It sounds like a SciFi story, but it’s not.

A Primeval Tide of Toxins - Los Angeles Times

The fireweed began each spring as tufts of hairy growth and spread across the seafloor fast enough to cover a football field in an hour.

When fishermen touched it, their skin broke out in searing welts. Their lips blistered and peeled. Their eyes burned and swelled shut. Water that splashed from their nets spread the inflammation to their legs and torsos.

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Imagine the giant General Tso’s! 

Wary U.S. Olympians Will Bring Food to China - New York Times

When a caterer working for the United States Olympic Committee
went to a supermarket in China last year, he encountered a piece of
chicken — half of a breast — that measured 14 inches. “Enough to feed a
family of eight,” said Frank Puleo, a caterer from Staten Island who
has traveled to China to handle food-related issues.

“We had it tested and it was so full of steroids that we never could have given it to athletes. They all would have tested positive.”

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I guess it’s better than gambling.  Except the prizes kinda suck.

Winner takes all - Life - The Phoenix

“A decade ago, I was entering about 50 contests a month by mail,” recalls Weth. “Now it’s seven or eight a month by mail, and about 50 a day online.” Weth spends one or two hours a day, on his lunch break or after his audio-engineering job, perusing a set of bookmarked sites, including online-sweepstakes.com.

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That’s a pretty good deal.  And I don’t see Yahoo going out of business this week, unlike some of the cheap web hosts I have used in the past.

Yodel Anecdotal » Blog Archive » Introducing all-you-can-eat web hosting

Our new Yahoo! Web Hosting plan offers unlimited disk space, unlimited data transfer, unlimited email storage, and 1,000 email accounts — all for $11.95 a month.

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Yes, he named it for the Skywalker.  It’s impressive.

IEEE Spectrum: Video Viewer

Segway inventor reinvents the prosthetic arm

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Always bet on black.

Snipes acquitted of tax fraud, conspiracy - CNN.com

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I have to call shenanigans on some of these.  Study Butte?

How to Say it Like a Texan: Town Pronunciation Guide

Texas is filled with hard to pronounce place names. Some, like Waxahachie, are traced back to the state’s Native American heritage. Others, like Refugio, have Mexican origins–but are pronounced with a distinctly Texas twist.

Native Texan John Bigley recorded this pronunciation guide so you can say these place names like a Texan, whether you’re visiting Luckenbach or Lake Buchanan, Boerne or Buda. Click on the page corresponding to the place name for an audio file for these difficult to pronounce names:

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I have almost zero use for this, and might do it anyway.

$1 Image Stabilizer For Any Camera - Lose The Tripod

Don’t be a slave to your tripod. Build this stabilizer and see how much better you photos and video can be. Get professional results.

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Dead sexy, and electric.  In a few years it might even be affordable.

Exclusive First Drive: Tesla Roadster - Autoblog

It’s a 53KWh battery.

If you tried to use a regular 110V plus (1.85KW), it would take over 29 hours.
If you use a 230V, 30A outlet (like a dryer outlet), it would take over 9 hours.
If you install a 230V, 60A connection (special sub-panel), it’ll take over 5 hours.

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$70k for a Platinum Level 16 year old and there Kidney seems like a good value.

Medical Adoptions Home

Finding high-quality organs in a timely fashion can often be a problem. You can’t buy them for any price legally, and attempts to do so often end in the disasters only afforded by the underground, black market of illicit organs.

If you need a lifesaving organ transplant, you have to meet strict, often unfair criteria, and then wait for your turn to come up on the list, regardless of urgency. You might get the pound of flesh you need to continue your life, and you might not

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