Science Frauds

http://www.neatorama.com/2006/09/19/10scientific-frauds-that-rocked-the-world/

nice little article about some of the bad science out there. some of them surprised me, they had been presented to me in one school or another...

politics, politics

a nice little tid-bit from illinois - via CBS2 Chicago

(CBS) CHICAGO In a political protest straight from the history books in Boston, Lt.Gov. Pat Quinn launched a ''tea protest'' against ComEd.
Calling for a Boston Tea Party revolt, Quinn on Monday called on consumers to send a tea bag with their ComEd utility bill.

And then something from the pope vs the muslims - via the Jakarta Post

Nadhlatul Ulama chairman Hasyim Muzadi called on Indonesian Muslims on Monday to accept Pope Benedict XVI's apology for offending Muslims, saying it was "an obligation" according to Islamic teachings.
"As long as it (the Pope's remarks) was made out of negligence, we are obliged to accept the apology," Hasyim said on the sidelines of a religious leaders conference at the NU office.
Hasyim said the regret was "enough" and further resentment from the Muslims would only justify the pope's statement. "If the rage continues, perhaps what the pope said is true," he said.

One Of Those Days

Where you wish you had set the alarm earlier, just so you could hit the snooze...

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Mobile Email from a Cingular Wireless Customer http://www.cingular.com

if monty python skits were filmed in halo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJKJjJbHxvY

caught this from boingboing - mashup of the monty python skit ''No. 42 - how not to be seen'' and halo2

enjoy

Just like it sounds

http://milehighatlanta.com/

*bonus - you get to keep the sheets as a souvenir!

Priorities

Free john mayer concert across the street... But i'm working a conference...

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Mobile Email from a Cingular Wireless Customer http://www.cingular.com

Wicked

The cloud gate sculpture at night...

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Mobile Email from a Cingular Wireless Customer http://www.cingular.com

JUploadr

Check this out people - if you use flickr and zooomr there's an uploader which makes it easier to load a whole bunch of photos into either service...

http://juploadr.sourceforge.net/

simple drag and drop interface... edit the tags and other meta information before uploading... mac and linux versions available...

go and enjoy!

miller time doesn't even cover the half of it...

i just moved 2'x8'x7' of concrete. it was piled on my driveway, and is now in a dumpster.

those are measurements in feet.

at an average weight of 150 lbs/cu ft - that equals...

112 cu ft * 150 lbs / cu ct = 16,800 lbs or... 8.4 tons.

i'm drinking tonight!

*** Edit / Update 2006-09-09 **

Further research revealed that rubble has a significantly lower density than it's constituient parts. like on the order of 50% to 75% less weight per volume.

So I restarted the calculations based on the original square footage of concrete removed from the house.

Kitchen = 203.5 Sq Ft
Foyer = 86.75 Sq Ft
Hall = 69.35 Sq Ft
total = 356.6 Sq Ft of 1.5" thick concrete

At 1.5" thick concrete weights 18.75 lbs/Sq Ft
so... 356.6 Sq Ft * 18.75 lbs/Sq Ft = 6,686.25 lbs or 3.34 tons.

The kitchen also had a layer of tile on it, but i haven't dug up how much that would weigh, but i'm guessing it'd put me over 3.5 tons total.

Either way, not bad for 2 hours of work with a shovel. The laundry room sitll has concrete and tile in it, and i'll get to help demolish and move that too.

from the land of the aching back...
-BG

catch-up

no... not the condiment. like th... condiment - the stuff you put on sandwichs and hotdogs?.. not that other thing you put on... besides, they're not even spelled the same.

anyway, catch-up... catching up... getting you back up to date... i'm up to date, because i live this stuff, but you... you only hear about it when i'm in a happy medium between bored and overworked. that medium is now.

i'm once again working at the newspaper, answering phones intermittently at the sports desk. it's a job that gives me plenty of time to blog and read and do other "sit quietly at your desk" stuff. it's a paid/forced studyhall, and that... is worth more than the monetary compensation.

school starts next week, and one class has already been cancelled. i need to refactor everything now... to get the right blend of degree requirements fulfilled i may have to drop the other class, and sign up for two entirely different classes. which would be a pain since i bought the book for one class, and am unsure if it's for the class that was cancelled.

this is my fourth week at the internship. i feel pretty comfortable there and have been doing my best to get everything done with quality and speed. last week i got to stay overnight for a conference, and then helped run that it the next day. conferences are such an emotional rollercoaster, and it was a great feeling to slip back into such chaos and hysteria.

the company i work for is a health organization. they have different health initiatives and i have somehow been tricked into taking the stairs everywhere. my office is on the fourth floor, and i often have go to the basement. the cafeteria usually has lighter/healthier fare, and for a decent price. i can get breakfast and lunch for between $5 and $7 total. the office is fairly casual, and being able to wear shorts on fridays was a suprise.

as far as my tasks, they've been mostly clerical - filing registrations, stuffing badges or folders, making copies, processing registration changes and the like... hopefully, after this big push to be ready for several large conferences (i'll be at three different conferences next week alone) i'll get to start doing some higher level meeting planning functions.

the nice thing about all the mindless clerical stuff is i can listen to mp3s on my phone. i recently started getting into podcasts, and have my phone stuffed with them. I've almost gone entirely through the back catalog of Escape Pod (almost 2 years and 1.5GB). Escape Pod is far and away my favorite so far. The concept is weekly short stories of science fiction. They're unique because they actually pay for content, and it shows. High quality stories and production. Other favorites of mine include the Seanachai and it's spin-off 'How to Succeed in Evil.'

check 'em out. they've saved my mind from melting.

on the home front, we're almost finished with the demolition for remodeling the kitchen and putting hardwood floor throughout the first floor. All the concrete is gone except for the laundry room, which probably won't get hardwood anyway. It may get put off until much later. The pile of concrete rubble in the driveway is the approximate size of a car. There isn't a piece of that pile that i haven't handled in some manner. Sickening.

The sub-floor has been repaired and a new layer of plywood has been laid in a manner to be solid, level and free of dips, sways or gulleys. A manner that is painfully slow to watch and participate in.

with all the demolition finished, dad can now wrap his mind around the planning stage. (the two stages are reversed in our house.) he and mom have begun been searching for ideas for hardwood floors, cabinets, counters, et al. totally backwards, but at least it's being done. We've been in that house for 20 years, and haven't updated anything on the first floor except the bathroom. The project is long overdue, and as result mushroomed into a major remodel.

anyway, my shift is almost over, and it's time to go... be well

a few gems

couldn't pass this up : from boingboing both

german racists as idiots... promoting themselves with stolen porn pictures of the objects of their hate. and then get caught immediately afterwards for stealing pictures from another website. the real ironic twist comes when the reported story itself was stolen from another website.

the experts behind wikipedia... the owners of wikipedia are promoting the fact that just 500 users made most of the edits to wikipedia as proof that wikipedia isn't as wild and wooly as the media claims. however a further indepth analysis shows that most of the content comes from people who've made very few edits. this supports the idea that wikipedia gets it's information widely varied experts, but gets edited and formatted by a very devoted group of editors.