Kurt Starnes

"Wayne Coyne, frontman for the acclaimed rock band The Flaming Lips, recently renovated his Oklahoma compound, and the new space gives the group's music a run for its money in terms of psychedelic flair, playful construction, and sheer imagination. The last we saw of Coyne, he was, naturally, sitting in a bathtub on Google Street View. If you thought that was the weirdest place he bathes, wait until you see his bathroom. Its Gaudiesque drip-castle design—Coyne refers to it as the "drug damaged, artist element of [his] home"—is certainly one of the highlights of his new pad, realized by FitzSimmons Architects." - Kurt Starnes

They are so much fun live - RAPatton

"At Joby Martin’s house, guests in one bedroom sleep in the unincorporated county, then step into the adjoining bathroom and take a shower in the city of El Cajon. Because of a bureaucratic stroke of a pen 55 years ago, the city’s boundary runs through the house where Martin has lived on North First Street since 1940." - Kurt Starnes

"One thing is for sure: You don’t want to get into a snow ball fight with old Mother Nature. She can make a much better snowball than you can and more of them too. Some people call them snow rollers and others call them snow doughnuts or snow balls." - Kurt Starnes

As a Canadian, I whole-heartedly agree. :) - Matt M (inactive)

It might not be too bad if you pretend you can't identify them until they click a button. - Matt M (inactive)

These are my results above, FYI. - Kurt Starnes

I have bandwidth envy. - Kurt Starnes

"Google says it may allow people to participate in Google Buzz without having it integrated within Gmail, in addition to offering a combined Gmail service. That may be a welcome move from users of both products, especially in light of the substantial privacy concerns voiced this week about Google Buzz. “It’s clear that interest in Buzz may extend beyond the current Gmail base, and we’re open to serving that community,” said Bradley Horowitz, Google’s VP of Product Marketing, when I spoke to him about some Buzz issues at the TED Conference." - Kurt Starnes

"The E-ELT is likely to be as revolutionary in the field of astronomy as Galileo's telescope 400 years ago that determined that the Sun, and not the Earth, was the center of our universe, according to the European agency based in Munich, Germany. The German astronomer in Chile, Wolfgang Gieren, waxed happily about the possibilities of the future telescope. "In no more than 15 years we could have the first good-resolution spectra of planets outside our universe that are the same size of Earth and see if we can detect signs of life," he said." - Kurt Starnes

"HOUSTON – (Feb. 12, 2010) – The wait is over for 16-year-old Francesco "Frank" De Santiago. On January 29, De Santiago received a donor heart in a nine-hour transplant operation at Texas Children's Heart Center De Santiago made news last October as the first child ever discharged from a pediatric hospital with an implanted mechanical heart pump, or ventricular assist device (VAD). Until then, pediatric patients with VADs remained in the hospital, often in ICU, while awaiting a donor heart." - Kurt Starnes

"Green racing fans rejoice! Porsche has just unveiled its 911 GT3 R Hybrid, a 480 horsepower track vehicle ready to rock the 24-hour Nurburgring race this May. Porsche’s latest supercar will use the same 911 production platform available to consumers today, with a few race-ready features including front-wheel hybrid drive and an innovative flywheel system that stores kinetic energy from braking and then uses it to provide a 160 horsepower burst of speed." - Kurt Starnes

"Murchison contains common amino acids such as glycine, alanine and glutamic acid as well as unusual ones like isovaline and pseudoleucine.[3] The initial report stated that the amino acids were racemic (that is, the chirality of their enantiomers are equally left- and right-handed), indicating that they are not present due to terrestrial contamination. A complex mixture of alkanes was isolated as well, similar to that found in the Miller-Urey experiment. Serine and threonine, usually considered to be earthly contaminants, were conspicuously absent in the samples. A specific family of amino acids called diamino acids was identified in the Murchison meteorite as well.[4]" - Kurt Starnes

"the amino acids were racemic (that is, the chirality of their enantiomers are equally left- and right-handed)" Whew! So glad for that explanation! - iTad

"Q: What is the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement? VHEMT (pronounced vehement) is a movement not an organization. It’s a movement advanced by people who care about life on planet Earth. We’re not just a bunch of misanthropes and anti-social, Malthusian misfits, taking morbid delight whenever disaster strikes humans. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Voluntary human extinction is the humanitarian alternative to human disasters. We don’t carry on about how the human race has shown itself to be a greedy, amoral parasite on the once-healthy face of this planet. That type of negativity offers no solution to the inexorable horrors which human activity is causing. Rather, The Movement presents an encouraging alternative to the callous exploitation and wholesale destruction of Earth’s ecology. As VHEMT Volunteers know, the hopeful alternative to the extinction of millions of species of plants and animals is the voluntary extinction of one species: Homo sapiens... us." - Kurt Starnes

I will be dust in the wind - VALZONE#SCREWED

I read that it never got much colder than 32º, so the snow is very wet and heavy. Lots of folks without power. - Kurt Starnes

Imagine that same post this time last week! Another tribute to context. - Kurt Starnes