The Oldest Living Things in the World

Rachel Sussman takes photographs of the oldest living things in the world. Her blog is essentially a travel journal, and worth a read.

Apparently, there is a bar in this tree:

I think Brother Greg was thinking of starting a business along these lines. You should follow up on that – you had some ideas I don’t see in this Revenge/Alibi service. This does look like a law suit waiting to happen, though.

Revenge by proxy: an L.A. enterprise — latimes.com

Ferguson and a partner operate Alibis & Paybacks, a Los Angeles firm that describes itself as “the ultimate revenge” service, offering paybacks both large and small.

For a fee, for instance, the pair will publicly denounce and embarrass someone or some business, peppering their target’s workplace or neighborhood with fliers that colorfully describe the individual’s purported malfeasance.

From instantShift, a gallery and description of some very unique architecture. 

80+ Strange and Fantastic Buildings Architecture | Showcases | instantShift

Historian photographer Patrick Elie finished a project where he took old photos from war-torn Normandy in 1944 and matched them with a current photo that he took of the same spot.  Since much of Normandy was re-created during the rebuilding process, there are some neat before-after shots here.

Shocking Photos of Normandy from D-Day and Today | WebUrbanist

Elie, who has devoted his life to chronicling D-Day and the effects of the war on his home country of France, worked tirelessly to find the exact locations of dramatic photographs from 1944 and then took his own photos of the modern-day sites.

At edible.com, one of the selections is tea paw-picked by monkeys.

Edible – MONKEY PICKED TEA

No folks we’re not pulling you leg! This rare chinese tea is carefully picked by specially trained monkeys in a remote mountain rehion of China. Legend has it that monkeys were first used to collect tea ten centuries ago, because upon seeing it’s master trying to reach some tea growing wild on a mountain face, the monkey climbed up the steep face and collected the tea growing there and brought it down to his master.

Article in Slate today about Genius, what it means, and how we use the label.  No real conclusions, but a solid quick read to start a discussion.

How we use and abuse the word genius. – By Ron Rosenbaum – Slate Magazine

I say the levitating mice is half way to flying mice and that kicks ass.

Mice Levitated in Lab | LiveScience

Scientists working on behalf of NASA built a device to simulate variable levels of gravity. It consists of a superconducting magnet that generates a field powerful enough to levitate the water inside living animals, with a space inside warm enough at room temperature and large enough at 2.6 inches wide (6.6 cm) for tiny creatures to float comfortably in during experiments.

…

Repeated levitation tests showed the mice, even when not sedated, could quickly acclimate to levitation inside the cage. After three or four hours, the mice acted normally, including eating and drinking. The strong magnetic fields did not seem to have any negative impacts on the mice in the short term, and past studies have shown that rats did not suffer from adverse effects after 10 weeks of strong, non-levitating magnetic fields.

It doesn’t pay to call the President a liar. Well, actually it does pay, but only to your political opponent. After shouting “You Lie” to President Obama during a healthcare speech, Congressman Joe Wilson saw his opponent, Rob Miller, raise over 100k. Its nice to see a quantifiable reaction to that kind of useless non-dialog.

Bloggasm » Joe Wilson’s opponent raises $41,000 on ActBlue within hours of Obama’s speech

It make sense that Coke dealers would suffer in a recession.  Surprisingly, though, it seems like the post office is hiring ex-dealers.

Hit by Recession, Cocaine Dealers Resort to Cold-calling — Daily Intel — New York News Blog — New York Magazine

Things have been made worse by the fact that NYU freshman and other passersby are more resistant to his pitch. “These kids are clean,” Tim says. “It sucks. You’re gonna find me at the post office if this goes on for much longer.”

This isn’t anything new, but we all should stop every once in a while and think about all those monkeys that dress up in rodeo gear and ride dogs.