August 6, 2008
The FBI is upping the ante in relation to recent attacks on scientists working in California, in light of two firebombings over the last few days.(See FBI increases reward in firebombings to $50,000)
I just wish they would stop calling these people "animal rights activists." They are not. They…
August 6, 2008
Graphics software for Linux is superior to most other software for several reasons. Since the Linux system is inherently more efficient than other systems, memory-hungry graphics operations will always run faster, better, and more reliably on a Linux box than on, say, a Windows box, all else being…
August 6, 2008
An employee of the Grant Memorial Church, of Winnipeg Canada, identified by the church's pastor as a quiet person who seemed perfectly normal, stabbed a fellow passenger on a Greyhound bus fifty or sixty times, beheaded the passenger, and ate parts of his body, last Wednesday, as other passengers…
August 6, 2008
On this day in 1945 ...
The first atomic bomb has been dropped by a United States aircraft on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
President Harry S Truman, announcing the news from the cruiser, USS Augusta, in the mid-Atlantic, said the device was more than 2,000 times more powerful than the largest…
August 6, 2008
This:
See Paris Hilton Responds to McCain Ad and more funny videos on FunnyOrDie.com
See more funny videos at Funny or Die
Appears to be a response to this:
So, here is the question. Who is hotter: Paris Hilton or Barack Obama?
August 5, 2008
This is Michael Shermer
Wow, that was cool. Now since you are in the mood, check this out if you have not already seen it:
August 5, 2008
Its all about selection for flight distance. (Oh, for plants, that's dispersal distance!)
August 5, 2008
Food for thought from On the Media:
Recently there's been a bit of a backlash against the angry commenter, especially the anonymous angry commenter. Newspapers around the country have had to disband comment sections because of racist content, ad hominem attacks and vulgarity. The Mayor of Hartford…
August 5, 2008
So if you have a CD r/w machine in your computer, there is a LOT more than you had previously imagined going on inside there. Wow!
August 4, 2008
I have a file called "email.txt" and I want to count the number of lines in it.
cat email.txt | wc -l
cat email.txt | sed -n '$='
The first example uses wc (which stands for "what's the count") with the -l (lines only) optin. The contents is pushed via cat through standard output into a pipe…
August 4, 2008
The bodies of civil rights activists Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman were found after they had been missing for six weeks in the vicinity of Philadelphia, Mississippi, on this day in 1964.
From the bbc report of the time:
The three young men had left the CORE office in…
August 4, 2008
PLoS ONE. You are ONE today. Does this mean that starting today you are PLoS Two?
For a recent history of the Public Library of Science, see this earlier post.
August 3, 2008
New Smithsonian Field Guide Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America by Ted Floyd is a newcomer to the bird field guide scene. This guide offers a new combination of features that may make it the best choice as the primary guide for a small number of birders, and as an excellent…
August 3, 2008
As you can see, this specimen of Leptotyphlops carlae is small enough to hang out on a US quarter. Scientists are still working out why this snake associates itself with coinage.
But seriously, this snake was discovered by Blair Hedges, an evolutionary biologist at Pennsylvania State University,…
August 3, 2008
All Franken chatting with supporters at a home in Coon Rapids. "Why?" you may ask, "Why would a guy running for the United States Senate ... in which you represent one state ... have a fifty state strategy?" Good question. Franken discussed his Fifty State Strategy with supporters at a…
August 3, 2008
You always hope this happens, but it never does. But every now and then JUSTICE PREVAILS!
So, we're driving north on 371 just out of Baxter. Amanda, who is an excellent driver, is at the wheel. Moderate traffic, overcast but no precipitation, just before nightfall.
Suddenly, from the corner of…
August 2, 2008
From a press release from the NCSE:
Kenneth R. Miller's new book, Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul, is reviewed in the July 31, 2008 issue of
Nature. Reviewer PZ Myers writes that "Miller is a fine writer who sharply
addresses the details of the arguments about…
August 1, 2008
U can haz KDE 4.1 ~ Javascript ~ Would apple mess with your music? ~ When pseudonymous trolls get out of hand.
If you want KDE 4.1 and you want it now, have a look at this guide to installing it on your LInux Ubuntu 8.04 box ahead of its appearance in the Ubuntu repository.
For those who don't…
August 1, 2008
Remember bug? (We wants our BUGs.... yessss)Of Buglabs? Here's more:
From Linux Journal.
August 1, 2008
ls | wc -l
How many files are in the current directory on my hard drive?
The command ls gives me a list of files (ls stands for "list stuff")
the vertical line is a pipe. This means the standard output of the left side of the pipe is sent (like in a pipe) to the standard input of the right side…
August 1, 2008
Carnival Of The Liberals is at The Cult of Gracie.
The Carnival of Cinema: Episode 85 - Journey to the Center of the Blog at Good News Film Reviews
Friday Ark #202 at The Modulator
New and Exciting in PLoS this week
Soup To Nuts, the Progressive Dinner Blog Carnival is at The Gonzo Papers.
August 1, 2008
Photograph of anthrax
Do you remember the Anthrax Scare? Envelopes with strange notes and mysterious white powder were showing up in various mailboxes. In many cases the white powder was "weaponized anthrax" ... anthrax (bacterial) spores processed in such a way to enhance the spread of the…
July 31, 2008
On this day in 1971, on the second day of the Apollo 15 lunar mission, astronauts dug up a really old rock which, of course, they named "The Genesis Rock"
The so-called Genesis rock was found by lunar module pilots David Scott and James Irwin when they dug into the slope of Spur crater, on the…
July 31, 2008
You can't have it until December, but you can pre-order it now (in case they run out!). Click the picture. Maybe. Probably, this is more properly thought of as the Zeroth Harry Potter Book.
Do you know about the Tales of Beedle the Bard? According to Julia (I didn't know) it has to do with…
July 31, 2008
A total Solar Eclipse will happen tomorrow, August 1st. Here is the map (click the map for the original version at NASA):
More details here.
July 31, 2008
I noted earlier that hundreds of baby penguins are being washed, dead, onto beaches thousands of miles away from their native lands. Various causes have been suggested, including the idea that the penguins are swimming into unfamiliar and penguin-hostile waters in search of fish, diminished in…
July 31, 2008
A Goshen Family has identified an apparition of Banana Jeezus on their kitten. Here is a closeup:
Go HERE for a film of Banana Jeezus.
All Hail Banana Jeezus! All Hail Orac for Brinin' Us Dis Newz!
All Hail Ceelin' Kat!
We ask Ceelin' Kat, "Ceelin' Kat, whut 2-do about teh unbeleevers????"…
July 30, 2008
Austrian Franz Sikora was a fossil hunter and merchant of ancient bones working in the 19th centuyr. In 1899 he found the first known specimen, which was to become the type fossil, of Hadropithecus stenognathus in Madagascar. This is an extinct lemur. To be honest, I'm not sure when this lemur…
July 30, 2008
Sabertooth Cat, Megantereon nihowanensisl There are two kinds of "true cats." Cat experts call one type feline or "modern" partly because they are the ones that did not go extinct. If you have a pet cat, it's a modern/feine cat. This also includes the lions, tigers, leopards, etc. The other…
