Remember public access television? In these heady days of satellite tv and internet streams, we don’t hear as much about it, but back when you could count the number of channels you had on your fingers and toes, local cable access channels were a lot harder to ignore. Often unwatchably boring — our local station regularly featured a guy who would read the newspaper to the camera — they occasionally featured the craziest stuff on TV. Cracked did a great feature on insane moments in cable access, but of their seven picks, here’s our favorite: a show called Let’s Paint TV, in which its host paints while jogging on a treadmill and, better still, making blended drinks. The guy is just out of his gourd, and we love it!
Yes, public access TV is a beautiful, federally-mandated thing, but cable giants like Comcast and Verizon are lobbying to have public access budgets they’re required to provide reduced or eliminated altogether. For now, at least, we’ve still got our PubTV — but perhaps not for much longer. Of course, there’s YouTube and a hundred other internet-based alternatives, but it’s not quite the same; the stars of public access do it live, they do it regularly, and they’re just weirder (sorry, Numa-Numa guy).

Who’ll Stop the Rain?

Countries go to great lengths of make sure the Olympics are perfect- Athens officials took unconventional steps to clear away stray dogs and prostitutes. But Beijing’s preparations may take the cake- they’ve designed a rocket to blast away rain clouds and guarantee sun. History shows that there’s a 50 percent chance of rain during the opening and closing ceremonies, but Chinese scientists have created a method to disperse precipitation clouds and prevent rain over the city. The rocket is still being tested and while some meteorologists say it won’t work, Chinese officials expect nothing but sunny days ahead.

NASA gets sexy
Current spacesuits have layers upon layers of fabric and pressurized gas to keep a safe amount of air pressure on the body. But they’re so bulky and unflattering. Luckily, astronauts can now show off their svelte figures with the new BioSuit, a spandex-like alternative in space fashion. This new suit provides pressure by tightly wrapping the fabric around the body, but also allows for flexible movement. The redesign wasn’t just done for vanity- the current suits weigh almost 300 pounds and make movement difficult when astronauts aren’t floating in space; the new suits will make those football games on the moon a little less awkward.
Harry Potter and the Environmental Conscience
Admit it, the only thought you had when you were reading the new Harry Potter book wasn’t ‘Will Harry defeat Voldemort?’ or ‘I wonder who’s going to die.’ No, you were too busy thinking ‘This behemoth of a book probably single-handedly destroyed an acre of the Amazon and now the Earth is going to die because I wanted to know what happened to Snape.’ Well, worry no longer; Deathly Hallows was actually the greenest book in publishing history. Scholastic got 65 percent of their paper from forests maintained in an environmentally- and socially-responsible way and also contained 30 percent post-consumer waste fiber. The printing is expected to inspire other publishers to use environmentally responsible methods for choosing their paper.

Liquid TV, Why You’ll Never Be Able to Beat Your Computer in Checkers (if it’s really playing) and Bee Deaths Solved all after the jump!

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Online dating was once regarded as a bit strange, and possibly a last resort of the lonely. Now, online dating sites and social networking are downright commonplace! Thousands of people have joined eHarmony and Match.com, and posted a profile on Yahoo Personals. Social networking sites that are more than dating services (such as Friendster and Facebook) are quite popular. But the size of those pools can be intimidating. You can narrow your search for a date by seeking out a niche service, a dating service that caters to people who are like you.

While most sites encourage members to include their interests in their profiles, WeNeither matches people through the things they DON’T like. You can search by sorting through “shared dislikes”. It’s organized like a bookmarking site; you give your profile a list of tags, and when you browse other’s profiles, your shared tags will be highlighted. You can bookmark those you find interesting, and save a list of profiles of people you may want to contact sometime.

IBS Dating stands for “Irritated Being Single”, but it could also stand for “Irritable Bowel Syndrome”. It’s a dating site for those with IBS or Crohn’s Disease. It was founded by Craig Jex, who says the problem with dating for IBS suffers stems more from the anxiety surrounding the dating experience than from the syndrome itself. He explains why and how he started the service in this interview by Tim Phelan. (warning: mildly explicit discussion).

Dating sites for geeks, golfers, republicans, and more, after the jump.
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When I was in elementary school, it seemed every other homework project involved making a map–either filling one in (capitals, always capitals), or creating one from scratch. I was thinking of trying to draw a map of the world the other day, and luckily found some handy instruction on “how to draw a nice map” (ok, it’s meant for fantasy worlds, really, but I’m sure it would carry over to straight-up phenomenal world cartography). Recently, some Shanghai hoteliers were fined for distributing incomplete maps, i.e. maps “failing to show the entirety of China.” Are they assuming (warning: far out) the rest of China feels like Uncle Buck felt when he found the wedding photo in which he was neatly folded out of the picture? Or perhaps they’re just that precise, and hotels are safe bets for being–I don’t know–up to something…enablers of infractions, if not directly involved (see: The Klondiker Hotel Project: Hotels, Crime, and Problem-Solving on the Beat). If you’re having issues with how your own area is represented on Google Maps, you can report any errors here.

The August issue of Popular Mechanics is all about survival. While much of the content is available only for subscribers, PM provides some key tidbits free via the web. Here’s a sample from 18 Extra Crisis Tips:

Tornado

• Head to your basement. If your home doesn’t have one, go to a storm shelter or a neighbor’s basement or, at the very least, the lowest floor of your structure. Put as many walls between you and the outside as possible, and avoid corners, windows and doors.
• Get under a sturdy table and protect your head and neck with your arms.
• Do not open windows.
• Make sure you are dressed and have shoes on. It may be hard to find such things after the storm, and you will have to walk through debris.
• If you’re in your car, get out and seek shelter. Do not get under an overpass or bridge; you’re safer in a low, flat location.

See also:

• Quiz: Are You Ready for Disaster?
• Emergency Rations Aren’t as Gross as You Thought: Taste Test (does looking gross count?)
• How to Safely Install a Power Generator: Video
• Portraits of Survival from Tornado-Torn Kansas: Audio Slideshow

If that’s not enough for you, it’s apparently $12 for a one-year subscription.

Has our nation become caffeine-obsessed? From hyper-caffeinated Starbucks coffees to a proliferation of energy drinks that puts the Cold War arms race to shame, it’s the rare American who’s more than an arms-length from a few hundred milligrams of liquid happiness. (Confession time: I’m an espresso guy. One in the morning and one in the afternoon. Not only does it taste better than regular coffee (who needs milk and sugar?) but one serving of espresso has less caffeine than a regular cup of coffee, not to mention that less liquid equals less bloaty stomachness and fewer trips to the loo. Rant over.)

But our national obsession may be rounding the corner to becoming a national craze: witness novelty products like “Shower Shock,” which is “scented with peppermint oil and infused with caffeine anhydrous.” If you build up a good lather in the shower, their website claims, you end up absorbing about 200mg of caffeine through your skin. Personally, I think energy drinks and even Shower Shock miss the point; half of what’s great about getting your caf in the morning is the ritual of the coffee/espresso brewing, the smell, the texture — it’s a sensual thing you can’t get from something that comes cold in an aluminum can.

But for those who insist on caffeinating things Mother Nature never intended, now there’s Purecaf, a 2-oz. grenade of liquid caffeine that you can use to spice up anything from orange juice to water to wine. It’s not recommended that you tipple straight from the can, though — one teaspoon of this stuff is enough to caffeinate any drink to Starbucks strength; the can itself carries the equivalent of 44 Diet Cokes. According to Energy Fiend‘s handy-dandy “Death by Caffeine” calculator, in which you enter your weight and caffeinated drink of choice and let their Death Engine do the rest, it would only take six cans of Purecaf to send me to that great java stand in the sky. Yeesh.

Maybe I’ll switch to decaf.

I am not a scientist or particularly handy. I get by with a little help from my in-laws.

When I asked my father-in-law about disposing of the enormous rock accumulating bacteria-laden water in my backyard, his eyes lit up. An engineer, he immediately drew up plans for destroying the boulder with a combination of extreme heat, extreme cold and a sledgehammer. This sounds fun and dangerous, and if we go this route I’ll certainly break out the camcorder.

But before we go and torch the place, I wanted to throw this out to our readers. How would you de-rock your yard? Ours is enclosed by a new fence, so driving in anything larger than a ride-on lawnmower is not possible. “Carrying it” is not an option, for lack-of-strength reasons. And I don’t have access to any crane-like machinery. Here’s another picture:
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I may be a die-hard Cleveland Indians fan, but that doesn’t mean I’ll go to the ballpark just for the games. I often choose what tickets I buy based on the promotions. So far this season I’ve bought tickets to fireworks night, half-price college ID night and dollar dog night. While I always enjoy my free flashlight or bobblehead, there have been some fan promotions that didn’t go so well. Here’s a look at five that failed:

Cleveland Municipal Stadium, 1974

The Promotion: 10-Cent Beer Night. To bring fans to see the miserable Cleveland Indians, management decided to sell 10-ounce cups of beer for only 10 cents at a game against the Texas Rangers.

What went wrong: Management forgot one small detail: drunk people get restless. More than 25,000 fans showed up for the event, most of them already tipsy at the gate. Among the more tame incidents was a woman who flashed the crowd from the on-deck circle, a father-son team mooning the players (good bonding experience, I guess) and fans jumping on the field to meet shake hands with the outfielders. Then, in the bottom of the ninth, the Indians tied the game, but never got a chance to win. Fans started throwing batteries, golf balls, cups and rocks onto the field and one even took the glove of the Rangers right fielder. As the player rushed into the stands to get his glove back, fans starting swarming the field to stop him and threw chairs to block his way.

The Outcome: The Indians were forced to forfeit the game and nine fans were arrested. The AL president forced the franchise to abandon the promotion idea after understating “There was no question that beer played a great part in the affair.”

Cash drop night, All-you-can-eat seat night, and more bad ideas after the break.

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From Mepos to Caspiar, pop culture has plied us with plenty of fake countries. Click here to see if you can connect the following 15 places to the books, movies, or TV shows they came from.

I’m back with the third installment of our series exploring the first time The New York Times mentioned a particular subject. See the previous volumes here and here.

John F. Kennedy
February 24, 1938*

Joseph P. Kennedy, new United States Ambassador to the Court of St. James, sailed for his post yesterday….His five daughters and three of his four sons were at the pier to wish him bon voyage. John F. Kennedy, who is in Harvard, had caught cold while training for the swimming team and was not present.

Harry Potter
December 17, 1998

This season’s most popular piece of children’s literature so far is Jamie Lee Curtis’s “Today I Feel Silly and Other Moods That Make My Day,” a book that many critics said had a title so precisely accurate that it would not make many school libraries. The other books on the fiction best-seller list are “The Night Before Christmas” (Putnam) by Clement C. Moore and “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” (Scholastic) by J. K. Rowling, certainly closer to belles lettres than Ms. Curtis’s work.

Saddam, Smurfs, microwaves, and more all after the jump!
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