Episode CXIX: Do not expect to be raptured if you are into fornication

Germans do not jaywalk. Ever. (Or so I've been told, but it sounds about right.)

most definitely not true.

Good! So I won't need to restrain myself too much in Berlin. :-)

~:-| May I ask why?

because they're dumb as fuck and a pain in the ass to herd.

Is that enough to hate them? I gather he has had to herd sheep?

David, by my count, that was a 16-screener.

I have a laptop â a large, heavy one, but still.

If you're going to be all phonetic like that, I think you're going to have to start using <unvoiced linguolabial trill> ([r̼Ì]) instead of :-þ, from now on ...

I only mean to imply sticking the tongue out a little, not any airstream. :-)

I don't know any un-attached nerd-girls to hook David M. up with, though.

There don't seem to be many left. The demand for nerd-girls is high, and the market is free...!

Now I'm trying to get Mara (my non-Pharyngula friend who drove us up) to paint a lepospondyl on her Road Bug. She's not really the type, I suspect, but should I procure a Road Bug (which I'm going to add to my wish list!), it will have to have a lepospondyl on it, in addition to the circular tree of life suggested by Jack C.

:-D

Lepospondyls.

More lepospondyls.

Lepospondyls on Tet Zoo.

DaughterSpawn has made me promise that next time a creationist kid approaches us while we're in your company, I will stand back and allow nature to take its course. In-vivo education and/or troll stomping amid the fleece - who could ask for more?

I'm certain that DaughterSpawn can deal with creationists all on her own! :-)

Part of the way you do that is by thinking about how much of the truth you can express without driving your audience insane.

Does he think we all work at Miskatonic University?

Putting the win in windy, again and again and again...

99.9% percent of people wont go to heaven. Statistically your fucked. So you may as well be in this world. YAY!

Now I'm so waiting for an opportunity to use this argument. :-)

Third Eagle of the Apocalypse? Okay, I wanna play. Let's see, I'll be the 7th Monkey of the Secular Empire.

Anything is better than being the Grand Dragon With Nine Hydras. <duck & cover>

Dawn

And here I was wondering why someone female was called Don... <headdesk> X-)

Do you know who else has sex without condoms? HITLER!! http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,912018,00.html

Oho.

It's inherited from my grandfather. I wouldn't normally clothe myself in leather.

Ah. That accounts for the charming retro look. The color is good on you. I thought maybe you had gone shopping

<roaring laughter>

BTW, I asked. It's not from my grandfather, it's from someone else entirely, and only half a generation older than I.

Actually I also love David M's haircut and glasses.

I love also that it is all unintentional.

Heh. I have a lack of a haircut. I mean, the hairs are cut, but they just hang down vertically. :-)

However, <gently taking Ol'Greg's head with both hands and turning it a few degrees north> Walton is over theeeeere. And you can talk to him as soon as the day after tomorrow. :-)

God killed Onan because he was cheating Tamar out of her right to have a male child from her dead husband, via his family. The seed-spilling thing has always been explained to me as incidental to the real "I'm not going to give you what you're entitled to" misdeed.Owlmirror? Rashbam?

Tamar had rights?

I've read it's about Onan cheating his brother out of his posthumous right to have, if not a son, then at least a nephew from his own private incubator wife. Marriage in Leviticus is all about teh menz, isn't it.

@ David M - What else did I teach you besides spinning and the idea that you would actually be quite a catch for the right person?

Lots of things. For instance that the electricity lines are all above-ground in the USA. :-)

Sklodowska?

SkÅodowska. Also StanisÅaw Lem.

Hilleman became a scientist because as a youngster he read Charles Darwinâs On the Origin of Species, which had been overlooked by a committee bent on making the local library safe for Creationism. He grew up and developed more than forty vaccines. His sobriquet, given by his contemporaries, was âThe Man Who Saved Your Life.â Estimated lives saved: at least 20 million.

Awesome.

The possibilities are endless.

Quite. Norman Borlaug? Fritz Haber even?

Besides, Newton's birthday (or the night... before, I think) is Kurisumasu, the Japanese celebration of love and rampant consumerism. ^_^

It seems to me a lot of people could like DavidM, but rather the important question will/would be whether he can find some one *he* likes enough.

And whether that someone happens to be single at the moment.

I would also begin historical dates from the Julian Day count which begins on January 1st, 4713 BCE. This is as nearly culturally neutral a date as any, which also vaguely corresponds with the beginning of recorded history.

Failing that, I like the way years are counted in radiocarbon dating: 1950 is Present, and everything before that is BP (Before Present).

"South Harrow? Why, I remember it fondly. Frank McCourt spoke of it and his times in England often, on our long walks about the grounds at the prestigious high school where he taught me. I must email Ken Miller about this, posthaste!"

Perfect.

I've been reading a debunking of Luxenberg's scholarship of Semitic languages, here:

Apparently Luxenberg claims the dots of Aramic come from Syriac. (I haven't read the book.) If so, he may well be wrong indeed, but that's completely beside Luxenberg's own point about the fact that the dots were made mandatory for the Qur'Än decades after it was first written down. By that time, there were already fourteen different versions that persist to this day. Luxenberg is perfectly within his right to exploit the differences between these versions and to suggest even more (if that's what he's doing).

What's to make sense? Do you mean you're afraid of putting her off it as you attempt to help her out? Or are you afraid she'll grasp it so easily you'll be embarrassed? :P

I think it would make you father of the fucking year actually and be something fun you and your kid could do together. Just remember to let her do her thang. Show her some stuff, explain how it works, let her put her own together... awwww.... my heart is melting.

Seconded!

David M. may be pleased to learn that I've eaten much more than usual today. And now feel rather stuffed.

:-) :-) :-)

Shell scripts because you can replace many extraneous people with surprisingly brief ones...

:-D

In TV Tropes terms, I think TM has elements of the Jerk Sue, the Blood Knight, The Dreaded, and the Magnificent Bastard.

Win.

(And I estimate it took me an hour to figure that out. Why do I read TV Tropes in the middle of the night. ...Well, we all know exactly why, don't we.)

AJ Milne OM:

Re: Boe-Bot for your 10yo daughter...

It's not a bad deal, certainly a good start, the only thing I don't like about Parallax's offerings is that they "lock" you to a mainly "windows-only" world. I prefer more open systems.

With that said, you might want to look into a robot that uses the Arduino, or an Arduino-workalike (ie, where the microcontroller on the robot is an Atmel ATMega8/168/328).

The Arduino (and you may want to stick with the Duemilanove; the UNO was just released, and bugs are still being worked out - plus, with the UNO release, vendors are selling the older model cheaper).

Check out http://arduino.cc/ for details on the board and programming environment (which is C/C++, based around avr-gcc - oh, the whole enchilada is completely open-source - you could, for instance, buy a few minimal number of parts, and a ATMega, and breadboard an "Arduino").

Now - a programmable robot based around an Arduino? Let's see...

http://www.robotshop.com/robotshop-rover-arduino-basic-kit-6.html
http://www.robotshop.com/inex-arduino-compatible-pop-bot-kit.html
http://www.robotshop.com/dfrobotshop-rover-tracked-robot-basic-kit-10.h…
http://www.robotshop.com/dfrobot-complete-mobile-tank-platform-kit-3.ht…

Those are really the "tip" of the iceberg, so to speak (and if you look around, you might even be able to find the same kits cheaper - robotshop.com is a good vendor, mentioned often in Servo Magazine, but they tend to be on the expensive side of things).

Also - get signed up with the Arduino forums, and ask more questions there. Note, to be fair to the BOE-BOT, you could start with that, then later transition to the Arduino (and hook the Arduino up in-place of the BOE and Basic Stamp) if you wanted to, but there would be an attendant change-over and re-learning a new language that is different from BASIC. Also note that the forums are, in general, a very friendly place - we're happy to answer questions, especially when it comes to education. Many of the people on there have done some very amazing things with an Arduino - one guy harvested a field with his - he was a farmer needing to guide his combine in a field using GPS - yes, he did that with an Arduino (and a few other bits)! It is a board designed with artists and non-engineers in mind, for the most part. It may be the perfect thing for your child...

Then again - you might ask her what she is looking for in a "programmable" robot; maybe both the BOE-BOT or an Arduinobot is too advanced? Maybe Lego NXT would be a better starting point? Or maybe an OWI kit?