Weirdness
pharyngula | September 21, 2011I'm not going to post this email I received, simply because it is insanely long, 15,000 words of random caps and peculiar color changes. Just to give you a taste, this is the subject line:
Subject: SCIENCE, AND THEOLOGY {{ Cogent Word for the 100's of new ears in Science and theology we contacted/called last week around earth }} CHIMERISM, deaths/Wolbachias/satans attack upon Adams Society, ULtra Microbic Life Force/death Force --- How does the Harlot called death ride Adams children and cause death and aging??? Listing below --- {{ A Brief Word on obamas Buffet taxes, and Word that all most…
pharyngula | September 19, 2011Remember: it's International Talk Like a Pirate Day.
I have to give a lecture on the evolution of the nervous system today. I don't think I can do it with a plethora of "arrr's" unless I drink a lot of rum first.
(Also on FtB)
pharyngula | September 12, 2011It's a new beer with some unusual characteristics.
Only 12 bottles were brewed, and they sold for $765 each.
It had an alcohol content of 55%. Can you even get that without distillation? Does it even count as a beer? Does it taste like beer?
It comes in a unique bottle wrapped in preserved roadkill.
It's an interesting combination, not one element of which gives me any desire to drink the stuff.
(Also on FtB)
pharyngula | September 5, 2011Not really, but if you feel like it, go ahead and record it. There's a contest for the best interpretive dance of your Ph.D. project (here are some past winners). Easy, right? Perform your dance, record it and submit the video, and maybe you'll win $500, a trip to Brussels, and eternal fame and glory.
(Also on FtB)
pharyngula | September 5, 2011I need a battalion of these. Only question: do I hold them in reserve for my bid for world conquest, or do I succumb to temptation and use it in the classroom to intimidate the students?
(via io9)
(Also on FtB)
pharyngula | September 1, 2011The same guy who made the Teach the Controversy shirts has a new line, Monsters of Grok, in the style of rock band t-shirts…only in this case, they're shirts for scientists and philosophers. I admit, the Darwin shirt didn't grab me, but I could see wearing a nice stark jangly ad for David Hume.
(Also on FtB)
pharyngula | July 26, 2011Here's a perfectly appropriate prayer to start a NASCAR race: he thanks God for GM performance technology, and Ford, and motor oil, and Goodyear tires…he must be hoping for a little kickback from auto suppliers. Aww, it's funny, anyway.
pharyngula | July 23, 2011Christian knees are trembling, sensing imminent doom brought on by juvenile fantasy literature. Which is ironic, considering that they worship a big sloppy book that fits perfectly into the genre. Anyway, first there was the Harry Potter series, which turned all the teenagers into Wiccans (what?); then there was the Twilight series, that has led to an upsurge of teenagers drinking blood (I missed that one, too). What next?
Think carefully: What might happen if a "third wave" of popular entertainment inspires gullible teenagers to seek possession by demonic entities, thinking it's good for…
pharyngula | July 21, 2011This video may not be to everyone's taste — it's pretty awful. This is an octopus dish served in Hakodate, in which the poor raw cephalopod is presumably dead, but when soy sauce is poured over it, it's triggered to writhe its tentacles.
I do not approve. Either it's cephalopod torture if it's still alive, or soy sauce is the secret ingredient for zombie reanimation*. And then…no one eats zombies. That's just disgusting.
*I am considering adding a new suggestion to my funeral instructions, though.
pharyngula | July 19, 2011Perhaps you've wondered about the true and factual foundations of fairy tales other than the biblical ones. It turns out that the reasoning of theologians is universally applicable!
It is time to set the record straight, and affirm the historical Truth of the Goldilocks narrative. I intend to show that it is overwhelmingly more likely that the Goldilocks story is literally true than not, and not only does it constitute Warranted True Belief, it is *necessarily* true in a deep ontological and cosmological sense, i.e. if the G3B model was any different, our universe would be deeply inimical to…
pharyngula | July 18, 2011A reader ran my name through one of those bible code programs — you know, those really silly exercises in goofy divination that juggles lines of the bible around to find some arrangement that reveals words and phrases — and it turns out I'm in there. See?
Gosh, I guess the Bible must be true then.
Then the next step in this program is that it extracts a numerically related verse, somehow, that tells you deep things about the word in question. This is me:
Respect my biblical authoritah! My very, very tired biblical authoritah…we got home from TAM at 4am, which means my brain is almost…
pharyngula | July 16, 2011It's been a strange weekend.
Everyone is wearing Randi-esque, long white beards.
I ran across a delegation of Norwegians in the lobby.
This was dinner.
I need to sleep someday.
pharyngula | July 16, 2011This is just kind of sad, but it's something I've seen several times (Ed "Old As Coal" Conrad, the Seazoria guy): someone sees random clutter in some collections of rocks, perceives a pattern, and charges off, convinced that they have discovered amazing fossils of improbable creatures. In this case, the fellow has found mottled patterns in seashore rocks, and a few old bones, and has decided that he has uncovered a treasure trove of pterodactyl skeletons. He has also decided that these nondescript lumps must be worth a lot of money: $100,000.
Pterodactyl with Tail's, Pterodactyl's,…
pharyngula | July 9, 2011The town of Bolungarvik, Iceland has been engaged in a lot of public works construction projects, like a new road and building a barrier to protect them from avalanches. Unfortunately, there have been delays and accidents, and they've decided what's causing the problem: Elves. Pissed-off, cranky elves.
Some people pointed the finger of blame on angry elves who had finally snapped. The dynamiting for the town's new avalanche defence barrier comes less than a year after a new road tunnel through the Oshlid hill was completed — neither of which with the prior blessing of the hidden people.…
pharyngula | July 6, 2011There goes another dream. The department store has a very strict dress code for its employees.
Full makeup at all time: base, blusher, full eyes (not too heavy), lipstick, lip liner and gloss are worn at all time and maintained discreetly (please take into account the store display lighting which has a 'washing out' effect).
I don't even know how to do that! I could try, I suppose, but my only role models lead me to suspect I couldn't pull off the 'discreet' part.
Oh, wait…only the female employees have to cover up their natural hideousness with artificial cover-ups. I guess we men are just…
pharyngula | July 6, 2011I got an email from someone requesting advice. I can't imagine how he thought of me when in this situation.
There's a group of geocentrists -- specifically, these guys -- who are trying to film a documentary, and they want to interview my advisor, Dragan Huterer. A couple of months ago, they contacted Dragan under false pretenses: they said they were filming a documentary on modern cosmology. They were interested in coming to a conference and interviewing Dragan. We had no reason to suspect anything strange until just before the conference, when one of the people running the film company made…
pharyngula | July 6, 2011I may have created a monster. I was sent this illustration by Martin aka Evader, with full permission to use it freely in any commercial venture…I have become kawaii!
I am curious what the characters at the bottom say, though — "PZ is a poopyhead"?
pharyngula | July 4, 2011Sadly, an Indian health minister has gone on record calling homosexuality a "disease".
For the Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, men having sex with men (MSMs) is not only "unnatural" but also a "disease."
According to Azad, "this disease has come to India from foreign shores", and Indian society needs to be prepared to face it. Unfortunately, he said, the number of "such people" is increasing by the day.
All gay people are alien immigrants from Gaydonia, I guess, and no natives of the subcontinent could possibly be gay. Unless maybe they're from Pakistan.
I think we could make a…
pharyngula | July 1, 2011Weird ideas can flourish if enough people share a false preconception, and here's a marvelous article on the history and philosophy of widely held certainty that other planets were inhabited by people. Not just any people, either: good Christian people.
By the 1700s, there could no longer be any doubt. Earth was just one of many worlds orbiting the Sun, which forced scientists and theologians alike to ponder a tricky question. Would God really have bothered to create empty worlds?
To many thinkers, the answer was an emphatic "no," and so cosmic pluralism - the idea that every world is…
pharyngula | June 30, 2011Now here's a criminal abuse of my youth: the Archie comics were written for a time by a demented fundamentalist. How crazy, you might ask? Read his comic book explanation of the Rapture. That is some insane stuff.