12

1. 2004-12-10t21:53:44Z. RE: 2D (Images, Photos) . 2D+text (Comics, Sequential Art) . 2D+time (Activities, Animation, Video) . 3D (Architecture, Clothes, Fashion, Sculpture) . 3D+time (Performance Arts, Transportation) . AI, Brain, Psychology, Robotics . Art, Beauty, Design, Form . Audio, Music . Cyber Life (Blogging, Chatting, Email, Surfing, Wikis) . Cyber Tech (Computers, Networking, Programming, Telecommunications) . Diet, Drink, Drugs, Food, Restaurants . Engineering, Function, Technology . Entertainment (Movies, Pop Culture, Radio, Show Biz, TV) . Environment, Fauna, Flora, Green . Fun, Games, Play, Sports, Toys . Government, Political Science, Politics, U.S. Politics . Health (Exercise, Healthcare, Medicine) . Interesting, Jokes, Odd, Weird [May be NSFW] . Martial Arts . Math, Science, Science Fiction, Space . Money (Business, Economy, Finances, Market, Work) . Obituaries . Philosophy (Ethics, Faith, Secular) . Relating (Friendship, Living, Parenting, Socializing) . Relationships (Love, Sex) [Assume NSFW] . Terror, War . World . Words (Literature, Reading, Stories, Writing) .
2. The Sofa Story. RE: Relating (Friendship, Living, Parenting, Socializing) .
3. 2004-12-20t14:18:10Z. RE: 2D (Images, Photos) . 2D+time (Activities, Animation, Video) . Cyber Life (Blogging, Chatting, Email, Surfing, Wikis) . Cyber Tech (Computers, Networking, Programming, Telecommunications) . Conservation (Environment, Fauna, Flora, Green) . Diet, Drink, Drugs, Food, Restaurants . Engineering, Function, Technology . Entertainment (Movies, Pop Culture, Radio, Show Biz, TV) . Fun, Games, Play, Sports, Toys . Government, Political Science, Politics, U.S. Politics . Health (Exercise, Healthcare, Medicine, Sports) . Interesting, Jokes, Odd, Weird [May be NSFW] . Local . Math, Science, Science Fiction, Space . Money (Business, Economy, Finances, Market, Work) . Obituaries . Philosophy (Ethics, Faith, Secular) . Rambling . Relating (Friendship, Living, Parenting, Socializing) . Terror, War . Words (Literature, Reading, Stories, Writing) . World .

2004-12-10t21:53:44Z | RE: 2D (Images, Photos) . 2D+text (Comics, Sequential Art) . 2D+time (Activities, Animation, Video) . 3D (Architecture, Clothes, Fashion, Sculpture) . 3D+time (Performance Arts, Transportation) . AI, Brain, Psychology, Robotics . Art, Beauty, Design, Form . Audio, Music . Cyber Life (Blogging, Chatting, Email, Surfing, Wikis) . Cyber Tech (Computers, Networking, Programming, Telecommunications) . Diet, Drink, Drugs, Food, Restaurants . Engineering, Function, Technology . Entertainment (Movies, Pop Culture, Radio, Show Biz, TV) . Environment, Fauna, Flora, Green . Fun, Games, Play, Sports, Toys . Government, Political Science, Politics, U.S. Politics . Health (Exercise, Healthcare, Medicine) . Interesting, Jokes, Odd, Weird [May be NSFW] . Martial Arts . Math, Science, Science Fiction, Space . Money (Business, Economy, Finances, Market, Work) . Obituaries . Philosophy (Ethics, Faith, Secular) . Relating (Friendship, Living, Parenting, Socializing) . Relationships (Love, Sex) [Assume NSFW] . Terror, War . World . Words (Literature, Reading, Stories, Writing) .
2004-12-10t21:53:44Z

2D (Images, Photos)

• selfdestruct.net/kitties/. I forgot if I posted this before, but this link has dozens of photos of kittens.
  
• Skeletal Systems
  • Awesome!
  • 'A character study of 22 present and past cartoon characters. Animation was the format of choice for children's television in the 1960s, a decade in which children's programming became almost entirely animated. Growing up in that period, I tended to take for granted the distortions and strange bodies of these entities. I decided to take a select few of these popular characters and render their skeletal systems as I imagine they might resemble if one truly had eye sockets half the size of its head, or fingerless-hands, or feet comprising 60% of its body mass. Each character resides on a translucent, hinged panel. When the panel is lifted the character's skeletal structure is revealed giving each a certain validity and glimpse into its origins. Each panel is hand-drawn with archival ink and covered with an acrylic/acetate transparency.'
  • 
    

2D+text (Comics, Sequential Art)

• CAT TOWN. A story told in ALL CAPS text plusphotos of dressed up cats. 'AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH'
  

2D+time (Activities, Animation, Video)

• Laxative Animation [Korean?]. Odd that the product itself looks like poop.
• The Economists [Flash]. Very simple: Egg headed economist follow a chart point you move around. This may amuse the kids.
• Horse Quartet [Flash]. For the kids again.
• The-Monsters-Choice.mov [video]. Bizarre time-manipulated video of a guy walking around while wearing a Where the Wild Things are costume.
• Apple's Mac II Pencil Test [video]
  • A computer animation made the old way. It may have been made to showcase technological capability, but clearly there was the emphasis on story too because in seconds you don't even notice the technology.
  • 'In 1988, Apple was eager to show off the graphics power of its Macintosh II line of computers. Using a program called Super3D, a group of talented artists produced "Pencil Test," an animated short created entirely on the Macintosh. Keep in mind that QuickTime did not exist in 1988; the movie was output frame by frame to an imagesetter, and then recorded to film.'
  • At least one of the makers, John Lasseter, went on to Pixar.
• A Critical History of Computer Graphics and Animation.
• WatchPaper. 'This is a fully functional clock that is printed onto ordinary paper. Using a heat sensitive coating, the minutes and hours blur from one into the other in a very subtle, warm and organic way. The ornamented wallpaper was used to contrast the digital interactivity with our perception of traditional, static wall space. The graphic surface however could be changed to display any graphic or photographic motive.'
• I Know Where Bruce Lee Lives: The UltraInteractive KungFu-Remixer [Flash]. Wicked cool!
• Red Meat Rocks [video]. A commercial for red meat using heavy metal.
• How To Kill a Mockingbird [Flash]. Weird animated "Cliffnotes".
• SketchyAnimation.com. All GIF89 animations?! Who had the time to make this? I don't have the time to see it but the kids might.
• Robots!! [Flash animation & activities]. A pretty bleak and gray outlook on modern urban life. However the answer is not rock music or violence. Not recommended.
• Chris Coutt's Hamlet [Flash video]. He calls this a Tale of  L33T?! No --it's more like Tale of Suxor.
• FlashFace.ctapt.de. Construct a face using stuff like the police ID with.
• Trevorvanmeter.com/flyguy/ [Flash activity]. Very sweet black and white activity of a flying guy. Kids will love this one.
• armegalo.com/wrath/play.html [Flash game]. The pre-game game is actually more fun than the actual game. (Use your mouse to avoid touching the walls. Very simple but somewhat satisfying.)
• I Like You. Aww that's sweet.
• Virtual-BubbleWrap.com/popnow.shtml [Flash activity]. I'm pretty sure I've blogged this before but why risk take the risk?
• Recursive animation (recursive animation) [BoingBoing]. 'Here is a neat recursive flash animation. Part of what makes this so weird and funny is the look of the guy. Link [Flash] (via Reality Carnival) And here are someone else's directions on how to make your own. Link'

3D (Architecture, Clothes, Fashion, Sculpture)

• MissileBases.com. Apparently you can live in a refurbished old missile silo.
• TheDwellHome.com. Competitions for well-designed pre-fab homes. After all does pre-fab have to mean "non-fab"?
• 'Self-cleaning' suits may be in your future
  • Yes, yes, there have been similar stories about developments towards super-clothes (just like there are always developments towards flying cars) but we never seem to finally get them.
  • 'Researchers at Clemson University are developing a highly water-repellant coating made of silver nanoparticles that they say can be used to produce suits and other clothing items that offer superior resistance to dirt as well as water and require much less cleaning than conventional fabrics. The patented coating -- a polymer film (polyglycidyl methacrylate) mixed with silver nanoparticles -- can be permanently integrated into any common fabric, including silk, polyester and cotton, the researchers say. In the long run, it can save time and money by reducing expensive dry cleaning bills. It is also environmentally friendly, they add.'
  • ' "The coating doesn't actually clean itself, but it does resist dirt much better than other fabric treatments," explains research team member Phil Brown, Ph.D., a textile chemist with Clemson University in Clemson, S.C. "The concept is based on the lotus plant, whose leaves are well-known for their ability to 'self-clean' by repelling water and dirt. Likewise, when water is exposed to the treated fabric, the dirt will be carried away more easily. You will still need some water to rinse away dirt and stains, but cleaning will be quicker and less frequent." '
  • 'Unlike conventional water-repellant coatings, the new coating, which doesn't yet have an official name, is permanently bonded onto the fibers of the fabric and will not wash off, Brown says. In addition, no fluorine-based chemical finishes are used so there are potential environmental advantages, according to the researcher. The research team is also trying to engineer antimicrobial particles into the coating, which could help repel strong odors such as body odor and even cigarette smoke, they say.'

3D+time (Performance Arts, Transportation)

• Car ports
  
  • Brilliant, brilliant stuff. Plus it's wicked cool. Really Incredible!
  • 'What really makes PRT [Personal Rapid Transit] different from mass transit is that it combines the convenience and luxury of a taxi with the efficiency of subway and bus travel: Rather than packing into a large carriage with a hundred smelly strangers, with PRT you get a private car. Instead of stopping at every station on the line, you zip straight to your final destination. And the visual impact -- replacing the bulky steel trains and buses with sleek bubbles that look like mid-century creations from the designer Arne Jacobsen -- appeals to any kid who dreamt of being a Jetson, or now, an Incredible. '
  • 'Leading the way in the PRT revolution is the Minnesota-based Taxi 2000 Corporation, founded in 1983 by Dr. J. Edward Anderson, a former NASA engineer who turned his attention to transit in 1968. After studying the problems with conventional mass transit, he developed SkyWeb Express, which is poised to be the first commercial PRT system in the world. Anderson claims SkyWeb Express beats mass transit in every way: It's greener, more convenient, safer and visually more acceptable, since the cars and rail are streamlined and small (observe this comparison between the New York subway and a SkyWeb system). The cars, unlike the round pods in "The Incredibles," are egg-shaped, and allow enough room for three to four people plus their shopping bags, luggage and wheelchair or bicycle. They run on synthetic rubber tires, which reduce noise pollution, along a monorail guideway that's 3 feet wide by 3 feet deep. And because the system is powered by 600-volt DC electricity, it produces no emissions.'
  • 'As Taxi 2000 imagines the scenario, commuters would enter the station, purchase a fare card and head to the platform -- just as one does now with most rail systems. But instead of waiting for a train to come by, passengers would hop into one of the empty cars that are idling in the station, swipe their card and enter a destination code. Because stations are positioned "offline" -- that is, the rail runs next to the station, not through it -- cars can pull into stops without slowing down traffic.'
  • 'SkyWeb Express may also be the answer to the seemingly impossible quandary that every environmental advocate faces: how to make green technologies cost-effective. Taxi 2000 estimates that installation of SkyWeb Express would cost $10 million per mile -- nearly five times less than the cost of light rail and 10 times less than heavy rail. And operating costs at 38 cents per passenger mile (compared to $3.43 for heavy rail and $1.42 for light rail) mean that SkyWeb Express could operate on a break-even basis -- and therefore without the government subsidies that mass transit, which operates at a loss, relies on. The guideway also weighs less and is easier to assemble than light or heavy rail, and in fact the guideway can be installed by an ordinary fork-lift truck, only minimally disrupting regular traffic and therefore reducing the incidental costs of major construction.'
  • 'Mass transit also suffers from another big problem: Because of decreased ridership, it is at times less efficient than cars. According to U.S. Department of Energy data, in the year 2000, buses consumed 4,775 BTUs of energy per passenger mile, whereas cars only consumed 3,543. The problem is that buses run empty for most of the day, wasting energy. Trains are actually more efficient than cars, coming in at 3,105 BTUs per passenger mile, but that data is probably skewed by the New York City subway and commuter trains that only run at peak hours.'
  • ' The PRT system boasts a ton of other benefits as well. It's fast -- SkyWeb cars can move anywhere from 20 mph in city centers and around tight corners, to 80 mph on straight runs -- and it's adaptable to the needs of city planners. SkyWeb Express would use up only 1 percent of the land, as opposed to 30 to 50 percent for automobiles and highways -- in populated areas. The system can run above or under the ground. "Planners invariably say that elevated is the way to go," says Edward Anderson, "because it's safer than surface-level systems." But SkyWeb still has the advantage over heavier rail, since the lack of bulk means "the visual impact is more acceptable." '
• 230mph Electric Car [/. with over 700 comments].
  • 'It ain't cheap, but Hiroshi Shimizu has finally shown off his latest electric car 'Eliica'. It accelerates faster than a Porsche 911 Turbo, and will cruise for 200 miles on a one hour charge. Stories at drive.com.au, and an image video and tech video.'
  • Bah! The /. focus on the old battery problem and de-emphasized the innovation.
    

AI, Brain, Psychology, Robotics

• The Uncanny Valley: Why are monster-movie zombies so horrifying and talking animals so fascinating?
  • People have been talking about Dr. Masahiro Mori's "Uncanny Valley" but this site has one of the nicer explanations of the phenomena.
  • 'Perhaps not surprisingly, the realm of the anthropomorphic character stretches from near the height of the first peak, through the uncanny valley, to the final peak at the right of the curve, as seen in the following figure. It is here that the overwhelming majority of characters fit, whether from the earliest campfire tales and cave drawings or the latest Web archives.

    

    A closer examination of this section of the curve reveals four distinct regions of interest. From right to left, they are the steep slope falling off from the final peak, the uncanny valley itself, the corresponding steep slope on the valley's other side, and the rounded peak linking that slope to the more gradual one at the left of the chart. The rightmost slope is where every member of the human species can be placed, as well as those fictitious beings similar enough to humans to be mistaken for them under less than ideal viewing conditions. At the top of the slope would be any healthy, normal-looking person; at the bottom, perhaps even in the uncanny valley itself, might be the profoundly disfigured or deformed, such as John Merrick, the so-called "Elephant Man". Between these extremes one could place an ill but otherwise normal person (near the top), a Bunraku puppet (as Dr. Mori does), a handicapped individual -- roughly at the neutral reaction line -- and below that a typical prosthetic hand designed to mimic, imperfectly, a natural one.

Art, Beauty, Design, Form

• Introducing sIFR: The Healthy Alternative to Browser Text
  • 'It's been well over ten years now since the debut of the graphical web browser and we still don't have an easy way to deliver rich typography using HTML/CSS. With CSS we can size, style, color, kern, show, and hide our text but we can't deliver something classical typesetters have delivered since at least the 15th century: custom typography. Until now. In concert with Shaun Inman and Tomas Jogin, I am releasing into the public domain a scalable, multiline, Flash 6 compatible version of IFR to help you reduce the amount of browser text in your life and free the world from the scourge of Arial.'
  • Basically 'Scalable Inman Flash Replacement' uses Flash to transparently provide any font you want. Plus the text will adjust too. Very, very nice for those who demand beautiful typography.

Audio, Music

• Name-This-Tune.com
  • 'Musipedia! Inspired by, but not affiliated with Wikipedia, we are building a searchable, editable, and expandable collection of tunes, melodies, and musical themes. Every entry can be edited by anybody. An entry can contain a bit of sheet music, a MIDI file, textual information about the work and the composer, and last but not least the Parsons Code, a rough description of the melodic contour, to make the encyclopedia searchable by melody. '
  • The ability to search by Parson's Code for melodic contours is fascinating.
• Drum Lessons [video]. It starts out as some geek teaching geek rock. But by the end of it he's freakin' rockin' man!
• Music and the Brain
  • 'Why is music--universally beloved and uniquely powerful in its ability to wring emotions--so pervasive and important to us? Could its emergence have enhanced human survival somehow, such as by aiding courtship, as Geoffrey F. Miller of the University of New Mexico has proposed? Or did it originally help us by promoting social cohesion in groups that had grown too large for grooming, as suggested by Robin M. Dunbar of the University of Liverpool? On the other hand, to use the words of Harvard University's Steven Pinker, is music just "auditory cheesecake"--a happy accident of evolution that happens to tickle the brain's fancy?'
    • I vote cheesecake!

Cyber Life (Blogging, Chatting, Email, Surfing, Wikis)

• I just wanted to post this little blurb is attached to emails from a lawyer I know:

  This communication is confidential and may be protected by the attorney-client or attorney work-product privileges. It is only for use by the intended recipient and the privileges are not waived by sending this communication electronically. Unauthorized use, distribution or copying of this communication is prohibited. If you receive this communication in error, please immediately notify the sender by telephone or e-mail and confirm the deletion of all copies and attachments. Thank you for your cooperation.

• New Netscape embraces Firefox, IE
  • 'As of 8 a.m. PST Tuesday, Netscape fans were test-driving a prototype Netscape browser that runs on two different browsing engines: the Mozilla Foundation's Gecko engine, which powers up the Mozilla, Firefox and older Netscape browsers, and Microsoft's Internet Explorer engine, which many consider the de facto Web standard.'
  • 'AOL's motivation in resuscitating the Netscape browser comes down to the same reason it acquired Netscape in the first place: the portal. AOL expects to reap revenue from the free browser by directing more people to Netscape.com, just as Microsoft has turned its MSN portal into a Web heavyweight in large part through Internet Explorer.'
  • I'm guessing that the new Netscape will be at least as standards compliant as Mozilla.
• Scholar.Google.com
  • 'Google Scholar enables you to search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research. Use Google Scholar to find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web.'
  • Sounds great! However this still doesn't get around all the content that is by subscription only or paid for or both.
• Mozilla previews e-mail program
  • Cool! Just as Firefox competes with Microsoft's Internet Explorer for web browsing, now Thunderbird can compete with Microsoft's Outlook and Outlook Express for Email and Newgroups.
  • Of course this is just a "release candidate" but this should mean that version 1.0 is coming out pretty soon.
• U.S. archives offer digital look at America's past
  • 'The government promises anyone with a computer will have access within a few years to millions of pages from old newspapers, a slice of American history to be viewed now only by visiting local libraries, newspaper offices or the nation's capital.'
  • 'The first of what's expected to be 30 million digitized pages from papers published from 1836 through 1922 will be available in 2006.'
  • 'The National Endowment for the Humanities is working on the project with the Library of Congress, which has embarked on a broader project to preserve records of American newspapers dating from the late 1600s. The span of the joint project is limited because type faces of printers used before 1836 are too difficult for optical scanners to read, and copyright restrictions are in force on papers published after 1923.'
    • Very good stuff.
    • Pricks my fear that a lot of the good stuff on the Internet now will be lost because historians have historically relied on physical evidence of the past.
• Communication Skills [Flash video]. A brief video on how to send a nice email while inwardly venting.
• How News Travels on the Internet. I get thousands of unique visits per day but I definitely consider myself as part of the lesser blogosphere.
  
• Spaces.MSN.com. I suppose Microsoft officially getting into the blogging game deservers a mention but MS and blogging just doesn't sound like they go together. The word blogging evokes self-expression and freedom but MS doesn't.
• 2004WeblogAwards.com is now accepting votes until 2004-12-12.
• BlogTorrent.com.
  • 'What is Blog Torrent? Blog Torrent is software that makes it much easier to share and download files using the bittorrent protocol.'
  • 'Why does Blog Torrent matter? Making it easy to blog large video files means that people can share their home movies the same way they share their photos or writings. It lets people create vast networks of truly peer-to-peer video content-- video that was made by individuals and shared with individuals, no bandwidth budget or distribution deal needed.'
• Pornospammers = eternal innovators [BoingBoing]. I've always loved ASCII art, but don't use it for spam, please!

    ap9v        3565        dx00r7g1z2      2001w7pn7pb24z6p
    kn6u        742f      96n8      065n          d71e      
    c8n5        0usz    b004          aya2        193o      
    cxb3        06h1    3sdh          7q57        cswy      
    hm633s8ycg1832gq    488b          fg4l        428k      
    03e4        gko7    zl74          f3z4        v635      
    9thy        4ten    2570          8i92        2h48      
    k407        2yle      2x04      0p9s          3x63      
    o45s        o8y3        g7vw6xqp61            4g1x      
  
       818fs4z0rg      xhhqudd4    sk5qq9q7fan2      c3kp              1m520e8tsl  
     57q3        nf      4938      gg2g      d67i    436y            m0hu        9m
   tggv                  6a5h      8mk2      gugg    h2w2            i5p3          
   37x3                  1g19      6wsa      ofsu    9k90            r5d1nw        
   3iw2                  v5xq      av928kqq6l26      8909              22d5ke6gqn  
   865q    0058l375      9w45      0vdg  y4hh        0289                    o637ub
   l1zn        os39      67v9      2co3    1832      7f7v                      86k3
     r1cc      ad13      5h12      199o      4p2o    n1r1            38        y3p8
       slfnf82qd328    t850nl1o    ur7v        i961  33828588g184h1    g8o8871tcb  

Cyber Tech (Computers, Networking, Programming, Telecommunications)

• Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP. There are several free utilities here from Microsoft for Windows XP. PowerCalc.exe looks promising.
• us-webmasters.com/Random-Password-Generator/. Very cute. Possibly useful for some lazy folks.
• Microsoft Patents 'IsNot', Enlists WTO [/. with over 700 comments]
  • "I was just reading an article on The Register about Microsoft's offshore patent war following Ballmer's recent outburst in Asia. I came across this little nugget, it seems MS has patented BASIC's IsNot operator. "
    • The patent application is just so ridiculous and insulting.
    • The /. thread is hilarious with a lot of nerdy jokes.
• Thin CRTs to Challenge LCDs in 2005 [/.]
  • 'First Samsung and now LG.Phillips have worked out a way to create thin CRT displays. Thin CRTs offer the best of both worlds -- superior picture quality with a slim size. Thin CRTs are expected to be more expensive than current CRTs, however they are also expected to drop in price rapidly. Both companies plan on releasing Thin CRTs in late 2005.'
  • Sweet.
• A Conversation with Mike Deliman. Interview with a NASA operating systems engineer. Most progammers aren't really "engineers", but radiation-hardening processors is hard core engineering.
• Intel Quietly Adopts AMD's x86-64 [/.]
  • 'The rumors reported earlier at /. are confirmed. The latest offerings in the Pentium 4 family now support AMD's x86-64 architecture, even though Intel is not willing to admit it very openly, by using cryptic names like EM64T and (gasp) IA-32e. (The naming issue was discussed on lkml, and the consensus there was to use 'x86-64,' even though sometimes AMD refers to it as 'AMD64'). Intel's FAQ admits their implementation is basically compatible with x86-64, except for the minor differences that have always set Athlons and P4s apart. It's about time Intel jumped on AMD's bandwagon, since its homegrown 64-bit architecture seems not to be doing very well. '
  • Amazing that a big company like Intel let things slide so far. Sort of like how shocking it is that Microsoft continues to let Internet Explorer slide.
• Virtual Ring Eases Scrolling
  • 'The virtual scroll ring maps circular finger, stylus, or mouse motion into vertical scrolling. Clockwise motion moves the scroll bar down and counterclockwise motion moves it up. Bigger circles and faster motion increase scrolling speed. Previous Interface techniques have allowed users to rotate objects with circular motion but these are based on the angle of the pointer relative to the center of the circle, which requires a fixed point on the screen. The virtual scrolling is based on distance traveled around the circle, meaning the circle can drift around the screen. This allows the user to keep visual attention on the document. ... In general, the software is an eyes-free technique for specifying values. Scrolling distance is one value. The software can enable any application with user-controlled parameters represented by slider bars or dials to be used without having to look at the control, according to the researchers.'
  • 'The technique can be implemented in any software now, according to the researchers. They presented the research at the User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) 2004 conference held in Santa Fe, New Mexico October 24 to 27, 2004.'
  • I'll bet this sort of thing could be simulated with simple JavaScrip for web pages, but I'm too lazy to do such a thing.
• China's Biggest Computer Maker Acquires IBM's PC Business
  • Ah so the rumors aren't just rumors. Amazing to have the first PC maker, an American original, sell out to China.
  • 'Chinese computer maker Lenovo Group [formerly Legend] said Wednesday it will take over IBM's personal computer business, creating the world's third-largest PC maker in a $1.75 billion deal that announces China's ambitions to become a key player in the global industry. ... Lenovo will take over IBM's desktop PC business, including research, development and manufacturing for $1.25 billion in cash and shares, while IBM will retain a 18.9 percent stake, Liu said.'
  • 'Lenovo Group's worldwide PC business will move its headquarters to New York. Lenovo was founded in 1984 by academics at the government-backed Chinese Academy of Sciences and first worked out of a small cottage. Initially set up to distribute equipment made by IBM and other companies, by 1990 it was selling PCs under its own brand name.'

Diet, Drink, Drugs, Food, Restaurants

• Chocolate could be cough medicine
  • 'Scientists found the key ingredient, theobromine, is nearly a third more effective in stopping persistent coughs than the leading medicine codeine. They say it produces fewer side effects than conventional treatment - and would not leave people drowsy. '
  • YES! Another excuse to eat more chocolate!
• 'Suicide tree' toxin is 'perfect' murder weapon
  • 'A plant dubbed the suicide tree kills many more people in Indian communities than was previously thought. The warning comes from forensic toxicologists in India and France who have conducted a review of deaths caused by plant-derived poisons.

    Cerbera odollam, which grows across India and south-east Asia, is used by more people to commit suicide than any other plant, the toxicologists say. But they also warn that doctors, pathologists and coroners are failing to detect how often it is used to murder people.

    A team led by Yvan Gaillard of the Laboratory of Analytical Toxicology in La Voulte-sur-Rhône, France, documented more than 500 cases of fatal Cerbera poisoning between 1989 and 1999 in the south-west Indian state of Kerala alone. Half of Kerala's plant poisoning deaths, and one in 10 of all fatal poisonings, are put down to Cerbera.

    But the true number of deaths due to Cerbera poisoning in Kerala could be twice that, the team estimates, as poisonings are difficult to identify by conventional means.'

  • 'Although the kernels of the tree have a bitter taste, this can be disguised if they are crushed and mixed with spicy food. They contain a potent heart toxin called cerberin, similar in structure to digoxin, found in the foxglove.

    Digoxin kills by blocking calcium ion channels in heart muscles, which disrupts the heartbeat. But while foxglove poisoning is well known to western toxicologists, Gaillard says pathologists would not be able to identify Cerbera poisoning unless there is evidence the victim had eaten the plant. "It is the perfect murder," he says.

• Does the lack of sleep make you fat?
  • At first I was skeptical.
  • 'Dr Shahrad Taheri from Bristol University, and colleagues in the United States, examined the role of two key hormones that are involved in regulating appetite -- ghrelin and leptin. Ghrelin increases feelings of hunger while leptin acts to suppress appetite.'
  • 'People who habitually slept for 5 hours were found to have 15% more ghrelin than those who slept for 8 hours. They were also found to have 15% less leptin. These hormonal changes may cause increased feelings of hunger, leading to a foraging in the fridge for food.'
  • 'Over the last 50 years we have reduced the amount of time we spend asleep by up to two hours a night because of increasing pressures on our time (work, school, family, television, computer games and the internet). The research suggests that this lack of sleep may be contributing to the obesity pandemic.'

Engineering, Function, Technology

• Molecule Harvests Water's Hydrogen
  • 'It has been known for years that molecules containing the metal ruthenium absorb solar light well and could produce enough energy to carry out hydrogen production. The stumbling block to producing such molecules is getting light to generate two or more electrons at a time, which is required to generate enough energy to split water. The researchers' molecule has light-absorbing ruthenium subunits on each end, connector subunits near the middle and a reactive rhodium sub-unit in the center that collects electrons and delivers them to water. Figuring out how to design, prepare and use a supramolecular complex capable of using light to collect electrons took more than a decade of work, according to the researchers.'
    • Sounds cool. Such a thing obviously does not exist in nature because a catalyst that ravenously "eats" water would be very dangerous.
• Light Clock Promises Finer Time
  • 'The current definition of a second is the duration of 9,192,631,770 oscillations of cesium atoms excited by microwaves. Today's cesium atomic clocks are accurate to within one million billionth of a second, or 1 second in 30 million years.'
  • 'Researchers from the National Physical Laboratory in England have made a prototype atomic clock that divides time into slices based on optical radiation, or lightwaves, rather than microwave radiation.'
  • 'Given a redefined second, optical clocks could be a thousand times more accurate than the best clocks of today. Such a clock would not lose a second over the lifetime of the universe.'
• Download a 12 sided calendar. What geek wouldn't want such a thing? I've downloaded my copy!
  

Entertainment (Movies, Pop Culture, Radio, Show Biz, TV)

• Trailers and more trailers for the movie Elektra [Release Date 2004-01-14] are out. Of course if you've read the Daredevil comicbook, you know that Elektra wasn't exactly killed and that she comes back like a Pheonix, more powerful than ever before. Ninjas, sais, special effects, and a rich story base --let's see if they've done it right. Related:
  • Elektra at IMDB
  • "Garner is free of complexes in 'Elektra' role"
• 'Bourne' Director Working on 'Watchmen' [/.]
  • 'British filmmaker Paul Greengrass, who shot the summer hit "The Bourne Supremacy," is set to direct "The Watchmen," a project based on the seminal DC Comics limited series of the same name. ... With Greengrass aboard, the project is now eyeing a possible 2006 release date. Greengrass, known for his gritty style, also wrote and directed the critically lauded Irish saga "Bloody Sunday." '
    • Cool! It makes sense. Hollywood has caught on (that comic books make good movies), so it makes sense that if they do some research on comic books, then they were bound to come across the really good stuff.
    • Of course, Hollywood could totally screw it up.
  • ' "The Watchmen," created by writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbon and originally released in 1986 as a 12-issue comic book, is credited with redefining the superhero genre. It tells a crime-conspiracy story that provided the first realistic look at the behind-the-heroics lives of superhero archetypes. Set in an alternate America, "Watchmen" follows the costumed hero Rorschach, who is living a vigilante lifestyle because most masked heroes have retired or been outlawed. While investigating a murder, he learns that a former masked-hero colleague has been killed, prompting him to begin investigating a possible conspiracy. '
    • Some good content regarding The Watchmen in the /. thread.
• Harrison Ford Talks Indy IV!
• 50 Top Movie Deaths. Brilliant topic, excellent list selections.
• Incredible propaganda. It's a good movie when people see it in so many ways on different levels
• BRMovie.com/BR_Special_Edition.htm
  • 'What is the Blade Runner Special Edition DVD?

    Blade Runner was released in 1982, but due to the way test screenings were done and certain people imposing their views, there were some significant changes made. In 1992, Ridley Scott contributed to what is called the "Director's Cut" which reversed a few of the changes made in 1982, but was rushed and Ridley did not have a chance to make a real Director's Cut. The DC is the only version currently available on DVD.

    20 years after initial filming and Ridley Scott went back to the original negatives to create the Special Edition which will be put onto the BR:SE Blade Runner DVD. The transfer will be clearer and the sound will be improved. Expected on Warner Brothers Home Video "sometime". Ridley Scott's expectation is that it will be a 3-disc boxed set. Note, the film itself will not be called a "Director's Cut" - to quote Charlie de Lauzirika, "We're calling it Blade Runner. That's all it is. That's the way it should have been." Well, it will be one day. Hopefully. According to Charlie, "Some significant work was initiated, some fantastic material discovered, but on the whole, very little was actually finished before legal issues forced a halt to production." '

  • I'm posting this because I was going to get BR as a Christmas gift but apparently I should hold out until the 3 DVD version comes out. Disappointingly, I recently bought Mary Poppins just weeks before the special edition came out.

Environment, Fauna, Flora, Green

• Start date set for Kyoto treaty [/. with over 1100 comments]
  • 'Russia handed official ratification papers to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in Nairobi on Thursday. Russia's accession gives Kyoto support from countries that emit at least 55% of the world's greenhouse gases. The protocol commits 55 industrialised nations to making significant cuts in the emission of gases such as carbon dioxide by the year 2012.'
  • 'The US, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, withdrew from the protocol in 2001, saying it would gravely damage the US economy. The Bush administration also criticised the protocol for not forcing developing nations including India and China to cut emissions immediately.'
    • Wow. So now the Russians are the good guys and the Americans are the bad guys. Sad.
  • 'The protocol was first agreed in 1997, but required the agreement of countries responsible for at least 55% of global emissions measured in 1990. After the US pulled out, the protocol could not be ratified without Russia, responsible for 17% of emissions.'
  • 'Industrialised countries will have until 2012 to cut their collective emissions of six key greenhouse gases to 5.2% below the 1990 level. But some experts have claimed that a drastic cut of around 60% is needed to avoid the worst effects of global warming.'
    • Some people say that the Kyoto treaty is against U.S. interests, but doing good is actually in our interest.
• Millions of Tiny Spiders Spin Mystery in a British Columbia Clover Field. 'A warning: If the thought of tens of millions of tiny spiders spinning a web 24 hectares - 60 acres - in size and crawling all over it scares the wits out of you, you might want to tread carefully over the following.  Because that's exactly what happened last month on a farmer's field near McBride, about 220 kilometres east of Prince George.  For reasons that area scientists don't really understand, millions and millions of tiny black spiders called Halorates ksenius - they have no common name - became trapped in Russell Jervis' clover field and started spinning webs. '
  
• 'Virgin birth' mammal rewrites rules of biology: A mammal that is the daughter of two female parents has been created for the first time.
  • Oh you think that's impressive?! How about biological children from to fathers! Ha!
• How to give a rat an enema. Complete with pictures. Poor rat! However such procedures are unfortunately sometimes necessary. I myself have had the opportunity to give dogs and cats enemas while helping my mom out at her animal hospital.
• Dolphins save swimmers from shark

  Lifesavers Rob Howes, his 15-year-old daughter Niccy, Karina Cooper and Helen Slade were swimming 100 metres (300 feet) off Ocean Beach near Whangarei on New Zealand's North Island when the dolphins herded them -- apparently to protect them from a shark.

  "They started to herd us up, they pushed all four of us together by doing tight circles around us," Howes told the New Zealand Press Association (NZPA).

  Howes tried to drift away from the group, but two of the bigger dolphins herded him back just as he spotted a three-meter (nine feet) great white shark swimming towards the group.

  "I just recoiled. It was only about 2 meters (6 feet) away from me, the water was crystal clear and it was as clear as the nose on my face," Howes said.

  "They had corralled us up to protect us," he said.

  The lifesavers spent the next 40 minutes surrounded by the dolphins before they could safely swim back to shore.

  The incident happened on October 30, but the lifesavers kept the story to themselves until now.

Fun, Games, Play, Sports, Toys

• My friend Terry had a "Game Day" party on 2004-11-21.
  • It was a blast she had dozens of people over with multiple tables running multiple board games simultaneously.
  • We were set up for St. Petersburg, Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride, Mystery of the Abbey, Settlers of Catan, Scrabble, Buy Word, Amun-Re, Puerto Rico, and Acquire. The game ranged in number of players required (2-6), game time (30-120 minutes), complexity (2-4 out of 5), and kind (some were word games, some were more strategic, etc.).
  • Logistics
    • There were, of course, snacks and drinks, but for game play, it was vital to have "game captains" at each table to explain how to play a game. Many of the games were quite complex and were games that most people have never played.
    • It helped to have 2 games running at 1 large table simultaneously instead of 2 games running simultaneously on 2 different. This helps provide a sense of group unity.
• WorldOfWarcraft.com [/.]. I almost forgot to mention that the MMOG version of WarCraft came out 2004-11-23. No way am I going to pay montly. Supposedly that event was a good excuse for me to quit playing WarCraft but it's a slow withdrawal process.
• National Toy Hall of Fame at Strong Museum. Here's some of the winners.
  
• LongBets.org and some of their bets. This isn't gambling... it's "wagering". The "winnings" become philanthropic gifts!
• MAVAV.org
  • 'Mothers Against Videogame Addiction and Violence'
  • Up against the wall gameboy!
  • But seriously, I know from experience that gaming can get out of hand.
• TurboSpoke.com. Via BoingBoing:
  • 'Caution: this bicycle accessory may instantly tranform your 6-year-old child into a pint-sized Hell's Angel. Turbospoke is an attachment for the rear chain stay. Rember the old "playing card in your spokes" trick for making basdass noise on your badass bike? This is like that, only badasser. Link (thanks Marc)

    Update: BB reader Matt Dowling says, "On an episode of the TV show Braniac in the UK, a kid wanted to know if he was faster or slower with the turbospoke attached to his bike. So they set up a little circuit for him to pedal around with the thing on/off. Realisticly it should slow him down, but the result was that he went faster with the thing on, and what they figured is that it was psychological in speeding him up (with the "vrooom" and all." '

  • Awesome dude!
  • 

Government, Political Science, Politics, U.S. Politics

• What you do with success is what matters
  • 'Rice will be the first black woman to become secretary of state if she is confirmed, yet our response to this extraordinary achievement has been about as enthusiastic as the response to the re-election of the president who nominated her--that is, 89 percent of voting blacks aren't so tickled.'
  • 'One of the overwhelming sentiments I got last week is this: You're OK as a black person if you don't talk about race. Don't mention it. Pretend we indeed co-exist in a colorblind society. Of course, we can all keep our racial conversations to ourselves, and it seems that the Readers in Support of Black People Like Condoleezza Rice often prefer I would, but this can't be helpful in the long run for any community.'
  • ' Cornel West, professor of religion and African-American studies at Princeton University, said it best on NPR's "The Tavis Smiley Show" when Smiley asked whether Rice or Secretary of State Colin Powell were role models for children considering careers in diplomacy. "Greatness is telling the truth and being courageous in pursuit of justice," West told Smiley. "The worst thing you could tell young people is to be successful but become well-adjusted to an unjust status quo as opposed to being great and being maladjusted to an unjust status quo." '
• The political structure of academia
  • 'The NYT reports on a study that shows (unsurprisingly) that Democrats greatly outnumber Republicans in academia. The ratio is 7 to 1, generally, 9 to 1 at Berkeley and Stanford. The article doesn't say where the Republicans are clustered (the hard sciences?), but it does say that the studies found a more extreme disparity among younger professors (183 to 6).'
    • The rest of the article discusses theories about why this is so. All of it is just speculation/intuitive guessing without scientific testing.
  • 'The Times points us to a website where you can read the details of the study. And contrary to what I wrote above, the Times did have a bit of information about where the Republicans were clustered: "The ratio of Democratic to Republican professors ranged from 3 to 1 among economists to 30 to 1 among anthropologists." Looking at the survey itself, you'll see that it's 28 to 1 in Sociology, 13.5 to 1 in Philosophy, 9.5 to 1 in History, and 6.7 to 1 in Political Science.'
• Memo to the Left: Time's Up
  • 'Alright kids. It's been over a full week now. I left you alone and let you have your pity-parties. Hopefully you've had a good long sulk and gotten it out of your system.

    But now, it's time to get your asses back to work. You might not expect me to be saying this, but here's the bulletin: this country needs you.

    We need intelligent voices to criticize the policies of this --- of any --- administration. We need differing viewpoints; different ideas about how to deal with the tremendous challenges that history has decided to toss at this generation. We need the balance that a liberal perspective can bring to the debate about where this country is going.

    We do not need you sulking in a corner, muttering darkly about homophobic theocrats.'

    • Oh no! You're not getting me on this one. We lefties are going to silently sit back a bit and let you righty boys screw things up royally. Then when we can't stomach it anymore, can't morally stand on the side anymore, when we're laughing & crying, then we adults will step back in.
  • 'What is relevant are answers. Solutions, not a list of problems. Declaring that Iraq is a mess is easy, and worthless. Telling us what we should do to fix it is harder, but far more worthwhile. Don't like the operation in Falluja? Fine: how else would you stop the terrorists? Think we should involve allies more in Iraq? Great. How? '
    • STFU. We've been telling you how but your righteous ear wax is too thick to listen. Ha ha ha!
• The Baby Gap: Explaining Red and Blue
  • 'voters are picking their parties based on differing approaches to the most fundamentally important human activity: having babies. The white people in Republican-voting regions consistently have more children than the white people in Democratic-voting regions. The more kids whites have, the more pro-Bush they get...'
  • 
  • 'Bush carried the 19 states with the highest white fertility (just as he did in 2000), and 25 out of the top 26, with highly unionized Michigan being the one blue exception to the rule... In sharp contrast, Kerry won the 16 states at the bottom of the list, with the Democrats' anchor states of California (1.65) and New York (1.72) having quite infertile whites.'
    • Yep, that's the problem with population booms without checks: More dumb asses and ugly people. Smart & beautiful people have fewer babies. Ha ha ha! See Parallel Universes: Darwinism favors evangelicals' survival over secular neighbors that I linked to below.
  • 'You could predict 74% of the variation in Bush's shares just from knowing each state's white fertility rate. When the average fertility goes up by a tenth of a child, Bush's share normally goes up by 4.5 points.'
• A time to heal: In which the author issues a few heartfelt political apologies
  • You've got to love an article that can poke fun at everybody.
  • ' I would like to apologize to George W. Bush for calling him "a draft-dodging, cokehead retard with the moral compass of a serial killer." I further would like to apologize for implying that his "rush to war against Iraq" was the result of his having "a really small penis." '
  • ' I would like to apologize to John Kerry for referring to him as "Herman Munster minus the charisma" and for contending he failed to effectively attack his opponent's record because he does not, in fact, possess testicles. It is my understanding that he does possess testicles, and that they are large. '
• Screw you, America: Sometimes the fish in the barrel deserve to die
  • Talk about an angry loser! Fun read though.
  • ' Don't forgive my anger. All this needs to be said. And I know that as soon as that stiff-faced to-the-manure-born right-wing lackey in the White House tries to appoint a 21st-century counterpart to Roy Bean to the Supreme Court in a few weeks, more people are going to wish they'd said it sooner. John Kerry fucked up. More important, America fucked up. And the people who fucked up the most--you infamous red-staters--are going to suffer along with the rest of us. To put it in lingo a NASCAR devotee would understand, "Y'all deserve a good talkin'-to." '
  • 'A lot of us effete Easterners want to know: What the fuck is wrong with you?! You voted against your self-interest at every turn (you dumb-asses in South Dakota deserve special credit for voting out one of the most powerful Democrats in the Senate) and re-elected an ignorant cowboy who can't be trusted to remember a lunch order, never mind run a country. What in the name of God...?! Wait, it was in the name of God, wasn't it? Rendered weak and ignorant by a spoon-fed climate of fear, you slack-jawed inbred flatlanders have sought refuge in the traditional twin towers of mindlessness--jingoistic patriotism and fundamentalist religion. God's on your side. Like hell. Jesus loves us, dammit. '
  • 'Okay, you want God? Let's talk about God. Your religion is bogus. Fundamentalism, the facile belief in the unexplained and un-researched, is something you born-agains (couldn't get it right the first time, huh?) share with Al Qaeda, whose ideologues doggedly adhere to religious misinterpretations every bit as silly and dangerous as yours. Just like you, Muslim fundamentalists long to impose an unrealistic and intolerant pseudo-Calvinist morality on the world. In fact, America's religious right has so much in common with the Shiah, it's a wonder you guys don't invite them to join the Rotary. Born-againsters look for the face of Christ in the wallpaper; fundamentalist Muslims hallucinate the voice of the 12th Imam; but aside from that (and extremely divergent attitudes toward pork), you both hate the same stuff--homosexuality, pacifism, Jews, education, uppity women, enlightenment, short skirts, gangsta rap, tattoos, infidels. ... (They also share your love of super-lethal weaponry.)'
  • 'Am I being elitist here? Disrespectful of the dignity of the masses? I fuckin' hope so, because 51 percent of the masses have had their say and it doesn't make sense. Besides, when I think about people being tortured while they're held without representation at Guantnamo and Iraqi families crawling out of the rubble of their own homes, I'm not too worried if I insult some Bible-sucking insurance salesman or a possum-breathed saw sharpener.'
  • 'In its own well-intentioned way, liberalism is, when you think about it, almost as big a problem as fundamentalism is. See, as much as I disagree with you and am disgusted by the shallow and pathetic pawns you've become, I respect your potential. That's why liberal Democrats can't bring themselves to do what the Republicans do so well -- cynically lie to you for selfish gain. (Do you really think Kerry would have banned the Bible?) We nice people actually expected reasoned arguments, logic and incontrovertible evidence to convince you that Kerry was the better candidate. Turns out that the GOP's double whammy of fear and loathing is a more powerful vote-getting tool.'
  • 'Of course they, not we, laid the groundwork there. And that's the real shocker you fly-over chicken-rubbers are going to realize just before the end (of freedom, that is; I don't mean the Rapture, which is something else you believe in that's not going to happen): You've been duped, and the Bushies are laughing at you behind your spineless backs right now. The Republicans don't care about you; they just wanted your vote so they can stay in power and make their oil-and-blood-soaked cronies even richer. They're going to send your job overseas and destroy Social Security. In the name of catching terrorists, they're going to make sure you don't read any interesting books or travel without permission. They're going to toss you a minuscule tax cut in exchange for under-funding public education and social services, so there will be more poor people around to bother you. Perhaps you will become one of them. '
  • 'And some day, you might figure that out. Meanwhile, you deserve what we all got thanks to you, you bastards.'

Health (Exercise, Healthcare, Medicine)

• The Bionic Back: Got a bum disc? Now you can buy a better one. 'For some of the 200,000 people each year who suffer pain severe enough to require lower-back surgery, a new solution has arrived. The Charité Artificial Disc is expected to receive FDA approval for degenerative disc disease by the end of 2004, making it the only artificial spinal disc available in the U.S. "This is the first major breakthrough in back surgery since the 1940s," says orthopedic surgeon Richard Guyer of the Texas Back Institute in Plano.'
  
• Experimental treatment saves rabies victim: Teen is first to survive without getting vaccine
  • 'A team of physicians gambled on an experimental treatment and induced a coma in Jeanna Giese to stave off the usually fatal infection, said Dr. Rodney Willoughby, a pediatric disease infection specialist at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin.'
    • Wow! Since rabies attacks the brain, Dr. Willoughby "shut off" the brain, thus giving her immune system time to defeat the rabies. Now that's thinking out of the box and on your feet.
  • 'Only five people in the world before Jeanna are known to have survived rabies after the onset of symptoms, said Dr. Charles Rupprecht, chief of the rabies section at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But they had received standard treatment -- a series of rabies vaccine shots -- before experiencing symptoms. Rabies, which attacks the brain and the nervous system, is considered untreatable with the appearance of symptoms, which include fever, headache, anxiety, loss of consciousness.'
  • 'Jeanna was infected when she was bitten by a bat while at church September 12 but did not seek treatment. She began showing rabies symptoms October 13 and was hospitalized two days later. Willoughby said the treatment, which includes two anesthetics and two antiviral medications, will have to be duplicated in another patient before it can be credited as a rabies treatment. Willoughby said he would not reveal the exact drugs used until a report is published in a medical journal.'

Interesting, Jokes, Odd, Weird [May be NSFW]

• I got this pretty good dirty joke from my friend Gus:

  Two couples were playing poker one evening. John accidentally dropped some cards on the floor. When he bent down under the table to pick them up, he noticed Bill's wife Sue wasn't wearing any underwear under her dress! Shocked by this, John upon trying to sit back up again, hit his head on the table and emerged red-faced.

  Later, John went to the kitchen to get some refreshments.

  Bill's wife followed and asked, "Did you see anything that you liked under there?"

  Surprised by her boldness, John courageously admitted that, well indeed he did. She said, " Well, you can have it but it will cost you $500."

  After taking a minute or two to assess the financial and moral costs of this offer, John confirms that he is interested. She tells him that since her husband Bill works Friday afternoons and John doesn't, John should be at her house around 2 p.m. Friday afternoon.

  When Friday rolled around, John showed up at Bill's house at 2 p.m. sharp and after paying Sue the agreed sum of $500 they went to the bedroom and closed their transaction, as agreed. John quickly dressed and left.

  As usual, Bill came home from work at 6 p.m. and upon entering the house, asked his wife abruptly. "Did John come by the house this afternoon?"

  With a lump in her throat Sue answered "Why yes, he did stop by for a few minutes this afternoon."

  Her heart nearly skipped a beat when her husband curtly asked, "And did he give you $500?"

  In terror she assumed that somehow he had found out and after mustering her best poker face, replied, "Well, yes, in fact he did give me $500."

  Bill, with a satisfied look on his face, surprised his wife by saying, "Good, I was hoping he did. John came by the office this morning and borrowed $500 from me. He promised me he'd stop by our house this afternoon on his way home and pay me back."

  Now THAT, my friends, is a poker player!

• Pupils scared by asteroid spoof. O dear. I'll copy the whole thing here for posterity.

  Pupils were left in tears after a teacher told them that an asteroid was about to hit Earth and kill them all.

  The spoof announcement was designed to teach 14-year-olds the importance of seizing the day but backfired after they became visibly frightened.

  Keith Hogan, head teacher at St Matthew's RC High School in Moston, Manchester, said he regretted any distress caused to the 230 pupils.

  The head of year behind the assembly "stunt" later moved to reassure them.

  He had told the year nine students that the asteroid was on a "collision course".

  It is also believed that the students were told that they should go home and say "final farewells" to their families.

  Pupils 'reassured'

  The teacher then admitted the story was a stunt aimed at underlining the theme of the assembly - "living each day to the full".

  Head Mr Hogan said: "Obviously I regret the fact that any student was distressed by the content and delivery of the assembly.

  "However, I am confident that the head of year acted appropriately and professionally in dealing with the incident.

  "Following the assembly the head of year visited every year nine class and again told the students that the story was untrue and made every effort to ensure that those students who had been anxious were reassured."

• Grover Is Bitter. The history of Grover is interesting but perhaps it might be more than you want to know. I'll take Grover over Elmo any day.
  
• YourMom.com. Of course someone has to collect "Your Momma" jokes.
• SpandexMan.com. NOOOOO! How disturbing.

Martial Arts

• Technological Knockout [I've quoted the whole thing since it's so short]
  • 'Boxing is a sport of brawn, but an Australian researcher is out to show that an electronic brain can aid training and make fights fairer. Engineering student Kane Partridge at Swinburne University of Technology in Victoria embedded impact sensors in the gloves, vests, and headgear of a pair of boxers and connected the sensors to a ringside computer via a wireless link. The computer records every punch thrown, analyzes the blows in real time, and scores the bout, noting illegal punches and ignoring ones that miss. Partridge hopes the system, built for the Australian Institute of Sport, will allow coaches to identify boxers' strengths and weaknesses and let the fighters study blow-by-blow accounts of their performances.'
    • At first I was very skeptical but upon reading it, I can see how this might "elevate" the objectivity of boxing judging to the level that exists in Olympic style fencing.
  • 'It could even replace human judges in bouts.'
    • You're never going to get rid of those judges!
  • 
• I've just noticed that I've been building my MAs links section, but I haven't been blogging about entries as I've added them. O well, better late then never.
• StreetCombat.8m.com
  • 'The Magician's Network Self-Defense System ... A dangerous combination of magic, modern psychology, karate, kung-fu, pankration wrestling, and savate, the Magician's Network Self-defense System is coming into the world scene as an incredibly innovative, highly street-ready martial art system.'
  • Riiiight.
• Siulam.info
  • 'Here you can find everything you'd like to learn about the Hung Ga Gungfu style, the style of the late Wong Feihung. The style is also known as Hung Ga Kung Fu, Hung Gar, Hung Kar, Hung Kuen, Siulam Hung Pai and Fu Hok Pai.'
  • Tit Sin Kyun form
  • Hung Ga Fighting Theory
• Fighting Backs Left-Handed Survival
  • Gee. The next time I face a south paw: I'm going to run! Ha ha ha!
  • 'Why has left-handedness survived among humans? French anthropologists believe they have the answer: left-handedness, far from being a disadvantage, is an evolutionary boon. Their theory is that left-handers survived -- and in some cultures thrived -- because they were better at fighting, having a built-in advantage in combat with a right-handed opponent. '
  • 'Charlotte Faurie and Michel Raymond, of the Institute of Evolutionary Sciences at the University of Montpellier in southern France, compared the number of left-handed people with the number of homicides in eight traditional societies where the weapon was a knife or a machete. ... The societies which had the most killings had the most left-handed people, they found.

    At the most peaceful end of the scale, the Dioula had a homicide rate of only one hundredth of a death per 1,000 people per year, while left-handedness occurred only among three percent of the population.

    At the other end of the scale, the Yanomamo had four homicides per 1,000 inhabitants per year, while left-handers accounted for a huge 22.6 percent of their population.'

  • 'The research was tested only on traditional societies where there was a likelier risk of one-on-one combat, rather than in Westernized societies. In industrialized cultures, the theoretical advantage enjoyed by left-handers would be cancelled out by long-range weapons such as the gun.'
• Knife fighting lies
  • 'There are many so-called "experts" who claim to be able to teach you either knife fighting or defense against a knife. The problem is that most of them are just teaching regurgitated martial arts, usually from the Philippines. While I have lots of respect for the martial arts of other lands, the truth is that you live where you do. Odds are you are not in a "knife culture." And that means that whatever you do regarding knives must: A) Work to keep you alive against how you are likely to be attacked by a knife in your homeland and B) If it does work, not put you in prison for murder or manslaughter.'
  • Excellent article and Marc "Animal" MacYoung has phenomenal content. Fear via stereotype is a "fair" self defense. Some people think that Asians are better martial artists. Even amongst some martial artists, Filipinos have a reputation of being crazy blade masters. However fear of a stereotypes (by races, MA style, rank, etc.) will only work against those who know "a little martial arts", which, obviously, is a dangerous thing. Knowing someone's race, MA style(s), rank, etc. should only provide you a bit of knowledge. It is better to know the person's personal style, spirit, skill, seriousness, etc.
• Christian Guide to Small Arms. I'm sure Jesus would make a site like this ... NOT! Even taking Luke 22:35-38 into account. On the other hand it has good content.

Math, Science, Science Fiction, Space

• Disclaimer stickers for science textbooks
  • 'Wording for the first disclaimer is taken verbatim from the sticker designed by the Cobb County School District in Georgia (see original).'
  • 
• Ape fossil bridges evolutionary gap. 'The last probable common ancestor to humans and great apes had a body like an ape, fingers like a chimp and the upright posture of humans, according to researchers who unearthed a fossil of the animal in Spain. A husband-and-wife team of fossil sleuths reopened an excavation site near Barcelona, discovering a 13 million-year-old animal that bridges the gap between earlier, primitive animals and later, modern creatures. This newest ape species, Pierolapithecus catalaunicus, is so significant that it adds a new page to ancient human history.'
  
• Parallel Universes: Darwinism favors evangelicals' survival over secular neighbors
  • Alas, this article has a ring of truth to it. We saw signs of this in the 2004 election too --See The Baby Gap: Explaining Red and Blue that I linked to above.
  • An interview with 'Ed Larson, a history professor at the University of Georgia. Larson won the Pulitzer Prize for examining the collision of religion and science in his book Summer of the Gods, an unconventional look at the 1925 Scopes "monkey" trial.'
  • 'Who are the people having kids today? Immigrants, yes. That's one group. But among white, middle-class Americans, religious people are having children at a much higher rate. More and more and more children percentage-wise than non-religious people. There's a survival value in religious beliefs. They have a sense of purpose. They feel their mission in life is to multiply and be fruitful. The whole Darwinian concept -- evolution -- is on the side of evangelical Christians. They're growing by any measure.'
  • 'Take a look at Europe. The native Europeans are almost totally secularized. They're experiencing a negative growth rate. But their countries are flooded with immigrants with strong religious orientations, many of them Muslim. The demographics in Europe are changing. Over there, the replacement population looks different. In America, they look the same as the rest of us. But it's the same phenomenon. You see the rise [of religious fundamentalism] in Europe among the immigrant population.'
    • This is why it is very important that we non-fundamentalists, free-thinkers, agnostics, atheists, brights, etc. must really make a lot of noise now. The human spirit is very powerful but it is abused by fundamentalists. The seculars must embrace the power of spiritualism because it is undeniable that humans experience it. The seculars, the scientists must embrace the rich spiritual, cultural heritage instead of rejecting it. The stories, the myths of Abraham, Jesus, Mohammad, Buddha, etc. are powerful working stories that must be moved forward instead of dumped. The secularists must show the majority that we embrace the same values, that we share the same heritage (although the secularist's heritage is actually broader and richer).
  • 'Is this something new in American history?

    America never was a true secular society. There have been times in the past when religion grew stronger. Ben Franklin wrote about ... what was called the "Great Awakening." Later, in the 1820s, there was the "Great Revival." Those movements changed politics. The South was one of the least religious regions of the nation until the Great Awakening. That transformed the South.

     How did that impact society?

     The secular element in America is also deeply entrenched. There are two tracks developing parallel universes. They're living together but they don't see each other. One house on a street is evangelical, another house is secular. They're not truly neighbors.

     Do we ever meet in the same space and time?

     The most painful point of common culture is the election. Every four years, or every two years, these two parallel universes bump into each other. There are areas of overlap -- concerns over jobs, fighting terrorism. But there are areas of profound conflict -- abortion, gay rights. The sharpest conflict is likely to be over abortion. Roe vs. Wade could be reversed.'

  • 'Why were Republicans so successful at motivating evangelicals?

    The GOP was incredibly good at turning out the vote among evangelicals, something they didn't do four years ago. Gay marriage was clearly a motivating factor. The media has given it a lot of publicity. The ruling of the Massachusetts Supreme Court tied the issue to the Democrats' candidate from the same state.

    And ...

    There's the tremendous cultural comfort evangelicals feel with George W. Bush. He has as similar story and experiences as do the evangelicals. His personal testimony resonates with Pentecostals and evangelicals. Even Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush couldn't match George W. Bush in that regard.

    George Bush speaks of his miraculous turnaround. Jesus turned his life around. The story just fits with them.

    Are we headed for a theocracy? Is this a defeat for the Enlightenment that guided the nation's founding fathers?

    No. The Great Awakening was parallel to the Enlightenment during the late 18th century. At the time of the founding, there were a lot of backwoods, unenlightened people in America. People overreact. Evangelicals want government that reflects their values. But that doesn't mean they want a theocracy. Most definitely don't.

    Where do the Democrats go from here?

    I don't see the trend lines changing much. Ever since the revival took hold in the 1970s -- well, the Democrats have won two times. Jimmy Carter was a natural for evangelicals, whereas Gerald Ford didn't speak to them. Bill Clinton told the account of coming forward at a Billy Graham revival. He spoke in a voice to the religious that neither George H.W. Bush nor Bob Dole could match. Clinton was able to neutralize the evangelical [vote for Republicans] even though Reagan had been able to move them.

• Science Animations, Movies & Interactive Tutorial Links
• Anti-evolution teachings gain foothold in U.S. schools: Evangelicals see flaws in Darwinism
  • Amazing that we are actually de-evolving with the current trend for fundamentalism (both Christian and Muslim).
  • 'The decision, passed last month by a 6-to-3 vote, makes the 3,600-student school district about 20 miles south of Harrisburg the first in the United States to mandate the teaching of "intelligent design" in public schools, putting it on the front line of the growing national debate over the role of religion in public life.'
• Hobbits locked away as scientists argue. Remember the paleontology discovery of hobbit-sized humans? Well now they're arguing over the bones and one 'of Indonesia's leading palaeontologists, Professor Teuku Jacob of Gadjah Mada University in Jakarta, has grabbed the hobbit remains and locked them away in his safe, refusing to let other scientists study them.'
• Take a Chance: Scientists put randomness to work
  • 'Although computers are expert at spewing out numbers, a computer program can't by itself produce random ones. Computers are engineered to behave deterministically, obeying the will of their users. "If a computer does something unpredictable, then we call it broken," says Landon Noll, a cryptographer at the computer security firm SystemExperts in Sudbury, Mass.'
  • 'Haahr's Web site (http://www.random.org/) can generate up to 3,000 random numbers per second. Over the last 6 years, it has dished out more than 61 billion random numbers for free to an eclectic array of users. These include archaeologists choosing which quadrants of a large area to survey; a choreographer selecting the order, timing, and placement of dance steps; online card-playing sites shuffling their virtual decks; the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency determining which companies to include in a random audit of hazardous-material use; and a locksmith deciding how deeply to cut the notches on keys. '
  • 'By contrast, quantum physics--the science of subatomic particles--is intrinsically random. According to its laws, it's impossible to know for sure what a quantum system will do. Researchers are now building random number generators that exploit this unpredictability. One such system called HotBits, created by John Walker of Fourmilab in Switzerland, generates random numbers by timing radioactive decays of Krypton-85 atoms detected by a Geiger counter. These decays happen at random intervals, quantum mechanics dictates. HotBits produces a modest 30 random numbers per second, not enough for the most number-hungry applications. However, another Swiss team has just produced a quantum random-number generator that produces 4 million random bits per second. Unlike Random.org, LavaRnd, and HotBits, this random-number generator is a commercial venture.

Money (Business, Economy, Finances, Market, Work)

• What Not to Do
  • 'A seasoned entrepreneur reveals the 17 most common mistakes startups make and how to avoid them--plus, the 5 things you must do to ensure success.'
  • Here's just the 1st part of each point on the 2 lists:
    • Mistakes:
      1. 'Failing to spend enough time researching the business idea to see if it's viable.
      2. Miscalculating market size, timing, ease of entry and potential market share.
      3. Underestimating financial requirements and timing.
      4. Overprojecting sales volume and timing.
      5. Making cost projections that are too low.
      6. Hiring too many people and spending too much on offices and facilities.
      7. Lacking a contingency plan for a shortfall in expectations.
      8. Bringing in unnecessary partners.
      9. Hiring for convenience rather than skill requirements.
      10. Neglecting to manage the entire company as a whole.
      11. Accepting that it's "not possible" too easily rather than finding a way.
      12. Focusing too much on sales volume and company size rather than profit.
      13. Seeking confirmation of your actions rather than seeking the truth.
      14. Lacking simplicity in your vision.
      15. Lacking clarity of your long-term aim and business purpose.
      16. Lacking focus and identity.
      17. Lacking an exit strategy.'
    • To Do:
      • 'Know your goals for the venture.
      • Recruit and hire the best people.
      • Develop a forgiving strategy.
      • Be honest with yourself.
      • Commit to the business.'
• Economic 'Armageddon' predicted
  • 'Stephen Roach, the chief economist at investment banking giant Morgan Stanley, has a public reputation for being bearish. But you should hear what he's saying in private. Roach met select groups of fund managers downtown last week, including a group at Fidelity. '
  • 'Roach sees a 30 percent chance of a slump soon and a 60 percent chance that ''we'll muddle through for a while and delay the eventual armageddon.'' The chance we'll get through OK: one in 10. Maybe. '
  • 'In a nutshell, Roach's argument is that America's record trade deficit means the dollar will keep falling. To keep foreigners buying T-bills and prevent a resulting rise in inflation, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan will be forced to raise interest rates further and faster than he wants. The result: U.S. consumers, who are in debt up to their eyeballs, will get pounded. Less a case of ''Armageddon,'' maybe, than of a ''Perfect Storm.'' '
  • 'Greenspan might instead deliberately allow the dollar to slump and inflation to rise, whittling away at the value of today's consumer debts in real terms. Inflation of 7 percent a year halves ''real'' values in a decade. It may be the only way out of the trap. Higher interest rates, or higher inflation: Either way, the biggest losers will be long-term lenders at fixed interest rates. '

Obituaries

• Babs (1974/2004). I always feel such humility for hosting the great apes and other animals in our zoos. I appreciate that we have them as guests since we keep from the wild and many of them are species that we humans have endangered. I'm going to copy the whole article (One by one, gorillas pay their last respects) because Chicago Tribune articles disappear.

  After an exhausting weekend struggle with the end stages of kidney disease, Babs the gorilla was dead.
  
  The five Brookfield Zoo keepers who knew her best asked everybody else to leave the private area where she lay on her back Monday morning, arms outstretched.
  
  Once they were alone with the body, the keepers opened doors in the Tropic World building to admit the members of Babs' gorilla group.
  
  It was a visitation, a "gorilla wake" that keepers said they felt might benefit the surviving animals. In Babs they had lost the most influential female in a highly complex social family.
  
  Babs' 9-year-old daughter, Bana, was the first to file down to the body.
  
  "It was heartbreaking to see," said Amy Coons, a gorilla keeper for the last six years. "Bana came in with this stunned look on her face."
  
  Babs' mother, Alpha, 43, followed. There was Beta, a 43-year-old female, and Binti Jua, 16. Nadaya, a 3-year-old male, came, and Koola, 9, brought her infant daughter, whom Babs had showered with attention since her August birth.
  
  Only the silverback male leader, Ramar, 36, stayed away.
  
  Bana sat down next to Babs' head and held one of her dead mother's hands in one of her own, stroking her mother's stomach with the other.
  
  "Then she laid down on the floor next to Babs," said Betty Green, a gorilla keeper for the last 17 years, "putting her head on Babs' outstretched arm.
  
  "It was like they used to do in the exhibit, lying side by side on the mountain. Then Bana rose up and looked at us and moved to Babs' other side, tucked her head under the other arm, and stroked Babs' stomach."
  
  The other animals, too, each came to sniff Babs and gently touch the body, she said.
  
  "Koola inspected Babs' mouth for a while, then held her baby close to Babs, like she loved to do the last couple months, letting Babs admire her," Green said.
  
  "Nadaya was like a kid at a funeral. While she was ill, he spent a lot of time resting with her. He came down [to her body] and inspected and touched her, but moved away pretty quickly, playing with a sweet potato and just sitting and watching from a distance.
  
  "Alpha, her mother, acted a little strangely. She did a couple of displays by running in front of Babs' body, grabbed her legs, then ran past. She did that four times, not violently or moving the body, but like she was trying to wake Babs up.
  
  "I had a headache for the rest of the day after all the tears I cried watching them," Green said.
  
  The gathering, which zoo primate curator Melinda Pruett Jones described as "a gorilla wake," was a rough goodbye for the keepers in attendance: Coons, Green, Cherie Orum, Maureen Leahy and Craig Demitros.
  
  The keepers had agreed after Babs, 30, was diagnosed last September with an incurable kidney condition that if she began suffering too much at the end she should be euthanized, and that once she was gone, Babs' family group should be allowed to be with her one last time.
  
  They also agreed that for the last meeting, no humans except the keepers the animals interact with every day should be present, to avoid any distractions.
  
  The emotion the animals showed in the farewell was not surprising, said Pruett Jones, because in life Babs had been a beloved, benevolent leader of the group.
  
  "She was the dominant female of the group, the peacekeeper, the disciplinarian, the one who kept things in a harmonious state," Pruett Jones said.
  
  Once the staff knew last September that it was only a matter of time before Babs would die, they decided to do everything they could to minimize her pain and make her as comfortable as possible to the end.
  
  "There was nothing we could do to reverse the process or repair her kidneys," said Thomas Meehan, Brookfield's chief veterinarian. "We considered a transplant, but that would put another animal's life at risk for a risky experiment. We could have tried dialysis, but it would have immobilized her for long periods of time and kept her away from her social group. It was a quality-of-life decision."
  
  Instead, they treated her with drugs and a special diet, meeting every day to confer on her condition. Babs maintained her leadership position in the group, even showing Koola how to behave now that she had a higher status in the group as the mother of an infant.
  
  As her condition began to take a downturn Friday, the rest of the group stayed by her side constantly, Pruett Jones said. On Monday morning, when Babs refused all food, began shaking and had trouble moving around, it was obvious the end was near.
  
  "The entire staff had agreed that if it was obvious she was on her way out, we wouldn't let her suffer," said Pruett Jones.
  
  Meehan came to Tropic World and mixed sedatives into some special treats that Babs accepted. When the sedatives kicked in, he began to anesthetize her before giving her a euthanizing drug.
  
  "She was so weak," Meehan said, "she died under the anesthesia."
  
  Usually when gorillas die in zoos, they do so within their group, with all the gorillas present. For the euthanization process, Meehan and the staff worked on Babs in a private area.
  
  In similar situations previously, when gorillas died in presence of humans rather than gorillas, that was it. The survivors had no further contact with the dead animal.
  
  Last month, however, most of Brookfield's gorilla keepers attended a workshop at the zoo in Columbus, Ohio, where several weeks earlier keepers had euthanized a dying female gorilla, then let her family come in and see the body, videotaping the occasion. After viewing the video, the Brookfield keepers felt they should do the same if they had to euthanize Babs.
  
  "We don't know if there is any benefit to the animals for doing this or not," said Craig Demitros, the lead keeper who has been with the zoo's gorillas for 20 years. In the wild, gorillas are known to pay respects to their dead in a similar fashion."
  
  "We didn't think it would hurt anything," Demitros said.
  
  The gorillas remained with Babs for about half an hour, but one by one they began to lose interest, so the keepers let them go back to the public display area and rejoin Ramar, the male leader.
  
  "Bana was the last to go," Coons said. "She would get up, move a few steps, stop and turn back to stare at Babs. She started and stopped several times before she finally joined the others."

Philosophy (Ethics, Faith, Secular)

• A Brief Sketch Outlining Project Areas for the Action Arena of Reality about Morality
  • 'The idea of the "Reality about Morality" is to challenge the widespread presumption that ethical systems and morals are imparted to humankind by some form of divine being or power. We will build a straightforward foundation of scientific reality concerning the subject. Reality which is logically undeniable.'
    • I've been perceiving The-Brights.net as floundering, so it's about time they came up with something more meaty than logo competitions.
  • 'Most of us have lived in a culturally religious milieu long enough to know that simply presenting scientific evidence won't necessarily change minds. Presenting a sound scientific explanation for the origins and presence in society of individual and group morals will be necessary but not be sufficient to quickly change social values. It is going to require all the dedication and resources the constituency can muster to confront one of society's most deeply and broadly held beliefs.'
  • 'Brights will be collaborating and trying to subvert a false social belief that undermines brights everywhere. This is consistent with the broad civic aims of The Brights' Net to improve the social and civic situation of persons whose worldview is free of supernatural (see the purpose statement at the home page). To the extent we are successful, we will also be advancing authentic public understanding of human nature on behalf of persons of all worldviews, not just brights. Such is sorely needed.'
  • 'In a nutshell, here is what is initially planned for this adventure. ...
    • Project Area A involves developing, in the form of a declaration, a scientifically defensible listing of statements regarding th naturalistic origins of morals. The declaration will be short, but it will cover the evolution of biological and social morals, starting from the origins of humans to the present. 
    • Project Area B involves scientists in authenticating each statement in the declaration with citations and comments.
    • Project Area C entails planning for the design and development of presentation and instructional materials for varied target audiences (through illustration and examples as necessary) on the final declaration statements.
    • Project Area D involves the development of volunteer mentors, and individuals schooled in the declaration statements and how to present and explain them to others.
    • Project Area E entails preparation for a public roll-out of the declaration and supporting instructional materials. It will lay the groundwork for presenting to the media our reclaiming of morality.
    • Project Area F is the culmination of all the work in Areas A through E. This is conducting the public roll-out of the Declaration.'
• Netherlands Hospital Euthanizes Babies
  • 'A hospital in the Netherlands -- the first nation to permit euthanasia -- recently proposed guidelines for mercy killings of terminally ill newborns, and then made a startling revelation: It has already begun carrying out such procedures, which include administering a lethal dose of sedatives.'
  • Obviously a story like this will push many buttons.
  • Like the abortion, this story will be distorted. The issue is not black and white. My wife has worked for years in neonatal intensive care and pediatrics where she has seen babies and children die practically on a weekly basis. The treatment is harsh (tubes in their throats, frequent needle stabs, a non-womb environment, etc.) and worthwhile when there is hope, but when there is no hope, esp. with some of the premature, then prolonging his or her life is nothing more than prolonging torture.
  • Like it or not, there are times when euthanasia is the best choice. When we our dogs and cats must be put to sleep, we have the nerve, respect, selflessness, law, faith, and compassion to do it --but when our children need the same: we fail.
  • Related:
    • LGF thread on topic [nearly 500 comments]. LGF is so predictable.
• Student Malapropisms.
  • Hundreds of philosophy student malpropisms (collected since 1972). AAAAAH!
  • "I think Descartes was existence conscious."
• "Inside the Monkeyshpere: Twelve Steps to Total Enlightenment" by David Wong
  • Interesting examination of ethics using monkeys.
  • 'Yes, the Monkeysphere. That's the group of people who each of us, using our monkeyish brains, are able to conceptualize as people. If the monkey scientists are monkey right, it's physically impossible for this to be a number larger than 150. Most of us do not have room in our Monkeysphere for our friendly neighborhood Sanitation Worker. So, we don't think of him as a person. We think of him The Thing That Makes The Trash Go Away. '
  • 'That's one of the ingenius things about the big-time religions, by the way. The old religious writers knew it was easier to put the screws to a stranger, so they taught us to get a personal idea of God in our heads who says, "no matter who you hurt, you're really hurting me. Also, I can crush you like a grape." You must admit that if they weren't writing words inspired by the Almighty himself, they at least understood the Monkeysphere. '
    • Religion.
  • 'Click on a talk radio show. Listen to conservatives talk about "The Government" as if it were some huge, lurking dragon ready to eat you and your paycheck whole. Never mind that the government is made up of people and that all of that money they take goes into the pockets of human beings. Conservative talker Rush Limbaugh is known to tip 50% at restaurants, but flies into a broadcast tirade if even half that dollar amount is deducted from his paycheck by "the government," even though that money helps that very same single mom he had no problem tipping in her capacity as a waitress.

    Click over to a liberal show now, listen to them describe "Multinational Corporations" in the same diabolical terms, an evil black force that belches smoke and poisons water and enslaves humanity. Isn't it strange how, say, a lone man who carves and sells children's toys in his basement is a sweetheart who just loves bringing joy at Christmas, but a big-time toy corporation (which brings toys to millions of kids at Christmas) is an inhuman soul-grinding greed machine? Strangely enough, if the kindly lone toy making guy made enough toys and hired enough people and expanded to enough shops, we'd eventually stop seeing it as a toy-making shop and start seeing it as the fiery Orc factories of Mordor.'

    • Politics
  • 'Conversely, some people in the distant past naively thought they could sit all of the millions of monkeys down and say, "okay, everybody go pick the bananas, then bring them here, and we'll distribute them with a complex formula determining banana need! Now go gather bananas for the good of society!" For the monkeys it was a confused, comical, tree-humping disaster.

    Later, a far more cynical man sat the monkeys down and said, "you want bananas? Each of you go get your own. I'm taking a nap." That man, of course, was German philosopher Hans Capitalism.

    As long as everybody gets their own bananas and shares with the few in their Monkeysphere, the system will thrive even though nobody is even trying to make the system thrive. This is perhaps how Ayn Rand would have put it, had she not been such a hateful bitch. '

    • Economics
  • 'So how can we defeat the Monkeysphere? Would it help if we cut all of the carbs from our diet? What if we were more proactive?

    You can start by implementing a little three-step plan I like to call The TriMonkey or... the T.R.Y. Monkey:

    First, TOTAL MORON. That is, accept the fact THAT YOU ARE ONE. We all are. ...

    Second, UNDERSTAND that there are no Supermonkeys. Just monkeys. ...

    And finally, DON'T LET ANYBODY simplify it for you. The world cannot be made simple. Anyone who tries to paint a picture of the world in basic comic book colors is most likely trying to use you as a pawn.

• Ban The Bible
  • Hmm... Not the sort of article you see everyday.
  • 'There are no better porn writers than the authors of the Bible. Consider the unbridled eroticism of the Song of Solomon. Or if you want hardcore smut, incest, rape, sexual mutilation, voyeurism, watersports, fornication, adultery, etc., look no further than your family Bible. Christians justify the sex therein as "contextualized" with a "moral message." Wrapping porn in a morality tale is the oldest ploy of smut peddlers. No one reads the endings anyway, but including a moral message salves the conscience of the pious. It's one way to have your..., shall we say "cake," and eat it, too.'
• "Witnessing to Liberals" by Ron Rhodes
  • We secularists, etc. really, really need to read stuff like this --even though it is hideous.
  • 'Liberal Christians typically seek to adapt religious ideas to modern science. Their goal is to make Christianity "relevant" to modern man. By elevating science to supreme authority, they assume the Bible is a fallible human document, approach Scripture with an antisupernatural bias, and dismiss miracles as the fantasies of ignorant people in biblical times who did not understand the laws of nature. They also view humanity as fundamentally good, with no real sin problem.'
    • I find his use of the label of "Liberal" dangerous and misleading.
  • 'The paradox underlying the liberal attempt to make Christianity "relevant" is that for everyone to whom Christianity is "made relevant" (those who believe miracles are unscientific), there are likely thousands for whom it is made irrelevant. For, indeed, the liberal version of Christianity lacks an authentic spirituality to help people and give them hope in the midst of life's problems. Former liberal Christian Alister McGrath said that, among other things, liberalism's "pastoral weakness became especially evident to me." He said "liberalism had little to offer in the midst of the harsh pastoral realities of unemployment, illness, and death." '
    • Amazing that these fundamentalists think everyone else is spiritually bankrupt. Ha ha! Humans have no spiritual life or strength without Christ? People are empty shells without Christ. Simply amazing.
• Wife Swap TV show to swap atheist & Christian wives. I hate to discuss a reality show (because most of them suck), but this show involves an openly atheist person. They'll may pick two idiots or whatever to make the show juicier.
• Superman too super a role model
  • 'Superman is too good a role model. Fans of the man from Krypton unwittingly compare themselves to the superhero, and realise they do not measure up. And as a result, they are less likely to help other people.'
  • Yes, this goes along with the "there are no Supermonkeys" idea above. People are human. Even role models are human. Ordinary humans like you and me however can still do extraordinary things.

Relating (Friendship, Living, Parenting, Socializing)

• How to give and receive criticism. A good concise article.
• How we work. 'We're interested in the habits, rituals and small (and occasionally big) methods people and teams use to get their work done. And in the specific anecdotes and the way people describe their own relationship to their own work. Here's a list of some stories and habits. Not sure it is actually useful for anything. Do any patterns emerge across stories, other than the obvious stories of super-focus, super-dedication?'

Relationships (Love, Sex) [Assume NSFW]

• ChristiansAndBDSM.com
  • 'This web site, while not containing any pornographic images or writing, does cover topics of an adult nature. If these topics, which deal with consensual Domination and submission or BDSM within a monogamous marriage relationship, offend you, or if you are under 18 (or the equivalent age in your location), then ... '
  • Never has such a clean, porn-less seemed so dirty.
• Sexual Tension.
  • A Gold winner for documentary category of the 59th College Photographer of the Year competition. Documents some of the porn industry. People who work in porn are real human beings too.
  • 'Layne showers after her sex scene is finally completed and Long stops in to tell her 'how good she was in bed.' It was Layne's third movie she had done and she said that it was much better than her previous ones, "the last one was painful, I was bleeding for days. I feel fine this time, it just took longer." After they joked around for a little while, Layne told Long, 'I gotta take my shower. You should go talk to my husband, he's waiting outside.'
    
• TSX Toys Concubine Masturbator.
  • Creative and odd even for sex toys.
  • 'This multi-speed toy has it all! Made from a soft, realistic material, the concubine masturbator has perky breasts, hard nipples, and a ready and willing vagina. Requires 2 "AA" batteries (not included).'
  • 
• young person's sexual song-with-animal-legs. Via BoingBoing: 
  • 'Scans from "Young People's Sex Manual: From Petting to XX," a mid-1960s era howto doc from Japan. Progresses from the fine art of handholding to paper cutout foreplay demos to an extravaganza of sex positions between a real woman and an artist's male wooden model.'
  • Outstanding how it's very lameness makes it seem all the more kinky.
• BustyMousePads.com. Dang! They've sold out!
  
• MSN Spaces: seven dirty blogs [BoingBoing].
  • Ha ha! BoingBoing does some experiments to workaround MSN Spaces' censorship efforts.
  • 'Microsoft's new blogging tool, censors certain words you might try to include in a blog title or url. If you can't speak freely on a blog, what's the point of having one? This demanded a full investigation. Using my existing MSN Passport account, I attempted to create a number of blogs, one after the other. The results of which titles passed and which were banned may surprise you -- or at least generate a few Beavis-and-Butthead snorkles. Each of the linked test-titles in this BoingBoing post points to to an actual, unmodified screenshot of the corresponding test blog I created (or was denied the ability to create) using MSN Search. '
• Haxxxor.com
  • 'HaXXXor combined computer hacking with porn for the first time on one DVD.'
  • Apparently they just came out with Vol. 2. They don't seem to do either hacking or porn well, but this sort of thing must have some sort of fetish appeal.

Terror, War

• Fears grow of military spread thin
  • 'The Pentagon's announcement this week that it will increase the number of U.S. troops in Iraq to 150,000 to provide more security for the Jan. 30 national election highlights a growing concern that America's armed services are dangerously overextended and possibly nearing a breaking point.'
  • 'The Army is fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and maintaining a military presence in the Balkans, Germany, South Korea and other foreign countries with a total force of just under 500,000. It had more than 800,000 under arms when it waged the brief Persian Gulf war in 1991.'
  • 'The U.S. has more troops in all branches serving abroad than it averaged from 1950 to 2003, and three times as many overseas as it had in December 2001, according to a study by the Washington-based Heritage Foundation.'
  • 'The White House has refused to fund permanently an increase in troop strength out of the regular Defense Department budget, insisting that the money come out of special appropriations because the increase is temporary. Every 10,000 troops costs the U.S. about $1.2 billion a year.'
• They're Called Security Rounds
  • 'So you set the mosque on fire and you hose down the terrorists with small arms, launch some AT-4s (Rockets), some 40MM grenades into the building and things quiet down. So you run over there, and find some tangos wounded and pretending to be dead. You are aware that suicide martyrdom is like really popular with these kind of idiots, and like taking some Marines with them would be really cool. So you can either risk your life and your fireteam's lives by having them cover you while you bend down and search a guy that you think is pretending to be dead for some reason. Also, you don't know who or what is in the next room, and you're already speaking english to each other and its loud because your hearing is poor from shooting people for several days. So you know that there are many other rooms to enter, and that if anyone is still alive in those rooms, they know that Americans are in the mosque. Meanwhile (3 seconds later), you still have this terrorist that was just shooting at you from a mosque playing possum. What do you do?

    You double tap his head, and you go to the next room, that's what.'

  • 'What about the Geneva Conventions and all that Law of Land Warfare stuff? What about it. Without even addressing the issues at hand you first thought should be, "I'd rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6." Bear in mind that this is a perpetual mindset that is reinforced by experiences gained on a minute by minute basis. Secondly, you are fighting an unlawful combatant in a Sanctuary which is a double No No on his part. Third, tactically you are in no position to take "prisoners" because there are more rooms to search and clear, and the behavior of said terrorist indicates that he is up to no good. No good in Fallujah is a very large place and the low end of no good and the high end of no good are fundamentally the same... Marines get hurt or die. So there is no compelling reason for you to do anything but double tap this idiot and get on with the mission.'
• No Jana, you cannot stop me as those Marines are protecting me...
• Rules of Engagement

  "YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO DIE," I boomed.

  "Does everyone understand so far?"

  Nods.

  "Good," I continued. "Remember that. No matter what the ROE says, no matter what the Geneva Conventions say, you ALWAYS have the inherent right of self-defense. Nobody can take that away from you." I let that sink in for a moment.

  "If you see someone making preparations to attack you, you will level your weapon at them, take the safety off, aim for center mass, and fire." I paused again, briefly. "You will continue firing until they are no longer a threat."

  They were definitely awake now.

  "WE WILL NOT TAKE THE FIRST HIT," I commanded. "Do not hesitate to defend yourself, or your shipmates. If we are attacked, you will only have a very limited amont of time to react -- just a few seconds. If you hesitate to do your job, people will die. gunmount.jpg

  "That doesn't mean you have a liscense to kill indiscriminately," I explained, "But if you honestly perceive that your life is in danger, and you take lethal action to protect yourself, I will go to the mat to defend each and every one of you." I looked each person directly in the eyes. "Remember, it's much better for you to have to defend your decision to use lethal force after the fact, than for me to write a letter to your widow or parents explaining why you didn't.

  "I don't want to have to write any of those letters," I declared. "I will NOT write any of those letters -- because YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO DIE.

  "Any questions?"

  "NO, SIR!"

  "Good. Let's go to work."

• 'With Deepest Sympathy'
  • 'Rumsfeld's obsession with machines and their efficiency has translated into his using one to replace his own John Hancock on KIA (killed in action) letters to parents and spouses. Two Pentagon-based colonels, who've both insisted on anonymity to protect their careers, have indignantly reported that the SecDef has relinquished this sacred duty to a signature device rather than signing the sad documents himself.'
  • 'I then went to about a dozen next-of-kin of American soldiers KIA in Iraq. Most agreed with the colonels' accusations and said they'd noticed and been insulted by the machine-driven signature. One father bitterly commented that he thought it was a shame that the SecDef could keep his squash schedule but not find the time to sign his dead son's letter. Several also felt compelled to tell me that the letter they received from George Bush also looked as though it was not signed personally by the president.'
• Disgruntled Troops Complain to Rumsfeld
  • ' Army Spc. Thomas Wilson, for example, of the 278th Regimental Combat Team that is comprised mainly of citizen soldiers of the Tennessee Army National Guard, asked Rumsfeld in a question-and-answer session why vehicle armor is still in short supply, nearly two years after the start of the war that ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. "Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles?" Wilson asked. A big cheer arose from the approximately 2,300 soldiers in the cavernous hangar who assembled to see and hear the secretary of defense. '
• US 'alienating' world's Muslims
  • 'A report by the Defence Science Board says official US talk of bringing democracy to Muslim nations is seen as "self-serving hypocrisy".'
    • Ha ha ha!
  • ' "The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favour of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the long-standing, even increasing, support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan and the Gulf states. "Thus, when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy," the report says. '
• U.S. Can Use Evidence Gained by Torture
  • It's because Bush is such a righteous man... not.
  • ' Statements produced under torture have been inadmissible in U.S. courts for about 70 years. But the U.S. military panels reviewing the detention of 550 foreigners as enemy combatants at the U.S. naval base in Cuba are allowed to use such evidence, Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General Brian Boyle acknowledged at a U.S. District Court hearing Thursday.'
• The Enforcer [interview]
  • Who knows more about interrogation than the top Israeli interrogator?
  • 'Michael Koubi worked for Shin Bet, Israel's security service, for 21 years and was its chief interrogator from 1987 to 1993. He interrogated hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including renowned militants such as Sheikh Yassin, the former leader of the Palestinian group Hamas, who was killed in an Israeli attack this year. He claims that intelligence gained in interrogation has been crucial to protecting Israel from terrorism. He tells Michael Bond that, given enough time, he could make almost anyone talk'
  • 'What was it about your character?

    Being an interrogator is 70 per cent character, 30 per cent learned. You have to know how to use intonation when you speak to a prisoner. You have to let him feel you are the boss, always. Not many interrogators can do that, because they don't have the self-assurance. I was born with that. You have to know instinctively the exact time when to shout, when to speak loudly, when to speak quietly, or when not to speak at all and just sit and look at him - for hours if necessary. These things are instinctive.'

  • 'What's the first thing you do when faced with a new detainee?

    It depends on the person. I have a thousand different systems for a thousand detainees. I always have to start alone in the room with him.'

  • 'What do you do when faced with someone who won't talk?

    That is my speciality. I know how to do that. It has happened a lot.

    How do you do it?

    I have many systems. But I do it without using any kind of physical pressure.

    Can you tell me about these systems?

    No, I cannot.'

    • Tease!
  • 'Did you ever have a detainee you couldn't break?

    It has happened, but very seldom. I could count them on one hand.

    Why were they so difficult?

    They were very primitive people, not literate and not well educated.'

    • OK, so if I'm ever interrogated, I'll just be an idiot.
  • 'Do you think you could be broken if you were interrogated?

    No. I would use the same methods I use when interrogating someone, only the opposite. I would give nothing away. Nothing.

    Don't you have any weaknesses?

    None. None in interrogation.'

• Google reveals Iraqi prison abuse photos on photosharing site [BoingBoing]. 'The Associated Press found what appear to be new photos of Iraqi prisoner abuse by US military personnel -- by Googling for them, then paying 29 cents a copy for reprints through on-line photo sharing service smugmug.com. The images appear to date from May 2003, which may make them the earliest evidence of such alleged abuse.'
  
• CostOfWar.com. 'a running total of the amount of money spent by the US Government to finance the war in Iraq. This total is based on estimates from Congressional appropriations'

World

• U.N. Report Urges Big Changes; Security Council Would Expand
  • 'The United Nations on Tuesday proposed the most sweeping changes in its history, recommending the overhaul of its top decision-making group, the Security Council, and holding out the possibility that it could grant legitimacy to pre-emptive military strikes.'
  • 'In its most attention-getting recommendation, the panel called for an expansion of the Security Council to 24 members from 15. ... The Council now has 5 veto-bearing permanent members - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States - and 10 members elected to two-year terms. ... One alternative would add 6 new permanent members - the likely candidates are Brazil, Germany, India, Japan, Egypt and either Nigeria or South Africa - as well as 3 new two-year term members. The other would create a new tier of 8 semipermanent members chosen for renewable four-year terms and one additional two-year term seat to the existing 10.'
    • These are good steps towards a more representative and democratic U.N.
  • 'The right to cast vetoes, a power coveted by the nations seeking permanent status and one they are likely to press for, would continue to be limited to the 5 original permanent members.'
    • Alas, this is just a political reality. But you have to start reforms somewhere. You have to do the hard work to fix the U.N. --you can't merely working around it.
  • 'Many of the recommendations in the 95-page report can be put into effect by the secretary general or the parts of the United Nations that would be affected. The new makeup of the Security Council, however, would require an amendment to the United Nations Charter, which requires approval in the General Assembly by two-thirds of the 191 member states, including all 5 permanent members, and ratification by the legislatures of their governments.'
  • 'The panel was very critical of the Human Rights Commission, a body that has often brought the United Nations into disrepute by incorporating some of the worst rights violators like Cuba, Libya and Sudan into its membership. The commission, which is based in Geneva, "suffers from a credibility deficit that casts doubt on the overall reputation of the United Nations," the report said. The official who briefed reporters added that too often the chief motivation for countries to join was to deflect attention from deplorable rights conditions at home.'
  • 'One area where the report criticized the United Nations was the ineffectiveness of existing conventions to curb the spread of nuclear material, and the report predicted that the "erosion of the nuclear regime could become irreversible and result in a cascade of proliferation." Noting that at least 40 nations have the capacity to build nuclear weapons on short notice, it said that a way had to be found to make the nonproliferation treaty an effective constraint.'
• Bush arrested in Canada for war crimes. Ha! Nice impersonation of CNN.
• Stoned to death... why Europe is starting to lose its faith in Islam.
  • Amazing stuff. All this shows how outdated relgions are and how much this world needs a secular spiritual system.
  • 'Islamic fundamentalism is causing a 'clash of civilisations' between liberal democracies and Muslims'
  • 'The shift is not just a reaction to exceptional violence such as the Madrid train bombings, or the murder of Theo van Gogh, the anti-Islamic Dutch film-maker, by a Dutch-Moroccan. It stems from a belief that more muscular methods are needed to integrate Europe's 13-million strong Muslim community and to combat creeds that breed extremists and ultimately, terrorism. With mixed results, governments are trying to quell the scourge by co- opting Muslim leaders to promote a moderate European Islam.'
  • ' Reluctantly, some intellectuals have lately concluded that the model for Europe should be the US. On Tuesday a writer for Libération, the French left-wing daily, noted that immigrants in the US threw themselves into "the American dream" and prospered. "There is no French, Dutch or other European dream," she noted. "You emigrate here to escape poverty and nothing more." '
    • Ha ha ha!

Words (Literature, Reading, Stories, Writing)

• Hack your way out of writer's block. I'll put just the 1st sentence of each suggestion here:
  • 'Talk to a monkey
  • Do something important that's very easy
  • Try freewriting
  • Take a walk
  • Take a shower; change clothes
  • Write from a persona
  • Get away from the computer; Write someplace new
  • Quit beating yourself up
  • Stretch
  • Add one ritual behavior
  • Listen to new music
  • Write crap
  • Unplug the router
  • Write the middle
  • Do one chore
  • Make a pointless rule
  • Work on the title
  • Write five words'
• Kiduage. Fun essential reading about relatively recent slang. Of course, if you don't know it naturally, you may want to avoid using it yourself.
• Linguist Deciphers Uses of Word 'Dude'
  • A surprisingly rich word. What's also interesting is that those who use the word dude intuitively know all of this.
  • 'An admitted dude-user during his college years, Scott Kiesling said the four-letter word has many uses: in greetings ("What's up, dude?"); as an exclamation ("Whoa, Dude!"); commiseration ("Dude, I'm so sorry."); to one-up someone ("That's so lame, dude."); as well as agreement, surprise and disgust ("Dude."). Kiesling says in the fall edition of American Speech that the word derives its power from something he calls cool solidarity -- an effortless kinship that's not too intimate. Cool solidarity is especially important to young men who are under social pressure to be close with other young men, but not enough to be suspected as gay. '
  • 'Anecdotally, men were the predominant users of the word, but women sometimes call each other dudes. Less frequently, men will call women dudes and vice versa. But that comes with some rules, according to self-reporting from students in a 2002 language and gender class included in the paper. "Men report that they use dude with women with whom they are close friends, but not with women with whom they are intimate," according to the study. His students also reported that they were least likely to use the word with parents, bosses and professors. '
  • 'Historically, dude originally meant "old rags" -- a "dudesman" was a scarecrow. In the late 1800s, a "dude" was akin to a "dandy," a meticulously dressed man, especially out West. It became "cool" in the 1930s and 1940s, according to Kiesling. Dude began its rise in the teenage lexicon with the 1981 movie "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." '

2004-12-13t17:33:04Z | RE: Relating (Friendship, Living, Parenting, Socializing) .
The Sofa Story

The other evening Julia was at work and I was home alone with the 3 kids: Connie (6), York (3), and Amy (3 months). Sometimes my arms get weary of carrying Amy around. So I try to sit down. However sometimes Connie and York are either bonkers or I've had it with watching Shrek 2 for the nth time in x days. So I go off to the office to play a bit of WarCraft 2, an online computer game, because there are parts of it that I can play with one hand.

Now sometimes often when I play WarCraft, I get involved. (Admittedly, instead of playing, I should do some housework with one hand or set Amy in her swing or something.) At one point during my game games, Connie pops in excited and tells me to look for York. So I go to the living room where I can't see him but it sounds like he's behind or under the sofa. I laugh, I tell York that he's done a good job hiding and I go back to my games. Later we repeated the whole cycle (I pop in, I laugh, I go back to the game). When cycle #3 came around, they revealed to me that York was actually in the couch. I knew that there was a tear in the back of the couch and I assumed that they had used it to enter the couch. I told them that they should stop going in to the couch and they agreed.

Later in the evening, after my games, Connie was working on a swatch cloth around the size of her hand. She tells me that she's going to make a doll out of it. At that point I didn't think about where she got the swatch because she's always working on art projects using all sorts of medias and materials. By the end of the evening, she produced a very fancy colorful little doll that was pretty cute.

Sometimes when their mom works, the two older kids (esp. York) try to stay awake for her. When she got home, they showed off their art creations and since they were also quite proud of the sofa hiding trick, they performed it for her. Clever Mom bothered to look behind the sofa to find that they had indeed used the tear in the sofa but that they had also used scissors to enlarge the hole! (At that point I was whipping out the lame daddy excuses: Oh the hole was already there and it's just a little bigger.)

Today I got this email from my wife:

So in the morning, the story comes out more completely: York dropped an envelope (more sacred than cash to Connie) within the couch, which they couldn't retrieve without help. Daddy was playing "his game" on the computer; so Connie got scissors to cut the back of the couch open. Thence the playing hide and seek in the couch.

As Connie relates this to me, I see she is fondling a scrap of the upholstery fabric--and then it hits me: they were bragging about some dolls Connie had created when I came home from work the night before. And Lo, indeed the dolls are made from my couch!

Hard to yell at them for being so creative.

2004-12-20t14:18:10Z | RE: 2D (Images, Photos) . 2D+time (Activities, Animation, Video) . Cyber Life (Blogging, Chatting, Email, Surfing, Wikis) . Cyber Tech (Computers, Networking, Programming, Telecommunications) . Conservation (Environment, Fauna, Flora, Green) . Diet, Drink, Drugs, Food, Restaurants . Engineering, Function, Technology . Entertainment (Movies, Pop Culture, Radio, Show Biz, TV) . Fun, Games, Play, Sports, Toys . Government, Political Science, Politics, U.S. Politics . Health (Exercise, Healthcare, Medicine, Sports) . Interesting, Jokes, Odd, Weird [May be NSFW] . Local . Math, Science, Science Fiction, Space . Money (Business, Economy, Finances, Market, Work) . Obituaries . Philosophy (Ethics, Faith, Secular) . Rambling . Relating (Friendship, Living, Parenting, Socializing) . Terror, War . Words (Literature, Reading, Stories, Writing) . World .
2004-12-20t14:18:10Z

2D (Images, Photos)

• Variations. Same scene rendered in different variations.

2D+time (Activities, Animation, Video)

• Place the State [Flash game]. Fun and pseudo-educational!
• The Duel [Flash video]. It's the "dueling banjos" song.
• 1 2 Many [Flash game]. Simple: Just count (or guess) very quickly.
• Hero Machine Classic & Hero Machine 2. Flash activities where you build a superhero from visual elements.
• 2 choices [Flash game]. You are presented with 2 options at each stage.
• Mariko Takahashi's FITNESS VIDEO for being appraised as an "EX-FAT GIRL". Weird workout video by people wearing manicured poodle outfits.

Cyber Life (Blogging, Chatting, Email, Surfing, Wikis)

• Google Suggest. 'As you type, Google will offer suggestions.'
• Hotmail.com. I just noticed that Hotmail has finally officially upgraded. 2 MB inboxes are now 250 MB. Attachments went from 1 MB max to 10 MB. Hotmail is just a secondary email account but I still appreciate the upgrades that have resulted from the email wars between Hotmail, Yahoo, and Google.
• Spaces.MSN.com/members/georgehernandez/.
  • I just fiddled around with Microsoft's new free blogging service.
  • It was so easy! If I didn't already have a blog, then I'd consider using MSN Spaces.
  • But would I be able to trust Microsoft?
    • Scenario: I've been using MSN Spaces for years and it has becom precious to, but all of a sudden Microsoft is going to charge me for it. Then they'd really have me over a barrel.
    • There are currently a few problems with updating my profile stats and pictures but I assume that these are temporary problems.
    • Obviously MS is trying to get people enmeshed in their world by any means possible: email (Hotmail), chat, blog (MSN Spaces), music (Windows Media Player, etc.), games (GameZone), money (MS Money), photos, etc. I wonder if MS is going to start wiki services?
• Screensaver tackles spam websites.
  • ' Internet portal Lycos has made a screensaver that endlessly requests data from sites that sell the goods and services mentioned in spam e-mail. Lycos hopes it will make the monthly bandwidth bills of spammers soar by keeping their servers running flat out. '
  • Ha ha.
• The magic that makes Google tick.
  • I've seen stuff like this before but it's nice to get numbers.
  • Here's the short list:
    • 'Over four billion Web pages, each an average of 10KB, all fully indexed.
    • Up to 2,000 PCs in a cluster.
    • Over 30 clusters.
    • 104 interface languages including Klingon and Tagalog.
    • One petabyte of data in a cluster -- so much that hard disk error rates of 10^-15 begin to be a real issue.
    • Sustained transfer rates of 2Gbps in a cluster.
    • An expectation that two machines will fail every day in each of the larger clusters.
    • No complete system failure since February 2000.'
  • 'Google indexes over four billion Web pages, using an average of 10KB per page, which comes to about 40TB. Google is asked to search this data over 1,000 times every second of every day, and typically comes back with sub-second response rates. If anything goes wrong, said Hölzle, "you can't just switch the system off and switch it back on again."

Cyber Tech (Computers, Networking, Programming, Telecommunications)

• Security research suggests Linux has fewer flaws.
  • Just as we suspected all along.
  • 'The conclusion is the result of a four-year research project conducted by code-analysis company Coverity, which plans to release its report on Tuesday. The project found 985 bugs in the 5.7 million lines of code that make up the latest version of the Linux core operating system, or kernel. A typical commercial program of similar size usually has more than 5,000 flaws or defects, according to data from Carnegie Mellon University.'

Conservation (Environment, Fauna, Flora, Green)

• Fishighway.com
  • 'What is a Fish Highway? Imagine a means for fish to swim out the top of your aquarium, up to the ceiling, across the room and then down into another tank.'
  • Whee!
  • 
• The World's Shortest Comprehensive Recycling Guide. Don't forget to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.

Diet, Drink, Drugs, Food, Restaurants

• EatSushi.com. Info about sushi. Includes videos on how to make sushi too.

Engineering, Function, Technology

• Beyond the Bar Code
  • 'It's called the Electronic Product Code, and at its core, it's just a long number like the one embedded in a bar code. But whereas bar codes can only be read by laser scanners at close range, EPCs are stored in radio frequency ID (RFID) chips affixed to product packages, which radio-wave scanners can read at a distance of up to several meters. While all bags of Oreos bear the same bar code, Electronic Product Codes have so many digits that each bag could receive its own--as could up to a billion billion other items.'
  • ' The EPC is part of an ambitious scheme to create a global, standardized network for tracking everything that's shipped, stocked, and sold. This "Internet of inventory" will give manufacturers and retailers a God's-eye view of their universe, potentially saving them billions of dollars collectively by highlighting shifts in demand sooner and averting overstocking and understocking. Even consumers should notice the change. "The benefits just in the short term are that you'll have better availability of products, better freshness of perishable products because things aren't stopping to be counted, and it will be harder for people to steal things," says Kevin Ashton, vice president of marketing at ThingMagic, a maker of RFID readers in Cambridge, MA. "All those greater efficiencies should lead to lower prices and better service." '
  • 'In October, after a year of wrangling, a score of rival RFID companies put aside their differences and settled on a global EPC standard. A final ratification vote was still pending at press time, but the near completion of the standard means that manufacturers and retailers can start testing and deploying the newest RFID equipment and software, safe in the knowledge that every reader can read every tag and that every organization's product database can tap into every other's.'
  • '"An RFID tag is not a portable database. It's just a small chip that contains a number--a tiny little network node that does nothing more than to point you at data available somewhere else," says Ashton, who is also the former director of MIT's Auto-ID Center, where the idea for the EPC was born. "That may sound like a tiny thing, but in the 1990s the RFID industry was convinced that it was in the portable-database business, and there was an incredible holy war that we fought for several years." The new EPC standard not only specifies a common format for the codes but creates a uniform system for matching the codes with detailed product information, which can be stored anywhere on the Web.'
  • 

Entertainment (Movies, Pop Culture, Radio, Show Biz, TV)

• SuperHeroHype.com. News about superhero movies.
• BadMovies.org. 'Welcome b-movie fan. Here is a safe place to indulge in your more unsavory cinematic tastes. '
• 'All-Ages Kirk/Spock Gay Romantic Art Archive. It's a PG-13 romance as old as the Internet itself. Kirk and Spock, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G (mostly SFW) ' [MeFi]
  • Classic stuff.
  • 
• Blockbuster Plans to End Late Fees in 2005
  • 'Blockbuster announced Tuesday it will continue to set due dates, with one week for games and two days or one week for movies. But the company will give customers a one-week grace period at no additional charge, starting on New Year's Day. Renters who keep the movies or games longer than the grace period will be charged for purchasing the DVD or tape, Blockbuster said. Customers will still be allowed to return the movie or game over the next 30 days for a refund of the purchase price but will be charged a "minimal" restocking fee, the company said.'
    • All right! I had sent them an email a long time ago suggesting that rentals should have the option to be rolled over to a purchase. It doesn't sound like they are applying the rental charge toward the purchase price though.
• 12 facts of 'Life' behind a classic Christmas film.
  • I knew about #9, 10, & 11, but the rest was new to me. Jimmy Stewart is one of my favorite actors.
  • '1. Stewart's stay-at-home George Bailey welcomes back his Navy-flier brother Harry, who's just been awarded the Medal of Honor. In reality, it was the first movie Stewart made after his four-year, two-month stint as a genuine World War II hero. He left the Army Air Forces as a colonel. Biographer Fishgall states, "Among the first to answer the call to arms, he sustained a record of achievement that few of his peers had equaled and none could better." Although Stewart never made a public display of his valor, he flew 20 bombing missions over Europe and was so affected by the experience that he felt "he had lost all sense of judgment." '

Fun, Games, Play, Sports, Toys

• Shotgun Rules and ShotgunRules.com [MeFi]
  • '1) The first person to yell "SHOTGUN" gets to ride in the front seat.'
  • My daughter Connie is not bound by a car seat so she sits wherever she want. It won't be long before her brother York will join the car seat free club.
• Abandonia.com [MeFi]
  • 'Home of abandonware DOS games'
  • Cool! But this doesn't mean I'm going to dump all of the old DOS games I have on floppy disks.
  • Related:
    • The-Underdogs.org. 'a non-profit site dedicated to the preservation and promotion of underrated PC games (and a few non-PC games) of all ages: good games that deserve a second chance after dismal sales or critical reviews that we feel are unwarranted. '
• PuzzleDonkey.com. 'This is the fourth PuzzleDonkey competition in the fabulous world famous award winning phenomenon.  ... As before, your task is to work your way through the set of puzzles which get progressively more difficult. When you reach the end you will be treated to all sorts of goodies, as well as a nice warm feeling of satisfaction.'

Government, Political Science, Politics, U.S. Politics

• Governor Dean's GWU Speech Transcript
  • 'I suppose you could call that philosophy: if you didn't beat 'em, join them. I'm not one for making predictions -- but if we accept that philosophy this time around, another Democrat will be standing here in four years giving this same speech. we cannot win by being "Republican-lite." We've tried it; it doesn't work. The question is not whether we move left or right. It's not about our direction. What we need to start focusing on... is the destination.'
  • 'We cannot be a Party that seeks the presidency by running an 18-state campaign. We cannot be a party that cedes a single state, a single District, a single precinct, nor should we cede a single voter.'
  • 'I'll give this to Republicans. They know the America they want. They want a government so small that, in the words of one prominent Republican, it can be drowned in a bathtub. They want a government that runs big deficits, but is small enough to fit into your bedroom. They want a government that is of, by, and for their special interest friends. They want a government that preaches compassion but practices division. They want wealth rewarded over work. And they are willing to use any means to get there.'
  • 'There is a Party of fiscal responsibility... economic responsibility.... social responsibility... civic responsibility... personal responsibility... and moral responsibility. It's the Democratic Party. We need to be able to say strongly, firmly, and proudly what we believe. Because we are what we believe.'
• "Your Papers Please"
  • 'US adopts National ID: Homeland Security Now In charge of Regulations for all US States Drivers Licenses and Birth Certificates'
  • 'Beginning in 2005, the Department of Homeland Security will issue new uniformity regulations to the States requiring that all Drivers Licenses and Birth Certificates meet minimal Federal Standards with regard to US citizen information, including biometric security provisions.'
  • 'Added to currently existing Federal Laws and Supreme Court rulings American citizens when born will be issued a Social Security Number that will be included on their Birth Certificates, along with DNA biometric markers. All birth certificates will also be registered in a Federal Government database maintained by the Department of Homeland Security. No child will be allowed enrollment to schools or be entitled to either State of Federal Government benefits programs without first presenting a certified Homeland Security registered Birth Certificate.'
  • 'Drivers Licenses will also contain DNA biometric markers and include the holders Social Security Number and be required for receiving and applying for all State and Federal benefits programs. Previous Supreme Court rulings have also upheld State and Federal Law Enforcement authorities right to request Identification from any American citizen, for any reason and at any time as not being violations of their, the citizens, constitutionally protected rights.'
  • 'Major Banks and credit card companies have pplauded the adoption of a National ID system as being important to counter fraud and increasing instances of identity theft. National ID cards with biometric markers will eliminate them from having to issue Credit and Debit cards, which for the first time in US history have surpassed the usage of checks and cash. Utilizing The Department of Homeland Securities centralized federal database, Banks and credit card companies will only require the presentation of a citizens Driver's License to make purchases as all of the persons financial information, including credit and cash balances, will already be known in 'real time'. (The combining of Homeland Security and Banking databases on citizen's balances and purchases, along with their past and present purchasing information, has been allowed under previous Federal Laws including the Patriot Act.)'
• UrbanArchipelago.com [MeFi]
  • 'It's the Cities, Stupid.'
  • 'rom here on out, we're glad red-state rubes live in areas where guns are more powerful and more plentiful, cars are larger and faster, and people are fatter and slower and dumber. This is not a recipe for repopulating the Great Plains. And when you look for ways to revive your failing towns and dying rural counties, don't even think about tourism. Who wants to go to small-town America now? You people scare us. We'll island-hop from now on, thank you, spending our time and our money in blue cities. If an urbanite is dying to have a country experience, rural Vermont is lovely. Maple syrup, rolling hills, fly-fishing--everything you could want. Country bumpkins in red rural areas who depend on tourists from urban areas but vote Republican can forget our money.'
  • 'You've made your choice, red America, and we urban Americans are going to make a different choice. We are going to make Seattle--and New York, Chicago, and the rest--a great place to live, a progressive place. Again, we'll quote Ronald Reagan: We will make each of our cities--each and every one--a shining city on a hill. You can have your shitholes.'
  • 'Conservatives have vilified liberals for decades, and the new urban identity politics gives the Democratic Party its own partisan villains. The truth is that rural states--the same red states that vote reflexively Republican in national elections--are welfare states. While red-state voters like to complain about "tax-and-spend liberals," red states are hopelessly dependent on the largess of the federal government to prop up their dwindling rural population. Red states like North Dakota, New Mexico, Mississippi, Alaska, West Virginia, Montana, Alabama, South Dakota, and Arkansas top the list of federal spending per dollar of federal taxes paid. And who's paying the most? Blue states. Cities--and states dominated by their cities. Welfare states, in contrast, demand federal money to fund wasteful roads to nowhere. Welfare states guzzle barrel upon barrel of oil so their rural residents can sputter along on ribbons of asphalt.'
  • 'In November 1960, a black 6-year-old girl named Ruby Bridges entered the newly desegregated William Frantz Public School in New Orleans. In reaction to her admission, white parents withdrew their kids from Ruby's class and she completed the first grade alone, with instruction from one teacher and support from a child psychiatrist. Ruby's walk to class on the first day of school inspired Norman Rockwell's The Problem We All Live With. In this painting (one of Rockwell's best, as far as we are concerned), a very black Ruby Bridges is escorted to school by four big white U.S. marshals. The image is powerful because it represents the federal government as an institution and enforcer of reason. The white bigots of New Orleans can complain, bitch, and threaten the lives of black boys and girls all they want, but in the end the federal government steps in to ensure that the rights of every American are protected. This image of the federal government is now in a coma. The lawmaking bodies that are clustered in Washington, D.C. (the Senate, the House, the Justice Department, the Supreme Court, the White House), no longer form the enlightened center from which reason and justice emanate.'
  • 'It's no secret what the urban population is against--the Bush administration and its red armies have done us the favor of making it a cinch to identify: We oppose their sub-moronic, "faith-based" approach to life, and, as stated above, we hereby relinquish our liberal tendency to sympathize with their lack of, say, livable working conditions, a family wage, and a national health care program. We no longer have to concern ourselves with the survival of the family farm, nor do we have to concern ourselves with saving fragile suburban economies from collapse. They're against us; we're against them. This is a war.'
  • 'Unlike the people who flee from cities in search of a life free from disagreement and dark skin, we are for contentiousness, discourse, and the heightened understanding of life that grows from having to accommodate opposing viewpoints. We're for opposition. And just to be clear: The non-urban argument, the red state position, isn't oppositional, it's negational--they are in active denial of the existence of other places, other people, other ideas. It's reactionary utopianism, and it is a clear and present danger; urbanists should be upfront and unapologetic about our contempt for their politics and their negational values. Republicans have succeeded in making the word "liberal"--which literally means "free from bigotry... favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded"--into an epithet. Urbanists should proclaim their liberalism from the highest rooftop (we have higher rooftops than they do); it's the only way we survive. And in our next breath, we should condemn their politics, exposing their conservatism as the anti-Americanism that it is, striving to make "conservative" into an epithet.'
• 'Fascism in America? It Can't Happen Here is a masterful satire in which a popular, dimwitted politician rises to dictatorial power on the backs of radio evangelists, opponents of urban, yacht-owning, college professor liberalism, common people, and the Rotary Club. America is pushed into a manufactured war by all-powerful corporate interests, liberties are restricted in the name of national emergency, and all is coordinated by a behind-the-scenes political maestro sometimes called "the brain." Sound familiar? It's nothing new: the book was written by Sinclair Lewis in 1935.' [MeFi]
• McCain Has 'No Confidence' in Rumsfeld
  • 'U.S. Sen. John McCain said Monday that he has "no confidence" in Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, citing Rumsfeld's handling of the war in Iraq and the failure to send more troops. '
  • ' Despite the troop levels, McCain believes military morale remains high, but he acknowledged that involuntary extensions of tours of duty were frustrating to soldiers. He said Iraq must have a functioning independent government before U.S. troops leave. "I believe we'll be in Iraq militarily for many years, which would not be a problem to the American people," he said. "I think what is not acceptable to the American people is an increasing flow of dead and wounded." '

Health (Exercise, Healthcare, Medicine, Sports)

• 'Up to 100 million dead within weeks. A pandemic of biblical proportions according to the latest World Health Organization warning about the bird flu virus H5N1. It is so lethal that it kills most people it infects. Some experts are even warning that the WHO are being too conservative and that a death toll of 1 billion could be expected. ' [MeFi]

Interesting, Jokes, Odd, Weird [May be NSFW]

• Fury Art [MeFi]
  • 'Making fun [banner ad may be NSFW] of Furries sure is fun, isn't it? Pointing out over and over again some of the worst examples of what the the fandom has to offer seems to be an activity almost as old as the Internet. In the rush to point and laugh , though, it's easy to miss entirely some of the more beautiful and amusing examples of what the culture's emphasis on art and imagination has wrought upon the world. And even if you aren't impressed by the talent on display, someone is -- Further Confusion, one of the largest Furry conventions in the world, has had for two years running an art show bringing in over $60,000 each year, with portions of the convention's proceeds going to organizations such as the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund , the Coyote Point Museum , and the Oakland Zoo. '
    • Whatever you say, most Furries are funny, and erotic Furries are pretty freaky.
• The Infinite Jest: Like The Onion, only bitter
• 'Q: What could be more incomprehensible and poorly drawn than "Pokey the Penguin"? A: The self-proclaimed worst website ever. '. [MeFi]. It's like Maddox.

Local

• 2004 school report cards are out for all Illinois schools
  • Grade schools [Chicago Tribune]
  • High schools [Chicago Tribune]
  • Schools [Sun-Times]

Math, Science, Science Fiction, Space

• An FAQ by Richard Dawkins
• 'From Between Being and Becoming by Ilya Prigogine, The Future Won't Look Like the Present by Stephen Hawking to The Fate of the Religious Imagination by Czeslaw Milosz, to mention but a few, finds New Perspectives Quarterly: The Scientific Imagination presenting an overflowing cornucopia of food for thought. And that's just this issue--Check out the archives, too. Essays--by an impressive cohort of authors--abound on a myriad of topics. ' [MeFi]
• 'Does relativity have any practical significance? In fact, relativity had to be taken into account by the designers of the Global Positioning System. The GPS satellites are affected both by special relativity (since the satellites are moving, clocks aboard them appear to run slower as seen from the ground), and by general relativity (since the satellites are farther away from the mass of the earth, clocks appear to run faster as seen from the ground). The net effect of both is that clocks aboard GPS satellites would gain 38 microseconds per day relative to the ground, if relativistic effects were not corrected for--a figure which can be confirmed by using Google calculator. ' [MeFi]
  • Google calculator abuse!   

Money (Business, Economy, Finances, Market, Work)

• Dollar's Decline Is Reverberating [MeFi]
• Interest Rate Hikes Have Little Impact on Luxury Purchases: Coldwell Banker Reports Strong Luxury Home Sales in 2004
• Will Currency Wars Effect You? [MeFi]
  • The question asked: '... I guess I'm just too dumb to really get how some of these issues (like the falling dollar, huge deficits, et.al) affect the little guy? What exactly would happen if there were a "currency crash"? A little education along with the writing would be very, very helpful to me.'
  • 'What we're talking about principally on the market side is called "capital flight". Capital flight is a very innocuous word, but it has very harsh connotations. On the consumer side what is going to happen is "consumer inflation". What that means is that basic everyday stuff you buy becomes more expensive.'
  • 'The biggest whack the average consumer will have is fuel costs. By that I mean gas prices will rise to easily $4.00 a gallon and over the long term as oil demand trends higher it will push $5.00 to $6.00 a gallon. However residential electricity, natural gas heating, air-conditioning, and heating oil costs will go up by quite a bit.'
  • 'That's the consumer inflation side. We can probably depend on consumer inflation rising about 5% across the board. That means if the Fed wants to control consumer inflation it has to raise Fed Funds interest rates to 6-7%. Prime will be 8-9%. What you will pay is higher than that. And Credit cards are going to be ungodly. Whoever has an Adjustable Rate Mortgage in the last 10 years unless they've paid it off is going to have massive pain. Most of them will be forced to liquidate and let the banks foreclose.'
  • 'With the drop in demand for the dollar, as less and less people accept the dollar or accept it on less favorable terms, the devaluation will take down the value of a lot of foreign investments in America. Essentially there are two scenarios. One is the Hold scenario and the other is the Sell scenario.'
    1. 'In the Hold scenario, people accept the devaluation which effectively kills their invested assets in the United States. It'll wipe out a third to half of their value probably. If they hold then things won't be that bad. What will happen is that the Treasury will have to offer a lot higher interest rates to float debt. Debt service will increase, and become a major part of our budget. ... That's the good news scenario.'
    2. 'The bad news scenario is if capital flight happens. That's the Sell Scenario. In this scenario people sell here and buy elsewhere in order to premptively prevent their investment assets in the US to prevent devaluation. That means Treaury interest rates will have to be in the double didgits, there's a stock market crash, and the equity premium upon which the economy of scale for middle-class retirement portfolio investments rely will vanish - 401ks will only be for six figure plus people. It also means that the budget will have to be cut. Even if they could raise interest rates high enough to maintain foreign investment after a Sell scenario the debt service at higher interest rates would kill us. It would eat the entire Federal Budget alive. That would mean a recession like that in the eighties and seventies combined. A Depression is pretty much the only way to describe it properly.'
  • 'All Europe has to do is start selling US assets. That will trigger the sell scenario. That in turn will increase dramatically the chance of capital flight from the US. Capital that can now flee because it has an alternative place where it can go. As long as there was no place else to go, the US could devalue as much as it liked and the foreign investors had to put up with it. If Europe becomes the new safe haven however, well then they're outta here.'
• EverBank.com
  • One of their products is 'World Currency Accounts ... Deposit accounts and CDs denominated in any major world currency.'
  • My pre-Iraq invasion advice of "buy gold" is looking better all the time.
• Is the U.S. Current Account Deficit Sustainable? This one has lots of corroborating links.
• Worse Than the World Bank? Export Credit Agencies--The Secret Engine of Globalization
• U.S. Trade Gap Swelled to a Record $55.5 Billion. 'America's trade deficit swelled to an all-time high of $55.5 billion in October as imports -- including those from China -- surged to the loftiest levels on record. Skyrocketing crude-oil prices also contributed to the yawning trade gap.'
• Blue voters now urged to buy blue
  • 'A Web site called Choose the Blue [ChooseTheBlue.com] is offering shopping advice this holiday season, providing information about which companies' employees give to Democrats and which prefer Republicans.'
  • ' Choose the Blue is joined in cyberland by Buy Blue [BuyBlue.org], a site with a similar mission. Its mantra is: "In today's America there's a more powerful act than voting blue, and that's buying blue." It also urges people to have a "blue Christmas" and says: "Find out which businesses have been naughty and which have been nice. Shop accordingly!" '
• 'Free Annual Credit Reports. The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 goes in to effect today. One of the major provisions of the bill, is that consumers now have the right to one free report from each of the three major credit bureaus every 12 months' [MeFi]
  • 'The Federal Trade Commission and the three bureaus have set up one website and one hotline to call: http://www.annualcreditreport.com & 877-322-8228. http://www.annualcreditreport.com is the only Web site from which consumers are legally entitled to receive a free annual credit report. If you go to Equifax's, Experian's, or TransUnion's website, they can and will charge you.'

Obituaries

• Harry Lampert (1916/2004) [MeFi]. ' "He based it on the character in mythology ... the wings on his feet ... He had no idea how big it would be." RIP, Harry Lampert - Creator of The Flash. '
  

Philosophy (Ethics, Faith, Secular)

• Fighting Words For A Secular America [MeFi]
  • 'Ashcroft & Friends VS. George Washington & The Framers'
  • '... such extremists claim -- and, too often, we ourselves assume -- that U.S. law has religious roots. Yet the Constitution contains no reference to a deity.

    The Declaration of Independence contains not one word on religion, basing its authority on the shocking idea that power is derived from ordinary people, which challenged European traditions of rule by divine right and/or heavenly authority. (Remember, George III was king of England and anointed head of its church.)

    The words "Nature's God," the "Creator" and "divine Providence " do appear in the Declaration. But in its context -- an era, and author, Thomas Jefferson, that celebrated science and the Enlightenment -- these words are analogous to our contemporary phrase "life force." '

  • 'the 1796 Treaty of Tripoli -- initiated by George Washington and signed into law by John Adams -- proclaims: "The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian Religion." '

  • ' Offices for "Faith-Based Initiatives" with nearly $20 billion in grants have been established (by executive order, circumventing Congress) in 10 federal agencies, as well as inside the White House. This fails "the Lemon Test," violating a 1971 Supreme Court decision (Lemon v. Kurtzman): "first, a statute [or public policy] must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion; finally, the statute [or policy] must not foster 'excessive government entanglement with religion.'" '

  • 'When Attorney General John Ashcroft repeatedly invokes religion, the Founders must be picketing in their graves. They were a mix of freethinkers, atheists, Christians, agnostics, Freemasons and Deists (professing belief in powers scientifically evinced in the natural universe). They surely were imperfect. Some were slaveholders.'

    • Of course many free thinkers such as myself have been quite aware that the U.S. founding fathers live right in the middle of the Age of Enlightenment [Ref, Ref].

  • The article goes on to quote many of the founding fathers and their secular beliefs, including Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington,  Thomas Jefferson, James Madison.

  • Christians like to refer to Patrick Henry, who was not secular: 'Scorning miracles, saints, salvation, damnation, and angelic presences, Jefferson embraced reason, materialism, and science. He challenged Patrick Henry, who wanted a Christian theocracy: "[A]n amendment was proposed by inserting 'Jesus Christ,' so that [the preamble] should read 'A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion'; the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination" (from Jefferson's Autobiography, referring to the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom). '

  • Related:

    • Does the 1796-97 Treaty with Tripoli Matter to Church/State Separation?

    • (The Great Unmentionable) Monotheism and its Discontents

• Health Care for Children as a Pro-Choice (and Pro-Life) Policy [MeFi]. 'Health Care for Children as a Pro-Choice (and Pro-Life) Policy Georgetown Law Professor Mark Tushnet suggests that if the government were truly interested in stopping abortion, they would do so by providing health care and other social interventions. Not by overturning Roe. His position makes sense, considering that abortions have gone up since Bush took office. '

• What would Jesus read? [MeFi with over 200 comments]
  • 'The Online Parallel Bible provides provides easy reference to two dozen versions of the bible. This may help research absurdities pointed out on sites like the Skeptic's Annotated Bible some of which are just translation errors.'
• 'Religion in Star Trek. In which Ex Astris Scientia (a deliciously extensive Trek fan site, by the way) explores the future of faith and religion as depicted by each generation of the Trek universe, with elucidation on Gene Roddenberry's own antireligous view of faith and science via Daystrom Institute Tech Library (another lovely fan site).' [MeFi]
• In my web's Philosophy section. I'm doing a little work on my Philosophy section so I thought I'd jot some of it here in my blog.
  • Philosophy as a field of study should be distinguished from the non-academic connotations and applications of the word.
  • A non-academic "philosophy" is a collection of knowledge, principles, or perspectives drawn especially from experiences. This collection has an intuitive structure as opposed to a tight logical structure.
  • An individual may have a feel for his or her own personal "philosophy" but a group "philosophy" is harder to define, esp. since groups tend to be composed of individuals with varying personal philosophies.
  • Non-academic philosophies are more prevalent, popular, and often more important than academic philosophy, esp. in the political arena.
• Consider the "Mind-Body-Spirit" model. It might say that we draw Philosophy from the Mind, Psychology from the Body, and Spirituality from the Spirit. Such a model might predict that society may swing between Fundamentalism and Nihilism:
  • Society may become more Fundamentalistic in reaction to a Nihilists over-emphasizing Mind/Science to the point of rejecting our spirituality.
  • Society may become more Nihilistic in reaction to a Fundamentalists over-emphasizing Spirituality to the point of rejecting our rationality.
• Consider this principle: In order to move on, sometime you have to go thru instead of merely moving around.
  • Here is an example of going thru: When you encounter a problem that cannot be solved with the current model, sometimes you have to go thru the current model by modifying the model or, in more extreme cases, rejecting the model and making a new one. Scientists and Philosophers do this regularly: They have no problem with slinging mud upon even their own greats (EG: Einstein v Newton). Religion used to try to go thru the philosophy and science when it conflicted with their religion, but now they more often make the mistake of trying to go around philosophy and science.
  • Here is an example of going around: When you've adopted the new model, you cannot merely go around by ignoring the people who are used to the old model. The bad ideas of Religion and Culture have immense momentum that cannot be ignored. You must go thru them and make the conversion smooth. Practical, pragmatic, gradual reform is preferred over not radical revolution.

Rambling

• Here is a snap shot of the "keywords" that I have on the front page of my site as of 2004-12-16 (before I took the Landmark Forum).

  • Explore. Non-Fixation. Self-Integrity. Beauty. Fun. Urgency. Respond. Grace. Joy. Challenge. Kindness. Consequences. Risk.
  • Athens > Sparta. Real Earth > Real Estate. Science > Superstition. Honest Questions > Blind Faith. Philoxenia > Xenophobia. Meter > Yard. Income > Expenses. Problems = Opportunities. Beauty = Truth. Less = More.
  • Everything is Easy. Be Present. Mistakes happen. Do you have X?, or does X have you? Out your Inner World. Respect and Dignity. There is more to Invest & Give than money. Study & Practice, then Instinct. There are worlds just as real as the physical one. Competition to Cooperation to Consolidation. In spite of all the rubbish, make the effort to see the other sides of the elephant. Synergize: Analysis & Synthesis.

• Similarly, here is a snap shot of the phrases I have at the top of my About page, also as of 2004-12-16.

  The life which is unexamined is not worth living. -Plato, Apology

  The letter X: Examination. Exploration. Express. X marks the spot. The unknown. A variable. Calculate x. Generation X. X-ray.

  Heroic exploration involves discomfort & sharing acquired goods/knowledge.

  on-site content < my off-site content < what I know < what is known < what can be known < the unknown

  Every moment is a stroke on the canvas of Life. If Life is an art, then everyone should be both critic and artist.

  It is not enough to answer: Why is something is good from a technical viewpoint? Everyone should also examine things from their personal viewpoint: How does something resonate with your life at the moment you experience it?

  I used to call what I did "Research and Development", but I found that name too restrictive and stuffy. R&D seemed to draw my content towards {logic, examination, and science} at the cost of avoiding {intuition, experience, and faith}. Those two groups should fight and flow together.

Relating (Friendship, Living, Parenting, Socializing)

• ' You'll put your eye out! My childhood was fraught with peril. I rode bikes without a helmet. My friends made flashpowder bombs. I brought knives and lasers to school. I survived. Blogger Tim Blair did too, and asks "What insane risks did you take as kids that would now induce rage and fear if repeated by your children?" ' [MeFi]
  • 'Children learn to cope with the world through outdoor activities, writes a British educator. But adult fears are restricting children's ability to explore the world. And they're not any safer as a result.'
  • Lots of comments in the link and in MeFi.

Terror, War

• IraqBodyCount.net. Roughly 15,000 civilians reported killed by military intervention in Iraq so far.
• 'Red Cross Finds Detainee Abuse in Guantánamo   The International Committee of the Red Cross has charged in confidential reports to the United States government that the American military has intentionally used psychological and sometimes physical coercion "tantamount to torture" on prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The finding that the handling of prisoners detained and interrogated at Guantánamo amounted to torture came after a visit by a Red Cross inspection team that spent most of last June in Guantánamo. The team of humanitarian workers, which included experienced medical personnel, also asserted that some doctors and other medical workers at Guantánamo were participating in planning for interrogations, in what the report called "a flagrant violation of medical ethics." Doctors and medical personnel conveyed information about prisoners' mental health and vulnerabilities to interrogators, the report said, sometimes directly, but usually through a group called the Behavioral Science Consultation Team, or B.S.C.T. The team, known informally as Biscuit, is composed of psychologists and psychological workers who advise the interrogators, the report said. From the Red Cross : The ICRC's work at Guantanamo Bay  -  Related: From Association of the Bar of the City of New York, a pdf: Torture by Proxy: International and Domestic Law Applicable to Extraordinary Renditions-- Representative Edward J.] Markey pledges battle on rendition practice' [MeFi]
  • Amazing that this is still persisting. Bush sure does America proud... NOT!
• "On War By" Chris Hedges [MeFi]
  • Wow.
  • 'The vanquished know war. They see through the empty jingoism of those who use the abstract words of glory, honor, and patriotism to mask the cries of the wounded, the senseless killing, war profiteering, and chest-pounding grief. They know the lies the victors often do not acknowledge, the lies covered up in stately war memorials and mythic war narratives, filled with stories of courage and comradeship. They know the lies that permeate the thick, self-important memoirs by amoral statesmen who make wars but do not know war. The vanquished know the essence of war--death. They grasp that war is necrophilia. They see that war is a state of almost pure sin with its goals of hatred and destruction. They know how war fosters alienation, leads inevitably to nihilism, and is a turning away from the sanctity and preservation of life. All other narratives about war too easily fall prey to the allure and seductiveness of violence, as well as the attraction of the godlike power that comes with the license to kill with impunity. '
  • 'Those who make war betray those who fight it. This is something most enlisted combat veterans soon understand. They have little love for officers, tolerating the good ones and hoping the bad ones are replaced or injured before they get them killed. Those on the bottom rung of the military pay the price for their commanders' vanity, ego, and thirst for recognition. These motives are hardly exclusive to the neocons and the ambitious generals in the Bush administration. They are a staple of war. Homer wrote about all of them in The Iliad as did Norman Mailer in The Naked and the Dead. Stupidity and callousness cause senseless death and wanton destruction. That being a good human being--that possessing not only physical courage but moral courage--is detrimental in a commander says much about the industrial slaughter that is war. '
  • 'Combat has an undeniable attraction. It is seductive and exciting, and it is ultimately addictive. The young soldiers, trained well enough to be disciplined but encouraged to maintain their naive adolescent belief in invulnerability, have in wartime more power at their fingertips than they will ever have again. From being minimum-wage employees at places like Burger King, looking forward to a life of dead-end jobs, they catapult to being part of, in the words of the Marines, "the greatest fighting force on the face of the earth." The disparity between what they were and what they have become is breathtaking, intoxicating. Their intoxication is only heightened in wartime when all taboos are broken. Murder goes unpunished and is often rewarded. The thrill of destruction fills their days with wild adrenaline highs, strange grotesque landscapes that are almost hallucinogenic, and a sense of purpose and belonging that overpowers the feeling of alienation many left behind. They become accustomed to killing, carrying out acts of slaughter with no more forethought than they take to relieve themselves.'
  • 'These Marines have learned the awful truth about our civil religion. They have learned that our nation is not righteous. They have understood that there are no transcendent goals at the heart of our political process. The Sunday School God that blesses our nation above all others vanishes in war zones like Iraq. These young troops disdain the teachers, religious authorities, and government officials who feed them these lies. This is why so many combat veterans hate military shrinks and chaplains, whose task is largely to patch them up with the old clichés and ship them back to the battlefield. It is why they feel distance and anger with those at home who drink in the dark elixir of blind patriotism, and absorb mythology about themselves and war.'
  • ' One of the Marines in the book returns to California and is invited to be the guest of honor in a gated community in Malibu, a place where he could never afford to live. The residents want to toast him as a war hero. "I'm not a hero," he tells the guests. "Guys like me are just a necessary part of things. To maintain this way of life in a fine community like this, you need psychos like us to go out and drop a bomb on somebody's house." '
  • 'But these veterans will also miss war. They will miss it because at the height of the killing they can ignore the consequences. They will miss having comrades, whom they mistake for friends, comrades who at the time seem closer to them than their families. They will miss the brief, unfettered moment when they were killer gods and everyone around them fighting a common enemy, and facing death as a group, seemed fused into one body. "They like this part of war," Wright correctly writes of the comradeship, "being a small band out here alone in enemy territory, everyone focused on the common purpose of staying alive and killing, if necessary."

    The end of war is cruel, for these comrades again become strangers. Those who return are forced to face their demons. They must fall back onto the difficult terrain of life on their own. Wartime comradeship is about the suppression of self-awareness, self-possession, and self-understanding. This is part of its allure, the reason people miss it and seek years later, often with the aid of alcohol, to recreate it. But outside of war the camaraderie does not return. These young men and women are sent home to a nation they see in a new light. They struggle with the awful memories and trauma and are shunted aside unless they are willing to read from the patriotic script handed to them by the mythmakers. Some do this, but most cannot.'

  • 'We are losing the war in Iraq. There has been a steady increase in the assaults carried out by the insurgents against coalition forces. The attacks over the past year have risen from about twenty a day to approximately 120. We are an isolated and reviled nation. We are tyrants to others weaker than ourselves. We have lost sight of our democratic ideals. Thucydides wrote of Athens' expanding empire and how this empire led it to become a tyrant abroad and then a tyrant at home. The tyranny Athens imposed on others it finally imposed on itself. If we do not confront our hubris and the lies told to justify the killing and mask the destruction carried out in our name in Iraq, if we do not grasp the moral corrosiveness of empire and occupation, if we continue to allow force and violence to be our primary form of communication, we will not so much defeat dictators like Saddam Hussein as become them.'
  • The books mentioned:
    • Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of American War by Evan Wright.
    • The Fall Of Baghdad by Jon Lee Anderson.

Words (Literature, Reading, Stories, Writing)

• A Mother for Your Mind [MeFi]
  • 'The British Council polls non-English speakers for the seventy most beautiful English words. Mother comes out on top (as ever), with lullaby, oi (my favourite), and -- bizarrely -- hen night also appearing. I much prefer the examples of Wilfred Funk (and others): dawn, chalice and gossamer, for instance [source origin]. Beautiful words can be combined to form beautiful phrases and sometimes more. German words are also beautiful; habseligkeiten (meaning property), and such. Words can also be curious, people have observed; but also be truly awful, as a quick search of the phrases "global experience" and "leading edge" will attest.'
  • In case the link dies, here are the 70: '1 Mother 2 Passion 3 Smile 4 Love 5 Eternity 6 Fantastic 7 Destiny 8 Freedom 9 Liberty 10 Tranquillity 11 Peace 12 Blossom 13 Sunshine 14 Sweetheart 15 Gorgeous 16 Cherish 17 Enthusiasm 18 Hope 19 Grace 20 Rainbow 21 Blue 22 Sunflower 23 Twinkle 24 Serendipity 25 Bliss 26 Lullaby 27 Sophisticated 28 Renaissance 29 Cute 30 Cosy 31 Butterfly 32 Galaxy 33 Hilarious 34 Moment 35 Extravaganza 36 Aqua 37 Sentiment 38 Cosmopolitan 39 Bubble 40 Pumpkin 41 Banana 42 Lollipop 43 If 44 Bumblebee 45 Giggle 46 Paradox 47 Delicacy 48 Peekaboo 49 Umbrella 50 Kangaroo 51 Flabbergasted 52 Hippopotamus 53 Gothic 54 Coconut 55 Smashing 56 Whoops 57 Tickle 58 Loquacious 59 Flip-flop 60 Smithereens 61 Oi 62 Gazebo 63 Hiccup 64 Hodgepodge 65 Shipshape 66 Explosion 67 Fuselage 68 Zing 69 Gum 70 Hen night'
• 'Pentasyllabic is. Edible is not. Some words refer to themselves, some do not - an introduction to the paradox of language and a way to amaze your easily-amazed friends. In a similar vein, you may already test yourself by using e-prime, but do you know the thirty-two eskimo words for snow? ' [MeFi]
  • Linguistics has so many fascinating corners.

World

• From cells to bells, 10 things the Chinese do far better than we do [MeFi]
  • ' ... compiling a Top 10 list of what China does better than Canada isn't easy. There are so many items. To whittle it down, let's assume it's unfair to count anything related to cheap labour.'
  • Brilliant stuff!
  • They don't mention that the whole freaking country is in a single time zone whereas the U.S. has so many different time zones plus the idiotic daylight saving time.
  • Here's the list summarized:
    1. Cellphones
    2. Informative stop lights
    3. Transit debit cards
    4. Adult playgrounds
    5. Anti-theft slipcovers
    6. Daily banking
    7. Wireless service bells
    8. Parking data
    9. Computer seating maps
    10. Free hemming. The Philippines does this too, and I love it.