Fun for rats

There is more where this came from at xkcd. Snort, snort, funny, funny.

Cat with my hair

Private Sweat Bathing Cublicles

A Turkish sweat bath in the comfort and privacy of you own home!

Peanut Butter Bars

INGREDIENTS
1 cup light corn syrup (or golden syrup)
1 cup unrefined sugar
1 1/2 cups peanut butter
6 cups corn flakes
8 oz / 250 g bag vegan chocolate chips (or a couple of vegan chocolate bars broken up)
METHOD
Lightly oil an 8 x 10 inch (20 x 25 cm) cake pan and place the corn flakes in the pan.
Mix the corn syrup and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a light boil. Remove from the heat, add the peanut butter and mix until smooth. Pour mixture over the corn flakes and combine.
In a double boiler or saucepan, melt the chocolate chips and pour over the top of the cereal mixture. Place in the refrigerators overnight to harden. The next day, cut and serve.

French underground cinema

Police in Paris have stumbled across a secret underground cinema in the catacombs. The fully outfitted cinema was protected by a sophisticated alarm system and an appliance for making cous cous. Its stock of film turned out to be mostly 1950s film noir, with nothing illegal or even offensive.
"The whole thing ran off a professionally installed electricity system and there were at least three phone lines down there." Three days later, when the police returned accompanied by experts from the French electricity board to see where the power was coming from, the phone and electricity lines had been cut and a note was lying in the middle of the floor: "Do not," it said, "try to find us."
There is an extensive network of catacombs under Paris, most of which is off-limits to the public, though frequented by groups of "cataphiles", who sound somewhere between the Cave Clan and the troglodistes in the film Delicatessen.
The recent discovery of three newly enlarged tunnels underneath the capital's high-security La Santé prison was put down to the activities of one such group, and another, iden tifying itself as the Perforating Mexicans, last night told French radio the subterranean cinema was its work.
Patrick Alk, a photographer who has published a book on the urban underground exploration movement and claims to be close to the group, told RTL radio the cavern's discovery was "a shame, but not the end of the world". There were "a dozen more where that one came from," he said. "You guys have no idea what's down there."

How I explained infodumps and saved humanity \(^_^)/

This is a great explanation of infodumps by Jed Hartman [he enjoys singing in rounds, not "row, row, row your boat"]

"Waiter, a bowl of complex physics please"

How and why are patterns in miso soup (the Japanese soybean soup) formed ?
In the morning I often meet strange patterns in the miso soup in a bowl which are sometimes stripe and sometimes irregular. This is caused by hydrodynamical instabilities due to temperature difference between its surface and bottom and between a center and sides of the soup layer, and due to the concentration difference as well. It is quite popular but contains very complex and deep physics. These are called "dissipative structures" or "self-organization structures" of which formation principle has not been clarified yet. Scientists are working on the electrohydrodynamics (EHD) in liquid crystals (LC) to understand its physical principle.

Allergic rhinitis a.k.a hay fever

"Hay fever" is a misnomer. Hay is not a usual cause of this problem and it does not cause fever. Early descriptions of sneezing, nasal congestion, and eye irritation while harvesting field hay promoted this popular term. "Allergic rhinitis" is the correct term used to describe this allergic reaction. Rhinitis means "irritation of the nose" and is a derivative of "Rhino," meaning nose.
Symptoms of allergic rhinitis frequently include nasal congestion, a clear runny nose, sneezing, nose and eye itching, and tearing eyes. Observers of the person experiencing allergic rhinitis will commonly notice frequent rubbing of the nose using the index finger. This is the so called "allergic salute."
An allergic reaction occurs when the immune system attacks a usually harmless substance called an "allergen" that gains access to the body. The immune system calls upon a protective substance called "immunoglobulin E" or "IgE" antibodies (for erythema or redness) to fight these invading allergic substances or allergens. Even though everyone has some IgE, an allergic person has an unusually large army of these IgE defenders. This army of IgE antibodies attacks and engages the invading army of allergic substances of allergens.
As is often the case in war, innocent bystanders are affected by this battle. These innocent bystanders are special cells called "Mast" cells. These cells are frequently injured during the warring of the IgE antibodies and the allergic substances. When a mast cell is injured, it releases a variety of strong chemicals into the tissues and blood. One of the chemicals released by the mast cells is histamine. These chemicals are very irritating and cause itching, swelling, and fluid leaking from cells.
Many trees, grasses, and weeds produce extremely small, light, dry protein particles called pollen. These pollen particles are usually the male sex cells of the plant and are smaller than the tip of a pin or less than 40 microns in diameter. Pollen lodges in the nasal lining tissues (mucus membranes) and other parts of the respiratory tract where it does harm to an allergic person. A person is programmed to be allergic by his/her genetic makeup and is destined to be allergic from birth.
Antihistamines combat the histamine that has been released during an allergic reaction by blocking the action of the histamine on the tissue. Antihistamines do not stop the formation of histamine nor do they stop the conflict between the IgE and antigen. Therefore, antihistamines do not stop the allergy "war" but protect tissues from the fallout of the "war."

Discovered Australia in 1776...

Clafoutis ^o.o^

INGREDIENTS
3/4 lb / 350 g cherries
1 T ener-g egg replacer -- reconstituted with 2 T of water and whipped till foamy
1/2 cup flour
2 T gram flour
Pinch salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup soy milk
1 T kirschwasser (cherry brandy)
1 T vanilla extract
Brown sugar for sprinkling

METHOD
Heat oven to 350F/180C and grease an 8 or 9 inch (20-23cm) pie pan or cake pan.
Pit the cherries over a colander set in a bowl to catch the juice.

Mix together the flours, salt, and sugar. Add a little of the soy milk to make a paste, then add the rest of it along with the vanilla, kirsch, and cherry juice. Beat thoroughly with a big whisk. Fold in the fluffy egg stuff.
Put the cherries in the pan and pour the batter over them. Sprinkle with some brown sugar. Bake for about 45 minutes, till the edges darken and come away from the sides of the pan and a toothpick stuck into the centre comes out clean. Let cool a while before eating.

Rube Goldberg machines

Open window (A) and fly kite (B). String (C) lifts small door (D) allowing moths (E) to escape and eat red flannel shirt (F). As weight of shirt becomes less, shoe (G) steps on switch (H) which heats electric iron (I) and burns hole in pants (J). Smoke (K) enters hole in tree (L), smoking out opossum (M) which jumps into basket (N), pulling rope (O) and lifting cage (P), allowing woodpecker (Q) to chew wood from pencil (R), exposing lead. Emergency knife (S) is always handy in case opossum or the woodpecker gets sick and can't work.

Rube was the mind behind creating exceedingly complex devices that perform simple tasks in very indirect and convoluted ways, they were used by Cayotee to try and catch the Road Runner and the suicidal woman in JP Jeunet's Delicatessen (to no avail). See more machines.

Guust Flater runt king

English translation:
Pruimpit: Where are the files for the next meeting? GUUST!
Pruimpit: Didn't you hear me calling?
Guust: Shst! Manage your things without me. My cat is
asleep and I don't want to wake her.
Pruimpit: ***censored***

Guust: Well, I never!
Pruimpit: If everyone around here had a cat on his lap,
our magazine wouldn't appear very frequently.
Guust: Gee. If all generals and admirals in the
world had a cat on their lap, I would be
feeling a lot more secure!
Pruimpit: (Now what can you say to that?)

Guust Flater (originally Gaston LaGaffe in french) has been translated into about 12 languages.* It has not yet been published in english, reasons behind this are unknown to me, but I think are largely to do with a feeling that after it is translated, a special quality is lost, and this humour will be unfunny to the english speaking audience. Two Guust strips were published in english in Graphic Story Monthly volumes 1 and 2 under the name Gomer Goof.
*

Gordon CATanya ^-_-^

This is my friend Gordon Catanya, I met him where he voulenteers on de Poezenboot in Amsterdam. He loves cats and shortbread.

Welcome to my blog Hive mind of runts (v.v)

Welcome I just decided to make myself a blog so I can collect my thoughts and provide easy access to them for other peoples. This is my first contribution toward the fledgling hive mind*. I enjoy reading other blogs so it is polite for me to reciprocate and try to produce something that I would enjoy reading myself. This blog will be largely an interesting link dump, aswell as a collection of my ideas and thoughts. My interests are Science Fiction, films, philosophy, lucid dreaming, runt animals, dermatology, Latino dancing, harmonious voices, utopian pharmacology, mushroom hunting, humor, elephant jokes, David Brent, and my family.

*The hivemind idea was first encountered by me in Ian McDonald's' River of Gods. Ian has a blog that is enjoyable to read. I discovered the book RoG by reading a review by Peter Hollo on his blog. You can also see a wiki entry on the hive mind a.k.a group mind