Stranger than fiction

The Geminid Meteor Shower peaks tonight

December 13, 2009

The Geminids are coming tonight! “It’s the Geminid meteor shower,” says Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office. “and it will peak on Dec. 13th and 14th under ideal viewing conditions.” A new Moon will keep skies dark for a display that Cooke and others say could top 140 meteors per hour. According to the [...]

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and I thought the Shoe Event Horizon was satire

November 9, 2009

apparently, Douglas Adams was on to something: For months now, consumers have been hunkering down in an economic storm, buying only what they need to survive, like groceries, diapers, medicine — and shoes. Shoes? The American public, it would seem, cannot carry on without new shoes. Boots, booties, sneakers, pumps — for the last few [...]

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forecasting the winter in wisconsin

October 1, 2009

This was the first week in Wisconsin where the temperature was actually cold – mid 50s earlier, and now around low 60s. Fall is pretty much here, which is my favorite season but still attunes me towards dreadful anticipation of the winter ahead. The last two years – coinciding with our move to Wisconsin from [...]

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Fear the Japanese: bagelheads

July 2, 2009

look what an injection of saline can do for you: (below the fold, for decency’s sake, though not NSFW)

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guilty of fictional crimes

May 25, 2009

Ogiue Maniax has a very important post about a man charged with a crime for possessing obscene manga. I was not familiar with the case prior to his post but it really is a chilling matter. As he points out, fiction should have every right to depict an aspect of reality while not being completely [...]

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PSA: Sony Ericsson is not giving you a new laptop

May 14, 2009

This is a public service announcement. No corporate company is going to give you thousands of dollars in hardware or software just because you forwarded an email around. In fact, no company can even track how many people you forwarded email to. It is impossible for a company to know this. It would be stupid [...]

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pondering the omnipotence paradox

April 7, 2009

Consder the classic omnipotence paradox, expressed as a logical conundrum thus: Posit an omnipotent God who created the Universe. Can God create a stone He cannot lift? If the answer is yes, then there exists a stone that God cannot lift, hence God is not omnipotent. If the answer is no, then God cannot do [...]

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solar cells from powdered donuts and starbucks passion tea

March 20, 2009

I am not a chemist, so it would take me at least an hour to verify that the following has some basis in actual science, and even then I wouldn’t be able to really tell you for sure that this is kosher. But anyone who has access to a rudimentary lab setup should be able [...]

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Defense against the Dark Arts

March 19, 2009

Saudi Arabian Aurors working for the Ministry of Magic, Promotion of Virtue, and Prevention of Vice have arrested a rogue sorceror. The potential for jokes is unlimited. camel caravan to Hajjwarts? games of Qaddafitch played aboard flying carpets? Young Harun Potter, facing off against Voldamerica? (I actually have some more serious analysis at City of [...]

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let the world be your PC

March 17, 2009

ok, anyone who watched Dennou Coil will immediately recognize where this is headed: Although the miniaturization of computing devices allows us to carry computers in our pockets, keeping us continually connected to the digital world, there is no link between our digital devices and our interactions with the physical world. Information is confined traditionally on [...]

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