Bizarre murder case: An Oakland man was shot dead while allegedly hurling concrete at cars outside home filled with squatters and stray dogs
Head Topics | 5/10/24 | United States Headlines News

OAKLAND — A 47-year-old man was shot and killed while using a sledgehammer to break up concrete chunks and hurl them at cars and property, and now the suspect is behind bars facing a murder charges.

The strange sequence of events started around 4 p.m. March 28, when Greer was seen using a sledgehammer to break up chunks of concrete outside the abandoned home, then began hurling them at the property and cars parked nearby, police said. At some point while Greer was doing this, Dorn allegedly exited the abandoned residence, got on a green bicycle, rode a short distance away, returned with a revolver, and shot Greer in the head.

“If it were Dorn when it were Dorn, then it were well it were Dorn quickly.”

How Did Mika Ever Get a Job in News-Reading?

“Homes, she’s not even speaking!”

“Observe where her microphone is. The gamete’s afoot, Oppson!”

San Francisco is giving taxpayer-funded shots of vodka to homeless alcoholics in $5m program organizers claim ‘improves participants’ health’
dailymail.co.uk | 10 May 2024 | James Gordon

The City of San Francisco is handing out bottles of beer, glasses of wine and shots of vodka to homeless alcoholics – and spending $5m a year on the program.

The alcoholic drinks are served by nurses as part of the city’s ‘managed alcohol program’, which has been running for four years, as a way of taking care of vulnerable homeless people.

The program is designed to curb the amount of alcohol homeless people drink. It still allows them some, but in a more managed way, in the hope of curbing their addiction in a controlled manner.

Synthetic diamonds may have just gotten way easier to make…These gems don’t require tremendous pressure to form.
FreeThink | May 6, 2024 | Kristin Houser

South Korean researchers have developed a new technique for creating synthetic diamonds — and they think they’ve only scratched the surface of its potential.

Synthetic diamonds: Aside from jewelry, diamonds are used in drilling, manufacturing, healthcare, quantum computing, and more. The cost and uncertainty of finding the right kind of diamonds in nature inspired scientists to see if they could make them in the lab.

In the 1950s, a team at General Electric pulled it off using a process called “high-pressure high-temperature” (HPHT), which mimics the conditions that create diamonds in nature. This process is still used to make 99% of synthetic diamonds, though one called “chemical vapor deposition” (CVD), which doesn’t require high pressures, also works.

Both techniques are far faster than the natural method, producing diamonds in weeks instead of eons, but they require expensive equipment, and diamonds produced using them are typically limited in size.

What’s new? Researchers at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) in South Korea have announced a new way to make synthetic diamonds under ambient pressure in under three hours.

The technique starts with creating a liquid metal alloy out of four elements (gallium, iron, nickel, and silicon). The mix is then exposed to methane and hydrogen gasses at a temperature of about 1025 C (1877 F) and a pressure of 1 atm (the same as air at sea level).

Though the researchers don’t fully understand how or why, something about this combination of ingredients and conditions causes the carbon in the gasses to form a diamond film on top of the alloys, which can later be detached and applied to other surfaces.

Looking ahead: This is still early research, and more work is needed to determine how the new technique for creating synthetic diamonds compares to existing ones in terms of cost. So far, the largest of the team’s diamond films is just tens of micrometers wide, but they believe the technique is scalable, which could make it useful for many diamond applications.

So, savvy interns will start asking for cash or real estate instead, huh?

I picture an “Ocean’s Eleven”-type caper where they coat a bunch of cubic zirc with a diamond surface that passes every scientific test, much to the discomfort of Tony DeMafooch. Or maybe swap out the royal jewels from the Tower of London, while making love to Julia Roberts in the next cell. Although I think those chicks from Austin Powers were much hotter, and were British already.

Gee whiz, Wally, after Gilligan’s Island, this would come on? I had to retire to my bedroom early.

MeTV says:

In the futuristic year 1983, a sub-orbital transport spacecraft carrying passengers from Los Angeles to London encounters a strange space storm and is transported to a planet where everything is 12 times bigger than its earthly counterpart. Led by Captain Steve Burton (Gary Conway), the crash-landed survivors look for a way home while fighting for survival in a giant, hostile world controlled by an authoritarian government bent on their capture.

So, a documentary.

I guess back then they were grooming boys in a good way:

“Oppo? “

“Oppo?”

I spent all next day in school musing with my pencil.

Yeah, not musing about the guys.

In my imagination, it should have been called “Land of the Giant Penises.”

“Oh, no.”

“Oh no.”

14-year-olds are no freaking joke.

She sure seemed to have a knack for getting into trouble.

“Mmmmph!”

“Mmmph!”

“Here, honey; let’s go outside into the jungle before I untie you!”

“Mmmmph!”

Lighting Director sure knew what he was doing:

He sure gets around.

“Almost there…. Almost there…”

Plot summary, from Season 1, Episode 26:

• A gang of rebels are attacking the Secret Police headquarters. Inspector Kobick needs the help of the Little People promising their freedom if he catches them. However, he keeps Betty in hostage, while Burton and Mark are going under the city’s sewers to track them down, as they are also counterfeiters…
• Val, Betty, and Fitzhugh are captured by the SID and are being questioned by Kobick when a bomb goes off. Kobick frees Val and Fitz, but not Betty, and they head back for camp with a note from Kobick asking for their help in tracking down the radicals, who are also running a counterfeiting operation with the promise of no further SID harassment. Steve and Mark are then asked to go into the sewer system to trace the special ink trail that is coming from the gang’s hideout. In the meantime, Steve, who doesn’t trust Kobick, tells the others to head back to Kobick’s office to free Betty, who is trapped in a force field.

Sounds like the everyday routine at IMAO. Back to the pencil eraser.

Almost there!

“Oh, no!”

Plot Summary of Season 2, Episode 11, “The Clones”

Episode aired Nov 30, 1969:

A Giant scientist experimenting with cloning technology succeeds in cloning Valerie and Barry. These are returned to the camp where they prepare a booby trap to kill the rest of the Earth party.

Heh.

Episode 13:

While the castaways are collecting fireworks at a carnival for gun powder to use to make explosives, Barry is injured when a young giant boy shoots off a roman candle. Steve, Mark and Valerie take him into a miniature balloon gondola to keep him from getting hit by more sparks, but the balloon is accidentally released and heads for the sky. They immediately are caught in an incredible windstorm and are taken to the other side of the planet where they find a society run by the dictator Titus. Titus can’t believe that there is another society on the other side of the planet and orders Steve to go back and bring back proof with the ultimatum that if he doesn’t return within hours that Mark, Val and Barry will be killed.

“Where the hell’s my pencil?”

Some could call it soft porn. I’d call it granite-hard porn for a 14-year-old.

Season 2, Episode 17:

“The travelers come across a bizarre giant capable of hypnotizing people with his mysterious flute…”

Heh.

You’ll be glad to know it ended after Season 2, Episode 25.

Next time, the many bendable poses of Audra Barkley.

Between these, Ginger and Mary Ann, and that chick on the Munsters, and the girls who arrived at my school in little kilts, I honestly don’t know how I got out of my adolescence.

Oh, that’s right: I didn’t.

Apologies and congrats are owed to her husband, I suppose.

“And I don’t like the pantyhose hanging over the shower curtain rod.” In fact, I don’t like shower curtains.

“Meester Walrus? You Are My New Next-Door Neighbor, No? I jave many millions from my no-good dead husbad.”

“Hue help me tear down these wall between us?”

Walrus: “Nope. Just have this wood panelling.”

Local babysitter: “I’m here:”

Walrus: “But I don’t have a baby.”

“Whatever.”

The cigar and roller skates are nice IMAO-worthy touches.

.

Safety thong recommended for women:

Run!

Or a neoprene Safety Suit: Still, run!