Wow. I thought Volvos from the ’80s were safe vehicles, but check out the unbelievably minor damage this school bus took when a Hummer careened into it. Luckily, the driver of the wrecked vehicle was rushed to a hospital. As for the bus, there were no kids on board, and the driver seems to be doing fine. Makes you wonder, though, if this is the sort of hurt a Hummer takes when it runs into something, perhaps more rappers need to start pimping out school buses. IndyStar photo and story via Ettf.

In an effort to reduce the amount of paper offices go through every day, the folks at Xerox have come up with a novel printing technique that seems fascinating. According to news.com, Xerox’s self-erasing paper is specially coated, then printed on with what appears to be a purple ink. No toner is actually used in the system. When left alone, the ink will disappear in 16 hours. If you need fresh paper sooner, though, simply place the paper back into the printer/copier, and the sheets will act like clean paper, emerging with only the new print marks. While my initial thoughts were that this just makes it that much easier to erase a paper trail, I grew much fonder of the idea when I started thinking about how much paper we use in schools and offices every day. According to Xerox’s studies, 45% of the paper used in meetings and memos ends up in recycling bins by the end of the month, while most documents end up stored on hard drives and e-mail. While the idea is still in the development phase, Xerox has yet to announce whether they’ll mass-market the technology; here’s hoping they do.  Link via G4’s The Feed.

Take that, Google Earth! See ya, Microsoft Virtual Earth! I think this web toy of sorts is much cooler — it lets you view the earth from pretty much any satellite of your choosing (that’s this morning’s view from ECHOSTAR 8 at left). The satellite thing isn’t your speed? The same website also lets you check out the planet from the vantage point of the Sun, the Moon, the night side of the Earth, “above any location on the planet specified by latitude, longitude and altitude,” or above various cities around the globe.

Okay, now the whole “total surveillance thing” is starting to freak me out a little.

via Arbroath

Ever wanted to turn a famous work of art into a print ad? Well, you just missed your chance. The deadline has passed, but you can still head over to Worth1000.com and see the gallery.

I feel like a tease, getting your hopes up like that. So let’s try this: pick any product, then pick any character from any book to be your product’s pitchman.

To start us off, I’ll pick Lennie from Of Mice and Men. He can chase the Energizer Bunny around the Salinas Valley in an award-winning series of TV spots.  Lennie could also work for Trix.

It’s time for another whimsical Tuesday Turnip Google search wherein I type a random phrase and we see what kind of interesting factoids “turn-up.”

Today’s phrase is “accounts for half of,” unearthing the following:

Google accounts for half of all US web searches

Underage and Adult Excessive Drinking Accounts for Half of U.S. Alcohol Sales

Overall, space debris accounts for half of the catastrophic risk on any flight.

[Spam is] a billion-dollar business that now accounts for half of all e-mail traffic

Smoking is the single greatest cause of preventable death in the United States and accounts for half of all myocardial infarctions, or heart attacks

With sales of about $6 billion a year, [Japanese comic books] accounts for half of all literature publishing [in Japan], according to experts.

Beer accounts for half of all beverage consumption [in Canada]

Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington accounts for half of the railroad’s business and 60 percent of its ticket revenue

Smoking Accounts for Half of All Mortality in Males of Lower Social Class

Online shopping accounts for half of retail sector growth

Alcohol is the most abused drug and accounts for half of the automobile fatalities and nearly half of industrial accidents.

Biotechnology now accounts for half of all patents filed by academic scientists.

Cannabis accounts for half of all drug arrests nationwide, with nearly 90 percent for simple possession

The Babystuff blog is apparently dedicated to bringing you all things baby. And we do mean all things:

“Measuring the amount of oxygen in the blood of a fetus during labor has no bearing on whether a Caesarean section is performed and does not affect the health of the newborn baby, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found in a multicenter study.

South County residents may soon be able to get Chili’s baby-back ribs.

Once charged with aggravated battery to a child in a shaken-baby case, a Lockport woman pleaded guilty Wednesday to a lesser charge.”

Perhaps, in retrospect, an 11-pound turkey was a bit excessive for two people. (We’re just glad we didn’t go with the 22-pounder.) We’re so sick of picking over the carcass that we’re tempted to use it as a football. Got any better ideas? This week’s contest takes a turn for the practical: What the heck are we supposed to do with all this leftover turkey? Answers can be practical (recipes), charitable (make sandwiches; give them to the homeless), whimsical (dress it up as a snowman), inadvisable (feed it to the lion at the local zoo), whatever you wish. The best one gets a copy of What’s the Difference? Submit ‘em by Sunday night at midnight, and if we still have any turkey left — we’re guessing we will — we’ll take your advice.

Whenever I see a truly bizarre crime story, I immediately think “Pasco County, Florida.” This is partly because I once worked as a crime reporter in Pasco — where I reported on, among other things, a case of a hanged pet goat — and partly because, well, there’s a reason Fark has an entire category devoted to the state. So guess where this gruesome tale comes from?

NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. — A woman’s body was found wedged upside-down behind a bookcase in the home she shared with relatives who had spent nearly two weeks looking for her.

A spokesman for the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office said Mariesa Weber’s death was not suspicious. Family members said they believe she fell over as she tried to adjust the plug of a television behind the bookshelf.

Weber, 38, returned home Oct. 28 and greeted her mother, then wasn’t seen again. Her family thought she had been kidnapped and contacted authorities. Family members scoured her room for clues but found nothing, though they did notice a strange smell.

Two thoughts. (1) Never never never plug something in where you can’t reach it easily; even without the risk of death, it’s annoying. (2) Isn’t this basically what happened to the dad in Gremlins?

Divers in Lake Michigan recently discovered something that could cast a pall over anyone’s holiday season: a 94-year-old shipwreck, complete with the personal effects of the 17 men who went down with the ship and the more than 5,000 Christmas trees the ship was carrying. Around the turn of the century, being in the Christmas tree shipping business was a great way to make a seasonal buck — and undoubtedly make you very popular as you docked at Chicago’s harbor.

The captain of the Rouse Simmons, however, never made it to shore. Captain Hermann “Christmas Tree” Schuenmann, as he was known, had some debts to pay that year. As a result, he had loaded the ship down to its absolute maximum weight capacity and got caught in one of those famously unpredictable (and fierce) Lake Michigan storms. The heavy ice that formed on the trees was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and on November 13, 1912, the ship went down. Tragically, Hermann’s brother August — also a Christmas tree captain — had died sixteen years earlier in a similar accident.

Premiere recently published its list of the 20 Most Overrated Movies of All Time and the list is sure to tick some folks off. In fact, most of the flicks on the list are more frequently found on ”Greatest Movies” lists. Here are a few listed:

American Beauty
Clerks
Fantasia
Chariots of Fire
Good Will Hunting
Forrest Gump
A Beautiful Mind
Mystic River
Moonstruck
Easy Rider
Gone with the Wind

Agree? Disagree? What movies would you put on the most overrated list?

Link via Pop Candy