Caption Contest

This seems to me to be a particularly fine idea:

As Field Correspondent, I have to admit that all the good stories are being reported. So, as any good journalist will do in tough times, I have decided to submit a manufactured item for your consideration:Based on the photo below, what would be the best caption? The first that comes to my mind is: "I have a WHAT on my WHERE??????" What do you think?

I feel the bony finger of Skeletor!

I was a little too old to really watch He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, but my brother (who later became a wrestler) was a huge fan when he was about 6. I seem to remember Geoff watching this too, but I could easily have confabulated that memory.

It's a priceless take-down:

The best part about rewatching He-Man, after the initial nostalgia-burst, was tracking the show's hilarious accidental homo-eroticism—an aspect I missed completely as a first-grader. In the ever-growing lineup of "outed" classic superheroes, He-Man might be the easiest target of all. It's almost too easy: Prince Adam, He-Man's alter ego, is a ripped Nordic pageboy with blinding teeth and sharply waxed eyebrows who spends lazy afternoons pampering his timid pet cat; he wears lavender stretch pants, furry purple Ugg boots, and a sleeveless pink blouse that clings like saran wrap to his pecs. To become He-Man, Adam harnesses what he calls "fabulous secret powers": His clothes fall off, his voice drops a full octave, his skin turns from vanilla to nut brown, his giant sword starts gushing energy, and he adopts a name so absurdly masculine it's redundant. Next, he typically runs around seizing space-wands with glowing knobs and fabulously straddling giant rockets. He hangs out with people called Fisto and Ram Man, and they all exchange wink-wink nudge-nudge dialogue: "I'd like to hear more about this hooded seed-man of yours!" "I feel the bony finger of Skeletor!" "Your assistance is required on Snake Mountain!" Once you start thinking along these lines, it's impossible to stop. (Clearly, others have had the same idea.) It's a prime example of how easily an extreme fantasy of masculinity can circle back to become its opposite.

Best Student Physics Paper this Year!

Beating hands-down, “Investigation into the Gravitational Hyperforce Actually Measures Number of Cars in Parking Lot on Weekends”, Answer 6”*

http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~kovar/hall.html

*My Senior Undergraduate Thesis in Astronomy at Penn State

The Fifth World

What if, instead of forming an asteroid belt, the solar system had produced at planet between Mars and Jupiter? How would that have formed, and what would be different?

A new paper explores this hypothesis, Planet Artemis: the case for the formation and delayed destruction of a fifth Solar System terrestrial planet

We investigate the possibility that a fifth terrestrial planet (nicknamed “Artemis”) may have formed beyond Mars’ orbit, in what is now the asteroid belt. Artemis could have formed in a region that was stable before the giant planets’ shift, but unstable thereafter, probably between 1.8-2.2 AU. We simulate the giant planets’ orbital shift to explore Artemis’ demise, varying Artemis’ mass and starting location. In each simulation, the giant planets’ eccentricity jump causes a increase in the terrestrial planets’ eccentricities, sometimes causing their orbits to cross and collisions to occur. In simulations where Artemis is 1/3 Earth mass or larger, Mars is typically destroyed via ejection or a collision, and Mercury often falls into the Sun. In cases with a Mars-mass Artemis, either Mars or Artemis is ejected. However, the remnant terrestrial planets often have higher orbital eccentricities than observed today because of multiple close encounters. Rapid destruction of Artemis is needed to keep terrestrial eccentricities low.

I did something like this (but much scaled down with no simulation) in grad school for my planetary sciences class. I used the Virial Theorem to show that in most cases the binding energy for the solar system causes ejection of the protoplanet, but this anlysis is more subtle and shows cases where the planet either fails to form or is quickly destroyed.

Destroying a planet is no simple feat. The amount of energy required, for example, to destroy the current Earth would take approximately the *entire* output of the Sun for 3 weeks.

Darwin Awards

Here

My favorite so far is the Stubbed Out

DARWIN AWARD (17 April 2006, England) There's always someone who thinks that good advice doesn't apply to them. For example, if advised by a doctor that you are to be covered wtih a flammable material, and the one thing you must not do is go near a naked flame, most people would be able to take this advice onboard, and not strike a match until the flammable material smeared on your body had been taken off.
However, Phillip, 60, decided he knew better. He was in hospital for the treatment of a skin disease, which consisted of being covered with a paraffin-based cream. He was warned that the cream was flammable and that he definitely shouldn't smoke. But Phillip couldn't live without his cigarettes.
Smoking was not permitted in the ward, but Phillip took this setback in stride, and sneaked out onto a fire escape. Once he was in his little hiding place, he lit up... ahh. Everything went well as he got his nicotine fix; things went downhill only after he finished his cigarette, and ground out the butt with his heel.
Unfortunately, the paraffin skin cream had been absorbed by his clothing. As he stamped out the butt, it lit the fumes coming off his pyjamas. The resulting inferno treated his skin ailment, and left him with first-degree burns over 70% of his body. Despite excellent emergency treatment, he died in the intensive care unit.
Using the Darwin checklist:
1.Reproduction -- if he has children, he's not having any more.2.Excellence -- this is one that I'll remember.3.Self-Selection -- he was warned that paraffin and flames don't mix.4.Maturity -- At 60 I'd guess he was old enough to make his own decisions.5.Veracity -- All the major news carriers in the UK had the story.
This ticks all the boxes, and though I feel sorry for the family, I think that it acts as a warning that if a doctor tells you not to smoke, there's probably a very good reason.
There's always someone who thinks that advice doesn't apply to them.
For example, usually if a person was told by a doctor that they were going
to be covered in a flammable material and that the one thing they
shouldn't do is go near a naked flame, most people would be able to take
this advice on board and not set anything on fire until they were told that
the stuff smeared on their body had been taken off.
One man however, Phillip Hoe (60), decided that he knew better. He was in
hospital for treatment of a skin disease, the medication consisted of
covering him in a paraffin based cream. The gentleman was warned that the
cream was flammable and that he definitely shouldn't smoke, however he
decided that there was no way he could go without his cigarettes. There
was no smoking allowed inside the hospital, but Mr. Hoe took this minor
problem in his stride and managed to sneak out of the ward and find a fire
escape. Once this little hiding place had been discovered, he decided it
would be OK to light up. Everything went swimmingly well as he got his
nicotine hit, however things went a little awry when he finished his
cigarette. Mr Hoe decided to dispose of his cigarette in the time-honoured
fashion of dropping it onto the floor and then stamping on it.
Unfortunately for Mr. Hoe the paraffin applied to his body had been
absorbed by his pyjamas, and as he stamped out the cigarette it lit the
fumes coming off the paraffin. The injuries from the resulting inferno
(can't quite get that scene with the candle from Saw out of my head)
left Mr. Hoe with first degree burns over 70% of his body, he received
emergency treatment at an intensive care unit, but unfortunately died.
Using the Darwin checklist:
1.Reproduction -- Don't know if he's got children, but he's not having any more.
2.Excellence -- It's one that I'll remember.
3.Self-Selection -- He was warned that paraffin and flames were not a good combination.
4.Maturity -- At 60 I'd guess he was old enough to make his own decisions.
5.Veracity -- All the major news carriers in the UK had the story.
I think it ticks all the boxes, and though I feel sorry for the family, I
think that it acts as a warning that if someone tells you not to do
something, there's probably a very good reason.

Wrongness is a Fermionic Property

Ha!

An excellent takedown of a foolish, offhand comment from Instapundit. Don't get me wrong, I read Glenn and often think he has a point, but often it's just the usual non-stop blog narcisissm.

I love the idea of the fermionic properties of wrongness too.