Meet Pluto-kun, the World’s Cutest Plutonium Mascot

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Heeeeeeerrrre’s Pluto-kun!

Pink Tentacle has a post about Pluto-kun, created by Japan’s Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation in the 1990s. The helium-voiced fellow stars in a “pro-nuclear PR cartoon entitled ‘Pluto-kun, Our Reliable Friend.’ The aim of the animated film, which features the company mascot Pluto-kun, is to dispel some of the fears surrounding plutonium.”

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Sorting Algorithm Explained with a Hungarian Folk Dance

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyZQPjUT5B4&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Sapientia University has created a series of online videos that illustrate different sorting algorithms using folk dances:

What you have to do is just check that they are in fact implementing the algorithm correctly. The dancers have numbers stuck on their front and they do seem to look down and examine the value on another dancer before performing the dance routine dictated by the algorithm…

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Swedish File Sharers Get Religious About Stealing

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Praise God and Pass the Torrent?

Swedish philosophy student Isaac Gerson thinks that file sharing is sacred. The 19-year-old leader of the Missionary Church of Kopimism believes that stealing and sharing are signs of appreciation, and has compared closed-source software to slavery. Last year, Sweden rejected the church’s application to be recognized as a religion, but Gerson isn’t giving up so easily…

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Mother Earth To Be Given Rights Equal to Humans In New Bolivian Law

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Pachamama, the goddess revered by indigenous Andean people as ‘Mother World’

A brief update on a story from a year ago: Bolivia is about to pass laws granting all of nature equal rights to human beings. The laws were first proposed after the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth and show the deep differences in zeitgeist between Bolivia and, well, pretty much every other nation-state on the planet…

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Jail: India’s Next Call Center?

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Convict Pradeep Deburma (left) and a fellow inmate of Cherlapalli jail operate computers as part of their training.

The next time you get an Indian talking from a call center on your customer service call, don’t get too upset. Instead, have pity as your counterpart may soon be talking from jail!

For a man serving a life sentence for murder, Pradeep Deburma has a slightly unlikely dream: to work in a call centre like hundreds of thousands of other young ambitious Indians. Even more improbably, he has every chance of realising it while still behind bars…

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Wedding Foods From Around The World

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What food did you eat on your wedding day?

While the world is abuzz with speculation about Kate Middleton and Prince William’s April 29 nuptials, a few details have been leaked – including their choice of wedding cake! Staying true to English custom, the couple is serving a fruitcake, a tradition that dates back to medieval times.

Just like many American weddings often feature a tiered wedding cake, countries the world over have unique foods that they use to celebrate marriage, which are eaten to deliver good luck, fertility and peace to the happy couple…

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Fashion Trend: Extremely Pointy Boots

And by “extremely”, I mean points about 2-7 feet long extending beyond the toes.

This video, which is voiced in Spanish but subtitled in English, is from the web series Behind the Seams. It describes the emerging Mexican fashion trend of wearing boots with very long points, which is closely affiliated with the Tribal music and dance scene.

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European Commission Wants ISPs and Online Services to Act as Copyright Cops, Snoops and Censors

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French Commissioner Michel Barnier

The European Commissioners are meeting today to decide the future of EU copyright policy. French Commissioner Michel Barnier is pushing for a set of control measures aimed at ISPs, web-hosts, social networking services, and related services that would force them to act as private police for the entertainment lobby, who would be able to direct them to spy on and block domains and users without judicial oversight or due process…

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Living in 90 Square Feet

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Felice Cohen lives in a Manhattan “microstudio” that measures 12′ x7′. My home office on the back porch is twice that! She pays $700 a month rent and considers it a bargain. That’s because the average apartment rent in this Upper West Side neighborhood is $3,600.

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Lady Gaga Launches Fashion Line Made from Discarded Meat

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Flying Gaga, Now in Bacon Flavor.

Pop icon Lady Gaga will launch a line of meat-based clothing this Fall using food waste. The line will be a “contemporary interpretation of her stage outfits,” according to the Haus of Gaga.

Exactly what that means remains unclear but I suggest you don’t wear the clothing camping (or store them in a bear box if you do). Unlike her infamous meat dress, the line will actually be…clothing. And unlike her meat dress, it comes PeTA-approved. Yes, PeTA approved!

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Discover the Hidden Patterns of Tomorrow with Futurist Thomas Frey
Unlock Your Potential, Ignite Your Success.

By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.

Learn More about this exciting program.