be indicating for our future.

Although periods of inactivity are normal for the sun, this current period has gone on much longer than usual and scientists are starting to worry—at least a little bit. Recently 100 scientists from Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa and North America gathered to discuss the issue at an international solar conference at Montana State University. Today's sun is as inactive as it was two years ago, and solar physicists don’t have a clue as to why.

"It continues to be dead," said Saku Tsuneta with the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, program manager for the Hinode solar mission, noting that it is at least a little bit worrisome

The 10 Worst Prisons In The World

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 11:55:00 GMT

clipped by: digitalfever

Clip Source: www.dirty-rotten-scoundrels.co.uk

The thought of going to prison is enough to scare the living daylights out of anyone, especially with the horror stories that you can read in newspapers and books and those you see on TV. Stabbings, murders, violence, gang rape and any number of other horrors are all widely broadcast by people that have spent time on the inside. Of course, they’re not your run of the mill prison stories because you don’t tend to hear much about the ones that don’t see any action from one year to the next, but the same names do keep coming up time and time again.

Tags: bizarre, odd news, prison

Crrazy photo of man in flooding phone booth..."help"!

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:16:09 GMT

clipped by: fewstingscorpio
clipper's remarks: Found this soggy photo, I thought you might enjoy.
Unsure of the photo taker and where they were standing and NOT HELPING!.

Clip Source: www.guzer.com

Guzer

Reporting A Flood

fewstingscorpio - 2008-06-30 20:46:35

"Well, I'm late because.........crap....

Tags: flood, "flood photo", "telephone booth", "phone booth in a flood", "unusual photo", "amazing photo""odd photo"

Art using the female figure group on Flickr

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:03:46 GMT

clipped by: dazhoney

Clip Source: flickr.com

Art using the female figure

Darren Daz Cox (a group admin) says:

19 Apr 08 - This group is for artwork, collages or artisticly altered photography, featuring the female form (face, hands etc). This isn't a group for only female artists but a group for artists that use the female form in their art!

Please, no standard, typical, ordinary, or non-artsy female body/face photography! There are plenty of groups for snapshots, models, art nudes, fetish photographs etc, lets keep this group focused on the artist rather than on the model!

All skill levels and mediums are welcome here but photographs are often subject to deletion as many of those are either un-modified snapshots, pruconas or snapshots that are simply taken from odd angles etc. Lets keep a certain hand-made quality to our art here and let the bigger groups show your other work!

Reminder: Obama Told Us To Judge Him, and Pressure Him

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 20:44:03 GMT

clipped by: rustajb

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

"You should always assume that when I cast a vote or make a statement it is because it is what I believe in," Obama said.

So by Obama's own admission, when he casts, say, an anti-progressive vote on civil liberties, we shouldn't whip up wild fantasies about him supposedly doing it because he actually is progressive on civil liberties. We should believe that he is, in fact, anti-progressive on civil liberties. That is, we should judge him on his actions.

"The thing that bothers me is the assumption that if I make a judgment that's different from yours, then it must mean I am less progressive or my goals are different, meaning I must be not really committed to helping people but rather I am trying to triangulate or drift toward the DLC [Democratic Leadership Council]."

This struck me as odd in that he is simultaneously saying we should judge him by his votes, but then saying we shouldn't.

WHAT ARE THE ODD?!

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 20:26:04 GMT

clipped by: idohadar11

Clip Source: media.fukung.net

Quantum Computing Breakthrough Arises From Unknown Molecule

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 01:47:11 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

The odd behavior of a molecule in an experimental silicon computer chip has led to a discovery that opens the door to quantum computing in semiconductors.

In a Nature Physics journal paper currently online, the researchers describe how they have created a new, hybrid molecule in which its quantum state can be intentionally manipulated - a required step in the building of quantum computers.

"Up to now large-scale quantum computing has been a dream," says Gerhard Klimeck, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University

"This development may not bring us a quantum computer 10 years faster, but our dreams about these machines are now more realistic."

"Our experiment made us realize that industrial electronic devices have now reached the level where we can study and manipulate the state of a single atom," Rogge says. "This is the ultimate limit, you can not get smaller than that."

Tags: physics, quantum theory, quantum computing, nanotechnology

Right and wrong lessons from biology

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 23:02:20 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: The opposite view stresses that evolution is an extremely effective way of searching parameter space, and that in consequence is that we should assume that biological design solutions are likely to be close to optimal for the environment for which they’ve evolved. Where these design solutions seem odd from our point of view, their unfamiliarity is to be ascribed to the different ways in which physics works at the nanoscale. At its most extreme, this view regards biological nanotechnology, not just as the existence proof for nanotechnology, but as an upper limit on its capabilities.

Clip Source: www.softmachines.org

The most compelling argument for the possibility of a radical nanotechnology, with functional devices and machines operating at the nano-level, is the existence of cell biology.

But one can take different lessons from this.

Drexler argued that we should expect to be able to do much better than cell biology if we applied the lessons of macroscale engineering, using mechanical engineering paradigms and hard materials.

My argument, though, is that this fails to take into account the different physics of the nanoscale, and that evolution has optimised biology’s “soft machines” for this environment.

The engineers’ view, if I can put it that way, is that nature shows what can be achieved with random design methods and a palette of unsuitable materials allocated by the accidents of history. If you take this point of view, it seems obvious that it should be fairly straightforward to make nanoscale machines whose performance vastly exceeds that of biology

Tags: nanotechnology, biology