gregladen | June 16, 2010Here's one theory:
Earlier this week, Pickle Monger pointed us to the very, very bizarre story of Alvin Greene winning the South Carolina Democratic primary despite being broke, unemployed, holding no campaign appearances or rallies, and having raised no money. No one knew who the guy was, basically, until after the election happened... which is certainly quite strange. Also, once the news came out and the press scrambled to figure out who the hell this guy was, it came out that he's facing felony charges for obscenity. ...
Of course, there are many different theories as to why Greene won…
gregladen | June 16, 2010... maybe.
Maybe there were vast oceans, and maybe they were occupied by microbes. This, according to reserearch being discussed in Natoial Geographic.
A vast ocean chock-full of microbes may have once covered more than a third of Mars's surface, scientists say.
The new evidence, from an analysis of dried-up Mars river deltas, adds to growing signs the red planet was once wet.
On Earth, river deltas all lie at more or less the same elevation and reflect the current sea level. In fact, by estimating the elevations of ancient deltas, scientists can reconstruct how sea levels have changed over…
gregladen | June 16, 2010Or, not... There is what appears to be a very good FOSS alternative:
Cross platform open source app OpenProj comes to the rescue. OpenProj markets itself as a complete replacement for Microsoft Project and boasts complete integration with existing Project files and Primavera.
Reviewed here
gregladen | June 16, 2010Quiche Moraine has a new look, but hopefully the same feel. We liked our old look but it was not working for a lot of our readers. So, we have dropped the Magazine Format and gone to a minimalistic bloggy format. I'd love to know what you think of it.
Also, Stephanie Zvan has a new post that addresses the nature of allies, on the Internet: What is an Ally? Have a look!
gregladen | June 16, 2010In a paper that is about to be published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, researchers Andrew Heymsfield, Patrick Kennedy, Steve Massie, Crl Schmitt, Zhien Wang, Samuel Haimov and Art Rangno make the claim that "The production of holes and channels in altocumulus clouds by two commercial turboprop aircraft is documented for the first time. ... Holes and channels in supercooled altocumulus clouds can be the result of homogeneous ice nucleation induced by turboprop and jet aircraft at temperatures warmer than previously accepted for commercial aviation influences on…
gregladen | June 15, 2010Pat Robertson, others, claim that this is a sign from god telling us that Christianity is not the true religion.
Well, ok, Pat Robertson others, did not really say that. But they should, according to their modus operandi!
The Jesus Statue located in Monroe Ohio is known as Touchdown Jesus because of the figure's position. Touchdown Jesus formerly sat aside a highway since 2004. But not just any highway. The highway is I-75.
You do understand the significance of this, yes? Let me connect the dots for you.
There is no Isaiah 75, so we can't refer to a bible passage such as the one…
gregladen | June 15, 2010This is a chart showing a whole bunch of different computer hardware bits and pieces, for reference. Click to embiggen.
From here.
gregladen | June 15, 2010
This is the Gariep (aka Orange) River sinking into the granite bedrock just before plunging off the cliff at Augrabies Falls, in the Northern Cape of South Africa.
gregladen | June 15, 2010A very cooly and heavily illustrated chapter from the book Evolution: The Story of Life by Douglas Palmer is available for free download from the National Center for Science Education . CLICK HERE for the download. Visit the NCSE web site here.
gregladen | June 15, 2010What should we do about a case of Internet Identity theft? Here's the story: There is an individual of some reasonable degree of fame. I shall call him Guy-1. There is this other individual who is not famous. Guy-2. Both are similar in many respect, including, as far as I can tell, their political views, and those views correspond more or less to at least some of the views professed on this blog.
UPDATE: The offending fake Facebook page has been taken down. I am not sure exactly why, though I do know that some individuals reported the page.
Guy-2, some time ago, created a facebook…
gregladen | June 15, 2010... while you are cleaning your pistol and watching Hulu.
I've been trying to watch this movie staring Klaus Kinski (oh, by the way, when they make my biography, I want Kinsky to play me. Oh, wait, he's dead. OK, he can play the very last scene). Anyway, it's called "Timestalkers" and I'm watching it on Hulu. The problem is, every time I sit down (or, rather lay down) to do so, I'm tired and worn out, and it takes me to long to find where I left off, and I end up shutting down (me and the computer both) at the same exact moment in the movie. So, I'm watching Timestalkers, but I'm getting…
gregladen | June 15, 2010Apple® today unveiled a completely redesigned Mac® mini, featuring up to twice the graphics performance, a new HDMI port and a new SD card slot, all in an amazingly compact aluminum enclosure. Mac mini is the world's most energy efficient desktop and starting at $699, is the most affordable way to enjoy Mac OS® X, iLife® or Mac OS X Snow Leopard® Server.
Details here.
H/T: Ben
My birthday is this month.
Oh, did I say that out loud?
gregladen | June 15, 2010It's kind of subtle but if you read the words they say carefully, you can hear "kissy kissy" the whole time. Check it out: "Your ... fascinating"
Oh, and please DO leave a comment if you visit their site. That would be funny.
gregladen | June 15, 2010I like the idea of an edition of Ubuntu for scientists. I like the idea so much that I wrote a blog post about it a while back.
So I was very pleased to see that there is a project called Ubuntusci that is moving along nicely and that may fill in this niche.
But, when I went to look at the web site to find out more about it, I quickly discovered that there are two things wrong with the project that I'd like to suggest that they fix.
First, the distribution is committed to OpenSource Software (OSS). Well, so am I, as a person, but that does not mean that I use only OSS. Were that the case, I…
gregladen | June 14, 2010Seriously. I am not making this up. Michele Bachmann, the so called "darling of the tea-baggers" (though I'm not sure why she's called that exactly) had done a full 180 on her policies regarding government involvement in stuff. Check it out.
gregladen | June 14, 2010Massimo Pigliucci's new book, "How to Tell Science from Bunk" has a great chapter called "Science in the Courtroom." The National Center for Science Education has arranged for you to have it for free. Click here to download the PDF.