Tom Ludlow is a veteran LAPD cop who finds life difficult to navigate after the death of his wife. When evidence implicates him in the execution of a fellow officer, he is forced to go up against the cop culture he's been a part of his entire career, ultimately leading him to question the loyalties of everyone around him.

Watch "Street Kings" Movie

AUTOMATIC WASHING MACHINES: PLEASE REMOVE ALL YOUR CLOTHES WHEN THE LIGHT GOES OUT

Sign in a London department store:
BARGAIN BASEMENT UPSTAIRS

In an office:
WOULD THE PERSON WHO TOOK THE STEP LADDER YESTERDAY PLEASE BRING IT BACK OR FURTHER STEPS WILL BE TAKEN

Outside a farm:
HORSE MANURE 50p PER PRE-PACKED BAG 20p DO-IT-YOURSELF

In an office:
AFTER TEA BREAK STAFF SHOULD EMPTY THE TEAPOT AND STAND UPSIDE DOWN ON THE DRAINING BOARD

On a church door:
THIS IS THE GATE OF HEAVEN. ENTER YE ALL BY THIS DOOR. (THIS DOOR IS KEPT LOCKED BECAUSE OF THE DRAFT. PLEASE USE SIDE DOOR.)

English sign in a German cafe:
MOTHERS, PLEASE WASH YOUR HANS BEFORE EATING

Outside a second-hand shop:
WE EXCHANGE ANYTHING - BICYCLES, WASHING MACHINES ETC. WHY NOT BRING YOUR WIFE ALONG AND GET A WONDERFUL BARGAIN?

Sign outside a new town hall which was to be opened by the Prince of Wales:
THE TOWN HALL IS CLOSED UNTIL OPENING. IT WILL REMAIN CLOSED AFTER BEING OPENED. OPEN TOMORROW.

Outside a photographer' s studio:
OUT TO LUNCH: IF NOT BACK BY FIVE, OUT FOR DINNER ALSO

Seen at the side of a Sussex road:
SLOW CATTLE CROSSING. NO OVERTAKING FOR THE NEXT 100 YRS.

Outside a disco:
SMARTS IS THE MOST EXCLUSIVE DISCO IN TOWN. EVERYONE WELCOME

Sign warning of quicksand:
QUICKSAND. ANY PERSON PASSING THIS POINT WILL BE DROWNED. BY ORDER OF THE DISTRICT COUNCIL

Notice sent to residents of a Whiltshire parish:
DUE TO INCREASING PROBLEMS WITH LETTER LOUTS AND VANDALS WE MUST ASK ANYONE WITH RELATIVES BURIED IN THE GRAVEYARD TO DO THEIR BEST TO KEEP THEM IN ORDER

Notice in a dry cleaner's window:
ANYONE LEAVING THEIR GARMENTS HERE FOR MORE THAN 30 DAYS WILL BE DISPOSED OF

Sign on motorway garage:
PLEASE DO NOT SMOKE NEAR OUR PETROL PUMPS. YOUR LIFE MAY NOT BE WORTH MUCH BUT OUR PETROL IS

Notice in health food shop window:
CLOSED DUE TO ILLNESS

Spotted in a safari park:
ELEPHANTS PLEASE STAY IN YOUR CAR

Notice in a field:
THE FARMER ALLOWS WALKERS TO CROSS THE FIELD FOR FREE, BUT THE BULL CHARGES

Message on a leaflet:
IF YOU CANNOT READ, THIS LEAFLET WILL TELL YOU HOW TO GET LESSONS

Sign on a repair shop door:
WE CAN REPAIR ANYTHING. (PLEASE KNOCK HARD ON THE DOOR - THE BELL DOESN'T WORK)

Spotted in a toilet in a London office block:
TOILET OUT OF ORDER. PLEASE USE FLOOR BELOW

Sign in a Japanese hotel:
SPORTS JACKETS MAY BE WORN BUT NO TROUSERS

Sign in Egyptian hotel:
IF YOU REQUIRE ROOM SERVICE, PLEASE OPEN DOOR AND SHOUT, "ROOM SERVICE!"

At a Santa Fe gas station:
"We will sell gasoline to anyone in a glass container."

In a New York restaurant:
"Customers who consider our waitresses uncivil ought to see the manager."

On the wall of a Baltimore estate:
"Trespassers will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.�Sisters of Mercy"

On a long-established New Mexico dry cleaners:
"38 years on the same spot."

In a Los Angeles dance hall:
"Good clean dancing every night but Sunday."

In a Florida maternity ward:
"No children allowed."

In a New York drugstore:
"We dispense with accuracy."

In the offices of a loan company:
"Ask about our plans for owning your home."

In a New York medical building:
"Mental Health Prevention Center"

On a New York convalescent home:
"For the sick and tired of the Episcopal Church."

On a Maine shop:
"Our motto is to give our customers the lowest possible prices and workmanship. ."

At a number of military bases:
"Restricted to unauthorized personnel."

On a display of "I love you only" Valentine cards:
"Now available in multi-packs. "

In the window of a Kentucky appliance store:
"Don't kill your wife. Let our washing machine do the dirty work."

In a funeral parlor:
"Ask about our layaway plan."

In a clothing store:
"Wonderful bargains for men with 16 and 17 necks."

In a Tacoma, Washington men's clothing store:
"15 men's wool suits, $10. They won't last an hour!"

On a shopping mall marquee:
"Archery Tournament�Ears pierced"

Outside a country shop:
"We buy junk and sell antiques."

In the window of an Oregon store:
"Why go elsewhere and be cheated when you can come here?"

In a Maine restaurant:
"Open 7 days a week and weekends."

On a radiator repair garage:
"Best place to take a leak."

In the vestry of a New England church:
"Will the last person to leave please see that the perpetual light is extinguished
."

In a Pennsylvania cemetery:
"Persons are prohibited from picking flowers from any but their own graves."

On a roller coaster:
"Watch your head."

On the grounds of a public school:
"No trespassing without permission."

On a Tennessee highway:
"When this sign is under water, this road is impassable."

Similarly, in front of a New Hampshire car wash:
"If you can't read this, it's time to wash your car."

In the weightlessness of space a frozen pea will explode if it comes in contact with Pepsi.

The increased electricity used by modern appliances is causing a shift in the Earth's magnetic field. By the year 2327, the North Pole will be located in mid-Kansas, while the South Pole will be just off the coast of East Africa.

The idea for "tribbles" in "Star Trek" came from gerbils, since some gerbils are actually born pregnant.

Male rhesus monkeys often hang from tree branches by their amazing prehensile penises.

Johnny Plessey batted .331 for the Cleveland Spiders in 1891, even though he spent the entire season batting with a rolled-up, lacquered copy of the Toledo Post-Dispatch.

Smearing a small amount of dog feces on an insect bite will relieve the itching and swelling.

The Boeing 747 is capable of flying upside-down if it weren't for the fact that the wings would shear off when trying to roll it over.

The trucking company Elvis Presley worked at as a young man was owned by Frank Sinatra.

The only golf course on the island of Tonga has 15 holes, and there's no penalty if a monkey steals your golf ball.

Legislation passed during WWI making it illegal to say "gesundheit" to a sneezer was never repealed.

Manatees possess vocal chords which give them the ability to speak like humans, but don't do so because they have no ears with which to hear the sound.

SCUBA divers cannot pass gas at depths of 33 feet or below.

Catfish are the only animals that naturally have an ODD number of whiskers.

Replying more than 100 times to the same piece of spam e-mail will overwhelm the sender's system and interfere with their ability to send any more spam.

Polar bears can eat as many as 86 penguins in a single sitting.

The first McDonald's restaurant opened for business in 1952 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and featured the McHaggis sandwich.

The Air Force's F-117 fighter uses aerodynamics discovered during research into how bumblebees fly.

You *can* get blood from a stone, but only if contains at least 17 percent bauxite.

Silly Putty was "discovered" as the residue left behind after the first latex condoms were produced. It's not widely publicized for obvious reasons.

Approximately one-sixth of your life is spent on Wednesdays.

The skin needed for elbow transplants must be taken from the scrotum of a cadaver.

The sport of jai alai originated from a game played by Incan priests who held cats by their tails and swung at leather balls. The cats would instinctively grab at the ball with their claws, thus enabling players to catch them.

A cat's purr has the same romance-enhancing frequency as the voice of singer Barry White.

The typewriter was invented by Hungarian immigrant Qwert Yuiop, who left his "signature" on the keyboard.

The volume of water that the Giant Sequoia tree consumes in a 24-hour period contains enough suspended minerals to pave 17.3 feet of a 4-lane concrete freeway.

King Henry VIII slept with a gigantic axe.

Because printed materials are being replaced by CD-ROM, microfiche and the Internet, libraries that previously sank into their foundations under the weight of their books are now in danger of collapsing in extremely high winds.

In 1843, a Parisian street mime got stuck in his imaginary box and consequently died of starvation.

Touch-tone telephone keypads were originally planned to have buttons for Police and Fire Departments, but they were replaced with * and # when the project was cancelled in favor of developing the 911 system.

Human saliva has a boiling point three times that of regular water.

Calvin, of the "Calvin and Hobbes" comic strip, was patterned after President Calvin Coolidge, who had a pet tiger as a boy.

Watching an hour-long soap opera burns more calories than watching a three-hour baseball game.

Until 1978, Camel cigarettes contained minute particles of real camels.

You can actually sharpen the blades on a pencil sharpener by wrapping your pencils in aluminum foil before inserting them.

To human taste buds, Zima is virtually indistinguishable from zebra urine.

Seven out of every ten hockey-playing Canadians will lose a tooth during a game. For Canadians who don't play hockey, that figure drops to five out of ten.

A dog's naked behind leaves absolutely no bacteria when pressed against carpet.

A team of University of Virginia researchers released a study promoting the practice of picking one's nose, claiming that the health benefits of keeping nasal passages free from infectious blockages far outweigh the negative social connotations.

Among items left behind at Osama bin Laden's headquarters in Afghanistan were 27 issues of Mad Magazine. Al Qaeda members have admitted that bin Laden is reportedly an avid reader.

Urine from male cape water buffaloes is so flammable that some tribes use it for lantern fuel.

At the first World Cup championship in Uruguay, 1930, the soccer balls were actually monkey skulls wrapped in paper and leather.

Every Labrador retriever dreams about bananas.

If you put a bee in a film canister for two hours, it will go blind and leave behind its weight in honey.

Due to the angle at which the optic nerve enters the brain, staring at a blue surface during sex greatly increases the intensity of orgasms.

Never hold your nose and cover your mouth when sneezing, as it can blow out your eyeballs.

Centuries ago, purchasing real estate often required having one or more limbs amputated in order to prevent the purchaser from running away to avoid repayment of the loan. Hence an expensive purchase was said to cost "an arm and a leg."

When Mahatma Gandhi died, an autopsy revealed five gold Krugerrands in his small intestine.

Aardvarks are allergic to radishes, but only during summer months.

Coca-Cola was the favored drink of Pharaoh Ramses. An inscription found in his tomb, when translated, was found to be almost identical to the recipe used today.

If you part your hair on the right side, you were born to be carnivorous. If you part it on the left, your physical and psychological make-up is that of a vegetarian.

When immersed in liquid, a dead sparrow will make a sound like a crying baby.

In WWII the US military planned to airdrop over France propaganda in the form of Playboy magazine, with coded messages hidden in the models' turn-ons and turn-offs. The plan was scrapped because of a staple shortage due to rationing of metal.

Although difficult, it's possible to start a fire by rapidly rubbing together two Cool Ranch Doritos.

Napoleon's favorite type of wood was knotty chestnut.

The world's smartest pig, owned by a mathematics teacher in Madison, WI, memorized the multiplication tables up to 12.

Due to the natural "momentum" of the ocean, saltwater fish cannot swim backwards.

In ancient Greece, children of wealthy families were dipped in olive oil at birth to keep them hairless throughout their lives.

It is nearly three miles farther to fly from Amarillo, Texas to Louisville, Kentucky than it is to return from Louisville to Amarillo.

The "nine lives" attributed to cats is probably due to their having nine primary whiskers.

The original inspiration for Barbie dolls comes from dolls developed by German propagandists in the late 1930s to impress young girls with the ideal notions of Aryan features. The proportions for Barbie were actually based on those of Eva Braun.

The Venezuelan brown bat can detect and dodge individual raindrops in mid-flight, arriving safely back at his cave completely dry.

· In the film, 'Titanic', when Jack walks through the french doors for dinner with Rose and her family, a camera man's reflection can be seen on the glass.

· During one scene in 'The Sound of Music', an orange box can be clearly seen stamped with the words 'Produce of Israel'. The film was set in 1938, ten years before Israel was founded.

· Some of the chariot racers in 'Ben Hur' were seen to be wearing wristwatches.

· In the 1985 movie, 'Falling in Love', a reflection of the camera can be seen in a mirror.

· Esteemed actor Richard Harris was seen wearing an elastoplast on his neck when playing King Arthur in the film 'Camelot'.

· Edward G Robinson's character in 'The Last Gangster' gets sent to Alcatraz in 1927. This was probably not as bad a sentence as you might imagine since the prison wasn't opened there until 1934.

· In one scene from this movie a young boy who is nothing to do with the film is scene moving across the set. Later, when this was discovered, no-one knew who he was and rumours started to spread about a possible haunting.

· Television ariels can clearly be seen on the roofs of Victorian London in the comedy, 'The Wrong Box'.

· A red London bus can be seen in the background of one of the battle scenes from the Arthurian legend film, 'Excalibur'.

• Amazon.com - Founder Jeff Bezos renamed the company to Amazon (from the earlier name of Cadabra.com) after the world's most voluminous river, the Amazon. He saw the potential for a larger volume of sales in an online bookstore as opposed to the then prevalent bookstores. (Alternative: It is said that Jeff Bezos named his book store Amazon simply to cash in on the popularity of Yahoo at the time. Yahoo listed entries alphabetically, and thus Amazon would always appear above its competitors in the relevant categories it was listed in.)
• 
  Cadillac - Cadillac was named after the 18th century French explorer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, founder of Detroit , Michigan . Cadillac is a small town in the South of France
• 
  Coca-Cola - Coca-Cola's name is derived from the coca leaves and kola nuts used as flavoring. Coca-Cola creator John S. Pemberton changed the 'K' of kola to 'C' for the name to look better.
• 
  eBay - Pierre Omidyar, who had created the Auction Web trading website, had formed a web consulting concern called Echo Bay Technology Group. " Echo Bay " didn't refer to the town in Nevada , the nature area close to Lake Mead , or any real place. "It just sounded cool," Omidyar reportedly said. When he tried to register EchoBay.com, though, he found that Echo Bay Mines, a gold mining company, had gotten it first. So, Omidyar registered what (at the time) he thought was the second best name: eBay.com.
• 
  B&Q - from the initials of its founders, Block and Quayle
• 
  Google - the name is a misspelling of the word googol, reflecting the company's mission to organize the immense amount of information available online.
• 
  Häagen-Dazs - Contrary to common belief, the name is not European; it is simply two made-up words meant to look European to American eyes. This is known in the marketing industry as foreign branding.
• 
  IKEA - founded by Ingvar Kamprad of Sweden . The name IKEA comes from a clever acronym using the initials of the founder, Ingvar Kamprad, who was from a family farm called Elmtaryd, which was near the village of Agunnaryd . The acronym is for a Swedish phrase but it turns out to be the same in English, Ingvar Kamprad's Economical Alternative.
• 
  Adidas - from the name of the founder Adolf (Adi) Dassler.
• 
  Kodak - Both the Kodak camera and the name were the invention of founder George Eastman. The letter "K" was a favourite with Eastman; he felt it a strong and incisive letter. He tried out various combinations of words starting and ending with "K". He saw three advantages in the name. It had the merits of a trademark word, would not be mis-pronounced and the name did not resemble anything in the art. There is a misconception that the name was chosen because of its similarity to the sound produced by the shutter of the camera.

An Israeli missile offensive killed 11 civilians including five children in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday.

Among them is 23-year-old Fadel Shanah, a Reuters cameraperson who died by a shell launched from an Israeli tank in the strike near Bureji refugee camp.

In fact, he actually captured on tape the shell being launched metres away from him and then his camera goes black as he is hit.

In all, 22 people have died in one of the bloodiest offensives since Israel's Gaza incursions.

At least 100 people were killed during those operations launched by Israel after Palestinian rocket attacks on its territory.

Meanwhile, Reuters has called for an investigation.

Source: NDTV

1. Why doesn’t Tarzan have a beard?
2. Why do we press harder on a remote control when we know the batteries are flat?
   
3. Why do banks charge a fee on “insufficient funds” when they know there is not enough?
   
4. Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion stars, but check when you say the paint is wet?
   
5. What is the speed of darkness?
   
6. Why is it that people say they “slept like a baby” when babies wake up every two hours?
   
7. Why do people pay to go up tall buildings and then put money in binoculars to look at things on the ground?
   
8. Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, “I think I’ll squeeze these pink dangly things here, and drink whatever comes out?”
   
9. Who was the first person to say, “See that chicken there… I’m gonna eat the next thing that comes outta its bum.”
   
10. Why do toasters always have a setting so high that could burn the toast to a horrible crisp, which no decent human being would eat?
    
11. Why is there a light in the fridge and not in the freezer?
    
12. Why do people point to their wrist when asking for the time, but don’t point to their bum when they ask where the bathroom is?
    
13. Why does your Obstetrician, Gynecologist leave the room when you get undressed if they are going to look up there anyway?
    
14. Why does Goofy stand erect while Pluto remains on all fours? They’re both dogs!
    
15. If quizzes are quizzical, what are tests?
    
16. If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, then what is baby oil made from?
    
17. If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?
    
18. Why do the Alphabet song and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star have the same tune?
    Stop singing and read on……. Yes, it caught me too!
    
19. Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog’s face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him on a car ride, he sticks his head out the window?
    
20. Does pushing the elevator button more than once make it arrive faster?

Source: CK's Weblog

Learn how to build a fish tank for your aquatic pets. Building your own fish tank will give you the luxury of having exactly what you need, as well as the satisfaction of designing to your own specifications. These directions are for a tank of 25-30 gallons or less.

Required Materials

• two sheets of 1/4” glass of 36” x 24” (front & back)
• two sheets of 1/4” glass of 12” x 24” (sides)
• one sheet of 1/4” glass of 12” x 36” (bottom)
• acetone
• non-toxic 100% silicone sealant
• roll of duct tape
• paper towels
• plastic or rubber corner trim

Note: It is often possible to have the glass cut by an employee of the hardware store where you purchase it.

Required Tools

• at least one square
• single-edged razor blades
• felt tip marker
• emery cloth
• gloves for handling cut glass
• alcohol
• toxicity test strips
• pH test strips

Instructions

1. Beginning Assembly - Place the bottom piece of glass on a smooth, clean surface with the inside facing down. Attach several lengths of duct tape to the outer surface of one entire long edge, making sure to leave several inches of width to hang over the edge. Carefully turn the bottom over to expose the sticky side of the overhanging tape. Lay either the front or back piece of glass on top of the tape, in line with the bottom piece of glass. Using paper towels and acetone, gently clean the area to be joined. Using a non-toxic sealant, fill the area between the two pieces of glass. Raise the front or back piece of glass to a 90-degree angle using your square and then secure the two pieces of glass to the square with duct tape. Place a good-sized bead of silicone sealant on the inside of the joint. Allow this to dry for 24 hours. You can do both the front and back of the fish tank at this time if you have more than one square to tape to the unit.
2. Assembly of the Sides - Place several lengths of tape under the bottom of the tank, sticky side up, with a generous width of tape exposed. Lay the side of the tank beside the bottom piece and line them up. Clean with acetone gently to remove any residue or oil which may have been transferred from your skin. Fill the joints with sealant and then raise the sides to meet the front and back of the tank. Use several strips of duct tape to secure them in place. Run a generous bead of the sealant over the inside of these joints and then repeat for the other side. Allow another 24 hours for drying.
3. Finishing - Turn the assembled tank upside down. Run a thin bead of sealant around the four sides of the bottom. Carefully place trim around the base over the sealant and allow 6 hours to dry. Now turn the tank upright again and run a thin bead of sealant over the edges of the glass. As done previously, place trim over the glass to cover any sharp edges, then seal and finish. Allow another 24 hours of drying time. Fill with water and allow to sit for 12 hours to test for leaks; repair any that do occur with the sealant. Fill with clean water and attach your accessories. Allow to sit for another few hours until the temperature of the water matches room temperature. Test for pH balance and toxicity.

Source: ihowd

The future meets the past as I turn a Star Trek Phaser into a Blu-Ray Laser Phaser! Captain Kirk would have loved to have one of these in his arsenal of goodies and now he can. Typical blu-ray lasers are very expensive but I found an inexpensive source for obtaining one. The Playstation 3 games system from Sony has a blu-ray laser diode in it. Rather than spend $400 for a Playstation 3 only to destroy it made no sense. I found a replacement laser assembly (KEM-400AAA) on a popular auction site for $45. Then, I picked up the Star Trek Classic Phaser, also on that auction site, for $30. Now it's time to "boldly go where no man has gone before."

You will need to have some electronics experience to build this as well as some tools. You will need: a Soldering Iron & Solder, small screwdrivers, X-Acto Knife, hot glue or epoxy, a Dremel tool, wire, wire snips and pliers or vice-grips.

In addition to the blu-ray diode and the Star Trek Phaser, you will also need a diode housing. I picked one up from Aixiz International, a 9 volt battery, a 150 ohm resistor and a momentary switch. I used a part # 275-1556 from Radio Shack.

Now let's get to work. The first step is extracting the diode from the laser assembly. The blu-ray diode is pretty easy to locate. There are 2 screws to remove and a small ribbon cable that needs to be cut off. After you have removed the laser mount, you need to scrap away the remaining glue and using a small jewelers screwdriver, very gently tap around the edge of the diode housing to free it from the mount. Use extreme care doing this.

Once the diode has been freed, it's time to do some soldering. You will need great eyes or a pair of strong reading glasses to do the soldering. Plus a steady hand and quick touches of the iron to keep the heat down on the diode. There are a total of 5 pins as seen in the diagram. It's best to remove the existing small board on the diode and end up with the 5 pins.

Now it's time to install the diode in the Aixiz housing. After unscrewing the housing and saving the top half, using vice-grips or a pair of pliers, gently work around the edge of the diode and press it into the housing. It should be flush to the housing.

Let's move to the Star Trek Phaser and get it ready for the diode. This is easy to disassemble with a few screws and by unscrewing the front light bulb assembly. Once you have it apart, you will need to remove the small trigger button and the circuit board that is inside to make room for the switch and blu-ray diode housing.

When you removed the light bulb, it was in a black mount that you will need. This mount will need some plastic cut in order to make room for the Aixiz housing with diode. It should look like this after you have cut it:

Then, using a drop of hot glue, attach the Aixiz housing to the light bulb bracket.

Now it's time to wire everything up and install it in the Phaser. Solder the Negative (-) wire from the diode to the new momentary switch and a wire from the other leg of the switch to the black wire on the 9 volt clip. Then solder the Positive (+) wire from the diode to one end of the Resistor and solder the red wire from the 9 volt clip to the other end of the resistor. NOTE: The wiring to the 9 volt battery clip should be done after you have run the wires to the battery compartment. You will understand when you look at it. Now install the diode in the Phaser in the original light bulb location, the new switch where the old trigger was and the 9 volt battery in the battery compartment.

You may have to do some more minor plastic cutting with the Dremel to make room for the components.

Close up the Phaser and screw it together. I drilled open the hole in the front light bulb screwtop to accommodate the laser beam.

Now enjoy your new Blu-Ray Laser Phaser! Have fun & Be Safe!

You can check out the video for this project and all my others at MetaCafe .

Source: Inventor Spot

The mysterious, elusive, and admittedly obsessive Dr. Amar Bose, founder and namesake of the Bose Corporation, made a rare appearance Tuesday to a select group of journalists. The occasion was the launch of their new Bose Computer MusicMonitor speakers, but the real treat was hearing the good doctor dish out secrets about the history of Bose, why they almost went bankrupt, and why they never, ever publish specifications for any of their products. As he put it, he spoke to us about “things never discussed outside the company, things that only people involved in the beginning know.”

Some of the words may be paraphrased a bit (I wrote this quickly as he spoke), and I cut out some of the fat, but for the most part, the following is straight from the mouth of Dr. Bose.

THE ORIGIN STORY: AN OBSESSION IS BORN

“I was doing my doctorate at M.I.T. I was a disciplined student. I only allowed myself to listen to classical music. Then I started writing pieces and I didn’t need as much concentration, so I thought I could go out and buy a HiFi sound system.

I went and checked the specifications. Like all engineers, I thought specifications meant everything. I believed that thoroughly. I had been brainwashed for years…

His story continues after the jump…

I went to Radioshack. There were only two of them around at the time. I wasn’t interested in listening. I thought specifications were dominant, so I bought the system with the best specifications. I brought the system home to my room. I brought records home and I never was able to play more than three or four minutes of a record to the people there. I looked at the faces around at me as I played it, especially those who studied opera, and they had their own reactions. Oh my god it was embarassing! Something had gone wrong!

I went back to Radioshack and returned the system. I could hardly finish writing my doctorate thesis on mathematician Norbert Weiner.

Skipping ahead a little bit. I decided I woud like to test loudspeakers in our chamber. At that time, I had no interest in acoustics. My field was a different field at the time. But this became a problem that began to obsess me: How could something measure so well and not sound good?

I made a relationship with the Vice President of Radioshack. I said: “Look. At M.I.T. We would like to test different speakers. Could I make an arrangement with you where I borrow different speakers and test them and you can have the results?”

Anyway, much to my shock, none of the loudspeakers had close to what was published. College kids today think that industry is big and bad and money is the only thing that counts. I’m afraid that may be true. I thought it was just industry that was causing all these problems. So I began to contact people in the industry, and asked why the measurements weren’t the same as what was published. I got back a statement saying the measuring was wrong….

So then the question was: What to do? I realized specifications A) weren’t correct as printed, and B) if you met them, the sound wasn’t improved.

I brought students and asked them which speakers they thought were best. Then I brought in the same students six months later, and found the results were totally random, and not the same. So I figured we needed to bring in musicians. So we brought in musicians from the Boston Symphony Orchestra. We found the same thing: The results were random.

That really threw us back. We just about bailed on research. If you can’t have musicians know which sound was better than another sound, how can you design a system? If a person can’t tell, what can you do? So we launched an enormous program at M.I.T., and slowly learned more about it.

A COMPANY IS BORN

The company was formed in 1964. There were problems dealing with different spaces and different rooms. In the first Bose product, for the first time there was active equalization. Back then, the speaker was a sacred thing: You didn’t mess with the sound before it entered the loudspeaker.

When we came out with our first speaker, the 901, we lost the first president of the company, a longtime friend of mine. He said: You ‘re going to introduce this thing, I don’t care if it’s better than anything on the the market. Nobody is going to buy this. It’s got no woofer, no tweeters. Just full range loudspekaers. He said he would leave if we released it, and he did.

When we launched that one it caused quite a stir in the industry because it had no woofers and no tweeters and worse yet, eight of the those full-range drivers were facing back agains the wall, with one facing forward. Imagine this in a community of people who still believe in measurements. They didn’t know how to measure it. They measured it in a chamber with a microphone in front, so 80 percent of the sound went away from the microphone!

BANKRUPTCY

It had some really interesting reviews. One magazine in the United States, a really credible magazine, had one reviewer named Norman Eisenburg who really knew his music. In those days I used to take the loudspeaker to the reviewer. I packed my son and loudspeaker in the car and went off. I put this little thing on top of the big speakers he had, turned it on, and within five minutes he said: “I don’t care if this is made of green cheese, it’s the best sound, most accurate sound, I’ve ever heard.”

He came out with a review titled “Surround and Conquer.” He was not known to do things like that. Everybody in the press knew he knew music, and it resulted in rave reviews one after another, and we were able to survive.

Then came one devastating review from a leading magazine. [WRITERS NOTE: He is likely referring to Consumer REports]. I’m talking 1960s, 1970s. It claimed that the Bose loudspekaer, the 901, caused violins to wander about the living room, and said a few other devastating things… They said it was outperformed by a $27.50 Japanese speaker sold at Radioshack. They said if you must buy this Bose speaker, buy the little Japanese speaker and use it as a tweeter.

So that bankrupted us. [Writer’s note: I just got a note from Bose PR informing me that they never, in fact, went bankrupt. Either Dr. Bose misspoke or I misheard him.]

We had 37 people at the time. I gathered them in one room and said: “If we don’t do anything, it will probably kill us. But if we do something, we have no credibility since we’re just a small company and we can’t do anything against this.” I said I think we oughtta do something. I wanted a vote. It was unanimous in favor of taking action. Little did we know it would take 14 years to go through the legal process. The first federal court we won. The appelate level we lost. The Supreme Court level vote was 5-4 against us, but said in there that everything stated in the magazine about the product was false. However, freedom of speech protects that.

However, in that process of 14 years, as troublesome and many headaches as it generated, we made it known to the public that this thing was going on. That they should come hear the product and see the sound ‘wander’ through the room. A judge asked “Where did the violins wander to?” Said: “Right over the wall and over the ceilling?” The judge was an Italian judge and he really knew music. That might have contributed to winning the first level of the case.

BACKLASH

We went through all that and finally put the speaker, the 901, on the market. Then bumped into another problem. If I hadn’t been so naïve about what goes on in business, I would have expected this. There were five companies that were major in the speaker business at the time. They had a meeting to figure out: What can we do to stop Bose? We know this because later on we hired a person who was very bright person who was hired by the companies and sent to this meeting.

As a result of the meeting, they come out with a white paper on the Bose 901 and what was wrong with it. Out of the five companies, in the first year we got four of the papers. The fifth one was so liable that the rep held onto the paper while reading it to dealers. We never got it, but got the content from dealers.

These are all things that, for an academic person, were shocking. I thought: “I brought top notch engineers into the company and I brought them into a sewer.”

WHY THEY NEVER PUBLISH SPECS

I decided on a philosophy at the time. We would cut out specifications because of two reasons. We decided to make each product that came out superior to what was out at the time. If it was superior, the public would appreciate it. That’s why we don’t give any measurements on any product today.

There are two reasons we cut out the specifications:
1) We don’t know of any measurements that actually determine anything about a product, and 2) Measurements are phony, in general, as they are printed.

Source: Crunch Gear

Source: Frost Fire Zoo

Here is a list of some Online Shopping sites in no particular order.

1. Overstock
2. Planet Online
3. Top Online Shopping
4. Amazon
5. Yahoo Shopping
6. Online Shopping
7. Deals Direct
8. eBay
9. Bizrate
10. My SHopping
11. Shop
12. Monster Market Place
13. Factory Fast
14. Salwar Kameez India
15. Big Shop
16. Shop Safe
17. OO
18. AOL Shopping
19. Home Shop18
20. Tesco
    

A list of cool internet games that you probably wouldn't play without seeing them here.

The daring and ingenious escape at the Stalag Luft III prison camp had a long pedigree, and memorable getaways certainly did not end with it. Throughout history, prisoners of all sorts have gone to unheard-of lengths to free themselves from confinement, whether it be house arrest in Tibet or a life sentence in Alcatraz. Most have failed, but a significant minority has tasted freedom through patience, skill, and in many cases sheer dumb luck. Here, relive some of the greatest jailbreaks of all time.—Lexi Krock

Mary, Queen of Scots (Scotland)

When Mary, Queen of Scots arrived in Scotland in 1561 from France, where she had been raised in exile, she expected eventually to assume the throne that was her birthright. But in 1567, during a rebellion of Scottish nobles, she was imprisoned in remote Lochleven Castle. Though Mary begged in letters to Queen Elizabeth and the Queen of France for help in getting free, she was unable to interest anyone in her cause. Before long, she began plotting her escape.

In her first attempt in March 1568, Mary disguised herself as a laundress and tried to escape from the castle by boat. But when the boatmen she attempted to hire noticed her pristine hands and beautiful face, her identity was revealed and her plan foiled (though remarkably, she did manage to return to her cell without the castle's guards learning of her ploy). Determined to succeed, Mary fled the prison again on May 2, 1568. With the help of an orphan she befriended at the castle, she was able to get out of the castle, across by boat to the mainland, and successfully away on a horse stolen from her captors' stables.

Tower of London (England)
The Tower of London has served as a royal palace, arsenal, royal mint, menagerie, and public records office. But its best-known role, which lasted for 850 years, was as a dark, dank, and bone-numbingly cold political prison. Dozens of accused spies, traitors, and prisoners of war imprisoned therein made bids for freedom over the centuries, and a lucky and wily few succeeded.

In 1597, a Jesuit priest named John Gerard made a hair-raising escape. After hacking away at the stones around the door to his cell, Gerard sneaked past the guards in the corridors one night and reached a high wall overlooking the moat. Down below, a boat he had arranged through a sympathetic prison warden waited in the darkness. The boatmen tossed him a rope, which Gerard tied to a nearby cannon. When he received a signal that his accomplices had tied off the other end of the rope across the moat, Gerard slid down the rope to freedom. He was never recaptured.

The Earl of Nithsdale, who was jailed in the Tower in 1715 for his role in the Jacobite Rebellion, made a less physically demanding exit. During a visit by his wife and her three ladies-in-waiting, Nithsdale donned the clothes of one of the ladies-in-waiting, a Mrs. Mills, and simply walked out with the other three. (Mrs. Mills, now wearing another set of clothes she had brought with her, left separately before the alarm was raised.) Safely away from the Tower, Nithsdale bribed a boatman to carry him and his wife out of the country; they eventually settled in Rome.

The final escape in the Tower of London's reign as a prison revealed security so lax it is perhaps best that the Tower soon thereafter became a British national monument and museum. A British soldier taken into custody during World War I for writing phony checks became bored one night, even though he was allowed as many visitors to his cell as he wanted. Leaving his unlocked cell, he made his way past the guards by nonchalantly strolling past them wrapped in an overcoat. They took him to be just another visitor, and he headed out for some nighttime fun in central London. Curiously, he returned to the Tower later that night and attempted to reimprison himself.

Giacomo Casanova (Italy)
In 1755, Giacomo Casanova was sentenced to five years in Venice's famously forbidding prison, "the Leads," for repeatedly committing adultery. A determined escape artist in both marriage and prison, Casanova began plotting his exit not long after he arrived at the Leads, which was named for the lead that coated its walls and roof. As he later put it, "It has always been my opinion that when a man sets himself determinedly to do something and thinks of nought but his design, he must succeed despite all the difficulties in his path...."

Casanova found an iron rod in the prison yard and fashioned it into a digging tool. For several months, he secretly worked on a tunnel that would take him out of his cell. His hopes were dashed, however, when he was suddenly forced to move to another cell. Realizing the guards would carefully watch him in his new cell, Casanova gave his iron tool, which he had managed to retain, to the prisoner in the next cell, a monk named Balbi, and begged him to dig one tunnel joining their cells and another between the monk's cell and the outside. Balbi agreed, and when he had completed the tunnels, both prisoners crawled out of Balbi's cell and managed to escape from the Leads using the iron tool to force open doors and gates in their way. Once they arrived in central Venice, Balbi and Casanova split up. The police searched for them everywhere to no avail.

Henry "Box" Brown (North Carolina)
Escape stories abound about runaway slaves, many of whom used the Underground Railroad to reach the freedom of the North. Less common are stories about slaves who successfully escaped on their own. One of the most audacious escapes was that of Henry Brown, who was born as a slave in 1816. After his owner suddenly sold Brown's wife and children to a new owner in another state, Brown made an agonizing solo escape to freedom on March 19, 1849.

Brown had a sympathetic carpenter build a box three feet long and two feet wide. After writing "right side up with care" on the outside of the box, two friends mailed the box, with Brown squeezed inside of it, from North Carolina to the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia. The journey lasted over 27 hours. Brown had water and ventilation holes, but for several hours, despite the box's label, he remained upside down. He made it, however, and later became an active member in Philadelphia's abolitionist community.

William F. Cody (Colorado)
Popularly known as Buffalo Bill, William F. Cody was a buffalo hunter, U.S. Army Scout, and Indian fighter who helped create the myth of the Wild West with his traveling variety show, the melodramatic "Wild West Congress of Rough Riders of the World." Known for his accurate marksmanship, courage, endurance, and brutal fights with Indians, Cody made one of the most fearless escapes in American history.

In the early 1860s, Indians captured Cody near Fort Larned, Colorado. Knowing that his captors' supply of meat was low, Cody convinced them to let him lead them to a nearby herd of cattle he knew of. Though a large group surrounded him as they traveled, Cody, who was allowed to ride in front, eventually broke free and urged his mule into a brisk canter. For six miles, the Indians pursued Cody, who never had more than a half-mile lead. Though the Indians shot arrows at him and tried to knock him off his mule, Cody prevailed, eventually slipping unnoticed into a Fort Larned bar and escaping.

The Great Escape (Germany)
Nazi authorities took great pains to guard against the escape of their prisoners during World War II at both their horrifying civilian concentration camps and at prisons for captured members of the Allied forces. At one of the largest prisons for Allied airmen, Stalag Luft III, the Germans planted seismographs in the ground every 33 feet so that they could detect the sounds of tunneling. They also raised the prison huts off the ground on stilts so that they could observe suspicious digging activity and built a huge trench around the entire prison to form yet another barrier between the prisoners and freedom. Despite all these measures, Stalag Luft III saw one of the biggest mass escapes of all time.

The Germans set the stage for a massive getaway when they chose to put nearly 10,000 strong, militarily trained men in Stalag Luft III together. Free to move about the prison, these men had nothing better to do than put their collective brainpower and might towards an escape plan. Among the inmates in 1944 were scores of talented miners, carpenters, engineers, even physicists and geologists, all of whom were willing to help execute an escape.

The Escape Committee was run by a South African airman named Roger Bushell, who devised a plan in 1943 to dig three tunnels, "Tom," "Dick," and "Harry." Fully 30 feet deep, each tunnel would lie beyond the reach of the listening devices (see Inside Tunnel "Harry"). As they dug, the prisoners removed tunnel dirt by trolley, concealed it in the legs of their pants, and later dumped it inconspicuously around the prison grounds. Groups of prisoners took turns guarding the tunnels from the watchful eyes of the Germans and covering for "missing" prisoners when they were underground.

On the 24th of March, 1944, 76 men were able to escape through Harry. Unfortunately, only three of them reached safety (see The Three That Got Away). Fifteen were captured and returned to the prison. Eight were sent to a concentration camp (though they ultimately survived the war). The remaining 50, Bushell among them, were rounded up and shot on orders from Hitler himself, who was embarrassed and infuriated by the mass escape. Hoping to deter any further prison breaks, Hitler ordered the ashes of the 50 murdered men scattered at Stalag Luft III by other prisoners.

Dalai Lama XIV (Tibet)
When they gained control of China in 1949, the Communists under Mao Tse Tung vowed to erase religion in China and regain economic and political power of the country's so-called "autonomous regions." Tibet, with its rich natural resources and friendly, pious inhabitants, became an immediate target. In 1959, as Communist armies stormed the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual and political leader, decided he had to try to escape from his homeland in hopes that he could lead his people from a safer perch in exile.

While huge crowds of Tibetans swarmed around the Dalai Lama's summer palace in an attempt to protect him from advancing troops, the Dalai Lama disguised himself in work clothes and crept unnoticed through the crowds and out of the city. "For the first time I was truly afraid," he wrote later, "for if I was caught all would be lost." When he reached the Kyichu River outside the city, he boarded a waiting boat and took it safely across. Eventually, the Dalai Lama, his brother, and a few loyal servants crossed through the Himalayas over the 16,000-foot Che La Pass and into the safety of India, where he has lived ever since.

Alcatraz (California)
When Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay opened its doors as a state prison in 1934, becoming home to the most violent criminals in the United States, its guards and overseers were confident that it was escape-proof. Alcatraz lay more than a mile from the mainland, in the midst of chilly waters surging with currents. The prison bristled with electric wires, fences, bars, and gun towers, and it had hidden microphones designed to detect even the faintest ping of a tunnel under construction.

Despite these obstacles, Alcatraz was the setting for several daring escapes, one of which, in 1962, remains one of the most notorious prison breaks in history. Frank Morris and the brothers Clarence and John Anglin spent six months chipping away at the concrete around the air shafts in their cells, trying to create enough space to climb inside and wiggle their way through Alcatraz's mazelike ventilation system and out to freedom. Using a range of makeshift digging implements, including nail clippers, spoons, and a drill made from a fan, the three men bore through concrete and cut through steel bars. Each night they hid their progress by filling in the missing chunks of wall with a paste made from wet newspaper.

On June 11, they snuck through the ventilation system and out of the prison, then set themselves adrift on a raft made out of barrels, mesh wire, and old raincoats. The next morning, after finding dummies in the men's beds, Alcatraz guards searched in vain for the inmates in the waters around the prison. No trace of the men was ever found, and many assume they drowned in San Francisco Bay.

Berlin Wall (Germany)
During the 26 years when the Berlin Wall separated East and West Berlin, and in the years since it tumbled in 1989, the wall has been a symbol of the ruthless determination of Communist leaders to keep their people behind the Iron Curtain. The wall also symbolized the passionate desire of many people to free themselves from a repressive system. Risking life and limb, hundreds of people were able to escape over the years through concrete, steel, and barbed wire, and past land mines, guard dogs, and sentries armed with automatic rifles and under strict orders to shoot to kill.

One of the cleverest forms of escape, used numerous times with success, involved passing through one of the Wall's many checkpoints hidden inside a car. Couriers with a legal right to pass through ferried countless refugees into West Berlin this way. Horst Breistoffer, a somewhat professional organizer of escapes, was a master of this method. Knowing that the East German guards carefully examined large cars and trucks for stowaways as they drove through the checkpoints, Breistoffer bought a miniscule car, a 1964 Italian Isetta, hoping the guards would forgo searching it. After spending more than two months modifying its structure to make room for an escapee, Breistoffer safely shuttled nine people over the border curled up in the space once taken up by the battery and heating system. (While transporting the tenth, he was caught.)

Tunneling beneath the Wall was another popular means of escape. Tunnel builders included professional gangs, which charged refugees extortionate rates to use them, and idealistic students, who hoped to help large groups of people cross the border at once. In 1964, Wolfgang Fuchs built one of the most important tunnels, which enabled more than 100 East Germans to reach the West. Fuchs spent seven months digging and orchestrating the 140-yard tunnel, which ran from a bathroom in the East to a basement in the West. A similarly successful tunnel began in an East Berlin graveyard. "Mourners" brought flowers to a grave and then disappeared underground. This escape route worked well until Communist officers discovered a baby carriage left by the "grave" and sealed the tunnel.

One of the most daring escapes involved two East German families, who worked together to create a homemade hot-air balloon. For months, Peter Strelzyk and Guenter Wetzel collaborated in their basements on a flamethrower and gas burner powerful enough to propel them out of Communist East Berlin using a 65-foot-wide, 75-foot-high balloon their wives stitched together from curtains, bedsheets, and random scraps. On the night of September 15, 1979, the Strelzyks and the Wetzels launched their contraption. They had just enough fuel to make it over the wall and land, whereupon they ran to freedom.

Billy Hayes (Turkey)
In 1970, Turkish authorities sentenced Billy Hayes, a 22-year-old American caught trying to carry four pounds of hashish out of Turkey, to serve 30 years for smuggling, and threw him into a notoriously brutal prison in Istanbul called Sagmalicar. After over a year of beatings and a steady loss of hope, Hayes was transferred to a prison on an island in the Sea of Marmara, where he was allowed to spend his days unloading cargo from ships. Six months of plotting and waiting yielded an escape plan for Hayes, whose story later became the subject of a book and subsequent movie entitled Midnight Express.

Hayes snuck out of the prison, stole a rowboat, and made it to shore. Hoping to reach Greece, Hayes dyed his blond hair black and began travelling towards the border. Barefoot, exhausted, and lacking a passport, he swam across a river and walked for miles. When he finally came upon an armed soldier, he thought that he had lost his bid for freedom, but the soldier yelled at him in Greek. Hayes eventually made it back to the U.S. safely.

Source: PBS