Biomes Blog

Entry #1963: Hundred Days

Obama photoshopped as other famous people. Here’s Obama Mace Windu.

Some media takes on the whole ridiculous first hundred days in office metric.

According to the Somali Pirate Blog, Obama is the worst president in a hundred years.

Obama has started deservedly mocking the GOP. Good for him.

Today’s slide show is Time Magazine’s collection of behind the scenes photos of Obama’s first one hundred days.

Bo Obama has a trainer. How much you want to bet this will somehow become another fake outrage scandal for the right. Cue Limbaugh.....now.

Entry #1962

Stuff you should know: The fifty most famous cars of all time.

The Pac-man Dossier is a detailed study of the video game which includes cheats, easter eggs and a glossary, plus pretty much anything else you could possibly want to know about pac-man stuff.

Quote of the Day: "Toyota's developing a miniature, environmentally-friendly car that is powered by a battery. Meanwhile, Detroit is still hard at work on an SUV that runs on rain forest trees and panda blood."  -- Conan O’Brien

Jo King and Terry Bull are on the list of Britain’s most unfortunate names.

Hump Day musical interlude: "Steppin’ Out" by Joe Jackson.

Entry #1961

Tuesday Coonhound Blogging: Creole has become obsessed with horseshoe crabs. When we're at work she'll check up on them all day long. Here's the updated website for my education center where the coonhound works, if by "works" you mean "sleeps in the crate". Click to embiggen.

The latest from Joe Wilson should be required reading, although it’s nothing new to those of us who have been paying attention for the past eight years.

I don’t really like heights, so you probably wouldn’t catch me crawling around on any of these buildings.

This is a fascinating look at 25 businessmen who got rich by breaking the rules. You won’t like many of them.

How Bill Gates is spending his retirement.

Entry #1960

Now we’re cookin’: With meat floss.

Scientists have completed the first draft of Neanderthal Man’s genome and have concluded that our race and theirs did not merge as had been suspected.

What one guy thinks whenever he sees the new Pepsi logo.

I’m planning on redesigning the Biomes Blog and I’ve been thinking about going with a look based on this site.

Albino Monday: Red-tail Hawk.

Entry #1959

This week’s Green Thing is the Nature Blog Network, which follows over 800 blogs dealing with organisms and the environment.

All hail the humble snail.

Cool Site of the Week: Wild Mood Swings. Pick a mood from the drop-down list and this site will direct you to a website that matches how you’re feeling.

Morford: Cuddlin’ With Evil.

MoDo interviews the two guys who invented Twitter, and they answered all of her questions in less than 140 characters. I don’t use it, but the Boy does. A few weeks ago, after the cop said “have a nice day”, he says “Dad, 200 people just found out you got a speeding ticket.”

Entry #1958

Watch this snow-diving fox capture a mouse by listening to it moving under the snow cover.

Today’s slide show is alfabet in huid, which means “typeface in skin” in some other language. I’m guessing a scandinavian tongue, but I’m sure Queen or someone can correct me on this.

I wasn’t aware that a person can become addicted to pens, but if you’re one there’s a niche blog just for you.

The seven less-deadly sins.

Matt Taibbi’s latest Rolling Stone column is called The Class Clowns.

Entry #1957

Wanna Feel Old? is a niche blog that really will make you feel old. Each day we learn another fact, like that the little girl in Jurassic Park just turned 30, that makes us realize how fast time is flying by. Another thing I learned is that the futuristic Simpson’s episode featuring Lisa’s wedding takes place next year.

This guy collects lost airline luggage, photographs its contents and then tries to find the owner. Click on a bag to see what was inside.

Check out some of Erik Johansson’s digitally manipulated photos.

I had a major earworm this week on Mark Wills “19 Somethin’”. I can’t embed this one, but click the pic to launch the vid.

iPod Shuffle:

1. Low Down Dirty Mean (Allman Brothers Band)
2. If I Had a Boat (Lyle Lovett)
3. Two Faces (Bruce Springsteen)
4. Heavy Music (Bob Seger)
5. Father and Son (Johnny Cash)

Entry #1956

Family Tree is a collection of father/son and mother/daughter photos that show visual hints of genetic inheritance. These aren’t photoshopped. Instead portraits are taken from identical angles, torn by hand and then pieced together to form a fascinating set of portraits.

For today’s slide show, via Tony, the Telegraph has a nice photo series on the world’s largest model train set, featuring six miles of track.

James Earl Jones recites the alphabet.

Smashing Magazine has sixty incredible street photos.

Unlock the mystery of modern mummification with the mummy bear.

Entry #1955: Earth Day '09

The official Earth Day network’s focus this year will be the launch of a two-year project called the Green Generation.

Here’s a video of the world’s oldest living animal, a black coral colony that is estimated to be over 4000 years old.

Watch a Jacques Cousteau YouTube video roundup, featuring a bunch of short clips of the person who probably influenced me in childhood more than anyone else.

Here’s a nod to Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, who has linked to the Biomes Blog every April 22nd for the past five years.

The ten big energy myths.

Listen to some children watching a chicken hatch in their classroom.

Entry #1954

Animal of the Week: Meet Araneus rota, a spider in the Sahara Desert that moves across the sand by rolling on its outstretched legs.

The Yamato is a 22 foot-long battleship made out of 200,000 lego pieces.

Meet the first Portuguese water dog.

Mk got yesterday's trivia correct. It's a gold bike worth $100,000.

Tuesday coonhound blogging: No new photos of Creole, so here's a rerun from last summer. As usual, click image to embiggen.

Entry #1953

Trivia (8 Biomes points): What’s this?

Financial chicken soup with Jon Stewart and Elizabeth Warren. She’s a little nervous in the first segment, but the second one is pretty good.

Stuff you should know: How to grow a mustache. I’m a beard guy and really dislike the mustache only look in general. Although I’m currently in the middle of a “My Name is Earl” marathon (just finished season one) and somehow Jason Lee makes it work.

I’ve honestly never seen a donkey lawn ornament.

Albino Monday:  This horse color is known as Cremello, and is the result of a pair of light color producing genes acting on a chestnut base. It’s not albino, or even leukistic. Although there is a white colored horse, there are no albinos since the albino gene is fatal in this species.

Entry #1952

Extinct animals that have been photographed alive.

Morford: Give it up, smoker.

I wouldn’t mind getting debaptised.

How’s this for a niche blog? Paper Cuts is dedicated to tracking job losses in the newspaper industry.

This week’s Green Thing is algal biofuel.

Entry #1951

Cool Site of the Week: Fifty beautiful long-exposure photos. This one’s called “Small Street”.

Predictions about what the world will look like in 2100, when there are around 10 billion of us, makes me kind of glad I won’t be around.

Pet Corner: Four-legged tripwires.

Buy your pizza jewelry here.

Read Philip Agre’s “What is conservatism, and what’s wrong with it”. This is a great essay and, if nothing else, don’t miss the part called The Destruction of Conscience a little ways down the page. So much that is so frustrating and baffling about right wing politics, policy and thinking makes complete sense after reading this. Via Avedon.

Entry #1950

Italian motorcycle police choreography from 1953.

Stuff you should know: 100 places to go for good answers online.

A pod of dolphins saved a Chinese ship from being boarded by Somali pirates.

Woody Allen has a short story in the New Yorker about Bernie Madoff and reincarnated lobsters.

iPod Shuffle:

1. Remember (Harry Nilsson)
2. Truck Drivin' Man (Lynyrd Skynyrd)
3. Brides of Jesus (Little Feat)
4. Ophelia (The Band)
5. Father and Daughter (Paul Simon)

Entry #1949

Even though he won the poll to name the international space station’s new module, NASA is naming their zero-gravity treadmill after Stephen Colbert instead. The module will be named “Tranquility”.

Want to know where your tax dollars go? There’s even a handy little pie chart there.

A young deer is trapped in ice and it’s rescued by a guy who blows it out of the hole and across the ice with his helicopter.

Welcome to the official spam site.

Today’s slide show is of the winners of the 1998 “small world” microphotography contest (click on “slide show” to view).