8 Ways to Sunday

A collection of strange links about science and technology that I’ve happened across over the weekend.

Painful death has never been so cuddly as it is at GIANTmicrobes.com

• Dog Condoms — The humane alternative to neutering and spaying! Available “at major pet stores and convenience markets by the beginning of 2006.” Comes in regular and meat-scented varieties.
• Vampire bats only known bat species to run on ground — “Riskin started out studying how bats of various species move across a surface, which they generally do badly. The least effective of them ‘just smack their wings against the ground and freak out,’ never successfully taking a step, he says.” Not the vamps, though. They started jogging along in a bounding gait at speeds up to 1.2 meters per second. And you thought they were creepy in the air. See article for freaky pictures.
• Vintage Vespa pin-up girls — For you guys that get really excited about little European scooters.
• History of Robots in the Victorian Era — Packed with period photos and illustrations. The most interesting section concerns “Boilerplate.” Built in 1893, this mechanical man was powered by what seems to have been a primitive fuel cell technology using lead and reduced sulfur. Not very environmentally friendly, but way ahead of its time for sure.
• GIANTmicrobes.com — Must be seen to be believed. These things freak me right the fuck out.

(Props: Life in the Present, Exclamation Mark, and Entertainment Weekly magazine)

J. Diego may be the best haiku artist you’ve never heard of. Check out these gems:

Element

cold buzzing red glow
martini shaped noble tubes
neon miracle

the boiling water
outside the chemistry class
dropped the lithium

rare earth actinide
tribute to the golden state
californium

Fester

mouth lightbulb like sun
christopher lloyd’s marquee role
this sexy bald man

chill night in graveyard
while gomez blows up his trains
brother digs for bones

autumn slanting light
on new yorkers of my youth
monk-robed cartoon ghoul

Go read more now. You can thank me later.

Update (4/3/2007): Over 2,900 people have visited this page in the last two weeks, looking for information about the recent pet food recall. Several have posted questions, which I’ve done my best to answer. The original blog post has nothing to do with the recall, but you may find answers to your questions in the comments. Please read all the existing comments before making a new one.

To avoid any confusion, here are a few points I want to make clear from the beginning:

1. I do not work for Purina, the makers of Fancy Feast cat food.
2. I’m not a veterinarian, I’m a website developer and graphic designer.
3. If you want to make absolutely certain your pet’s diet is safe, you should talk to your veterinarian about it.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope the information in the comments is helpful to you. Also, feel free to roam around the rest of the site. I write on a wide variety of topics here, and you may find something else that interests you.

According to PetAlert, this is the cat version of the Heimlich Maneuver. Color me incredulous.

I feed Riley from Purina’s Fancy Feast line — a supposedly “gourmet” brand of cat food — because just about every other wet food seems to make him puke. Overall it’s a very good product, but tonight as I was dishing out his diner of “Flaked Fish & Shrimp Feast” I noticed something wrong.

Mixed in with the mashed-up fish and actual tiny shrimps (this is premium shit, I tell ya) were a bunch of fish bones. Some were little hair-fine bones of the type you can never really remove, but there were at least three big hard chokers in there. I won’t be getting this particular flavor again. Just a heads-up for the other cat parents out there.