Astrochimp

OK, so this time I got a two litre and 13 Mentos, that should be enough for a 12ft. geiser right? Unfortunately the wife had to drink a small glass of Pepsi just before the experiment.

A little suspect don’t you think?

Idahoans want to recongnize the film Napolean Dynamite for promoting Idaho in a positive light.
Lawmakers decided to honor the film and expanded on the details of why they think Napolean Dynamite was such a positive force for Idaho.

WHEREAS, the friendship between Napoleon and Pedro has furthered multiethnic relationships;

WHEREAS, Uncle Rico’s football skills are a testament to Idaho athletics;

WHEREAS, Napoleon’s bicycle and Kip’s skateboard promote better air quality and carpooling as alternatives to fuel-dependent methods of transportation;

http://www3.state.id.us/oasis/2005/HCR029.html

The banana is in trouble, with a capital T.

Virtually all bananas traded internationally are of a single variety, the Cavendish, the genetic roots of which lie in India. Three years ago, New Scientist revealed that the world Cavendish crop was threatened by pandemics of diseases such as that caused by the black sigatoka fungus. The main hope for survival of the Cavendish lies in developing new hybrids resistant to the fungus, but this is a difficult and time-consuming task because the seedless modern fruit does not reproduce sexually and has to be bred from cuttings.

http://www.newscientist.com/

Brilliant writeup on signs that you are a bad programmer by Damien Katz. Two of my favorites are:

# You model all your code in UML before you write it.
Enthusiastic UML modeling is typically done by those who aren’t strong coders, but consider themselves software architects anyway. Modeling tools appeal most to those who think coding can be done in conference room by manipulating little charts. The charts aren’t the design, and will never be the design, that’s what the code is for.

and

# Your users are stupid. Really stupid.
You can’t believe how stupid they are, they constantly forget how to do simplest things and often make dumb mistakes with your applications. You never consider maybe it’s your application that’s stupid because you’re incapable of writing decent software.

Seriously, users are not stupid. If someone cannot do the simplest thing in your application or program , then you have serious problems. If I ever have to have written instructions or have to point to a user what to do first, then I have failed.

http://damienkatz.net/

Everyone is doing it, so why not try? Mixing Mentos and Coke/Pepsi is all the rage. Watch the explosive results as two ordinary items combine. Unfortunately we could not produce the same high flying results seen in other places. Not enough Mentos? Not enough carbonation? See our lame attempts.

Astrochimp’s version of Emeril, or Iron Chef is Fausto. Watch as he fries up some chicken cutlets to a golden brown with tasty results.