Room Lights May Boost Health
Frikken sweet! Using room-lights instead of radio for wireless networking? Cars talking to each other and to the road through their headlights and brake-lights?
Awesome!
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Getting the Monkey off Darwin's Back
Getting the Monkey off Darwin's Back (Skeptical Inquirer June/July 2005)
I must admit, I suffered under a couple of these misconceptions myself.
Definitely a good article to read if you're taking up arms in the struggle against Intelligent Design.
I must admit, I suffered under a couple of these misconceptions myself.
Definitely a good article to read if you're taking up arms in the struggle against Intelligent Design.
Coffee: Does a Body Good?
Coffee: Does a Body Good?
HA! I knew it!
I'm feeling a little free-radically, I'm gonna go pour me a cuppa joe.
"Coffee is the finest organic suspension ever devised." - CAPT Kathryn Janeway
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Surfing the lunatic fringe
I thought Sitchin was bad. I was right, but this guy is even worse.
He calls himself Rael, and he’s started his own religion (read “cult”), the Raellians.
He fancies himself a sort of modern-day Mohammed or Joseph Smith, having received the divine revelation from an alien who showed up one day when no-one else was looking.
His claptrap is clearly based on Sitchin’s theories, and he uses a lot of Sitchin’s warped biblical translations in his book “Intelligent Design”.
Like Sitchin, Rael is clearly scientifically illiterate and his ideas have absolutely no basis in fact. Unlike Sitchin, Rael’s ideas aren’t even internally consistent, and therefore not logically possible.
(I’ll give Sitchin credit where it’s due: he tells a good story. Rael doesn’t even do that.)
What I find interesting is that this guy has written several books which he has published for free on the Internet. You can download them yourself at his cult’s website www.rael.org.
Since he’s not making any money out of it, what is his angle? Are we headed for another Heaven’s Gate with a deadline of 2025?
Too bad I cut my hair so short, or else I could use my “natural antennae” to commune telepathically with the Elohim and ask them (yes, he too claims that “Elohim” is a plural noun, which it isn’t) myself. Just like Samson and all the world’s scientists. (I shit you not, he actually says that.)
He claims to have 50 000 followers around the world. I suspect he’s added a zero or two (or three) onto the end of the real number. He also claims to have created the first human clone. Of course he hasn’t, but that doesn’t stop him from claiming it.
Although his drivel is so ridiculous it doesn’t even merit scientific attention, I think it would be wise to keep an eye on these guys. Marshall Applewhite seemed harmless at first too… I bet the families of his 39 followers who committed mass suicide in 1997 would claim that he really wasn’t that harmless after all.
(Aside: I enjoyed the way he tries to turn his followers away from anyone who might cast doubt on his nonsense... note the character "Satan the Skeptic".)
Monday, August 29, 2005
IOL: Herbs are vital against HIV, says Manto
IOL: Herbs are vital against HIV, says Manto
Now this just pisses me off.
Yes, it's true that nutritional education should be a priority for the department of health, but by indirectly implying that traditional medicines (for my non-SA readers, "traditional medicine" is the PC term for the ministrations of tribal witchdoctors) are as effective as anti-retrovirals in combatting HIV is reckless, irresponsible and just plain stupid.
This woman has to go.
Now this just pisses me off.
Yes, it's true that nutritional education should be a priority for the department of health, but by indirectly implying that traditional medicines (for my non-SA readers, "traditional medicine" is the PC term for the ministrations of tribal witchdoctors) are as effective as anti-retrovirals in combatting HIV is reckless, irresponsible and just plain stupid.
This woman has to go.
Friday, August 26, 2005
Thursday, August 25, 2005
The Wedding (Prologue – Part 2)
Well I have a date for the wedding now. Hippy reluctantly agreed to go with me.
As if it’s not bad enough that I’m such a loser that I can’t get a real date to a wedding, I actually have to bribe one of my best friends to go with me instead.
I don’t like the fact that I had to convince her to go. I don’t have a good feeling about it. It’s going to be hard enough as it is… do I really want to have to deal with a date who doesn’t want to be there as well?
I thought it best that she go with me because she was there for me during the whole “Getting over the Ex” phase. She knows all the details and back-story. She even told me when I first heard about the wedding that she would go with me, without me having to ask. Seems she changed her mind somewhere along the line.
Maybe I should have accepted when some of my other friends offered to go with me voluntarily.
As if it’s not bad enough that I’m such a loser that I can’t get a real date to a wedding, I actually have to bribe one of my best friends to go with me instead.
I don’t like the fact that I had to convince her to go. I don’t have a good feeling about it. It’s going to be hard enough as it is… do I really want to have to deal with a date who doesn’t want to be there as well?
I thought it best that she go with me because she was there for me during the whole “Getting over the Ex” phase. She knows all the details and back-story. She even told me when I first heard about the wedding that she would go with me, without me having to ask. Seems she changed her mind somewhere along the line.
Maybe I should have accepted when some of my other friends offered to go with me voluntarily.
Crackpot Index
Crackpot Index@Everything2.com
As I was reading through this I was trying to run up a mental tally of how Zecharia Sitchin would score... I lost count around 250.
I momentarily considered sitting with copies of his books and a calculator, but I decided that would just waste my time and annoy the pig.
As I was reading through this I was trying to run up a mental tally of how Zecharia Sitchin would score... I lost count around 250.
I momentarily considered sitting with copies of his books and a calculator, but I decided that would just waste my time and annoy the pig.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
The price
I have a very good friend who, like many of my other gal pals, happens to be gorgeous. The leggy, blonde, athletic type. Very nice.
Despite the fact that I find her very attractive, nothing has ever happened between us. I’m not her “type”. I can live with that… she’s not really mine either.
The thing with this particular gal is that she is VERY flirtatious. I have some theories as to why that is, but I’m not going to psychoanalyze her in this post.
When she’s single, as she currently is, she tends to hang all over her guy friends… Saturday night was my turn.
Some guys find it irritating to be hung all over by a girl they know they have no chance with. I dunno, I just like the attention. That was the most action I’ve had in months.
It’s somewhat problematic in that afterwards I start thinking “Was that just her being her usual self, or was she really flirting with me? She’s never been that affectionate with me before, and she gave me 67% more hugs than usual during the course of the evening…” And once I start down that road I start getting my hopes up, then I’m headed for a fall.
Fortunately not a long fall… a quick SMS exchange with (our mutual friend) Hippy the next morning cleared it up for me, and all was well.
I suppose it all boils down to Beavis and Butthead philosophy: “You can’t have stuff that’s cool without stuff that sucks”.
Disappointment was the price I paid for a pleasant evening. That seems to be a pretty normal currency in my dealings with women of late. The more fun I have with the woman in question, the greater the disappointment cost.
Now what I need to figure out is a way to purchase pre-paid disappointment credits. That way I can be all down and miserable beforehand, and then go out and have some fun without wondering how I’m going to pay for it.
That sounds like a plan.
Despite the fact that I find her very attractive, nothing has ever happened between us. I’m not her “type”. I can live with that… she’s not really mine either.
The thing with this particular gal is that she is VERY flirtatious. I have some theories as to why that is, but I’m not going to psychoanalyze her in this post.
When she’s single, as she currently is, she tends to hang all over her guy friends… Saturday night was my turn.
Some guys find it irritating to be hung all over by a girl they know they have no chance with. I dunno, I just like the attention. That was the most action I’ve had in months.
It’s somewhat problematic in that afterwards I start thinking “Was that just her being her usual self, or was she really flirting with me? She’s never been that affectionate with me before, and she gave me 67% more hugs than usual during the course of the evening…” And once I start down that road I start getting my hopes up, then I’m headed for a fall.
Fortunately not a long fall… a quick SMS exchange with (our mutual friend) Hippy the next morning cleared it up for me, and all was well.
I suppose it all boils down to Beavis and Butthead philosophy: “You can’t have stuff that’s cool without stuff that sucks”.
Disappointment was the price I paid for a pleasant evening. That seems to be a pretty normal currency in my dealings with women of late. The more fun I have with the woman in question, the greater the disappointment cost.
Now what I need to figure out is a way to purchase pre-paid disappointment credits. That way I can be all down and miserable beforehand, and then go out and have some fun without wondering how I’m going to pay for it.
That sounds like a plan.
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