OMG I Did Not Text That [Bad Valentine]

It's the worst feeling: Waking up completely wrecked from the night before, only to realize with a dull sweat that you pressed 'Send'. Fortunately for the rest of us, what you drunkenly texted is often hilarious.

And now there's even a whole website dedicated to collecting your stupidest text messages: Texts From Last Night (dot com), which has upped the ante with a book and the now obligatory iPhone app. (You can, of course, just text them.)

Here are some of our favorites.

Just because this came from California I'm not going to judge

(707) he doesn't care that i have a boyfriend so why should i?

Strategy: Indisputable; Tactics: Perhaps Less So

Are they still out there making out on the couch? How can we get them to leave? I'm gonna go stand naked in the kitchen with a knife.

Modern love is hard, but Google is not

(314) I woke up next to her this morning and couldn't remember her name. Luckily, she had written it on my hand so that I could add her on facebook.

Mooning Over My Hammies

Don't feel obligated to get back to me but I think I just fell in love with a middle-aged waitress at the Denny's in Waco. She's used but in good condition.

No, you're good. Just set your desk on fire.

She said I could do whatever I wanted to her. I pumped for 20 seconds, apologized, rolled over and passed out. I sit directly across from her at work. Awkward?

But where's the remote?

dude I woke up laying next to some guy. I don't have my bra or his name. he has a nice TV though.

Unfortunately all I ever watched was "The A-Team", so I just got in my van and drove away.

I just crawled out of a second story window using a sheet and his clothes for rope so he wouldn't wake up. I am so glad I watched MacGyver as a kid.

Finally: Everyone here wins

(949) Babe, the 4 years we've been together have been amazing. Will you marry me?

(1-949) are you seriously doing this over text message

(949) hahaha no, but i am dumping you.


Verizon To Announce Skype Phones at MWC? [Rumors]

Verizon has officially stated that they will be holding a joint press conference with Skype at MWC on Tuesday, and now Business Week is reporting that Verizon will announce new phones preloaded with Skype for use with their 3G network.

Well yes, that seems like a pretty reasonable guess for what the two companies will be announcing come Tuesday. Despite constant rumors of such, there's no iPhone or iPad on the Verizon horizon, and adding Skype to their stable would be an attractive option for customers who are making fewer and fewer calls but are already plunking down considerable cash for beefy data plans.

With Skype tinkering away on the 3G functionality of their iPhone app—3G Skype calls are already possible with Fring—it seems like as good a time as ever for Verizon to make a strong push for 3G data calling and the more flexible plans it will engender. [Business Week]


Europe to Investigate the UN Over “Pandemic” Scam

By Jim O'Neill Saturday, January 2, 2010

“UN report says pandemic may result in anarchy—‘could kill millions’—unless western world pays for antiviral drugs and vaccines!” —From “The Guardian” September 20, 2009

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama has declared the swine flu outbreak a national emergency, giving his health chief the power to let hospitals move emergency rooms offsite to speed treatment and protect non-infected patients. — Associated Press—October 25, 2009

In addition to the “global warming” rip-off, you can add another huge international racketeering operation—the H1N1 “pandemic” of 2009.

Both of these ploys were designed to fleece the western nations of billions, possibly trillions, of dollars. In the case of the H1N1 scam, the western governments have already coughed up billions of dollars for vaccines to prevent a bogus “pandemic.” That means that we, the taxpayers, have been ripped-off yet again.

If class action lawsuits aren’t on the way, then they darn well should be.

The European nations have apparently not been paid off to the extent of the U.S. Congress, and have decided to look into things.

According to a report filed by F. William Engdahl, the Council of Europe Parliament has unanimously proposed to start an investigation this month into “the influence of the pharmaceutical companies on the global swine flu campaign.”

The purpose of the inquiry is to investigate collusion between the “Golden Triangle” of the UN’s WHO (World Health Organization), certain pharmaceutical companies, and academic scientists.

That scenario should sound familiar, as it’s similar to “global warming’s” collusion between the UN’s IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), “green energy” corporations, and academic scientists.

Both scams were intended to “redistribute the wealth” globally, while making the Global Elite, very, very rich. They get to wipe out the middle-class, destroy capitalism, install a UN-run global regime, and get exceedingly wealthy, all at the same time. It’s a win/win situation all around, for Progressives at least.

The resolution just passed by the Council of Europe Parliament includes the charge that, “In order to promote their patented drugs and vaccines…pharmaceutical companies influenced scientists and official agencies…to alarm governments worldwide and make them squander tight health resources for inefficient vaccine strategies and needlessly expose millions of healthy people to the risk of an unknown amount of side-effects of insufficiently tested vaccines.”

The motion was introduced by Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, Chairman of the European Parliament Health Committee. He stated that millions of healthy people were unnecessarily “exposed to the risk of poorly tested vaccines,” for no other reason than the purported threat of a flu strain that is “vastly less harmful” then previous flu strains.

Dr. Wodarg’s talking about the Swine Flu, or H1N1, or “novel H1N1,” or “2009 H1N1,” or whatever they’re trying to pass it off as these days. You remember—the national emergency?

You ought to remember—after all, you helped to pay for the billions spent on vaccines. Big Pharma thanks you, and so do their stockholders. Speaking of which, do you think some of those stockholders just might be Global Elitists? Just asking.

Dr. Wodarg suggested that, “The Council of Europe and its member-states should ask for immediate investigations and consequences, on their national levels, as well as on the international level.” Consequences—hmmm, good suggestion.

Why isn’t the U.S. doing the same? Too many bribes, too many “donations” made to too many politicians, too many deals made with Big Pharma to get Obama-Care passed? That would be my guess.

Our renowned “people’s watchdog,” the Lame Stream Media, remains ever-vigilantly silent on the subject. Although I must admit that CBS did, almost, nearly look into malfeasance on the part of the CDC (Center for Disease Control) regarding the Swine Flu scam.

I guess, once again, it’s up to “we the people” to straighten things out. Anybody know some good class action lawsuit lawyers?

Laus Deo.

P.S. In case you missed them, you may want to read my articles “No Mandatory Swine Flu Vaccines!”
and “No Mandatory Swine Flu Vaccines II”

Marv the Vibraphone Robot Plays "Flight of the Bumblebee" Crazy Fast [Robots]

If you like robots or music even a little bit, you should really just go ahead and watch this video of Marv, a robotic vibraphone, playing "Flight of the Bumblebee" faster than any human ever has or ever will.*

On the vibes, at least, Marv is king. Created by three San Francisco engineers who are musicians themselves, the "MIDI Actuated Robotic Vibraphone" will be making its public debut at BarBot next week.

Thankfully, the team captured this early run-through on video, so those of us not in the Bay Area can be dazzled by Marv's performance. At first it seems like the vibraphone is playing itself, and you get that same weird, uncanny feeling when you come across a player piano. But then the camera moves closer and you can see what's really going on: instead of using two mallets to strike the bars, each note has its own tiny piston underneath which allows Marv to play pieces with wicked precision and dizzying speed.

As the team's website claims, Marv plays arrangements "far more complex than a human player could ever achieve," in part because of its ability to strike multiple notes simultaneously.

I like how at the beginning of this video one team member says, "it does something at least," as if what we're about to see is only a passable example of robovibes action. But once Marv gets going and the bumblebee is flying at full tilt, the camera pans to two of the creators who just nod their heads like, "oh Hell yeah."

Marv can be programmed to play along with humans, too, but I'm not sure I'd want to be the dude holding back this machine's incredible robo-abilities. I guess what I'm saying is, when it comes to mallet-based percussion instruments, bring on the singularity. [Robovibes via Laughing Squid]

*Some commenters rightfully directed me to this video of Tiago della Vega playing the piece even crazier fast, though I cannot verify his status as "human."


Well, duh | Bad Astronomy

In a report that doesn’t surprise me in the least, people online tend to send each other more science stories than headline news stories.

Well, read the title of this post.

The thing about people online is, geeks still run the joint. Sure, lots of normal people are online, I assume to buy pet products and find out if Abe Vigoda is still alive. (Yes). But geeks use the web. We share information on the web. We read stuff and send it around, and we like science.

The only real mystery here is, if all this is true, why do the Bloggie awards still not have a science category?


Ask Giz: Is It OK To Ask Someone Out Via Text Message? Can You Use Video? [Badvalentine]

Though we've talked a lot about dumping via text message, the burning question put to our resident love doctor is: Can you ask someone out via text message? And can you do it with video?

As technology evolves, the number of ways to ask someone out on a date grows and grows until one day you get a Farmville Cupig and wonder if it's love. Or something. The way I see it, as long as the object of your affection texts and texts often, I think it's a fine way to go. Just make sure you're creative, adorable or flirtatious about asking someone on a date. If not, then you're just being lazy which is unattractive to most.

And please, for the love of the text gods, use full words rather than something like "u want 2 go 2 the movies w/me?" It only takes two more letters to write the whole word "you"! And "to" is only one more character than "2"! If you want someone to spend hours of their precious time with you when they could be dating someone else or stalking their ex's Facebook profile, then please take a few seconds to come up with the most creative text ever with which to ask them out.

If you're too nervous to call and ask them out, say so in the text—that could be flattering and endearing. A video invite would be awesome and could show off your dedication and talents; just don't do anything that would utterly embarrass yourself as too many people would show off your video invite to their 12 closest friends.

You could also create an event on Facebook (make it a secret/closed event, visible only to her) and invite her to attend. It's more modern than Evite and she can sync the event with her Outlook calendar. If you want to go old school, call her up. If she doesn't answer, sing a made-up song into her voicemail, asking her out. Does she like letters and regular old postal mail? Send her a letter asking her out. Technology allows us to innovate but it can also make it too easy to be lazy so make sure to use it to your advantage.

Make sure the medium you use shows off your best side. If you show someone what you've got and they're not into it, try to not take it as a rejection of you. It just may not be the right fit. An artist friend of mine tells the story of how he showed up with a beautiful painting as a gift for a first a date. Though past dates had been taken aback by his forwardness, this particular woman seemed touched. A few years later, they married. So I say wear your heart on your sleeve, if you can: you will likely get turned down a few times but when you come across the right person, it will be worth it.

Read more of Dr. Debby's love advice here during Gizmodo's Bad Valentine celebration.

Debby Herbenick, PhD is a Research Scientist and Associate Director of The Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University, a sexual health educator at The Kinsey Institute and author of Because It Feels Good: A Woman's Guide to Sexual Pleasure and Satisfaction. She blogs at MySexProfessor.com.

Bad Valentine is our own special take on the beauty—and awkwardness—of geek love.


11 KV Cable Trench

Sirs:

Will you please help me find relevant article in NEC or Electrical Standards, if it is allowed to install control and monitoring cables in a 1.5 meter wide X 1.5 M deep x 6 m length of 11 KV cable trench without barriers. There was an earlier proposal to lay these cables separately on cab

rajesh

Hello

We are having MOCB(minimum oil circuit breaker) with pressurized nitrogen.There is a debate going on about the sufficiency of the nitrogen pressure and its importance.I read somewhere that it aids in arc extinction.Can any body throw more light on it.

Dr. James West

Majority of our modern day microphones are based on Dr. James Edward West's invention of the microphone in 1962. Dr West developed the Electroacoustic Transducer Electret Microphone with Gerhard Sessler, a colleague, while working at Bell laboratories. The foil-electret transducers they develop

Developing materials with large specific surface areas by using single-walled carbon nanotubes

Researchers at AIST in Japan have developed a fibrous material with a specific surface area of 2240 m2/g by using single-walled carbon nanotubes. Materials with large specific surface areas are used for energy storage as electricity storage devices including capacitors. They are also used for storage, purification and separation of substances.

Researchers envision high-tech applications for ‘multiferroic’ crystals

Two of The Florida State University's most accomplished scientists recently joined forces on a collaborative research project that has yielded groundbreaking results involving an unusual family of crystalline minerals. Their findings could lay the groundwork for future researchers seeking to develop a new generation of computer chips and other information-storage devices that can hold vast amounts of data and be strongly encrypted for security purposes.