Spiderman is black, and hispanic?!

Marvel’s Ultimate Fallout #4 features the first appearance of the new Spider-Man, Miles Morales after good old Peter Parker was killed off.

 

“Spiderman (sic) now to be Half Black, Half Latino and Gay?” wonders the Christian Post. “Is The New Spiderman (sic) Gay?,” Instinct wants to know. “Marvel Comics reveals the new Spider Man is black – and he could be gay in the future,” declares the Daily Mail.

Marvel never said Miles is gay, nor did they hint at it, and in fact they've confirmed that he is NOT. It appears the rumor started due to a misreading of a quote from USA Today’s reveal “Maybe sooner or later a black or gay — or both — hero will be considered something absolutely normal,” so yeah, Spidey may be blacktino, but he isn't gay.

 

Earth's second moon

Earth may once have had a tiny second moon that was destroyed when it crashed into the other, larger moon, according to a new study.

Erik Ausphaug of UC Santa Cruz and Martin Jutzi at the University of Bern, Switzerland, say that the second moon was around 750 miles wide, and had only 4% of the primary moon’s mass.

The second moon may have sat in the Earth’s orbit at a Trojan point where the gravity of the Earth and the Moon balance out to keep objects relatively stable. (note One of the Earth’s two Trojan points is now occupied by a recently-discovered asteroid, read about it HERE)

Go read about it HERE

News Corp's 'The Daily' Has Its Own News-Gathering Aerial Drone, Which Is Drawing FAA Inquiries

Alright, news agencies spying on you, spy agencies spying on you, druglords spying on you... hrmm... not cool. The FAA raises an eyebrow at News Corp’s unmanned spy drone.


 

The U.S. military has drones, lots of them if the daily reports coming in from Afghanistan and Pakistan are any indication. And a handful of law enforcement groups--though less than would like--have a drone or two at their disposal. But on the domestic, non-security front, drones live a in a regulatory gray area. Hobbyists can use them, but commercial entities are not supposed to employ drones for any kind of monetary gain, says the FAA.

Nonetheless News Corp’s The Daily has a news gathering drone aircraft that it’s been flying around, and the FAA is investigating that use to ensure that it complies with all of the nebulous FAA regulations that kind of exist regarding private drone usage.

See the rest of the article HERE

 

Classic Out Run game cabinet becomes a drivable car

[Garnet Hertz], a professor and “artist in residence” at UC Irvine, built a drivable Outrun arcade cabinet for an experiment in augmented reality.

The old fiberglass and wood cabinet was hacked up and the motors, wheels, and drive train from an electric golf cart were stuffed inside. The original steering wheel and pedals were used for the controls. Although the top speed of the in-game car is about 180 mph, that was brought down to a reasonable 13 miles per hour.

 

The build doesn’t run on the original 68k processor. Instead, custom software is used to take real-world image data from two webcams on top of the cabinet. These images are then converted into Outrun sprites and displayed on the monitor. The software proportionally changes the speed of the in-game car, but it seems the difference between the game speed and real-life speed would be a little disconcerting. Although it’s not a real world track with the corkscrew loops of Race Drivin’, it’s still an interesting experiment in augmented reality.

Right now, we’re trying to figure out how to put this in our car. Outrun is now being reverse engineered, and the road layer code is complete. Does anyone want to take a stab at that build?

Fool proof diet

Did you hear about the heavyset guy who had tried every diet in the world in an attempt to lose weight? He tried the Scarsdale diet, the Navy diet, Weight Watchers, and many more. None worked. One day, he was reading the Washington Post when he noticed a small ad which read:

"Lose weight Only $1.00 a pound Call 1-555-555-5555"

The man decided to give it a try and called the number. A voice on the other end asked, 'How much weight do you want to lose?', to which the man responded, 'Ten pounds.' The voice replied, 'Very well, give me your credit card number and we'll have a representative over to your house in the morning.'

About 9:00 am the next morning the man gets a knock on the door. There stood a beautiful redheaded woman, completely naked except for a sign around her neck stating, 'If you catch me, you can have me'.

Well, the hefty fellow chased her upstairs, downstairs, over sofas, through the kitchen, all around the house. Finally, panting and wheezing like a dog, he did catch her. When he was through enjoying himself, she said, 'Quick, go into the bathroom and weigh yourself!'. He did just that and was amazed to find that he had lost ten pounds, right to the ounce!

That evening he called the number again. The voice on the other end asked, 'How much weight do you want to lose?', to which the somewhat less overweight man replied, 'Twenty pounds.'

'Very well', the voice on the phone told him, 'Give me your credit card number and we'll have a representative over to your house in the morning.'

At about 8:00 am the next morning the man receives a knock on the door. When he opens the door he sees a beautiful blond dressed only in track shoes and a sign around her neck stating 'If you catch me, you can have me'. The chase took a good while longer this time and the man nearly passed out, but he finally did catch her. When he was through she told him, 'Quick, run into the bathroom and weigh yourself!' He ran to the bathroom and found he had lost another 20 pounds!

'This is fantastic!', he thought to himself. Later that evening he called the number again and the voice at the other end asked, 'How much weight do you want to lose?'. 'Fifty pounds!', the man exclaimed. 'Fifty pounds?', the voice asked. 'That's an awful lot of weight to lose at one time.' The man replied, 'Listen buddy, here's my credit card number, you just have your representative over here in the morning!', and he hung up the phone.

About 6:00 am the next morning the man gets out of bed, splashes on some cologne and gets all ready for the next representative. At about 7:00 am he gets a knock on the door. When he opens the door, he sees this large gorilla with a sign around his neck stating,

'If I catch you, I'm going to screw you'