ITwhirled

This judge knows smut when he sees it

The Internet never disappoints -- or maybe it never fails to disappoint. It is just chock full of bad ideas, good ideas that turned into bad ideas, smart technology, and weird science. And so without further ado, here's what had us chuckling this week.

Judge in porn case has Website full of smut
Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, when confronted with the question of how the law could determine if something was obscene, famously remarked that "I know it when I see it." Perhaps that's why Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, who's currently presiding over an obscenity trial against an L.A. filmmaker, kept his own (publicly available) website chock full of the stuff. read more

Lost camera snitches on thieves
Alison DeLauzon accidentally left her camera at a restaurant, and the employees who found it decided to keep it for themselves rather than returning it like good citizens. Unbeknownst to them, the camera was designed to automatically upload pictures to a central server as soon as it connected to an open Wi-Fi network -- and those pictures included snapshots that the thieves took of one another. read more

Kiwi scientists unlock genetic secrets of animal farting
Doing their bit to combat greenhouse gas emissions, a group of New Zealand scientists have announced that they have found the gene complex that causes methane emissions in cows and other ruminant animals. They believe that they can now "vaccinate against" the dread horror of global warming-inducing farts. The question is: how long can such a vaccinated beast survive before simply exploding? read more

Michigan-shaped meteorite disappoints at auction
Michigan native Darryl Pitt thought he had a sure-fire moneymaker on his hands: a meteorite shaped like Michigan's lower peninsula! Yet when he auctioned off the curiously shaped space rock, it only netted $20,000, not the $50,000 he expected. Were Wolverine State residents holding out for one that featured the U.P. as well? Reflecting the rising power of India in the global marketplace, a meteorite that resembled the Indian subcontinent sold for $90,000. read more

Geek Comic of the Week: 30-Second Bunnies Theater
Are you interested in modern American cinema, but can't be bothered to sit through a two-hour film? Why not enjoy these Flash movies, which re-enact classic and modern films, condensed into thirty seconds? Oh, and also, all the people are replaced by bunnies. Enjoy!