Cop spends weeks to trick an 18-year-old into possession and sale of a gram of pot

[Oh, hey, were you needing something to be pissed off about? -egg]

Cop spends weeks to trick an 18-year-old into possession and sale of a gram of pot:

More fun from the self-loathing society: This American Life had a show about how young female undercover cops infiltrated a high school and flirted with boys to entrap them into selling pot, so they could charge them with felonies and destroy their lives at an early age.

Last year in three high schools in Florida, several undercover police officers posed as students. The undercover cops went to classes, became Facebook friends and flirted with the other students. One 18-year-old honor student named Justin fell in love with an attractive 25-year-old undercover cop after spending weeks sharing stories about their lives, texting and flirting with each other.



One day she asked Justin if he smoked pot. Even though he didn't smoke marijuana, the love-struck teen promised to help find some for her. Every couple of days she would text him asking if he had the marijuana. Finally, Justin was able to get it to her. She tried to give him $25 for the marijuana and he said he didn't want the money -- he got it for her as a present.


A short while later, the police did a big sweep and arrest 31 students -- including Justin. Almost all were charged with selling a small amount of marijuana to the undercover cops. Now Justin has a felony hanging over his head.

Sick: Young, Undercover Cops Flirted With Students to Trick Them Into Selling Pot (Via Aurich Lawson)

Documentary about inventor of giant 3D printer that can print a house

Documentary about inventor of giant 3D printer that can print a house:

The Man Who Prints Houses is a documentary about Enrico Dini, an Italian roboticist who switched tracks to design and build enormous 3D printers capable of outputting houses:

Having built his printer – the world’s largest – from scratch, there’s no shortage of work offers for this highly-skilled and imaginative engineer. Throughout the course of the film, we see Enrico embark on an array of innovative projects: constructing the tallest printed sculpture in existence, working with Foster + Partners and the European Space Agency on a programme to colonise the moon, solidifying a sand dune in the desert, and printing the closest thing to an actual house: a small Italian dwelling known as

a trullo.

The long-term nature of these projects and the current financial climate take their toll on Enrico and his team of workers, as contracts fail to be honoured and the infant technology stutters. Travel back to 2008 and it’s a different story, as Enrico describes how he was staring a €50m investment in the face.

Just as he’s about to sell up and move to London, the stock market crashes… he must rebuild his business all over again.

The Man Who Prints Houses

(Thanks, gaiapunk!)

White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army" performed on things found in a laboratory

White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army" performed on things found in a laboratory:

The Blast Lab at Imperial College, London, is a place where scientists study how explosions affect the human skeleton, and try to find ways to mitigate some of those effects. As you can imagine, this involves blowing stuff up fairly regularly and The Blast Lab is a pretty loud place.

But the team of students behind PLoS' Inside Knowledge blog noticed something cool about that. The sounds in The Blast Lab weren't just loud noises, they were loud notes. Edit them together, and you could reproduce a whole song, using nothing but sounds recorded in a working scientific laboratory.

In this video, the Inside Knowledge crew plays The White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army" on the Imperial College Blast Lab. In case you're curious, here's the breakdown showing what lab equipment the team used to replicate the sound of which instruments.

Bass Guitar: Main sensor output cable

Bass Drum: Blast Rig

Toms: Hammer & Storm Case

Hi-Hat: Oil Spray

Cymbal: Blast Plate

'Vocals': Laces to contain dummy leg during blast

'Guitar': Accelerometer cable & Fastening Strings

Video Link

Submitterated by Ben Good

#798; The Traditional Relationship

#798; The Traditional Relationship:

Good Cop, Dadaist Cop

Good Cop, Dadaist Cop:

PlayFic: an online toolset and community for easily making text-adventure games

PlayFic: an online toolset and community for easily making text-adventure games:

Andy Baio and his 15-year-old nephew Cooper McHatton created PlayFic, "a community for writing, sharing, and playing interactive fiction games (aka 'text adventures') entirely from your browser, using a 'natural language'-inspired language called Inform 7." Basically, it's a site for making your own Zork-style games, sharing them, critiquing them, and collaborating on them. It includes a "view game source" button that, like the "view source" item in browsers, can be used to kick-start your own progress into creation by seeing how the work you admire is put together. Waxy sez,"

My hope is that Playfic opens up the world of interactive fiction to a much wider audience — young writers, fanfic authors, and culture remixers of all ages.

While the language can be tricky, building simple games is surprisingly easy. Cooper had never coded anything or made a game before trying Playfic, and within 30 minutes of futzing around, he'd made his first game.

Some stuff is broken and missing, but I'd love to hear what you make of it. Open to any and all feedback. Go make some games!

Playfic

(via Wonderland)

Bonsai fairylands of Takanori Aiba

[Aaaaahhhhhhh. -egg]

Bonsai fairylands of Takanori Aiba:

Takanori Aiba's bonsai and epoxy fancies are beautiful, gnarly fairylands, full of whimsy and perfectly weird.

(Image: "Bonsai-B" and "Hôtel de Michelin" by TAKANORI AIBA, copyright TOKYO GOOD IDEA Development Institute Co, Ltd, used with permission)

A walk in the woods with 42 Saint Bernards

A walk in the woods with 42 Saint Bernards:

Over at Submitterator, anelson sends us this surreal video of a child playing with a huge pack of Saint Bernards in a temperate rainforest in British Columbia. I love the idea of being surrounded by these panting, gallumphing beasts.

Thanks anelson! [Video Link] Check out more wonderful submissions here

Apollo 17 astronauts singing on the moon

Apollo 17 astronauts singing on the moon:

El Zombre sends us this great video of Apollo 17 astronauts singing a silly song together on the moon surface. I dug in a little, and Wikipedia confirms that this is real footage!

Thanks El Zombre! [Video Link]

How to: Cook like Nathan Myhrvold in your own kitchen

How to: Cook like Nathan Myhrvold in your own kitchen: If you ever needed a good reason to buy a whipped cream maker: The New York Times adapted several of Nathan Myhrvold's Modernist Cuisine recipes to work with ingredients and equipment you're actually likely to have in your home kitchen. The whipped cream maker is the only tool used here that I don't own. And it might be worth buying one if it means that I can make bloody mary-infused celery sticks.

Steam-powered Stirling-engine toy car kit

[Well, now, that's a thing of beauty. -egg]

Steam-powered Stirling-engine toy car kit:

This very beautiful working Stirling-engine steam-car model was made by the Germany company Böhm Stirling-Technik and sells for $500.

The stirling Car A1

(Thanks, Francesco!)

Collector of 19th century 3D "devil tissues"

[This is AWESOME. -egg]

Collector of 19th century 3D "devil tissues":

In the latest episode of The Midnight Archive, the show's creator Ronni Thomas shares his own collection of 19th century 3D devil tissues. Also known as diableries, they're a particularly unique species of hand-painted color stereogram depicting "Satan's daily life in hell," as Thomas says. "Stereoscopic Terror"