I wanted to take a shot of it for posterity. It’s not high art, it doesn’t have a cutting Banksy-esque message to shout out, but neither is it a mindless shitty graffito. It isn’t a wall-spanning work of spray-can mastery. What makes it so fascinating – and what makes it stick in my mind so much – is that this is the only example of it I am aware of, it has no name or tag anywhere, and seems almost meaningless. No obvious message, no obvious creator, it just is.

It’s a wonderfully and beautifully simple and evocative little piece, a perfect example of “less is more”. Why the poignantly melancholy expression? What does it mean? Who does it respresent, what is the message? Why did the artist go to the trouble of putting it on a box in the middle of humdrum suburbia?  Why is it on this little box and not the big fuck-off Cable cabinet next to it (out of shot)? It bugs me that the message and meaining are so well hidden.

Think about it – if you were going to go to all the trouble of getting a piece of card, drawing this face onto it, cutting out the holes to make a spray mask and then painting it onto something you would most likely make the message or the meaning a little obvious, do it somewhere prominent, be making it of someone recogniseable, or stick your name or tag on it somewhere. But this is so seemingly inert, so random and unique and so out of the way…it bugs me. Bugs the arse off me. It’s sits in the back of my mind like a mental hangnail.

It means something, and I want to know what. It’s like an earworm of the visual cortex.   If you recognise it (full size image here), or have seen it somewhere else in or around Manchester (or anywhere else) or know anything about it, I would like to know. I’m just interested. I certainly hope that whatever the Royal Mail have in this cabinet, they decide to leave the art where it is and don’t paint over it. It the simplest yet most striking piece of street art I have seen in a long time.

We endeavor to cherrypick the best examples of current thinking and put them into your immense and powerful BRAIN  to enhance your world view. To bring to you enlightenment without the hassle of going to a university and being all socially inadequate around girls and that.

Okay, well, let’s be honest, we don’t do that much, But when we see an article or a news story about THE SCIENCE! that is the equivalent of waking up and finding dinosaurs in your car, then we have to pass it along as best we can.

But, I am afraid, dear, sweet gentle readers, for the first time we have totally failed. We have today found an article of THE SCIENCE! that is so staggeringly obtuse, we have not been able to break it down. More after the jump.

We came across an article at New Scientist that, frankly, even though we have read it several times, does not go in. It does just not go in. We have tried with and without glasses, with lab coats, and we even ran it through the Google translation thingy to see if it would tranlsate it into English or something. But we were bested. The article is made up of lots of little paragraphs that, in of themselves, make sense. But considered as a whole, it makes our BRAINS shut down in a flop-sweat.

Anyhoo. As far as we can tell, the article relates to a current idea that, based on evidence gathered from the  GEO600 experiment in Hanover – a observational project designed to detect and analyse gravitational waves – our world may be nothing more than a holographic projection. Or possibly we are real, and the universe is a 2 dimensional projection. Or something. On the details, we are fuzzy, very fuzzy. But it is weird-ass SCIENCE! thinking, so we are intrigued.

It seems to also include black holes, storage of information about the black hole and its 3 dimensions in the 2 dimensions of the event horizon (that’s the hologram part) and possibly dinosaurs with lasers.* 

As an example of how fucking mind-futzing the article is, even the teaser paragraphs – the bits in the middle in a massive font that are designed to attract your attention with a simple, subject-revealing tease and HUGE quotation marks  - make your brain fart. For example:

“Incredibly, the experiment was picking up unexpected noise – as if quantum convulsions were causing an extra sideways jitter”  

Buh? WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN IN ENGLISH? Are we talking timey-wimey spacey-wacey here?

So, anyway, as we have no hope of offering any kind of useful brief summary of the article in any meaningful way, here is a totally random excerpt:

For many months, the GEO600 team-members had been scratching their heads over inexplicable noise that is plaguing their giant detector. Then, out of the blue, a researcher approached them with an explanation. In fact, he had even predicted the noise before he knew they were detecting it. According to Craig Hogan, a physicist at the Fermilab particle physics lab in Batavia, Illinois, GEO600 has stumbled upon the fundamental limit of space-time – the point where space-time stops behaving like the smooth continuum Einstein described and instead dissolves into “grains”, just as a newspaper photograph dissolves into dots as you zoom in. “It looks like GEO600 is being buffeted by the microscopic quantum convulsions of space-time,” says Hogan.

If this doesn’t blow your socks off, then Hogan, who has just been appointed director of Fermilab’s Center for Particle Astrophysics, has an even bigger shock in store: “If the GEO600 result is what I suspect it is, then we are all living in a giant cosmic hologram.”

[dogsounds comment: that has to be one of the most awesome and random quotes ever uttered by a scientist: "If the GEO600 result is what I suspect it is, then we are all living in a giant cosmic hologram." This scientist would give Slartibartfast a run for his money at a party.]

The idea that we live in a hologram probably sounds absurd, but it is a natural extension of our best understanding of black holes, and something with a pretty firm theoretical footing. It has also been surprisingly helpful for physicists wrestling with theories of how the universe works at its most fundamental level.

The holograms you find on credit cards and banknotes are etched on two-dimensional plastic films. When light bounces off them, it recreates the appearance of a 3D image. In the 1990s physicists Leonard Susskind and Nobel prizewinner Gerard ‘t Hooft suggested that the same principle might apply to the universe as a whole. Our everyday experience might itself be a holographic projection of physical processes that take place on a distant, 2D surface.

The “holographic principle” challenges our sensibilities. It seems hard to believe that you woke up, brushed your teeth and are reading this article because of something happening on the boundary of the universe. No one knows what it would mean for us if we really do live in a hologram, yet theorists have good reasons to believe that many aspects of the holographic principle are true.

Go read the full article at New Scientist here. If anyone can break this down for us, comment below. We’ll take all the help we can get.

And if you like the image above, it’s from wearscience.com who sell all sorts of awesome SCIENCE! themed apparel.

*Actually, the whole “dinosaurs with lasers” part may have just been us projecting to find something familiar and comforting to latch on to. Which we totally didn’t.

Box-sets are awesome.

Watching a whole season of TV in one sitting (albeit a very LONG sitting) is awesome.

Watching Lost: Season One for the whole weekend and missing out on my drawing committments, invites to the pub and everything else is not so awesome.

War is hell. Catch the full strip in anamorphic widescreen and Dolby Surround Sound™ here.

When I overheard the conversation, I spent the rest of the day with my brain jammed in neutral, saying nothing to anyone save the occasional cry of “too fast???“.

Even now, it makes my thought-muscle hurt.

Catch the full strip here.

Full video after the jump. Readers on Facebook can view the film here.

In case you weren’t aware, i.e. you are not a mind-numbingly stupid, easily-led, tree-hugging, sandal-wearing, crystal-waving, love and light-preaching (mostly American) halfwit, recently the internet was assailed by the biggest load of absolute bollocks since John Titor’s time-travel hi-jinx, onto which a seemingly endless number of desperate, pathetic people clung.

A lady going by the particularly feeble name of Blossom Goodchild, who is apparently either English or Australian, no-one seems to know for sure - started claiming (somewhat inevitably through the youtubes) that she was “channelling” aliens through some hokey other-dimensional spiritual plane or other. Apparently it just happened to tap into a number of popular theories of the feeble-witted including noble alien races coming to our aid, and fighting less noble alien races hell-bent on our destruction. Or some shit like that. 

Many hard-of-thinking (mostly American) folks decided that based on no evidence whatsoever this must absolutely be true, and that these aliens – allegedly part of the Galactic Federation Of Light – were to be our saviours. With the promise of enlightenment and peace and all manner of pseudo-spiritual rubbish, many seemed to totally not pick up on that fact that this Goodchild woman just happened to also be selling books about this nonsense. Her messages were supposed to be for all to hear, and for the betterment of mankind. And you , of course, have to buy the book to find out more.

To a normal person, like you and I, the moment somebody mentions a book or CD or DVD, the antenna twitch and we think “oops, bollocks alarm sounding, pull out, pull out!”. Sadly, a large number of people were too stupid to think this and bought all her drivel hook, line and sinker. And boat, and expensive mooring for the boat, and boat-based maintenance and fuel bills, and the cost of bait and fishing equipment. And with the full knowledge that they’re gonna need a bigger boat.

Anyway, where the fuck was I going with this? Oh yes. So, anyway, all these “channelled” (i.e “shit she made up whilst putting on a silly voice”) prophecies culminated with what can only be described as the most utterly dumb act carried out by a snake-oil salesman: a concrete date. She stated that the Galactic Federation of Light would appear on the 14th October 2008, in massive 2000-mile long spaceships. Can you guess what happened next?

Exactly. Fuck all. The next thing you know, she is on the youtubes again, stating that “I don’t know what happened, I have no idea why they didn’t show,” etc. etc.   Now, this kind of crap makes me mad. The fact that people were taken in by it – that makes me madder still. But what makes me feel even more disdain for the human race than I already do is that scores of her followers still support her and fight her corner religiously – even though what actually happened – nothing whatsoever – cannot be anything but proof that she was conning people into parting with their money for her nonsense.

She stated in her apology video that “the fact she made almost nothing off of her books – about $4,000AUS” (which is about £13.22 in proper money) proves that she was not lying.

No, love, it just proves that your book was shite and you didn’t sell many.

Anyway…I wandered off a lot there.  At some point I may do a proper blog about it, because the sheer amount of endless, unadulterated new-age crap that took over abovetopsecret.com made me furious and made me want to take a rusty shotgun to everyone that is so gullible as to believe in such rubbish.

So, to the topic at hand. Back on the UFO trail, I came across this film, made in 2005 and presented by defence journalist Nick Cook – a stout fellow of solid diligence and logical mind – i.e. British – which investigates the UFO phenomenon and asks the question: is there a more earthly and rational explanation behind sightings, abductions and cattle mutilations?

With many years of experience in the field of defence technology, Cook is well-placed to shine an investigative light on UFO’s and ask the question: are they simply super-secret black military projects based off of German plans from World War 2, cultivated in the minds of German scientists commandeered by the US Military as part of Project Paperclip? Was the whole phenomenon a self-perpetuating creation of the CIA and misinformation intended to keep US military secrets away from the prying eyes of the Russians at the height of the cold war?  

A logical and level-headed invvestigation, and worth a watch, even if things do peter out a bit when he gets on shaky ground (such as , he never really investigates abductions at all).  Worth a watch.

Oh, and one last thing that should have had people realising that the Goodchild stuff was all bollocks: she quoted them as actually using corny phrases like “three of your Earth-days”. Get to Fuck.

The National Archives have released a script, written by the BBC and the government in the 1970′s, that was to be aired on the radio following a nuclear attack on Britain.

The cold war was still going strong, and tensions were often high. Nowadays, such a message would be pretty pragmatic, stating simply “This country has been attacked with nuclear weapons. You’re all pretty much fucked. Good luck with that.” The full script is after the jump.

But back in the ’70′s, the public was often provided with advice that, looking back, is quaint and outdated. Anyone remember the public information films that suggested you take a door off its hinges and place it against a wall, to hide behind? Because we all know that an MDF door can protect you from 1000-mile an hour winds at several thousand degrees, right? But at that time, to a kid like me of five or six who had an air-raid siren on the roof of his school and was used to hearing it be tested every month, it was scary stuff.

The script is perhaps a little more pragmatic than that, but still very BBC in its quaintness, advising you to avoid flushing the toilet until advised to do so, to stay in your own homes as walls and roofs offer substantial protection, and to only turn your radio on every two hours to listen to the emergency broadcasts, to save battery life.

Nowadays, of course, the first thing to go through the countless millions of chav minds that we seem to be saddled with in this Godforsaken country would be either which car they would TWOK first, or which store they would loot. BBC

It would seem not – least of all Republican Marcy Kaptur, who is refusing to vote for the proposed bail-out plan of $700 billion to right the allegedly-crippled US economy, citing that indebting the public taxpayer whilst ingoring the alleged crimes of those on Wall Street whose greed and corruption have caused the problem in the first place is just plain wrong.

Seems like a fair point to me…full video after the jump (Facebook readers – you’ll have to click here for the full video).

270 people died in the worst act of terrorism ever committed in Britain. But, save for a few too many drinks and an overly enthusiastic family send-off, the toll would have been 271. 

Jaswant Basuta had checked into Heathrow Airport on December 21, 1988, to board Pan Am flight 103 to New York. He was returning home after attending a wedding in Belfast, and was looking forward to getting back and starting a new job.

As he had checked in early, expecting the usual Christmas rush, family who had come to see him off suggested that they go to the bar.

Trouble was, he kept being plied with friendly drinks from enthusiastic family members keen to give him a good send off.

“When his glass is empty, make sure you pour him another,” his brother-in-law said to the barman. The barman duly obliged. BBC 

Eventually, time flew and Jaswant realised he was running a little late. Despite barrelling to the gate as fast (and, no doubt, as wobbly) as he could, he just missed last call and found the staff clearing up. Despite heated pleas, he gave up and settled in for a night in the lounge, wondering how he would explain to his wife.

After a couple of dozy hours, things went from bad to worse. Across the hall Jaswant saw two policemen walking purposefully towards him. “Are you the passenger who missed the Pan Am flight?”

Confused, he was bundled away. The police station at Heathrow airport is not a friendly place if you’re just suspected of having caused Britain’s worst terrorist attack. BBC

Although he wasn’t aware of it, Pan Am 103 had exploded 38 minutes into the flight. There had been an smiliar attack by Sikh terrosists three years before, and the police were naturally suspicious of the coincidence of the plane being downed and Jaswant, a Sikh who had arrived in Britain only a few days earlier, sitting in the lounge whilst his baggage was on the plane.

Thankfully, after a short time and after the police spoke to his wife in New York – who was distraught and assumed that Jaswant had been killed along with everyone else on the flight – it became clear that Jaswant was not a terrorist, and was in fact just a very, very lucky man. It took a while for Jaswant’s wife, Surinder, to understand what she was being told, but when it clicked, the tears only increased.

“It was the happiest moment of my life,” says Jaswant, now 67, with tears welling up in his eyes. “We cried and cried and cried.”

It proved to be a turning point of his life.

“Why me? Why was I saved? I should have been the 271st victim and I still feel terrible for all the other people who died.”

Even now, nearly 20 years on, the experience continues to have a profound effect on this life. He has become a more humble and spiritual person.

“I keep thinking why did God have mercy on me? I hadn’t even been very religious up until that point in my life. God gave me a second chance.” BBC

Sometimes, for reasons we can’t explain, luck, fate, God, destiny, call it what you will, seems to help us out from behind the scenes, deus ex machina. When it does, it is the most wonderful thing. But it always leaves one question:

Why? 

Read the original BBC News story here

dogsounds has carried out tireless research to track down such mythical monstrosities as the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, and others. And after a long and arduous search, involving many seconds of hard keyboard manipulation, our correspondent in the Deutschedogsounds field office has tracked down and captured one such creature for all the world to see.

We give you: the mythical kebabalope!

Mythical no longer!

For many hundreds of years, drunken British men have wondered (if only for a brief second) what the hell it was they were eating when they ordered a big, nasty kebab at midnight on their way home. Many have watched their swarthy Greek or Turkish hosts shave the gently rotating block of meat with a sense of wonderment and a question that has been with man since early times: What the fuck is that?

It is said that all the doner meat supplied to dodgy take-away outlets in the UK is supplied by one single company, and that this company had protected their source of delicious and yet dubious meaty goodness by spreading disinformation that it was a mundane substance such as lamb, or even chicken. But hardened cryptozoologists and connossieurs of nasty, nasty food have known for a long time that this meat was of a different ilk: the sacred kebabalope.

Using information gleaned from German sources, where the kebabalope (Arterycloggius Snackalicious) was believed to be found, we tracked down the man who is responsible for raising and farming all the kebabalopes supplied to the Western world: kebabalopeherd Herr Johann Frühstücksfleisch. A secretive and loyal farmer, we managed to appeal to his sense of disclosure with 500 euros and two slightly-dressed chicks.

In our exclusive interview, he revealed that his ranch is the only place on earth where kebabalopes are farmed, and as such only he has the knowledge of how to raise these shy and retiring creatures.

I can’t reveal too much, said Herr Frühstücksfleisch, but it involves metal poles and slow rotation. The kebabalopes love rotation. It’s a bit like being one of those plate-spinning guys at the circus. It’s very hard work, and requires great dedication. That’s all I can tell you.

We caputured the rare picture above with a secret camera as one of the small creatures was slowly ambling back into its pen. We were not allowed to take pictures of the creatures in their farmed environment for fear of leaking trade secrets.

Herr Frühstücksfleisch would also not reveal where kebabalopes come from, wishing to keep his unique source a secret.

So now you know. Next time you order a doner, you can imagine a herd of these noble creatures charging as best they can across some great plain…whererever it is they live. And if someone chastises you for eating such unhealthy food, simply explain that kebabalopes, in the wild, are cute, and therefore obviously good for you.

You can actually buy your own plush kebabalope here.