Install Snow Leopard on Your Hackintosh PC, No Hacking Required

By Adam Pash (Edit, to draft, Slurp)

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Two weeks ago I detailed how to build a Hackintosh with Snow Leopard, start to finish, with a little Terminal work. If you're not comfortable with command-line hacking, you can now install Snow Leopard on your Hackintosh with just a few point-and-clicks.

So what's changed between my last guide and this one? In short, one of the incredibly helpful and generous people who helped walk me through the installation process last time was kind enough to wrap all the tedious Terminal work into one dead simple installer. Where two weeks ago I showed you how to prepare your thumb drive (and after that, hard drive) with a custom bootloader that allows you to boot into OS X on regular old PC hardware, now all you have to do is run a package, point it at the drive you want to prepare, and then let it take care of all the nitty gritty. It could not be more simple.

Now onto the revised process!

NOTE: Just like the last post, this guide is focused specifically on the hardware I suggested in the previous guide—specifically the motherboard. If you try following this guide on other hardware, there's a very good chance it won't work as advertised.

What You'll Need

• Supported hardware. I laid out my list of supported hardware in my previous post here. It's not the only hardware that will work with OS X, but it's the only hardware that's guaranteed to work with this guide.
• A USB thumb drive that's at least 8GB in size (I'm using this 16GB Corsair drive, but obviously any sufficiently sized thumb drive should do just fine.)
• A copy of the Snow Leopard Install DVD. You can use the $29 "Upgrade" disc to install, even though this is a fresh installation. Note: If you feel like being completely honest, go ahead and buy the Mac Box Set-though, honestly, Apple's practically made it hard *not* to buy the fully functional install disc.
• Another Mac to prepare your thumb drive. (You'll only need this other Mac for a few steps. I used my MacBook Pro, but you could also borrow a friend's for an hour or so, too.)
• The EP45UD3P Snow Leopard install package. This package allows you to skip all the command line work in my last guide, and you can download it here.

Step One: Prepare Your Thumb Drive

In this step, you're going to format your thumb drive and then restore the Snow Leopard DVD image to the thumb drive because later we'll be installing Snow Leopard to your hard drive using this thumb drive rather than the DVD. "Why?" you ask. Because in order to boot the installer, we need to customize the disk image with some special helper files of our own.

I went into great detail on this process last time, so this time I'm just going to include the step-by-step video below (made by the same generous man who created the EP45UD3P Snow Leopard installer package). If you want to read the very detailed version for a thorough explanation of how to rip the Snow Leopard install DVD to a disk image and then restore that image to your thumb drive, go here. (Come back when you get to the "Semi-heavy Terminal work" warning. That's when you're ready for the new and improved easy part.)

Note: Watch the video in HD and fullscreen to get a closer look at everything that's happening.

As you can see in the video, after you restore the Snow Leopard install DVD to your thumb drive, all you've got to do is fire up the EP45UD3P Snow Leopard.pkg file (if you haven't already downloaded and unzipped it, you can grab it here), select your thumb drive, and, let the installer take care of all the dirty work that you previously had to do one line at a time in Terminal.

Once you've finished there, you're ready to set your BIOS and install Snow Leopard.

Step 2: Set Your BIOS

Before you can boot into or install OS X on your Hackintosh, you've got to make some small adjustments to your system BIOS (press Delete at system startup to tweak your BIOS settings). Rather than taking you step by step through every change you need to make, I've simply snapped a picture of the relevant BIOS screens and added some notes. Just click through these images and make sure your BIOS settings match up.

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Step 3: Install Snow Leopard

If you've made it this far, the hard part is over. Now it's time to install Snow Leopard, which—unlike what we've done so far—is extremely easy.

Make sure you've set the boot priority in your BIOS to boot from your thumb drive (you can see how in this pic), then simply plug your prepared thumb drive into your Hackintosh and power it up. Since screenshots aren't really an option—and since it's a fairly easy process—my install instructions come in video format:

The quick version goes like this: Boot into the Snow Leopard installer, format the hard drive you want to install Snow Leopard to (go to Utilities -> Disk Utility, then click on the drive, select 1 Partition, Mac OS X Journaled (Case-Sensitive Update: Several readers have suggested that case-sensitive formatting can cause problems with some applications, like Adobe's Creative Suite, so you may be better off sticking with plain old Mac OS X Journaled.), give it a name, and make sure GUID Partition Table is set in the Options. After you Apply the new partition, go back to the installer and install like normal to that drive. When you reboot after the install completes, press the arrow keys at the graphical boot menu and select the drive you just installed Snow Leopard to.

Two Last Tweaks

You could just stop there and be pretty happy at your new Hackintosh, but there are two little, easily performed tweaks you'll want to tackle to get everything in tip top shape: The first will get your sound fully working, and the second will allow you to boot into Snow Leopard without your thumb drive.

Tweak One: Snow Leopard should be up and running on your Hackintosh like a dream—with one exception: Sound isn't entirely working yet. You may notice that sound actually does work in some instances, but not all. In the old guide, you needed to install a custom audio kext (your Mac's equivalent to a driver); the setup has been slightly tweaked in this new method, so all you should actually need to do is open up the Sound preference pane in System Preferences (/Applications/System Preferences), click the Output tab, and change the output device to Built-in Line output (I haven't tested with digital out, but it should work fine in theory).

Tweak Two: At this point, in order to boot to your newly installed Snow Leopard installation, you need to have your thumb drive plugged in so it loads the custom bootloader, from which you can select your new Snow Leopard hard drive. To install the custom bootloader to your hard drive (so you no longer need the thumb drive to boot), again download the EP45UD3P Snow Leopard.pkg zip file and run it, but this time, instead of choosing to install the package to your thumb drive, select the hard drive you've installed Snow Leopard to. Once the installer completes, you'll no longer need your thumb drive plugged in to boot into Snow Leopard.

Congratulations! You've Got a Fully Functional Hackintosh—the Easy Way

Where the method I covered previously required a good amount of time and care in Terminal, this new and improved method is a breeze, and it works even better. (Sound works out of the box without any custom kexts, for example.)

It's also worth noting that you can go ahead and upgrade to OS X 10.6.1 without any problems.

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If you've given the Hackintosh route a try since my first post, let's hear how it's been working out for you in the comments. If this extra ease-of-installation was just what the doctor ordered, go grab the parts listed in the last post and get ready for a fun weekend.

Adam Pash is the editor of Lifehacker; he loves a good hack, enjoys his Macintosh, and craves the power of a Mac Pro, so building a Hack Pro was a perfect fit. His special feature Hack Attack appears on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Hack Attack RSS feed to get new installments in your newsreader.

Dog days of summer: Surfing pets take to the water for charity

By Daily Mail Reporter

During one of the last dog days of summer nearly 4,000 spectators turned out yesterday to watch San Diego's pets hit the beach for 'the world's largest dog surfing event'.

The dogs were taking part in the 4th annual Surf Dog Surf-a-Thon in order to raise money for a local animal shelter. The surfers rode waves at North Beach, also known as Dog Beach, in California.

The event, hosted by and benefiting the Helen Woodward Animal Centre in Rancho Santa Fe, has so far raised more than £17,500.

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Surfing U.S.A.: Kai the eight-year old Jack Russell terrier rides a wave

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Wipe out: A six-year old Pomeranian named Bobby Gorgeous jumps off the surfboard

'It just doesn't get any greater than San Diego showing its love for dogs and its love for surfing,' said animal centre President Michael Arms.

'What could be more fun than playing with your dog in the water?'

Mr Arms estimated that the crowd at the 'world's largest dog surfing event' was nearly 4,000 - double the number from last year.

The action was centred on the two to three foot waves that rolled in carrying pint-sized pooches, hefty hounds and everything in between.

Dozer, a 75-pound, 3-year-old bulldog, took first place in the second heat of the extra-large category. He has been surfing for only a year.

His owner, Gigi Bagaporo of Mira Mesa, said she never thought he would take to the sport, but after she was talked into giving it a try last summer, she was amazed to see her dog 'jump on and refuse to get off the board.'

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The winner was Buddy who also rode with his owner in the 4th Annual comeptition

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Bobby Gorgeous waits to compete in his 20lbs and under heat at the 4th annual Helen Woodward Animal Center "Surf Dog Surf-A-Thon"

Surfer, judge and animal centre board Chairman Bryce Rhodes said that while all the dogs have a great time, about 20 per cent fall into the upper echelon of athletes that the dog surfing community calls 'pros'.

Mr Rhodes, who is also the grandson of the late Helen Woodward, said the centre's founder would have been delighted to see the Surf-A-Thon.

'Our long-term goal is to put ourselves out of business - to see an end to the euthanisation of animals,' he said.

Launched in 2006, the contest started out as a fun way that pet owners could ride the surf with their pets and raise a little money.

Since then, it has mushroomed into a major event that draws national television coverage. The dogs are judged on several criteria - the length of the ride, the size of the wave ridden and their on-board manoeuvers.

Dogs receive extra points if they surf without their owner, and if they stand on the board rather than lie down.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology rickrolled

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the leading US science university, has been rickrolled on a grand scale.

The 'hack' was carried out by students at MIT Photo: Greg Steinbrecher: The Tech

Students have plastered the first eight notes of Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up on scaffolding surrounding the Boston research centre's Great Dome.

The pranksters dreamed up the sophisticated stunt after noticing that the horizontal lines of the scaffolding cover resembled unfilled sheet music, according to MIT's student newspaper The Tech.

Rickrolling began as an online trend which involved tricking people into watching YouTube videos of Astley's 1987 hit, but quickly entered the "real" world.

Never Gonna Give You Up was selected as the new anthem for the New York Mets baseball team, and Astley was named best act ever at last year's MTV Europe Music Awards after fans of the crooner hijacked online votes.

Astley himself made a surprise appearance at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade in New York in 2008, emerging from the back of a float to perform his most well-known song.

MIT students - who include some of the most promising young minds in the world - have developed a reputation for carrying out clever and ambitious pranks, known as "hacks".

On Sept 11 2006, professors and college officials woke up to find that a 25ft long fire engine had been placed on top of the Great Dome, apparently to mark five years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The rickroll stunt was carried out under the cover of darkness in the early hours of Wednesday morning last week.

Volkswagen’s Diesel-Hybrid L1 Concept Gets 170 MPG, Available by 2013

Written by Jerry James Stone

Volkswagen will display an updated version of its 1-Liter concept this week at the 2009 Frankfurt Motor Show. The diesel-hybrid car which only weighs around 800 lbs gets an jaw-dropping 170 MPG. So who wants one?

It was seven years ago when VW first announced the idea. Dr. Ferdinand Piëch–currently the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Volkswagen Group–drove a prototype of the car from Wolfsburg to Hamburg. It was the world’s first car to travel 100 kilometers on just a single liter of fuel. But the concept wasn’t ready for production as the body’s carbon-fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP) was too costly for consideration.

“It is an enormous challenge to control costs in producing the monocoque out of CFRP,” says Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg, member of the Board of Management for the Volkswagen Brand with responsibility for development.

The 2-seater L1, with a length of 150 inches, is still similar to that of a Volkswagen Fox, and a height of 45 inches..it nearly matches that of a Lamborghini Murciélago.

Aerodynamics was a huge part of the L1 concept. The idea behind it was the form of a glider–one seat behind the other. It has a special chasi of aluminum components to take advantage of the CFRP body.

The two-cylinder rail-injected TDI, the E-motor and the 7-speed Direct Shift Gearbox are all rear located. The combo not only delivers a high fuel consumption but it only emits 36 g/km of C02. The hybrid module has been integrated into the housing of the 7-speed DSG and consists of a 10 kW / 14 PS electric motor and a clutch.

During general acceleration the electric motor can supply 40-percent additional torque and even propel the L1 over a short distance by itself. It also operates as a generator to charge the lithium-ion battery by recovering braking energy.

Full details on the car can be found at VWVortex. On display with the L1 concept, Vdub will also be showing off their Up! concept. I suspect we will be seeing a lot of these roll out under VW’s new BlueMotionTechnologies brand.

Source: VWVortex

Bermuda Triangle plane mystery 'solved'

Two of the so-called Bermuda Triangle's most mysterious disappearances in the late 1940s may have been solved.

Scores of ships and planes are said to have vanished without trace over the decades in a vast triangular area of ocean with imaginary points in Bermuda, Florida and Puerto Rico.

But journalist Tom Mangold's new examination for the BBC provides plausible explanations for the disappearance of two British commercial planes in the area, with the loss of 51 passengers and crew.

One plane probably suffered from catastrophic technical failure as a result of poor design, while the other is likely to have run out of fuel.

Sixty years ago, commercial flights from London to Bermuda were new and perilous. It would require a refuelling stop on the Azores before the 2,000-mile flight to Bermuda, which at that time was the longest non-stop commercial overseas flight in the world.

The planes would have been operating at the limit of their range. Today planes arriving at the tiny Atlantic island have sufficient reserve fuel to divert to the US East Coast 700 miles away, in case of emergency.

And the planes of the post-war era were far less reliable than today's airliners.

British South American Airways (BSAA), which operated the route, had a grim safety record. In three years it had had 11 serious accidents and lost five planes with 73 passengers and 22 crew members killed.

Unsolved mystery

On 30 January 1948, a BSAA Avro Tudor IV plane disappeared without trace. Twenty-five passengers and a crew of six were on board The Star Tiger. No bodies or wreckage were found.

The official investigation into the disappearance concluded: "It may truly be said that no more baffling problem has ever been presented.

"What happened in this case will never be known and the fate of Star Tiger must remain an unsolved mystery."

At 2,000 feet you'd be leaving very little altitude for manoeuvre - in any serious in-flight emergency the plane could have lost its height in seconds and gone into the sea Eric Newton Air accident investigator

But there are a number of clues in the official accident report that reveal the Star Tiger had encountered problems before it reached the Azores.

The aircraft's heater was notoriously unreliable and had failed en route, and one of the compasses was found to be faulty.

Probably to keep the plane warmer, the pilot had decided to fly the whole transatlantic route very low, at 2,000 feet, burning fuel at a faster rate.

On approaching Bermuda, Star Tiger was a little off course and had been flying an hour later than planned.

In addition, the official Ministry of Civil Aviation report considered that the headwinds faced by Star Tiger may have been much stronger than those forecast. This would have caused the fuel to burn more quickly.

"Flying at 2,000 feet they would have used up much more fuel," said Eric Newton, one of the Ministry of Civil Aviation's most senior air accident investigators, who reviewed the scenario for the BBC.

"At 2,000 feet you'd be leaving very little altitude for manoeuvre. In any serious in-flight emergency they could have lost their height in seconds and gone into the sea."

Whatever happened to the plane, it was sudden and catastrophic - there was no time to send an emergency signal.

Five US Navy planes disappeared in the triangle area in 1945

The Avro Tudor IV was a converted warplane that was eventually taken out of passenger service because of its poor safety record. Only BSAA continued to fly the aircraft.

Gordon Store was chief pilot and manager of operations at BSAA. In an interview with his local newspaper last November, he said he had no confidence in the Tudor's engines.

"Its systems were hopeless… all the hydraulics, the air-conditioning equipment and the recycling fans were crammed together underneath the floor without any thought. There were fuel-burning heaters that would never work," he said.

Second accident

Almost a year to the day after the disappearance of the Star Tiger, another Avro Tudor IV belonging to BSAA vanished between Bermuda and Jamaica.

Exactly one hour after departure from Bermuda on 17 January 1949, the pilot of the Star Ariel sent a routine communication of his position. But then the plane vanished without trace at 18,000 feet.

According to experts, this would have required a sudden catastrophe.

Again, no wreckage, debris or bodies were ever found.

Fuel starvation at that height was not plausible, the weather report had been good, and pilot error was ruled out.

The plane's poor design may well have been to blame, according to Don Mackintosh, a former BSAA Tudor IV pilot. The cabin heater mounted underneath the floor where the co-pilot sat is his prime suspect.

My theory is that hydraulic vapour escaped from a leak, which got on to a hot heater and caused an explosion Captain Peter Duffey

At the time, aircraft heater technology was still in its infancy.

"The heater bled aviation fuel on to a hot tube - and was also fairly close to the hydraulic pipes," he says.

A pressure switch should have allowed the heater to operate when it was in the air but it was unreliable and was often deliberately short-circuited by staff, allowing the pilot manual control.

The switch prevented inflammable fuel from flowing, but if the heater was switched on manually, gas that may have collected could have ignited.

Captain Peter Duffey, a former BSAA pilot who went on to become a captain of British Airways Concorde, also believes that the proximity of the heater and the hydraulic pipes was significant.

"My theory is that hydraulic vapour escaped from a leak, which got on to a hot heater and caused an explosion," he says.

Mr Newton's report came to a similar conclusion: "If the heater had caught fire down below the floorboards then it could have developed to a catastrophic state before the crew knew anything about it.

"There was no automatic fire extinguisher to put it out like there is nowadays. There was no alarm where the heater was stored… so no-one would know, possibly until it was too late."

The official accident investigation discovered that because of a communications error, search and rescue teams were not despatched until seven and a half hours later.

By then what was left of the plane and the bodies would have sunk.

The report on the disappearance of the first plane, the Star Tiger, said something which, because it could be easily misinterpreted, helped the accident achieve notoriety.

In a moment of philosophical conjecture, the investigators mused that maybe "some external cause may (have) overwhelm(ed) both man and machine".

Those comments from sober-suited British civil servants opened the floodgates for conspiracy theorists, hack journalists and mischief makers, adding to the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle.

How to listen to Tom Mangold's investigation: Inside The Bermuda Triangle - The Mysteries Solved:

Radio 4: 1545 BST, weekdays from Monday 14 to Friday 25 September

Online at the programme website

How ‘The Big Lebowski’ became a cultural touchstone and the impetus for festivals across the country

Jeff Bridges is the Dude and John Goodman is Walter in the “The Big Lebowski,’’ which was released to mixed reviews in 1998. (Merrick Morton/Gramercy Pictures)

By Joan Anderman Globe Staff / September 15, 2009

So there’s this guy named the Dude, and some dudes break into his apartment and pee on his rug, so the Dude, an LA burnout whose real name is Jeffrey Lebowski, goes to find the other Jeffrey Lebowski, a rich guy the intruder dudes were actually looking for, so he can get him to replace the soiled rug, which totally tied the room together.

LEBOWSKI FEST Comes to Boston this weekend for a two-night bash: music and a movie screening Saturday at the House of Blues (all ages; $20 in advance,

$23 day of event; doors at 8 p.m.) and a bowling party Sunday at Kings Lanes (21-plus; $25 in advance, $30 day of event; 6 p.m.) Info and

tickets at www.lebowskifest.com

That’s the basic premise of “The Big Lebowski,’’ the Coen Brothers’ 1998 stoner caper, which also involves bowling, nihilism, a kidnapping, and many, many White Russians - a cocktail whose parts combine more cogently than the film’s plot points.

To the uninitiated, “The Big Lebowski’’ probably doesn’t sound like the sort of cinematic watershed that would translate to an enduring cultural phenomenon. But the movie has become just that. And we’re not talking about action figures and keychains, although they’re yours for the ordering.

The film - which was released to mixed reviews and spent all of six weeks in theaters, barely recouping its $15 million budget - has spawned a vibrant subculture that draws both scholars and slackers to the fold. The Dude has been cited in hundreds of doctoral dissertations and academic papers over the past decade. There is a religion called Dudeism, boasting more than 50,000 ordained Dudeist priests, and a publication called the Dudespaper, “a lifestyle magazine for the deeply casual.’’ Film producer Jeff Dowd, the actual person on whom the character of the Dude is based, has launched a second career making personal appearances as The Real Lebowski. This weekend an annual convocation called Lebowski Fest rolls into Boston for the first time, to rally the faithful with a film screening at the House of Blues and a bowling party at Kings Lanes.

Clearly, the Dude abides. The question is: Why?

“I think he’s a hero because he’s so different from what you see in the world as a hero,’’ says Will Russell, who dreamed up Lebowski Fest with his pal Scott Shuffitt during a lull in T-shirt sales at a Louisville, Ky., tattoo convention. Russell and Shuffitt call themselves the founding dudes. “He’s the opposite of society’s idea of achievement. He doesn’t have a career, a nice car, a wife and kids. He has nothing going on, but he seems genuinely content.’’

Indeed. The Dude (played by Jeff Bridges) is an accidental guru, a Zen master in bathrobe and jelly sandals: unemployed, unperturbed, unburdened by the judgment of others. He hangs out with Walter (John Goodman), a deranged vet, and dim, amiable Donny (Steve Buscemi). For recreation? “The usual: I bowl. Drive around. The occasional acid flashback.’’ Some might spin the Dude less charitably, with words like lazy and loser. But for a certain slice of humanity he is an icon and an inspiration.

Edward Comentale, an English professor at Indiana University and co-editor of a forthcoming collection of essays titled “The Year’s Work in Lebowski Studies,’’ led a two-day symposium at the 2006 Lebowski Fest in Louisville. Many of the papers delivered there also made it into the book, among them “The Really Big Sleep: Jeffrey Lebowski as the Second Coming of Rip Van Winkle,’’ “Logjammin’ and Gutterballs: Masculinities in The Big Lebowski,’’ and “A Once and Future Dude: The Big Lebowski as Medieval Grail-Quest.’’

Comentale says that aside from the being the cheapest academic conference ever held ($125 for the function room at a local bowling alley) the gathering was a heart-warming collision of highbrow inquiry and bad pizza.

“We found a real connection with the fan culture, because they approach the film much like professors approach text. They love to quote it. It revolves around citation, debating the characters and gestures and motives, tracking down references. The fans are hungry for interpretation,’’ Comentale says. “They don’t watch this film in a passive way.’’

Tell that to Jason Brandenburg, a 35-year-old paralegal who lives in the South End. He somewhat shamefully admits that he’s seen the movie 40 or 50 times - “I know people have probably seen it several hundred times’’ - and is fond of playing it with the sound off during parties. That sounds good to Tara Colardeau, 26, who lives in Newton and is “in a very Dude-like way unemployed.’’

“So many subtle things happen in the background. In the Dude’s bathroom, there’s no toilet paper on the roll,’’ says Colardeau, who is attending Lebowski Fest as Walter’s ex-wife’s Pomeranian. “I found a werewolf hat and I have a little terry sweatsuit and some furry leg warmers. Also a first-place ribbon and my papers. I just don’t want to be confused with the ferret.’’

Nathan Burke, a 30-year-old marketing manager who lives in Waltham and is dressing as Walter for Lebowski Fest, echoes what many feel about the film when he says that “every character reminds me of someone I know. I think everyone knows a Dude, who’s lazy and avoids conflict, and a Walter, who explodes at the drop of a hat, and a Donny, who’s sweet but annoying. It’s damn hilarious.’’

“The Achievers,’’ a documentary about the film’s fanatical following, will be released on DVD next month. Taking their name from a group of disadvantaged kids for whom the rich Lebowski is benefactor, the Achievers have formed a classic cult community, according to the Brattle Theatre’s creative director, Ned Hinkle.

“Most cult films are flawed in one way or another, but they have amazing characters and quotable lines,’’ says Hinkle, who notes that even though people are screening “The Big Lebowski’’ voraciously at home, “when the Brattle or the Coolidge plays it, it still brings in a good crowd. It engenders a real community spirit.’’

Maybe that’s because above and beyond the film’s copious historical and genre influences - westerns, noir, Fluxus, surrealism, slackerism, Busby Berkeley, buddy flicks, war films, and the list goes on - “The Big Lebowski’’ is about friendship, says professor Comentale.

“There’s something about the warmth and tenderness between the characters, these people who are otherwise socially rejected, that plays out in the viewing,’’ Comentale says. “I’m struck by the fans who have so much affection for the Dude. He’s stalled, but he isn’t a loser. He represents an easier way of being in the world.’’

© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.

Imax books 'Spider-Man 4' for 2011

Action pic opening in early May slot

By Carl DiOrio

In less than 19 months, Spidey again will be slinging webs around Imax theaters.

Sony said Tuesday that "Spider-Man 4" will be released in Imax's specialty venues simultaneously with the comic book actioner's worldwide bow in conventional venues on Thursday, May 6, 2011. The scheduled opening gives the film a one-day jump on the first frame of the 2011 summer boxoffice season.

Imax also participated in the theatrical release of the past two "Spider-Man" pics.

"The 'Spider-Man' franchise has been so important to the growth of our network and fan base over the years," Imax Filmed Entertainment president Greg Foster said.

Animal Oddites

Made By euphoria

Is animal oddities Mother Nature’s way of telling us to let things happen naturally and stop giving animals hormones and to stop using pesticides? You be the judge. All over the world for decades there have been animal babies born with some sort of strange thing happening to them.

Pink Dolphin

From what is being dubbed as the hot pink dolphin off of the Gulf of Mexico to two headed animals, oddities seem to happen a few times a year and they fascinate us every single time.

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Giant Hog

This giant hog was discovered weighing over one thousand pounds and was nine feet, four inches long.

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Giant Squid

A giant squid was discovered and it weighs and astounding nine hundred and ninety pounds.

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Giant Killer Sea Worm

A giant killer sea worm was discovered when workers couldn’t figure out what was killing the reef. This worm can numb a person for the rest of their life.

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Six Foot Tall Cow

This six foot tall cow was discovered by its owners. Even though he only eats during the day he is still the biggest cow on record.

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Giant Jumping Rat

A Giant jumping rat the size of a rabbit was discovered lately and it is the largest one ever discovered of its kind.

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Giant Shark

This giant shark was caught and weighed eleven hundred pounds and measured thirteen feet in length. This shark was the largest of the species of shark.

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Giant Stingray

The giant stingray was discovered and weighed in at seven hundred and seventy one pounds.

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Giant Stick Bug

This giant stick bug was discovered and measured in at a whopping twenty-two inches in length.

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Giant Alligator

This giant alligator was discovered and he was 17 feet in length and weighed in at thirteen hundred pounds.

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Giant Bunny

This giant bunny is well fed and the owners are proud to have it in their home.

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Cyclops Cat

This Cyclops cat was born without a nose and with only one eye. He only lived for one day.

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Six Legged Frog

Six legged frogs are found all over the country and they are believed to be developing that way due to water run off from farms, which contains poison and pesticides.

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Two Faced Kitten

Two faced kittens are born and can live to be full grown cats.

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Albino Alligator

Albino alligators are a rarity to see, but are fascinating nonetheless.

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White Buffalo

White buffalo’s are seen as sacred by the Native American tribes, when theses calves are born the Native American’s hold drum ceremonies to honor them.

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Two-faced Cow

Two-faced cows are born and are not slated to survive very long, but can have a productive life.

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Four Legged Duckling

Four legged ducklings are a rare occasion, but are interesting to see.

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Giant Shortraker

Giant animals are another in the worlds oddities that have been discovered as of lately. This giant shortraker rockfish was discovered and is forty-four inches in length and weighs sixty-six pounds.

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With all these strange oddities happening, whether they are by the hands of us and the chemicals we use to make our food or by the hands of just Mother Nature herself we can only guess at what is causing these things to happen in every day life. Maybe it is a wake up call and maybe it is just something we all need to be in awe of.

Written by Harmony Stalter – Copyrighted © www.weirdworm.com

Tags: animal oddities, born, giants, mother nature

Man invents line of solar-powered lawn equipment

Longmont Times-Call/Lewis Geyer Boulder County resident Tom Lopez demonstrates his battery-powered push mower, recharged with its solar panels.

By Tony Kindelspire
Longmont Times-Call

LONGMONT — With the gentle push of a lever, the battery-powered motor hums to life, and Tom Lopez begins mowing the grassy strips between his garden plots.

Just as the sun makes the grass — and the garden — grow, it also bakes the solar panels that charge the batteries that power the lawn mower.

“That’s the thing about this stuff — it’s not rocket science,” said Lopez, a 1962 University of Colorado-Boulder graduate with a degree in aerospace engineering. “It just uses standard technology.”

Standard technology mixed with a creative mind can lead to great things, and Lopez is hoping to license his solar-powered farm equipment to another company and see it mass-produced. As soon as he’s ready, that is — and he’s almost ready.

Lopez and his wife, Kristin, live on Lone Hawk Farm west of Hygiene, a 120-acre spread they bought in 1975.

When his wife’s gardening equipment started breaking down years ago, he removed the two-stroke motor in a tiller she was using and replaced it with an electric motor driven by solar-charged batteries.

That was the beginning.

He then bought a few dozen surplus electric mowers from Black and Decker and put solar panels on the frames. He sold quite a few and still has some he uses on his property.

Next came the walking tractors, used for plowing or weeding, that he converted to run on solar-powered batteries. He built 10 of them and sold them all. Word of his work spread after he was featured in a national magazine.

“One local (customer), and the rest are nationwide,” Lopez said. “I’ve even got one in Alaska.

“I haven’t pursued sales while I’m doing this other thing. I want to have a complete line (of equipment).”

That “other thing” is a riding tractor he’s been working on for about four years.

Summer is a busy time on Lone Hawk Farm, between gardening, raising hay, and hosting weddings and other special events.

Now that fall is nearly here, Lopez said, he’ll have more time to devote to his latest creation. He hopes to have the riding tractor ready by spring.

“It’s basically all together but not totally debugged,” he said.

He’s assembling a tractor in his basement, where he also has his machine shop. It’s a smallish machine that would handle up to about 10 acres, Lopez said.

The tractor also could be used by commercial landscapers, he said.

It runs on eight 6-volt batteries. Four 12-volt solar panels mounted on top of the tractor charge the batteries. Or, through a converter mounted on the tractor, the batteries can be charged directly from a standard, 110-volt electrical outlet.

“The solar is just the charger,” Lopez said. “There’s a misconception that they’re running on solar. The solar is just the charge.”

Lopez, who has 25 years of experience in manufacturing and has launched a couple of companies himself, said that once he proves the riding tractor works, he’ll shop his inventions around to a company that will manufacture all his solar-powered lawn equipment.

“If I were younger, I would start a company and then just go and start manufacturing these things,” said Lopez, 70.

He can count Tom Wilson, owner of Small Planet E-Vehicles in Longmont, as a fan.

Lopez bought an electric bike and a solar-powered pickup from him, said Wilson, who hopes his store can one day carry Lopez’s equipment.

Wilson said he doesn’t know of any tractors available anywhere with solar panels on their canopy.

“I think it’s fabulous. I think it’s revolutionary,” Wilson said of Lopez’s inventions. “You can imagine how many farm tractors are polluting all over the world. Replacing them with these things would make a huge difference.”

Stone Age satnav: Did ancient man use 5,000-year-old travel chart to navigate across Britain

By David Derbyshire

It's considered to be one of the more recent innovations to help the hapless traveller.

But the satnav system may not be as modern as we think.

According to a new theory, prehistoric man navigated his way across England using a similar system based on stone circles and other markers.

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Connected by triangles: Some of the sites created by Stone Age man (below)

The complex network of stones, hill forts and earthworks allowed travellers to trek hundreds of miles with 'pinpoint accuracy' more than 5,000 years ago, amateur historian Tom Brooks says. The grid covered much of southern England

and Wales and included landmarks such as Stonehenge and Silbury Hill, claims Mr Brooks, a retired marketing executive of Honiton, Devon.

He analysed 1,500 prehistoric sites in England and Wales and was able to connect all of them to at least two other sites using isosceles triangles - these are triangles with two sides the same length.

This, he says, is proof that the landmarks were deliberately created as navigational aides. Many were built within sight of each other and provided a simple way to get from A to B.

For more complex journeys, they would have broken up the route into a series of easy to navigate steps.

Anyone starting at Silbury Hill in Wiltshire, for instance, could have used the grid to get to Lanyon Quoit in Cornwall without a map.

Mr Brooks added: 'The sides of some of the triangles are over 100 miles across, yet the distances are accurate to within 100 metres. You cannot do that by chance.

One of the monuments was on Silbury Hill, Wiltshire. It was part of a giant geometric grid used for navigating

'So advanced, sophisticated and accurate is the geometrical surveying now discovered, that we must review fundamentally the perception of our Stone Age forebears as primitive, or conclude that they received some form of external guidance.'

On the question of 'external guidance', he does not rule out extraterrestrial help.

However, Mike Pitts, editor of British Archaeology, said: 'The landscape of southern Britain was intensively settled and there are many earth works and archaeological finds. It is very easy to find patterns in the landscape, but it doesn't mean that they are real.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1213400/Ancient-man-used-stone-sat-nav-navigate-country.html#ixzz0RISPlPGx