Nice, from XKCD.com

While you’re waiting for the NOVA disk to arrive, check out these photos from National Geographic.

This is what a case of smallpox does do you.  Luckily, smallpox has been pretty well eliminated from the earth due to a massive and effective vaccine program.  So, your kids don’t have to live with that horrible disease.  However, there are still lots of super nasty, deadly diseases that childhood vaccines protect against.

Not only do vaccines prevent horrible diseases, they also don’t cause autism.  The so-called vaccine-autism study was fraudulently conjured up by Andrew Wakefield and it’s not only been shown that he was a fraud, but there have been many, many studies that show a total lack of any causation between vaccines and autism. Vaccines of course, are not without risk, but the risk of the diseases far outweigh the risk of vaccine injury.

Click through to read more…

Meet the sloths from Lucy Cooke on Vimeo.

It seems that when one girl takes a drink, the other girl can feel it.

Thanks for the link rob.

Click for more bad slides. Thanks for the link dean.

Click The Photo for more!

I like Richard Dawkin’s Reply:

Q. Family Radio evangelist Harold Camping believes that he has calculated the exact date of the rapture: May 21, 2011. While many are laughing at the suggestion, Camping’s followers are taking him seriously, bringing his message of impending doom to billboards and public spaces around the country. What does your tradition teach about the end of the world? How does end time theology impact real world behavior?

A. Why is a serious newspaper like the Washington Post giving space to a raving loon? I suppose the answer must be that, unlike the average loon, this one has managed to raise enough money to launch a radio station and pay for billboards. I don’t know where he gets the money, but it would be no surprise to discover that it is contributed by gullible followers – gullible enough, we may guess, to go along with him when he will inevitably explain, on May 22nd, that there must have been some error in the calculation, the rapture is postponed to . . . and please send more money to pay for updated billboards.

…

 

Click image for the original site.

Kepler-11 solar system

The Kepler mission recently found a really wild solar system with 6 transiting planets.  The 5 innermost planets orbit within mercury’s orbit.  These ain’t Earths, but they are really neat nonetheless.

Nasa released two powerpoint presentations that are really interesting.   I converted these to PDF to make them more accessible.

• Bill’s Presentation
• Jack’s Presentation

Dang, that’s a great show.

I now have wifi tethering — my phone acts as an access point for my computer. That’s really cool. In addition, I’ve got 2mbps download speed, and 200kbps up. That’s *way* faster than I imagined. My DSL is only 3mbps down and 300kbps up. Maybe I should just punt on AT&T and get another android phone

http://www.m2film.dk/fleggaard/trailer2.swf

Fight over beer leads to arrest of former KKK leader, son. Click the image to go to the original article and read the rest of the details.

A report from my friend Rob’s hometown in Florida.  His comments: “Where i grew up, It ain’t a real redneck weekend without a fight over who gets to drink the budweiser, domestic abuse, klu klux klan hats, and awesome police mug shots”

A fight over who gets to drink the “good beer” led to the arrest of a former Ku Klux Klan leader and his son in rural east Osceola County, the Sheriff’s Office said.

Troy Hixon, 45, his girlfriend, another woman and his father, George Hixon, 73, were drinking Wednesday night when Troy Hixon threw his girlfriend down and began shooting into the ground near her, a sheriff’s report states.

Click the image to check out xkcd for some more fun.

If true, that’s really super cool.  Unfortunately, it may be a mistake.  We’ll have to wait and see what further study turns up to see if this really is a new life form.

http://rocs.northwestern.edu/clips/?assets/Follow_the_Money_SD.mp4

The other videos there are interesting too.

This cricket's testes are 14% of its body weight, as compared to only 0.06% for humans. The large size suggests that the females are very promiscuous. Click the image for a more detailed description (as if you need more).

What do you know?

The Pew center for somethingorother performed a poll on over 3000 folks of various religious backgrounds and found that — what do you know — atheists come out on top in general knowledge of world religions.  With Jews and Mormons running a close second.

This correlates with my own experience.  I took the poll myself, and I forget my exact score, but it was something like 85%, as compared to about 50% average.

Interestingly, even though I’m an atheist I find religion very interesting, and I’ve studied it quite a bit.  Regardless of your religious bent, I highly recommend some of these lectures from The Teaching Company:

• Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication
• American Religious History

(Thanks R&T for turning me on to The Teaching Company — I love them)

Anyway, I don’t really have a point.  It’s just interesting I think that that the least religious among us seem to know the most about religion.

Take the Quiz Here

Let me know how you score

BTW for my friends, I can loan out some of my Teaching Company courses.  I’ve got some good ones.  Also, FYI, the prices on TTC web site are crazy high — except that all of the courses go on sale at least once a year, and they come down to a reasonable, though not cheap, price.

Go here for more animations.

In physical terms, that’s a wavelength of about 1/8 inch.  I’d hate to have to build a loudspeaker for them that covers the full 10.5 octaves from 60 Hz to 80 kHz.  Or an artificial ear with good response.  It would be tricky.

Well, it turns out that they work by the principal of magic.  They’re called Phiten necklaces, which somehow magically “balances” the body’s “signals”.  What the hell does that mean?  They use magic to transform titanium into ‘aqua-titanium’, which is a water soluble form of titanium.  And then more magic happens, and you get in balance.  Neat.

Well, fortunately, it works opposite of what they claim:

See the necklace? These guys scored zero points.

And... Without the necklace, these guys scored 9. Coincidence? I don't think so!

Well crap, okay oaky.  It is a coincidence, and I know that there are plenty of dumbasses on the Giants that also wear them.  But like the deity, the Phiten always gets credit for good things, but never blame for bad things.  Oh well, whatcha gonna do?

Incredible.

Check out the Brooklyn Space Program website.

And watch this video!

Alternative Medicine Flowchart. Nice Work Crispan Jago.

Check out Crispan’s Web site here.

I found this on Bunnie’s Blog.  It’s worth a look too.

Click image to click image to enlarge

• Frequent tiredness and low energy
• Flatulence, gas & bloating
• Impaired digestion
• Irritability, mood swings
• Bad breath & foul-smelling stools
• Occasional constipation
• Protruding belly (“pooch”)
• Powerful food cravings
• Skin problems
• Metallic taste in mouth

That’s right, if you’re tired, if you ever fart, if you’re grouchy, if you’re 5 lbs over weight, have non-perfect skin, or, get this, if your shit stinks, you need Dr. Natura.  A cleanse that is 100% guaranteed to make your shit not stink any more.

Where can I sign up?   Oh here: http://www.drnatura.com/colonix_program.php.

Sweet, only $99, and I’m on my way to thinking my shit don’t stink.

Apparently, the only reasonable way out of the current mess is genetic engineering.  Breeding is just too slow.

Check this out Mythbusters Turd Polishing.

Okay, okay, I didn’t use turds, but I did use plain old dirt from the back yard.   Check out some instructions here.

Here’s my first attempt at dorodango:

From this

To This!

But this one is excellent too:

Clearly, this is going to work. Click the image for a whole collection of, well, interesting, treatments.

What's up with this weird face?

Good stuff

So… If you’re taking fish oil, there are a few reactions you can have:

1. Look at the science, decide that science trumps your current beliefs, and change your belief.
2. Look at the science, but be unconvinced by it (which is okay, especially for smalland/ or poorly conducted studies)
3. Ignore the science, and since this bit of science contradicts your current beliefs, disbelieve all science.

Unfortunately, it seems that Option #3 seems to be the approach people take normally.  Bummer.

All I can say is… Science is the best thing we’ve got to understand the world around us.  It works pretty well, and most importantly, it’s self-correcting.

Try to keep an open mind.  Which, of course, doen’t mean, “believe anything anybody tells you,” but something more like, “be ready to accept new evidence as it comes along and don’t let your preconceived beliefs blind you to the new evidence.”

Touch the snail for more information.

Apparently methanphetamine helps memory in humans and rats (I guess in limited amounts).  But researchers wanted to know if it works on snails, which store there memories in, get this, a 3 neuron network.  That’s 3 neurons!  We’ve got what, a billion?  Or is it a trillion?   I think a trillion.  Snails get by with 3.  That makes it easier to study how the meth works.

Here’s an interesting article on how key recovery can be done by looking at chip power consumption.

I sure don’t want to be the one designing the next voting machine if it’s not going to be open to public scrutiny.  Yikes.

Click image for more on this important ruling.

Check it out at the ULC.

Important highlights in the exhibition include linen socks worn by King Charles I during first half of the 17th century, Napoleon Bonaparte’s socks worn by him during his exile on St. Helena, exquisite pale pink silk stockings worn by Queen Victoria during her reign and teeny, tiny hand-knitted socks made by talented knitter Althea Crome who created all of the clothing worn by Coraline, the figurine in Tim Burton’s 2009 stop-motion film by the same name.

Read more: Bata Shoe Museum Explores the History of the Sock

Check out Episode 17 if you’re interested in extreme knitting.

Watch this video

Larry:  And Tourette’s Syndrome?

Mr. Deity:  Yeah, leave it in.  But wait for Tourette.

Check out the full story at Slate.

So him, Al Franken, did what most reasonable people would do:  He said, “There should be a law against that.”  Thus was born said amendment.

In typical modern Republican style, fully 75% of the republicans voted against the amendment, and for protection of companies that cover up and protect rapists!  Seriously.

The Rapist protector protectors are:

And the sane (for this vote anyway) republicans are:

So, yeah for Utah — both senators Bennett and Hatch are republican and voted for it.  It’s great when people allow their interal moral compass override their political affiliation.  I’m no great fan of these guys in general, but they get some props from me this time around.

Why is it that the party that claims to be more religious, is clearly less moral?  The less religious party (democrats) have a straighter moral compass?

I suspect it’s that the republicans think they have a direct mandate from God, and therefore whatever they do is right.  Whereas democrats have to answer to people, not God, and thus think through their actions.

I dunno.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

And if you believe that, I’ve got some beachfront property to sell you in Florida.

In any case, he makes a compelling case that W. should be tried and convicted of Murder for taking the nation to war on a lie.  Bush and friends said over and over in the lead up to war in Iraq that we were performing a pre-emptive strike, and that Iraq was linked to 9/11.  Turns out… well… those were both lies.  It was well known by the administration that Iraq posed *no* threat to the US, unless provoked by an imminent attack by the US.

The book lays out a very, very clear, and what seems to me irrefutable, case against Bush.  I can’t figure out any reason he shouldn’t be tried, convicted, and potentially executed, for causing over 100,000 deaths of Americans and Iraqis, because he wanted to.

There is no statute of limitations on murder, and he could be prosecuted in any of the 50 states, or by a federal court.  So, unless some President pardons him, he’s vulnerable to prosecution.  Let’s hope some attorney general has the courage to carry out justice and indite Bush, and let a jury decide if a crime has been committed.  It seems irrefutable to me.

A warning though:  if you read this book, you will be furious with Bush, Rice, Cheney.  It’s not fun to read.  It’s infuriating.

I couldn’t fathom the thought of using a Word template with 150 odd individual pictures, so I wrote a simple script to composite all the images.   Here’s the original video:

And here’s the flip-book version:

Clearly, Henry and I need to make a better video, and better flip book, but it’s promising…. more to come.

Click imat for more

http://www.loosefilter.com/the_loose_filter_project_/2009/12/what-english-sounds-like-to-italians.html

Definitely worth watching.

First, a little background:  I wanted to buy a new laptop.  Dean says, “Buy a Macbook from amazon.com, you get it next day with free shipping and no tax.”  I say, “Naw, it’s too expensive, and I actually prefer windows — all my actual work is in Windows and Linux, and I can’t get myself used to using the mac shortcut keys.”  So Dean says, “Then run windows on it.”  But nooooooo, I’m too clever for that.   So, I go and buy myself a Dell Studio 15.  It arrives, and it’s stupidly thick and clunky.  And with tax and shipping it costs as much as the Apple.

So, the stupid thing arrives.  I play some sounds from it.  It sounds like crap.  I think, “wow, that sounds like crap”.   So, I rand a 200 Hz sine wave through it, and the internal speakers sound like crap, and when I plug it into external speakers, they sound like crap too.

So, I call customer support.  They’re experiencing ‘heavy call volume’.  It tooks about 25 minutes to get to a human.  That human sent me back into the wait queue to talk to another human.  That one sent me to another.  That one sent me to another.  And that one sent me to another, who was the ‘Returns Desk’ lady.  It was about an hour to get to the Returns desk, who was the FIFTH person I talked to.

The Returns lady only had one question for me:  “Have you  contacted technical support?”   I said no, and she said that I’d have to do that before I could return the computer.

Crap.

So, the Returns lady sends me over to Technical Support guy.  After 20-30 minutes in another queue, technical support guy answers.  Technical support guy is a reasonably competent guy in India, who does a remote desktop session with me.  For 2 hours! Install drivers.  Reboot.  Install Drivers.  Reboot.  Install Driv…. You get the idea.  I tell him, “I’m an engineer who works on this stuff all the time, and it sounds like a hardware problem to me, there’s no way it’s a software problem.”

After 2 hours, and the audio still sounds like crapola, he finally relented and sent me back to the Returns desk.  After waiting about 20 minutes on hold, I get a lady that answers, “Dell switchboard, how can I help you?”  Christ.  I tell her that I want to make a return.  She asks if I’ve spoken with technical support.  I told her that I’ve already spoken to the customer support guy.

She looks into my account.  And after another 5 minutes, says, “The returns desk is closed.  Please call back between 8am and 8pm Central Standard Time.”

Oh for crap’s sake!

So, next day comes, and I call again.  I\ took me 40 minutes to get to a human, and maybe another 20 to complete the transaction.  For a total investment of probably 5 hours on the phone!  AAARRRRGGGGHHHH.

I ordered and received my macbook already — free shipping and no tax.

The moral of the story:  Always listen to Dean.

P.S. before sticking the return UPS label on the package, I installed Adobe Audition and used that to make some measurements…. and guess what?  It worked just great.  No distortion at all.  I guess it was a software problem after all.   Oopsie.  Well I’m glad I finally got rid of the dumb Dell.

Neat, huh?

I’m not a racist. I just don’t believe in mixing the races that way.   I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom.

Glad to see he lets them use his bathroom.

Click for original post

Since I will be destroying your computer now, this will be my last post ever.

kthksbai

You have *GOT* to click on this. It's absolutely hilarious.

Hubbard Electrometer, 1968 American science fiction writer and founder of the Church of Scientology L. Ron Hubbard uses his Hubbard Electrometer to determine whether tomatoes experience pain, 1968. His work led him to the conclusion that tomatoes "scream when sliced."

Here are the FACTS:

God informs us in Chapter 74 that the authenticity of the Quran will be proven by the number 19. Verse 35 describes this 19-based mathematical code as “One of the great miracles”:

1. The Quran consists of 114 chapters, which is 19 x 6.
2. The total number of verses in the Quran is 6346, or 19 x 334.
   Note that 6 + 3 + 4 + 6 = 19.
3. The word “God” (Allah) occurs in the Quran 2698 times,
   and this number equals 19 x 142.
4. The total sum of verse numbers for all verses containing the word “God” is 118123, also a multiple of 19 (118123 = 19×6217).
5. “The Quran” is mentioned in the Quran 57 times, 19 x 3.
6. The first verse, known as “Basmalah,” consists of 19 letters.
7. The word “proof” is written throughout the entire Quran 19 times.
8. The famous first revelation (96:1-5) consists of 19 words.
9. This 19-worded first revelation consists of 76 letters, or 19 x 4.
10. The first chapter revealed (Sura 96) consists of 19 verses.
11. This first chapter revealed is placed atop the last 19 chapters.
12. This chapter also consists of 304 letters, or 19 x 16.
13. The last revelation (Sura 110) consists of 19 words.
14. The first verse of the last revelation (110:1) consists of 19 letters.
15. The Quran mentions 30 different numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 19, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 99, 100, 200, 300, 1000, 2000, 3000, 5000, 50,000, & 100,000.
    The sum of these numbers is 162146, which equals 19×8534.

Huh, that’s only 15 facts.  Too bad, things are alredy looking bad for your proof.

The Quranic Initials

The Quran is characterized by a unique phenomenon never found in any other book; 29 chapters are prefixed with 14 different sets of “Quranic Initials,” consisting of one to five letters per set. Fourteen letters, or half of the Arabic alphabet, participate in these initials. They collectively make up an interlocking mathematical system that is easily superhuman.

Wow, that is easily superhuman.

Anyway, I just thought it was funny.  It’s also funny to see Islam and Mormon (Yes on on the same bumper.

Right?

This article is worth a read, but I’m not sure to be rolling on the floor laughing, or extremely terrified of fundamentalists.  The people who run that site are completely nuts.  Here’s just a taste of the nonsense in that article:

Historically, Chinese people have naturally wanted to bring destruction and great mayhem to all things American. Liberals will tell you lies and say this is not true and very extreme, but mark my words. Liberals want nothing more than to see a small population of American overran by billions of Asians. This is why they support abortion.

Words duly marked.  Unfortunately, they don’t make sense.  Liberals want to be ‘overran’?  I’m dying to be overran by Chinese, aren’t you?

Only 60 years ago, these Asian peoples joined up with Adoldf Hitler in order to destroy the most moral nation on Earth. Even though their attacks took the life of many good men on a day of infamy, America was blessed to rain bombs of freedom and nurture resultant liberty within a very dark Asian culture.

Uh, dude!  That was the Japanese! And by the way, shouldn’t we be terrified of Germans?

Having been to China more times than I would like to in the last few years, my primary opinion of them is this;  They have exactly the same morals as us.  And the food in Suzhou is much better than the food in Shenzhen.

Click image for details on this guy.

Astronomical signs prove 100% that the ending of the

7-year tribulation period is at the end of 2015!

Click image for full article

Ceiling Cat Created

Oh Hai!  I got an exclusive audio clip of Ceiling Cat reading Genesis 1.  Enjoy.

Boreded Ceiling Cat makinkgz Urf n stuffs

1 Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem.

2 Da Urfs no had shapez An haded dark face, An Ceiling Cat rode invisible bike over teh waterz.

3 At start, no has lyte. An Ceiling Cat sayz, i can haz lite? An lite wuz.4 An Ceiling Cat sawed teh lite, to seez stuffs, An splitted teh lite from dark but taht wuz ok cuz kittehs can see in teh dark An not tripz over nethin.5 An Ceiling Cat sayed light Day An dark no Day. It were FURST!!!1

6 An Ceiling Cat sayed, im in ur waterz makin a ceiling. But he no yet make a ur. An he maded a hole in teh Ceiling.7 An Ceiling Cat doed teh skiez with waterz down An waterz up. It happen.8 An Ceiling Cat sayed, i can has teh firmmint wich iz funny bibel naim 4 ceiling, so wuz teh twoth day.

9 An Ceiling Cat gotted all teh waterz in ur base, An Ceiling Cat hadz dry placez cuz kittehs DO NOT WANT get wet.10 An Ceiling Cat called no waterz urth and waters oshun. Iz good.

11 An Ceiling Cat sayed, DO WANT grass! so tehr wuz seedz An stufs, An fruitzors An vegbatels. An a Corm. It happen.12 An Ceiling Cat sawed that weedz ish good, so, letz there be weedz.13 An so teh threeth day jazzhands.

14 An Ceiling Cat sayed, i can has lightz in the skiez for splittin day An no day.15 It happen, lights everwear, like christmass, srsly.16 An Ceiling Cat doeth two grate lightz, teh most big for day, teh other for no day.17 An Ceiling Cat screw tehm on skiez, with big nails An stuff, to lite teh Urfs.18 An tehy rulez day An night. Ceiling Cat sawed. Iz good.19 An so teh furth day w00t.

20 An Ceiling Cat sayed, waterz bring me phishes, An burds, so kittehs can eat dem. But Ceiling Cat no eated dem.21 An Ceiling Cat maed big fishies An see monstrs, which wuz like big cows, except they no mood, An other stuffs dat mooves, An Ceiling Cat sawed iz good.22 An Ceiling Cat sed O hai, make bebehs kthx. An dont worry i wont watch u secksy, i not that kynd uf kitteh.23 An so teh…fith day. Ceiling Cat taek a wile 2 cawnt.

24 An Ceiling Cat sayed, i can has MOAR living stuff, mooes, An creepie tings, An otehr aminals. It happen so tehre.25 An Ceiling Cat doed moar living stuff, mooes, An creepies, An otehr animuls, An did not eated tehm.

26 An Ceiling Cat sayed, letz us do peeps like uz, becuz we ish teh qte, An let min p0wnz0r becuz tehy has can openers.

27 So Ceiling Cat createded teh peeps taht waz like him, can has can openers he maed tehm, min An womin wuz maeded, but he did not eated tehm.

28 An Ceiling Cat sed them O hai maek bebehs kthx, An p0wn teh waterz, no waterz An teh firmmint, An evry stufs.

29 An Ceiling Cat sayed, Beholdt, the Urfs, I has it, An I has not eated it.30 For evry createded stufs tehre are the fuudz, to the burdies, teh creepiez, An teh mooes, so tehre. It happen. Iz good.

31 An Ceiling Cat sayed, Beholdt, teh good enouf for releaze as version 0.8a. kthxbai.

That lolcat bible is hi-larious. Seems like they have that whole thing translated.

They don’t take exotic animals, only the soft fuzzy ones.

Thanks  for the pointer Sean

Their security system asked me, “what’s the username of another eBay member in your household”.

The only problem is… I don’t have another ebay member in my household. Or at least I don’t know of one.

Here’s the second chat I had with a support representative.

It’s long I know. But read all the way. It’s amazing. Well, if not amazing, maddening at least.

13:54:57 System System: Thank you for contacting eBay Account Security Live Help! Your feedback is important to us. Please take time at the end of this chat to fill out a brief survey letting us know how we did today.
13:54:57 System System Paulene E. has joined this session!
13:54:57 System System Connected with Paulene E.
13:55:12 Agent Paulene E.: Hello and thank you for contacting Account Security Live Help, my name is Paulene . How may I help you?
13:55:30 Customer ccrome: Hi, I *just* went throught this with Christina O.
13:55:38 Customer ccrome: and she had verified my account.
13:55:55 Customer ccrome: for some reason, it’s asking me again to verify this computer.
13:56:19 Customer ccrome: And it’s asking for the ebay account for another person at this address, and there are none.
13:56:47 Agent Paulene E.: Oh Thank you. Let me just pull up your account to verify. One moment please?
13:57:23 Customer ccrome: thanks.
13:59:47 Agent Paulene E.: Thank you for waiting. I have pulled up your account and I have checked the information you have provided. As you have explained, there’s no other member on this account, aside from you.
14:00:29 Customer ccrome: the question ebay is asking is: “Please answer security question below to receive your PIN. What is the user ID of another eBay member in your household?”
14:00:44 Customer ccrome: but I don’t have another ebayer in my household.
14:01:32 Agent Paulene E.: Oh I see. If there is none, then just answer the question.
14:08:22 Agent Paulene E.: Hello Caleb, are you still with me?
14:12:23 Agent Paulene E.: I’m sorry, I’ll need to end this chat in one minute if no response is received.
14:14:40 Customer ccrome: I’m here, you still there?
14:14:54 Agent Paulene E.: Yes.
14:14:55 Customer ccrome: answer what question?
14:15:25 Customer ccrome: the question is “What is the user ID of another eBay member in your household?”
14:15:28 Agent Paulene E.: The security questions they are asking so you could access your account.
14:15:30 Customer ccrome: How do i answer that?
14:15:46 Customer ccrome: *I don’t have another ebay member in my household*
14:15:58 Agent Paulene E.: If you have none, then just answer, ” none “.
14:16:11 Customer ccrome: ah, okay.
14:16:17 Customer ccrome: how am I supposed to know that?
14:16:50 Customer ccrome: It does not work.
14:16:57 Customer ccrome: I entered none.
14:17:03 Customer ccrome: no quotes, no spaces.
14:17:12 Customer ccrome: am I supposed to enter quotes or spaces?
14:17:23 Agent Paulene E.: Just try to finish the process.
14:17:37 Customer ccrome: I am trying to finish the process. it does not work.
14:17:48 Customer ccrome: it keeps going back to the same page asking:
14:17:57 Customer ccrome: Please provide the correct information in the highlighted fields. * Answer to your security question – Please enter a valid user ID.
14:18:14 Customer ccrome: This is in response to the question: What is the user ID of another eBay member in your household?
14:18:30 Customer ccrome: Like I’ve said, I don’t have another ebay member in my household.
14:18:55 Customer ccrome: the computer thinks I do. but I don’t.
14:19:03 Agent Paulene E.: Ok. Let me check on that. May I put you on hold for 2 to 4 minutes?
14:19:22 Customer ccrome: do what you need to do.
14:19:41 Customer ccrome: I’ve already gone through this verification on this computer with Christina O. Why do I have to do it again?
14:20:13 Agent Paulene E.: I do apologize for the inconvenience.
14:20:33 Agent Paulene E.: Let me just review your previous chat.
14:23:03 Agent Paulene E.: Thank you for waiting. may I have your user ID, for verification, please?
14:23:21 Customer ccrome: user id is ‘ccrome’
14:24:48 Agent Paulene E.: Thank you. And when you entered the username and password given to you by the previous agent, what error message do you see?
14:25:31 Customer ccrome: I already typed that in above.
14:25:53 Agent Paulene E.: So what happened?
14:26:09 Customer ccrome: It keeps giving me the same message:
14:26:28 Agent Paulene E.: In regard to the user ID?
14:26:52 Customer ccrome: The question is: “please enter another user at your household”
14:26:58 Customer ccrome: I Don’t Have One!
14:27:15 Agent Paulene E.: Oh sorry. Now it is clear to me.
14:27:27 Customer ccrome: Since I enter either nothing or as you suggested ‘none’ it does NOT accept the answer.
14:27:43 Customer ccrome: Now, I have this:
14:27:53 Agent Paulene E.: Have you tried clearing your cache and cookies? Do you happen to know how?
14:27:58 Customer ccrome: You have exceeded the allowable number of identity verification attempts.
14:28:12 Customer ccrome: no, i didn’t clear my cache.
14:28:16 Customer ccrome: I do know how
14:28:22 Customer ccrome: am I supposed to do that?
14:28:32 Customer ccrome: how am I supposed to know I’m supposed to do that?
14:28:47 Customer ccrome: now, it tells me to ‘click to chat with an agent’.
14:28:51 Customer ccrome: which is what I’m doing now.
14:28:59 Customer ccrome: (for the second time today)
14:29:08 Agent Paulene E.: It is just a way to check if that is the problem why you can’t log in.
14:29:38 Agent Paulene E.: It could be a browser issue.
14:29:49 Customer ccrome: I’ll try a different browser.
14:30:04 Agent Paulene E.: Oh that would be great!
14:30:43 Agent Paulene E.: I’ll wait until you’re ok with your account.
14:31:02 Customer ccrome: aaarrrrgggghhhh. Same thing
14:31:28 Customer ccrome: Please answer security question below to receive your PIN. What is the user ID of another eBay member in your household?
14:31:37 Agent Paulene E.: Oh sorry about that. Let us try another option.
14:31:42 Customer ccrome: I don’t have another eBay member in myhousehold!!!!!!
14:32:03 Customer ccrome: I already did that other option with Christina O!
14:32:13 Agent Paulene E.: Do you have access to your personal email that we have on file?
14:32:15 Customer ccrome: this is maddening.
14:32:18 Customer ccrome: yes
14:32:48 Agent Paulene E.: No need to undergo the process Caleb. This another option.
14:33:54 Agent Paulene E.: What I will do is, send you a temporary password. You have to check your mail. One moment please? For clarification, what is your email address please?
14:34:23 Customer ccrome: password? why do i need a password? I can log into my account already.
14:34:29 Customer ccrome: I just can’t sell.
14:34:35 Customer ccrome: my email is
14:34:37 Customer ccrome: cxxx@crome.org
14:36:00 Agent Paulene E.: Thank you. Let me check why there is a restriction on your account, why you cannot sell.
14:38:05 Agent Paulene E.: Would you please try to log in to www.ebay.ca.
14:38:35 Customer ccrome: ebay.ca? okay, i’ll give it a go.
14:38:54 Agent Paulene E.: Thank you.
14:39:45 Customer ccrome: okay, I’m logged in to ebay.ca, and EXACTLY the same thing as ebay.com
14:39:54 Customer ccrome: Please answer security question below to receive your PIN. What is the user ID of another eBay member in your household?
14:40:07 Customer ccrome: Again. I DONT HAVE ANOTHER MEMBER IN MY HOUSEHOLD
14:40:41 Agent Paulene E.: I’m so sorry for all the inconvenience this is causing you.
14:40:51 Customer ccrome: this is different browser, different ebay country even.
14:41:35 Agent Paulene E.: Let me further check your account. May I place you again on hold for 3 to 5 minutes to investigate?
14:42:05 Customer ccrome: i guess.
14:50:20 Agent Paulene E.: Thank you for waiting, Caleb. Can you please check now if you will be able to sell this time?
14:50:36 Customer ccrome: checking…
14:50:55 Customer ccrome: ah, finally!
14:50:57 Customer ccrome: it works.
14:51:12 Customer ccrome: will I have to do this again from each other computer I use?
14:51:21 Customer ccrome: It’s been about 2 hours with you and christan combined.
14:51:22 Agent Paulene E.: yes.
14:51:31 Customer ccrome: seriously?
14:51:51 Customer ccrome: will it ask my again for ‘another ebay member in my household’
14:51:52 Customer ccrome: ?
14:51:58 Agent Paulene E.: Sorry for all the inconvenience Caleb.
14:52:11 Customer ccrome: will it ask me that question again?
14:52:35 Customer ccrome: if so….. WHY?
14:52:40 Agent Paulene E.: Let me just give you a brief explanation of what happened to your account, why there was a restriction.
14:52:50 Customer ccrome: okay
14:52:50 Agent Paulene E.: eBay places an indicator on each member’s computer containing a unique ID number. When an eBay member begins listing or bidding on an item, the member’s User ID is verified against the indicator. If not present, it will recognize that you aren’t at your regular computer and begin the confirmation process.
14:53:14 Customer ccrome: I understand how confirmation works. why is it asking me for another ebay member, when I don’t have one?
14:53:35 Agent Paulene E.: That is a part of the security question.
14:53:45 Customer ccrome: that doesn’t make sense.
14:53:52 Customer ccrome: what if there is only 1 member in a household.
14:54:00 Agent Paulene E.: Sorry. if you feel that way.
14:54:15 Customer ccrome: wait, no, it *REALLY* doesn’t make sense.
14:54:23 Customer ccrome: what was I supposed to answer?
14:54:28 Agent Paulene E.: Sorry but that is what puzzles me.
14:54:37 Customer ccrome: oh… you are puzzled too?
14:55:02 Customer ccrome: you don’t understand why it’s asking for another ebay member in my household?
14:55:05 Agent Paulene E.: You know what I did to help you?
14:55:10 Customer ccrome: no
14:55:25 Agent Paulene E.: I added all the machine on your account that I saw.
14:55:51 Customer ccrome: is this going to be this broken for the rest of my life?
14:56:13 Customer ccrome: this makes no sense. It’s impossible for me to answer that security question.
14:56:21 Agent Paulene E.: What matters now Caleb, you can now sell at eBay.
14:56:33 Customer ccrome: It’s like, “What’s the name of your first child” when you have no children.
14:56:36 Agent Paulene E.: Yes, I do understand how you feel.
14:56:51 Customer ccrome: this isn’t a feeling. something is BROKEN in my account.
14:56:53 Customer ccrome: please fix it.
14:56:56 Agent Paulene E.: If that happens to me also, I’ll get frustrated.
14:57:04 Customer ccrome: will you please fix my account?
14:57:36 Agent Paulene E.: What do you mean by fix your account?
14:57:44 Customer ccrome: so it doesn’t ask me that question any more.
14:57:57 Customer ccrome: the ‘another ebay member at your household’ question.
14:58:12 Customer ccrome: you know, and I know that it’s impossible for me to answer that question
14:58:22 Agent Paulene E.: Yes. As long as you’re using the same computer that we have on file, : )
14:58:43 Customer ccrome: OMG, you’ve got to be kidding!!!
14:58:51 Agent Paulene E.: Yes, I know. If you really don’t know the answer.
14:59:20 Customer ccrome: it’s not that I don’t know the answer. THERE IS NO ANSWER! need to go. this is crazy.
15:00:10 Agent Paulene E.: Sorry. But it is our way to secure your account.
15:00:11 Customer ccrome: my daughter’s been waiting for 45 minutes.
15:00:26 Customer ccrome: ah, make it secure by making it impossible to use.
15:00:27 Customer ccrome: clever.

Thanks Mike

Here’s a really nifty video that shows a glimpse of the art behind making music. And the engineering, of course.

Thanks Dean.

My Mom’s dryer just quit on her. After failing to find a wiring diagram on the web for this dryer, I opened it up to see what I could find. And out fell the wiring diagram. Thanks Kenmore.

Here it is, for anybody who needs this model

Just putting it here so Google can find it later.

BTW, the failed part was the “196F Thermal Fuse, Non resettable”. Let’s hope it just got old and died. We’ll we how the replacement goes.

The white thermostat with the wires disconnected went bad

Markings on thermostat are G4AP0500 TF091C HFM2 3392519

Among other things, you need to agree that:

• you won’t get paid
• that if you quit before the end of your term (2.5 or 5 years), you’ll have to pay a ‘penance’.  You need to pay them!

It’s good stuff.  I think I’m going to join.

Bat blocker. A tiger moth emits ultrasonic clicks to try and jam the attacking brown bat's sonar.

Moths Block Bats’ Sonar

By Michael Price
ScienceNOW Daily News
16 July 2009

(Unceremoniously copied from ScienceNow)

A hungry bat screeches out ultrasonic waves and listens as they echo off surrounding objects. One of those echoes sounds an awful lot like a tasty moth, so it swoops in for the kill–but grabs only air. Thwarted again by the tiger moth Bertholdia trigona. New research explains the clever defense; the moth emits ultrasonic clicks that throw off bats’ sonarlike echolocation, like jamming a radio signal. It’s the first time this type of acoustic interference has been demonstrated in the natural world.

For about 40 years, researchers have been intrigued by the clicking tiger moth, which ranges from Central America to Colorado. Lots of moths click by vibrating membranes on their abdomens, but B. trigona is an order of magnitude louder. “You can hold them up to your ear and hear them,” says the study’s co-author, biologist William Conner of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Researchers have noticed that clicking moths were eaten less often than their quieter cousins, but how the rapid, high-pitched zzt-zzt-zzt wards off bats has been a mystery. Three possible explanations have emerged. One is that the clicks startle the bats. If that were the case, though, you’d expect bats to learn to ignore the sound, Conner says. Another hypothesis is that the clicks serve as a warning, letting bats know the moth is distasteful. That’s thought to be the case with some toxic moths, such as the related dogbane tiger moth, Cycnia tenera; and other nontoxic moths might mimic the technique. Finally, the moths may somehow jam the bats’ echolocation, because the clicks occur in the same frequency range as the ultrasound used by the bats.

Conner and his grad students devised a test to find out which hypothesis was right. Over 9 nights, they presented brown bats with a series of moths tethered to the ceiling with super-thin fishing line. Some of the moths were B. trigona with their clicking apparatus intact, others had it removed, and still others were various silent or quieter-clicking species. Infrared cameras captured the action.

The bats made contact with nonclicking moths 400% more often than they did with clicking B. trigona. Right from the start, the bats went after the clicking moths, discounting the startling hypothesis, and kept going for them night after night, making the warning hypothesis unlikely. That leaves jamming as the most likely scenario, Conner says. Furthermore, in about one-third of the attacks, the bats seemed to hesitate in their approach, suggesting they were baffled.

Conner, whose team reports its findings in tomorrow’s issue of Science, says how the clicks interfere with bats’ echolocation is still up for debate. His working hypothesis is that they imitate echoes, creating “multiple acoustic images in space,” which “throws off the ranging software in the brain of the bat.”

Mitchell Masters, an evolutionary biologist at Ohio State University in Columbus, says that the authors “have made the most convincing case to date that jamming is, indeed, part of the equation,” but he’d like to see further experiments flesh out just how bats’ approach behavior is affected.

Behavioral ecologist, Gareth Jones of the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom is intrigued by the fact that only loudly clicking B. trigona seems to disrupt echolocation, whereas quieter-clicking moths don’t. That may suggest a dual-clicking strategy for moths, he says. Loud clickers jam bats’ acoustic signals, whereas quiet clickers try to mimic the sounds of unpalatable moths.

]]> http://www.crome.org/wp/2009/07/moths-jam-bats-sonar/feed/ 0 http://www.crome.org/wp/2009/07/mr-diety/ http://www.crome.org/wp/2009/07/mr-diety/#comments Sat, 25 Jul 2009 08:07:43 +0000 caleb http://www.crome.org/wp/?p=605

Go to http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com for up-to-date deaths cased by Jenny McCarthy's anti-vaccination campaign

Listen to this 60 second podcast Holy #@!#*@.

Or read on here.

Click for more info

Click for more cute pandas @ zooborns

It turns out they kept over 800 complaints of loss of smell secret and did not inform the FDA as they are required to do.

The active ingredient, Zinc, has been shown to maybe shorten colds, if taken at the very onset of colds.  This is apparently a pretty tenuous link to begin with.  Any risk of such a serious side effect in an attempt to alleviate a self limiting disease (a cold) is absolutely not worth it, and does not pass the FDAs muster for safety.

The FDA has issued a warning, and with any luck will put those asses out of business for damaging people needlessly.

Zicam has removed the nasal products from the market, but are keeping 17 other versions on the market.   Check their official website: http://www.zicam.com/.

Read more here:  http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?s=zicam

“I don’t mean to brag, but….”

Here are the results:

• Echinacea doesn’t work for colds
• Ginkgo biloba doesn’t improve memory
• Glucosamine and chondroitin don’t help arthritis
• Black cohosh doesn’t work for menopausal hot flashes
• Saw palmetto doesn’t work for  prostate problems
• Shark cartilage doesn’t help cancer

The only positive result so far is that ginger capsules *may* help with nausea from chemo therapy.  And that link isn’t even clear.

What a huge waste of money.

We should shut down any government funded research into specifically ‘alternative’ medicine, and let the alternative medicine fight for the same research dollars as main stream medicine (a.k.a. medicine that’s proven safe and effective).   There already is a branch of legitimate research into botanical remedies — that should be how research is funded.  Simply being called ‘alternative’ should not get any special research dollars from me and you.

Read the MSBC article, or listen to the SGU Podcast on the subject.

Thanks for the link Rob.

Barry; likes to hide, eat fish. Click image for more

Click for more images

Read this excellent description of the process here at NeuroLogica.

This is a really good talk:  http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.html.  Well worth the 2o minutes if you’re up for it.

SGU 200th episode

Also, ScienceNow talks about the non-impressiveness of the fossil.

Check it’s website here.

Watch and enjoy. Good job Chris.

Check out the poll results:

http://cf.theindychannel.com/ind/sh/con_surveycontest_display/displaySurveyResults.cfm?contentid=19409260&sitekey=IND&questionum=1&answer1=1

Click image to go to the story.

Highlight. The structure of the new infrared protein, and a shot of it glowing inside a living mouse (inset). Credit: X. Shu et al., Science, 8 May 2009, p. 804

Fluorescent proteins are used all the time in labs for tracing molecules and tracing gene expression.  That’s a really nifty way to reverse-engineer how life works.  But, the fluorescent proteins in normal use in labs work in visible light, which doesn’t travel too far through tissue.  Infrared light goes much farther.

So, some guys decided to try making some infrared fluorescent proteins.  They basically took a protein that already absorbed light in infrared and basically mutated and replicated it, and found that it fluoresced a little.  With more mutation and selection, they were able to make a protein that shone 4 times brighter.

This will let scientists track gene expression deeper into the interior of living organisms.

Read more here.

What’s the harm in believing in the Chiropratic cult?  This kind of horrible medical and financial advice.  Read more at http://whatstheharm.net/.

How can I protect myself from swine flu? Build your immune system! Get adjusted! Studies show that being adjusted twice a week can increase your immune system function by up to 400%.

http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/1302/lost_in_space.html

And the judge agreed with the student!  What a load of crap.  Creationism is religious.  Creationism is superstitious. And Creationism is nonsense.

So, it seems to be that if you believe something that’s in conflict with science, you can just go to a science class, get the teacher to say something about your stupid belief,  then sue the teacher.

Read about the case here.

Read about it here.

Do you think a native english speaker was making a bit of a joke? Or is this a non-native speaker writing?

Sometimes I wonder wheter it’s westerners or easterners who write for the English language newspapers in China.  I think I know the answer.  I like this byline.

For example, you hear that unplugging your cell phone charger when not in use will save the planet.  Well, your cell phone charger takes 0.5 watts, and if plugged in all the time it takes 0.5 W * 24  hours/day = 12 W-hour/day Driving your car takes about 40 kW, and if you drive for 1 second a day, that’s 40,000 W * 1 s / (3600s/h) / (24h/d) =  46W-h/day.  So… unplugging your phone charger when not in use is approximately equivalent to 1 second of driving.

If unplugging your phone charger when not in use makes you feel good, that’s fine, but don’t think you’ve done your part because you do this.  It’s pissing in the wind.  We need to make BIG changes to have BIG effects.

Another fascinating tidbit:  A single annual intercontinental flight on an airplane that’s 80% full consumes approximately the same amount of fuel & energy as a daily commute of 30 miles in your car!  One flight, and you’ve doubled your annual fuel consumption!

I hate to just keep copying stuff from Pharangula, but I have to.

Asymmetry in snails. They use the same gene we do for the purpose.

Humans are asymmetric — especially internally.  It’s critical that we are, we couldn’t live if we had symmetric innards.  PZ Myers just posted a really interesting article on the new discovery that snails use the same gene for asymmetry as we do.  Some scientists idientified the gene, then knocked it out.  The snails with that gene knocked out come out as straight tubes instead of curled up in an asymmetric manner.

For a science geek like me, it’s a pretty nifty experiement.

We came

We did a heckuva job

We mission accomplished

Now lets get the fuck outta here

 

Coming to you from Camp Vic….  Camp Let’s Get The Fuck Outta Here, this is Caleb reporting.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/mar/31/robert-crumb-book-genesis

A new study in Nature Neuroscience shows that video games really can have a lasting improvement on certain cognative skills.  I’m sure that my fast typing speed has something to do with my pinball skills.

Click here for more info.

Dolphis can steer their sonar using some kind of beamforming technology.

Dolphins can steer their sonar +- 20 degrees left and right by emitting multiple clicks.  This seems somewhat similar to beamforming, or perhaps more akin to a directional microphone.  I don’t understand the physics of it, but perhaps I can get hold of the actual paper and figure out more.  Sounds pretty nifty.

http://www.crome.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/dolphin-sounds.mp3

Click the image to find out what you're looking at.

If there were a god, he clearly would have had a monkey hurl a coconut at W, not some poor Thai guy.

Man, that’s sweet justice.  If only some monkey had hurled a coconut at Bush’s head 8 years ago….

Watch this video:  You will not be sorry.  You may be late for work however. Click on the ‘Watch this video’ button when you’re t the site.

Click on image for more photos.

Squeezebox Love

Read about the new study here.

Click on image for more

Click for larger image

http://www.whynotchemeng.com/uk-and-ireland/teachers/top-ten-flash-bang-demos

Bedbug sperm depositor

Bedbugs reproduce by directly injecting little sperm-balls directly through the abdomen and into the female reproductive tract, bypassing the normal ‘use the opening that already exists’ method.  That’s normal for bedbugs and their ilk.  Turns out that there are some bedbug species that have figured out they can reproduce effectively by raping other males, putting their sperm into another male’s reproductive tract.  Then, when that male goes and mates with a female, he injects the other guy’s sperm into the female!

Click to read about the bedbugs and other terrifying penises.

One well hung crab

Rob and I were talking bout weird parasites. He told me about Rizocephala. This is a type of barnacle that, in its adult stage infects a crab, looses appendages, segmentation, and most organs. It attaches to the host crab, and grows like roots into the crab, centering on the digestive system. There is a bit of the barnacle that hangs out of the crab, its gonads. It grows in just the right spot shape and size to trick the crab into thinking it has a crab egg sack. And, crabs only molt after releasing their egg sack, so once infected, the crab never molts again. Oh yeah, and if this barnacle infects a male, well, the male treats the faux egg sack as if he were a female, and never molts again.

Click on the photo for the full story

I still like the green sea slug plantimal as the best cross-species gene transfer, but wasps are pretty good too.

There’s no consent for these surrogate parents. Tens of thousands of wasp species lay their eggs inside caterpillars [ed.  Google says there are more than 200,000 species of wasp], injecting toxins that paralyze the hosts and allow their young to feast on the innards with impunity. Researchers have long wondered what exactly these toxins are and where they came from. The answers, a new genetic analysis reveals, have to do with a virus that infected wasps millions of years ago.

That’s pretty sweet.  Wasp gets infected by toxic virus.  Wasp co-opts virus genes and uses it as toxin to let babies feast on a caterpillars.  Wasp has 10,000 descendant species.

Or…. if you prefer…. God made 200,000 species of wasps, and gave only 10,000 of them the ability to lay their eggs inside catapillars, and inject the caterpillars with virus-like toxin that coincidentally perfectly matches the DNA from an actual virus.  He does this just to tweak the collective nipples of anybody who might be sequencing DNA strands 6,000-10,000 years after the creation.

You know.  Whichever works for you.

My Sister knitted that sweater!

My sister Althea knitted Coraline’s starry-blue sweater.  This and other Coraline artwork is on display in San Francisco at the Cartoon Art Museum until February 15th.

Althea just got back home from the opening of the movie in LA.  She said that the premier went great, and that people loved her sweater.

Some background:  Althea’s gone totally bonkers over miniature knitting.  It’s how she makes her living now.  Check out her stuff at bugknits.  She normally knits at 1/12 scale.  But she’s knit some stuff at 1/12/12 = 1/144 scale (i.e. for dolls for the dolls).  She seems to be in a class by herself in terms of miniature knitting.

Go buy some of her stuff at http://www.bugknits.com.

I really wish pepole would stop thanking God. I'm the one who saved your life, dammit!

Captain Chesley Sullenberger, the now famous captain of US Airway flight 1549 that crashed in the Hudson river, just can’t figure out why people are so grateful to God for trying to kill everybody on board.  The incredulous Sullenberger said

“Look, God could have sent only 1 bird into one engine to teach us a lesson.  Or how about some wind sheer to shake things up a bit.  Or maybe he could have waited until we gained some altitude so we could have gotten back to the airport safely.  But damn.  No.  He was trying to kill every one of us.  He waited just long enough for us to get high enough to easily kill everybody on board if we crash.  Then wham! 2 birds, 2 engines gone.  Bastard.  But, the good thing is, I kick ass.  I was able to land that plane in the god damn river.  Who else has done that with everybody surviving?  Nobody, that’s who.

I dunno.  Maybe he really wanted to kill only one of us.  Maybe is was Emma Sophina, who wrote that song called, “A song for Sully,” which ostensibly is about me, but if you listen to the words just thanks God over and over.  Damn.  I saved your life woman, and what do I get?  A song about the guy who tried to kill you.  Shit.”

Sully continued ranting for another 15 or 20 minutes, but ended the interview with this.

“I’d like to thank God for sending those 2 birds into my engines.  It’s made me terribly famous and I’m going to get rich bitch!”

Well, here’s a guy who likes to stuff pigeons in his pants.

Those are pigeons stuffed into his socks. I'm not even going to talk about where he stuffed the eggs he was smuggling.

(Of course, there are exceptions to the Aussie-Bonkers rule, and you are one of them.)

Don't ya just hate it when that happens?

This guy seems to be a little worse for the wear after being struck by lightning.

He was 40 to 45 feet long, and weighed in 2,500 lbs.  Click the photo for more information.

Yikes.

This hypothesis, if true is a true eye opener to the true nature of the universe.  

It really takes some time to get your mind around, and I certainly don’t yet.  I’m not going to try to explain it all because others already have. 

This is a must read or listen item though.

From the SGU

http://media.libsyn.com/media/skepticsguide/skepticast2009-01-21.mp3

And a blog post from The Rogues’s Gallery. 

And finally from New Scientist.

http://www.kvbc.com/Global/story.asp?S=9718863&nav=15MUCBSd

Luckily the kid survived.

Well, my wife hates them.  Can’t even stand to look at them.  But I always kinda liked them for their creepyness.  Well, Rita Mehta at UC Davis really took a liking to how they eat, and how they are similar to snakes.   

In any case, as you might know, fish have the regular-old type teeth in the regular old place, you know, in their mouth.  But they also have teeth in their throat (or pharynx).  

Radiographs of Muraena retifera with pharyngeal jaws "at rest" behind the skull (top) and fully protracted after prey capture (bottom)

Usually fish feed by opening their mouth quickly, and suctioning water and food into the back of their throat where their second set of teeth can get a hold of the food.  But morays are different.  Due to their long shape, they can’t generate the suction necesary to bring food back to the extra teeth.  So the moray developed the ability to actually move its extra set of teeth from its throat, right into its mouth, grab the food, and ratchet it down.

Look at the top image to the right.  It’s a bit unnatural, isn’t it?  It appears that there is a second, fake jaw placed behind the fish’s skull.  Well, that is really the natural rest position of the pharangual teeth.  

The bottom image shows the teeth actually move up into it’s mouth and grab food down.

And finally, for the coup-de-creep, check out these 2 short videos.

See you in hell

First is, “Eat Crap,”  from Slate, where the author makes a compelling argument that we don’t get enough crap in our diet.  

Second is about fecal transplants.  Take a turd, distill it to get pure essence of crap, and feed it back to yourself or perhaps somebody else after a course of antibiotics.  Read all about it here:  ”Fecal Transplants:  Getting to the bottom of the matter“.

Just Eat It.

Well, like bad guitar players that don’t have very good pitch (i.e. me), they match harmonics!  The Females flap at about 400 Hz (close to F# below middle A), and the males flap at 600 Hz, which makes for the first common harmonic for females the 3rd (400Hz * 3 = 1200Hz), and males the 2nd (600 * 2 = 1200Hz). 

So, the researchers wanted to know if the mosquitoes could actually hear at 1200Hz, which exceeded the previously known limit of hearing for mosquitoes, or if they used some other method for the pitch matching.  So what do they do?  You won’t believe it.  

First, a guy has to insert an incredibly tiny electrode into the ear of a mosquito.  Yes, you heard right, insert an electrode capable of monitoring the electrical impulses that the mosquito’s ear generates.  Then they basically check the frequency response of the mosquito’s ear.  They found that this species can hear up to 2000 Hz.    Unbelievable.  How can you do surgery on a mosquito’s ear without damaging the ear.

I sat next to an ear surgeon on an airplane flight a few months ago, and he said operating on human ears required about the same dexterity as soldering small electrical components (which I do all the time.)  It’s amazing what you can do if only you can see what you’re doing.  Needless to say, mosquito ears are much smaller than human ears.    

Another interesting tidbit.  They can’t do the mating & pitch matching experiment on the critters if they’re flying all around the room.  It also doesn’t work if they glue them to the table.  So, what do they do?  Of course!  Teather them to the table with really fine string.  That way they can watch closely and record every second of the 10 second lilliputian copulation.

Listen to this recording of the sound:

mos-snippet

The whole podcast is available here:  http://podcasts.aaas.org/science_podcast/SciencePodcast_090109.mp3

This guy's much bigger than your cat

Check out this cutie here:  http://charliesplayhouse.blogspot.com/2008/12/bonc-3-devil-frog.html

When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers [i.e. biologist P.Z. Myers], talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed … that was horrifying beyond words, and that’s where science — in my opinion, this is just an opinion — that’s where science leads you

- Ben Stein.

So, can you spot the jesus here?

Here’s a really bad case of pareidolia, and a good analysis of this here, and the original report here.  Sorry to hear that He left the cat’s leg, and too bad if you’re the sucker that bought the doggie door.   Jesus is no longer residing in your flap.

The Portuguese man-o-war is a surface dwelling siphonophore. These things are a sort of super-organism — a colony of individual critters that each specialize in the colony. It’s actually quite incredible.

Check it out at Pink Tentacale.

Check it out. 

Stop wasting your money and risking serious injury and infection.

Read about it here among other places.

Check out the original patterns, and the reconstructed ones.

Is this the cutest baby pigmy hippo you’ve ever seen or what?

Check out all the newbors at ZooBorns.

Lady believes that the virgin mary appeared in her brain. Not mentally, but physically in her cat scan.

Good lord, check this one out.  I guess I can see the hooded figure of Mary.  Frankly, this looks a lot more like the virgin mary than the cat door looked like Jesus.  Although, I can’t tell — it looks a little like the Virgin Mary and a little like a vulva.   

Read more about it here.

http://scienceblogs.com/erv/2008/12/evolution_aint_got_nothin_to_d.php

Seems plausible to me.

So, what’s in your gutter? I went out to put up Christmas lights, and found 5 paper airplanes in the gutter.

What’s in yours?  Leave a comment or a photo.

This turtle has fully developed bottom shell, but only partially developed top. By the way, it also has a mouth full of teeth, unlike any modern turtle.

This newly discovered pre-turtle has a fully developed bottom shell, only partially developed top.  And, unlike Albert, actually could legitimately complained to his mother that he had a tooth ache!

Check it out at Science Magazine or pdf)

Da Boom!

Well, the Squeezebox Boom found its way into Tom’s Guide, in the hands of this model.  It’s funny to see what people do with your products.

Jesus!

Well, here he is.  Jesus left the cat’s leg and jumped over to this doggie door.

Seriously, watch the video.  Everybody in the house was laid off, and they still think Jesus is working miracles in their life because the ice machine started working again.  

The irony is completely lost of these people.

Oh yeah, you can bid on ebay if you act fast.  The current price is $1,185, but I bet it’s shill bidding.  Nobody could be that stupid could they?  I’d rather own I am Rich.

Read the full story here. 

Watch this video of 10,000 amoebas joining into a sort-of-multicellular-thingy and going for a walk.

Here's a piece of that meteor from the other week.

Hey, they found pieces of that huge meteor in Canada.

Check it out.  And if you missed the video, look below.

Who says plants and animals need to stay separate forever?

This sea slug actually acquired the ability to photosynthesize.  As far as I can tell, this guy seems to be mid-evolution (aren’t we all?).  The slug steals chloroplasts from the algae it eats, but it does not incorporate the entire algae cells.  Chloroplasts can’t perform the whole photosynthesis chemical reaction all by themselves, but rather need some genes/proteins from the host algal cell.  This sea slug has incorporated the actual genes from the algae into its own cells, thus this guy really seems to be a plant/animal hybrid!  It even has the extra genes in its gametes, so its offspring may not even need to do the steal-the-genes trick!  

There is still a step left to truly transform this guy into a plantimal.  I don’t believe the chloroplasts can be transferred to its offspring.  Once this happens though, this animal would never have to eat anything!  Super cool.  

 By the way, if this sounds at all fanciful to you, it’s not that surprising.  The cellular energy factories called mitochondria that are in most of your cell types were acquired in a similar fashion — though i suspect it was single-cell-guy eating single-cell-guy.  This is pretty different I guess.  

Check out the article on these guys at the New Scientist, and watch the video here.

To see whether estrus was really “lost” during human evolution (as researchers often claim), we examined ovulatory cycle effects on tip earnings by professional lap dancers working in gentlemen’s clubs. Eighteen dancers recorded their menstrual periods, work shifts, and tip earnings for 60 days on a study web site. A mixed-model analysis of 296 work shifts (representing about 5300 lap dances) showed an interaction between cycle phase and hormonal contraception use. Normally cycling participants earned about US$335 per 5-h shift during estrus, US$260 per shift during the luteal phase, and US$185 per shift during menstruation. By contrast, participants using contraceptive pills showed no estrous earnings peak. These results constitute the first direct economic evidence for the existence and importance of estrus in contemporary human females, in a real-world work setting. These results have clear implications for human evolution, sexuality, and economics.

Read the full paper here:  http://www.unm.edu/~gfmiller/cycle_effects_on_tips.pdf

The source of the movies are here: 

http://www.embl-heidelberg.de/digitalembryo/#Movies

The nuclear waste after 10 years of powering 20,000 homes is about the size of a football.  Yes, it’s one nasty football, but the waste from a traditional power plant to generate the same amount of power would overflow Mile High Stadium in Denver.  

This is super exciting news, and would allow all sorts of great applications.  For example, a major problem with plug-in hybrid vehicles is that the power grid isn’t designed to handle so much power.  It would be impossible to get enough power into urban areas to power large scale electric vehicles.  However, with these things distributed around, there would be plenty of power.

Of course, these things generate tons of heat too — they could generate heat for buildings and electricity with no problem.

One problem with the new Large Hadron Collider is that they can’t run it in the winter time because it takes too much power away from Geneva, which needs it for heat.  Perhaps they could install a few reactors and run year-round (or at least have a schedule independent of the seasons).

Read about the back-yard reactor here.

I just heard on the Science Podcast about a breakthrough that allows sequencing of the entire human genome in about an hour. 

Totally Awesome.  Listen to the podcast.

http://www.gamereclaim.com/2008/10/128/

Unfortunately, you can solve all levels pretty quickly.  Fantastic contraptions can keep you busy for a long time.

To get my favorites into your squeezebox easily, just plug the following URL into your squeezecenter.  Go to Squeezecenter Settings -> Podcasts and paste in this URL:

http://crome.org/calebspodcasts.opml

• Here’s one ugly solution I came up with: http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=2084594
• And another http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=2086118
• http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=2086559
• Wall Walker
• Mission to Mars solution
• Totally awesome: This one we didn’t do. It was already there.
  
• U-Turn solution
• The Bumper
• The Slingshot
• Saved Swinger Sadie, henry and I worked this one out.
• Back and forth and wedge is a cool one I did.
• Dog o 1 tail is a cool one
• The Conveyor (caleb & henry)
• Transplant This