Hunkin's Experiments

Lots of goofy tricks and experiments, most of it's stuff you see when you're a kid, building potato batteries and the like.

Team Sandtastic!

Okay, they have a very goofy name, but these dudes make some unbelievable sand and snow sculptures.

Yatta!

Here at The Ends of the Earth it's a long-standing tradition that I only post things after every man, woman and child on the internet has already seen them and they've been run into the ground. Today's example is the Flash movie Irrational Exuberance. My only excuse is that, although I've seen this posted in numerous places the last few months or so, it took so long to load I never bothered to watch it. Turns out it was pretty cool. So, if you have some time to kill or are on a cable modem and haven't seen this five thousand times already and aren't sick of it, here you go - enjoy.

Texas Serial Killer May Go Free in 2006

Thanks to a few glitches in the court system, a man known to have committed 13 murders and possibly as many as eighty may be released in four years.

Faster Than a Speeding Bullet...

I was on Metafilter today and saw this link to a site with a complete scan of Action Comics #1 on it. It's the comic most historians believe to be the beginning of the Golden Age of comics, lusted after by serious comic collectors world over - there are only 75 or so known copies and only fifteen of those are in what would be considered near mint condition - and one of those is currently stolen.

I've read a lot of old comic book reprints but I've never seen this seminal comic of the gods in it's entirety. One thing I found interesting was that Superman's logo has hardly changed at all since 1939. The costume's a bit different, there are no supervillians to be found (those came later) and the artwork is hardly what comic fans are accustomed to today. Basically, though, the recipe for the modern superhero is all there. The extraordinary powers, the secret identity, the love interest he can't tell - everything. It's amazing to think that in a superhero-less world, something like this sprung full-blown and totally realized from the heads of two young guys (Siegel and Shuster) who were just knocking out funny books for kiddies and surely had no idea what they'd created or that it would last for generations and remain popular and in the forefront of the world's culture.

It seems that superheroes are more popular than ever these days and I wonder if it has anything to do with all the military conflict going on. For comics, the Golden Age was WWII. During the second World War, comics sold in the millions, many more than are sold now. They were everywhere. My dad used to tell me stories about hauling off big piles of them (some of which would be priceless now, I'm sure) on a little cart for recycling as part of the war effort.

I think in wartime superheroes take on a different and more powerful meaning, which may account for the incredible popularity of Superman and his hordes of imitators in the 40's and the current infatuation with Spiderman and the other upcoming superhero movies. Who wouldn't want some Superman to come along and save the day in times like these - someone better than us, more powerful, more enlightened - someone honest and just. Then there's the escapist aspect of it - you can open the pages of a comic book and be taken away to a place where there are troubles, menacing villians, doomsday devices...menacing and yet existing in a realm of fantasy in which you know that in the end, truth, justice and (no offense to my friends from other countries) the American Way will prevail. I think the first of the superheroes, Superman, sums all these qualities up as well as anyone, still. Here's a few Super-links:

Riding high on the wave of Spider-mania, we can look forward to not one, but two (?) Superman movies in the near to semi-near future. There's a Superman vs. Batman team-up and a straight-up George Reeves.

The old-timey Superman radio show's first sixteen episodes in Quicktime format.

If that's not enough for you, here's a page with massive amounts of Superman lore and linkage. Great Scott!

Dumbass of the Week: Steve Earle

Frankly I was never a huge Steve Earle fan, Copperhead Road was okay for ten minutes back in the late eighties or whenever it was, but he's not someone I'd bother to go see or buy an album from.

This week, though, he's managed to go from critically-acclaimed lukewarm album-seller to making himself the most hated man in country music, it seems. Probably he should have seen this coming...something tells me a song that pretty much glorifies "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh, with muslim prayer chants in the background and comparisons between Lindh and Jesus Christ won't go over well with the rebel-flag waving throngs of country fans out there.

Smile!

I was at this site the other night, Best Smileys - they have tons of cool little smiley gifs and emoticons, so if you like that sort of thing be sure and check them out.

I couldn't sleep that night and made this pointless little bit of psychedelia out of some of them - Enjoy.

Are You Crazy? Dilithium Crystals Don't Work That Way!

The Institute of Applied Treknology, for people who spend way too much time thinking about Star Trek:

The Journal of Applied Treknology, published by the Advanced Starship Design Bureau, is a Federation-wide forum for starship design and innovative technology. The Journal is aimed at engineers and interested laymen. Readers are invited to contribute their own ideas and share their views on existing concepts.

Engage.

Ice Cream, Japanese Style

Those zany Japanese never cease to amaze me. Here's a nice overview of all the crazy styles of ice cream offered there. Octopus ice cream, anyone? Didn't think so...maybe fish is more your flavor.

Niftiest Keyboard Ever

This thing looks like a lot of fun. It's got a lot of features and even has a strap so you can sling it over your shoulder, plus it's a fully-functional keyboard.

Man Claims He's Christ, Faces Death Penalty

A Pakistani man, Anwar Keneth, is facing the death penalty. Mr. Keneth claimed to be Christ and referred to Islam as a "fake religion". Here, of course - or in any other halfway reasonable country - Mr. Keneth would probably be carted off to a mental hospital. He'd be given a few pills, sat down in front of a television with some jigsaw puzzles or ashtray-making materials and that would be that. In ultra-oppressive Pakistan, however, he's charged with blasphemy and may well pay the ultimate price.

Here's a fun fact about their Islamic brand of "justice": all it takes, in a country that's almost 97% Muslim, is the word of one Muslim accuser to prosecute someone on blasphemy charges. It's a less forgiving system than that of the witch trials of Salem and just as backwards.

Blasphemy Results in Death Sentence (washingtonpost.com)

An American's Guide to Canada

A page about Canada, written by an American who's been living there a few years. I have a few friends up that way (shoutout to my Canuk peeps! - as the kids would say) and I'm gonna have to give this page the once over. I see no mention of igloos, though, oddly. Maybe I just haven't gotten to that section yet, eh?

Holy Campiness, Batman!

Batman (without the Batmobile): "I must get to the Batcave as fast as possible."
Gordon: "Let me send a police car for you."
Batman: "A needless waste of taxpayers' money, Commissioner. Gotham City's transit line is the world's most rapid."

Quotes from the sixties television show.

Let's Talk Games - Old School, Baby

Well, I finally got my game controller installed and it works okay, so I've been doing just a little gaming. First stop was Shockwave.com for a game of Defender II (known in the arcades as Stargate Defender) , which I'd been dying to play lately. Usually when I do play games I fall back on the old 80's stuff. They're easy to learn, tough to master and there aren't a zillion different controls or ridiculously in-depth storylines. Basically you jump in, start blasting, chomping or running from stuff and if you get hit you die - three strikes and you're out, unless you get an extra man. Back then an extra man meant something, too - you had to earn that last chance for gaming glory. Also, most games you could take turns at and unless you were hanging out with some seriously talented arcade freak, you wouldn't have a chance to get bored before he crashed and burned and you got your turn.

I'm not saying I don't care for any new games. My friend Chris has the new Spiderman game on his PS2 and I thought it was awesome. However, with it's lack of a time limit and huge areas to cover, you could pretty well die of boredom waiting on your turn while your buddy flips Spidey around aimlessly on some rooftop trying out his funky spider powers. In the 80's, though, when games were games and men were men and brightly-colored pixelish aliens ruled the arcades, there was no such dilly-dallying. When Player 2's ship crashed, well, there were no two ways about it - it was time to grab for the controls and get your act together, fast - or you'd share the same fate in about a half a second. Sometimes, like in real-life, it wasn't even fair. When you hit that hyperspace button in Defender or Asteroids, you didn't know if you'd wind up somewhere safe or come out the other side amidst a swarm of alien attackers who were on top of you before the neural synapses in your brain could even fire off a "damn."

Anyway, after a few games of Defender, I got to wondering whether there was a Flash version of Galaga. Normally I'd just play Galaga on my MAME emulator. Defender is emulated too, but the gameplay is different on MAME's exacting recreation of the arcade version - lacking the up-down stick and thrust button of the actual game itself can be frustrating on a joystick, whereas Shockwave's version has been tweaked so that thrust is incorporated into the directional pad - move right, ship goes right, etc. Galaga is simpler to play on an emulator, since it only involves left and right movement and fire.

Still, I was curious if someone had attempted it and I did find a Flash version of Galaga. However it wasn't the straight-up Galaga I know and love and played obsessively as a kid. The sounds are different, there are no bonus rounds and you don't have to lose and recapture your ship to get dual fire, all you have to do is finish the wave. They also added a shield, which you get after you've won your extra firepower. Not exactly purist, but it was fun for a little while, I guess. No joystick support either, but if you've never played the original or just want to try a new twist it's worth a spin.

I miss this kind of thing...I'm such a fossil :)

Wacko Jacko's Not Crazy - The Proof

The Modern Humorist has uncovered shocking office memos that prove not only did bigoted record execs at Sony conspire to keep Michael Jackson down, but may have initiated the 9/11 attacks. Truly eye-opening, let's hope Johnny Cochran can do something with this.

Moron of the Week

A man drives a stolen car to a court hearing, where he was facing charges for a previous car theft. Way to go, McFly.

Fly the Friendly Skies

While I'm in a playful mood, here's a page that shows how to make, according to it's author, the "best paper airplane in the world" (shown above). There are step-by-step instructions, as well as printable pages with the folds designated for you.

Bubble Town

Learn how to make gigantic bubbles.

Warning: Knives are Sharp!

Funny caution labels from everyday products.