Friday, December 30, 2005

Actual Facts

Unmitigated Gall

Pans can explode or separate when preheated, used on high heat or used for frying.


Posted by Buckethead on 12/30/05 at 12:59 PM
Unmitigated Gall • Permalink

Hangover Remedies from the Forward Deployed

Just So You Know

Today’s Stars and Stripes includes coverage of hangover treatments sworn to by soldiers, men, women, and Germans.

Note that the first coupla people the article speaks to (and the only ones pictured if you’re reading the electronic edition) are from intelligence units.  Also note that they were found at a local bar.  This ought not surprise anyone.  Not at all.  Ah, memories.

For my part, I don’t get hangovers.  Even when I drank to excess on a regular basis, I was never hung over.  I woke up bone tired, achey, and feeling half starved, sure, but that was more likely due to the astonishing volumes of vomit, and concomitant effort to hurl same, than purely the spirits themselves.  Never a headache.  Unless I’d been cracked in the head.

Tell you what though, that one young stud swearing by a raw egg in a Bloody Mary or some such- geh.  Imaginative, but much too gross in the application.  What I have seen is medics drink all night, then instead of just crashing for an hour or two before PT, would give themselves IVs of vitamin C and sugar solutions.  They were right as rain, in a clear example of nutrition science trumping alchemy.

Does anyone else dabble in the alchemical pursuit of hangover remedy? 


Posted by GeekLethal on 12/30/05 at 10:26 AM
Just So You Know • Permalink

Thursday, December 29, 2005

Complexity

The Miracle of Science

Rand links to an excellent speech by Michael Crichton on the subject of complexity and the environment.  I really insist that you go read it.

I bought Crichton’s most recent book, State of Fear, a little while back but it has been languishing unloved on my bookshelf.  After reading this, I will plow through his wooden prose to get at the meaty goodness inside.


Posted by Buckethead on 12/29/05 at 07:29 PM
The Miracle of Science • Permalink

I am not an OS, I am a human being

Entertainment

But not according to these people:

If I was an OS, though, I imagine that is as reasonable an assignment as any other, and likely moreso.

I also determined that if I were a Nigerian email scammer, I’d be this guy:

I don’t remember getting any emails from that dude.  Personally, I was hoping for the astronaut guy but no test is perfect.

If you are so inclined, you can also find out what file extension you are.  I was not so inclined, but you go right ahead.


Posted by Buckethead on 12/29/05 at 07:15 PM
Entertainment • Permalink

Actual Facts

Unmitigated Gall

Much of the nutrition in a banana is concentrated in one end.


Posted by Buckethead on 12/29/05 at 01:54 PM
Unmitigated Gall • Permalink

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

What marketing genius came up with that idea?!

Just So You Know

interrobang

From the department of obscure punctuation, we have the interrobang.  A single character constructed by superimposing the exclamation point and the question mark, the interrobang was invented in the early sixties, enjoyed a brief, if mild, popularity before sinking inexorably into obscurity.

American Martin K. Speckter concocted the interrobang itself in 1962. As the head of an advertising agency, Speckter believed that ads would look better if advertising copywriters conveyed surprised queries using a single mark.

The deluded hopes of hack writers enamored of !?!?!?! constructions were dashed when this idea failed to gain traction.


Posted by Buckethead on 12/28/05 at 05:31 PM
Just So You Know • Permalink

Where over the world is the ISS?

That Buck Rogers Stuff

If you have been unable to concentrate or sleep for not knowing where the International Space Station is, relief is at hand.

[Wik] Helpful Reader Ric informs us that there is an even better site for satellite-keeping-track-of.  Heavens Above allows you to enter your exact location, and tells you when stuff will be overhead.  Awfully damn nifty.


Posted by Buckethead on 12/28/05 at 05:30 PM
That Buck Rogers Stuff • Permalink

Actual Facts

Unmitigated Gall

Many snakes are actually quite short if you don’t count the tail.


Posted by Buckethead on 12/28/05 at 05:05 PM
Unmitigated Gall • Permalink

Agathidium bushi

The Miracle of Science

Two entomologists have named three recently discovered slime mold beetles of the genus Agathidium after our President, Vice President and Secretary of Defense.  Quentin Wheeler and Kelly Miller were responsible for naming 65 species of slime mold beetles, and aside from A. bushi, A. cheneyi and A. rumsfeldi, they named other bugs after wives, a former wife, Pocahontas, Hernan Cortez, the Aztecs, Darth Vader ("who shares with A. vaderi a broad, shiny, helmetlike head"), their scientific illustrator Frances Fawcett, the Greek words for “ugly” and “having prominent teeth” and the Latin word for “strange,” and for various distinguishing features they discovered on the beetles.  Also achieving immortality in scientific nomenclature were various geographic locations, such as California, Georgia and a few states in Mexico.

Lest you think that the decision to name slime mold beetles after administration figures is some sort of lame political hit job,

The decision to name three slime-mold beetles after Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, however, didn’t have anything to do with physical features, says Quentin Wheeler, a professor of entomology and of plant biology at Cornell for 24 years until last October, but to pay homage to the U.S. leaders. “We admire these leaders as fellow citizens who have the courage of their convictions and are willing to do the very difficult and unpopular work of living up to principles of freedom and democracy rather than accepting the expedient or popular,” says Wheeler, who named the beetles and wrote the recently published monograph describing the new slime-mold beetle species while a professor at Cornell.

President Bush was pleased with his new namesakes, and called Wheeler in London to thank him.

If you want to acquire your very own Agathidium, for a pet or for ritual sacrifice, Wheeler says, “bushi so far is known from southern Ohio, North Carolina and Virginia; Agathidium rumsfeldi is known from Oaxaca and Hidalgo in Mexico; and Agathidium cheneyi is known from Chiapas, Mexico.

For a super-size version of the above image, suitable for (among other things) desktop wallparper, framing or target practice depending on your proclivities, click here.


Posted by Buckethead on 12/28/05 at 02:43 PM
The Miracle of Science • Permalink

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Actual Facts

Unmitigated Gall

The inability of snakes to count is actually a refusal, on their part, to appreciate the Cardinal Number system.


Posted by Buckethead on 12/27/05 at 06:40 PM
Unmitigated Gall • Permalink

Carnival of Tomorrow #16, Christmas Edition

That Buck Rogers Stuff

This carnival is slightly belated, as Christmas travel (and preparations for Christmas travel) kept me from my computer, and from you, dear reader.  In recompense, I have attempted to assemble a nifty and link-stuffed carnival for your perusal.

In keeping with the season, I have divided the subject matter into three categories:

Ghosts of Christmas Past

It is a commonplace that yesterday’s tomorrows are our todays.  However, not all of those tomorrows actually happened.  Some of the most interesting tomorrows from our past still might sneak into being.

Deep Space Bombardment presents the original patent for the Orion spacecraft.  And is the Orion truly dead?
Medieval artisans were unwitting nanotechnologists, according to the Advances in Nanotechnology blog.  Gives new meaning to the idea of the philosopher’s stone.

Want to build Atomic rockets in the old style?  These people have the know-how.

Percival Lowell thought there were canals on Mars.  But you can see more up-to-date maps of Mars in Ralph Aeschliman’s Atlas of Mars.

Decoding of the Mammoth genome might lead to its resurrection.  This project would likely be a good deal easier than the Jurassic Park scenario, given that close relatives of the fuzzy mammoth are still lumbering around as elephants.

Ghosts of Christmas Present

Antigravitas informs us that the Stardust comet sample return probe will return to Earth in January. 

The Israelis have developed a new nanotech material that might make for some rather incredible armor.  “[The] material was subjected to severe shocks generated by a steel projectile traveling at velocities of up to 1.5 km/second. The material withstood the shock pressures generated by the impacts of up to 250 tons per square centimeter. This is approximately equivalent to dropping four diesel locomotives onto an area the size of one’s fingernail. During the test the material proved to be so strong that after the impact the samples remained essentially identical compared to the original material.” Powered armor might be just around the corner.

In good news for private space initiatives, NASA seeks private carriers to take over from Space Shuttle for near earth missions.  In bad news, Jeffrey F. Bell thinks that SSTOs are basically impossible.

Chris Hall of Spacecraft links to an article about our Solar System’s seventeen planets.  That should make the old mnemonic rather more complicated.

The Pluto Probe is still, hopefully, ready to launch early in the new year.  The first launch window opens on January 11th.

In other hot space news, Fred Keische of the Eternal Golden Braid reports that the congressional battle over the future of the Space Shuttle is heating up.

NASA and the Air Force have teamed up to develop a next generation chemical rocket.  The new rocket would provide nearly twice as much thrust as current space shuttle engines and to do it safer and more efficiently, by using unique “full flow” preburners that provide more thrust than traditional rocket engines while operating at cooler temperatures.
And here’s Rand Simberg of Transterrestrial Musings on an encouraging trend in discussion about space.

The mind behind RocketForge has created a new blog, COTSWatch, to track articles and news about NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) announcements.

It seems that the stately revolution of the Earth is simply not accurate enough for us anymore.  Atomic clocks lose a second in three million years, but the unseemly wobble of the Earth requires that this year, a leap second be added to the last day of the year.

Al Fin reports on the “Deep Web” - that huge part of the interweb not normally accessible to ordinary search engines.  The Deep web might be 500 times larger than the “surface web,” is growing faster, and exceeds in size all the printed matter in the world.  That’s a lot of information.  And that presents a lot of problems, some of which are touched on in this post in the btw.net blog.  One answer to that problem is the Google brain, brought to us by Joshua Bell’s Personal Blog.

From my cobloggers, helping robots see better and Injecting microchips into yourself containing vital information - good idea or mark of the beast?

Mr. Shape Shifter links to DNA Pyramids and thinks that nanomachines can’t be far behind.  Cellular life is in essence a proof of concept for nanotechnology, and biotech might well provide the tools that allow us to begin to make true nanotech.  One nifty tool might be a particularly fascinating and powerful part of the anatomy of a small microbe, as reported by the Biosingularity blog. 

The future isn’t always tomorrow.  Some bits of the future that have arrived early, and most of them make excellent gifts.  Here’s a couple lists. 

In a round up of changes happening right now, from the founders of the Carnival of Tomorrow, the Speculist reports in Better all the time #27 that things are, well, better all the time.

Ghosts of Christmas Future

In the future, we might all be dead.

Ken Talton links to an idea for cheap access to space.

The Space Law Probe is all about Getting’ Jiggy in Space.  Just to make it into space is cool.  Makin it in space would logically be even better.

But for those who say, “I’m a fighter, not a lover,” there’s always ASATs, Soviet space weapons, military space vehicles, and Weaponizing Space in general.

“The art of prophecy is very difficult - especially with respect to the future.  --Mark Twain” The central thesis of the Singularity is that it is not merely very difficult, but perhaps impossible to predict the future.  Nevertheless, there are those who will try.  Among them are a small cadre of science fiction writers who are attempting to divine the indivinable.  Among the best of this elite cadre are:

  • Vernor Vinge, who is coming out with a new novel (finally!) in May, called Rainbows End
  • Charles Stross, who maintains a journal, and has posted his excellent novel Accelerando online.
  • Greg Egan, author of some of the most mind expanding fiction I’ve run across, has an online presence here, where you can find some of his short works, and much else of interest.

For non fiction, it’s not too late to give your favorite technophile a present.  Especially if that technophile is you.  Chris Phoenix, of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, has his list of best nanotech books here, including a link to an online version of Drexler’s Engines of Creation.

The web home of the singularity is perhaps Ray Kurzweil’s site, but others are also hoping to make a mark, including Singularity Now, which hopefully will end up better than the movie his site logo is based on.  Here’s another singularity website.

Singularly appropriate for the Christmas version of the Carnival of Tomorrow, and one of the most fascinating possibilities of nanotechnology (aside from amorous utility fog) is the potential for creating the Christmas Bush.  The Christmas Bush first appeared in fiction in Robert Forward’s novel Flight of the Dragonfly and its sequels, and also in The Turing Option, co-written by MIT AI researcher Marvin Minsky and Harry Harrison.  The Christmas Bush is detailed in, well, detail, in these papers by its inventor, CMU roboticist Hans Moravec.  Here’s a pic:

And if you’re going to have your own personal Christmas Bush, you also need a suitable spaceship for it to inhabit.  Probably the best choice (consonant with current knowledge of physics) is the Valkyrie antimatter powered interstellar rocket designed by Charles Pellegrino, polymath and coauthor of one of my favorite books, Killing Star.  (Available for as little as 75 cents on Amazon.)

If a multi-year journey to another star is unacceptable to you, you might need a warp drive.  These guys think they can build one.

The future isn’t all about technology.  Only mostly.  But among other things, politics will certainly have a large impact on how we live our lives.  Wars and strife and violence are likely to be on the menu.  But one of the most interesting ideas for how to shape the future comes from (in its most detailed form) from James Bennett, author of The Anglosphere Challenge and now a blogger at Albion’s Seedling.  Just for a taste of what the anglosphere idea may have in store for us, imagine that the fifty-first state isn’t Puerto Rico, or even one of the provinces of a balkanized Canada.  Rather, Guyana.

Well, I could find more, but this post is already tragically late.  Hope you enjoyed it, and don’t forget to check out last week’s carnival was at the Speculist.  If you would like to contribute to or host an upcoming Carnival of Tomorrow, please write to:

mrstg87 {@ symbol} yahoo {dot} com
or
bowermaster {@ symbol} gmail {dot} com


Posted by Buckethead on 12/27/05 at 06:24 PM
That Buck Rogers Stuff • Permalink

Friday, December 23, 2005

Hot Buttered Elves

Music Wonkery

It’s like clockwork.

Every year, right along with the weepy encomiums to some Jewish schmoe who got nailed up for trying to get people to be nice to each other and the kitchy, dippy foolishness that drips from every tree, building, and television in these United States, come the nattering nabobs of negativity.

“Christmas is too religious!” “It’s too secular!” It’s too commercial!” “It’s unfair to atheists!” It’s unfair to people without families!” “It’s unfair to me!”

Any more it’s really just part of the season. Suicides rise. Families split. Hospitals fill up with busted legs, busted lips, and bitter husbands full of spite and too much eggnog. In fact, even in years where the pundits don’t crow about some fatuous “War on Christmas,” its almost fashionable to talk the season down like we’re all super cool teenagers trying to distance ourselves from our oh-so-humiliating parents.

Personally I mostly dig Christmas. Sure, I don’t so much love the six-week shopping season and all the glitter and chintz, but I guess other people do so live and let live is what I say. But do I love spending time with my family, opening mystery boxes fulla loot, and gorging myself on turkey, cookies, and wine. C’mon! That’s a good time!

Nevertheless I am in the habit of being deeply negative about Christmas music. In general, I hate it. Aside from a few beautiful classics (mostly hymns) Christmas music as a genre is the cloying and nasty auditory cousin of cat pee, of puke and disinfectant, of unwashed old ladies wearing far too much perfume crammed into a tiny hot room. Worse yet, I can’t just block it out. My mind doesn’t work that way. If it’s playing, I’m listening, and if I’m listening, I’m suffering a little. Poor me, right?


Posted by Johno on 12/23/05 at 11:51 AM
Music Wonkery • Permalink

Happy holiday of your choice

EntertainmentThat Buck Rogers Stuff

It actually causes me physical pain to write the words down in electrons and photons, since I am a godless liberal from Massachusetts, but.... “Merry Christmas” to all the Ministry’s readers. I surely hate our freedom almost as much as I hate our American values. And the baby Jesus. But Merry Christmas to all! (It burns! Oh, the burning!)

(Feh.)

In keeping with the spirit of the season, and as a special lagniappe to our Buckethead, here is (via BoingBoing), a wonderful page full of images of aerospace-themed New Years greeting cards from the former Soviet Union.

image


Posted by Johno on 12/23/05 at 11:39 AM
Entertainment • That Buck Rogers Stuff • Permalink

Thursday, December 22, 2005

Under a rock in the DU

Darwin Award Contender

Hawkins posted his now-annual top ten list of worst utterancesfrom the Democratic Underground, and I couldn’t help but go look.  It’s like rubbernecking adn accidents.  You know it’s not quite right, but you do it anyway.  The sampling of quotes is predictably tendentious and irritating.  Of course, you could find equal amounts of goofiness (if not bile) at a UFO convention, Evangelist Tent Rally or a Burning Man festival.  But this one just tugs at my heart:

3) seabeyond: “i refuse kentuck i just refuse. why do you think the (American) people are so dumb because they have been being dumb down consistantly alst decade especially during bush time. i refuse and tell my children i refuse to allow them to be dumb down. they had better use their brain to follow me. i have high expectation,. i will not feed into the dumbing down of america. i tell my friends, exactly i expect more out of them, i especially tell my older nieces and nephews and their friends, i will not play their dumb down game

no no no”

I’m afraid that unless his or her) fellow gene donor is a damn sight smarter, his kids have little hope but to play the dumb down game.


Posted by Buckethead on 12/22/05 at 05:43 PM
Darwin Award Contender • Permalink

Evil is as evil does

Just So You Know

From our pal the Maximum Leader, we find this apt Christmastime quiz:

Just how evil are you?

Without any sort of lying or exaggeration, or gaming the quiz to get the answer I wanted, I discover to my shock (but not surprise) that I am

No doubt some will find this knowledge a confirmation of their warped perceptions of reality.


Posted by Buckethead on 12/22/05 at 01:58 PM
Just So You Know • Permalink
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