Archive for the ‘Subversive’ Category
April 27th, 2009 | 
Author: Panic, panic!
The RSOE Emergency Disaster Information Service is an agency in Hungary that has a really cool set of maps showing an assortment of disasters worldwide. In light of the swine flu outbreak, they’ve also prepared a Pandemic Monitoring System (cue ominous music):
Resume your normal lives, citizens.
Posted in 
As always, Randall’s mouseover text is one of the best parts: “Bad flu epidemics can hit young adults hardest because they provoke their powerful immune systems into overreaction, so to stay healthy spend the next few weeks drunk and sleep-deprived to keep yours suppressed.”
We’ll panic when our neighbour says we should. I figure she should know. 
xkcd.
The world’s a scary place these days. The problem is that it doesn’t have to be.
You didn’t know that? It’s true. Statistically, you’re more likely to be killed at the hands of the police than a terrorist, but we’re not spending much to fight that, are we?
The police in London, England, have been doing all that they can to keep the populace scared out of their minds and spying on their neighbours for years. The lastest is a series of billboards and posters that ask Londoners to poke through their neighbours’ trash and report peopel for looking at the ever-present CCTV cameras:
As is iften the case with moronic signs, James Holden has written a script that lets you make your own scary billboard:
I’ve been vehicle shopping lately. We’ve been considering the prospect of a second set of wheels since last summer, but the prospect of me tearing around the countryside with a van load of stinging insects has raised the urgency.
Initially, I started looking at pick-em-up trucks. All the better to load a bunch of hives into the back and hit the road. There’s not much available in my range (not much) that fits the bill: better fuel economy than the van, has to be able carry us all (extended cab at the very least) and isn’t beaten to crap.
Earlier this week, the blazingly obvious popped into view: we have a van. I can remove the rear seats and load it to the roof with hives. Duh. There’s an utter crap-load of decent cars available for a few grand, too.
Yesterday morning, this gem popped up on Kijiji: 2003 Honda CR-V for $3900. Interesting, but obviously a typo. I contacted the seller anyway just to be sure. This is what I got back by email:
If you are interested in buy it, the price is $3,900.we will use
eBay Vehicle Purchase Protection to complete the sale.
Thank you!!
Well, maybe not.
There’s a growing movement in Canada (and the States, maybe? I dunno) in favour of urban “chicken farming”. Well, keeping a hald dozen pullets in your backyard isn’t exactly farming, but I have no idea what else to call it. The problem is that the vast majority of municipalities have laws forbidding the keeping of “livestock” of any kind within city limits. Neighbours don’t want to deal with the odour of your backyard pig or the horse belonging to the folks on the other side.
Something tells me that roosters like this, known as “long crowers”, might not be the best choice for an urban chicken coop.
According to poultry expert Gail Damerow, writing in the current issue of Backyard Poultry Magazine, long crowers probably have their origins in Japan and have spread throughout the world through deliberate selection. Here’s a play list for your listening pleasure, consisting of a Turkish long crowing breed, the Denizli, followed by a Koeyoshi (good crower in Japanese) and the Tomaru (black crower).