Friday links

Gallery of science fiction postage stamps from around the world.

Christmas present for dog lovers: the No More Woof headset tells you what your dog is thinking.

Dave Barry's Gift Guide.

From Journal of the American Revolution, 5 Myths of Tar and Feathering.

Boob Glue.

Holiday Hairstyles Sure To Shock Santa.

ICYMI, Wednesday's links are here.

Infographic: Presidential Drugs of Choice

Click here to embiggen.

Christmas present for dog lovers: the No More Woof headset tells you what your dog is thinking

If you're tired of trying to figure out for yourself what your dog wants, this may simplify your life: check out the No More Woof headset, which translates your dog’s thoughts into human speech.

The Nordic Society for Invention and Discovery designed the headset to measure and track simple brainwaves and patterns, and transform them into basic vocalized desires.

via Daily Caller.

Boob Glue

I am completely mystified by the mechanics of this stuff (emphasis mine):

With bra on or garment on (if going bra-less), remove one "lady" at a time. Liberally apply Boob Glue® to breast, avoiding the nipple area. Arrange breast in desired position in bra or garment. Press firmly in place for one minute. Repeat on opposite side.

What about gravity? Is there some sort of anti-gravity or hydraulic ingredient in this stuff?

Amazon description:

Bosom Couture's signature debut product Boob Glue, described as a "surgery in a bottle," significantly flatters a woman's breasts by positioning and holding them EXACTLY where she wants them inside her bra or fitted garment. The sensitive-skin formulated roll-on adhesive will help to lift and separate, give your breasts a sexy pushed-up "boost", or simply prevent unwelcome cups that "overflow'eth. Bosom Couture Boob Glue is also a true must-have essential for keeping armpit bulge discretely out of sight. Perfect cleavage in your favorite little black dress or a smooth, curvy silhouette in your form fitting sweater look as outstanding at the end of the day or night, as when you first stepped out the door. No adjusting... ever again. Boob Glue is also perspiration resistant which makes it perfect for keeping breasts in place at the gym when working out and in bikini tops at poolside...oh-la-la! Celebrities already know it makes any outfit or occasion even more fabulous...Now you can, too.

And there are lots of reviews on their website!

Spider-Man Faces His Ultimate Foe At The Grocery Store

Jonah Goldberg: Obamacare’s Silent Insurers - Even an obedient dog will bite if you kick it enough

Jonah Goldberg writing at NRO - read the whole thing.  Excerpts:

Do the people running these firms have no backbone whatsoever?

When will the insurers revolt?

It’s a question that’s popping up more and more. On the surface, the question answers itself. We’re talking about pinstriped insurance-company executives, not Hells Angels. One doesn’t want to paint with too broad a brush, but if you were going to guess which vocations lend themselves least to revolutionary zeal, actuaries rank slightly behind embalmers.

Still, it’s hard not to wonder how much more these people are willing to take. Even an obedient dog will bite if you kick it enough. Since Obamacare’s passage, the administration has constantly moved the goalposts on the industry. For instance, when the small-business mandate proved problematic in an election year, the administration delayed it, putting its partisan political needs ahead of its own policy and the needs of the industry.

But the insurers kept their eyes on the prize: huge guaranteed profits stemming from the diktat of the health-insurance mandate. When asked how he silenced opponents in the health industry during his successful effort to socialize medicine, Aneurin Bevan, creator of the British National Health Service, responded, “I stuffed their mouths with gold.”

just last week, Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that she was “urging” insurers to ignore both their contracts and the law and simply cover people on the honor system — as if they were enrolled and paid up. She also wants doctors and hospitals to take patients, regardless of whether they are in a patient’s insurance network or even if the patient is properly insured at all. Just go ahead and extend the deadline for paying, she urged insurers; we’ll work out the paperwork later.

Of course, urging isn’t forcing. But as Avik Roy of Forbes notes, the difference is subtle. HHS also announced last week that it will consider compliance with its suggestions when determining which plans to allow on the exchanges next year. A request from HHS is like being asked a “favor” by the Godfather; compliance is less than voluntary.

Wednesday links

Did the bad guys in The Hobbit lose to the good guys because of a Vitamin D deficiency?

It was a dark and stormy night - a selection of winners from the Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction writing contest.  Related: Winner of Literary Review's bad sex in fiction award has been announced. Here are the contenders, including Woody Guthrie (This one is NSFW due to language)

Great Literary Christmas Tales That Aren’t  A Christmas Carol.

At Christmas, this town builds a Giant Yule goat and then torches it.

Pneumatic Tube System Delivers Burgers At 87MPH, plus bonus pneumatic tube links.

At what point in human history were there too many (English) books to b able to read them all in one lifetime?

ICYMI, Monday's links are here.

Pneumatic Tube System Delivers Burgers At 87MPH, plus bonus pneumatic tube links

A restaurant in Christchurch, New Zealand, plans to install a pneumatic tube system for delivering sliders and a “wee packet of chips—um, fries,” chef Richie Ward explained.

The food, which will come enclosed in stainless steel capsules, will go barreling through the tubes at 87 miles per hour (140 kilometers per hour). Air brakes will slow the capsules to a safer speed before they drop down from above patrons’ tables, or rise up from below the tabletop, depending on the location of the table. The whole system will take a year to install and test, New Zealand’s The Press reports.

PopSci articles on Pneumatic tubes:

In 1874, Popular Science published a description of London’s Pneumatic Dispatch “for the conveyance of small parcels of goods from place to place.” A 1949 feature on Brookhaven National Laboratory’s nuclear reactor includes diagrams of its pneumatic tube system. And in 1930, the magazine published a feature about pneumatic tubes used for transporting everything from coal to wheat to mail. (You can still see those now-dormant mail systems in older New York City office buildings; at the time, they were new.)

At the Atlantic: Pneumatic Tubes: A Brief History has some excellent illustrations, as does this article: Series of Tubes: Pneumatic Tube Networks Then & Now.

How Pneumatic Tubes Work.

Travel by pneumatic tube: 1905 predictions and the Jetsons.

Pneumatic System of the New York Public Library.

Chicago's Strange History With Pneumatic Tubes.

Missouri State Considers Banning Nerf Guns After Campus Lockdown

CBS Local:

Missouri State University officials are discussing whether to limit or ban the use of Nerf guns used in a popular weeklong campus game.

About 500 people took part in October’s “Humans vs. Zombies” game, in which players try to tag other people, who then become zombies. The humans can defend themselves by stunning the zombies with Nerf guns or balled-up socks.

During October’s game, a professor called 911 and put a classroom on lockdown after thinking he saw a real gun. And the university’s safety and transportation department got several calls to its non-emergency number while the game was being played, The Springfield News-Leader reported.

The game is not played inside but it does go on at all hours of the day. The Nerf guns can sometimes look like real weapons, particularly in low-light, said Don Clark, director of the university’s Department of Safety and Transportation.

“When we get that call, we have to make the initial assessment that it might be a real gun,” he said.

Several colleges across the country have banned Nerf guns.

via Gateway Pundit.

Video: people crossing the street in a powerful windstorm

Alesund, Norway was hit with an extreme weather system last week that forecasters called a “freak” storm. Reports say more than 50,000 homes in the region were without power after the hurricane-force winds blew across Norway. 

Check out this video of people crossing the street against the wind.

via The Blaze.

First footage of Game Of Thrones season 4

An HBO retrospective of 2013, but “Coming in 2014″ starts at 1:35 and includes Game Of Thrones footage.

Monday links

Beer concentrate for backpackers.

These awkward Christmas photos are a hoot.

Scientists create 'robotic sperm'. And speaking of scientists, This is What Happens When You Ask Scientists to Explain Their PhDs in Dance: the winners of the 2013 Dance Your PhD Contest.

Two Brothers Have Been Taking Pictures With Santa For The Last 34 Years.

Little Drummer Boy played by a doggie band (with a few humans).  And here's the Canine Version of The Twelve Days of Christmas.

Bourbon hack: create your own Pappy Van Winkle.

ICYMI: Friday's links are here.

Little Drummer Boy played by a doggie band (and a few humans)

The band's name is Walk Off The Earth: