2005 Darwin Award Winners

Yes, it’s that magical time of the year again when the Darwin Awards are bestowed, honoring the least evolved among us. Here then, are the glorious winners.

Darwin Award Winners:

1. When his 38-caliber revolver failed to fire at his intended victim during a hold-up in Long Beach, California, would-be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder. He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. This time it worked….. And now, the honorable mentions:

2. The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat cutting machine and, after a little hopping around, submitted a claim to his insurance company. The company expecting negligence, sent out one of its men to have a look for himself. He tried the machine and lost a finger. The chef’s claim was approved.

3. A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his Vehicle to find a woman had taken the space. Understandably, he shot her.

4. After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Not wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone waiting there a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies. The deception wasn’t discovered for 3 days.

5. An American teenager was in the hospital recovering from serious head wounds received from an oncoming train. When asked how he received the injuries, the lad told police that he was simply trying to see how close he could get his head to a moving train before he was hit.

6. A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the counter, and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer…$15. (If someone points a gun at you and gives you money, is a crime committed?)

7. Seems an Arkansas guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He decided that he’d just throw a cinder block through a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinder block and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinder block bounced back and hit the would-be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious. The liquor store window was made of Plexiglas. The whole event was caught on videotape.

8. As a female shopper exited a New York convenience store, a man grabbed her purse and ran. The clerk called 911 immediately, and the woman was able to give them a detailed description of the snatcher. Within minutes, the police apprehended the snatcher. They put him in the car and drove back to the store. The thief was then taken out of the car and told to stand there for a positive ID. To which he replied, “Yes, officer, that’s her. That’s the lady I stole the purse from.”

9. The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan, at 5 a.m., flashed a gun, demanded cash. The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn’t open the cash register without a food order. When the man ordered onion rings, the clerk said they weren’t available for breakfast. The man, frustrated, walked away.

A 5-STAR STUPIDITY AWARD WINNER!
10. When a man attempted to siphon gasoline from a motor home parked on a Seattle street, he got much more than he bargained for. Police arrived at the scene to find a very sick man curled up next to a motor home near spilled sewage. A police spokesman said that the man admitted to trying to steal gasoline and plugged his siphon hose into the motor home’s sewage tank by mistake. The owner of the vehicle declined to press charges, saying that it was the best laugh he’d ever had.

In the interest of bettering human kind please share these with your friends and family … unless of course one of these 10 individuals by chance is a distant relative or long lost friend. In that case be glad they are distant and hope they remain lost.

iBook stampede

Mark Frauenfelder:
Picture 5-8
Richmond VA — A near riot broke out when a crowd of 5,500 to 11,000 people rushed through a gate to buy used iBooks being sold by the school district for $50. Only 1,000 iBook were being sold, and people were in a rush to get to the sales counter first.

There were several minor injuries and one person was taken to a hospital with a leg injury, fire Battalion Chief Steve Wood said during a 1 p.m. news conference. In all, 17 people were treated, the majority for heat- or diabetic-related problems, he said.
Thousands of Henrico County residents and/or taxpayers stood in a half-mile-long line as dawn broke while others waited in cars parked nearby or milled about not far from the entrance to RIR. One official estimate put the crowd at 5,500. Other observers estimated more than twice that.

Many had come prepared with books, snacks, umbrellas and chairs. The first car arrived at 1:30 a.m. By 6:30 vehicles were backed up on Laburnum Avenue about a half mile to Carolina Avenue.

Originally posted by Mark Frauenfelder from Boing Boing

NASA computer simulation of air traffic over US

Mark Frauenfelder:
Picture 1-18 I like this video of thousands of little blue cartoon planes moving around like ants over a map of the United States. It sure is crowded east of the Mississippi.
Link (via The Daily Pick)

Reader comment: Mike Outmesguine says: Here’s a really cool site that lets you get closeups of air traffic at several airports.

Originally posted by Mark Frauenfelder from Boing Boing

1976 computer re-released with space for modern motherboard

Cory Doctorow:

James sez, “The IMSAI 8080 computer system (circa 1976) has been re-released by the original company. The case accepts a modern PC motherboard alongside the vintage S-100 system. Think of it as the ultimate old-meets-new case mod, complete with lots of switches and flashing lights.”

Link

(Thanks, James!)

Originally posted by Cory Doctorow from Boing Boing

How to Create Your Own ILM for Almost Nothing

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diyilm
Victor, over at DownloadSquad, has posted one of the most amazing How Tos. If you are at all interested in DIY film-making, you’re going to want to go check it out.

There’s a lot of good gems in the tutorial, including a link to Director’s Boards, which I didn’t know about and Blender, which I’ve mentioned here before. I also like that the Mac system recommended for the project is a Mac mini. That alone is a pretty good argument against the Macs are more expensive than PCs myth. 

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Originally posted by C.K. Sample, III from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)