What could be more delicious?

Field corespondent Tara continues to earn the hefty salary I'm not paying her.






According to a spokesperson from Just Born -- the company that manufactures Peeps -- one billion of these squishy, marshmallow delights will fly off the shelves in the weeks leading up to Easter.
Why Peeps for Easter? The tradition dates back further than company history -- way back. Ancient pagans in Europe used eggs, chicks and rabbits as symbols of renewal in their spring rituals. Over time, European Christians incorporated the pagan symbols into their Easter traditions, and brought them to America.

(via)

A Race to The Bottom...

I'm not sure which is worse, lawyers or insurance companies. I received this today:

A Charlotte, NC lawyer purchased a box of very rare and expensive cigars, and then insured them against fire, among other things.

Within a month, having smoked his entire stockpile of these great cigars and without yet having made even his first premium payment on the policy, the lawyer filed claim against the insurance company.

In his claim, the lawyer stated the cigars were lost in a series of small fires. The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason that the man had consumed the cigars in the normal fashion.

The lawyer sued... and WON! (Stay with me) In delivering the ruling,thejudge agreed with the insurance company that the claim was frivolous.

The judge stated nevertheless, that the lawyer "held a policy from the company in which it had warranted that the cigars were insurable andalso guaranteed that it would insure them against fire, without defining what is considered to be unacceptable fire" and was obligated to pay the claim.

Rather than endure a lengthy and costly appeal process, the insurance company accepted the ruling and paid $15,000 to the lawyer for his loss of the rare cigars lost in the "fires".

NOW FOR THE BEST PART...

After the lawyer cashed the check, the insurance company had himarrested on 24 counts of ARSON!!!

With his own insurance claim and testimony from the previous case being used against him, the lawyer was convicted of intentionally burning his insured property and was sentenced to 24 months in jail and a $24,000 fine.
This is a true story and was the First Place winner in the recent Criminal Lawyers Award Contest

Obviously an Urban Legend, but a good one.

Young Frankenstein Musical Due

From Sci-Fi Weekly. It's not going to be The Producers...

Mel Brooks, who made a monster hit musical out of his 1968 movie The Producers, is adapting his classic 1974 film Young Frankenstein for the musical stage as well, the Reuters news service reported. With no deadline set, Brooks told the news service that he is in the middle of writing the score, including a song for scary Frau Blucher, played in the original movie by Cloris Leachman. When the musical is completed, Brooks says he will make a formal announcement to raise money. Brooks offered Reuters a preview of Frau Blucher's song: "He vus my boyfriend/He vould come home in a snit/He vould have a terrible fit/I am the first thing he vould hit/But I didn't give a s--t/He vus my boyfriend." When he made Young Frankenstein, Brooks said he did everything he could to emulate the 1930s James Whale movie Frankenstein, from shooting the whole film in black and white to using many of the same shots. Now Brooks said that his challenge is to do the musical on Broadway with a black-and-white set, with all the mists, moodiness and laughs of the original movie, plus songs.

Spinning Wheel, Got to Go 'Round

There are 6 currently unclassified methods for enriching Uranium, each more technically challenging than the previous, with *tiny* increases in production.

Slate has a really good article on the basic physics of what's going on in Iran around their enrichment program.

When uranium gas enters the tube and whips around at high speeds, the useful U-235 isotopes get separated out from their heavier cousins, the U-238 isotopes. The speed of the rotor determines how effectively a centrifuge can enrich uranium, and a rotor's maximum speed depends in part on the dimensions of the centrifuge. Since it's hard to maintain a balanced spin in a long tube, engineers have to keep the devices to less than a few meters in length. That means they can enrich only a few grams of material at a time.

Even those few grams need lots of trips through the centrifuge to reach the weapons-grade level. (For more on how enrichment actually works, click here.) Enrichment plants get the job done by connecting hundreds of small centrifuges together, in clusters called "cascades." The uranium gas enters one centrifuge after another, with the enriched gas that comes out of the first getting siphoned off and directed into the next. By routing the enriched product back through the cluster of centrifuges over and over again, you can keep increasing its U-235 content. Given enough time—and enough spins—you'll reach the 3 to 5 percent concentration you need to run a light-water reactor, or the 80 to 90 percent you need to make a nuclear weapon.

Blogging as Narcissism

One of the reasons I took a little blogging break (besides needing to spend time getting my City Of Heros character BluShield to level 50) was because I found my posts getting smaller, pettier and less and less interesting to people in general. I looked at all the stuff I had blogged and tried to see where it was going wrong. After sorting through 2 years worth of good and bad, I made some new rules for what gets posted and how often. In restarting the blog, I decided to highlight the:

Amusing
Entertaining
Transmundane
Weird
Interesting
Science
Father vs. Son conversations

I decided I would only lightly blog about the:
Political
Religious
Personal Medical problems

and I would try to studiously avoid:
what I had for breakfast/lunch/dinner
how much weight I lifted and when
where I was going and who I met (unless it really fell into one of the top categories)
dreams I had
personal information about me, my family etc.
the Iraq War
the president
why other, actually famous bloggers are off their collective rockers and how they should Listen To Me
any diatribe unlikely to be seen by the person I am ranting about (e.g. Ann Coulter, Bill O'Rielly, Travis)

In short, I decided that blogging was an act of narcissism but that even my ego had limits which should be respected.

Why go through explaining all this?

A great example of why I think I was on to something came up today:(via Pharnygula)

You may have heard the disturbing news story about the Oklahoma murderer/pedophile/cannibal—just to make it a little creepier, he had a blog. (I don't expect it will stay up for too long, so read The Insomnia Report for excerpts.)
He says things like this:

I mean it, I really need a girlfriend. It's not just depressing anymore, it's actually starting to have a negative effect on my mental state I think. For example, my fantasies are just getting weirder and weirder. Dangerously weird. If people knew the kinds of things I think about anymore, I'd probably be locked away. No probably about it, I know I would be.

Mostly, though, he comes off as pathetic and banal.

After the *dancing*, Orz think you will make good *special sauce*

It seems there might be a new version of Star Control II in the works!

Pluvius writes "A recent post on GameSpot's Rumor Control blog suggests that there may be a chance for a new entry in the classic Star Control series in the foreseeable future. It would be developed by Toys for Bob, the creator of the first two games in the series, and it is implied that the company already holds the rights for the franchise. Quoting from the article: 'But maybe, just maybe, if enough of you people out there send [Alex Ness, producer] e-mails requesting that Toys For Bob do a legitimate sequel to Star Control 2, I'll be able to show them to [Toys For Bob parent company] Activision, along with a loaded handgun, and they will finally be convinced to roll the dice on this thing.'

For those of you who are now asking yourselves, "Why do I care about this? What the hell is Star Control II and why do I even read Horvath's blog anymore?", this is good news.

Star Control II was one of the finest (and first) computer games ever made. Rich in content, cutting edge (at the time) in graphics, it was a wonderful blend of all the elements of a superlative game. Ask any game player of a certain generation (current ages 20-45) and they will tell you Star Control II is the gold standard by which all other games are measured. And, surprisingly, many modern games fail to reach this standard set in the90s. It was a good blend of a non-linear story, exploration, graphics and playability that's really hard to achieve.

Wiki entry here

Update: Found this in the Wiki entry. I didn't realize this, but it makes perfect sense and is obvious in retrospect. No wonder I like David so much.

David Brin's science fiction series about the Uplift Universe is also often mentioned as inspiration for the Star Control II universe.

Peeps!

What would Easter be without Peeps??!?? Slower, less colorful and filled with fewer diabetic children to start, but why wish for the impossible?

Every year I send some Peeps, usually 40-50lbs worth, to Geoff's mother? Why? Is it because she loves them so much, or becuase I'm a heartless bastard who doesn't know when to quit a joke? You choose, it's all good. Oh how she loves her peeps! But appearently not as much as the folks at the Peep Research Foundation, who have been experimenting with peeps for years and have reached some interesting conclusions with their data.

How People See Your House

Ok, the last posting was was too serious.

This however, while serious, is also mildly amusing.

Fetal Pain

A squirmy, unpleastent question: Can a fetus feel pain?

To my surprise, the answer is, no at least not for until the third trimester.

The thalamus, now, is a relatively low-level structure, the posterior part of the forebrain. To put it simply, it's a kind of relay station that integrates information from multiple sensory modalities and forwards that on to the higher brain centers of the cortex, that stuff that we think of as more significant in generating conscious thought. It's just not where the action is at. Also, at this early stage, the thalamus has not yet sorted out its structure and doesn't have the capacity for much processing. Neither does the cortex; the next important step is for these tissues to organize themselves into layered structures, and for the thalamus to send projections to the cortex. This doesn't happen until the embryo is 23-25 weeks old. That date represents a minimal, rock bottom bare essential level for the presence of any connections that would confer even a remote possibility of sensory function.

After that the answer is less clear. Do you feel pain under anesthetic? Possibly, but you aren't conscience. Does that hold for a third trimester fetus? Possibily, possibly not.

Good question and a good analysis.

Frozen Underwear and Other Parodies

This was over at Something Awful, but picked up by Wonkette.

Odd and just short of amusing (unless you're like totally a 14 year-old. If so, subsitutue out Cheney and put in your Math teacher's name. Bush? Biology. Rumsfled? Oh he's the gym teacher.)

Donald Rumsfeld needs to wear iced underwear because of some medical condition, and he has his secret service detail hold his spares. He was recently getting uncontrollable long-term erections and had to change up his medical treatments. The underwear and the erections is why he uses a standing desk, not because he is some super-man. He also wears nylon stockings, not because he's gay, but to control some vascular problem with his legs which causes him intense pain.

President Bush, when dining at the white-house, does not eat any item of food which has not been first sniffed by a trained dog before being prepared. Think about that.

Word among the staff is that Cheney was drunk when he shot that lawyer, and secluded himself for a day to sober up and avoid felony firearms charges. I don’t have any direct information on this because the guys with him at the time are not talking. This is totally unconfirmed, but I think it is plausible.

There's not really a doubt in my mind that at least some of the factinos are true, but (shrugs) who really gives a rat's ass if Cheney's breath is bad.


Dick Cheney has chronic gum problems and his breath smells like shit as a result. He is also a CLOSE TALKER. He keeps a small bottle of diluted hydrogen peroxide which he rinses with every hour on the hour, and he swallows it instead of spitting. He also picks his nose vigorously (violently) and hums loudly and tunelessly to himself while taking shits.

And, most creepy...

The white house lawn is mowed every other day by the same man humming the same tune.

ahhhh!! And if you say Condi Rice three times in front of the mirror and step backward, she will appear and bite your head off with her horrible alien matnis head!


Kos also repeats this, along with comments from SA, but has the taste to refrain from piling on.
Mostly.

Churched!

Finally, I have been properly churched.

Yeah, I know I've blogged about the FSM before, but reading the hate mail it's generated really got my spirits up. Why? It sort of points out that he's on to something. If real, mainstream Christians can have their beliefs so rattled by a plate of pasta, it tells me they strongly suspect their gods are not as real as they say. Anyone with an ounce of sense would see through this and recognize it as a joke, but these folks are clearly threatened and hostile about it.

Good.

The more they argue the FSM is a threat to their religion, the higher the chance they will be recognized as extremist fools.

Count me amoung the FSM faithful! The Flying Spaghetti Monster, a god we can all agree isn't real.

Papists and Muslims and Quakers, oh my!

I love maps! When I was in 4th grade I got sent home with a note which read,
"Buy Mark a globe so we can have the class' back". I was spending hours with it, looking at foriegn contries, learning cities and countries, etc. It was completely compelling.

Even today I have MS MapPoint on all my computers and have been know to spend an hour or two going over the geography of a country I haven't been to before (or in many cases some I have). I just love them.

Here's a great site mapping demographic data on religion across the country. I was a little surprised that a) the country isn't as religious as I thought and b) Massachusetts is still very religious.
Enjoy

Book Review: Accelerando

Title: Accelerando
Author: Charles Stross
Grade: F-
Summary: Unreadable

I'm no real fan of the Singularity, but Charles Stross has written a number of pretty good stories around it, so I was looking forward to a good book. Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise are both excellent, so I figured this would be pretty good.

I could not get past page 40 in this. My current operating theories for this disconnect is that a) he's had a massive stroke, b) he lost the draft in a hard drive crash and had to rewrite the entire thing from scratch in an entire night, c) he won the Lotto and just doesn’t care any more or d) aliens ate his brain.

Its flaw was simple, it was logically inconsistent. Too many technological rabbits out of the same, tired hat, weird views of intellectual property, unrealistic views of human motivation and, what made it unreadable to me, too many A implies B errors. If technology B exists and logically depends on A, the effects of A must be seen in other places. In Stross' novel sentient AIs are common as pennies, depressingly so, yet none of them reach the critical point. Nope didn't buy it.

Doubtless many pro-singularity friends could read this and enjoy it and will probably take issue with my review. I'm not down on Stross who I still think is a good author, just this novel which I didn't like.like.

On Aging

Nothing makes you feel old like walking into a crowded schoolyard, screaming “Hey, can I play?!” at the top of your lungs, and being led away by policemen.

Sing it Brother!

More here.

Happy Lucky Fun Delicious Anime

Keeping my promise to blog less with higher quality



More here

Gonorrhea Lectim

From field corespondant Tara:

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a warning about a
new virulent strain of a sexually transmitted disease. The disease is
contracted through dangerous and high risk behavior.
The disease is called Gonorrhea Lectim and pronounced "gonna re-elect him."
Many victims contracted it in 2004, after having been screwed for the past
four years.
Cognitive characteristics of individuals infected include: anti-social
personality disorders; delusions of grandeur with messianic overtones;
extreme cognitive dissonance; inability to incorporate new information;
pronounced xenophobia and paranoia; inability to accept responsibility for
own actions; cowardice masked by misplaced bravado; uncontrolled facial
smirking; ignorance of geography and history; tendencies towards evangelical
theocracy; categorical all-or-nothing behavior;
Naturalists and epidemiologists are amazed at how this destructive Disease
originated only a few years ago from a bush found in Texas.

Medical Update

Good News Column:
Genetic Testing: A-ok! Nothing like Huntington's, Cerebreal Ataxia, CAG-repition disorders etc.

Neutral News Column:
The MS doctors seem to think it's a complication of diabetes
The Diabetes doctors think the MS doctors are crazy.
The Chief Neurologist at UW thinks the MS doctors are crazy as well

Bad News column:
My GP found how to get leg reflexes, by involving part of my brain in something else. This is good news becuase it means my peripheral nerves are probably good. This is bad news because, "well, it means the problem's in your brain Mark"
I seem to be now be exhibiting the Babinski Reflex. This is new and also points to brain involvement.

Some Kinda Metaphor or Something

I love Bob the Angry Flower. I wonder what the author is trying to say...

Not Dead! Back from Hiatus

Howdy all,

Thanks for all the notes. No, I am not dead or even especially sick. Just busy with work and a new, completely unproductive hobby.

While all blogs are completely narcissistic enterprises, I decided that mine was getting an increasingly negative, whiney tone to it, i.e. complaints about this and that, rants about news articles, complete and total meaningless trivia etc. Not interesting, not fun and bordering on the anti-social. It's easy to descend into a cozy world of self-reinforcing diatribes and cranky rhetoric when your friends agree with you and, before you know it, you're well down the road to being a crazy shut-in with 5 friends and a lot of cats (or dogs, fish, chinchillas etc.)

So I took a break, got my head out of that, and now am thinking about trying again. This time with the view that things should be lighter and less self-involved.

So, from here forward, look for fewer but hopefully more entertaining posts.

A Strongly Worded Denial

Thaurloteion: hi
Toast171: hi
Thaurloteion: how are you/
Toast171: I'm okay. How are you? Getting ready for classes tomorrow?
Thaurloteion: good
Thaurloteion: not really, i'll do that tomorrow when the store is open
Thaurloteion: trying to find out where my classes are
Thaurloteion: but that service is down for maintenance
Toast171: they are at Drexel
Thaurloteion: thank you
Thaurloteion: i didnt realize that
Toast171: anytime son
Thaurloteion: what are you up to today?
Toast171: house hunting
Toast171: I'm gonna bag me a house!
Toast171: first tho, I need to bait the traps
Thaurloteion: bait the traps?
Thaurloteion: those are rats, not houses
Thaurloteion: you cant live in them
Toast171: I can't?
Toast171: Ratman does!
Thaurloteion: are you ratman?
Toast171: And those guys who talk a lot on the streets
Thaurloteion: those are bums
Thaurloteion: they live in boxes
Thaurloteion: or sleeping bags
Toast171: No! I am not Ratman! Who told you that??!! I deny it!
Thaurloteion: no one told me
Toast171: How could they? It isn't true! It isn't! WHo is spreading these lies?
Toast171: The rats will know! Oh yes, you can keep your secrets from humans, sure, but not the rats! The lovely, silky coated, bright eyed rats. They see all. They know!
Toast171: errr....
Thaurloteion: yes.....
Toast171: ... they know... that I am not the Ratman! Thats what they know!
Toast171: ask them!
Thaurloteion: of course...
Toast171: right now!
Toast171: go go go!
Thaurloteion: i'll do it later
Toast171: ok
Toast171: Good
Toast171: But don't ask Willard
Toast171: He's a liar
Toast171: and a rat bastard
Toast171: whatever you do, dont talk to Willard
Toast171: and if you do, don't beleive what he says
Toast171: and I *certainly* don't owe him any money! He cheats at cards...
Toast171: ...
Toast171: ...eerrr..
Toast171: I'm not Ratman
Thaurloteion: no
Thaurloteion: of course you're not
Toast171: whew!
Toast171: (that went smoooothly)