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Allowing users to search by name, rank, branch of service or hometown the service shares information about the record of each soldier’s record.

Facts about The Interactive Wall
At full size, The Wall image on Footnote is about 460 feet wide (400,000 pixels wide by 12,500 pixels tall).
We found 58,320 names inscribed on The Wall.
There are about 70 names which are duplicates or misspellings.
8 names are women.
2,056 are listed as “body not recovered.”
Average age is 22.8 years old.
The image was assembled from 6,301 images photographed by Peter Krogh and stitched by Darren Higgins

Interactive Vietnam Veterans Memorial ** Thanks GearLive**

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I’m not sure I get the ins and outs but… Wow!

A mathematical puzzle that baffled the top minds in the esoteric field of symbolic dynamics for nearly four decades has been cracked — by a 63-year-old immigrant who once had to work as a security guard.

Avraham Trahtman, a mathematician who also toiled as a laborer after moving to Israel from Russia, succeeded where dozens failed, solving the elusive “Road Coloring Problem.”

The conjecture essentially assumed it’s possible to create a “universal map” that can direct people to arrive at a certain destination, at the same time, regardless of starting point. Experts say the proposition could have real-life applications in mapping and computer science.

After 38 Years, Israeli Solves Math Code [Chicago Tribune] Thanks Dave Farber

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The Belgians are standing up and doing what is right. Thanks to them.

The head of the Senate even condemned the “cowardliness of our administration” during the 1940-1944 occupation.

At first Jewish citizens had to be registered, then they were obliged to wear yellow stars, then schools and hospitals were segregated. Raids soon rounded up Jews in Belgian cities and they were deported to Nazi concentration camps. Some cities helped with the deportations that sent thousands to their deaths.

After the war, many cases were considered too delicate to handle by military courts and any involvement of the authorities in the persecution was rejected.

With the restitution, “the primary objective was clearly to close a section of the past, which still seems half-open, more than 60 years after the events,” the commission said.

Belgium Gov’t to Pay Holocaust Survivors [Breitbart.com]

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Astronauts bound for orbit this week will dabble in science fiction, assembling a “monstrous” two-armed space station robot that will rise like Frankenstein from its transport bed.

It seems DEXTRE, as this monster robot is known, is guaranteed not to run amok or eat Tokyo — but its might eat up some jobs for astronauts. At least one Astronaut was a little defensive.

Even though it’s suited for space station maintenance, astronauts are faster, Linnehan said. As for Hubble, he said Dextre cannot compare to a human repairman because it lacks fine motor control, and cannot think and react to problems that might crop up.

Dextre can’t think and react yet — but wait until he gets hit with a massive dose of Gamma radiation and hulks out.

Astronauts will assemble robot in space[Yahoo News]

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For some reason it’s newsworthy that this simple flannel-lined windbreaker by Baracuta of Manchester has just reached its 70th birthday. Maybe it’s because Ryan O’Neal helped popularize it, or because Frank Sinatra did, or because Elvis did or because yesterday’s Daniel Craig Steve McQueen wore it too.

Me, I hate having ribbed elastic cuffs on my wrists, so I never liked these kind of jackets, but thousands of guys who took their inspiration from the aforementioned style mavens can’t be entirely wrong.

Everyone has a classic “man’s man” uncle or some friend of the family who is always wearing one of these, maybe a knock-off of it. The guy’s in his early-mid 60’s now and is still hale, at least fronts it convincingly. This guy laughs loudly, enjoys being the center of attention, and while he loves the ladies, he prefers being out with the boys. He drives a car that “performs”, was probably in the service, and he likes to chop wood. Maybe he claims to know karate. He’s seen the original “Bullitt” at least twice, and he thinks you need to get up off of your ass and do something with your life.

Hey, that’s what this iconic jacket says to me. What does it say to you?

It’s a “G” Thang [style.com]

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Says Chowdhury,

I made a pong controller that was made from a bra. The mapping for the controller was simple – touching the left breast made the pong paddle go left and the right breast made the paddle go right….I wanted to create a type of video game play that would center around a couple’s intimacy and where two people would touch each other in order to play the game.

It’s a neat idea, but if you’re a button masher, she’d better be into rough sex.

Intimate Controllers [jennylc.com]

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• “Few drugs will be swallowed or taken into the stomach unless needed for the direct treatment of that organ itself. Drugs needed by the lungs, for instance, will be applied directly to those organs through the skin and flesh.” Today’s pharmaceutical companies make more pills than anything else.

• “In great cities there will be public opera-houses whose singers and musicians are paid from funds endowed by philanthropists and by the government. The piano will be capable of changing its tone from cheerful to sad. Many devises will add to the emotional effect of music.” All absolutely true.

• “Wireless telephone and telegraph circuits will span the world. A husband in the middle of the Atlantic will be able to converse with his wife sitting in her boudoir in Chicago. We will be able to telephone to China quite as readily as we now talk from New York to Brooklyn. By an automatic signal they will connect with any circuit in their locality without the intervention of a “hello girl”.” Also, nailed it. We’re even better than this prediction, go us!

• “There will be No C, X or Q in our every-day alphabet. They will be abandoned because unnecessary.” Kwite an ekstreme konsept.

Predictions of the Year 2000 from The Ladies Home Journal of December 1900 [yorktownhistory.org]

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Monster Mash would chart twice again, in 1970 and 1973, but it was the only hit that Pickett would ever make, despite a few efforts. Nevertheless, the man continued cashing in on the song for the rest of his life and it was the reason he was always booked on Halloween.

Here’s hoping the fellow’s funeral is, indeed, a “graveyard smash.”

1-Hit Wonder Bobby `Boris’ Pickett, Voice of Halloween Favorite `Monster Mash,’ Dies at 69 [ap.org]

(image: themonstermash.com)

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Seth Green and Matthew Senreich, the creators of the Adult Swim show, will be producing a special half-hour episode of their irreverent stop-motion program to be aired at 10 p.m. June 17th as part of a Robot Chicken marathon.

An impressive list of personalities will be providing voice-over duties on the special, including Conan O’Brien, Malcolm McDowell, Hulk Hogan, and Mark Hamil as Luke Skywalker.

‘Star Wars’, Lucas prey for ‘Chicken’ [hollywoodreporter.com]

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In practice I can’t see how what he did is really all that bad. How is taking an already-dead animal out of the drink and carving it up in the name of fashion harming its species in any way?

On the other hand, what is to stop poachers and other greedy men of weak moral turpitude from trapping and killing alligators and other endangered animals of valuable skins, etc., claiming, “it was dead when I found it, officer, ” if examples aren’t made. I feel bad for Mr. Hodges, who had to cough up $2000 bail money, but that’s the way it goes. Examples must be made, I guess.

But seriously, let’s say a gator up and dies in your back yard. You know it isn’t going to affect the population one way or the other if you carve the sucker up and make a voodoo necklace of its teeth, etc. You have my blessing, just make sure your neighbors aren’t nosy dicks first.

Need for Belt No Defense in Gator Bust [ap.org]

(image: myfwc.com)

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He yelled at the attorneys and talked smack at the presiding judge, calling him a “judge gone wild.”

Having reached a settlement with the seven women who were suing him for shooting them as minors, his reasons for being in court in the first place were moot, but the settlement came through too late to spare him from his incident in the trial.

Francis is quoted as saying,

I am sorry for my behavior. It was wrong. I had heard about appeals and things and I was confused. I am sorry, I really am.

Nevertheless, surely many of us secretly love knowing that the pompous prick who has enjoyed far too much success on the assets of young and foolish women the world over is going to serve actual jail time for shooting off his mouth in a court of law. Here’s hoping his cell mates go wild, too.

‘Girls Gone Wild’ founder gets jail time [news.yahoo.com]

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Contributing to this prediction of doom is largely the fact that said girlfriend, Soanya Ahmad, is the tender, naive age of 23 years old, and she has never sailed outside of the Hudson river. Stowe, on the other hand, has lived aboard a boat for decades already.

They plan to be completely self-sufficient for the duration, including trapping rain water and desalinating sea water for potability. The 70′ double masted schooner, built by Stowe and his family, is crammed full of provisions, and both parties have undergone training in basic first aid. The Anne, as the schooner is named, is also outfitted with solar panels for their electrical needs. “The Mars Ocean Odyssey,” as they’ve called it, has been funded by individual contributions and corporate donations.

Reid Stowe is a lifelong adventurer, and given his experience and discipline I’m confident that he’s got the wherewithal to undertake such an expedition. But his companion is barely into her 20’s and I’m with the skeptics who fear that she’ll bug out and need to jump ship in less than the thousand day stretch.

N.Y. duo sets sail on 1,000-day cruise [ap.org]

1000 Days at Sea [1000days.net]

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C’mon. It’s Ponch. Yes, he’s been on two seasons of MTV’s The Surreal Life, and somehow managed to not come off as a total douchebag, especially compared to the likes of similarly washed up has-beens Vanilla Ice, Gary Coleman, and Chyna. Then there are his real estate infomercials, endlessly aired on late night television. These things do not a relevant celebrity, nor a Walk Of Famer make.

If we’re acknowledging Estrada in such a fashion, elevating his clout to that of other Walk Stars, such as Jack Nicholson, Joan Crawford and Gene Kelley, why not give Flava Flav his star, or Suzanne Sommers, or even Ron Popeil?

‘CHiPs’ Actor Erik Estrada, 58, Gets a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame [ap.org]

(Image: answers.com)

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It has been legal for some time for wine distributors to dole out samples of their products, but to date beer makers have not been afforded the same rights under state law. A bill sponsored by Sen. Pat Kreitlow is expected to be signed by the governor early next week.

Surprisingly, individual liquor stores maintain the option of refusing to serve samples. Mike Fassbender, owner of Fuzzy’s Liquor in Sun Prairie, prefers to abstain from allowing free booze to be served in his shop, claiming fears that he could be held accountable if someone indulges at his place of business and then causes damages later. The weenie sells booze for a living, and he’s worried about the effects of six ounces of beer. In Wisconsin. WTF?

Wis. Lawmakers Approve Free Beer Samples [ap.org]

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The edges have been good and worn off of the marriage by then. You’ve seen each other vomit a few times, you pee in front of each other (and in some particularly intimate relationships the dreaded #2 as well), you’ve possibly changed some diapers together, dealt with taxes, found that certain aspects of each other’s personality, once charming, are now near-insufferable. One or both of you probably has a few extra pounds in places that don’t quite work, and your sex life has probably taken a hit. You’ve begun to relish the moments apart as much as the good moments together.

It’s inevitable that the honeymoon is over after a few years, there’s nothing you can do about it but embrace this fact as gracefully as possible. In fortunate cases all of this has somehow led you to a point of a deeper love for each other. In others, it has a dampening effect, obeying that lousy law of diminishing returns. Lifestyle patterns give way to routines, which harden further into ruts. Ennui sets in tender teeth which slowly gnaw away. Something primal begins to itch within your soul, a hungering for new thrills, for excitement. We begin to fantasize about every other woman we see, even ones we wouldn’t have given a second glance to a few years prior. But what we really want is for all of our old drinking buddies to be in the same goddamned boat as us.

Married couples are always putting pressure on their friends to make the leap and join them in the matrimonial stew. We envy the sense of freedom and irresponsibility that our unwed buddies still enjoy, we resent that we must bear witness to and live vicariously through our single chums’ seemingly more exciting lifestyles. The proverbial grass is never greener than on the lawn of our unmarried pals; it’s far easier to coax them into the same trap as us than to escape our own and join them in the pack once more. Besides which, it provides us with a thoroughly sanctioned excuse to kick up some serious shit at the bachelor party.

Misanthropic scumbags that we are, we joyfully regale our grooms-in-training with plastic balls and chain, amidst pealing laughter and cries of “it’s all over now,” “hand over your checkbook,” “welcome to the club, buddy!” Now that we’ve helped guide them into the approach vector, we paint the landing strip with somber tones of doom, handing the hapless boob yet another shot of tequila and another fiver for the stripper.

Perhaps at no other time in their friendship are men so brutal to each other than at the bachelor party. After baiting them for months, years, extolling the virtues of marriage to our single compadres, we suddenly pull the switch on them in their weakest moments while they’re nervous, drunk, and the center of attention. We ask them all night in word and deed, “are you sure you wanna do this? Give all this up? There’s no turning back!”

What we’re actually doing is testing their mettle. We stuff the night chock full of bacchanalian delights in wine, women, and song, we insist that all this goodness will be done when they say “I do,” and we laugh at their folly. But the real point is the excessiveness of it all, the oversaturation of our friend with decadence, leaving him sick and over-glutted by morning. If we’ve done our job correctly, he’ll be gazing deep into the bottom of a toilet, heaving away in technicolor regret, thoughts barely assembled, save for one solid notion: As awful as marriage could possibly be, it’s got to be better than this.

As he curses our names for poisoning him so mercilessly in body and spirit, he conversely sings the praise of his bride, his redeemer of all man’s ills. She is his savior, his salvation, and in looking down upon his frail and stinking mess and somehow loving him in spite of himself, his woman bestows nobility upon him and raises him up into a higher place.

Though marriage may be a gilded cage, perhaps it is also a protective barrier against the debauched foolishness of a single life; a proper bachelor party drives this point home like nothing else.

(image: Target For Matrimony, Steve McNeil, 1952)

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The prospects for this research continuing are hanging, as expected, on the question of ethics. Professor Karim Nayernia of the university has said,

The problem is whether the sperm cells are functional or not. I don’t think there is an ethical barrier, so long as it’s safe. We are in the process of applying for ethical approval. We are preparing now to apply to use the existing bone marrow stem cell bank here in Newcastle. We need permission from the patient who supplied the bone marrow, the ethics committee and the hospital itself.

German researchers were able to create viable artificial sperm from mice last year that did result in live offspring; the math works, but Prof. Nayerina estimates that it will be another three to five years before his labs can coax human spermatagonial stem cells to progress to mature sperm in the laboratory.

The prospect of all-female conception [news.independent.co.uk]

(image: research.unc.edu)

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