Weirdness
pharyngula | December 15, 2010Face it. Star Wars sucked. Even the original movie, which I remember fondly and vastly enjoyed watching, was horribly written — that George Lucas did not have an ear for dialog, and once he drifted away from a simple mythic archetype couldn't put a plot together to save his life, was something that became increasingly evident throughout the series.
And Star Trek? Embarrassingly bad science, hammy acting, and an over-reliance on gobbledygook and the deus ex machina. There was maybe a small handful of episodes that were more than cheesy dreck.
So why do people adore those shows so fanatically?…
pharyngula | December 14, 2010Last week, the CNN Belief blog published some transparently inane pseudoscience from Oprah.com; this week, it's publishing some awesomely trivial tripe about where your dog goes after death (how does the author know they go to heaven? He dug up some Bible verses, of course.)
This is amazingly bad stuff. It's as if there is some sneering, mocking atheist who has been put in charge of CNN's religion section, and she gets up every morning on a quest to find whatever will make religion look profoundly stupid…and she succeeds three minutes after going to work, and spends the rest of the day…
pharyngula | December 14, 2010I find myself wrestling with the meaning in this story of an epic struggle of worldviews.
A dispute over the existence of God between four Russians drunk on a litre of pure alcohol resulted in the death of two of the drinking buddies, news agencies reported on Monday.
The disagreement began at the weekend when the female house owner, her son, a male roommate and undisclosed male relative drank the litre of pure alcohol, "which they downed with snow," a police investigator told RIA Novosti.
First, I'm wondering whether downing 250mL of 190 proof alcohol improves one's philosophy, or renders…
pharyngula | December 13, 2010And look at this holiday cake:
What makes it look even more delicious is the thought that Bill Donohue would find it sacrilegious and in violation of his traditional American Christian iconography.
pharyngula | December 9, 2010It's got to be rough. On the one hand, you've got monsters like Tucker Max or Joe Francis (the Girls Gone Wild guy) hitting on you hard, expecting you to respond with instinctive lordosis so they can grapple you in amplexus; and on the other hand you've got the Nice Guys, who think that buttering you up with smarm will generate exactly the same response. Jezebel provides us with an example of the latter behavior. This guy is creepy, be warned.
So, whatever happened to the idea of just treating women as people?
pharyngula | December 6, 2010I just finished off one big chunk of grading, and on this exam, as is my custom, I give students a few bonus points with an easy question at the end. It is also my custom every year to have one of those easy questions be, "Name a scientist, any scientist, who also happens to be a woman," just to see if they've been paying attention.
About 10% of the class leave it blank. C'mon, it's a free 2 points on a 100 point exam! Over half the time, I get the same mysterious answer: Marie Curie. We do not talk about Marie Curie in this class at all, and it's always a bit strange that they have to cast…
pharyngula | December 6, 2010The latest xkcd is an odd one. I know some people freak out a teeny tiny bit at the thought, but it never bothers me.
I'm a first child, and I calculated back when I was conceived, and estimate that it was almost exactly the day of my parents' wedding — which was an elopement. The two of them ran off at a young age to Idaho where they didn't need to get parental permission to marry, and right away they had me. I find that wonderfully romantic and have always had the knowledge that my parents loved each other very much (and were also a bit crazy and impetuous and careless…well, and also loved…
pharyngula | December 5, 2010They might be stirring in their graves and preparing to rise to do battle. A medical researcher named Tai has published a method that he has called "Tai's Model", which is "a mathematical model for the determination of total areas under curves from various metabolic studies".
I think — now I am a mere biologist, so this might be beyond my feeble gooey brain — that I vaguely recall doing something sort of similar to this many, many years ago, as a way to approximate an integral, and it might be something like 350 years old. I guess we've forgotten.
By the way, I've discovered a marvelous and…
pharyngula | November 27, 2010I'd love to visit Mars, especially if I could go with some dolphins. And now, for a mere $1550, I could attend the Dolphins & Teleportation Symposium 2011 and learn how to teleport!
This Workshop will include interspatial communication, quantum merging, E.T contact, teleportation to Mars, swimming in gentle waters with dolphins, sound healing, heart opening, cell activating, soul leadership, your planetary mission, laughter and humor, divine feminine, Geomancy, higher consciousness, the transformation of the ages, sacred wisdom societies, Martian life & artifacts, creating new…
pharyngula | November 27, 2010I think more scientists should be in GQ. Larry Moran exhibits both style and craftsmanship with his handmade haberdashery.
Now you might think I should be envious — I should have such panache! — but the tinfoil cone simply isn't my way. Here in the frigid North, unlike temperate Toronto, such a device would refrigerate our heads, and we turn to fashions with élan and insulation.
Now you know why I get written up in Playboy and Larry doesn't.
Of course, some people have a boot fetish instead. It's very impractical: no way could you wear those and two pairs of thick woolen socks at the same…
pharyngula | November 17, 2010But I have resisted! Somebody has been to Minnesota, though, where many do not.
Except…a Vikings fan rooting for Favre? He's going to hell whether he gets the mower or not.
pharyngula | November 11, 2010This is a message from Simon Singh:
This week is the first anniversary of the report Free Speech is Not for Sale, which highlighted the oppressive nature of English libel law. In short, the law is extremely hostile to writers, while being unreasonably friendly towards powerful corporations and individuals who want to silence critics.
The English libel law is particular dangerous for bloggers, who are generally not backed by publishers, and who can end up being sued in London regardless of where the blog was posted. The internet allows bloggers to reach a global audience, but it also allows…
pharyngula | November 10, 2010I thought at first that this was some subtle photoshop humor — no one would seriously write a book with that title and that cover, and putting George Reker's name on it is just hilarious.
But what do you know…it's a real book, wide stance and all that wood and all.
pharyngula | November 9, 2010He's a funny guy, but I'm still completely baffled by Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity. He supposedly addressed his many critics last night; somebody tell me what it means, other than that it was an amusing self-deprecating schtick.
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
MSNBC Suspends Keith Olbermann
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes
Political Humor
Rally to Restore Sanity
It still doesn't answer the question! He is aware that there's a problem of perception here:
I do think the rally was about something, just not necessarily what they…
pharyngula | November 8, 2010In Australia, it's Movember, when all the real Australians grow moustaches. I've never before heard "moustache" abbreviated as "mo", but I guess there are things I have yet to learn about Antipodean accents.
Anyway, it's all for a manly cause, too, to support research into prostate cancer and other men's health issues, by gathering donations to reward gentlemen for doing what ought to come naturally to them, sprout hair on their upper lip. I've receive a couple of requests to endorse individuals cultivating lady ticklers, befborstels, and fanny dusters, but I'm just going to encourage every…
pharyngula | November 1, 2010This is probably the nerdiest thing I've been sent in oh, two or three days.
pharyngula | October 28, 2010Of all the disciplines to use for science-based pick-up lines, why would you pick chemistry?
This is one of the many virtues of biology: an authoritative knowledge of anatomy and physiology is much more persuasive.