Abir Warrior Arts is a website for the martial arts school of Yehoshua Sofer, aka “The Abir Aluf”, aka “The Admor”. Under that last name he once produced a critically-acclaimed Hebrew Raggamuffin album, but recently he’s promoting his Hebraic martial arts style, which he ties into “ancient Jewish traditions”, the twelve tribes, the ancient Hebrew alphabet, etc. Well, why should the Chinese be the only ones with legendary martial arts?
The Feng Shui RPG had “the army of Hebraic Champions” (in the Elevator to the Netherworld supplement; they were super martial arts masters from an erased timeline where the tribes of Israel coming out of Egypt wondered into Tibet) , and the short film The Hebrew Hammer plays with the joke of a Jewish Action Hero, but here’s probably the most fully-realized and best rendition of the Postmodern blending of traditional Jewish imagery and over-the-top martial art mythology, and it’s a real person, living the story. I bow before this.
Category: Oddities
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Saint Death
Pagan worship in Mexico, from the Taipei Times (via diepunyhumans)
On a sidewalk in Mexico City’s lawless Tepito district, gangsters and ordinary housewives rub shoulders as they pay homage before a shrine to Santa Muerte, or Saint Death, leaving offerings of colored candles, cigarettes and alcohol.
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Dothan flavoured chips
Intel’s Dothan sets sail (CNET): Apparently, Intel’s next generation mobile chip design shares my name (yeah, yeah, the spelling is different. Americans).
Intel on Monday formally launched three new laptop chips and outlined a push to equip more consumer-oriented notebooks with wireless networking.
As expected, Intel launched three new Pentium M processors–the 735, 745 and 755, running at 1.7GHz, 1.8GHz and 2GHz, respectively. The chips are the first to bear a new naming scheme focusing less on the clock speed and instead taking into account other performance characteristics, such as cache memory and bus speeds.
The chips are also the first produced with a new 90-nanometer manufacturing process. Intel originally hoped to launch the new design, known as Dothan, in February, but delayed the launch because of glitches.
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Sonic Weapon issued to Marines in Iraq
US Marines in Iraq have been issued a sonic gun, according to the Daily Mail:
The "Secret Scream" gun as it is called, could revolutionise the way US troops deal with snipers, suicide bombers and riots in the turmoil of post-war Iraq.
The actual sound used is a recording of a baby’s scream played backwards.
"For most people, even if they plug their ears, it will produce the equivalent of an instant migraine," said Woody Norris, chairman of American Technology Corporation, the Californian company that has produced the weapon.
"It will knock some people to their knees."
[ through decafbad ]
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Diet of Worms
Apparently, probiotic bacteria are no longer the cutting edge in re-introducting wildlife into the human digestive tract. a painfully (but inevitably) titled article claims that a diet of worms protects against bowel cancer.
[ New Scientist, via decafbad. ]