There’s one thing that stops me from working in government. It’s not my lack of a felony criminal record, my lack of money, my lack of political skill, or my lack of bad hair. Those things can all be worked on or earned over time. No, my big stumbling block is the fact that I’m […]
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Behind The Blu-ray Scenes
Posted 7/30/2009 10:49 am by Ron HoganI love getting a glimpse at how things work. Ever since Sony won the format war, I’ve been wondering just why Blu-ray discs are A) so expensive and B) require so much special equipment to manufacture. Wouldn’t a disc be a disc no matter how the files are stored on it? Well, if you take […]
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Ghostbusters Circa 1955
Posted 7/29/2009 11:18 am by Ron HoganEvery time you turn around, Hollywood is churning out another remake. Let’s update Dawn of the Dead! Let’s update Day of the Dead! Let’s update everything! The best idea is one that has already been successful, hopefully multiple times! Well, what if the wizards of Hollywood could premake a movie? You know, take a modern […]
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World Record Kayak Plunge Caught On Film
Posted 7/28/2009 9:00 am by Ron HoganTyler Bradt is a madman. I have the utmost confidence in saying this, too. Tyler set the world record with a kayak freefall of 186 feet. It took him a grand total of 3.7 seconds to plummet 186 feet, and he reached at least 100 miles an hour in the midst of his gigantic fall. […]
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Comic-Con’s Creative Cosplayers
Posted 7/27/2009 1:17 pm by Ron HoganAs something of a non-closeted geek, I’ve always wanted to go to one of the big sci-fi and comic book conventions. Every year they roll around, and every year I end up not going to them for whatever reason: I didn’t get tickets, I didn’t get a hotel room, I hate to travel, I’m sick, […]
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WiFi Allergies
Posted 7/24/2009 1:10 pm by Ron HoganSteve Miller has a condition. He proclaims, quite strongly, that he is allergic to wireless internet. That’s right, that invisible field of radiation that surrounds us at every hotel, motel, restaurant, coffee shop, place of business, home, and gas stations. His only respite, he claims, is his bungalow home with 18-inch-thick concrete walls. The wi-fi […]
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Protect Your Heart With Chocolate
Posted 7/23/2009 10:52 am by Ron HoganYou like chocolate, right? I know I do. You know what’s even better than chocolate? Free chocolate. Specifically, being told by doctors to eat chocolate every day for a year. If you’re a British woman over age 40, post-menopausal, and with type 2 diabetes, you just might be one of 40 lucky women chosen to […]
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Smelt Your Own Iron Using A Microwave
Posted 7/22/2009 1:03 pm by Ron HoganYou can find out how to do just about anything you want to online. If there’s a way to make something yourself, there’s some fanatic out there that’s going to give it a go, no matter how difficult it might be. We’ve talked about homemade glow sticks, and a homemade energy meter, but how about […]
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Free PhotoShop Alternatives
Posted 7/21/2009 10:06 am by Ron HoganNot a day goes by that I don’t use at least one or two different image editing programs. One of them is bundled with Microsoft Office. That one generally gets used for simple things, like cropping or resizing photos for the posts you see here at PopFi. The other one I use, Paint.Net, gets trotted […]
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“One Small Step For Man, One Giant Leap For Mankind.”
Posted 7/20/2009 11:52 am by Ron HoganForty years ago today, humankind slipped the surly bonds of Earth and traveled in a sealed capsule to a place 200,000 miles from home. That place is the Moon, Earth’s nearest celestial neighbor who we first explored in 1969 thanks to the brave astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins, who formed the crew […]
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Teenage Con Artist Or Business Genius?
Posted 7/20/2009 9:38 am by Ron HoganWhen describing the case of the teenage con artist Adam Tait, I was sorely tempted to describe the situation as a real-life Catch Me If You Can. After all, Tait was able to scam the heads of airlines into believing he was a 20-something executive with a fleet of airplanes at his disposal. Then I […]
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Wyoming Chainsaw Cougars
Posted 7/17/2009 12:42 pm by Ron HoganThere’s no tool quite as versatile as the chainsaw. You can’t do much with it other than cut things, but boy, what can’t you cut! As vacationer Dustin Britton discovered while in Shoshone National Forest in Wyoming, sometimes the best defense against a cougar attack is whatever you have handy. When you’re off cutting wood, […]
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Christmas In July
Posted 7/16/2009 2:05 pm by Ron HoganThere’s a phenomenon known as Christmas creep. Every year, the holiday season starts earlier and earlier. In the United States, Christmas ads have been starting as early as Halloween afternoon. Last year, for example, I saw my first Christmas-themed commercial during an afternoon showing of the horror classic Halloween! Michael Myers is chasing Laurie Strode […]
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Dancing Paperclips
Posted 7/16/2009 10:45 am by Ron HoganWhen I was a kid, one of the most fascinating things was the idea that the monorail at Disney World was powered by magnets. I mean, when I was a youngster, I played with magnets, using the force of magnetism to build strings of paper clips or to push around other magnets. The idea that […]
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Jane Austen Meets Sea Monsters
Posted 7/15/2009 9:43 am by Ron HoganQuirk Books, the genius book company who developed the idea behind Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, are trying their hand at reinvigorating another 19th Century novel by the mistress of manners, Jane Austen. More zombies? Hardly! That’s been done already. Try Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters on for size. I for one […]
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Bill Cosby’s Jell-O Head
Posted 7/14/2009 8:56 am by Ron HoganMy friend Andrew is a huge Bill Cosby fan. I’m not sure why, but he’s my age and he’s a gigantic Cosby nut. He’s hunting down Bill’s old comedy records and has not only bought one ticket to see Bill perform with the hope of meeting (and being rendered completely speechless by) one of his […]
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Texting Teen Falls Through Open Manhole
Posted 7/13/2009 8:42 am by Ron HoganThe sewer is a horrifying/fascinating place. On one hand, everything we flush down the toilet ends up there, which makes the sewer horrible and gross. On the other hand, everything anyone else flushes down the toilet ends up there, which makes it a fascinating haven for alligators, giant pythons, and ninja turtles. Personally, I would […]
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Traveling Cross Country Via Mule
Posted 7/10/2009 2:09 pm by Ron HoganThere’s one thing you can say about the old pioneers. They were tougher than we could ever imagine. They traveled across country in wagons, for goodness’ sakes! Over mountains and through deserts, pulled by animals in a big splintery box on wheels! John McComsey, a retired fellow from Henry, Tennessee, decided that he wanted to […]
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Don’t Copy That Floppy 2
Posted 7/08/2009 1:35 pm by Ron HoganRemember back to 1992, when computers were basically brand new but starting to gain forward momentum? If you used a computer in school like I did, then I have no doubts you remember the classic anti-piracy pro-copyright video, “Don’t Copy That Floppy.” But that was many years ago, and the video is no longer relevant […]
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Rice Paddy Portraits
Posted 7/07/2009 11:42 am by Ron HoganIf you give someone a large, blank canvas, odds are they’ll put something in it. A field of snow becomes an impromptu way to taunt a rival. A Japanese rice paddy becomes a canvas for giant plant art. Every year, Japanese farmers in the Aomori prefecture town of Inakadate turn their fields into works of […]
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Historical Flags And Ex-Nations
Posted 7/06/2009 3:12 pm by Ron HoganThe world of international relations is murky indeed. Even countries in opposition to one another, like China and the United States, find themselves linked together by the forces of economic cooperation. What benefits my country can often be of vital importance to the economy of your country, and vice-versa. When you start examining the history […]
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Unusual Independence Day Celebrations
Posted 7/03/2009 4:44 pm by Ron HoganTomorrow is the biggest celebration of the American summer. Fourth of July, Independence Day, is one of my favorite holidays of the year. To me, it means burgers, barbeque, and fireworks with the family. To other people, it means salmon, shooting old computers, and the return of mimes. No, I’m not kidding; you can read […]
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A Paper Fairy Tale Castle
Posted 7/02/2009 8:50 am by Ron HoganThe Japanese community can do some incredible things with paper. The versatile material just might be going to space if one Japanese man has his way. Meanwhile, back on Earth, Japanese art student Wataru Itou is turning paper into art with this beautiful paper craft castle. Entitled Umi no Ue no Oshiro (A Castle on […]
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Bent Nail Artwork
Posted 7/01/2009 9:30 am by Ron HoganI like the use of normal, every day things for unusual artsy purposes. Take, for example, Vlad Artazov’s incredible series of pictures where he turns bent nails into pieces of art. It’s easy to see how Alice and Kev could be used to create a free-flowing story based on the random decisions of a video […]
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