Archives for January, 2011
I understand Bret Farve’s old team is playing today
Posted by Greg Laden on January 23, 2011 The vikings are out of it, but it is still very important that the Packers lose. Because. Because they are cheese-heads, OK? If you want more reasons than that, check this out:
Apple’s Worst Idea Ever
Posted by Greg Laden on January 23, 2011 Rumor has it that Apple is developing what is probably the worst idea ever. Now, I quickly add that when Apple yanked 3.5 inch floppies1 from all of their computer designs, I thought that was the worst idea ever, and it turned out to be the best idea ever. But this one, I don’t know…
Stuff that can’t happen happens all the time.
Posted by Greg Laden on January 22, 2011 … or does it???
Citizen Science, Anarchy Evolution Reviewed, Glen Beck Behaves Badly
Posted by Greg Laden on January 22, 2011 I just love when Citizen Science results in a new finding. J. Goodbody reports on an Amateur Astrologer who found a new constellation! Click Here. carr2d2 reviews Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World without God by Greg Graffin and Steve Olson, which she seems to like. Click here. Glen Beck has…
Technology Woes and Worries
Posted by Greg Laden on January 22, 2011 Apple likes its hardware to be closed source. Very closed: If you want to remove the outer casing on your iPhone 4 to replace the battery or a broken screen, it won’t be easy anymore. In the past, you could use a Phillip screwdriver to remove two tiny screws at the base of the phone…
Olberman Leaves MSNBC
Posted by Greg Laden on January 22, 2011 It was so abrupt that MSNBC ads and promotions still include his show. It is being said by MSNBC officials that this has nothing to do with the Comcast takeover. “There were many occasions, particularly in the last 2 1/2 years, where all that surrounded the show — but never the show itself — was…
Naomi Klein: Addicted to risk
Posted by Greg Laden on January 22, 2011 Days before this talk, journalist Naomi Klein was on a boat in the Gulf of Mexico, looking at the catastrophic results of BP’s risky pursuit of oil. Our societies have become addicted to extreme risk in finding new energy, new financial instruments and more … and too often, we’re left to clean up a mess…
It has been 25 years since being really close to Uranus
Posted by Greg Laden on January 21, 2011 And such closeness has not been achieved before or since. Voyager 2 passed very close to the funny-named planet 25 years ago today (plus or minus) and that is the only close fly by to date.
Mars will pass behind sun, Rover operations affected
Posted by Greg Laden on January 21, 2011 One of the complications of interplanetary research is that the probes you’ve placed on the other planet can’t be reached via radio while the planet they are on passes to the other side of the sun, which happens now and then. In fact, for the days before and after Mars is opposite the sun, communication…
Tears as a human female adaptation to limit rape
Posted by Greg Laden on January 21, 2011 This came up a while ago and I assumed the idea would die the usual quick and painless death, but the idea seems to be either so fascinating or so irritating to people (mainly in various blog comment sections) that it still twitches and still has a heartbeat, but only as a result of the…
Oh. The NanoSail Popped Out
Posted by Greg Laden on January 21, 2011 Surprise! HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Wednesday, Jan. 19 at 11:30 a.m. EST, engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., confirmed that the NanoSail-D nanosatellite ejected from Fast Affordable Scientific and Technology Satellite, FASTSAT. The ejection event occurred spontaneously and was identified this morning when engineers at the center analyzed onboard FASTSAT telemetry. The ejection…
There but for the grace of dog go I
Posted by Greg Laden on January 20, 2011 Fountain Lady, Imma let you be upset and all in a minute, but right now I’ve got to say that there is not a single one of the 37 million people who watched you fall in the water ‘cuz you were texting and not watching where you were going who has not at some time…
New England Faculty vs Students on Acceptance of and Teaching Evolution
Posted by Greg Laden on January 20, 2011 A new study compares “acceptance of evolution” by highly educated adult academics with college students in various categories, with all those sampled being in New England, which has the highest overall acceptance of evolution in the US (a mere 59 percent). The results are interesting.
Van Jones: The economic injustice of plastic
Posted by Greg Laden on January 20, 2011 Van Jones lays out a case against plastic pollution from the perspective of social justice. Because plastic trash, he shows us, hits poor people and poor countries “first and worst,” with consequences we all share no matter where we live and what we earn. At TEDxGPGP, he offers a few powerful ideas to help us…
Elizabeth Lesser: Take “the Other” to lunch
Posted by Greg Laden on January 20, 2011 I don’t know about this … There’s an angry divisive tension in the air that threatens to make modern politics impossible. Elizabeth Lesser explores the two sides of human nature within us (call them “the mystic” and “the warrior”) that can be harnessed to elevate the way we treat each other. She shares a simple…
80% of Democrats Can’t Help Themselves And Would Support Palin
Posted by Greg Laden on January 20, 2011 Just because, I mean, wouldn’t you want to know who she’d appoint to the supreme court?
Milk allergy is the most common form of food allergy found in humans, but you don’t have one and neither does your baby
Posted by Greg Laden on January 20, 2011 Well, maybe, but probably not. Even though milk allergies in infants and very young toddlers are the most common food allergy, they still occur in only about 2.5 percent of the population in the US and other Western groups. For this reason, I was rather perplexed some months back when I encountered a group of…
The US House has just voted to repeal the health care reform law
Posted by Greg Laden on January 19, 2011 The U.S. House of Representatives voted 245-189 to repeal President Obama’s health care law. I’m sure I’m speaking to the converted here, but if you happen to live in a US Congressional district with one of those representatives who voted to repeal this law, I’d like to pass on one whopping big “Fuck You” for…
Two items of interest.
Posted by Greg Laden on January 19, 2011 Of these three items, two will be of interest to you. Can’t tell which two, though: “My roomate lives like a horseradish” … check out this web site that accumulates funny auto-correct mishaps. Bill Gates beats Pope, Dali Lama in Popularity Contest (see this) just as Windows stops being THE operating system (see this). Did…
The Genetics of Pesticide Resistant Bedbugs
Posted by Greg Laden on January 19, 2011 Bedbugs (Insects of the Cimicidae family, commonly Cimex lectularius) are annoying, might carry diseases (though this is unclear, so probably nothing importat1, and are apparently becoming more common in the US. Interestingly, there has been very little study done of their genetics. A new study just out in PLoS ONE looks at the bedbug genome…
Command line unit conversion
Posted by Greg Laden on January 18, 2011 The Linux command ‘units’ may or may not be installed on your system. If not, if you use synaptic or apt, type (at the prompt) sudo apt-get install units or equiviliant for other distributions. Then type in the word “units” and play around. Here are a few sample outputs: The program is a little clunky.…
14 year old kills most of his family with a butter knife and a small piece of twine
Posted by Greg Laden on January 18, 2011 Since he is a minor his name has been withheld. The 14 year old boy in South Carolina called the police to tell them that he had attacked his father, his grandmother, and his great aunt. He told the police he’d be there when they arrived, possibly waiting outside. When police appeared on the scene…
Eocene Florida Plant Remains = Rethink Local Geology A Little
Posted by Greg Laden on January 18, 2011 Sometimes interesting scientific evidence shows up in unexpected places. Years ago, there had been discussion of the possibility that immediate post glacial climate in the North Atlantic coastal region was unusually warm, but the evidence was spotty. Then, I was looking through material taken from a geotechnical boring placed to assess the geology of a…
Xfce 4.8 released
Posted by Greg Laden on January 18, 2011 Xfce 4.8 released after nearly two years of development. Hopefully, there are no added features or functionality! (That’s a joke.) (In fact, there is a loss of functionality for BSD users who implement the *nix desktop environment. But let’s not even talk about that problem because it opens a whole ‘nuther can of worms.) Xfce…
Gervais on Last Year’s Rejected Godwinning
Posted by Greg Laden on January 17, 2011 At the expense of Mel Gibson:
Vaccination vs. Disease: Which is worse?
Posted by Greg Laden on January 17, 2011 It is very reasonable for a parent to worry about vaccines. For one thing, most of them involve sticking the baby or child with a sharp object, thus making the little one cry, and it would be abnormal to not have an automatic reaction to that. For another thing, they are drugs, in a sense.…
“Anglicans counter “New atheism” with new online resource”
Posted by Greg Laden on January 17, 2011 How can there be a God when people are suffering through floods and fires? How can God sit back and allow bad things to happen to good people? A new online resource from the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne offers answers to these and other difficult questions as the Church seeks to engage directly with the…
Is Ricky Gervais a Pariah Because He Was a Dick, or Because He Is An atheist?
Posted by Greg Laden on January 17, 2011 Did you happen to see Ricky Gervais hosting the golden globes last night? It is said he did it without a script. He was very funny, bitingly funny, and it is quite possible that he went too far in his roasting of some of the presenters (his main job was introducing presenters). Not being very…
Firefox 4 Beta 9 bodes well sucks
Posted by Greg Laden on January 16, 2011 Firefox Four is nearing readiness for your use. There are a massive 661 bug fixes, a number people are very excited about, but you’ve got to ask: How do you get that many unfixed bugs to begin with??? One of the features I’m looking forward is tabs in the title bar. I’m tired of giving…
, which is now available for the 
