The Enigma project was a WW2 allied effort to crack German codes encrypted on the mechanical computing machine of the same name. More than 60 years later, some of the messages remain unencoded. There's a project underway to crack them.

The signals were intercepted in the North Atlantic in 1942 and are believed to be unbroken. Ralph Erskine has presented the intercepts in a letter to the journal Cryptologia. The signals were presumably enciphered with the four rotor Enigma M4 - hence the name of the project.

PhoneCo has an impressive collection (for sale) of early 20th century Bakelite rotary phones, specializing in oddities like in- and out-dialing only, and bar phones. Main catalog page is here. Don't miss the payphones page.

The Top 10 most fascinating urinals, from, of course, urinal.net

The Freaky World of McDonalds advertising with vid links to commercials from when the Hamburglar was a creepy felon. (via metafilter)

Amazing photos of the Mississippi blues culture by Bill Steber

Ski Dubai
I want a Tshirt.

[Fun with Randomness] Portal of Evil shows you the last 30 images uploaded to LiveJournal pages. Not impressed? Wait 30 seconds, hit refresh.

Oh my God, its the Marimba Ponies

Tinfoil.com has some great info on Edison Wax Cylinders, as well as a cylinder of the month, which you can listen to online. They're still holding up after 125 years. If you want to record your own, you can get blanks from the Edison Cylinder Works.

Probably the creepiest toy ad I've ever seen. The Edison Talking Doll (1890)

5lb toads taking over Australia

UFO Glider from a styro plate

A virtual tour of the ship Mary Rose

How to build a robot and control it over the web right now (from make:)

RCTankCombat: Paintball, taken to heavy artillery levels.

[Don't put this in your commercials] A soldier was forced to pay $700 for Kevlar body armor that was damaged when he was attacked and wounded.

He was told to pay nearly $700 or face not being discharged for weeks, perhaps months.
Rebrook, 25, scrounged up the cash from his Army buddies and returned home to Charleston last Friday.

So long, Grandpa.

The Match Museum (courtesy of GMT+9)

Some animated gifs of stereo images. Creates a strange effect.

Surreal B/W photography of Robert and Shana Parkeharrison

Electric-shock dental care? (slashdot)

More lies from the Bush Administration over the rush to war. Turns out it was even more of a setup than was previously thought.

And it says Mr Bush told Mr Blair the US "was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours".

If Saddam fired on them, the Iraqis would be in breach of UN resolutions, he suggested.

Sicko: Send me your health care horror stories!
Michael Moore is taking on the healthcare industry in his latest documentary. He's looking for you for material.

Or, after being turned down for the third time by your HMO for an operation they should be paying for, do you ever think to yourself, "Now THIS travesty should be in that 'Sicko' movie!"?

Or maybe you've just been told that your father is going to have to just, well, die because he can't afford the drugs he needs to get better – and it's then that you say, "Damn, what did I do with Michael Moore's home number?!"

Ok, here's your chance. As you can imagine, we've got the goods on these bastards. All we need now is to put a few of you in the movie and let the world see what the greatest country ever in the history of the universe does to its own people, simply because they have the misfortune of getting sick. Because getting sick, unless you are rich, is a crime – a crime for which you must pay, sometimes with your own life.

Western Union shut down their telegram service last week. Stop. Presumably the hit count for "How to Write Telegrams Properly" (1928) is going to take a dive. There's still plenty of collector and historical info out there.

"Pabst! For when you're cookin' fish... heads and all!"
This and more at Plan59. (via memepool)

"I thought this would be an actual toilet monster, and was happy to see such a low price. It is, however, made out of rubber, and can not actually eat people."

[Handlers to W: George, just tell the idiots anything. It doesn't really matter]
One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally.