In other news... (humorous news items, etc)

[Nylonathatep]

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/02/29 ... dinosaurs/


Why am I posting this?

Spoiler:

Cuz there's one right behind you.

[Darryl]

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/02/29/behold-the-mega-flea-that-stalked-the-earth-with-the-dinosaurs/


Why am I posting this?

Spoiler:

Cuz there's one right behind you.

You are an evil person for that spoiler. An evil, evil, hilarious person.

[LaserGuy]

Iceland is considering adopting Canadian dollar to help stabilize their currency markets.

[poxic]

That would be ... novel.

Side note to history: during the '80s (I think), there were Canadian economists (I think, or maybe policy wonks) who predicted that Canada would be forced to deal with their (mostly internal) excessive public debt by printing as much currency as needed to pay it off, then adopt the US dollar, "within five years".

Heh.

/unfortunately, the current government seems intent on running deficits at will
//argh

[Diadem]

I thought Iceland was set to adopt the Euro at some time in the future. If they switch to a foreign currency (they've been talking about that for 4 years now) the euro seems the obvious choice.

Maybe they think it's too unstable. Hmm. Damn. If even Iceland snubs us we're really in the deep end.

[addams]

I thought Iceland was set to adopt the Euro at some time in the future. If they switch to a foreign currency (they've been talking about that for 4 years now) the euro seems the obvious choice.

Maybe they think it's too unstable. Hmm. Damn. If even Iceland snubs us we're really in the deep end.

Hey! Who is snubbing who?
Can Iceland meet the standard for EU status?

Did the Queen say it is O.K. to adopt another state?
What now? Is the British Empire on the Rise, again?

What is their excuse this time?
Last time it was as follows: "It followed me home." (In chains? Really?)

What kind of a world do I live in? Strange; At best.

What kind of chains bind the mind? Is it a chain or a web. Webs are nice for some, but, not for all.

I look at the world and I see each person holding all others in webs of social overlaps. Weird. I have no idea what I am looking at. People.

People watching was such a blast. What happened to my imagination? I can not imagine what it is to be one of these people. Opps. Cleared the room. Not a soul. They will be back. They come in waves. There is a population equation; Maybe, it is an electron cloud equation. Something describes this phenomena. Yep. They come in waves. I am out in Public. The activity has a rhythm to it. Strange. Strange in deed.

I know that they know what they are doing. But; I do not know what any one of them is doing, unless, I ask. Nah. Don't speak Southern Belle. Not even in English.

Ahh. Not all Southern Belles are the same. Some are so sweet.
Ask Keith Devon and Run!

What kind of currency to have is a math question. Keith Devon knows about math.

[Magnanimous]

Wilmington City Council Passes Resolution Urging 'Personhood' Rights For Sperm (this a protest, of course; they aren't serious about it)

Things like this make me wonder how many people know that sperm doesn't just live forever if the man doesn't ejaculate... IIRC it only lasts up to a few weeks before being reabsorbed. One could make the case that men should be legally required to have regular sex, so that every "person" gets a chance. >_>

[poxic]

"Every sperm is sacred
Every sperm is great..."


Edit: well, that didn't work. Have it this way:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0kJHQpvgB8

[addams]

"Every sperm is sacred
Every sperm is great..."


Edit: well, that didn't work. Have it this way:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0kJHQpvgB8

That was Great! What a lot of fun.

[Magnanimous]

A cat is running for the United States Senate. I'd vote for him.

[Qaanol]

A cat is running for the United States Senate. I'd vote for him.

For the record, the U.S. Constitution states, “No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.”

It doesn’t put any restriction on the age or citizenship of cats—or any other non-persons—holding national office.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Constitutional literalism welcomes our new robotic overlords.

[Diadem]

A cat is running for the United States Senate. I'd vote for him.

For the record, the U.S. Constitution states, “No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.”

[/quote]
Out of curiosity: How does that last part work? The US is rather big. Living in California or Texas while working on Washington seems rather inconvenient. I guess a senator could live in a state, get elected, then move to DC. But do they have to move back every time they want to get re-elected? Or does that article only apply to the first time someone runs for office?

[Ghostbear]

Out of curiosity: How does that last part work? The US is rather big. Living in California or Texas while working on Washington seems rather inconvenient. I guess a senator could live in a state, get elected, then move to DC. But do they have to move back every time they want to get re-elected? Or does that article only apply to the first time someone runs for office?

My understanding is that the residence requirements are fairly flexible. I think it just needs to be your official primary residence; I know some representatives in the house will just buy a new house somewhere nearby if they don't like how the lines were drawn during redistricting. I expect that their residence in DC doesn't count towards that requirement.

[firechicago]

Out of curiosity: How does that last part work? The US is rather big. Living in California or Texas while working on Washington seems rather inconvenient. I guess a senator could live in a state, get elected, then move to DC. But do they have to move back every time they want to get re-elected? Or does that article only apply to the first time someone runs for office?

The rules vary from state to state somewhat, but legislators generally go back to their home districts during recesses and, in some cases, weekends. It's also true that residence rules can be pretty lax, and many states specifically exempt those in federal service from residency rules, allowing them to continue to use their previous address as their legal residence for purposes of running for office even if they don't live there any more.

For a recent example of how this works out in practice you can read this opinion (PDF) establishing Rahm Emanuel's eligibility to run for Mayor of Chicago even though he had moved to Washington to serve in the Obama administration and had rented out his Chicago home.

[addams]

http://io9.com/5799335/five-weird-theor ... e-universe

I think this is funny. We, little limited humans, attempting to understand our own universe and others, while many of us can't navigate China Town.
China Town may be the portal into all knowable Universes. Have you ever been to a China Town?

Spoiler:

I have. It is possible.
The China Towns that I have been to have strange dark old book stores with ancient abacus and drawings of Earth and Heaven that are older than dirt.
There are shops that are filled with sublime statues and and bright imaginative and functional furniture.
There are cheep souvenirs and expensive souvenirs.
History Fables and the Mundane all mixed together.

Then, we are expecting that we can look out into the light polluted sky and know other Universes.
We have the eye of Hubble. It is above the light pollution. It looks deep into the sky.
The deep field study impressed me.

So; What about the theory that everything is being pulled to one place the by force of everything falling? What we are seeing is down.
But; We are not seeing it. Hubble is.
It counts. Sort of. A telescope and a microscope both see beyond what we can see with our natural eyes.

[Lostdreams]

The food is also strange and wondrous... and tasty... but my also give you food poisoning if you get it from the wrong vendor. Still worth it.

[userxp]

1,482 out of 1,389 people (106.7%) voted for Putin in Precinct 451 in Chechnya. There was exactly 1 vote for Zyuganov, the opposing candidate.

...in Soviet Russia, president votes for you!

[JBJ]

Who said it: Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei or U.S. Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum?

Transcribed for you here, because I care.

1. "We were put on this Earth as creatures of God to have dominion over the Earth."

Spoiler:

Santorum

2. "We believe in democracy and we also believe in freedom, but we do not believe in liberal democracy."

Spoiler:

Khamenei

3. "Although the literal meaning of socialism is equitable distribution of wealth, it is associated with other concepts which we hate. Over time, socialism has come to be associated with certain things in society that are unacceptable to us."

Spoiler:

Khamenei

4. "The radical feminists succeeded in undermining the traditional family and convincing women that professional accomplishments are the key to happiness."

Spoiler:

Santorum

5. "This is not a political war at all. This is not a cultural war. This is a spiritual war."

Spoiler:

Santorum

6. "This is a war between two willpowers: the willpower of the people and the willpower of their enemies."

Spoiler:

Khamenei

7. "Go back and read what the sirens did once you arrived on that island.… They devour you. They destroy you. They consume you."

Spoiler:

Santorum

8. "The Iranian people's hatred for America is profound."

Spoiler:

Khamenei

[Arrian]

Who said it: Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei or U.S. Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum?

Aww, I was wrong on 3 and 8.

Though I wonder why some of those were included; why would it matter who said "Go back and read what the sirens did once you arrived on that island.… They devour you. They destroy you. They consume you"? Out of context, it looks like a reference to Greek mythology, easy to put whatever spin on it you want. I imagine the creator of this list wants you to think it's a reference to women in general or maybe feminists, but it could just as easily be a reference to junk food or spending on welfare programs. A "Siren's call" is really generic for anything that sounds like a good idea but really isn't.

[Dauric]

Who said it: Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei or U.S. Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum?

Aww, I was wrong on 3 and 8.

Though I wonder why some of those were included; why would it matter who said "Go back and read what the sirens did once you arrived on that island.… They devour you. They destroy you. They consume you"? Out of context, it looks like a reference to Greek mythology, easy to put whatever spin on it you want. I imagine the creator of this list wants you to think it's a reference to women in general or maybe feminists, but it could just as easily be a reference to junk food or spending on welfare programs. A "Siren's call" is really generic for anything that sounds like a good idea but really isn't.

You called it. The context has jack-shit to do with Iran or with Christian theocracy.

Go back and read what the sirens did once you arrived on that island," Santorum warned students at Colorado Christian University this week, invoking mythology. "They devour you. They destroy you. They consume you."

"Ladies and gentleman we cannot listen to the siren song," he added. "We cannot listen to President Obama and we can't listen to those in our party who want to be just a little bit less than what the Democrats and the left is doing to our country."

Pretty much standard demonize-the-democrats fare by equating their party with mythical monsters.

[maybeagnostic]

Who said it: Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei or U.S. Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum?

Aww, I was wrong on 3 and 8.

Me too. I was really sure the last one would be Santorum but I guess he hasn't turned his attention to anything specific in international politics yet.

[Nylonathatep]

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/06 ... ed-record/


It's still not too late to bow to our new android overlord!

[Randomizer]

You know, that's really impressive, but when they call something "cheetah", I expected it to literally run as fast as a cheetah, and 29 km/h is less than half a real cheetah's speed.

Spider silk spun into violin strings - Hey, new, pleasant sounds for live musical instruments are always good. And the article says they hold up better than aluminum-coated nylon, but not as well as gut strings. Um... I hope they don't mean cat gut. :p

The Truth About the March 8 Internet Doomsday - Apparently a lot of people are infected with a computer virus that switches their DNS provider. The FBI replaced the malicious server so that people could still use the internet, but on March 8th 2012 (about two days), they're going to turn it off. So anyone who's still infected (and I didn't even know this malware existed until now) is going to lose internet access.

[Iulus Cofield]

http://io9.com/5799335/five-weird-theories-of-what-lies-outside-the-universe

I think this is funny. We, little limited humans, attempting to understand our own universe and others, while many of us can't navigate China Town.
China Town may be the portal into all knowable Universes. Have you ever been to a China Town?

Spoiler:

I have. It is possible.
The China Towns that I have been to have strange dark old book stores with ancient abacus and drawings of Earth and Heaven that are older than dirt.
There are shops that are filled with sublime statues and and bright imaginative and functional furniture.
There are cheep souvenirs and expensive souvenirs.
History Fables and the Mundane all mixed together.

Then, we are expecting that we can look out into the light polluted sky and know other Universes.
We have the eye of Hubble. It is above the light pollution. It looks deep into the sky.
The deep field study impressed me.

So; What about the theory that everything is being pulled to one place the by force of everything falling? What we are seeing is down.
But; We are not seeing it. Hubble is.
It counts. Sort of. A telescope and a microscope both see beyond what we can see with our natural eyes.

Most of the theories of what lies beyond the observable universe often seem...dubious to me. For example...

A theory proposed by physicist Lee Smolin, known as the fecund universes theory, suggests that every black hole in our universe causes the formation of a new universe.

...how exactly does an extremely dense object create a whole new universe? And where is that universe? Why didn't the stars that became the black holes also make new universes?

[CorruptUser]

A theory proposed by physicist Lee Smolin, known as the fecund universes theory, suggests that every black hole in our universe causes the formation of a new universe.

...how exactly does an extremely dense object create a whole new universe? And where is that universe? Why didn't the stars that became the black holes also make new universes?

Theoretical Physicist makes unverifiable claim based on nothing but imagination; news at 11. There is a reason that we don't give Nobel prizes in theoretical physics..

[poxic]

I've read a lot of stuff by Mr. Smolin. He's an excellent writer and I love the way he thinks. His writing makes me imagine so many mind-expanding things.

That said, his job is to imagine possibilities, not to prove that these ideas are true. They just have to be not explicitly forbidden by known laws of physics, and to offer the possibility of explaining currently unexplained observations. That's totally part of the fun, but I wouldn't read one of his articles and then think "wow, the universe is really like that!" I would just ride the wave of joy and hope to see hard science proving or disproving his ideas one day.

/granted, I only know him through his writings in Scientific American, so I am possibly full of poopoo

[addams]

You know, that's really impressive, but when they call something "cheetah", I expected it to literally run as fast as a cheetah, and 29 km/h is less than half a real cheetah's speed.

Spider silk spun into violin strings - Hey, new, pleasant sounds for live musical instruments are always good. And the article says they hold up better than aluminum-coated nylon, but not as well as gut strings. Um... I hope they don't mean cat gut. :p

This is all the sound that I could find.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSqnP6TX ... re=related
Nice.

The Truth About the March 8 Internet Doomsday - Apparently a lot of people are infected with a computer virus that switches their DNS provider. The FBI replaced the malicious server so that people could still use the internet, but on March 8th 2012 (about two days), they're going to turn it off. So anyone who's still infected (and I didn't even know this malware existed until now) is going to lose internet access.

Oh. How, Orwellian. Yuck. More Fear. Vague uneasiness for every one. No. Not everyone. Just the fortunate ones that have computers.
It's like the Rapture, for people that are connected through a screen.

[Nylonathatep]

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/07 ... de-cannon/

Side affects include blazing yourself, blowing up your house, and killing your girlfriend. Home-made cannons are not for everyone, Consult your doctor before use.

You know, that's really impressive, but when they call something "cheetah", I expected it to literally run as fast as a cheetah, and 29 km/h is less than half a real cheetah's speed.

Meanwhile... the fastest a human can run is 10km/h and they can only substain that for about 100m. I suggest submitting your will to the almighty powerful robotic overlord before it catches up to you.

You know, that's really impressive, but when they call something "cheetah", I expected it to literally run as fast as a cheetah, and 29 km/h is less than half a real cheetah's speed.

Spider silk spun into violin strings - Hey, new, pleasant sounds for live musical instruments are always good. And the article says they hold up better than aluminum-coated nylon, but not as well as gut strings. Um... I hope they don't mean cat gut. :p

They do mean cat gut. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catgut

FYI March 8th is internation Women's day!

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/07 ... e-titanic/

Nah... Instead we should just blame Leo Dicarpio, Kate Winslet, and James Cameron for making such a bad movie.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/07 ... -universe/

[letterX]

Meanwhile... the fastest a human can run is 10km/h and they can only substain that for about 100m. I suggest submitting your will to the almighty powerful robotic overlord before it catches up to you.

Umm... the fastest 100 meter time is under 10 seconds, which is a speed of at least 10m/s or 36km/hr... 10km/hr is more of a jogging pace.

[Dauric]

Meanwhile... the fastest a human can run is 10km/h and they can only substain that for about 100m. I suggest submitting your will to the almighty powerful robotic overlord before it catches up to you.

Umm... the fastest 100 meter time is under 10 seconds, which is a speed of at least 10m/s or 36km/hr... 10km/hr is more of a jogging pace.

In fact the article does mention that it couldn't catch up with Usain Bolt.

Now that said, if one of those robots had a sufficiently compact power source it's advantage would be endurance. Usain Bolt is a sprinter, so after a few hundred meters he's going to significantly slow down, while the robot will continue moving at top speed. Even if the robotic death-lord is chasing a marathon runner the long advantages still goes to he robot. After the marathon the human runner will be experiencing fatigue that will prevent them from maintaining their pace over the next stretch of the chase, where the robot won't be experiencing aches of extended exertion that would prevent it from maintaining it's top speed as long as it has power.

Edit: Of course this assumes a significantly compact power source. In the robot's current configuration you just have to step off the treadmill and the robotic overlord gets yanked back by it's power-feed tether like a cartoon dog on a leash trying to chase a cat.

[Angua]

I don't think this deserves it's own thread, but here is something in the news that has been known for a while, but now we have a massive study showing just how true it is!

DNA analysis shows huge genetic diversity in tumours (just from within the same tumour, not from one person to the next person)

[Lostdreams]

IBM has added "speed holes" to an optical chip and it runs fast.

http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/03/holey-chip-ibm-drills-holes-into-optical-chip-for-terabit-per-second-speed.ars

Next they will be adding sponsor stickers.

[addams]

http://io9.com/5799335/five-weird-theories-of-what-lies-outside-the-universe

I think this is funny. We, little limited humans, attempting to understand our own universe and others, while many of us can't navigate China Town.
China Town may be the portal into all knowable Universes. Have you ever been to a China Town?

Spoiler:

I have. It is possible.
The China Towns that I have been to have strange dark old book stores with ancient abacus and drawings of Earth and Heaven that are older than dirt.
There are shops that are filled with sublime statues and and bright imaginative and functional furniture.
There are cheep souvenirs and expensive souvenirs.
History Fables and the Mundane all mixed together.

Then, we are expecting that we can look out into the light polluted sky and know other Universes.
We have the eye of Hubble. It is above the light pollution. It looks deep into the sky.
The deep field study impressed me.

So; What about the theory that everything is being pulled to one place the by force of everything falling? What we are seeing is down.
But; We are not seeing it. Hubble is.
It counts. Sort of. A telescope and a microscope both see beyond what we can see with our natural eyes.

Most of the theories of what lies beyond the observable universe often seem...dubious to me. For example...

A theory proposed by physicist Lee Smolin, known as the fecund universes theory, suggests that every black hole in our universe causes the formation of a new universe.

...how exactly does an extremely dense object create a whole new universe? And where is that universe? Why didn't the stars that became the black holes also make new universes?

I am not sure. It is, just, one way to think about something that is too big to think about.
My favorite part is this Infinite Bubbles one.
I see our expanding Universe as one Bubble in a Champagne Glass at a garden party.
Like the last scene of MIB only we are even less significant than that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EF6aEFFMxjU

Spoiler:

Infinite Bubbles. Talking about things outside the Hubble Volume might be a bit of a cheat, since it's still really the same universe, just a part of it we can't see. It would have all the same physical laws and constants. In another version of the story, the post-Big Bang expansion of the universe caused "bubbles" to form in the structure of space. Each bubble is an area that stopped stretching along with the rest of space and formed its own universe, with its own laws. In this scenario, space is infinite, and each bubble is also infinite (because you can store an infinite number of infinities inside a single infinity). Even if you could somehow breach the boundary of our bubble, the space in between the bubbles is still expanding, so you'd never get to the next bubble no matter how fast you went.

What happens when all the universes pop on the surface? The surface is like a membrane. Fuck. I can't think that big.
O.K. Think. To us; Nothing would happen. We are so insignificant that the bursting of our universe into or onto the Multiverse would not make any difference in the Wall Street numbers.
It may have already happened. (Shrug.) Do you notice a difference?

[AvatarIII]

http://io9.com/5799335/five-weird-theories-of-what-lies-outside-the-universe

I think this is funny. We, little limited humans, attempting to understand our own universe and others, while many of us can't navigate China Town.
China Town may be the portal into all knowable Universes. Have you ever been to a China Town?

Spoiler:

I have. It is possible.
The China Towns that I have been to have strange dark old book stores with ancient abacus and drawings of Earth and Heaven that are older than dirt.
There are shops that are filled with sublime statues and and bright imaginative and functional furniture.
There are cheep souvenirs and expensive souvenirs.
History Fables and the Mundane all mixed together.

Then, we are expecting that we can look out into the light polluted sky and know other Universes.
We have the eye of Hubble. It is above the light pollution. It looks deep into the sky.
The deep field study impressed me.

So; What about the theory that everything is being pulled to one place the by force of everything falling? What we are seeing is down.
But; We are not seeing it. Hubble is.
It counts. Sort of. A telescope and a microscope both see beyond what we can see with our natural eyes.

Most of the theories of what lies beyond the observable universe often seem...dubious to me. For example...

A theory proposed by physicist Lee Smolin, known as the fecund universes theory, suggests that every black hole in our universe causes the formation of a new universe.

...how exactly does an extremely dense object create a whole new universe? And where is that universe? Why didn't the stars that became the black holes also make new universes?

that reminds me of a theory I heard once, or possibly read in a SF book, that some black holes becomes a new universes which are similar but not the same as their parent universe, and that each generation of universes is more likely to produce black holes that become new universes due to what is essentially natural selection. It probably was in a book, because I seem to remember speculation that the properties that encourage black holes are the same as those that encourage life.

[bigglesworth]

I do remember a talk by Penrose about the ripples in the background radiation of the universe that would be left by the previous universe collapsing - if we could detect and analyse them, we could work out what the previous universe was like.

[JBJ]

I do remember a talk by Penrose about the ripples in the background radiation of the universe that would be left by the previous universe collapsing - if we could detect and analyse them, we could work out what the previous universe was like.

The program "Universe" has encountered an out of memory error.
It is recommended that you save and close any open alternate dimensions.
Abort, Retry, Ignore?

[Iulus Cofield]

Ignore. Ignore. IGNORE. IGNORE!

Fine, abort. I didn't like this universe anyway.

[Dauric]

Ignore. Ignore. IGNORE. IGNORE!

Fine, abort. I didn't like this universe anyway.

Too late, the universe has already locked up. Even holding the power button in does nothing. Only way to get any work done at this point is yank the cord.

[Iulus Cofield]

I knew I should have upgraded to one of those GUIs everyone is talking about. Once we get away from command lines, we won't have problems like this anymore.

[Sizik]

LED reaches 230% efficiency.