A strange new growth has emerged from the manure pits of midwestern hog farms. The results are literally explosive. Since 2009, six farms have blown up after methane trapped in an unidentified, pit-topping foam caught a spark. In the afflicted region, the foam is found in roughly 1 in 4 hog farms. A gelatinous goop that resembles melted brown Nerf, the foam captures gases emitted by bacteria living in manure, which on industrial farms gathers in pits beneath barns that may contain several thousand animals.The pits are emptied each fall, after which waste builds up again, turning them into something like giant stomachs: dark, oxygen-starved percolators in which bacteria and single-celled organisms metabolize the muck. Methane is a natural byproduct, and is typically dispersed by fans before it reaches explosive levels. But inside the foam’s bubbles, methane reaches levels of 60 to 70 percent, or more than four times what’s considered dangerous. The foam can reach depths of more than four feet.

The Brown County Sheriff's Office said Christopher Tolle, 23, broke into the Five Points Animal Hospital near Sardinia and Kendall Tire near Macon on March 4.
Tolle was arrested Monday after an investigation identified him as the suspect.

The Man Who Broke Atlantic City
Don Johnson won nearly $6 million playing blackjack in one night, single-handedly decimating the monthly revenue of Atlantic City’s Tropicana casino. Not long before that, he’d taken the Borgata for $5 million and Caesars for $4 million. Here’s how he did it.

The virtual communities created by online games have provided us with a new medium for social interaction and communication. Avatar Machine is a system which replicates the aesthetics and visuals of third person gaming, allowing the user to view themselves as a virtual character in real space via a head mounted interface. The system potentially allows for a diminished sense of social responsibility, and could lead the user to demonstrate behaviors normally reserved for the gaming environment.

We live with a value system that I call the Extrovert Ideal – the omnipresent belief that the ideal self is gregarious, alpha and comfortable in the spotlight. The archetypal extrovert prefers action to contemplation, risk-taking to heed-taking, certainty to doubt. He or she favours quick decisions, even at the risk of being wrong; works well in teams and socialises in groups. We like to think that we value individuality, but all too often we admire one type of individual – the kind who is comfortable "putting himself out there". Sure, we allow technologically gifted loners who launch companies in garages to have any personality they please, but they are the exceptions, not the rule, and our tolerance extends mainly to those who get fabulously wealthy or hold the promise of doing so.

Sometimes I try to make a sandwich but it just doesn't work out the way I want it to, and I get real hungry and then like I try hard to do it, and I like, put bacon and mayonnaise on it but it just doesn't work out the way I want it to. Its like, I concentrate on it real hard, but it just doesn't work out. And everything sandwich I make and everything sandwich I eat, it never turns out. Its like, I need time to figure these things out, but theres always someone there going hey mike, you know we've been noticing you've been eating a lot of sandwiches lately, you know? You need to maybe eat a salad. And like, maybe you should exercise sometimes, you'll feel a lot better. And I'm all like oh, nah, its ok, you know. I'll just eat this sandwich. Just leave me alone, I'll eat this sandwich, you know? I'm just eating it by myself. And they go well, you know, if you want the number for Jenny Craig, I'll be here, you know? And you'll probably feel a lot better if you stop eating so many sandwiches! So why don't you talk about it? I go no, I don't want to! I'm ok. I'll eat my sandwich by myself! But they just keep bugging me, they just keep bugging me, and it builds up inside!

Fans have been marking the death of horror writer HP Lovecraft 75 years ago. Unrecognised in his own lifetime, he has gone on to influence figures as diverse as Stephen King and Alan Moore, explains British horror writer Ramsey Campbell.

As the investigation continues into last month's fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black teenager killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer in Florida, psychology researchers can point to one aspect of the tragedy: how easy it is to "see" that someone is holding a gun when he is not.
In the latest research, scientists found that simply holding a gun, as George Zimmerman was when he confronted Martin in a gated community in Sanford, Florida, has an effect.
"The mere act of holding a gun makes it more likely that you will perceive an object as a gun," said James Brockmole, associate professor of psychology at the University of Notre Dame and co-author of an upcoming paper on that phenomenon.

How much of anything can you do in the e-world without reading? The use of any computer above the toddler-entertainment level is dependent on at least some literacy in the user. Operations can be learned mechanically, but still, the main element of a keyboard is letters, and icons take you only so far. Texting may have replaced all other forms of verbality for some people, but texting is just a primitive form of writing: you can’t do it unless you no u frm i, lol.

It looks to me as if people are in fact reading and writing more than they ever did. People who used to work and talk together now work each alone in a cubicle, writing and reading all day long on screen. Communication that used to be oral, face to face or on the telephone, is now written, emailed, and read.

None of that has much to do with book-reading, true; yet it’s hard for me to see how the death of the book is to result from the overwhelming prevalence of a technology that makes reading a more invaluable skill than it ever was.

A lot of British people will not have heard of Game of Thrones. This tale of family strife and royal intrigue in a fantasy world called Westeros has been a big hit on HBO in the US. Millions watched the first series, justifying the movie-like budget poured into the production.
The second series of the show, which starts on HBO on Sunday, and Sky Atlantic on Monday, is the subject of much more hype in the US than in the UK.
But while aimed at a US audience and adapted from the books of American author George RR Martin, Game of Thrones is entirely dominated by British accents.

When you draw a picture or take a photo, you sometimes form a rectangle with your hands to decide the composition. With this camera, you can take a photo using the exact same motion. You attach this device to your index finger, and form a rectangle with your finger like this. You take the photo by using the rectangle as the viewfinder, like this. When you push hard with your thumb, the shutter is pressed.

You have the Will to be a spellcaster in real life, and ThinkGeek is here like a wizened oracle to deliver you the way. Introducing the Technomancer Digital Wizard Hoodie. Donning this unique garment will transform you into a powerful mage ready to blast off spells at a moment's notice. The sleeves of the Technomancer contain dual accelerometers which sense the movements of your hands. Move them in one of the pre-programmed spell sequences and the sleeves of the hoodie light from within, the internal speaker booms, and the hood illuminates your face in an eerie glow.

"There's a mania for a uniquely American pop culture, something like the weird cowboys-and-Indians fetish of architecture that most
Americans are scarcely aware of. At first I wasn't sure what she was talking about, but gradually it began to dawn on me. I wasn't sure what she was talking about, but gradually it began to dawn There's a mania for a uniquely American pop culture, something like the weird cowboys-and-Indians fetish of architecture that most Americans are scarcely aware of. At first I wasn't sure what she was talking about, but gradually it began to dawn There's a mania for a uniquely American form of architecture that most Americans are scarcely aware of. At first I wasn't sure what she was talking about, but gradually it began to dawn There's a British obsession with the Fifties. There's a British obsession with the aberrant French hunger for a uniquely American pop culture, something like the weird cowboys-and-Indians fetish of American pop culture, something like the weird cowboys-and-Indians fetish of architecture that most Americans are scarcely aware of. At first I wasn't sure what she was talking about, but gradually it began to dawn There's a mania for a
uniquely American pop culture, something like the weird cowboys-and-Indians fetish of architecture that most Americans are scarcely aware of. At first I wasn't sure what she was talking about, but gradually it began to dawn There's a mania for a uniquely American form of American form of architecture"