Gas Prices and European Tour

So, it seems everyday we hit a new record. Price per gallon is up a dollar over last year, and thirty-three cent over just last month. And our beloved President Bush is kicking off his farewell tour of Europe. Who the hell is he Cher? David Hasselhoff? Does Europe love him so much that he needs to tour around saying his goodbyes burning up extra jet fuel? Because you know he doesn't fly public; he's got the whole USAF to cart his sorry, lack-luster, butt around.

Guess who's invested heavily in oil...me? No, President Bush. What is he doing to
alleviate the plight, ney blight, of the common American? Tootling around the world shaking hands and rubbing shoulders.

Mommy and Daddy Bush are you happy with what your son has done? Are you proud? Can you look America in the eyes and say it?

Surprise, surprise, Rural U.S. Takes Worst Hit as Gas Tops $4 Average
Hey Prez, don't forget who grows the food...is it the big cities with ample public transportation who don't give a crap about gas prices? No. It's the farmers rural America. So fix it.

Puzzle Games

I have a new addiction--online puzzle games. I don't like jigsaw, or slide the tile, or get X# of gems in a row Connect Four type crap; I mean real mind bending puzzles that force you to think in three dimensions or more.
If you love great puzzles like me check these out on www. shockwave.com

Hyper Frame:
http://www.shockwave.com/gamelanding/hyperframe.jsp

Bloxorz:
http://www.shockwave.com/gamelanding/bloxorz.jsp

And this one combines puzzle-like thinking with destruction (bonus!)
Metalix Tower Defense:
http://www.shockwave.com/gamelanding/metalixtd.jsp

I've completed Hyper Frame and Bloxorz, and have gotten to level 20 on Metalix. Post a comment and let me know how far you get.
If Bloxorz drives you crazy, I've heard that there are solution videos on YouTube. But come on, the fun of puzzles is figuring them out without getting help.

Short Browser Rant

Why do web browsers have 'stop loading' buttons if they don't work? Have you ever typed an incorrect URL and hit enter before you realized you typoed and clicked stop and it didn't?
Arrgh!

"Muto" by Blu. This is basically stop-frame animation graffiti style. Very neat! Artist's website is www.blublu.org

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Lonely Piles of Money - Boycott the RIAA

Look who’s wearing the big-boy pants now!
No more
—mother may I.
I want.
I take.
I the RIAA.

Hey there that sure is a nice laptop; my six thousand dollar poodle could use that to watch you tube videos of itself riding in the backseat of my Escalade while I’m in court suing some other sap for making a mix tape for his girlfriend. It’s gimmie all your stuff, and I’ll have the local cops take it for me, so I never see you cry; not that I’d care.

I’m the RIAA; you see, I don’t care about people, only money. Only money. It’s not my fault; it’s just that my piles and piles of money (made from the sweat of other people with real talent) are lonely. That’s right my money is lonely, so I need yours and your computer, and your house, just because you only like that one Black Crowes song and didn’t want to buy the album for it (where I get 90% of the profits).

I found my news here:

www.boingboing.net/

tailrank.com/

And from
tech.blorge.com/ the following is quoted:

"The RIAA sued 83 year old Gertrude Walton. When they sent the letter stating that they were going to sue unless Mrs. Walton chose to settle, her daughter received the letter as part of her mother’s estate. She sent the RIAA a copy of her mother’s death certificate. The RIAA sued her mother anyway. Apparently when the case went to court the RIAA had to accept the fact that Mrs. Walton was indeed dead.

In the case of Patricia Santangelo, a divorced mother of three, the RIAA lost that case because Ms. Santangelo successfully proved her own computer illiteracy. The Judge dismissed the case. The RIAA then chose to sue her three children.

Unfortunately, another single mother, Jamie Thomas, was found guilty by a jury who set damages for her to pay at $222,000 or $9250 per song. A single mother who sells lingerie, there is no way that Ms. Thomas has the funds currently to pay this exorbitant amount. There is very little chance that she will ever be able to pay the damage award. Ms. Thomas has appealed the damages as being excessive. The Department of Justice has filed an Amicus brief arguing that the verdict amount is not excessive and should stand."

For all you drummers out there

Muppet Show - Drum Battle Buddy Rich Vs Animal

Korgoth of Barbaria

This is a pilot made for Cartoon Network's Adult Swim that wasn't picked up, and I have no idea why. It is one of the funniest damn 30 minutes of cartoons I've seen in a long time. Yeah, I watch a lot of cartoons, so what?!
I'm a grown up! I'll watch what I want.
Watch it you'll laugh. Really.
I'm not kidding you...

Part 1



Part 2



Part 3



You laughed didn't you; I told you.

Creation vs. Evolution

Last year I had to write an extra final paper in a class to ensure an "A" and I did a lot of research on the Scopes Trial. If you don't know it was a trial testing the Butler Act in Tennessee that disallowed the teaching of any theory in contradiction of the Bible's theory of human creation. You can read a nice write up on Wikipedia Scopes_Trial.

After doing a lot of research, I decided to write about a topic that I know better and that was how and where St. Thomas Aquinas 'borrowed' his five proofs for the existence of God from Aristotle's writings. You can read my paper "Aquinas' Five Ways".
However, continuing with creationism, it has a long history in our legal system of which I was unaware. You can find a nice list here: Creationism-related_court_cases
The one that made the biggest impression on me was not the most recent; (at the writing of this the Kansas evolution hearings were the most recent)
It was the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial.

Before reading the Wikipedia write up, I watched the NOVA documentary (on PBS) on this trial and was amazed. Watch it if you have time. I've always been a skeptic about most things. In my formative years, my father always had a saying that captured the lesson in every bad choice of mine; some were original some borrowed. For instance, "If it sounds too good to be true; it isn't," and one of the one's I heard the most was, "I'm from Missouri; show me." That one I heard when I was trying to tell him about the theory of Quarks from particle physics. Well, I couldn't and can't. Hell, I tried to become a physicist in college and couldn't hack the math.

Anyway, the science presented in the NOVA documentary is incredibly detailed, effectively proving the theory of evolution; for me, it was the equivalent of 'being shown' . Check it out for yourself and then see if a book rewritten several times and translated into several languages is proof enough for you.
Believing is nice; it is comforting, but I want the truth. Believing in magic is cute, but don't bet your life on it; you will be disappointed.
I will acknowledge the possibility that what science has discovered could be the work and plan of a God. The old watch winder that set this whole process of evolution in motion. We okay? We cool like Fonzie?
Well, if that still works for you, complicating the idea to save your precious little ego, then check out a little idea called Ockham's Razor.

Back to the reason for addressing this topic, recently a movie was produced called "Expelled." It is the creationist (now called Intelligent Design or ID for short) view of 'it all'. I heard about this movie on one of my favorite podcasts called "The Skeptics Guide to the Universe" (Podcast #140 3/26/2008) the hosts interviewed Eugenie Scott and she told a story of some very non-Christian treatments from the movie's representatives in asking her for interviews. She asked that people link to this site http://www.expelledexposed.com/
as a way to get the word out. When people search for the movie this site will be ranked highly.
Hypocrisy pisses me off. If you call yourself a Christian then act like one; don't use the cop-out of forgiveness or that non-Christians don't deserve Christian treatment (chicken pox blankets ring a bell?). You should be good, honest, and respectful now and to all (or shove it and go to Hell).
Oh and did I mention that Ben Stein (once considered an intelligent person) is involved with the movie. Sigh...
Poor guy...

Dennis Leary takes us for a visit to the rehab...

Let's all watch, and don't miss the lesson.

Michael Pollan: The omnivore's next dilemma.
Just listen, and find out that plants are really controlling us. <pun>intended</pun>

Two blogs worth noting

"The Skeptics Guide to the Universe is a weekly Podcast talkshow produced by the New England Skeptical Society (NESS) in association with the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) : discussing the latest news and topics from the world of the paranormal, fringe science, and controversial claims from a scientific point of view."


Astronomy Cast -- "Take a weekly facts-based journey through the cosmos with Astronomy Cast."

The Little Trees of Vaughn Banting

Vaughn Banting's Home Page

His Trees
I'm talking amazing Bonsai here people!

Salute!

Seam Carving for Content-Aware Image Resizing

Holy Crap!
Shai Avidan & Ariel Shamir have created software that is straight out of a scifi movie. Have you ever wanted to remove an ex-boy/girl friend from a great travel photo? Here you go: iSeam


Utterly brilliant gentlemen:
Ariel Shamir's home page
Shai Avidan's home page

Art of Creatures

Theo Jansen is an amazing Dutch artist. He creates creatures out of wood and twine of the like you've not see unless you are familiar with his work.
He gave a TED talk March 2007

Remember the Tooth

Do your tech a favor...
Remember Your Password!

http://www.wikihow.com/Remember-Your-Password

and "Remember the Tooth"

Crazy Towing

We are Crazy Towing and we tow like crazy.
Your neighbor parked to close to your house and is killing your grass?
Call us and we tow it like crazy!
Your daughter's boyfriend's piece of shit car is in your driveway and you don't like how it looks?
Call us and we tow it like crazy!
Want to screw with your friend's car and move it while they're in a bar drinking?
Call us and we tow it like crazy!

Remember that's Crazy Towing call 555-T-O-W-D
that's 555-8693
Crazy Towing when you want it towed like CRAZY!

Viva La Resistance

Hollywood writers are on strike and I support them. Writing is an art, and no one is willing to pay for quality art. So few quality painters, writers, and other creative artists make a good living at their craft for most of their early life. A few lucky ones get recognized shortly before they die and have a few comfortable late years.
But mostly they struggle. They don’t get the bizillions of dollars that actors and actresses make for saying lines written for them and showing a little skin. And the ones that make the big money aren’t even creative.
The CEOs in charge of the networks and production companies, even though they deal with it everyday, must just see creativity as a commodity. Art is not something you can just mine out of the ground and affix a price based on demand.
Art takes constant study so repetition and cliché can be avoided. Art is a craft that takes constant honing and there are dry spells. Writers need those extra residuals to survive the dry spells, because not everything put to paper sells or is worth selling.
So I say hold out writers, hold out until you get what’s due you. And America turn off your TVs and stop going to the movies; put the crunch on the deep pockets that deserve it.
They tried to put writers on a leash with Reality TV years ago, and to some degree it worked. We are still suffering with Survivor, Dancing with the Stars, Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader, Kid Nation, and etc. I can’t go on anymore…
I need intelligent humor and intricate plot lines or I will go back to reading books; I mean it.

Dan Dennett speaks of memes

This talk is from TED. If you do not know about TED please inform yourself here. It is a forum for the best and brightest to share ideas. I found the podcasts on iTunes, but this is the website (www.ted.com) with much, much more.

Memes are contagious ideas. Dennett's biological attack metaphor and how other cultures want to protect themselves from what we are immune to (our immunity gives us the mentality of "what's the big deal?") was very interesting to me. View for yourself and post what you think.

Dan Dennett's bio. Read that and you'll know why you should listen to what he says.

Thoughts on traffic

For all you chum-buckets driving in the left lane with your blinders on--the sign reads, "Slower Traffic Keep Right".
Get over.
This means you Mister Magoo!
I know you see me back there; I get over for people wanting to go faster than me. They'll draw the cops attention and I'll be able to slip by ticket-free.
Now move!

My Knock-off of Esher

Some days I just don't have the rant in me. Some days I feel more like a bubble on the ocean. No control of direction, an ineffectual will that no one regards as closely as they do heirloom jewerly in a sunbeam.
Plato's allegory of the cave to our perception of the world of everyday is insightful, but hard to hold onto. When everyone around you is always and constantly talking about what you see as shadows and refuse to engage you at any deeper level, you are forced by survival skills to let go of your extra dimensional concerns. Existing in shadow is a comfortable place of possessions, knowables, and vicarious living (SUVs, high ceiling houses, reality TV, and 'our team' won the game). Accept these transparent offering for complacency and ignorance. Do not try to see through to the real reality.
Do not question; do not ask; do not wonder; do not want what we do not burden you with. Zero percent financing for six month and spend the rest of your life laboring in debt. Our respected leaders helping us spend the money we have yet to make. Children truly pay for the parents follies. Slavery is flourishing in a different guise…serf on, serf on.

My Knock-off of The Scream

You know sometimes you just feel like screaming. Why did we develop consciousness if we don't get to use it to its full potential? No wonder why people believe in New Age crap like psychics. We have sent men to the moon, and yet some people don't turn on their lights on the highway and use their turn signals when it's raining. Not that they use their turn signals when it's not raining.
The things I’ve seen!
** I've seen a woman brushing her teeth and spitting in a zip-lock baggie zooming down the freeway at 70+. Here's to a fast break and cleaning your bronchial tubes! Minty!
** I've also see a guy Q-Tipping his ears on the freeway. Hear's to ya...what...what'd you say? Is that freedom rock? Well, turn it up man!
** And the most surprising to me (so far) was seeing the man with battery-powered nose hair trimmers up his nose a fair distance (more than a finger could go) and checking his progress in his rear-view mirror pass me at 75+ like it was nothing. Multi-tasking needs a new word! A sweet kiss on the rear end of the car in front of him and he could’ve given himself the lobotomy that he so sorely needs. No need to go through the eye socket anymore. Hell, that’s how the Egyptians removed the brains of a Pharaoh; a sharp thingie up the nose, scramble them up good and suck them out a nose hole. Presto! Wrap him up, I’ll take him home to the missus!

Cheese and Crackers, is everyone that wrapped up in themselves that obviously bad ideas can't get through? Plato’s Republic doesn’t have a chance; the Philosopher Kings would be watching football and clipping their toenails on the couch in no time.
All hail the self-aware ape! They can drive and text and smoke and flip me the bird all at the same time!
I’m going to go paint the wall…

My knock-off of Picasso's The Dream

Done in Flash.

Perseid meteor shower August 12-13 2007

Woke up reluctantly at 4am CST to welcome the debris tail of comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle. I popped a beer, and sat in the backyard for about an hour. It is difficult to look up and drink at the same time, but I managed.
I rate meteors by a count of existence. If I can count to one and it's gone, then it's a 'one count'. I saw several 'one count', a few 'two count', and three 'three count' meteors. The threes were not very colorful. I remember last year that the Leonids in November are usually colorful; greens mostly. I know that color relates to the chemical composition of the debris.
The threes I saw were from North to South. A little light started creeping over the East around 5am, and the beer was empty, and the cats were all outside with me wondering why I was outside in the dark; so I decided to call it done. Besides, I had to get back up at 630am for work.
In the past, I and a group of friends have driven out into the country and parked on a dirt road to drink hot coffee and whiskey or beer (depending on the time of year) to watch showers where we would count several per minute. The disappointingly small amount I saw this year was either due to the light pollution of the city or the lack of the double vision of times past...
I now understand nostalgia; it's always better than the present.

Read about the shower from the people who know best: The American Meteor Society
Also check out their calendar for 2007

Old Saying about Humidity

Ad nauseam through my life I have heard the 'Weather Talkers' say,
"It's not the heat; it's the humidity that kills you."
No Dammit!

Go sit in a tub of water.
That's 100% humidity.
Now, set a fire under the tub until it boils off your skin.
Was it the humidity or the heat that killed you?

Not a cloud in the sky...

GRE has been taken

Well, I took it 5 days ago, and it was a humbling experience. I've been fighting the post-test depression that it caused. I'm pretty sure (a brave way of saying I'm scared) that I did well enough to gain acceptance to the Master's program in Ed Tech. I'll get my complete scores in a week or so.
If you think that you are significantly smarter than average, take the GRE and let me know how you did. I now feel strikingly average. I know I don't have what it takes to be an astronaut, but jeeze average. Average hurts.
I'll tell you my score if you tell me yours.

Ravel vs. Unravel

Now this is just stupid. No wonder people complain that English is the most difficult language to learn. Definitions from Dictionary.com.

un·rav·el
–verb (used with object)

1. to free from complication or difficulty; make plain or clear; solve: to unravel a situation; to unravel a mystery.
2. Informal. to take apart; undo; destroy (a plan, agreement, or arrangement). –verb (used without object)
3. to become unraveled.

rav·el
–verb (used with object)

1. to disentangle or unravel the threads or fibers of (a woven or knitted fabric, rope, etc.).
2. to tangle or entangle.
3. to involve; confuse; perplex.
4. to make clear; unravel (often fol. by out). –verb (used without object)
5. to become disjoined thread by thread or fiber by fiber; fray.
6. to become tangled.
7. to become confused or perplexed.
8. (of a road surface) to lose aggregate. –noun
9. a tangle or complication.

GRE @ 8am...huh?

Well...I’m going to be taking the GRE this Saturday at 8am. That is too early for cognizant thought; it is impalpable to me. Furthermore, the test starts with a 45min essay.
Ugh.
We are given two topics to choose one from and have to discuss the issue with points and counterpoints within the allotted time. Following that crack-o-dawn brain twister and without a break, we are given an argument (different topic) and have 30mins to examine the quality of the argument and dissect it.
Wham bam.
Right off the bat we have to write for an hour and 15min. That’s cruel.
I can’t spell my name or even tie my shoes correctly on the first attempt at 8am; now I’m expected to compose erudite essays on surprise topics—unfair.

On the official GRE web site (by ETS the only people qualified to judge our worthiness for grad school) it states that the sequence of the test parts does not change.
I’d prefer to take some antonyms and sentence completion first to get some words in my head.

I wish to be intransigent, but I have no recourse; I must be labile and remain taciturn. The person that devised this order of examination is anathema to me. I wish to traduce them; however to that person, I’m sure I’m ingenuous.

I’ve been studying vocabulary, as you could postulate. A great and *free* study site for the GRE is http://www.number2.com/ and thanks to http://www.dictionary.com/ too.

Good luck to all you other flaming hoop GRE jumpers…
and learn some new words you punks!

Canny vs. Uncanny

I did not know that canny is not the positive of uncanny. I'm studying vocabulary for the GRE and have a long way to go.

un·can·ny–adjective

1. having or seeming to have a supernatural or inexplicable basis; beyond the ordinary or normal; extraordinary: uncanny accuracy; an uncanny knack of foreseeing trouble.


2. mysterious; arousing superstitious fear or dread; uncomfortably strange: Uncanny sounds filled the house.
   

can·ny–adjective

1. careful; cautious; prudent: a canny reply.


2. astute; shrewd; knowing; sagacious: a canny negotiator.


3. skilled; expert.


4. frugal; thrifty: a canny housewife.


5. Scot. Origin:
   
   1. safe to deal with, invest in, or work at (usually used with a negative).
   
   
   2. gentle; careful; steady.
   
   
   3. snug; cozy; comfortable.
   
   
   4. pleasing; attractive.

Definitions from Dictionary.com

My Quotes

You Can't Sing the Blues With Your Legs Crossed.

Buy the T-Shirt.

New Twist on an Old Saying

Some people are like wine
and get better with age.
...Other people are like milk.

Buy the T-shirt.