Puck

Check out this amazing performance of the Bond theme on the Eigenharp Alpha.

This amazing musical instrument has 120 playing keys, 12 percussion keys, two strip controllers and a breath pipe. And it’s only around 4k Euros! There’s a load o’ mo’ vids over on YouTube. Via Boing Boing.

Americans are still reacting to the news that a man got away with only a four-month jail sentence after shooting a bicyclist in the head in cold blood, in front of his three-year old child. In Germany, the web is buzzing about a sentence equally extreme, on the opposite end of the spectrum. Christopher-Felix Hahn, a student of theater science in Gießen, has learned he is banned from riding a bike, skateboard or any other “unlicensed vehicle” on the streets — for fifteen years.

via Student Caught Biking Drunk Banned from Cycling for 15 Years : TreeHugger.

Charles Diez shot a bike rider in the head -- and got 120 days in jail

Via Treehugger:

While driving down the road one day, Charles Diaz grew upset at seeing a man riding his bike on a busy street with his 3 year-old son. So he shot him in the head. Thankfully, the bullet narrowly missed his skull, instead getting lodged in the cyclists’ helmet. Well, Diaz has just been sentenced for admitting to nearly murdering a man by firing a gun towards his head–and he’s received a paltry 4 months in jail.

Police said Charles Diez, an Asheville firefighter since 1992, stopped his car to confront a couple riding bikes along heavily traveled Tunnel Road. Diez was apparently incensed by Alan Simons carrying his 3-year-old child on a seat mounted on the back of his bike. After an argument, Diez pulled a gun and shot at Simons, but the bullet passed through Simon’s bicycle helmet, just missing his skull, police said.

Via Streetsblog:

In August, a grand jury reduced charges against Diez from attempted first degree murder to felony assault. While assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill certainly sounds like an offense worthy of a lengthy prison term, the presiding judge apparently agreed that this was a case of a stand-up guy having a bad day.

Via Mountain Xpress:

Convictions on such a charge result in an average 20-39 months in prison for the defendant. But in the sentencing, Superior Court Judge James Downs found that Diez’s military service, along with testimony from former colleagues about his good character, were mitigating factors, and chose to sentence him to 15-27 months instead. Downs suspended all but four months of that sentence unless Diez breaks the law again in the next 30 months.

The belief that unicorns do not exist. More generally, a form of atheism that considers the proof that a deity exists to be no more convincing than the proof that a unicorn exists. — Urban Dictionary

<From Greek a = not, monokeros = unicorn (mono = one, keros = horn), ism = belief>

Since I cannot deny with absolute certainty that there are no gods, I decided to go with amonokerism to explain my beliefs.

The American Medical Association (AMA) voted today to reverse its long-held position that marijuana be retained as a Schedule I substance with no medical value. The AMA adopted a report drafted by the AMA Council on Science and Public Health (CSAPH) entitled, “Use of Cannabis for Medicinal Purposes,” which affirmed the therapeutic benefits of marijuana and called for further research. The CSAPH report concluded that, “short term controlled trials indicate that smoked cannabis reduces neuropathic pain, improves appetite and caloric intake especially in patients with reduced muscle mass, and may relieve spasticity and pain in patients with multiple sclerosis.” Furthermore, the report urges that “the Schedule I status of marijuana be reviewed with the goal of facilitating clinical research and development of cannabinoid-based medicines, and alternate delivery methods.”

via Opposing Views: OPINION:AMA Ends 72-Year Policy, Says Marijuana has Medical Benefits.

It’s the winter of 1969 in Gordita Beach, a mythical beach town near the Palos Verdes peninsula. The Summer of Love, never really alive in Southern California, is still a “great collective dream that everybody was being encouraged to stay tripping around in. Only now and then would you get an unplanned glimpse at the other side.” Pot smoke and nearby Long Beach petroleum refineries thicken the air. The Manson Family arrests and trial burn broadcast bandwidth. Larry “Doc” Sportello is on the trail of… Something. Something big. Maybe. If only he could quit smoking long enough to remember how to answer the phone.

It’s something completely different and it’s Thomas Pynchon’s best novel ever. Inherent Vice is Pynchon’s second novel to feature cannabis as a more or less primary character (the earlier being Vineland, which locale, being a mythical Humbolt County, more or less, gets a passing mention here). In Inherent Vice a joint (pinners, fatties, “that new Thai stick,” Humbolt sinsemilla, PCP-laced boiler makers) gets lit at least once in every chapter. (If memory serves. Which it may not. Who really knows these things?) Read the rest of this entry »

A lovely young woman is drugged, brutally raped and murdered. That hardly sounds like a scenario for a funny, sweet and devilishly complex mystery story, but that’s because novelist Colin Cotterill is a master of sleight of hand. He’s a master at balancing brutal crime, which he depicts with heart-wrenching empathy, and the comic milieu of Dr. Siri Paiboun.

The Merry Misogynist is Cotterill’s sixth novel featuring Dr. Siri, national coroner, 73, libidinously alive and well, and married to Daeng the noodle shopkeeper. It’s 1978, the Khmer Rouge have taken over Laos, having ousted the 600 year-old monarchy, and the “novice socialist administration is starting to realize its resume didn’t match the job.” Read the rest of this entry »

Detective Tyador Borlú of Besźel’s Extreme Crimes Squad is assigned to what at first appears to be a fairly straightforward case: the murder of a young woman whose body was discovered dumped in a park situated on the border between Besźel and Ul Qoma.

And right away the reader realizes that, no matter how straightforward this murder mystery might be, there’ll be nothing straight about the narrative, for Besźel and Ul Qoma aren’t merely countries that happen to border one another. They are city-states in a state of intimate balkanization. Read the rest of this entry »

One-time cyberpunk Kadrey (Metrophage) has traded in his old religion and the metaphysics of the digital realm for a new and ancient one, the demonic folk tale. Sandman Slim is like a noir bunch of episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with a smart-mouth, street-smart leading man in place of the buxom teen – non-sensical, unbelievable, and one helluva good time.

James Stark, AKA Sandman Slim, the only human to survive Hell – much less live to tell the tale and eek out revenge for his tribulations – has come through the Darkness with special powers. He always was good at magic – not the hokey legerdemain that passes for entertainment among those with too much time on their hands – and that landed him with a bad crowd. Now he’s amped up with secrets from The Man (if man the devil be) himself. Ice-picked Trotsky’s friends were true-blue compared to Stark’s comrades. And power struggles among the demon-allied take on epic proportions. Read the rest of this entry »

The Colorado ski town of Breckenridge has voted overwhelmingly to legalize marijuana.

Early returns Tuesday night showed the proposal winning with 72 percent of the vote. The measure would allow adults over 21 to have up to 1 ounce of marijuana.

The measure is largely symbolic because pot possession remains a state crime for people without medical clearance. But supporters said they wanted to send a message to local law enforcement to stop busting small-time pot smokers.

The vote comes as communities nationwide are struggling with how to enforce pot laws at a time when medical marijuana has surged in popularity.

via Colorado ski town legalizes pot.