April 15, 2010
These ads actually appear on our local TV. Not cable, just regular:
This one's funny:
But this one's risqué:
And finally, the story behind "Ballroom Jeans"
April 14, 2010
... if you take time off from work to do so.
Nice.
Massey Energy told employees that if they miss work to attend the funerals they would be fired, workers said. A Massey worker, who did not give his name because he is afraid of losing his job, said that his coworkers were outraged that they were…
April 14, 2010
... Or is he the Congressmember from the Fifth District of Minnesota?
I suppose it is quite reasonable that the man chosen by the Republicans to run against Fifth District Congressman Keith Ellison, is a firm believer that we are presently in the End Times and that the Antichrist is almost here.…
April 14, 2010
There are two things I've learned over the last year.
1) If you get a room full of self-described skeptics, gathered to converse skeptically about something, a minor tweaking of the conversation can cause an alarmingly large percentage of said "skeptics" to start spewing utter nonsense; and
2)…
April 14, 2010
There is something strange in the cosmic neighbourhood. An unknown object in the nearby galaxy M82 has started sending out radio waves, and the emission does not look like anything seen anywhere in the universe before.
"We don't know what it is," says co-discoverer Tom Muxlow of Jodrell Bank Centre…
April 14, 2010
"Mr. Tangarone, a 17-year veteran of the Weston school system, claims that a program he wanted to teach about Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln was rejected by the school administration because it involved teaching evolution -- the scientific theory that all life is related and has descended from…
April 14, 2010
There's been a flurry of interest on reference managers, and especially Mendeley, so I thought I'd throw up a few links that you will find useful.
Reference managers were discussed at ScienceOnline 2010.
A blog post about that session:Gearing up for scio10: Online Reference Managers
A handy…
April 14, 2010
Randall Hyde's book is now out in it's second edition.
Your computer has little dohickies in it that know how to read and respond to commands that are, in turn, stored in (and read from) other dohickies.
These instructions are collectively known as "machine language." If you do an programming…
April 13, 2010
It is said that the forceps ... for delivering babies ... was invented by a doctor working in the American Midwest* who used it only to deliver the babies of people to whom he was related. The forceps caused babies who might have died during childbirth to live and may have increased the…
April 12, 2010
What was that sound? A hand-cranked railroad cart that needed oiling? An old firetruck with a broken siren? A group of boy scouts with a dying hippopotamus?
No, no, not a hippopotamus. Too artifactual sounding. Too human-made sounding. More like the siren, like an old fashioned air raid siren. And…
April 12, 2010
I would wager that you don't know where many of your most important files are. If you are into music, and use iTunes, you can't find a particular song file using your file manager. You would need to locate it using iTunes. iTunes would then give you limited access to that file. It does not let…
April 11, 2010
A while back I would have said that I have three reasons to maintain a Windows computer.
1) iTunes;
2) a couple of games;
3) tax software.
Yes, yes, I know, these things can be done with Wine or an emulator. But really, having the relic Windows machine sitting there has simply bee easier.
Tax…
April 11, 2010
Check out this report at The Raw Story:
Up yours, scientists.
That's essentially the message sent by former politician Sarah Palin during a recent speech to the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, where she disparaged the work of thousands of the world's top minds to the delight of a large…
April 9, 2010
Credo (as in Working Assets) gives a percentage of its charges to various organizations. Now, there is a way for you to vote for which organization will get an infusion of cash. One of the choices is the NCSE.
According to Robert Luhn of the NCSE:
... NCSE is on the 2010 ballot. If your readers…
April 9, 2010
... if you don't act now.
April 9, 2010
Designed by Blag Hag
Hat Tip: This place
April 8, 2010
I would have been happier without the background music, but at least she's not you know who.
April 8, 2010
I was fairly optimistic after my recent doctor's visit, in part because he was able to tell me that nothing bad was happening. I immediately started to make plans for a few short term changes in what I did every day to help with post-operative recovery, to be followed in a couple of weeks with…
April 7, 2010
I'm going to make an argument that you should buy an Apple iPad despite widespread rumors of hardware problems and despite widespread criticisms of its design as funky and flawed.
And by "you" I mean yooz guyz who are skeptics.
In order to get there, to the point of this argument, I'm going to have…
April 7, 2010
People keep asking this question, and now I know the answer.
Minnesota State Senator Tarryl Clark. Clark has raised, in a fairly short amount of time, a good bit over one million bucks to run her campaign representing the Democratic Party (locally known as the DFL) against Bachmann. (source)
April 6, 2010
Science Blogs grows bigger. See this PDF file for details.
Also, tell us what is wrong with the graph!?!?
April 6, 2010
Listen to this. Rinse, repeat. It will go away.
April 6, 2010
A piece in the Star Tribune by my friend John Funk:
Friends and family members were grieving Monday for a 20-year-old Marine from Rochester, Minn., whose death Friday in Afghanistan was called "a horrible loss" by his family pastor....
Click Here for the Whole Story
April 6, 2010
A few years ago, Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh, working for Reuters in Iraq, were killed along with several other non-military personnel in a very badly botched US military operation. Much more recently, Wikileaks has released the half hour long video taken from one of the US helicopters…
