Double Check For Typos.

I know, I'm a deadbeat. I won't try to make any excuses, but this article is gold.

A German tourist was trying to visit his girlfriend in Sydney, Australia but accidentally got a ticket to Sidney, Montana. In the United States.

Gutt's airline ticket routed him via the U.S. city of Portland, Oregon, to Billings, Montana. Only as he was about to board a commuter flight to Sidney -- an oil town of about 5,000 people -- did he realize his mistake.

That's all. I'm not even going to say anything.

• Typo takes tourist 13,000 km out - CNN.com

Stick Philosophy.

There are some great cartoons for geeks at xkcd.com. The stick animations really grow on you after a while and there are some pretty good jabs at ridiculous tech and general geekery. You know, things I might actually think about.Course if you didn't take so many compsci courses you won't think things like this are funny. But hey, there's always wikipedia. And there's some shining advice for you non-geeks too:
I think Randall also has a solution to my self-loathing blog quandary. Oddly enough I'll take auto-derogatory over banal conformity most days of the week.

Bacon Wrapped In Tiger.

So who wants to guess what's going on here? No, that tiger isn't saving the piggies till snack time, they actually live together at a kind of freak-show zoo in Thailand. Incongruous species are kept in the same enclosure and, as in this case, sometimes raised by foster parents of another species. So don't think you can rummage through your closet to find those tiger print hotpants and jump into the tiger pit at your local zoo. You'd get taken down faster than a three legged zebra on the savanna.

• Urban Legends Reference Pages: Tiger and Piglets

Mom, I Need To Stop At The Liquor Store Before The Science Fair.

While we're talking about kids with bright futures, hop on over to The Nonist for some photoshoped (but hilarious) pictures of up and coming scientists. I mean "Ballooner of scrotums"? That's gold Jerry.

• The Nonist: The science fair

Holiday Warm-Feeling Funtime.

I'd hate to be remembered as an angry young man, so here's a little penance for all the virtual yelling I've done today. These sound like awesome parents.

I went to the credit union today to deposit my Christmas bonus. I waited my turn behind a boy who was about four years old. In one hand he held a wad of cash, and in the other he held his account information. His parents watched from the side of the lobby.

“Why, hello,” said the teller when she saw the boy. He walked purposely to the counter. She leaned over and looked down at him. “What can I do for you?” she asked.

“I need to make a deposit,” he said. He stood on tip-toes, reaching up with the money and the account information.

“You need a stool,” the teller said, laughing.

...continued on Get Rich Slowly...

• Get Rich Slowly » You’re Never Too Young to Save

I Don't Have Any Kids To Think About.

Uh-oh FCC looks like you're on shaky ground. Ever since that boobslip a while ago (still can't believe I missed that) the FCC has been imposing mystery fines on networks with taboo content. But rather than tell the offenders what is allowed and what is not there are a set of vague 'guidelines'. The effect is that once in a while a network will get a bill in the mail that says "you shouldn't have done that."

Well 3 judges yesterday questioned that practice as well as the root issue of "won't somebody please think of the children?" The FCC is often coerced into regulating content by "Family" groups who loathe inappropriate material and wish the government would shelter their kids. The court noted that the FCC (very rightly) has no jurisdiction over cable broadcasts where kids are much more likely to see the good stuff. The FCC and the government can't protect your shorties from dirty jokes, and if the best way you can think to monitor their activities is to have the government do it, you need to do some thinkin'.

Unless of course the kids are just an excuse and the real reason you're complaining to some magical authority is that you don't think anyone should be watching this stuff. Well too damn bad. This country affords certain freedoms. Movement, assembly, flag burnin and raunchy TV. Hell, its the reason why you're allowed to think that we should all be sheltered like your 5-year-old. But I disagree, so shut the fuck up.

• Techdirt: Court Not Buying FCC's Claims Over Indecency Fines

I'll Have Your Network With His Phone And Their Services.

I saw a commercial yesterday - I dunno why I saw a commercial, I must have been spacing on the fast forward button - for a cell phone or something. It was called Helio and was almost in the style of those Old Navy commercials that make me vomit. Not so much in the dancing around to hip music trying to be a GAP ad, but in the cool young people having fun with whatever the product is. I know that sounds vague, but I'm fine with it. Anyway, the one guy finds the other guy using the phone's GPS or something (kinda cool) and the other guy says something about Google Maps on his phone. Alright, I'm listening.

Well, I wanted to find out more about this product, but I couldn't remember the name of the company (advertising is very effective on me) until I read an article about how bad Cingular sucks and someone asked what the deal with Helio was in the comments. (no one answered him) Ah! It was called Helio. Wiki to the rescue-

Helio is a MVNO joint venture between SK Telecom and Earthlink. MVNO means that they don't own any licensed spectrum but rent service from other providers. Look at the coverage map of my area. No whitespace. They've got a ton of 3G coverage that they lease from Sprint and they lease voice only access from Verizon for all the other areas. What? They only reason I'm on Verizon is because they have the most pervasive coverage in my area. They don't have the best service they have the most ubituitous service. And now they don't have that because I can go through someone else to get a hybrid service. So right out of the blocks that's sounding sweet. But there's more:

The premise of this new company would be to bring advanced mobile devices in service from SK Telecom's home market of Korea to the US wireless market, where such advanced devices had been noted, by many, to be lacking. Helio, as it was to be called, would market itself to the younger demographic, promoting itself using the latest in cutting-edge handset technology. They plan to avoid taking on the major US wireless carriers directly, and instead they intend to carve out a niche for themselves with technology-savvy consumers.

Yeah? Bringing some of that rocking handset technology over here from Korea? Awesome. And marketing themselves to a savvy consumer base sounds like they won't want to piss people off by crippling their phones.

Want some more? Ok, they realize they're selling convergence items. So after you switch over for one of their devices you can send in your old tech for cash rewards. Like the phone in my pocket is worth a $46.75 trade-in. And I'm pretty sure I've got a couple more in my glove box. But its not just phones. They want iPods, PSPs, cameras, PDAs whatever your new convergence device is replacing. I mean, sure maybe you could get more for it on eBay if you're willing to put a bit more effort into it. But I find it very refreshing for a company to embrace convergence and enable its customers' transition.

That and the options look so freaking simple. Pick a phone, pick how many minutes you want and pick a data option. 65 or 40 bucks a month. I obviously need to look around a little more but this sounds like the kind of company I'm angling for.

• Helio | Drift, Hero, & Kickflip cell phones, MySpace Mobile, buddy beacon, mobile games, & more

Tag.

You ever played a game of tag and intentionally got 'it', just so you could walk away with 'it' refusing to tag anyone and the game would stop? I have, but maybe I'm just mean. Well I kinda wish I could do that here.

I was reading the old ZNF and ran across something called blog-tag. Now you know I hate the 'b' word as much as anyone who actually maintains a blog, but this concept may be even more irritating.

Some one gets "tagged" and they're sposed to name five things that not too many people know and then name five people to go next.

Odd. But ok. I guess that's a 'fun' way for all these annoying little bloggers to get to know one another- wait a minute. Its not just the "this is how I feel today" or "my hampster is the best" blogs. Well known blogs; blogs I use for news are falling prey to this noise.

Lookit, I may appreciate reading some things you write, or I may value you as a reliable source of information. But I don't need tidbits of you as a person filtering through my RSS stream. I've already evaluated your credentials, that's how you made the list in the first place. I don't care about you as a person, and I 'm a man so I use the Internet for information, not relationships. My only feed that this may be acceptable in is Steve's The Sneeze. And that whole site is just about Steve's life and amusing anecdotes, not news or technology.

In the course of my investigation I came across Mark Cuban's response to the phenomenon. Now this is one insightful motherfucker. He thinks its stupid and a waste of peoples' time. If its good enough for Mark Cuban to hate, don't you spose its good enough for you too?

It has the same intellectual resonance as doing The Wave at an event. You are embarrased if you do it sober, beligerant to non wavers if you do it drunk.

You know that? I already hate this. So before you accuse me of just being bitter about not getting invited to the party, think about this. This is the same as those emails that your friends fill out about what colors they like and what movies they've seen and if you don't send it back to them you aren't really friends. If you're my friend and actually expect me to fire that back at you, you're insane.

Also, this looks to expand geometrically like a pyramid scheme. 1...5...25...125...625 But its a pyramid scheme of idiocy, increasingly blocking the flow of valuable information until the Internet pipes are choked with with favorite burrito toppings and water parks and turn-ons and car colors and sneaker sizes and mustache lengths and abnormal toe numbers and cornbread recipes.

Whatever you say. Its not a big deal. I should calm down. Doesn't mean I'm not right.

Captured Moments.

High speed photography is neat, and you get some especially intriguing shots during sporting events. Check out Sports Illustrated's 41 most interesting pictures of the year. Like this one of a defender giving someone the old reach around to try and prevent a goal. They're putting pretty high quality cameras every where these days.

• SI.com - Photo Gallery - The Year's Most Interesting Pictures

You may get to the point where you see the picture at my right and ask yourself "what the hell is going on there?" Well, that's "sepak takraw". Think volleyball and soccer all mixed up into one sport. Sounds pretty kick-ass, right? But they aren't just playing hacky sack over a net. They sometimes spike the ball with a bicycle kick and then land on their feet. Holy crap. Where can I watch me some takraw?

• Sepak Takraw - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

How To Really Stick It To The Cops.

Here's one you don't hear too often: refuse to have a bullet removed from your body what will be used as evidence against you. Apparently it was a used car-lot robbery gone wrong. Some street toughs started shooting at the owner and he shot back, striking one of the kids in the forehead. I've often thought a bullet to the forehead would kill you, but apparently the "bullet struck the teenager and borrowed into the soft, fatty tissue of his forehead." I wonder how much fatty tissue we're talking about. Was this guy a real porker, or does everyone have the ability to absorb bullets?

His friends ratted him out as being at the scene but upon questioning, the youth denied participating in the shooting. "The officers noticed the guy looks like hell. One of his eyes is black and he has a big old knot on his forehead," Rodriguez said. "He tells police he got hurt playing basketball." The cops got a warrant for the removal of the evidence but bone growths required special equipment and surgery. After the second warrant and availability of suitable medical facilities doctors again refrained from the procedure. Doctors agree that removing the bullet is not a dangerous action, but it seems that the patient's right supersede desires of the prosecution.

Moral of the story, kids, need to hide something from the cops? Don't put it in a cavity, shoot yourself with it.

• Teen fights removal of bullet in head - Yahoo! News

Energy Stability With Battery Packs.

Whoa, this is an interesting concept. People are down on some kinds of alternative energy because they can be inconsistent and are not on-demand sources. If you have a cloudy day you'll generate less solar power. Or if there's no wind, you'll get less wind power. And the flip side is that you may end up generating more power than you need, but don't have any way to store it.

This article on plug-in hybrids pitches solutions all over the place. If plug-in hybrids were mainstream enough in the US, electric companies could benefit from stability and use a wider variety of sources. First, the electric providers should be pushing for plug-in hybrids because they will sell more electricity, which means more profit. (out of the oil companies pockets) They've over built production facilities to deal with usage spikes, so most of the time these factories are wasting overhead. By incentivising off-peak charging they could make full use of the capital expenditure they've made.

With higher profits, they could justify cleaner electricity improvements like coal plant upgrades or even starting alternative energy production. The plug-ins will help them again there. They can act as an energy buffer, using surplus energy at low demand hours and even offering it back to the grid when demand spikes or if an alternative source has a sub-par day. Think about it, millions of high quality storage batteries keeping our energy supply and consumption in collusion.

Some of the proposals integrate a "car IP" so that when you plug into the grid your account is credited or debited no matter where you are. So wherever your car is parked it is contributing to the communal power supply. If there is a natural disaster or emergency that cut power to regions, the cars could be used to keep essential systems running. And even if you sold all your electricity back to the community, you could still drive when you came back to your car using the gasoline supplement.

This may seem like quite the ambitious endeavor but its the best argument for a hybrid I've ever heard.

• Technology Review: How Plug-In Hybrids Will Save the Grid

Look Into My Eyes And Smell My Arm.

This is odd. Its a patch that you wear on your wrist or arm that emits a fragrance rather than a drug. And the aroma is sposed to make you randy. I'm not exactly sure what the target audience is here. Unless there are a bunch of people out there who wish they were hornier than they naturally are. I feel like most of these things will be used in the pursuit of altering someone else's state. They don't dissolve in liquid though, so you'll have to think of another plan. They come in two varieties mens' and womens' so plan your strategy and order carefully. You'd hate to wake up in the morning and find that you'd attracted the wrong flavor of companion.

• Strange New Products: Sniff Your Wrist to get Horny

Also on the olfactory front: humans are better at smelling than you think. They're just out of practice. Researchers conducted a study whereby they made blindfolded college kids sniff out a scent trail to chocolate through grass. Anyone else think that sounds demeaning and hilarious?

• Slashdot | Human Sense of Smell Underestimated

It Wasn't A Warning Shot, It Was A Camera.

I love plans for the future, especially when they were devised in the past. Take for example this plan for an interstellar mission from 1973. The members collaborated on a method to send instruments to a near star system within the span of a human life while only using near-future technology. It was called the Daedalus Project; with a name like that how could it not work?

The plan (keeping in mind that this is a grievous summary) was to use a nuclear pulse rocket to accelerate the probe to 135,000,000 km/h. (the current fastest space-bound projectile is Pioneer 10 at 51,810 km/h) This rocket would trigger 250 tiny nuclear bombs per second for two straight years before moving on to stage two. In all the propulsion would consume 46,000 tons of deuterium and helium-3, and the craft would have to pit-stop at Jupiter to collect this fuel. Ac few years before the fifty year mission's conclusion several pods would split off the mother ship and record whatever they pass. The instruments will try to gather as much data as possible as they hurtle through the system at 3,750,000 m/s because they'll have no means of deceleration.

Goodness, lets hope there isn't someone we might piss off by shooting at them.

• Damn Interesting » The Daedalus Starship

Jury To Whiners: Suck It.

A Texas jury sided with a multi-million dollar out of state corporation over the complaints of local residents. Damn straight, I'm not usually for big companies rolling over the opinions of citizens, but screw these guys. The difference is in the details. This company runs the largest wind farm in the world and these plaintiffs are alleging that the turbines are a public nuisance. They say that the sounds created by clean, efficient energy are too much to bare. (well, they say that now that a judge told them they can't make a case against the look of the turbines) An impartial sound engineer took readings and found that the highest reading was 44 decibels. That's smack in between a residential area at night and a quiet restaurant. Or how about the wind blowing at 10 mph? Imagine that, a wind farm makes as much noise as the wind. How dare they?

This wind farm has 421 turbines on 47,000 acres maxing out at 735 MegaWatts. Awesome. I would love to see some big-ass turbines outside my window.

• Wind energy scores major legal victory in U.S. | Inside Greentech

Proper Representation.

Someday the world will tremble beneath the might of the DPI logo. Lifehacker has a link to an interesting article about designing logos incorporating letters. Its a pdf link but not a problem with your foxit pdf reader, right? Anyway I wish I was good at logo design so I liked reading it and appreciate the various tips it gave. I think mostly the best designs just come through messing around with what you've got. And refining and messing. Oh, and having some artistic talent may help too, I'm not sure. I sure wish I could make a smooth curve, as is evident in this little mock up of what I'm working on for a Daily Placebo Industries logo. (go get that Dauphin font so you know what d, p and i look like). I can't wait till its polished enough to be emblazoned on my private jets, satellites and volcano strongholds. Oh and maybe on a blazer with fine hand ticking.

• How to design a logo of letters - Lifehacker

P.S. Anyone know how I can make a bad-ass torch effect to dot the "i" with?

Its Not An E-Brake.

Its a handbrake. Or maybe an auxiliary brake. I have a feeling my insurance company wouldn't like me to make a habit of this. Hop over to Jalopnik where they've got a You-Tube video of some handbrake parking. First, the parallel park, and then the rear-first park. Pretty bad-ass that guy can do it right like every time. This is the kinda stuff I do in GTA; when I actually park the car and don't just blow it up.

• Fifth Gear How-To: Tim Lovejoy Learns To Love The Joy Of Handbrake Parking - Jalopnik

Magazine Of The Year: All Of Em EXCEPT Time.

Alright, so by now you've heard about TIME magazine's choice for the person of the year. That's right, its you! Feckin weak guys. Why don't you grow a pair and pick someone? Anyone. I mean how the hell do you call this the person of the year? If everyone is special, then no one is special. Its a non-statement. Yeah I know it technically falls in your guidelines for "person of the year": a profile on the man, woman, couple, group, idea, place, or machine that "for better or worse, has most influenced events in the preceding year." What? Group, idea, place or machine? Are you guys on crack? Maybe you should change it to "Noun of the year". Yeah the noun which most influenced verbs over the past year.

Lets face it, you've already changed it once. It used to be the "Man of the Year" back in 1927 when you ran Charles Lindbergh on the cover as the first Man of the Year. Oh wait, this whole thing only started because you forgot to run a Trans-Atlantic flight story in 1927 and wanted to make up for it when there was nothing going on. So its kinda like a yearly tribute to all the stuff that you should have done a better job covering. Its like a yearly apology issue. I mean, I forget to write about things sometimes but I'm not charging people for this stuff. Goodness.

Person of the Year - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Oh, That's The Charger For A 9454b, Not A 9455b.

Freaking phone companies, they squeeze every last drop out of you. But now China could be paving the way for us all. They're trying to mandate a standard charging interface for cell phones. That'd be super guys, and if the plan to have use USB as the standard maybe we'll finally get some phones that sync with computers and don't waste all kinds of power. But that's probably just crazytalk.

• Techdirt: China To Mandate Standardized Phone Chargers

Oh, and I did some research on USB. Its kinda interesting stuff, coming up with data transfer standards and seeing the various incarnations. No, wait. Maybe its only interesting to me.

• Universal Serial Bus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'm Gonna Need That Shash Back.

Damn, I've gotta start paying attention to pageants. Miss whatever nearly had her title stripped after accusations of partying too hearty in New York. Really? She sounds cool. Hey, back off Donald, you're the ones who picked her in the first place. Its not her fault that you're a bad judge of character. And who's to say she's not doing your little show a favor? You know, scandals draw interest. I didn't see any of the contest in April, but I'm willing to bet that her answer to "what will you do as Miss USA?" didn't include making out with Miss Teen USA.

• BBC NEWS | Americas | US beauty queen to keep her title

Stones Squeal On Hog Line Burns.

Now granted I've only been curling for like half a season, but I hadn't really considered that one of the most controversial calls in the sport is a hog line violation. See, you slide off the hack with a 44 lb stone while balancing on a Teflon sole against a sheet of ice. 33 feet out is the "hog line" which is the plane by which you have to have released the stone. If anyone touches the rock after that line it is "burned" and removed from play.
I'm not really coming that close to a hog line violation, I usually release a couple feet before the line, so I never really thought about having to make these close calls. Obviously you wouldn't touch the stone if you knew you were over the line, and at competitive Speils there are hog line judges to make sure.

Like the digital timer and electric starting gun, technology is being used to absolutely differentiate as athletes push the boundaries of rules. These rocks have circuitry in them that detects when the thrower's hand lets go as well as detect when the stone passes the hog line. Hang on a fraction too long and red lights flash on the stone so you know to remove it. Pretty cool stuff, but at 650 bones a pop its a little prohibitive for smaller clubs. But next time I see a national competition on TV I'll be looking for these babies.

• Eye on the Hog

Slippery Like A Fox.

This is some pretty crazy engineering. Some ship builder was staring at the tiny bubbles in his champaign and it hit him: bubbles make everything better.
Most hull designs are focused on reducing wave resistance and pressure drag (pushing water out of the way and escaping the vacuum the ship creates). But the other type of drag that's been on designers' minds is frictional drag. This is the force created by water sticking to the bottom of the boat and is the reason for those expensive Teflon bottom paints. But there are a variety of techniques that are like making the boat float on a cushion of air.

First, the Japanese are working on Microbubbles. A layer of bubbles that adheres all around the hull and taking advantage of the low viscosity to move the ship with less friction and turbulence. But right now it appears to only work at lower speeds.

Then there's the Americans who are doing tests on scale and computer models. They're also examining microbubbles and are very pleased with the efficience -for the speed. But this is DARPA and slow moving Navy ships just isn't sexy enough for them. So they're looking at other options like polymer lubricants and water repellent hull coating.

But its the Russians who look like the front-runners in this quest with their air cavity drag reduction. It involves using pumps to keep a pocket air in the ship, providing an excellent lubricant. The Russians who developed supercavitation for high-speed torpeedoes have been building ships that employ this technique for 25 years.

• Slippery ships float on thin air - mech-tech - 18 February 2006 - New Scientist Tech

Google Update.

I'll try and get this out of the way as quickly as possible for you non-fanboys.

Extremely premature speculation about a Google branded phone. Hell yeah; I believe I suggested this when I spazzed out about apple in September of 2005. Anyway, there are rumors that they're talking with Orange and HTC to get their mobile search on. I can't freakin wait. But I will, because unlike some companies, I expect Google to do this right.

• The Google phone - coming soon? - Download Squad

I pretty much only use Google Maps to find the locations of stuff online. (was talking with a friend on the phone last week and he said "hang on, let me Google Map it" which made me smile, cause the standard used to be Map Quest or some other service that I can't even remember now.) Anyway, Google Maps has been getting better and better. (the call feature, the my locations feature) But now they're getting around to adding things that everyone has been asking for. Like directions to multiple locations. Yahoo! maps had this a while ago, and I nearly switched over for it. Luckily now I can stop at a liquor store on my way to wherever I'm headed and I don't have to use a Yahoo! product to find it.

• Google Maps multiple destinations - Lifehacker

Patents are becoming more important, especially since there's a kind of cold war going on. Companies snatching up all the patents they can, and making them as broad as they can, so that when (yeah I said when) they get sued for patent infringement they can threaten a counter-suit with a just as frivolously vague patent on some other technology. I can't wait for the first three way patent escalation litigation. Well, Google's tapped into the US patent system so you can see if your idea for a hood mounted turtle slingshot has already been claimed. Or I spose you could use it to get your hopes up about new Apple products that'll never be released.

• Official Google Blog: Now you can search for U.S. patents

Holy Crap, This Guy Is Clinically Dead.

Clinical death occurs when the heartbeat and breathing have stopped. Since regular breathing is impossible when the heart is stopped, clinical death is synonymous with cardiac arrest or cardiac death.

So you've probably taken some kind of CPR course where they make you check a dummy for pulse and breathing. If there's no thump thump, you're sposed to violently bang on his chest until you are relieved by a more competent person or the patient physically stops you.

Well toss that out cause we're going all Frankenstein. A patient in Canada has had a device installed that constantly circulates the blood in his body. That's night, no heart, no pulse, no blood pressure. This is the guy, along with the kitchen sink part he's got strapped in his chest. Wild stuff. I mean, I don't like to think about RFID chips under my skin, so this is definitely creeping me out.

• Bodyhack

Pretend This Bag Of Chips Is A Cat.

I do like CG. I normally just think about it in Pixar films because its noticeable there; the entire film is CG. I like to watch the special features and see how the shots and objects were modeled, or how the creative process worked to created the characters in movies like Finding Nemo or Cars.

But that's one type of CG that's about style and art. The goal of traditional CG is to blend in to the film and be unnoticeable to the viewer. (watch the Emperor's new groove, a hand animated movie, and pick out the CG objects. they did a good job.) I finally got around to watching my copy of Dead Man's Chest this weekend and didn't really think about the special effects. I spose that means they did a good job; especially so considering how much actual editing ILM did for the film. Now, I didn't watch the 8 hours of special features yet so I'm sure this site is just a taste, but I like the interaction. Head on over to the ILM site and you can view some of the process and mouse-over clips to reveal the original shot. These guys are good.

• Industrial Light & Magic - The Show: Pirates of the Caribbean 2

The Safest Thing We Had To Play With Was Broken Glass.

Meet the newest addition to my RSS aggregator. Radar Magazine waltzed into my heart with this cynically nostalgic write up of the ten most (unintentionally) dangerous toys of all time. Sure you may have seen a list of dangerous toys before, but never one compiled with such tenacity and verve. I don't even know what verve is but its fun to say. Plus they've got some nice stats like: Jarts racked up 6,700 injuries and four deaths.

Features : Radar Online

Isn't bunk bad? No something is bunk and then you debunk it.

Thanks, Wired Magazine, for clearing up all these common myths. And for streamlining the process by eliminating any kind of supporting evidence or facts. I hate how people are always trying to explain things to me, I mean isn't there some way I can just blindly believe whatever some un-credentialed person writes and puts in the internets? I mean, wow, I've wasted so many hours watching Myth Busters with all their tests, experiments and science.

• Wired 14.12: START, The Best: Science Fictions
  

Quicksand- You won't sink in over your head because 1) quicksand usually isn't that deep and 2) quicksand is more dense than a human body, so you'll float. That's not to say that quicksand isn't deadly. Exposure, starvation and rising water are all dangers.
Youtube- mythbusters: quicksand

Eye Strain - No, the emissions from TVs aren't really going to screw you up any more, and eye strain probably isn't the cause of physical degradation. But its still something to be avoided, unless you enjoy feeling like crap for no articular reason. But maybe your mom was worried about the vacuum tubes imploding and blinding you with glass shards.

Coriolis Effect - While drains and toilets are a mis-attribution of the Coriolis Effect because of their small scale, there are other mainstream examples of the principle these fabrications try to demonstrate. You know, like air travel, artillery, tornadoes, or Foucault's pendulum.

Lightning Rod - No, lightning probably didn't strike Franklin, but more interestingly he only undertook the experiment because he was impatient in this quest to test his lightning rod. Like a lot of great men he chose not to patent this invention.