I'm in Syracuse. I had a hellish trip trying to get here yesterday, and now I have to catch a 6am flight back home. I had a grand time with the nice people here last night (including Hank Fox and Carl Buell), but now I have to remain conscious until I get aboard my plane, which feels like it won't be easy.
At least I'll be getting home early today! Find something to talk about, I'll be back in action later.
More like this
So here I am, stuck at the airport with no internet connection. Don't ask me why. I am showing a signal, but this has been the Trip from Hell, so I'm not surprised. It should have been easy. One hour flight time, nice hotel on the waterfront, all day meeting with interesting people discussing…
After staying with us for about a month, ScienceGrandma is now on the plane flight back to her home. Last night was our first night without her. Below the fold, a few reflections on living with three generations under one roof.
I am happy to be returning to the master bedroom and bath, which we had…
I'm in the airport about to board my plane. I'd forgotten how wonderful it can be to fly without a child. I'm looking forward to actually getting some work done on the flight rather than just trying to appease and entertain a squirming baby in a cramped middle seat. I think I may even have an aisle…
Okay, I'm back. Did I miss anything?
England ended up being a lot of fun, though it didn't start out that way. For reasons I won't try to explain here, Dominic and I took different flights. His landed early. Mine was two hours late.
We had flown through the night, so it was now early Monday…
I'm bored.
What does one do when atheistic and accidentally awake at 10am on a Sunday?
Yeah, i kind of figured but then got all rift-y anyhow.
Apologies.
But not for the Albert Ayler.
(Please don't post Billy Idol.)
I usually do computer maintenance/hard drive back-up. Except, I am up at 6 every day.
Thanks for the China Doll.
Suzanne Vega does a nice cover of that one, but it's seemingly unavailable via youtube.
Here's her version of "Cassidy" though.
everybody happy?
Go back to sleep?
I suppose you could pop a baby in the oven so that it'll be nicely cooked in time for lunch.
#497 - iambilly - Ah, the mystery is answered. My external hard drive for the laptop did not crash! You stole it! (laughing) Really, I swear what you listed looks like my Winamp playlist and pretty much in the same order.
And for what it is worth for the music wars, I like being surprised by a music selection. Always easy enough to just click off.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-CT56FASUg
...it's only fractured. Just a little nervous from the fall.
I think Jerry gets a disproportionate share of the credit for his repertoire. Hunter's lyrics give a sense of timelessness to the whole body of work. Without Robert, Jerry would be reduced to endlessly noodling over cover tunes. IMHO.
(Not that Jerry can't play the shit out of a cover.)
On the subject of "mice are nice", I forgot to mention this yesterday, more precisely the third picture and the bracketed text above it. Are the house mice of the London Underground a separate species (under some species concept), the way its mosquitoes (Culex molestus) are?
Heh. The literal German translation of "literally", buchstäblich, means "utterly, but metaphorically". I don't think I've ever seen it in a non-metaphorical context. If you actually want to say "I'm not being metaphorical here", the word to choose is wörtlich, literally "wordly" (..."verbally"?), or even the strange doubling wortwörtlich. Wörtlich is also used to describe exact quotes.
Language is mostly metaphor anyway. Start with the two meanings of back for a very obvious example...
Sounds awesome (I had read about C-Y manifolds before), though the math soars way over my head. But, yes, do trademark it.
Ehem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarusian_language
Not the same thing. Though I bet it works with Russian, too, nowadays.
Because it's shown to the public every 10 years.
Hee.
Soccer is a lot more heterosexual, especially now that so many women have started watching it the players on TV.
Maybe.
There are lists of fucking everything and anything on Wikipedia. Sadly, no articles with the names "List of lists on/in Wikipedia" exist. :-(
<suit & tie> I bet the "constantly" part tends to be counterproductive. <raised index finger>
Spoiler follows:
THE STORK COMES.
FOR GREAT JUSTICE.
There's one rap I'd like to hear, the one in Lakhota. (Ejective consonants are as if made for rapping!) Was mentioned in the linguablogosphere a few years ago, I can't find it with reasonable time investment.
LOL!
But... you're on the Internet. You can never be bored again. :-) Click on somebody's blogroll and get lost in it!
If you lean on Wikipedia too heavily you may end up with a list.
Joke:
I went to the doctor the other day. He told me I had to stop masturbating.
"Why?" I said.
"Because I'm examining you."
...instead of endlessly noodling over his own tunes?
Favorite comic from lang ago: Garcia, playing with closed eyes, and the thought-baloon: "I'll just keep jamming until I can remember the words."
But, yeah, totally agree--Hunter's lyrics make the songs what they are, whether that deep sincere heart-of-the-human-experience bitterweet thing that only Garcia could pull off, or the streams of trippy imagery.
David:
Apparently, my mind is going. When I read that, I immediately began to wonder about the Linnaean species description for a Roman Catholic priest.
Parvulus molestus?
Tenerpuer oppugnus
Jadehawk:
Call my boss, apologize and tell him I'm on my way to work?
Sven: I dunno, Rebel Yell isn't too bad. I can listen to that once or twice. A month.
Jeffrey D: My approach to music is similar to my approach to history -- I keep going back until I can find the actual root of an idea. So, in high school, I went Bob Dylan to Woody Guthrie to the Asche recordings. I went from the Dead Kennedy's to the Beatles to (eventually) rockabilly/folk. It gets weird sometimes. Right now, I'm reading Georges Duby's The Three Orders to help me understand the tripartite division of French society at the beginning of the French Revolution.
David: When in elementary school in Arizona, some of my classmates were Havasu, Hopi and Navajo. Sometimes they would sing some of the children's chants (rap?) which I found both beautiful and mildly frightening. I can't picture it done as rap, though.
Theocritus impregnus?
Pontifex ignorus?
Bacon-fueled orgy?
Just an FYI for any of the Deadheads here. I have (almost) every single Grateful Dead show ever recorded (with very few exceptions) on a hard drive. It's about 350 Gb in Ogg-Vorbis. If anyone is interested in getting a copy, let me know and I'll post some contact info. Mail me a drive and I'll mail you back some love.
Feynmaniac | April 11, 2010 2:21 AM:
And among Democrats and those who lean Democratic, capitalism and socialism both receive the same 53% positive rating. More evidence the Democratic rank and file is left of its leadership.
boygenius... that would make me the best daughter ever. Hey, you can contact me through my blog, website, or at firstname@firstnamelastname.com because that's pretty obvious right?
Hypocrita maximus?
Caelibatus insanus?
Taedium buzzkillius?
Juvenis removeo?
Ol'Greg,
Sent you an email. Get back with me.
hmm, that would make an interesting possession
AUD? SBD? or mixed?
I don't see it. Could you try phthalocyanine at sbcglobal dot net?
Sven,
Some are AUD, some are SBD, some are Matrix. Many, many shows are duplicated with the best available copy of each format.
One of my favorite things to do is listen to the SBD of a show and then listen to the AUD. Or vice-versa.
Ol'Greg,
Better?
Yay! I uploaded my little video :D I've been up since 4 for that. It actually was really cool.
Oh, you are hardcore.
You know about this blog, I guess? Major AUD proponent.
Oh I don't know why this needs to be so hard!?
Maybe you should give me some way to contact you and we can try it the other direction!!!
Yes, of course. I love the GDLG. A very astute ear and a voluminous knowledge of the source material. AUD shows have their charm, you get the ambiance and whatnot. SBD's give you the crisp, clear sound. It's like choosing your favorite flavor of orgasm. Innit?
Elwood, perhaps shoot me an e to svendimilo at gmail dot com?
I happen to have just the drive.
Many thanks.
Ol'Greg,
Try my handle at cableone.net
China Girl-Iggy Pop
Perfect Day-Kirsty MacColl
The Passenger-Siouxsie And The Banchees
Sven,
Done and done.
Completely forgot to mention what the Austrian TV news said about the Polish government plane crash.
The correspondent from Smolensk thinks that Kaczyński himself ordered the pilot to land. No pilot in their right mind would try to land four times in that kind of weather, with the tower recommending against it all the time, and Kaczyński is said to have already done this twice in similar situations, once threatening to throw a pilot out (...whatever that means on a plane... out of where exactly?), and once telling another "a Polish officer must have courage".
Also, the Tupolev is very heavy and difficult to control close to the ground.
so it was a form of Karma, after all: he was a fucking idiot, who did reckless things for idiotic reasons.
No surprise there, but it sucks extremely that he dragged others into death with him.
Fractured Skies-Parts & Labor
The Way Down-Comets On Fire
You're A Target-No Age
Spanish Bombs-The Clash
Ghosts Of American Astronauts-The Mekons
Stupid Competitions-The Ex & Tom Cora
Went out yesterday and discovered the crocus, barely starting here. Got my first shots up: http://moblog.net/view/927143/crocus
I cannot tell how much people on this site know - maybe all those who might be interested already know about this. But here goes ...
I have come across a magnificent paper about the Barringer Meteorite Crater in Arizona. The full paper is huge! 154 pages and a single pdf of 139 Mb (according to the site). It has 15 chapters and also a Bibliography. Each of the chapters (plus front matter and Bib.) are available as separate files. The full pdf downloaded without any problems.
Guidebook to the Geology of Barringer Meteorite Crater, Arizona (a.k.a. Meteor Crater)
by David A. Kring
©2007, Lunar and Planetary Institute
LPI Contribution No. 1355
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/publications/books/barringer_crater_guidebook/
It appears to be a superb position statement as of 2007 when it was presented to the 70th Annual Meeting of the Meteoritical Society August 2007.
I had been planning a trip to Arizona to see my son and daughter-in-law and I had dismissed the crater as being too obvious. I am changing my mind, based on the report. I would love to go down into the crater and see some of the geology exposed there - notes for 2 field trips (one on the rim and one to the bottom of the crater) are included as 2 of the chapters.
Excellent geological photos all through (obviously, not up to Lynna's standard of beauty - her photos aren't bad either).
If anyone is interested in meteorites and meteorite craters then this is where you will end up. And it's freely available.
Been up for 36 hours and must go to sleep. Leave requests for teh Vault here and I will reply on the flip-side.
#536 Caine, Fleur du mal
Thanks. Beautiful pictures!
Silver Song-Mellow Candle
The Sea-Fotheringay
The Poor Ditching Boy-Richard Thompson
Alan B, thanks! It's so good to see them, especially as the trees are still bare.
The symbolic value also sucks: Katyń has once again become the site of a Polish national catastrophe. A correspondent on the TV news said the best summary of the psychological impact is a newspaper title page he showed. It says "Przeklęty Katyń", declaring the place to be "cursed".
The decision to have all those people on the same plane (even the governor of the Central Bank) looks rather idiotic in hindsight, too.
Turn On The News-Hüsker Dü
Fairytale In The Supermarket-The Raincoats
Tape From California-Squirrel Bait
Common People-Pulp
Three Girl Rumba-Wire
Light From A Dead Star-Lush
#542
In sadness ...
We have the proverb, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket."
The UK Royal Family have understood and acted on this for decades:
http://europeanroyalty.blogspot.com/2007/12/royal-lifestyle.html
Back in the bad old days, when ships were made of wood and men were made of steel, the shanty "Leave Her Johnny" was sung at the end of the voyage. While the chorus was traditional the verses were tailored to describe the particular voyage. Since the crew was being paid and dismissed, they could sing whatever they wanted without fear of retribution from the officers.
The shantyman in this video is the late Stan Hugill, who served as the shantyman on the Garthpool, the last British commercial sailing ship (a Limejuice Cape Horner), in the 1920s.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znW01dlU0n0
@ 'Tis,
Why, you old sea dog, you made me think of my grandfather, my mother's father, whose name was Lutts. He was a ship's carpenter and in fact was aboard the last three-masted schooner to travel from New York to San Fransisco around South America before the Panama Canal opened.
A large picture of him aboard ship with his tool box used to hang in our house. Unfortunately the house burned down, portrait and all. Though I never met him I can't help but think that picture set me on the road to where I am today, working wood.
Ma never mentioned it but I'll bet the old feller new his share of shanties. Thanks for evoking the memory.
This Is Love-PJ Harvey
Sliding Through Life On Charm-Marianne Faithfull
Do You Take This Man-Diamanda Galás & John Paul Jones
Oh Janine I love everything in 548 so much! You just reminded me of how much I love Wire too.
P: MIA- Paper planes
Q:
The Avalanches - Frontier Psychiatrist
R:Jeanette-porque te vas
The Rat's international child rape mafia is now blaming the Jews, Bishop 'blames Jews' for criticism of Catholic church record on abuse:
I'll join in on the music conversation. I have a tendency to find underrated bands right before they split up. It keeps happening to me. I can't remember how many links I can put in a post, but three seems safe, so I'll split this up a bit (but I'll try not to overdo it).
First there was Stereomud
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYPBg3gzOPE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7MEiBcVFx8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiqJE8smldo
And then DoubleDrive. DoubleDrive and Stereomud both split up in 2003, after releasing two albums.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VylbaUciNEw
And then there was Revis who released one album '03 and then split up in '05.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zADtR4cElyE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pI_wNS9BkQ8
And then I saw Ligion at a concert and bought there album. They were an indie band, so I didn't hold my breath waiting for them to hit the big time. But I bought their album that night and followed them for a while until they split up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phHGgjUz-fQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAi_3Z34138
So when I first fell in love with this song (hard to find a good video of that one), I didn't imagine they'de become nearly as big as they have.
Chaos-Stump
Sail Away-Randy Newman
Friggin' In The Riggin'The Sex Pistols
@550 are we surprised?
The Jews did it is their oldest cop out.
Molly is really late this month.
Warning notice: D Mabus is trolling blogs again, leaving droppings behind. I just spent some time disinfecting my blog and editing out his comments. Slime mold.
Blue Oyster Cult and a Discworld cartoon - strange combo, my skull cup runneth over.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKxiLCMb6Q4
Some Catholics are comparing the criticism of actual crimes to the persecution of Jews. Others pull out the myths about why they persecuted the Jews. And Jews had nothing to do with any of this.
Is there any aspect of this story that does not turn the stomach?
Seeing the Catholic Church being wrung through the media?
And time for bed, so leaving you with a personal favourite, Pete Seeger doing L'Inernationale in French.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHNsRZ8iqFc
Nite all
Pirate Jenny-Ute Lemper
Then Comes Dudley-The Jesus Lizard
Machine Gun-Portishead
Seeing the Catholic Church being wrung through the media?
I would much rather see it shrink away because people are tired of the horrors it has caused instead of this.
So would I, but still... would you turn down a present because it wasn't the particular present you were after?
Sorry, Kel, but that is a rather bad analogy.
Caine, Fleur du mal @536: Great pics of the crocus. Thanks.
Here's an appropriate poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay
SPRING
To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death
But what does that signify?
Not only under the ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.
#563 Kel... consider the whole scenario dude.
I don't think you mean it that way, but damn.
Can the Catholic Church ever really come apart? - Menyambal
I heard a Catholic apologist on BBC radio, pooh-poohing the idea that this was the RCC's worst crisis since the Reformation: nonsense, what about the French Revolution? the apologist said. So when their own spinners can't think of anything more recent than the 1790s to compare with the current upheaval, it's looking pretty bad for them!
Lynna:
Thank you, Lynna! :)
Never mind the present - what about the atrocities of the past?
But since ya'll like music - how about Little Feat:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEOlTZGuLKM
Saw 'em live, twice. Once supporting "The Who". Sigh.
That's my beef with the incident as well.
I saw headlines to the effect that Danish pilots had guessed at VIP pressure being a significant factor in the crash.
I hope it shows up on the recordings. It'd be a fitting memorial to a vile man.
Mention of Little Feat brings to mind Little River Band and "Cool Change":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bKwRW0l-Qk&feature=related
I like the video as much as the song.
Will teh Roman Catholic Church endure literally forever?
Clearly, no.
When will it end?
Why not now?
Needs more cowbell.
now we're talkin
That's Lowell George:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrCMlSWlDX8
btw, we are cloding in lazily on 40K for the Total Thread Count.
According to the current accounting (ahem), post # 661 in this subThread will be # 40,000 Threadwise.
39914
that's right;
"cloding"
The following link is to a youtube video of the Cannonball Adderley Quintet doing their hit "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy." Thank you for your attention.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRrFWp4DUho
85 more to go! Which is to say semiprime capacity (17x5). I actually had a rather irreverent Easter, setting up a list of 666 semiprimes, as the clock turned and lo! It was Zombie Jesus Day
Sven@575: I see. Your comment at 72 must have been late, missed by one. Dear me, i have been under false pretense this whole time.
82 instead (still semiprime, 41x2)
Ahoy Pharyngulites!
Just back from a too-quick business trip to Atlanta, and jonesing for my Pharyngulite fix. No time at all to hop on the computer, and spent more time on airplanes than at actual meetings. Thank providence for X*n*X [Second post submission - apparently spelling out the name of this blessed benzo tranquilizer triggers a spam filter]
Oh, and damn those Georgia Sunday blue laws. Damn them.
So glad to be back home in New England (not just for the booze, mind).
Have I missed any exciting/facepalming threads?
Josh, glad you're back home to comfort and booze. ;D
Well...I was called a causehead (which I assume is supposed to be some sort of insult) on the Sunday Sacrilege thread, because I brought up a.human.ape's vile homophobia via a direct link to his/comment in that vein.
So, no. No excitement.
I spent this evening on some weird wikiwalk and landed on the page about Australosphenida. I had somehow managed to miss the theory of two independent origins of tribosphenic molars for monotremes and therians. Now I've got some research to do while I still have access to a university library.
Anyone 'round here know more about this idea? I'm inclined to disagree with it, simply because it seems unlikely that tribosphenic molars would have independently evolved in two separate mammalian lines.
I'm watching "Avatar", it's ok so far, I guess a good bit of the movie's success was due to the optics, whch don't come across on a 22" monitor, but even without that it's not bad, predictable and cliche at times, decent entertainment tho.
Haha - I love Rachel Maddow.
*shrug* Coupla extra bumps on a tooth? The diagrams I've seen make them look rather different.
Far less likely, it seems to me, is the independent evolution of the middle-ear bones that was being talked about a few years ago.
Here it is. Have people bought that story?
Looks like teh poor Thread has been nearly forgotten. Six lousy comments all night? Pitiful. We'll NEVER get to 40K at this rate, Uncle Zeno!
Sven, it's certainly momentarily languishing, but hey! quality is preferable to quantity.
+1
@Sven:
Maybe people sleep?
You must be american.
@Rorschach:
I certainly am.
But it doesn't mean people can't sleep at the same time! Afternoon naps, maybe? You don't have to sleep, but you have to close your eyes.
I could always anastomose another thread onto this one if the rate is inadequate...
Ugh, more typical "show both sides of the argument" pish on the BBC Website about the "Science behind the shroud of Turin"
Here is my response, Its rare to actually get printed on these things but you never know, please feel free to add your own attempts to point out how stupid the title of this article is compared to the content.
@Truckle:
Good response there. I can't honestly think people still believe the Shroud of Turin is real. But I guess people will believe things that 'prove' their versions of reality, even if they're later proven false or impossible.
Wow...
I was just reading up on DailyTech an article about the new humanoid bones they found. It's really stunning to read the comments therein and realize something.
I used to be one of those idiots spewing completely irrelevant information about evolution v. creationism and atheism v. Christianity. I was of the worst of the worst, too. I didn't just believe creationism, I was a young-Earth creationist.
Is it disingenuous in a conversation with a creationist to say that evolution doesn't necessarily mean that god doesn't exist?
Depends.
Insofar as it absolutely does mean their anthropomorphised guy-in-the-sky what-made-da-little-boids-an-strokes-dere-lil-feathers couldn't possibly exist in anything like the form they implicitly describe, I guess, sorta...
(/But then, seein' as there's some of 'em who shuffle that guy out of sight and substitute for him some vague quasi-intelligent equation/aether-field god what made-da-Hubble-constant at the first sign of someone calling them on their silly BS, it almost seems only fair, to me...)
Yessssss, massssster.
Thank you, masssster.
Sorry if I've just missed this, but what changed your mind?
I've never had to break from some deeply held ideology before to something so different.
Danish Brewery Takes Gold at Beer World Cup
At the World Beer Cup in Chicago, Illinous this weekend Nørrebros Brughus won two gold and one silver medal among 3330 different beers from 44 countries.
Our NPR station in Rexburg, Idaho is pimping the mormon site http://mormonscholarstestify.org/ like it was the answer to all questions, including the question of whether or not science and religion can be compatible.
The Rexburg-based NPR station does not interview anyone with an opposing view, nor does the station present the URL for the opposing site, which is http://exmormonscholarstestify.org/. The ex-mormon site will feature real scholars and put the vague ramblings of mormon "scholars" to shame. Unfortunately, the ex-mormon site is under construction. They have a great home page and it looks like its going to be good. In the meantime, I hope the ex-mormon scholars get that up and running soon, and that they can afford to pay for some Google ad words that steer searchers to their site instead of to the bogus-scholars, mormon site.
The Rexburg NPR station serves a big area, and it is presenting the mormon website as hard news, placing it within the All Things Considered daily news programs. Mormon testimony is not news, it's religious propaganda. This NPR station is a mormon propaganda machine. www.kbyi.org is the website, and the email is kbyi@byui.edu
Ex-mormon scholars Richard Packham and Simon Southerton will be featured on the rebuttal website (along with other scholars), and they have a lot of debunking material posted on their own sites. The ads-disguised-as-news on NPR radio are a new insult -- mormon leaders must think their website is now ready for prime time.
*ex-fundie fistbump for Kevin*
We're out there, man. More and more every day, which is a good thing. (and which makes me fume with rage when people say "you can't do anything about the zealots" and dismiss them all as unworthy of effort)
I once had a discussion with a creationist about evolution, and came up with what I thought was a good one.
Who is more amazing? A god who creates everything fully formed and functioning? Or a god who sets up a few parameters and pitches out a big blob of undifferentiated gunk that over billions of years unwinds exactly has he planned?
I used a comparison of a darts thrower sticking a bullseye from three feet away, or one doing a backhand eyes-closed carom shot from the pub down the street.
It didn't impress the guy.
Nor should it. Blind spot, backward retina, appendix, using the same tube for breathing and eating, the recurrent laryngeal nerve, reproduction and waste elimination all mixed up together, a brain frequently subject to all sorts of logical fallacies, a self-serving and all too often self-deceiving memory ... That's hardly a "bullseye". More like a throw that stuck into the wall just past the edge of the cork.
@Ol'Greg:
Well first, it required me to seriously start questioning my church and my beliefs. I couldn't reason away the fact the Earth looked as old as it is or the universe was as old as it was without also dropping my notions of Biblical infallibility.
So, instead of trying to fit the age of the Earth and the science of evolution into Biblical infallibility, I decided to question my ignorance of evolution.
Long story short, the Bible doesn't hold scientific truths well, and I decided to do something that most fundies don't - study and open my mind to rationality and skeptical thought.
@Carlie:
*ex-fundie fistbump back*
My family probably won't be the sort to 'switch-camps', but hey - I've not always been as analytical, rational, and scientific as I am now. Who knows?
PZ, might I ask you something?
When you ban a person, do you merely block the email and pseudonym? I have noticed that whenever a person is banned, they easily circumvent that ban by changing their name (and perhaps their email). Why not go for an IP ban?
I'm hoping this doesn't sound like an advertisement. (I know, terrible preamble.)
There is a teacher in North Carolina who is trying to raise money through DonorsChoose.org in order to purchase a Flexcam Microcam for her 7th and 8th grade biology students.
Unfortunately, her project request time is about to expire, and she is still about $600 short. I was thinking if we could rally the horde, we might somehow be able to Pharyngulate her project with small donations, and in turn strike a blow for science education.
The project can be found here: Seeing is Believing
Good point, lewelly. But I wasn't assuming that the world was perfect, I was just speaking of the world as it is, which the fundie guy did assume was perfect in other conversations.
The point at issue was only the getting here.
I could change the comparison to the dartists hitting the board at all, then, not a bullseye.
Good point, lewelly. But I wasn't assuming that the world was perfect, I was just speaking of the world as it is, which the fundie guy did assume was perfect in other conversations.
The point at issue was only the getting here.
I could change the comparison to the dartists hitting the board at all, then, not a bullseye.
Hi folks
I have following up on a story in the British press and the BBC about the use of xenon in treatment of babies who have been deprived of oxygen around the time of their birth. Apparently around 3 per 1000 with the risk of brain damage. I read somewhere this is about 1000(?) p.a.
One of the sources of the various reports is probably a news release from Bristol University:
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2010/6954.html
The method being investigated is cooling the brain alongside giving low doses of the rare, inert gas Xenon. The work is being financed by an organisation called "Sparks"
The work is being done by:
Source: https://www.sparks.org.uk/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=627
Bristol University is highly regarded in general in the UK so I must give the idea some credence.
According to Sparks:
I have a number of questions that those more involved in the medical side might be able to answer:
1) Xenon is a naturally occurring inert rare gas. How does it act as an anaesthetic? Presumably, it is not merely the reduction in oxygen level (this is what they are trying to treat).
2) Why use the inert gas Xenon when there are 5 to chose from (including Helium but excluding radon)? Argon is about 9000 ppm (c. 1%) in the atmosphere - Xenon is present in the atmosphere at 0.09 ppm. Argon, Neon, Krypton and Xenon increase in cost by an order of magnitude with Xenon the most expensive.
3) I have heard and read about using cooling of the brain in such cases (and for adults IIRC). What is the synergistic effect by which an inert gas adds to the effect already recognised to be effective?
Any thoughts? The Sparks site may have more info but I cannot see anything referenced back to the (peer-reviewed) literature.
You're in luck, Katrina. I got a GivingCard with my last thank you letter from DC.
Well, that wasn't meant to be a double post. Perhaps I was just hammering the dart's point home.
My apologies.
I've heard about using Xenon as a general anaesthetic before. I suspect it's that one because it's the heaviest (Radon is obviously a baaaaad idea). I'm not sure anyone really knows how it works - yet. And I seem to recall that that's true for a lot of the GAs.
Argon certainly doesn't have any physiological effect - it's used in deep sea diving to replace Nitrogen at great depths. Pretty hard to breathe because of the weight, I gather.
But we have physicians here as well as submariners, so presumably they know this a loooot better than I.
I sometimes do an IP ban. However, lots of people use addresses that are dynamically assigned, or are part of a whole bank of computers (such as at a university lab), and others use proxy servers.
I block on a couple of things which I will not talk about because that would tell people how to circumvent the ban!
I also always block on the registered ID, which is easiest. The galling thing here is that there are still a lot of people who have problems getting the various ID schemes to work, and at the same time we have people like the Piltdown cretin who easily get brand new IDs whenever they feel like taking a crap in a post.
Dynamic IP addresses are a commonly-cited reason not to ban by IP: The IP address will change over time; that is, it's not unique. Whilst you may be able to block the pool the nitwit's IP is allocated from, in doing so you block everyone who happens to be assigned IP-addresses from that pool (such as everyone from the same ISP). Not to mention the problems with nitwits changing ISPs (and hence, usually, IP-addresses / pools); ISP themselves merging, buying more IP-space, etc, etc, etc.
Proxys are another problem. Whilst I think this applies more to e-mail, it's common for all e-mail from a intranets to be presented to the intranet as coming from a single IP, not one of the zillions of IPs behind the firewall/etc.
Hah! Pee Zed's explanation crossed with my guess.
All of them, afaik. Anesthesia is a completely empirical art with no guiding knowledge of mechanism.
A little mormon science, for your edification (kudos to ex-mormon, Deconstructor, for collecting most of this info):
Joseph Smith taught that the Ten Lost Tribes had gone to the North Pole, as it used to be warm, but God divided the Earth in two and they wound up between Texas and Florida. Then God scooped them up, leaving a big hole called the Gulf of Mexico. And these millions of Hebrews are today on this island floating around in the solar system, but we can't see them because God has them flying at an angle where the telescopes can't pick them up. But one day the island will crash back into the Gulf and the earth will reel to and fro like a drunken man. See http://www.code-co.com/rcf/mhistdoc/enoch.htm for many scriptural and Joseph Smith prophetic references.
The Mormon God cannot destroy or create matter, he can only "reorganize" it. So the Solar System was formed from other previous creations. See Temple Endowment, The Contributor, Vol. 4, p. 257, and Joseph Smith As Scientist, p. 14.
There's more gold and mineral riches in Utah than the rest of the world combined. It's hidden from you because of a lack of faith. There's no need to go to California to pan for Gold, because God will reveal these riches to you when you are righteous enough. This was preached from the pulpit at the Tabernacle by the Prophet of the Church. See Journal of Discourses 1:264.
Coming up hard from behind, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour manages to reclaim the title of skeeviest state by his defense of Virginia Governor McDonnell. In reference to the Virginia Confederate History Month proclamation that at first ignored the slavery issue, Barbour said, "To me, it's a sort of feeling that it's a nit, that it is not significant, that it's not a — it's trying to make a big deal out of something (that) doesn't amount to diddly," Diddly. Slavery is diddly. As in “diddly squat” I presume (I speak Southern.)
Well, from the state that brought you the magic lesbian shell game prom I guess that is not big stretch. Diddly, I would say.
Kevin, you're certainly not alone. I was a YEC once, too. Not as fundirific as most, to be sure. I was baptized twice, though. Sprinkled at birth, dunked at 15. I'm glad I got away from it. And I'm glad you did, too.
Laputa? Are they going to tell us that these people float because of the power of Adamantite?
@KOPD:
Yeah - I was the same. Sprinkled and dunked. I was pretty hardcore for about 14 years, totally into the whole Christian thing. I guess I decided to put it away when I became an adult, realizing it was just a silly superstition.
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour:
Holy shit. I don't know what to say. That is such an incredibly outrageous statement.
Caine, Fleur du mal, I know, just kind of stuns you a bit does it not?
If anyone is interested, a diarist named psychbob over on Daily Kos has a nice pair of expositions on why slavery was the key to the Civil War. He does a much better job than the little bit I posted earlier in this thread. He has posted two of three parts so far. Here is the link to his work: http://psychbob.dailykos.com/
So much good food in the house, so little hunger... :-(
About Kaczyński, the free newspapers on the subway say the landing was outright forbidden by the airport. They go on to explain the previous event where he tried to force a pilot to land: they were flying to Azerbaijan in 2008, Kaczyński wanted to land in Tbilisi (for, presumably, some reason) and told the pilot "when you're an officer, you mustn't be a coward". That must be the same quote as "a Polish officer must have courage"... there are some loose translations going on here!
ROTFL!
(...Yes. In this day and age, this is only funny anymore.)
He's trying admirably hard, but I still had to stop after the first stanza. :-) The sound systems of English and French (the vowels especially) are just so different that it's very difficult to learn one if you've grown up using the other.
BTW, the lyrics are excruciatingly... lyrical. Literary, with lots of words nobody ever uses in conversation. Nowhere near the kind of language I'd expect from the working class of the 1870s! :-þ No comparison to the somewhat tacky The East Is Red.
Tooth characters are way overrated, because so many of them are correlated functionally and/or development-genetics-wise. Fake-tribosphenic molars, with the talonid analog on the front instead of the back side of the tooth, are already known to have evolved twice (in the docodonts and the shuotheriids).
Find me in Google Scholar and drop me an e-mail, and I'll send you a couple of pdfs. :-)
Turns out there seem to have been a few reversals where the articular didn't separate from the mid-Meckelian bone* anymore, even though the entire middle-ear apparatus didn't touch the dentary.
That said, there are australosphenidans with a trough on the dentary for the middle-ear bones. That includes even Teinolophos, which may already have had the platypus way of life judging from the size of some nerve canals in the jaw fragments we have.
Same offer, including Nature papers with nice pictures.
Actually, that's the sort of thing PZ should blog about. :-) I can of course give more explanations, but I have fewer pictures at my disposal, for one.
* The middle part of the Meckelian cartilage ossified in triconodonts. In some it's a completely separate bone, in others it's continuous with the articular.
There is one problem with the 14C dates: the samples were taken from a damaged part in order to damage the shroud as little as possible. Turns out the part in question had been repaired sometime, with dyed cotton rather than the original undyed but aged linen (linen is very difficult to dye). The ages – which differ by several decades, in extreme cases a century, between the adjacent samples! – are thus averages of the age of the linen and the age of the cotton.
Samples from an undamaged area have been taken. But... get this... the Church doesn't allow dating them!
On another note, you wrote "teqnique". That's rather overdoing it. :^)
The one hypothesis I've encountered, and that only once in a not very technical source (many years ago, completely forgot where), is that it's hydrophobic and therefore ends up in the middle of cell membranes.
Because xenon atoms are so huge, they actually push the two layers apart. This causes all manner of transmembrane proteins like ion channels to work less well than before, in other words, it shuts down nerve activity... and it's fully reversible.
Shorter Haley Barbour: Black people ain't shit.
Wish I could say you were wrong, Ol'Greg.
Ah well, time for a latish supper. Check in later.
ROTFL!
For the record, the Gulf of Mexico is Late Jurassic in age and formed when Yucatán broke off of North America as part of the process that formed the middle part of the Atlantic Ocean.
David M. @626: Thanks for dating the Gulf of Mexico. Late Jurassic in age? Then it's likely that some dinosaurs were scooped up with the Hebrews and are now floating around the solar system, eating Jews and proto mormons. (There might be something wrong with the timelines there ... I'm not sure. /sarcasm)
Speaking of mormons, they're very big in the cure-the-gays industry, as we know. Now an ex-mormon has gone undercover to explore the industry. Here's an excerpt:
Link: http://www.stinque.com/2010/04/12/my-journey-into-manhood/
That actually saddens me. It isn't right to do that to gay men. It's warped and is setting these men up for a lifetime of hurt in their intimate relationships. What could have been an expression of love between people has been twisted into some sick game by the Mormon church.
first sentence that popped onto my screen when loading the Thread. made me giggle immaturely.
Reminds me of a line I read in a profile of blog a while back: "Currently, I date rocks for a living. In my free time, I try to date men, but mostly I'm dating rocks these days."
Damned browser reloaded in the middle of composing my comment. How annoying. That's what I get for browsing while installing stuff. I'll try this again. I saw that Jadehawk had mentioned Cuttlefish in the Sunday Sacrilege thread and it reminded me that I'd been looking for a bookmark and can't find it. Might have just been on my work machine at the last job. A while back Cuttlefish posted a beautiful poem about death and mortality and I was wondering if anybody has a handy link. If not then I may be able to find it on my own, but it's so much easier to rely on this community's ability to pull out a relavent link to a comment from several months ago on short notice than it is for me to go searching the hard way. ;-)
People keep wishing me a happy birthday on Facebook but it's not my birthday yet.
Happy Birthday (early) KOPD.
Congratulations on almost surviving another orbit around Sol…
Why am I not surprised.
Why, in fact, do I even bother asking such rhetorical questions.
Success!
While you're giggling, here's a pick-up line: "I've lost my cell phone number, can I borrow yours?"
There's a cartoon showing how "a geologist dates a rock": two pictures showing a geologist sitting next to a rock on a bench, closer together in the second picture.
Thanks, almost.
What an asshole.
see, this is why I don't have a phone :-p
39977
[if comment # 638]
Jadehawk, excellent interpretation of David M. "dating the Gulf of Mexico." I guess it takes a really big body of wetness to fill David M.'s dating needs.
The ex-mormon's undercover story about the cure-the-gays industry includes a meeting and a "lunch date" with Caleb Brundidge, the guy who lectured all over Uganda right before the proposal of the Ugandan kill-the-gays bill. aratina cage is correct to say that the treatments designed to foster heterosexuality in homosexuals are dangerous. They're dangerous personally to the men who attend, and they're dangerous politically to entire societies. Not to mention the fact that the industry rips peoples off, practically stealing their money and giving nothing back; and not to mention the fact that they have no scientific basis for their therapy.
JeffreyD @ 622:
Yes. Treating slavery as a minor footnote and something those pesky non-white folks should get over is shocking. I'm not shocked people still think that way; I am shocked someone would say it out loud, on the record.
I'm beginning to think AJ Milne had the best idea: we get the sane people out of Mississippi, then build one damn big wall around it so the rest of them can't get out.
wasn't that the plot of the Simpsons Movie?
Does anyone know of any good websites for science/evolution bumper stickers?
Wow i'm so shocked i didn't miss the 40,000th mark yet!
bumper stickers:
http://www.evolvefish.com/fish/stickers.html
Someone drag my mind into the gutter, please. I don't quite understand. :-)
LOL!
"I was elected to lead, not to read"...
Jadehawk:
Yep, more or less. It was a dome. That wouldn't be a bad idea either. ;p
Judging from what we've seen of the, uh, less-than-sane citizens of Mississippi, I don't think we need a wall or a dome. I think a standard subway turnstile should be enough to keep them out. Hell, a revolving door may be more than a match for some.
What happens went Teh Thread collides with 40K? We stop congratulating KOPD on it not being his birthday? All the banned loonies get one free post? Sven has a starfart?
Anything more complicated than the door to Walmart.
Vatican forgives The Beatles for 'bigger than Jesus' comment Excerpt:
To drag David M.'s mind into the gutter (he did say, "please") I think the idea is that if you are dating the Gulf of Mexico, you are also fucking the Gulf of Mexico. If you are fucking the Gulf of Mexico, you are one busy guy -- that's a lot of dipping of your personal precious jewels if you intend to fuck the entire Gulf.
In the "Oh, NO!" category:
I've never, in my life, been in a Walmart (one of the many advantages of living in Europe), but don't they employ “greeters” who, I presume, open the doors…
(Or did I just misskill a joke?)
Interesting choice of bait and tackle. What's he fishing for? Sharks?
Bravo!
This just went all kinds of places in my mind.
What's the problem? We'll just fuck them do it and if it turns out they were under age, we can ask for forgiveness later.
Well, spent enough time being outraged today, and spreading it around. Think bed is calling my name. Maybe I will wake up and find that Mississippi was raptured during the night and is now sane.
Nite.
The "greeters" main task is shoplifting protection. Ergo, they are inside the doors. But by greeting incoming folks, they aren't obviously looking for shoplifters, like the guy at the stand near the door at Best Buy. They can also help a person who needs directions, free a cart from the stuck and jammed supply, and help make folks welcome to be fleeced. And it can be a good part time gig for a retired person (usually a man).
Yea, that occurred to me after I posted, along with the guess the doors are probably electric, sliding open with pleasant whoosh to joyfully greet your money, and then again later with a sad whine at your leaving. I presume that, after a few years training, the sheeple in question might be able to handle the tricky problem of entering a open doorway.
Why, it continues apace, of course.
That is what it does;
that is all it does.
Well, there is the "achieve sentience" thing, and the "fire all the nuclear missiles" reaction, but otherwise, yeah, it just keeps going.
40,000 Headmen
Ooh, Sven got the prize. A free tankard of seven day old grog, and a bacon, bacon, and bacon sandwich. *wearing bomb suit, hands fuming tankard and sandwich to Sven*
windy @655
LOL. All kinds of win there. I think we have considerably expanded our dating and/or fishing opportunities with this thread.
Yes, yes. Why is it important that it's a "body of wetness"?
X-D X-D X-D
When women get sexually aroused, they produce more secretions to lubricate the import areas. They become "wet".
And on that charmingly pedantic note, we bid adieu to yet another edition of the endless thread, and move on to another.