gregladen | December 14, 2007Egads!
I was so excited about Mark Borrello's editorial at the MNCSE site, that I totally overlooked This Editorial by MNCSE executive director Jim Curtsinger!
This is bad, because it was Jim who told me about Mark's editorial. What you have to understand is that Mark is a little guy. He's pretty wiry and tough, so I wouldn't want to scrap with him, but I could probably hold my own. Jim, on the other hand, is a big scary guy and would easily do serious damage if he got mad enough at me.
OK, so there's the link... Forgive me Jim.
A taste of J.C.'s editorial:
Borrello's analysis of West's…
gregladen | December 14, 2007Despite the best efforts of the American and Chinese representatives, the Bali Climate conference may end up being something more than a huge waste of time.
The U.S. and Europe headed toward a compromise solution Friday at the U.N. climate conference, breaking a deadlock over how ambitious the goal should be in negotiating future cutbacks in global warming gases, the German environment minister said.
"I think the situation is good and the climate in the climate conference is good, and we will have success in the end," Sigmar Gabriel told reporters, declining to give details of the talks.…
gregladen | December 14, 2007You will remember our blogospheric reactions to John West's talk at UMN (John West can Play the Violin But Not the Fiddle on my blog, and John West at the McLaurin Institute on Pharyngula for Scienceblogs.com, as well as In Which I Meet John West at Tangled Up in Blue Guy and here at Amused Muse).
Well, the brilliant and tenaceous Mark Borrello, a key operative with the Minnesota Citizens for Science Education, has written an excellent editorial on the topic on the MnCSE site, entitled Dancing with the Disco Institute.
gregladen | December 14, 2007I must say, that when I was asked to be a Scibling, one of the "cons" was switching from an open source platform that I was very familiar with (WordPress) to a non-Open Source platform (Movable Type). But when I looked into it, I found out that there was a plan to switch Movable Type to open source. Well, the day has arrived.
As of [Dec 12th 2007] and forever forward, Movable Type is open source. This means you can freely modify, redistribute, and use Movable Type for any purpose you choose.
...
Like many of us on the team, some of you have been waiting for this moment for years. For a…
gregladen | December 14, 2007Dec 14
George Washington dies, 1799
Dec 14
Bonne fête aux Odile !
Dec 15
Argo Merchant oil spill, 1976
Dec 15
Bill of Rights adopted, 1791
Dec 15
James Naismith invents basketball, Canada, 1891
Dec 15
Sitting Bull shot in head while submitting to arrest, 1890
Dec 15
Statue Day in the Netherlands Antilles
Dec 15
Thomas Edison receives patent on the phonograph, 1877
Dec 15
Aujourd'hui, c'est la St(e) Ninon.
Dec 15
N'oubliez pas les Nina !
Dec 15
Bonne fête aux Christiane !
Dec 15
Aujourd'hui, c'est la St(e) Christina.
Dec 15
Waffenstillstand zwisch RuÃland und…
gregladen | December 14, 2007... and so on and so on people argue. But they are both right, it is a snake, and it is a programming language. I want to talk about the programming language now. We'll deal with the snake another time. (and boy, do I have snake stories....)
Python is an interpreted computer language, also known as a script language (being a script language and an interpreted language are not necessarily the same thing, but Python is both). I never met a computer language I didn't like and I also never met a computer language that wasn't somehow superior to all other languages according to someone, for…
gregladen | December 14, 2007Yesterday, in an Australian Court, Englishman Alexander Christian York was sentenced to Five Years max for the stabbing death of Scottish biochemist Rudi Boa during an argument over evolution. The argument happened in January of Last Year. York, traveling alone, and Boa, with his girlfriend, were backpacking in Blowering Holiday Park, near Tumut, New South Wales, when Boa suffered mortal wounds at the hand of York.
Tumut is a tourist destination at which visitors pick fruit, and stay in tents and trailers. York and Boa, together with Boa's girlfriend Gillian Brown, were neighbors in the…
gregladen | December 13, 2007Sorry about the O'Reilly video, that must have been difficult to look at. So, to make you feel better, have a look at this:
gregladen | December 13, 2007
You are right, Bill. We don't care about Christmas. We simply believe that no religion should be in the public square. Finally you get it.
gregladen | December 13, 20071. w00t (interjection)
expressing joy (it could be after a triumph, or for no reason at all); similar in use to the word "yay"
w00t! I won the contest!
[source]
gregladen | December 13, 2007The rock formation depicted here is believed to have been built by the giant Fin McCool (a.k.a. Fionn Mac Cumhaill) as a causeway to Scotland allowing the giant Benandonner to cross over so the two could engage in a competition of strength. However, a newly formed group called the "Causeway Creation Committee" now asserts that the rock formation is the result of the Noachian Flood.
From the Causeway Creation Committee's web site:
In the interests of the truth and equality the Causeway Creation Committee desires that any new visitor centre at the Giant's Causeway should include a display and…
gregladen | December 13, 2007The University of East Anglia and the Met Office's Hadley Centre have released their global temperature estimates for the present year, in preliminary form.
IT turns out that this is the seventh warmest year since 1850. Furthermore, the eleven warmest years since 1850 have all occurred during the last 13 years.
In other words, it is now .. this year, this decade, this month, etc. ... the warmest it has been since we've started keeping direct temperature records.
Even conditions that tend to cool the atmosphere, such as the La Nina event we are currently experiencing, have not caused a…