Contortion of the Day

So here's a weird question for you:

Can you touch, on the same hand, the tip of your index finger to the tip of your pinkie without using your other hand for help?

I can do it with my right hand, where I've had five operations on my thumb and I'm missing a couple of tendons. Can't do it with my left, but since it has more recently had carpal tunnel surgery, that could be part of an explanation. My wife can't do it with either.

I ask this because I've been re-reading David Weber's Honor Harrington series, and in one book she's visiting a member of the royal family of another star empire, and due to an assassination attempt on another noble, everyone in a royal's presence must be disarmed. Honor lost an arm when she was a POW during an escape attempt, and her dad manufactured a pulser gun, and the movement of touching the tips of the index finger and the pinkie opened a door in her wrist through which she could load/unload the gun. She makes the motion, the door pops open, and she removes the magazine of the gun built in to her index finger. There's no mention of clearing the chamber of the finger gun.


Discuss!

American manga collector pleads guilty to possession of child porn manga

Yep, cartoon characters can get you sent to prison. The guy was a broad-based manga collector and did not collect only series that depicted child porn, but that didn't matter in court. His big problem is that since he plead guilty, that kind of limits the appeals process since he admitted guilt. Presumably it was part of a plea bargain, but it still sounds like he'll be a registered sex offender in the end.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/05/manga-porn/

Same sex marriage leads to sex with ducks?

Apparently Pat Robertson thinks so. Here's a song to explain it all:

Watch on YouTube

Yet another web comic: Wellington Grey's Miscellanea

I came upon this via a comment on Slashdot about killer wireless routers, which is in the archive.

Here's three that I rather liked:
http://miscellanea.wellingtongrey.net/2008/03/31/the-trouble-with-tech-support/
http://miscellanea.wellingtongrey.net/2007/10/08/stargate-ikea/
http://miscellanea.wellingtongrey.net/2007/10/15/the-real-lolcat-attack/

He's been doing it for a few years, but he's kind of slow updating, so you can burn through the archive in an hour or so.