Friday, September 30, 2016

Friday links


Want to appear more intelligent, influential, educated and honest? The benefits of going bald.


Your Daily Coffee Consumption Could Be Making You Deaf. Related: Why Does Coffee Make You Poop? Here's the science, confirmed by questionnaires and anal probes.


Roadside Curiosities: Things That Make You Go "What the Heck?"

ICYMI, Tuesday's links are here, and include building your own car, an interesting early-1900's sport, bowling alleys in church basements, and the invasive species elimination idea du jour: shooting lionfish with a Glock 9mm.

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Tuesday links

How to fight off an invasive species: Shooting Lionfish With A Glock 9mm.

Churches and their Hidden Basement Bowling Alleys.


Women are teachable: 1940's booklet to “assist male bosses in supervising their new female employees"


The Best Sport Of The Early 1900s Involved Pushing Around An Elephant-Sized Ball.

ICYMI, Thursday's links are here, and include Australia's biggest dog, a Nazi’s documentary photos of Polish Jews in 1940, what happens when you hiccup, and the first day of Fall.

Monday, September 26, 2016

How to fight off an invasive species: Shooting Lionfish With A Glock 9mm

Here's the Smithsonian describing lionfish:
They have multiplied at a rate that is almost unheard of in marine history, going from nonexistent to pervasive in just a few short years. Along the way, they've eaten or starved out local fish, disrupted commercial fishing, and threatened the tourism industry. Some experts believe that lionfish are so widespread that their effect on the ecosystems of the Western Atlantic will be almost impossible to reverse. Still, some people are determined to try, if only to protect those waters which haven't yet been invaded.
Lionfish-harvesting robot prototype.
There have been a few suggestions for getting them under control - Glenn Reynolds (better known as Instapundit) recommends eating them, and the CEO of iRobot, the company that makes Roombas*, has developed a lionfish-harvesting robot.

Here's a more direct approach: Floridian Cortland Hunt made a video of his lionfish hunting expedition, using a modified Glock 9 mm that works underwater:
Shooting invasive Lionfish over 100ft underwater with customized Glock 9mm handgun in the Gulf of Mexico. The project started to see if we could shoot a gun underwater and it evolved into much more with the right people involved. Lionfish are an invasive species that need to be eradicated.


Recent Roomba-related post: When the Roomba runs over dog poop.

Hypnotic breast enlargement

Weird Universe dug this up: Michael Stivers had an interesting career. He was a professional wrestler, who used the stage name "Pretty Boy Behning." He was also a police officer for 13 years, but around 1990 he quit that profession to become a hypnotist. 

At first, he ran a pretty ordinary hypotism business — using hypnotism to help people lose weight or quit smoking. But around 1991 he discovered a unique way to specialize and differentiate his practice. He became a "breast enlargement hypnotist." 

Here the explanation from his PR material: 
The larger-breast style of self-hypnosis relaxes the subject, then allows her to will an increased blood flow into the fatty tissues of the breast, much like that during menstruation or pregnancy. Daily conditioning through self-hypnosis allows what amounts to a permanent enhancement.
AP ran a story reporting on some mixed results:


Apparently people are still promoting this idea - try googling it for ideas. You can also buy a package of hypnosis sessions for this purpose - please let the rest of us know if it worked!