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November 19th, 2009
12:13 pm - Coffee.
How you know you're drinking too much coffee?
When you walk from your desk too the office pot, you take two mugs so you can make less trips.
How to know you're drinking WAY to much coffee?
When you get back to your desk, one mug is already empty.
How to know you're drinking WAY, WAY TOO MUCH coffee:
Looking at the two mugs, you do the math, and realize you have JUST ENOUGH COFFEE to hold you till you can walk back to the pot.
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November 12th, 2009
03:14 pm - Calling all Physics and Astronomy Buffs
To those interested in the subject...
Read the following article at Space.com:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/091111-sun-star-planets.html
Essentially it's talking about the observed relationship between stellar lithium content and the existence of planetary systems.
If you're interested, please read it.... ( and then give me a reality check! )
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November 5th, 2009
05:25 pm - awesomeness.
Some boffin has made a subtitle file for Expelled!!!
For those not in the know on what a subtitle file is: Many standard video viewers support subtitle files, where you point at a text file, formatted with time stamps, to display certain lines of text (ostensibly translations) at certain times during playback.... like a subtitle in a foreign language movie.
For those not in the know about Expelled, it was the recent "documentary" which set out to demonstrate how mainstream science is suppressing the resurgent, paradigm-shifting, and superior Intelligent Design Theory.
As can be expected, this "documentary", staring Ben Stein, is rife with errors and purposefully misstated half truths. The Subtitle translation mentioned above inserts appropriate corrections at the appropriate times.
Details here!
http://www.bogosity.tv/forum/index.php?topic=27.msg216#msg216
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November 3rd, 2009
09:41 am - The bad and the good
For some reason I woke up with the horrible song "Can't fight this feeling anymore" stuck in my head and leaking out through my lips.
I am the typhoid Mary of bad 80's power ballads.
Fortunately I was able to inoculate myself and now have Supertramp's "Give a little bit" in there... much better.
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October 30th, 2009
12:46 pm
You are here....
This constructed image of the milky way as-seen-from-earth was created from a conglomerate of 3000 seperate photographs from various locations on earth, combined by Dr. Axel Mellinger using mathematical algorithms to translate and connect the different points of view, and using data from the Pioneer 10 and 11 space probes to differentiate light pollution so as to allow for a uniform background.
The final image was 648 megapixels... the one above is, of course, NOT! :)
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October 20th, 2009
08:17 am - An Image
I was on the bus earlier this morning than is my wont, to cover for a sick co-worker. Add to that the fact that the weather has been cooler lately, so the bus denizens were rather more bundled than I'm used to.
In front of me, on the left, was a couple... cold... huddling, and still quite sleepy. They both had on comfy looking hoodies, and the gal on the isle had her arm around the guy by the window, their heads together, bobbing with that complex motion that only comes with sleepy-bus-head.
They looked all the world like two tired little Jawas, comforting each other at the end of a long, hard day of droid stealing.
.
.
.
The only things that ruined the image were her fuzzy, Christmas Tree covered pajama pants.
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October 15th, 2009
October 13th, 2009
06:19 pm - It seems obvious, but now we have numbers...
The less serious you are about religion, the better liked you are, even by very religious people.
Seems reasonable... but where is it from, and what's the proof?
The past few weeks, the free but very widely used dating site OKCupid has been crunching some numbers and finding some trends. Mostly they are comparing "Match %", a self-created filter that suggests who you are likely to get along with, and comparing it to other self reported criteria, like religious and racial preferences, and the likelihood of message replies.
It begins by using the Zodiac as a control. Essentially there is no "Zodiac effect". People from one Zodiac sign are no more or less likely to have a match % close to other people of a particular Zodiac sign, nor is there much variation between the expected and actual reply rates.
But religion, religious "seriousness" (commitment?, inflexibility?), and race are another story.
The start:
http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/2009/09/29/how-races-and-religions-match-in-online-dating/#match-discussion
One week later, Race and message replies in detail:
http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/2009/10/05/your-race-affects-whether-people-write-you-back/
Cross posted to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) atheism and my personal journal.
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October 9th, 2009
10:12 am - The Nobel Peace Prize
My feelings on its award....
In a word... Uhg.
Don't get me wrong, I like Obama. I think he's trying to work through a bad situation, though I wish he'd stop trying to play nice and being so conciliatory.
But I routinely have long and irritating discussions with friends who blame Obama for everything under the sun.... and they were blaming him back when he'd only been in office for 6 months. Now its STILL been less than a year, and too many are willing to lay unemployment, debt and foreign wars (the very ugly chickens of the last decade coming home to roost) at his feat.
A Nobel prize now is the same sort of idiocy, but in the opposite direction. He hasn't done anything significant for peace on the world stage, because hey... that's a Sisyphean task. Like an oil tanker, history is a huge and ponderous mass that takes a long time of concerted effort to redirect. Nobel prizes should go either to obvious and effective genius, or long, concerted, and dedicated effort. Not just good intentions.
Know what I think this REALLY is?
It's a little gold star being given by the Nobel committee to the AMERICAN VOTER, essentially saying "Hey, thanks guys. Thanks for not voting in an other unilateral loudmouth cowboy into office. Have a lolly pop."
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September 29th, 2009
04:32 pm - a somewhat less difficult post.
Thanks so much folks.
This much response so quickly from so many friends humbles me.
Various people have promised enough that I am out of the woods I think.
Thanks again.
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September 28th, 2009
11:27 am - Synchronouos moment.
I had a weird moment this morning...
I was walking through one of the Shands waiting rooms, and heard some cool industrial music that was unfamiliar to me. It was also odd to hear that kind of music being played out loud in that kind of setting.
Then I realized, it wasn't industrial music.
It was a combination of one Patron's cell phone ring tone (a synthesized version of some classical music) and another patron talking to their wife... that patron had a trachiotomy and was speaking with a voice box.
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September 18th, 2009
04:12 pm - Livin' in thuh Aye-Tees!
A friend mentioned watching 80's music videos.
Before my productivity concerned brain could prevent it: ( my fingers went youtube-ing. )
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September 17th, 2009
04:29 pm - Interview with Frank Schaeffer
Some of you may be familiar with Frank Schaeffer. He recently published "Crazy for God", about growing up evangelical, close to the original action in forming today's religious right political aparatus. He has since renounced many of his views, and converted to Orthodox Christianity.
He's had several interviews with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC concerning issues with the religious right. This one, from yesterday, has to do with recent polling results from Public Policy Poling, concerning Obama's approval in New Jersy. A link to PPP's survey report is here:
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_NJ_916.pdf
The datum of interest is that, among self identified conservatives, 18% affirm that they think that Obama is the Anti-christ, while 17% aren't sure.
(that's 8% among total voters, rather than just conservatives, think he is the anti-christ)
The quote and issue that inspired me to post this here happens about 3 minutes and 20 seconds into the interview.
Rachel Maddow:
The Birther thing has been dis-proven. The Antichrist thing... is, it's a whole 'nother kettle of fish. But how do you work to move people off of that position. It doesn't seem like facts are relevant in trying to move people away from these beliefs.
Frank Schaeffer
You don't work to move them off this position, you move past them. Look, a village cannot reorganize village life to suit the village idiot. It's as simple as that. And we have to understand that we have a village idiot in this country, it's called fundamentalist Christianity. And until we move past these people [...] there's going to be no end in sight.
Interview in video form available at You-Tube:
Cross-posted to my personal journal, and atheism
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September 16th, 2009
05:57 pm - Huh!
You larn somthin' every day.
Did you know that Earth has a second natural moon?
It's 3 miles wide, completes an orbit every 770 years, and that orbit is HORSESHOE SHAPED!!!
It's a temporary moon, a quasi-satellite...kind of like a captured asteroid, that is expected to escape again... but not for about another 5,000 years or so.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/second_moon_991029.html
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05:14 pm - I have recently begun obsessively posting...
Video links from the British sketch comedy That Mitchell and Web Look
But at least admitting I have a problem is a first step.
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September 3rd, 2009
01:24 pm - For Sale
One of my Dad's possessions that my mom would really rather not keep around, is his Colt Python .357 magnum, and so she's hoping to sell it.
Some knowledgeable friends have given me ball park price ranges and suggested good online gun dealers, but after looking at the rigmarole involved in shipping and selling a gun across state lines I'd prefer to sell to someone personally known to me or known to a friend, and located within the state (selling out of the state requires transfer via a dealer). If no one is interested, the gun broker sites will be my backup, but I thought I'd try here.
Details:
Model: Colt Python .357 magnum. 4 inch barrel
Year manufactured: 1981.
Cosmetic: Blued finish. Wood Grip.
It's not new in the box, but otherwise in excellent condition. No scratches or marring of steel or grip that I can see.
http://www.health.ufl.edu/~nkimble/gun_pics/Python_Body.jpg
http://www.health.ufl.edu/~nkimble/gun_pics/Python_bar.jpg
Thanks for tuning in.
-= Nat
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September 2nd, 2009
10:16 am - Alternative Poetries
I wonder what Poetry is like in American Sign language?
I don't mean a translation of typical verbal/written poetry into sign... but rather poetry made by and for people who think in sign.
Verbal poetry is often a conscious mingling of aesthetically significant meaning with aesthetically significant sound. Sounds have an independent emotional content, sometimes at odds with, sometimes complimenting the overt meaning. The interplay adds another dimension to expression.
Obviously gestures have an emotional payload, just as sounds do. I presume that this payload, just as in speech, could be in tension or in congruence with the overt meaning. What would the results be of a 2 dimensional 'poetry space' that extends across gesture/meaning, rather than sound/meaning?
-= Nat
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August 28th, 2009
12:58 pm - The System
America needs more T.V. like this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX94fV4TWbc
This is a special with Derren Brown on UK's Channel 4, which aired back in Feb. of 2008. The above link is part 1, the first ~10 minutes, but there are parts 2 through 5 also on youtube that show the entire program.
It has the stress and face to face drama that draws so many people to reality TV shows (and which so very much turns me off) but it actually teaches something useful.
I think we're all irritated almost daily by people who try and scam us, preying on the gullible and credulous. Every time I encounter a Nigerian E-mail, or get forwarded a chain letter, or have to deal with a machine on which someone installed software from a pop-up, it's hard to not also be irritated at all those gullible and credulous people! If they weren't so gullible, con-artists and scammers couldn't make a living doing it, and consequently wouldn't then be bothering ME! The signal to noise ration of all my social interactions would improve.
If you have a credulous friend, make them watch this. If they don't want to... tell them that at the end they win a pony.
-= Nat
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August 18th, 2009
August 13th, 2009
01:23 am - a day in the life.
Toskyr yowls and yowls... He wants outside time.
Nat: Sorry Toskyr... You've been outside today.
T: YOOOWWWLLL!
N: Sorry. Nope.
T: meeeYOOOOWWLL!!!
N: I said no... But I love you.
He yowls again, and aims his big green eyes at me as if to say...
"Talk is cheap, biped."
Current Music: MOO II soundtrack
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