Imagination

(Image credit; By artist Dean Yeagle)


Some moons ago Boing Boing posted a link to this Flickr gallery featuring Soviet radio apparatuses.

They also posted a link to the online archive of the American eugenics movement. We like to censor our social attitudes at the time of WWII in retrospect, but I really think that in this case we could benefit from learning from it. Also, it strikes me as blatant propaganda to hide this ugly truth. Perhaps it is beneficial that the story is alien from us as it makes it all the more repulsive, but America is guilty and needs to answer for that. It is also beneficial to face the realities of a society where quote-unquote scientific enlightenment ruled, or rather, how easily "common sense" and misinterpretation/failure to take into account variables in/of models can turn into a destructive force. As someone who welcomes intellectuals as leaders this era has especially served as a cautionary tale: yes, in ideal form, this would not happen, but a lot of things work in ideal form and Joseph Stalin does not come to power, for example.

So I don't have a Wii, but the images for the new Steampunk "Epic Mickey" freak me out and make me want to. As long as they don't have that six-legged MechaMickey in there, because I would probably accidentally throw the controller through the screen when he turned up. This is probably the most blatantly psychological steampunk I have seen, filled with a landscape of broken childhood innocence. Imagine a post-apocalyptic fairy tale, or set in a formerly fairy land. I had a dream like that, where fairyland had been transformed into suburbia and it was my job as the leader to lead my people to wake the fairy queen. We had to escape guards at Disneyland and she was in a pond where houses and graffiti were encroaching; it was nevertheless a beautiful place, much like a lake I saw in Scotland. In fact, it probably was that lake in Scotland, a lake where we thought that an oil slick made the water shine from afar but was in fact a healthy and living beauty. I was the only woman, I made fire and water dance together for a couple's wedding and accidentally made it rain. But I am all about actual utopias(or as near as humans can get, or a civilization where everyone is enlightened and can fullfill their creative urges...something), so someone else will have to write the story.

Here is an interesting story from Wired on the economics of the Somalia pirates. Note: an average pirate makes seventeen times the income of a regular Somalian citizen.

You know, all of this buisness news is blending into "estimated this and that". I'm suprised economists haven't included into their own model the estimates of what reporting can do to stocks.



If you love stop-motion animation, you'll love this. It's seriously amazing.
(Credit: The PEN story, found via Boing Boing, is another amazing stop-motion video made as an ad by Olympus. They mention him as their inspiration in their credits. )

Honestly? I can't wait for Italy and England. My blood is boiling from the need to travel to Europe again. I've been having dreams about it, and finally I'm going. And yes, I am going to be posting while there, which will probably be my only contact with the outside world.

Remiscent

Yesterday while I was drifting off to sleep(continuously until 3:00am, why, body, why?) I was thinking about how playing Super Mario reminded me, in a way, of Toy's R Us when I was a little kid.

When I was a kid I used to dream of getting one thing, just this one thing, and then everything else would fall into place. And at Christmas time I used to ask for my big wish. My parents never failed to buy me the big gift that I wanted more than anything. Heck, they still do, as last Christmas what I really wanted was my Acer laptop, which is a gift that keeps on giving. I love you my precious, er, my laptop.

One of the gifts I wanted was a My-Size Barbie, not because she was a Barbie which was kind of a downside, but because I was kind of hoping she would come to life. It sounds silly to admit it now, but this was pretty much what I wanted. In elementary school I had plenty of friends and my best friend, Jessica Lee, who I would argue about jumprope with and..I don't remember, but we had fun. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the last time we fought was about jump rope in 3rd grade, and I was dreading going back to school because I thought she wouldn't be talking to me but the next day she didn't remember and I didn't mention it.

But I wanted a friend whom I could talk to about the imaginary cities I made up in my head, my crazy science experiments and philosophy and all that good stuff. Also, nobody else was reading the Animorphs except for a guy in my class, and I'm pretty sure he just liked the explosions. Besides, back then I thought it was not proprietous to have close guy friends. I didn't want to make up an imaginary friend because I could predict what they would do. I wanted someone who wasn't me to give a different angle. Even if an imaginary friend gave me praise, it was false praise. It also thought that this seemed like a recipe for schizophrenia. Believe it or not, reading about all of the creative kids having imaginary friends made me feel dumb because I didn't, a situation which only changed later.

This is not to say my classmates weren't cool. I was really into Geology and fish, collected types of Silly Putty, weird pens and miniatures. And everyone was totally cool with that, or at least I think they were.

Ah, how times have changed. Except that I still find people who are cool with my various oddities. I love you guys.

Another gift that my parents gave me was Lego Mindstorms. I am going to dig that and Barbie out of the closet one day and do stuff with them for fun. Barbie is going to get dressed up as an art piece and the Mindrover will roam around my apartment while I laugh with glee. Then I'll probably dissect it and start getting crazy over robots. Look forward to that stage.



William Shatner making fun of Sarah Palin. He's so different now! But he's made it clear that he wants to be known for more than Star Trek, so let's appreciate him for being an awesome actor.

Ptbbbbbbth

Whenever I see something incredibly strange and perhaps scarring, I get this urge to share it with my friends. "Hey, this hurt my soul, maybe you should check it out!" Don't worry, I never do this without warning people first.

Watermelon juice that tastes like squeezed watermelon is at Trader Joe's. Go get some, because it is delicious.

Americans produce so many anti-dystopic themed stories but we are sort of living in a dystopia in which we are the fat cats. Of course, we are now sort of paying the price and taking everyone down with us, but think about how corporations affect labor laws to keep their bottom line down. The problem is that those who don't generally don't swim.

Here is an interesting structure called "The Bat Spiral". I like this article for these two lines:
"I'm led to wonder, however, what non-human future might await something like Aranda\Lasch's 10 Mile Spiral if it were to be constructed – and later abandoned – amidst an ecosystem for bats...
We are inadvertently building the future infrastructure of an animal world."

One of the gifts I was planning on making Chris was a terrarium with abandoned architecture, so he could watch the plants slowly grow over and break it down. I'm planning on making one for myself in that magical time known as the future.

Here is a reason why they like physicists and computer scientists in Wall Street.

Also, though I talked about how much I dislike Twilight in the last post, I would like to point out the irony of calling Edward gay-ish: the main fans of the series are women.

Today saw me trying to dissect Mario, figure out optimization strategies, and then ask myself what exactly am I doing. Things are more fun when you're good at them, but this no longer feels fun. I'm doing it wrong.

Reading Into it All

Thanks for the link Anonymous, I finished reading the story today.
As someone who has read Flatland I am hoping he got to copyright first, which he probably did.

I am a sworn enemy of the Twilight series. Everything I have read about it reinforces my resolution not to read it, especially Edward's line "You're like my own personal brand of heroin". What girl actually wants to hear that? Well, apparently many, many teenagers these days, but still. It doesn't help that my usual reaction to romance scenes is to skip them unless I'm reading a classic or it's a very good book. And here is my problem with most fantasy novels:

1.) Guy meets girl, guy and girl fall for each other. Cool.
2.) Guy and girl go through tribulations together, keep love to themselves. This is realistic.
3.)Guy and girl confess love and then get married/spend eternity together shortly thereafter. Wait, what? No?

First love sells, which is just a matter of fact. But these novels include only the honeymoon phase and none of the ecstasy or pain that comes with real love or spending a significant amount of time together. A partner is a person whom you know for years and will still be a surprise sometimes and totally predictable in others. These saccharine, unrealistic portrayals are not doing anybody any favors, ultimately. Why would you want a love like that if you could have the real thing?
Also, as far as I understand Bella follows Edward to the exclusion of everybody else and then gets pregnant right after high school. What a great example. Also, talk about communication issues between Bella and Edward. As far as I understand, in the second book he leaves without telling her why.
I know that people are going "it's a book for teenagers, you shouldn't expect better". And there are plenty of examples of other books where the characters meet, fall in love, and get married soon thereafter. It's usually their saving grace that this is not the central pillar of the plot which excuses this.
Ok, so people in my generation were reading Harry Potter in middle school, and I would love to say that nobody took them too seriously, but it's Harry Potter. I have read all of those books, and while they are entertaining and do use actual mythology/characters from history in them(eg Nicholas Flamel) they are entertainment and nothing more. I do not get why so many other just as good or better books did not gain the popularity of this trilogy. Maybe it was a changing climate in regards to fantasy, or the series was simply extremely accessible to people, or a bit of both. Either way, LOTR was then produced, which I approve of. Then there was Wicked. I never finished the book, but it is dark and graphic and I'm willing to bet most people don't actually read it. I've heard some of the songs from the musical and read the Wikipedia entry on the play. The songs are very simple musically and tap into generalized emotions. "I'm not that girl" is something most, if not all of us, have felt in the past before and probably associate with deep emotions, but it's not exactly brilliant writing. The whole the popular girl and the outcast can get along! and the popular girl has problems and can feel like an outcast too is good. Of course, I believe most of us learn this immediately after high school if not before then.

Today's speed run: 12 minutes to the end of 6-3(got killed by the world boss).

One of the differences between photographs and paintings, at least, to me, is that, in a painting the subjects are beautiful shells waiting to be filled with meaning, but a photograph is of someone extant, a person who's shoes we may attempt to step in but can never replace. In fact, completely replacing the person in a photograph dehumanizes the model in a way, because they become simply tools, vehicles for ourselves. Of course, many fashion photographers attempt to take the image of a model and make it their own in the way painters made model's images a work of art. One could argue that the ending photograph is as far removed from the model as a painting, but this is not intuitively extant to me. Perhaps because when looking at a painting, the first "person" considered is the painter, but when looking at a photograph, it is the model. Or perhaps it's my perception of models then and now.

After reading this article on horrible, horrible US companies that again throw the phrase "first world problems" into harsh reality, I had a heart attack when Nesquick was #1 on the list. Child slave labor, some of it from human trafficking, harvests the cocoa in their drinks. I love chocolate milk and consume vast quantities of it. I am never buying Nesquick again. The Kirkland milk I buy is organic, certified by the American Humane Society and obviously sold by the awesome Costco, but where does the cocoa in it originate? Here is a site called "Rountable for a sustainable cocoa economy". Declaration of Trinidad and Tobago?! This hits much too close to home. But I can't find out where the cocoa is from. Most likely a middleman.

It's Personal

A girl running through lavender fields. Pic via Jezebel via the Getty.








An illustrated Mario death by John-
ny Yakon, via Offwo-
rld.




































Today's speed run time: 14 minutes until the end of 7-1. I tried out a little bit of "Super Mario: The Lost Levels". Here was my reaction: "I don't see why this was considered too hard for Western au-"/murdered.
I used to suck at the first Mario. I played a single game today, got up to 5-3 and then was killed by Bowser's castle.
My mom used to play the first Mario with us and actually was very good at beating it. In fact, she was considered "the expert" in the family on that game.

Speaking of my mom, she picked up Clingy today, who was so shocked he didn't even struggle. She put him down and he proceeded to hide, then come back and play on the patio. My mom corrected me, as it has been over two weeks since we last saw Gaiylee herself.

Look at the language in this article from the Reuters:
"But Paal cautioned Clinton against hanging her reputation too much on improved relations with China.

"We are not in a position to control them," he said."

There is always the possibility that this man's quote was taken out of context. However, it is very telling of the imprints of foreign policy in this country, even if Obama is trying to change them.

I didn't copy or write down a lot of stuff today.

Wouldn't it be cool if there were bridges that were water and held together by water tension in a theoretical world? It would be so trippy to swim through them and put a hand out into the air.

Physorg.com published an article on friction free computer circuits via quantum mechanics. I'm too lazy to link. Go do it yourself!

So I have over two hundred entries in this journal, which is impressive. I love writing and I love sharing cool stuff with people. Blogs are a perfect balance of the two. I feel strange writing a diary on the computer, especially since I don't want to have one somewhere that is ultimately hackable, but I dislike writing by hand since, well, I'm faster at typing and my handwriting starts to resemble random loops after a while. I just figured it out! A flash drive!

Flash drives, though certainly hackable if you put the wrong things in them or leave them connected to the computer, are the first ultra-easy ways to distribute data that don't require linking computers directly and actually keep the information remote from the rest of the digital world(if you don't keep them connected to the computer, again). They are our first private digitilized miniaturized domains widely available to the public. And don't tell me about external HDs, because those are not miniaturized, at least in comparison to the flash drive.

Of course, unlike a book, you need a computer to make a flash drive work, an extra piece of equipment that must take part in the process. And boot before starting the process. Ah, the booting.

The original Star Trek is an entertaining, theoretical and thoughtful show. What it is not is in any way realistic. Which is now I bring to you this parody; look for upcoming ones about Grecian gods appearing, geniuses going insane, and time travel. This particular one is based on "it's scientifically impossible!"; specifically "Shore Leave" from season one, which I actually enjoyed quite a bit.

1.) The landing party beams down and everything looks perfectly normal on their sensors because their sensors are crappy. Also, everywhere looks like Earth because of Somebody's Law of Planetary BS(or, we reuse the same drawings as alien backdrops several times).

2.)Something impossible is seen and hard proof of its existence is found, usually corresponding with the word "fascinating". Spock's soul dies a little more.

3.)People still think that it's a good idea to split up because that makes for dramatic death scenes which lead to dramatic scenes for Captain Kirk to lament over his crew member. Or Kirk still thinks that crew members can handle themselves even though they keep dying because they have PHASERS*
*Note: phasers usually knocked out or taken away by the end of the episode

4.) Captain Kirk meets THE GIRL. All girls in this galaxy have an inexplicable attraction to at least one member of the crew, usually the one who's name is an anagram for "Tiberius Kirk James". And that specific member tends to "genuinely" fall for this woman in return because they have sexual ADD. McCoy, Spock, and Kirk have at least 5 women each who are waiting for them to settle down with.
In this episode Kirk meets a special lady from his past of which he has 6 million. He must have been dating some of these girls at the same time as each other or be a serial monogamist, because, how many relationships can you have in twenty-something years?
P.S. Kirk's charm has won more battles for the federation than the Enterprise herself. The Federation should just package up an "essence du Kirk" and send it around instead of spaceships.**
**Working parts included.

5.) Their phasers stop working. Suprise! Also, The Enterprise is helpless for one reason or another because the scientists in this time period are too busy focusing on how cool it would be to be able to "blow up half a continent" rather than "shields that work properly", despite the fact that the Enterprise is mainly a defensive ship. Communicators are out, too, and for some reason it never occurs to them to use the injectable trackers besides as a deux ex machina for prying them out of their arm and setting things on fire in a Nazi jail. Yes, this actually happened.

I mean, nothing usually goes wrong, right?
Wait.

6.) So now the crew is being chased and seduced by a wide variety of things that turn up for no reason despite the fact that it's pretty obvious now what's happening. Everyone seems to have lost their critical thinking skills....

7.) Which leads to the Shatner vrs. somebody fight. Badly choreographed and involving lots of rolling, I'm never quite sure what the point of these are.

8.) Spock and Kirk figure out the solution and start acting on it, because the show is running out of time and Shatner's shirt has finally ripped open. Then the solution appears out of nowhere, in this case a peaceful creator who was waiting to intervene until the emotional scarring occurred. The explanation is cool, but sort of leaves you going "wait, but what about...". Also, the skimpily clad girls couldn't not show up, so they decided to include them at the end. Everybody is happy and Kirk decides to spend time with a cellular cast of one of his many long-lost loves.

Huh?

Rebel, Rebel

This makes me wonder if people would have the same reaction here in America. Would we rally and rebel, or would we scream and cry in print while doing nothing at all? America is a huge country, and the state of all of that land in anarchy is a terrifying proposal. Would we storm the capital? Who would we put in charge? One could argue that the 2000 election was a very poor cover-up, as many have, but besides plunging the economy into the worst recession since the great depression and attacking individual, scientific, and women's rights, Bush wasn't that bad. Maybe we should have rioted...but the point is that even Bush in his eight years could not overturn the system of checks and balances besides in the things he kept absolutely secret from the public.
This whole thing kind of makes me want to hug Obama.

Warren Buffet is creating his own cartoon line to teach kids about business. The late and great Carl Sagan will also be in a different comic along the same lines. Whenever I see things like this it always stirs up suspicion in my mind, because why would the most successful financial people really want company? Better to activate the Pavlovian centers with a few tricks that are successful and a whole lot more that creates a "slightly above average average investor" at most. On "Kosmos", while the book is AWESOME and everyone should read it(I have it back if you want to borrow it), the original series failed to keep the attention of a classroom of middle schoolers. Then again, not much does, but Sagan exuded too much sexy 1970's man to keep myself and the couple of other astronomy buff's attention on the screen. The long out-of-style "K" at the beginning makes me doubly suspicious, since Sagan was an eloquent and extremely smart scientist whom everybody should read, not some jazzed-up-for-jaded-youth lame rap afficiando. Don't mess this up, AOL. Of course, this is AOL we're talking about.

Here is a huge collection of vintage television and movies.



This is a video of the Iranian police attacking a car, taken from Mousavi's Twitter feed. It's strange, because their streets look so much like our streets despite 5000 miles and a bunch of freaky armed GIs. The picture was taken from the flickr stream of a protest on the streets. Come on Iranians, I know you can win against this dictator.

Mooning

These Flickr shots from India, China and Japan of the most recent lunar eclipse are awesome. I found them via the Freak-
anomics blog. This is where today's picture (s)comes from. I can't even begin to post all of my favorites. I love the steam-punk-ishness of the first shot and the fragile humanity of the second.

Shell has been accused by Amnesty International of horrible crimes in the Niger Delta. The report which has been put together is pretty damning. Please click.

Someone please remind me to get my hands on Gaiman's "A Study in Emerald". Apparently it's his fusing of HP Lovecraft and Sherlock Holmes. This sounds like it could go horribly wrong, but it most likely it didn't. And I want to see it.

Speaking of Gaiman, a short while back he posted a link to Jamie Kennedy's hilarious bid to take the Newberry award from him.

".. And I, Jamie Kennedy am the Sarah Palin of fiction!"

The third video of three:

If you want to see Gaiman being wrestled to the ground, here is your chance.

I believe that there should be a ban on political ads. In this day and age of the internet the off-hand access to a candidate's information is easy to find, and the horrible excess of money that is wasted while running for office on every level of government is disgusting. Of course, I have no doubt that politicians will then attempt to rig the sites with the most hits for the apposing candidate, even if it is illegal. Can't the public win? In a way, though, website traffic is much more traceable and easier to investigate. If only society didn't insist on drowning us in nonsense information and untrustworthy leaders. You can't only blame the politicians, though. What if we all participated in the primaries and the big name candidates were not the only ones who received grassroots funding?

This makes me think about celebrity and de-humanization. The earliest humans always portray other tribes as evil or less than themselves in some way. Celts are Frost Giants, enemy tribes are motivated by jealous demons, and the other tribes are actually monkies that look like humans. Yet it is extremely rare to encounter a racist child. A judgmental child, though, is not hard to find. We all have "that uncle" or someone who's views are directly the opposite of ours, sometimes for all the reasons we dislike the opposing side, too. Yet would any of us wish them to die or call them the names we call our politicians?

All of these are just snippets of thoughts I'm having.

PS New Mario 2 speed run time: 20-21 minutes, got to the middle of 7-2(the last level)

I kind of like the wacky layout of this particular post.

The Foul Birdo has Been Defeated

So you've probably noticed a proliferation of news stories and not a whole lot of added content from me in the past few days sans the aquarium and gender issues posts. I'm very tired and busy. I have been thinking about things and my mind is wandering off towards semiotics at the moment, though it has been concentrating on a paper since I got home besides the nap and an episode of Star Trek. Trying to write a blog post on how you had to review improper integrals since you haven't seen them since Calc II is more shameful than entertaining, anyways. Especially since I have been using them but not in the format you're technically supposed to. Though some of you reading may like shame.

In which case, watch this commercial:


Do you know what is happening in this ad? Don't tell me if you do, I'm too busy playing with puppies and kittens. I believe there should be a free "hug an animal" center in every community.

Speaking of games, I beat Super Mario 2 in 48 minutes. And no, I'm not trying to do a speed run like this guy(and I can't do the Bird Level like that).


He also appears to be playing on an original Nintendo, which is a lot more user-friendly than the ROM and Logitech controller that I have here. I just attempted my own speed run, which lasted seventeen-ish minutes and got as far as level 6-3's birdo boss. I only used The Princess, who is in fact the only character I ever use. Maybe I should branch out more, but I play this game to relax and not to compete.

On one hand I am completely in favor of the retro-game trend. Most of these are free to download and fun to play, though I actually have not gotten into any indie/retro gaming besides Knytt Stories and the aforementioned Marios, both of which I barely ever play. Knytt Stories is a really wonderful game introduced to me by Alex. The music is wonderful, soothing, and the gameplay is simple yet subtly challenging. The "plots" are simple yet extremely creative.

On the other I feel as if this part of an 80's nostalgia wave which is coming too soon. My generation has barely reached adulthood and here a lot of us are, reminisceing over our childhood. Perhaps this is telling of the times.

Mom managed to stroke Clingy's back without him running away today. All of the kittens sleep on the rocker, hide under the shed from the heat, sleep on the bench under the bamboo, and play in their "cave". Gaiylee has been missing for over a week at this point. We don't know where she went, which is very upsetting and a sad reality for feral cats.

I was just thinking about how Livejournal is actually a much better site in general than blogspot, with photo galleries, communities, and far more customizablity, yet its popularity with a lot of teenagers ironically caused it to loose many members in the long run. I switched to Blogger because I wanted this journal to be taken more seriously(as seriously as you can take such a journal, of course) and because at the time I thought it had a better interface. Which it does not, and I should really switch to Wordpress. Maybe after Europe I will take the time to do so.

Note: I have reformatted some of my posts for aesthetic reasons.

Good and Bad

(Note: This is a real nebula)



This couple has an awesome wedding! Source

Somebody decided to "donate" a landmine to Goodwill.

Apparently as many as 2,000 Afghan soldiers were killed and put in a mass grave that was covered up under the Bush administration. I wonder why they hate us? It is so difficult to figure out.

I wonder how many of those people had families with children or babies? Let's kill a bunch of fathers who are also sons. Not only is it morally justifiable, but it won't have any far-reaching repercussions.

Please visit this site.

The Falcon from The Shamptonian Institute on Vimeo.

"The Falcon is a stop-animation/steampunk film that takes place on an old wooden photo album and is entirely composed of macro-photographed hardware pieces from vintage, antique cameras that have been carefully disassembled, for that true analog experience in pure 100% digital Shamptonian definition. The film features music from ESL Music ESL artist Thunderball, with sound design by Bret Johnson. From A.gfa to Z.eiss, and whatever your format, The Falcon has a perspective for everyone."

This..is actually a cool way to go after dying to me for some reason.

I saw my goby today! He seems to be doing well, though he has decided never to leave the cover of the driftwood. I also saw my everglades pygmy sunfish.

I am kind of in love with Regina Spektor's song "Blue Lips".

Every Day Saturday Morning is the blog of an abortion clinic escort. These people tolerate everything from verbal abuse to actual violence in order to protect women in what is usually already a horrible and harrowing time.

Cowgirl

Source

"First, some people like to suggest that men are programmed by evolution to find a particular body shape attractive. Clearly, if judging women’s bodies requires this much instruction, either (1) nature has left us incompetent or (2) cultural norms defining beauty overwhelm any biological predisposition to be attracted to specific body types.

Second, the chart reveals the level of scrutiny women faced in 1959 (and I’d argue it’s not so different today). It made me think of my years in 4-H. I was a farm kid and I showed steers for several years and also took part in livestock and meat judging competitions. I was good at it, just so you know. Anyway, what the beauty pageant image brought to mind was the handouts we’d look at to learn how to judge livestock."

Source

Baboons demonstrate why you should not take the car friendly route anymore in Knowsley Safari park (source).

The Onion is pretending to be a Chinese publication.

Tales from the Pond (Aquarium)

Source


Horrible article everyone should read

Yesterday I changed the water in my aquarium and parted the mess of Hornworth which has invaded it while I have been busy. I can't bring myself to throw any out, especially since it has become apparent both filters have not been working for a while. The aquarium is now completely dependent on its plants, which also means that I'm not going to add any other animals to that particular tank. The java moss has also experienced a sudden growth spurt. The inhabitants actually seem to enjoy all of the growth, and the only other plants present are crypts, Windelov, and Anubias, which are doing fine. The nana petite and barterii have both grown plantlets and there are little windelovs and crypts in various places, too. The moss ball has exploded.

I saw my paler Dario Dario at the front, which strangely appeared to be decked out nearly in battle colors and was showing the dominant "eye stripe". I was confused as to what had happened. I finally managed to spot Dopey doping around at the bottom and then Trixie, who proceded to boink her head on one of the filters. Dopey is an H. curp. hybrid in the tradition of irresponsible Petsmart suppliers. Trixie and Little Frog are obviously at least strongly influenced by H. bog., the more succesful subspecies. Dopey reminds me of a little man, an adorable little man who does funny things all the time. They were so cute I had to give them food. Little frog came out, obviously excited. He was bought at Aquatic Warehouse after stowing away in one of their tanks for a while, where I spotted him and decided he would be the final ADF. I proceeded to watch Little Frog figure out where the food was and then miscalcuate and go towards the bottom again. Naturally, Trixie was the first to figure out where it is, and LF joined her again while Dopey spun around the bottom like a dope. Trixie accidentally bit LF a bunch of times. Meanwhile, by the moss ball I see proof that the paler Dario has won his/her fight as she half heartedly chases away the more dominant male, who has a bite in his tail. I love the extra blue ruff on the top of his fins. These guys are so much fun and tiny. They don't really care about the food, as they feed on the multitude of microoganisms in the now very established aquarium.

Last I saw Trixie and LF were feeding, while Dopey..will figure things out one day.


Videos from Jezebel commentor/Jezebel

Robots, Plants, and Dystopias

I love this simple yet salient article on the Freakanomics blog criticizing the way data is used in today's journalism.

"The lead article is by John Noble Wilford (who’s still going strong, btw), and includes one of the most elegant little uses of data I can recall seeing in a news article:

Although Mr. Armstrong is known as a man of few words, his heartbeats told of his excitement upon leading man’s first landing on the moon.

At the time of the descent rocket ignition, his heartbeat rate registered 110 a minute — 77 is normal for him — and it shot up to 156 at touchdown."

MIT is also tracking trash in an effort to show how far it can reach. I think the criticisms present about the sampling are relevant, though they may be showing how even conscientious people can have far-reaching affects with their disposables.

NASA apparently secretly launched a moon rock into space to celebrate yesterday's anniversary of the moon landing. Why?! We only have so many and I want one, you could have given it to me instead! Also lost opportunities for science, blah blah blah.

You know, after reading a couple accounts of the UK terrorism laws on Boing Boing I'm starting to understand things like V for Vendetta, Quatterman, and Warren Ellis (who is a person not a thing and in San Diego where he can do horrible, horrible things to me). Damn, it makes here look like a a veritable utopia of individual rights in some cases. I'm not going to go into debating the amount of freedom they have versus our amount of freedom because I don't know enough on the subject and am too lazy to do the research. All I will say is that this issue is not black and white.

Lego Microtome


"A microtome is a small machine that biologists use to slice specimens into very thin sections to examine under a microscope. Instructables user lemonie made his own out of Lego! In this video demo, the device cuts garlic in slices just 250 microns thick. That's about twice as thick as a human hair. Seems like the Lego Microtome could be scaled up for slicing paper-thin prosciutto! Lego Microtome (Thanks, Christy Candida!)"

People are thankfully working on shark repellants to save them from fishing lines.

It's amazing how Twix and Burger King cross the line from using women for sexy points to using women. Thanks, I love being objectified and taken for granted! I'm not a person, I'm a walking Barbie doll who's all plastic with no inside.

These paper robots are awesome! That's what that picture is, btw.

How NOT to raise a chimp in your family:
"I collect books by people who have raised apes in their homes. One of the first, The Ape and the Child, was written in by behaviorist W.N. Kellogg, a man with a peculiar brainstorm: that he should raise a chimpanzee as a twin to his own infant son, treating them in exactly the same fashion, and comparing their development......Results? Mixed. The chimp, Gua, took more quickly to her civilizing education than her brother. She appeared smarter, stronger, and more emotionally developed on a number of counts: she was better at using glasses and silverware, walked earlier (chimps generally don't walk upright), responded to verbal commands sooner, and was more cooperative and obedient......For example, though Donald had learned to walk before Gua joined the Kellogg family, he regressed and started crawling more, in tune with Gua. He'd bite people, fetch small objects with his mouth, and chewed up a shoe. More importantly, his language skills were delayed. At 19 months, Donald's vocabulary consisted of three words. Instead of talking he would grunt and make chimp sounds..."

My new plant from Trader Joe's named "Blue Wonder"(pictured) was rootbound, so today I bought another pot for it. When repotting it it looked so happy in the outdoor sun that I decided to leave it there(yes, it is a full sun plant). Now I need an indoor plant and the cycle continues. Maybe I'll get bamboo?

Will Arnett praying for breasts.

MechaBarbie(or Bush) Makes Children Cry(and Other Issues)

Source
This is what my kids are going to be playing with. Aren't you glad I'm not having any?

So I was walking to Trader Joe's today and suddenly felt angry thinking about how men's bodies don't go out of style. Then I realized that this simply was not true. Henry VIII was considered extremely attractive and we've gone through several versions of the "ideal boy" in recent years, from various bad boys and star jocks in the 80's and 90's to Zak Efron and Edward Cullen. And I realized that I actually know a good number of men who have body issues. It just seems to go un-discussed, most likely because of the macho hetero-normative male now dominating our culture. Body issues are for gay people and girls, God.

One of the many reasons guys need a masculist revolution of their own.

We live in a disposable culture. Everything is thrown away with regularity, from trends to toys to paper towels without us noticing.

I am kind of loving this article on the future of books. But I think what a lot of us are experiencing when we profess our undying love to the smell of a library(which I do) is nostalgia. Please keep in mind that nostalgia is what keeps people from having integrated proms and such. The one thing that disturbs me is that, counter-intuitionally, data is much more fallible than paper. What if some large world war took place? I would like to think that information is distributed too far and wide to be lost in the manner of the Library of Alexandria, but there is so much that is not. Books go out of print and are lost in the halls of The Library of Congress.

Books are personal experiences. They affect our mind and soul in a profound way. Games and movies do not move many of us in the same way. Yet for those who movies do, they are content with a flat disk and pretty cover.

Perhaps we can invent something akin to flipping pages and the "permanence" of paper. I'm sure the person who does will be very rich.

Bioastronautics, a scanned book about some of the things that really go into space flight(like spit).

It would be so easy to engineer a fountain using $3.99 plates from Ross, a pump, and a background. But then my parents could justifiably kill me.

Good news: violent crime is down all around the country, even though nobody is reporting on this. One cynical commentor says that this is because "People can't afford bullets anymore".

Picture from Jezebel

History: The Video(s)

Image via Boing Boing

In America I am considered tiny, but in Trinidad my weight is normal. This makes evolutionary sense, as people in the blinding heat of the tropics need a fast metabolism and little fat. It also makes sense that people from the colder parts of Europe would evolve to be beautiful and curvy. This is just a theory, as I have no scientific, controlled evidence to support this hypothesis.

While I voice my support against the dreadfully anorexic girls present in modeling today, I also sort of wonder what will happen when people with normal(read: another select segment of the population) weights come back into style. Will people mock my size? Will they tell me that my weight is obviously a product of neglecting myself, as is done to plus-size women today? I want to believe that we can accept the fact that people naturally have more than one body type, but this does not seem to be a concept native to the fashion industry. I do not have whatever BMI is being enforced on some of the European catwalks today. While I still completely support the regulations, it feels sort of strange that some years from now I might "go out of style". It's not fair that this has already been done to Rubenesque women, though. We're people, not ephemeral fashion trends.

Just to clarify, it's more the fear of being actively discriminated against than anything else which wrote these last two paragraphs.



Oh. my. God. It's NABOKOV. I LOVE YOU.
It's crazy how Youtube has in a way democratized history. We can now experience moments from the past like previous generations never had the chance to, all within our personal computers. It's so cool! This was from Boing Boing, btw.

Also from Boing Boing: there is apparently a black market in moon rocks. As in actual rocks from the moon, not LSD. I can completely understand this. If I ever get engaged again I want an extraterrestrial rock for my ring like in the "Bones" episode "The Science in the Physicist".



"PLEASE – do yourself a favour and turn the sound OFF – NOW. I’m almost willing to throw the towel in admit that creationists are right when I hear it. However the video is just brilliant (if you ignore the silly text as well)... Here’s 500 generations every SECOND backed up by actual fossil evidence – shoved in to a computer and animated together. It’s fantastic to watch." Source

I have to watch this video again to take in what changed first, hypothesize why the did, etc.



OH MY GOD IT'S THE MOON LANDING. /hyperventilates. They look like ghosts that are hopping around. Even though his voice is level you can feel the excitement coming through the video. Or maybe it's just me trying to live this vicariously.


Here is Buzz Aldrin punching a conspiracy theorist in the face.

Why you should NOT fly with regional carriers, as written by an experienced pilot.

"Flying from Chicago’s O’Hare to Denver is routine, right? But it wasn’t a few decades ago. We, the pilots, make it routine too. But I challenge you on this. Is your life worth less because you are over the heartland of America in the dark of night rather than climbing into the skies of Rio over the Amazon or headed out across the Pacific? It is worth less if you are on the low-cost regional carrier because you chose to pay less. If you are on the regional carrier headed to Denver and the engine is on fire, I am sure that it is comforting to know that you saved 15 percent by shopping the Internet for the cheapest fare. Isn’t it great to know that you have the newest, least-experienced, exhausted, starving young cockpit crew that this regional airline could find? Good for you!"

PS apparently the Alaskan blob is not Palin after all.

The Past and the Present

Walter Cronkite was an anchor before I was born. I am struck by his face here, a face which would not be seen on television today despite the sonorous voice which is obviously the basis for many similar ones throughout the era. I'm reminded of a quote of a comment on the Freakanomics blog: "Now that there are so many voices you have to shout louder and harder to be heard", discussing the uprising of the screaming pundit. Cronkite was the antithesis of these red-faced men, a fact I have heard casually mentioned in several sources so far.

In this video I can actually feel the nation's panic. I can feel would it would be like if our respected, loved president was shot, the weight of the announcement. I could feel myself trying to hope, even though I already knew how the story ended.



He had to report on some horrifically sad stories. It has been a long time since I've seen footage of Martin Luther King. His last speech..watching him as an obviously intelligent and angry man showing his roots as a pastor. I've almost never thought of Dr. King as a man, even after reading about his life.

I know Cronkite was reading what was written for him, but hearing "negro" used without any humor behind it sends shivers up my spine. It scares me that my parents were teenagers when this happened. I can't imagine a world without MLK, or at least don't want to. So short ago without him I would have been another "coloured" person.

Warren Ellis linked the first episode of a British series called "Quartermass". I haven't watched all of it, but here is a quote from the professor:

"The union of a corrupt Democracy(America) and a bloated tyranny(Soviet Union)...their diseases are too strong for us small countries. When we catch them we sicken and we die."

I also really agree with this Jezebel article:

"It's a very strange cycle, when one thinks about it: Marilyn Monroe didn't even exist, she was a construct of the studios, a costume worn by Norma Jean Baker in order to navigate the strange waters of celebrity and sex. Every time we hold Marilyn up as an ideal, we're holding up the notion that a woman has to reinvent herself to the point of losing herself completely, hiding under layers of beauty and glitz as a means to hide a very real sense of pain and fear beneath. Though her unabashed sexuality has been celebrated, she was also objectified and used by those around her; she became, and remains, a product used to sell tickets and t-shirts and magazines. She was a victim many times over, but it seems that young actresses choose to latch on to her exterior as opposed to the person below the surface, and where a cautionary tale should be, an idolization is instead.

Perhaps it's time for Lindsay Lohan, and for everyone else, to stop parading around in Marilyn Monroe costumes and acting as if it's glamorous or fun. If Marilyn Monroe taught us anything, it's that there's no real happiness in being someone you're not."

Classmate

I saw my wormies today. They seem to be doing well, and I bought more so as to keep up with my slightly rising organic output.

There seems to be a consensus that worms are gross which I agree with. Why are they gross, exactly? I guess it's the slimy, segmented bodies.


I wonder how fast objects scale back according to depth perception and eyesight capability?

In an ironic story, Amazon pulled copies of 1984 and Animal Farm off the Kindle, sadly proving again the superiority of regular books. While I love my books, I love forests more. Do something people!

Today my Uncle's brother's daughter came to visit along with my parents after moving across the country away from every single support network she knows. We had fun, as I took them to Downtown La Jolla and Torrey Pines. I kind of wish I could have gotten more work done, but we had fun. I like her.
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When I was in high school one of my classmates a year ahead of me was named Sam Loeb. All I remember was that he had a shaved head, an infectious smile, and knew a lot about comics. He was really charismatic, everyone liked him, and he made people like me feel stupid for complaining all the time, though I'm sure that he never meant to do. I barely knew him, and most of what I knew consisted of knowing that this was a wonderful person to know. Everyone knew he had cancer, but it was never what defined him.

I remember the day that he died. I don't remember how I found out, but I do remember nutrition and lunch passing by as the HGMers wandered around like ghosts. We were all in shock. I remember those close to him throwing their arms around each other and breaking down into tears. It didn't matter that I barely knew him. I wish I had, because someone else would be around to keep more of his memory alive. His life was so short, but he should not be forgotten.

I recall all of this because of something as simple as a status one of my friends posted. He joked towards the end, trying to make light of it all. He wrote a comic in one of Joss Whedon's books.

Whoever reads this can also remember Sam Loeb. Perhaps it's a hollow fantasy, but if you read this you know as much as I do about Sam. Please carry around his memory with care, because that's all any of us have left. I may not have known him, but I miss him.

Yesterday is Today is Yesterday

Significant Objects is a site dedicated to people buying thrift store items and writing a fictional history for them then selling them on Ebay. Yes, the descriptions are marked as fake. At first I was a little skeeved about this concept but then realized that what's really being marketed is the author's talent as a writer. Fictional history is fun.

Here is an interesting story of a roleplaying game revolving mostly around story and not around
winning.

"To call Slobbovia a Diplomacy variant is, however, misleading; the game purposefully had no victory conditions, and the formal game itself served as little more than a framework for structuring a written roleplaying game. The postal Diplomacy hobby has a tradition of "press," whereby a player may, each turn, include a written statement that is published with the turn's results (e.g., "The Office of the Kaiser today announced..."). In Slobbovia, press was the focus of the game, rather than a minor adjunct."

And here is a game which reminds of what Risk is trying to be.

Will someone browse the freeware on that site?

I really want to enter reburbia but feel as though I am automatically outmatched by architect students and don't have the time to engage in such a project. Also, I think I'm going to enjoy the magazine that's sponsoring the competition, Inhabitant, very much. Here is the newest entry:

"Designer Chiyu Chen has conceived of an ingenious transit system that encourages the use of sustainable transportation by crediting people for renting and riding bicycles. His Hybrid2 system consists of a fleet of rentable bicycles that are capable of generating and storing kinetic energy, which is then used to power the city’s hybrid electric buses. Simply rent a bike, charge it up with kinetic energy from pedal power, and then return it to a kiosk - the station feeds energy into the city’s smart grid, and you receive a credit towards your next bus pass!"

The problem with capitalism is that people speak so glibly of the market punishing and rewarding businesses. What if the business is so large that a lot of other businesses rely on it? What about all of the jobs lost when that company goes out of business?

USAspending.gov makes United States spending open-source for viewing. On one hand, this makes me happy. On the other, don't look, countries with grudges against us!

Apparently visa overcharged some unlucky people to the tune of $23 quadrillion dollars. Nope, not a joke, just a glitch. The author of Freaknomics pointed out that this is a good point against those who favor an all-digital currency. A quote of a comment from the blog:

"It’s a technical glitch. The interesting part of this is not that it happened, but rather, how those involved dealt with it.

People calling their banks to ask about this, got a lot of runaround from folks at those banks who either did not realize there was anything wrong with massive transactions, or who realized they were erroneous but otherwise did not address all the attendant issues (e.g. NSF fees, etc.).

Also, although the problem has been figured out, it’s not because anyone working for a bank or Visa actually disclosed what it had been. It was, instead, “reverse engineered” by geeks who uncovered the cause on their own. Official response has been evasive at best, e.g. in this story:

Bank of America tells WMUR-TV only the card issuer, Visa, could answer questions. Visa, in turn, referred questions to the bank.

As I said, the assorted dodging, swerving, evasiveness, and foot-dragging are interesting. What makes people so unwilling to deal with what is, in the end, a simple technical glitch?

Very revealing about human nature.

— PsiCop"

I think we've found out what Palin is up to: turning into the black goo of death. Am I mean? Maybe a little.

Also, apparently closing down a few roads is actually beneficial to traffic congestion as a whole, since people cannot selfishly optimize their routes.
Comic courtesy of xkcd

Boom! Boom!

Source

So I just realized that I sound very cool, calm, and relaxed on my blog.

This is a lie. I am actually dying of stress, but complaining is not going to help that, and I'd rather not talk about it. Instead I will run around my studio like a crazy person and proceed to collapse on the bed, weezing from the fact that I have way too many obligations.

Help?


Via Boing Boing

Part of the reason I think old film is so fascinating is because of how delicate it seems in its shaky and silent monochrome. Even though the picture is factual the world it presents seems to be remote.


Gravy Stress may waste your time if you like looking at random funny images. I am not going to click on it anymore. If your name is Chris or Frosty you may wish to check this website out.

I wonder how ridiculous our commercials look to foreigners?

In any case, here is an awesome quote from BLDBLOG:

"If you'll excuse the rambling nature of this post, meanwhile, my wife and I are actually staying in Potts Point, and we're located basically right across the street from a Saturday morning farmers' market where we got into a conversation early on our first morning here with a man selling gourmet mushrooms that were grown, he said, inside repurposed railroad tunnels south of the city in Mittagong. I would love to visit those tunnels!
Cockatoo Island, in fact, is actually honeycombed with old tunnels dug directly out of the site's bedrock – so perhaps some strange form of subterranean myco-agriculture might pop up in a few student designs over the next two weeks. Mushroom farming in the underworld. Or perhaps even the high-tech cultivation of pharmaceutical biocompounds by UV light in what used to be a submarine-repair facility (the island also houses a former submarine-repair facility!)..."

Geoff's post "The Thirteenth Room" is also rather fun, as is Reburbia. Reburbia falls directly into my sphere of interests. If you like architecture or imagining the things I do, CHECK THESE OUT.

Here is a quote from Mr. Ellis:

"The next movie I write will be Jurassic Park 4: ADAMZOIC, in which a group of committed Creationists sneak onto a dinosaur-infested Island in an attempt to prove that humans and slavering proto-avian carnivores can live in harmony, as in Eden. The film will be 3 hours long; will feature multiple variations on the theme of Cute Naked People being disembowelled while trying to sing hymns; will include at least one incidence of punning, based on the words “pray” and “prey”; and will end when the sole survivor realises the error of her ways, embraces the Power Of Darwin, and spontaneously evolves a set of wings to escape."

Soil bacteria injections make mice happy. This may explain a lot. I've always said that dirt was good, though now and as a kid I refused to eat it.

Here is an interesting article about personal transformation in the internet age. I could comment on it right now, but I don't want to.
Damn, I may have to get this novel:

Short

Comic courtesy of A Softer World

We still live in a world full of mystery, but the mystery is now not simply created by nature but by man.

I love Jimmy Carter:
"So my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when th e convention's leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be "subservient" to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service. This was in conflict with my belief - confirmed in the holy scriptures - that we are all equal in the eyes of God."

I feel anti-social today.

Computer Love(and Diva Cups)

I have a love-hate relationship with my computer. Computers provide access to tons of information, the news, television, movies, and my friends. They used to provide me access to games, but I haven't played one in the longest time. I only interrupted my long dry spell to play Age of Empires I, but I started in the "Nomad" age where the computer glitched and didn't even build a town center. Thus went an hour and a half of my life.

In a tangent, play is an important part of life as it engages the player inside the system, but I dislike how limited computer games can be. In AOE no volcanoes are going to blow up your palaces, mimicking the downfall of the Minoans.

However, for all the reasons listed in the first paragraph, computers can be extremely addictive and provide the illusion of growth. Almost nothing available online gives the exhaustive treatment to a subject that books provide besides e-books, of course. Also, I adore the sun and actually visiting places.

I hate the feeling of being trapped at the computer that I sometimes get.
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Initial reactions to the Diva Cup:
It is painful to put this in right after showering(if you're a woman you can probably guess why without my being overt). Otherwise, it's actually pretty easy to deal with. Beware thumb nails.

After all this time using pads and on rare occasion, tampons, the Diva cup is a vast improvement. I did not realize how psychosomatic some aspects of periods are until using this, which I cannot and you are not supposed to, feel. I feel like a normal, competent, uninhibited person. The feminist side of me is a little enraged to discover how easy the solution is and does feel as though I have been put down all of these years by inferior products. I can do anything with ease and cannot stress how wonderful it is to not worry about accidents.

Plus it is environmentally friendly and actually saves money. So far it seems like my kind of product, though I did put it in after two days, missing the most troublesome of my cycle.

PS, did you know that silicone is used in many hair products, including shampoo and conditioner?

I will keep you updated.

Critique the Poem

The ocean’s beauty was not meant
to adorn the walls of man.
Is the deadened shell more beautiful
than a living, breathing clam?
Poets adorn the shell with words
forgetting that which lives;
a simple beast, no doubt,
but one that’s meant to give
its life to filtering out the water
and then dissolve to dust
its shell now sand upon the shore
again part of earth’s crust.

Perhaps some would simply argue
a husk displayed inside a set
means glorious remembrance
and fame found after death;
Others feel the pull of beauty
possession sings its siren song
“If it is pretty, I must have it
no matter where it should belong.”


I remember laying in bed last night thinking there were two things I want to talk about on here. One was the fact that crossword puzzles can be used not only to test knowledge but can also sharpen data-acquiring skills using the internet. The other I cannot remember.

I am interested in how we will redistribute the nutrients in our landfills back into the ecosystem and/or our homes.


Poetry has always fascinated me with its blend of symbolic and logical communication. Chelsea's party was lots of fun, as was the Coast meeting. My brother and I went to the beach at his request and I am so tired and have lots of work to do. Peace out?

Progress

Star Trek predicts the 1990s are a time of bloody world war and our first space travel. We may not be colonizing other planets, but this is because we instead "chose" to make scientific, medical, and engineering progress, this choice, of course, being the result of various social and political pressures. The things science is now accomplishing were a dream in the 1960's and are in many ways simply amazing.

I find that, in a way, Star Trek is more of a scientific fairy tale than science fiction. Scenarios may utilize science at times, but this is far outweighed by the number of unscientific and improbable elements involved in many episodes so far. This is not to say that the scenarios have not been clever and interesting to watch. I find that I am really enjoying the show, and am almost finished with the first season. Since every episode is fifty minutes in length I cannot watch more than one per day, and two is stretching things.

People have treated space as the frontier, but what about the internet? We need more novels like this.

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When a significant other is having a difficult experience it is not right to abandon him or her even if the experience is affecting the relationship. Examples of difficult experiences include finding a job or prolonged illness. It is only if the affected partner makes no effort to recover that perhaps action is necessary. Being critical is in fact counter-productive because in addition to the initial stressor the affected partner has to cope with the disapproval of her significant other while the "support group" affect of partnership is negated. If your partner is going through a difficult time, please attempt to put yourself in his or her shoes.
Yes, there is a story behind this paragraph, but I am not willing to share it. No, the inspiration was not Chris.

I dislike it when individuals claim to constantly be "calling people out" as this generally implies a sense of their being superior to the general population. This method is tends to be ineffective due to the extremely blunt and sometimes condescending way in which it is usually used which makes the actual message get lost in communication. People are not generally receptive to profanities or tones which imply they are being talked down to. Furthermore, the general implication is that people are liars or do not know how to analyze their own feelings or minds.

When someone does deserve to be "called out", most of the time he or she is not going to be receptive to the truth and it is better to trust that life and experience will show it to him rather than attempt to win a fruitless battle of words. There are few cases where this is false.

Listing Between the Lines

Comic courtesy of A Softer World

I brought up two things while talking to Dylan yesterday that I want to share with everyone here.

1.) If a girl is using abortion as birth control should she really have a child? The level of irresponsibility, and perhaps to a certain degree, callousness, that having the procedure many time would imply suggests that the potential mother, at least at this point in her life, should not be involved in child-rearing. Not to mention that abortion is never free, whereas condoms can be.

2.) I never understand why people are worried about the population in first world countries falling. Not only would a reduction in population be beneficial to the earth and perhaps imply less cost for these countries it has been proven many times in history that a small elite is still very effective at controlling money and power as far as nationalism is a concern.

Other thoughts:

1.)
As gay rights gain further acceptance the gay community will have to face one of the sectors of American society most biased towards heterosexuals: the sports community. I wonder how integration will occur. Will there be gay sports teams? Who would these sports teams play against? Men and women do have biological differences which mean that the elite in sports are competing against different elements. It would not be fair to put lesbians against a male sports team, but it would also not be fair, in a way, to pit them against a woman's sports team. I would not, in the heat of competition with all of the grabbing and touching involved, want to face the possibility that my opponent is sexually attracted to me. However, it would be as unfair to characterize gay people as sexually attracted to the other team as it would be to say that women are attracted to all men. Basically, I see no reason that gay members should not be integrated onto existing teams if the rules in place now are followed during the game. However, I have a disgusting feeling that the sports community will disagree with me.
I wonder how many of its members are already gay?

2.)
I think it would be a great idea to combine the modern three-d graphics and plot lines of RPGs with the elements of games like Mario and Metroid. Imagine somersaulting, dodging, and powering around a 3-D map using different zooms with an actual story element involved. I believe Super Mario Galaxy incorporates some of the elements I am discussing here but cloaked in the Mario universe, which leaves a *few* things unclear. Obviously a fantasy element would be the easiest to incorporate which, for example, would explain why the monsters are trapped within a certain range or you grow after eating the mushroom. There could also be lots of weapons and spells. A certain cartoonish element could also be used. There is lots of possibility here.

3.)
Very tenuous theoretical question: What if we could generate power using atmospheric heat? Heat is entropy, of course, but what if we found a certain metal or bacteria that had a "switch" at a certain temperature and somehow used that to generate electricity?

4.)
"Even though President Obama was in Russia, he couldn't escape questions about Michael Jackson. He said, "You know, this is part of American culture," said Obama. "Michael Jackson, like Elvis, like Sinatra, when somebody whose captivated the imagination of the country for that long passes away, people pay attention. And I assume at some point people will start focusing again on things like nuclear weapons.""Source

I agree with Obama. As much as Micheal Jackson's death matters the Iranian elections, Chinese riots, and North Korean crazy are extremely important and involve millions of living people. Please give them more air time.

This is an interesting article on public health care.

So apparently there are twelve million people in Jakarta and half of them are homeless. My mind is sufficiently boggled.

More awesome Cracked articles:
7 Ways the Zombie apocalypse could actually happen
What happened to Television?
6 Kickass Animals Ruined by Evolution