Freaky Friday: DIY Lie Detectors and Redneck Roller Coasters
Dr. Samuel Says - Weirdness
Written by Dr. Samuel Centralia, Ph.D., D.D.S., Esq.   
Friday, 01 February 2008
The nature of websurfing has, at its essence, a certain quality of lateral drift that I much enjoy. I might start out the day browsing for recent trends in sub-symbiotic artificial intelligence, say. Or major league baseball. And within a few dozen clicks I find I'm scanning Swiss real estate ads, or downloading Gaelic instrumental covers of Led Zeppelin songs. You just never know.
This afternoon I started at one of my favorite mainstream media destinations, CNN.com, which I like to scan just to see how close our culture is to utter collapse. Some recent, actual headlines from the top-level menu at The Most Trusted Name in News (I collect these as a hobby):

  • Conjoined 'bowling ball' twins divided at last
  • Rush hour! Baby can't wait, born on interstate
  • Buster the bus-riding dog
  • Elvis-crazy PM hits high notes at Graceland
  • Pastor's wife snapped over money, agent testifies
  • Star Jones: 'View' viewers deserve the truth
  • State's top DUI cop charged with driving drunk
  • Rob Schneider collapses on movie set
  • Freak accident sends Hasselhoff to surgery
  • More human heads found in Acapulco
  • Man fights alligator to save girlfriend's dog
  • Pink gut beats 'Big Sexy' in belly flop contest

redneckrollercostaer.jpgSorry, went off on a tangent there -- I could complain about this all day. Happily, however, a few clicks later I landed at one of my favorite Internet destinations, the blog over at Make magazine. Make does noble work, reporting upon and encouraging do-it-yourself technology projects. The blog is particularly fun. After just a few clicks, I was reading about a DIY lie detector kit, a folding bicycle wheel, an inflatable mouse (the computer kind), and the remarkable specimen of Canadian-flavored DIY insanity that is … the Redneck Rollercoaster.

Check the link for the fascinating tale of a severely yet brilliantly abused 1991 Chevy Cavalier. I have always applauded the pioneering spirit and essential bad-assedness of the Canadian people. Premium beer + long winter months + national health care = fertile breeding ground for resourceful science.

The lateral drift continued, as I wheeled through the Web for much of the afternoon. The ride ended, predictably, deep in the archives of a certain specialty video store out of Rio. See, my tastes run to a particularly obscure variety of Brazilian "art film" that I have to mail order and -- actually, never mind. I've probably said enough.



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