And now, from the Pohl & Kornbluth category, an article about a study of a drug that makes the recipients more prone to trusting people: In the first experiment, they played a game in which an “investor” could choose to hand over to a “trustee” up to 12 units of money that are each equal to .40 Swiss franc, or… Read more →
Author: Mr. McLaren
Wales: The Land Time Forgot?
I love this article about teenage slang from Wales–I assume that it’s the newspaper writers being behind popular culture, and not in fact true that teen slang in Wales is North American suburb slang from ten years ago: Talk to the hand ‘cos the face ain’t listenin’ (with palm outstretched like a stop sign) – typical response to any kind… Read more →
I see only two options
+ = Either this is going to be genius, or it is going to be Ishtar bad. I see no middle ground. (Either way, I bet the movie poster is awesome.) Read more →
Arrrrrrrghh!
This is something you never want to see. I anticipate a lot of wasted time tomorrow. Read more →
My Scintillating Friends
I get to post pointers to my friends’ stuff all the time, because I am gifted with a bunch of very talented friends. Today’s subject is my compadre Alex Wilson, who is getting more and more recognition for his photographic work. Alex’s photo site has been on my link list as long as I’ve been running this blog, and if… Read more →
One Night Only: The Seven Samurai!
SomethingAwful regularly has very amusing competitions to make use of Photoshoppery to come up with some amusing pictures based on a theme. Their humour does tend slightly towards the puerile, and the quality of the images is less than what you would see at Worth1000, but sometimes there is some really great stuff. Take for example this contest: Lights! Camera!… Read more →
Pageantry
Last night, while all the cool kids were wrapping up Wiscon, I was working on some code and I was also exposed to the Miss Universe 2005 pageant. (Blame Trish–she put it on). You may have heard that Miss Canada won the pageant. I suppose I’m supposed to feel something nationalistic and patriotic about this, but I don’t. Lots of… Read more →
My precious….
We must have it. Yes, we must. I wrote about this a few months ago, but now there are pictures… I’ve already got this on order at my exemplary local comic shop, but that picture links to Amazon.ca which is listing pre-orders at 30% off. (Of course that’s still an astonishing $140CAN for the collection.) Read more →
Statistically unlikely baby
So, it appears that Sarah is pretty unlikely, from a statistical point of view. Oh, not her conception–the McLarens are notoriously fertile (“… so fertile that sometimes the neighbours get pregnant.” Ba-Dum-Tsh)–but her height. We measured her this weekend, and got a height of 30 inches. This measurement was, if anything, erroneous on the conservative side. However, when we went… Read more →
Fauxlent Green
All the taste of Soylent Green, none of the moral dilemmas! I actually don’t know if hufu, the human-flesh flavoured tofu, is real or a good joke, but I’m leaning pretty heavily towards it being a lovely parody. Their website will sell you a lot of t-shirts & even the Soylent Green DVD, but appears to be back-ordered on their… Read more →
Scientific American: 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense
The gang over at SciAm have kicked out a 15-point guide to smacking down the most common (and egregious) fallacies presented by creationists as arguments against evolution. Top quality fun reading. An example: 8. Mathematically, it is inconceivable that anything as complex as a protein, let alone a living cell or a human, could spring up by chance. Chance plays… Read more →
It takes so little to make me happy
The Autonomous Commie Republic, which is part of the Russian Federation, is situated in the far northwest of Europe, and spreads up to the Arctic part of the Ural Mountains. It’s crossed by 9 northern parallels. Ten fair-sized European states could be placed on its territory. Besides indigenous residents (that is, the Commie people), there are also Russians, Ukranians, Nenetzes,… Read more →
A few follow-ups
So, still sick, but capable of posting some follow-up links on some things I’ve talked about before. One of the topics I’ve discussed a lot is the whole “forcing creationism into schools” thing, one classic example of which was the whole evolution sticker thing. Well, you may recall that back in January the courts (correctly!) ordered the stickers removed. Apparently… Read more →
Fun Stuff To Listen To
Another link post I can make without straining myself is one that points out a couple of lovely audio bits that I enjoyed listening to today. The first, pointed out by brilliant UK author Ken MacLeod, is to the beautifully sharp comments made by British MP George Galloway to US Senators. While the 4 minute audio version is fun to… Read more →
He is always the severest censor of the merit of others…
Another type of post I can do without fear of straining my sick self is the Hump Of Hate post. Today’s target is Congressman Spencer Bachus from–surprise!–Alabama who has decided to continue the government program of censoring Bill Maher. A congressman says comedian Bill Maher’s comment that the U.S. military has already recruited all the “low-lying fruit” is possibly treasonous… Read more →
