lightning, John Hancock building. John Handcock building, lightning

so 2008

(Jim, you need one of these for Hermie)

volcano, lights, smog

Amazing photograph.

quote of the day

"He who can lead you to believe an absurdity, can lead you to commit an atrocity."

-- Voltaire

lots of buttons

I know you've been wondering what the cockpit of an Airbus A380 looks like, so here you go.

awareness attained

"These shots capture the splendour and horror of a two ton great white shark leaping 10ft from the water as it closes inevitably on its victim." Ironically, "These dramatic pictures, taken near Seal Island, in False Bay, are part of a decade-long campaign to promote positive awareness of great white sharks.."

cultural literacy is not an option

Great article on the importance of reading and a defense of 100 books and why our children should read them. He's right.

for those times when there's no silverware at the office

good idea

The 5 Least Surprising Toy Recalls of All Time.

quote of the day

"You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion."

-- L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the Church of Scientology, in response to a question from the audience during a meeting of the Eastern Science Fiction Association on November 7, 1948, as quoted in a 1994 affidavit by Sam Moskowitz. This sort of quote is an indication why the church has long been a subject of concern.

is your computer screen dirty?

Go here to have it cleaned.

free software

Get it all right here.

haha!

Bill Clinton: "Screw it. I'm running for president."

quote of the day

"The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired."

-- Stephen Hawking

concepts of the day

Sturgeon's law
Pareto principle
Finagle's law
Hanlon's razor
Gresham's Law
Murphy's law
...and other such precepts.

The Civil War in four minutes. Not bad.

quote of the day

"There is no novelty to me in the reflection that, from my earliest years, I have accepted many false opinions as true, and that what I have concluded from such badly assured premises could not but be highly doubtful and uncertain. From the time that I first recognized this fact, I have realized that if I wished to have any firm and constant knowledge in the sciences, I would have to undertake, once and for all, to set aside all the opinions which I had previously accepted among my beliefs and start again from the very beginning."

-- Descartes, from the First Meditation

The blizzard of '08

Mary Pat and I took a roadtrip through the northeastern part of the state this weekend, stopping in at Little River Canyon and Mount Cheaha. It was cold, so cold. The views were great, though.

big weird fish

Huge sturgeon caught in Canada.

househack

Great idea for a staircase where one wouldn't normally go.

this is Mars

This is Mars. Warning: huge image. May take a while to load, but it's worth it.

this is good

I never thought I'd see my Prius rendered obsolete, but it may happen in the next few years. Toyota plans to introduce a plug-in hybrid by 2010, which is intended to compete with the Chevy Volt. These cars, along with other developments in the industry, are undoubtedly a very very good thing.

Or, we could simply celebrate Foreign Oil Dependence Day.

good idea

the purveyors of this blog officially endorse this message

"we mostly choose to forget that we are adults."

(controversial) quote of the day

"Christians ought to remember that normal, thinking people do not automatically see the sense in their claims. Indeed believers ought to be a minority. Even Paul says in his letter to the Corinthians. "but we preach Christ crucified: ...foolishness to Gentiles". This stuff is supposed to sound crazy to you guys. After all, we Catholics believe that if we eat the flesh and blood of a Jewish zombie who died 2000 years ago, our invisible friend in the sky will save us from death. Faith does not come "naturally"; that is why we call it a "gift". We should hardly be surprised when a number of people say, "no thank you, that sounds ridiculous." It seems to me that Christians should be a lot more humble about our truth claims and a whole heckuva lot more charitable to people who don't take them up."

-- David Seljak

DO NOT SWALLOW CHEWING GUM

just-us

In the summer of 2006, West Virginia Supreme Court Elliott E. Maynard vacationed in the French Riviera with Don Blankenship, CEO of coal conglomerate Massey Energy. No big deal, really, except for the fact that Massey Energy happened to be appealing a $50 million jury verdict against it in front of the West Virginia Supreme Court. How did the case turn out? Lo and behold, Maynard voted with the majority in a 3-to-2 decision in favor of the coal companies. This sort of thing makes my skin crawl.

Thanks, MP

metaphor simile of the day

"It's a miracle. The man deserves a medal as big as a frying pan."

-- a worker at Hethrow Airport in London, talking about the pilot who crash-landed his airplane onto the runway with no injuries

first of the close-up images of Mercury

lots of gornisht around here

Don't be a shmendrik. Know your popular Yiddish phrases.

excuse me?

Amazingly, Mike Huckabee recently told an audience in Michigan that "what we need to do [is] to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view." Aside from the sheer evangelical audacity of this assertion, it amuses me to think of the political snarl such a proposal would create if we actually tried to do this. I realize that all presidential candidates make glamorous, unrealistic promises during the campaign, but what is this? Perhaps when candidates go this far we should take a few lessons from these Italian scientists.

this bag of chips makes me smile

cool concept of the day

A "desire path" is a term in landscape architecture used to describe a path that isn't designed but rather is worn casually away by people finding the shortest distance between two points.

ursus canis familiaris

Piss me off and I'll sic my Caucasian Shepherd on you.

now THAT is an ace

odd request

Be careful when someone asks you the question "Where can I find books about pediaphiles?"

water, water

this is an oasis if I ever saw one.

one film to bind them

Elijah Wood confirms that Peter Jackson will be filming The Hobbit soon. Rumors suggest that it will be split into two films--the first will involve the events in the book while the second will be a continuation of The Hobbit that leads into Lord of the Rings, a "narrative bridge" if you will.

one hundred

now look what you done did

I've pretty much decided that mockingbirds are my favorite bird. I could sit and listen to a couple of them weave tapestries of stolen song all afternoon. Plus they have really big cajones.

poem of the day

The Rider

A boy told me
if he roller-skated fast enough
his loneliness couldn’t catch up to him,

the best reason I ever heard
for trying to be a champion.

What I wonder tonight
pedaling hard down King William Street
is if it translates to bicycles.

A victory! To leave your loneliness
panting behind you on some street corner
while you float free into a cloud of sudden azaleas,
pink petals that have never felt loneliness,
no matter how slowly they fell.

by Naomi Shihab Nye

perhaps

If the above image represents to you an idea worth considering rather than one to be scorned, then you'll definitely want to read this piece by Christopher Hitchens.

crazy love

If you haven't seen the film American Psycho recently you may not have realized it was actually a romantic comedy.

hold on just an attosecond

Do you see that little date thing at the top of this page? You can ignore it now because time may not exist at all. More on this topic yesterday.

childhood justified

It's good to know that Mr. Potato Head is appealing to other species of life as well.

attention: HUD

This is how they do low-income housing in Vienna, Italy. This is definitely not how they do it in Montgomery, Alabama.

irie

The Crook family trip to Jamaica a few weeks ago was a blast and a success. I now know that I can drive anywhere on this planet. Check out the photos here.

kiss = danger

If you feel kissing is an important component of the dating experience these dating tips probably won't do you any good.

true dat

50 things I've learned in 50 years, a partial list in no particular order, by Eric Zorn.

earthbowls

In the future, everything you want will be downloadable. Except food, I suppose. But your personalized topographic wooden art bowls certainly will be, and in fact are right now at Fluidforms. Here's how it works. You type your location into the Google Maps window on the site, and it provides a three-dimensional topographic view of the city where you live as a wooden block. This is Montgomery, where I live:

You choose the exact portion you want represented in wood and order it, they carve it on some weird machine, and within a few weeks you have something that looks like this:

Very cool. Living in Colorado would heighten the effect, I imagine.

good question

The Edge Foundation is a public idea crucible with the purpose of promoting "inquiry into and discussion of intellectual, philosophical, artistic, and literary issues, as well as to work for the intellectual and social achievement of society." Each year they ask a very serious question and ask leading minds to answer it. The question for 2008 is this:

When thinking changes your mind, that's philosophy.
When God changes your mind, that's faith.
When facts change your mind, that's science.

WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT? WHY?

Science is based on evidence. What happens when the data change? How have scientific findings or arguments changed your mind?

165 very smart people from around the world have answered. You can read their answers here.

404

ERROR: the girl/website you are trying to reach cannot be found.

If I had a hammer

This guy knows how to use nails. Lots of them.

Thanks, Richard

useful

Toward a world where everything you don't know is but a click and scroll away: How to Install Wikipedia on Your iPod

class, redux

When a group of anti-abortionist hecklers tried to interrupt a speech by Obama yesterday he told the crowd there was "No need to boo. We appreciate [their] point." Once the crowd calmed down, he said "Let me just say this, though… Some people got organized to do that. That's part of the American tradition we are proud of." Definitely not how most politicians handle opponents.

class

The absolute best best way to handle a sensationalist windbag: "I got a whole bunch of other people to see."

unnecessary

GOP hopeful Huckabee cranks up the divisive religious imagery by telling a New Hampshire church congragation that "When we become believers, it's as if we have signed up to be part of God's Army, to be soldiers for Christ." I'm sure half the extremists in Iraq and elsewhere are cheering him on.

howdy!

Emma and Faith Gage share the love. That kid's gonna be a heartbreaker.

so that's what it said

Leave it to Beaver: 1958.

By the known rules of ancient liberty

"The Freedom of the Press" was George Orwell's proposed preface to his book Animal Farm. An excerpt:

Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban. Anyone who has lived long in a foreign country will know of instances of sensational items of news — things which on their own merits would get the big headlines-being kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that ‘it wouldn’t do’ to mention that particular fact. So far as the daily newspapers go, this is easy to understand. The British press is extremely centralised, and most of it is owned by wealthy men who have every motive to be dishonest on certain important topics. But the same kind of veiled censorship also operates in books and periodicals, as well as in plays, films and radio. At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is ‘not done’ to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was ‘not done’ to mention trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals.

the long tail (pipe)

There are many things you can do with a VW Beetle.

point = well made

wanted: non-smoking, working MRI machine. No pets

Folks, our friend Nate is working at Cooper Green Mercy Hospital in Birmingham and needs your help. You see, the hospital doesn't have an MRI machine. This may seem odd, but it is true. Yes, they have a shiny new building over there and some fancy flower pots but unfortunately the plants give really bad musculo-skeletal readouts. And I hear the new hospital windows are all but useless medically. So pitch in and help Cooper Green win an MRI! Yes, you too can help the ailing medical establishment in Birmingham by simply casting your vote. Be sure and watch the video, too--good stuff.

shocked but not surprised

In a decision proving that atheists are the new gays, a New Jersey judge recently had the audacity to deny an atheist couple the right to adopt a child. His rationale? Despite the "high moral and ethical standards" of the would-be parents, the the 17-month-old child "should have the freedom to worship as she sees fit, and not be influenced by prospective parents who do not believe in a Supreme Being."

our new sister countries

According to one study conducted by the National Geographic Society, America's population shares views towards evolution with Latvia, Cyprus, Turkey, Bulgaria, and Romania, among others. Sweden, France, Japan, UK, and Denmark of course are at the opposite end of the spectrum.

and there are many

Wikipedia has a great list of common misconceptions here.

AAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAA

"Out of love for the truth and the desire to bring it to light"

If you were listening to Garrison Keilor's Writer's Almanac you may have heard him mistakenly attribute today, January 3rd, as the day in 1517 on which Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, sparking the Protestant Reformation. Luther actually nailed the theses to the door on October 31, 1517, but a few years later on this day in 1521, Pope Leo X excommunicated him. This of course was the church's typical response for centuries to any attempt at undermining its authority. And even though Luther was essentially correct in pointing out that the practice of selling places in heaven (i.e. "indulgences") for money was not supported by the Scriptures, he was exiled nonetheless. Refreshingly, the truth in his writings eventually became obvious and Christian leaders later cracked down on abuses in the church. It is therefore fitting that we honor Luther for his gutsy stand against the ideological monarchy, and for being right. His devotion to truth, at least at that moment, should remain an inspiration to us all.

this is beatboxing, by gum

timing

15 amazing coincidences.

retroinspect

I could spend hours rehashing/reposting the great links from 2007, but I'm busy and Kottke's already done it. Enjoy.