This is one killer modification. Thanks Waxy for the link.
Category: Cool
Albany Man Slows Down Traffic
This story is pretty dang funny, especially considering how cheesy the sign looks, thought it does makes me wish I could do something equivalent in my neighborhood:
With the help of a local sign company, [Rick] Pyburn constructed a two-dimensional plywood Benton County sheriff’s car, well, the front half of one anyway.
After setting the decoy up in some bushes near the road, Pyburn saw a marked improvement.
“Once I placed that on the highway, it was amazing,” he said. “The traffic immediately slowed down.”
Pyburn realizes the plywood car is not all that realistic looking, and that commuters on the route may realize it’s a fake, but just a glimpse of the silhouette has a psychological impact on drivers, he said.
I remember driving through Southeast Oregon one time (on my way towards Tahoe) and running through a small town that kept a dummy police car on the edge of town to slow down speeders. I know I slammed on my brakes. The only reason I knew it wasn’t a real car was because the locals were laughing at me and told me the story about it. Apparently they move the car periodically to keep folks on their toes. I just wish I could remember where I saw that (will have to go dig up my Oregon atlas later).
Free Press Release Distribution
This is one for the bookmarks, as I know I’ll need this link in the future for some stuff I’m doing at work (and I know there are PR people that read this site).
Express-Press-Release.com is a free, simple, easy, express and very effective way to distribute over the web your company press releases. Some of our advantages include: no registration required, human edited & monitored content, no long forms – in fact only a few fields on-line form for quick posting, we value your time, own page for each of your press releases (search engine optimized), unlimited posting, your press releases are archived and will never expire or be deleted…
Library of Congress to Digitize Old Newspapers
I’ll believe it when I see it, but I always get excited when tremendously useful information like this gets put online:
The government promises anyone with a computer will have access within a few years to millions of pages from old newspapers, a slice of American history to be viewed now only by visiting local libraries, newspaper offices or the nation’s capital.
The first of what’s expected to be 30 million digitized pages from papers published from 1836 through 1922 will be available in 2006.
[…]
Now, the only way to view the old papers is to pore through many thousands of microfilm reels at the Library of Congress, regional libraries and newspaper offices.
How Does Your Network Rate?
Post your network diagram here, and have it rated. So far, as of this writing, these are the top large, small, and home networks.
Bend Has a Segway Dealer
I asked yesterday if Bend had a Segway dealer, after reading an article and seeing it on their site. Barney did some digging, and a story about the local dealership is now on Bend.com. And he said he didn’t kill himself riding it, so if Barney can do it, than anybody can (joking, Barn).
Ashcroft Resigns
John Ashcroft has resigned from Bush’s Cabinet. Now we just need to get rid of the DMCA, the Patriot Act, and a whole bunch of other useless things about this administration, and life would be good.
Update: Oh this gets better. On the day he resigns, he filed an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking it to strike down Oregon’s twice-voter-approved doctor-assisted suicide law. Full Story.
Nine Years in Prison for Spammers
Is that all? Thanks Barney for the link.
A Geek on Politics
Sticking with today’s political theme, I had to mention this. Fred Langa runs a great newsletter (of which I’m a plus member) that is always full of great computer tips, tricks, and advice. I get it twice a week, and make sure I read it as thoroughly as possible.
In his latest issue, he deviates (if only for a moment) from his geek content and publishes a great commentary as to why he’s voting for Kerry. Good read, and I agree with him on every point.