Mapping resistance: Greek solidarity

A new blog has been set up to track solidarity actions across the world in support of the Greek insurrection.

Noo Yoik’s Finest bust homemade sub

NYC ‘mini-sub’ sails into trouble (BBC)

Police in New York City have stopped an egg-shaped, mini-submarine found floating in the harbour near the moored ocean liner Queen Mary II.

The vessel was designed for “underwater navigation”, police said, and seemed to be a replica of the Turtle submarine from the American War of Independence.

Three men have been charged with breaching harbour regulations but terrorism is not suspected.

The mini-sub had a hatch on top and was propelled by a pedal-operated paddle.

One man was in the vessel and two other men were in an inflatable boat towing the sub.

New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the mini-sub “is the creative craft of three adventuresome individuals”.

“It does not pose any terrorist threat… We can best summarise today’s incident as marine mischief.”

Boring bastard cops

Meanwhile…

…Build your own Turtle!

Going down the bloghole

Lately I’ve been getting into micro-blogging and tumblelogging. It seems to be just regular blogging, but without the pretense that it’s anything other than ultimately pointless, futile and self-absorbed. Which, obviously, suits me.

Micro-blogs – like Twitter and Jaiku – are basically just feeds of little text messages about what you’re doing, broadcast to a larger audience, a bit like talking to yourself whilst you’re doing the shopping. “I’m not sure if these melons are firm enough LOL”. You can make your messages completely public, or restrict them to people on your contact list. Content is pretty much restricted to small amounts of text, and hyperlinks. There’s a newer, slightly swishier micro-blog service called Pownce, too – but that’s not yet got open registrations.

Tumblelogs, on the other hand (eg Tumblr) meet halfway between micro-blogs and, um, blog blogs. Pared-down functionality and design, but perfect to dump pictures, links, video and whatever else, without too much commentary – a bit like building a scrapbook with interesting stuff you’ve found whilst you’re on nature rambles across the great interweb wilderness.

So far, it strikes me that micro-blogging and tumblelogging split the ‘I just ate me tea, it was scrummy’ and ‘Look! A sign for a town called DILDO hahaha!!!’ posts of a normal blog into handily discrete online locations, which is either rather handy, or rather stupid, depending on which way you dress, Still, it keeps me out of trouble.

My contacts:
BristleKRS on Jaiku
BristleKRS on Pownce
BristleKRS on Tumblr
BristleKRS on Twitter
(I hasten to add, there really is little of any interest on these )

Useful primers on micro-blogging & tumblelogging:
Your Guide to Micro-Blogging and Twitter (PBS)
Tumblepedia (a wiki about tumbleogging)

PS I have some Pownce invites going spare if you want one.

The urge to splurge

Anyone remember Bob Dickason’s Splurge Gun schematics?

Well, he’s tarted up his website and brought in blueprints by three other amateur prop wranglers…

So if you hanker for your own custard-chucking Bugsy Malone tommy gun, get thee over to the Splurge Gun plans page

Make paper aeroplanes!

A delightful how-to vid for what I initially thought was going to be a standard delta wing jobbie (as taught to me in Warlord annual 1979? 1981?), but is in fact a bit more complex than that…

The design is from a webpage by one Michael O’Reilly, who also provides printer-friendly instructions, schematics, and some convincing arguments on why this is “the BEST paper airplane in the world”!

PS If anyone can clear up which Warlord annual the various paper plane plans were in, I’d be jolly grateful, it’s doing my head in at the moment

Most likely candidates:

Ruled out:

ETA: It’s This One!!!

And here’s Lord Peter Flint and his previously mentioned delta wing design…

Lynx o’ the day

• Carson Von Osten – Comic Strip Artist’s Kit

  A rather nice Scribd page featuring a comic book tutorial by Walt Disney artist Carson von Osten

  (tags: disney cartoonist comic carson-von-osten tutorial scribd how-to artist blogged)

Lock picking for eejits!!!

Professional-quality Dyno Kwick Lock Pick gets you in – in a flash! The Kwick Pick fits comfortably in your hand, and opens everything from padlocks to file cabinets, from desk drawers to toolboxes, from luggage to gas caps. Kwick Pick even opens some car doors and front door locks.

Easy to use design has spring-loaded sure lock, retractable pick, and tough aluminum alloy design with combination tension wrench/pocket clip. The Dyno Kwick Lock Pick was invented by a professional locksmith. Patented. Don’t know how to pick a lock? This is a great little tool to have around the house or office! With the Dyno Kwick lock pick tool you don’t need to know how to pick locks.

…And only $19.95 – it must be good

KwickPick at LockPickShop.com

Pot cop gets kettle chip munchies!

Barry Cooper sells a DVD on how to stash pot in your car without getting caught. This fall he will release a second one on how to keep police from raiding your home for marijuana.

Now for the kicker: Cooper is a former narcotics officer once considered among the top cops in Texas, where more marijuana is seized each year than in any other state.

The formerly straight-laced lawman has become a shaggy-haired militant for the legalization of weed.

Six months ago he released “Never Get Busted Again,” in which the former star of West Texas’ Permian Basin Drug Task Force gives tips on hiding marijuana (dashboards are rife with nooks and crannies) and throwing off drug-sniffing dogs (coat your tires in fox urine).

“I’m not helping them to break the law. It’s clear the law is already being broken,” said Cooper, 38, who left law enforcement a decade ago. “I will do anything legal to frustrate law enforcement’s efforts to place American citizens in jail for nonviolent drug offenses.”

CBS News story
Never Get Busted website

Swear in Polish!

Well, not just swearing, obviously… There’s a few other handy phrases too. But swearing’s cool. You can’t really go wrong with a good “Fuck off!”, can you?

“Spier dalaj! (Fuck off!) (.wav)
Basic Polish phrases on Anglik.net
Basic Polish language course (WikiBook)
Polish Wiktionary