TB Tech Corner

There's a request we hear all the time, "Matt and Sean, I know the Department of Homeland Security spent tons of money creating a million dollar puke ray. Is there anyway I could build a vomit causing flashlight for under $300 dollars and also make sure it has an alternate setting so I can use it as a disco light?"

Yes, yes you can.

Meet the Bedazzler, the world's first open source Homeland Security non-lethal weapon project. For $250 and using a flashlight, three-dollar LEDs, a nine-volt battery, and a PC heat sink, you too can cause temporary blindness as well as vertigo, nausea, and disorientation.

How dies this all work? According to the DHS weapon creators Bob Lieberman and Vladimir Rubtsov

“There’s one wavelength that gets everybody,” says Lieberman. “Vlad calls it the evil color.”

So if you were looking for an amusing party trick or a new weapon for the post-apocalyptic world where guns and ammo will be at a premium, we we suggest the Bedazzler, the puke gun one, not the "rhinestone on your jacket" one. We can only hope that soon, someone will have made progress on the brown note so someone can make an iPhone app out of it.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 11.09

Iranian student dares to criticise Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to his face
An Iranian student totally clowned an Ayatollah the other day, taking an opportunity he was given to ask Khamenei a question and turning into a 20 minute diatribe about all that stuff Khamenei has done. Of course the Ayatollah responded to this by saying "Nuh-uh" and leaving, making sure to give a press release saying they totally allowed him to ask that question because of freedom and stuff. Meanwhile, the student, Mahmoud Vahidnia, gets to dodge literal and figurative bullets because he chose to do it in such a public, televised place. Well done, sir. It's going to be such a shame when we find out you committed suicide by beating yourself to death with multiple police batons.

Hany Farid, Dartmouth Scientist, Says Controversial Oswald Rifle Photo Real
As if the past few days weren't weird enough, how does this strike you: that Oswald photo of him with the rifle that everyone says is fake...is real. So says an expert. Hmmm, so maybe Oswald did do it. It's all well and good, with so many conspiracies about things that are going on now and think it's time we put to bed some of the old classics. Unless Glenn Beck comes up with a way that Oswald shooting Kennedy ties into Barack Obama becoming President, perhaps through ACORN or Oswald himself planting fake birth announcements in Honolulu papers to legitimize our Kenyan sleeper agent President, then I think we might have to move on.

Gadgets and Ideas to Revolutionize Healthcare
Wired Science gives us a look and the TEDMED conference and some of the revolutionary ideas and gadgets that were shown, including wireless medical monitors, the chemical compound resveratol, and tissue engineering, that some see as the future of health care. Sadly no one at the conference had invented the one device that would revolutionize health care the most: a robotic whirling dervish or chainsaws, weedwhackers, and blowtorches that would be used against our elected betters in an attempt to make them pass single payer health care. Though one scientists from MIT did unveil a prototype device that would administer a 50,000 volt shock to Joe Lieberman's anus any time he got a "notion" about getting himself on the TV more.

A media orgy of rumors, speculation and falsehoods
Salon's Glenn Greenwald chronicles the latest failure of the TV media to provide accurate, relevant, and informed coverage on a breaking story, this time the Ft. Hood shootings. From numerous mistakes involving the number of shooters, to the fate of the shooter(s), to the background of Hasan, to the weapons used, to all sorts of other unverified miscellaneous claims, anyone actually watching the coverage would have struggled to even understand anything other than the fact that a shooting happened. Greenwald goes on to discuss how damaging this kind of thing is in creating false zombie narratives and dimwitted conventional wisdom that shpes public perceptions. But hey, who cares if it's all misinformation, it made for some damn fine TV. And isn't that the whole point of TV news?

Exclusive: I Was Kidnapped by the CIA
With the recent in absentia conviction of CIA agents in Italy for their rendition and torture program, perhaps it's best to actually take a closer look at what it was they were accused of. Mother Jones was prescient enough to have a full account of the case of the man, Abu Omar, that the CIA agents were convicted of rendering and torturing for their March/April 2008 issue. Congratulations America, this was done in your name! I hope you like it.

Broken In Brief: Area man flirts with insanity as he attempts to explain mother's computer problem to her

HARTFORD—Today, after a brief period of around five minutes when the entire world did not make sense to him and his thoughts were consumed by paranoia and murder fantasies, area man Ron Durham was able to regain his senses after a disastrous attempt to explain to his mother how he fixed the problem she was having on her computer.

The brief flirtation with insanity began early in the day when his mother called him up with complaints that her computer, which Mr. Durham had mistakenly bought for her in an attempt to move her into the 21st century, was “acting funny” and added to it a list of nonsensical claims that included the gem “the packets aren’t sizing.”

As Durham arrived to look at the computer, his sanity was initially tested by his mother’s complete inability to explain what was happening in terms that a normal human would comprehend. After a fifteen minute period wading through this crazy woman’s cluttered desktop of solitaire games, pictures of grandchildren, and wrongly installed programs, he finally found the problem and fixed it quite easily.

Tragically he made the mistake of informing his mother of the actual problem and solution, explaining that it was “a simple matter of updating drivers.” As he slowly realized what he had just done, Durham was unable to run out of the house in time to avoid the rapid fire rash of bizarrely nonsensical computer/automotive questions.

As his mind caved in on itself, devouring his will to live under the weight of a carburetor/Windows tandem word bludgeoning, he finally understood the only two solutions to end this madness: murder or escape.

"Magic,” he blurted out. “I was wrong. It was magic that caused it. Magic also fixed it. It was magic all along...inside each of us." As his mother paused, perhaps to contemplate the witness of said magic or perhaps in affront to what she had to know was an egregious lie, Durham used the momentary pause to gather his senses, say goodbye, run from the house, and take stock of how precious life is.