Saturday, October 30, 2004
Eye Spirits
Since my MD-afflicted dad has reported that his pet cat can now fly, I wondered if this article might (ahem) shed some light on the subject.
"Macular degeneration is an eye disease which is the most common cause of vision-loss developing in later life. Paul Devereux discusses a less well-known side effect of particular relevance to forteans."
Read more... (at the Fortean Times):
"Macular degeneration is an eye disease which is the most common cause of vision-loss developing in later life. Paul Devereux discusses a less well-known side effect of particular relevance to forteans."
Read more... (at the Fortean Times):
0 Comments:
Thursday, October 28, 2004
ABC Airs Videotape of Man Making Al Qaeda Threat
Top News Article | Reuters.com: "WASHINGTON (Reuters) - ABC News on Thursday broadcast a videotape it obtained last week of an English-speaking man who threatens bloody new al Qaeda attacks on the United States, but the network said U.S. intelligence officials could not authenticate the man's voice.
'U.S intelligence officials say while they still cannot authenticate the voice on the tape, it has all the trademarks of an al Qaeda production,' ABC News said.
It said the voice of the speaker, identified as 'Assam the American,' did not match that of any known American al Qaeda suspects.
But ABC said the U.S. government was taking the tape seriously and had given copies of it to 13 current and former U.S. officials mentioned by the speaker. These included President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. "
'U.S intelligence officials say while they still cannot authenticate the voice on the tape, it has all the trademarks of an al Qaeda production,' ABC News said.
It said the voice of the speaker, identified as 'Assam the American,' did not match that of any known American al Qaeda suspects.
But ABC said the U.S. government was taking the tape seriously and had given copies of it to 13 current and former U.S. officials mentioned by the speaker. These included President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. "
0 Comments:
Monday, October 25, 2004
Ian's Shoelace Site - How to tie an "Ian Knot"
Ian's Shoelace Site - How to tie an "Ian Knot"
Wow. I am officially not strange.
Yes, you really can find just about everything online.
Wow. I am officially not strange.
Yes, you really can find just about everything online.
1 Comments:
I've tried it, and it really is easy to tie (and FAST) once you get the hang of it. I haven't practiced enough to get it as snug as I usually have my laces, but it is a sweet knot. Can I overcome 40 years of habit, though?
By 
, at
5:31 AM
no room for argument - very little for vermouth
"Begin by assembling the following materials and a clean, white towel at your work space. Turn off the television and eliminate other distractions. John Coltranes's First Meditations is appropriate music to work by. I cannot vouch for anything else.
A pair (2) of large, crystal martini glasses with a capacity of at least 7 ounce each. Only the classic sillhouette will do. No swirly or rose-colored stems or any other ornamentation is acceptable.
A sturdy, stainless-steel Martini shaker of the familiar shape and a generous size..."
Read more at Coudal Partners
A pair (2) of large, crystal martini glasses with a capacity of at least 7 ounce each. Only the classic sillhouette will do. No swirly or rose-colored stems or any other ornamentation is acceptable.
A sturdy, stainless-steel Martini shaker of the familiar shape and a generous size..."
Read more at Coudal Partners
0 Comments:
Navy approves first ever Satanist
The British Armed Forces has officially recognised its first registered Satanist, a newspaper reports.
Naval technician Chris Cranmer, 24, has been allowed to register by the captain of HMS Cumberland, based at Devonport Naval Base in Plymouth.
The move will mean that he will now be allowed to perform Satanic rituals on board the vessel.
According to the Sunday Telegraph, Mr Cranmer realised he was a Satanist nine years ago.
Religious values
Mr Cranmer said that was when he stumbled across a copy of the Satanic Bible, written by Church of Satan founder Anton Szandor LaVey.
He said: 'I then read more and more and came to realise I'd always been a Satanist, just simply never knew.'
Mr Cranmer, who is from Edinburgh, is now lobbying the Ministry of Defence to make Satanism a registered religion in the armed forces.
Former Tory minister Ann Widdecombe said she was 'utterly shocked' by the Royal Navy's decision.
'Satanism is wrong. Obviously the private beliefs of individuals anywhere, including the armed forces, are their own affair but I hope it doesn't spread.'
She added: 'The Navy should not permit Satanist practices on board its ships. 'God himself gives free will, but I would like to think that if somebody applied to the Navy and said they were a Satanist today it would raise its eyebrows somewhat.'
A spokesman for the Royal Navy said: 'We are an equal opportunities employer and we don't stop anybody from having their own religious values.'
The path to Satan
The Church of Satan was established in San Francisco in 1966.
Mr LaVey was its high priest until his death in 1997.
Followers live by the Nine Satanic Statements, which include "Satan represents indulgence instead of abstinence", "Satan represents vengeance instead of turning the other cheek" and "Satan represents all of the so-called sins, as they all lead to physical, mental, or emotional gratification".
Doug Harris, director of the Reachout Trust, an evangelical Christian ministry that "builds a bridge of reason" to those involved in cults and the occult, says the statements are "selfish".
"Following such tenets and working them out practically in your life seems to produce a selfish person not a member of a team," he said.
Original BBC Article:
Naval technician Chris Cranmer, 24, has been allowed to register by the captain of HMS Cumberland, based at Devonport Naval Base in Plymouth.
The move will mean that he will now be allowed to perform Satanic rituals on board the vessel.
According to the Sunday Telegraph, Mr Cranmer realised he was a Satanist nine years ago.
Religious values
Mr Cranmer said that was when he stumbled across a copy of the Satanic Bible, written by Church of Satan founder Anton Szandor LaVey.
He said: 'I then read more and more and came to realise I'd always been a Satanist, just simply never knew.'
Mr Cranmer, who is from Edinburgh, is now lobbying the Ministry of Defence to make Satanism a registered religion in the armed forces.
Former Tory minister Ann Widdecombe said she was 'utterly shocked' by the Royal Navy's decision.
'Satanism is wrong. Obviously the private beliefs of individuals anywhere, including the armed forces, are their own affair but I hope it doesn't spread.'
She added: 'The Navy should not permit Satanist practices on board its ships. 'God himself gives free will, but I would like to think that if somebody applied to the Navy and said they were a Satanist today it would raise its eyebrows somewhat.'
A spokesman for the Royal Navy said: 'We are an equal opportunities employer and we don't stop anybody from having their own religious values.'
The path to Satan
The Church of Satan was established in San Francisco in 1966.
Mr LaVey was its high priest until his death in 1997.
Followers live by the Nine Satanic Statements, which include "Satan represents indulgence instead of abstinence", "Satan represents vengeance instead of turning the other cheek" and "Satan represents all of the so-called sins, as they all lead to physical, mental, or emotional gratification".
Doug Harris, director of the Reachout Trust, an evangelical Christian ministry that "builds a bridge of reason" to those involved in cults and the occult, says the statements are "selfish".
"Following such tenets and working them out practically in your life seems to produce a selfish person not a member of a team," he said.
Original BBC Article:
1 Comments:
comes as a surprise even to a jaded worldy wise sort like me.
okay, so i'm not jaded but i am AWFULLY wise, don't you think?
anyway, more than enough about me. i didn't think i'd ever see the day where satanists would be allowed to do rituals on any boat but their own. stranger than fiction.
hugs!
By 
mael brigde, at
10:06 PM
Saturday, October 23, 2004
Lunar Eclipse Wednesday to Have Easy Viewing Hours
John Roach
for National Geographic News
October 21, 2004
"Just in time for the Halloween season, the moon Wednesday will treat us to its most famous trick: changing from bright white to reddish as it passes deeply through Earth's shadow.
This will be the last total lunar eclipse until March 3, 2007, and the last eclipse that will be easily viewed throughout the entire continental U.S. until February 21, 2008.
'For North America, this particular eclipse I refer to as the prime-time eclipse,' said Fred Espenak, an eclipse expert at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. 'It's ideally suited for casual observing.' "
Read more...
for National Geographic News
October 21, 2004
"Just in time for the Halloween season, the moon Wednesday will treat us to its most famous trick: changing from bright white to reddish as it passes deeply through Earth's shadow.
This will be the last total lunar eclipse until March 3, 2007, and the last eclipse that will be easily viewed throughout the entire continental U.S. until February 21, 2008.
'For North America, this particular eclipse I refer to as the prime-time eclipse,' said Fred Espenak, an eclipse expert at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. 'It's ideally suited for casual observing.' "
Read more...
0 Comments:
I'm still a little shaky after viewing this thing
NASA apparently needed more information about what happens to a large airplane that lands sans landing gear. Coudal.com held a contest to have people edit the video to musig. The result is amazing and disturbing. Not for the weak of heart, even though no people are involved.
View the Crash...
View the Crash...
0 Comments:
Friday, October 22, 2004
Fixed... (I Think)
I acted on a hunch and removed some blogger tags I couldn't figure out, and boom... the Comments thingy showed right up. My thanks to the folks at Comment This for the utility. Seems I've become an ex-customer.
0 Comments:
Bug in the Comment This comments... only in the archives, and only for IE (AFAIK)
Damn.
I think that I should just switch to Firefox and get it over with. I've needed to use it for school, but after downloading the latest Netscape Navigator, maybe I'll use NN for school and Firefox for everything else.
What I'm bitching about is that I've just discovered that, if I go into the archives for this blog (with IE), and try to read the comments that people have left (the Comment This comments, anyway), I can't. But if I use Firefox, I can.
Since only the Comment This comments tool shows up on the home page, (I can't figure out how to make the Blogger comments work on the home page) I really want to keep using it, but now with this IE bug... sheesh. Well, perhaps this bug will push me to use Firefox more often, and maybe it will also push me to figure out why the Blogger comments work fine in the archives but not in the index page. {{ sigh }} I've probably screwed something up in the template.
I think that I should just switch to Firefox and get it over with. I've needed to use it for school, but after downloading the latest Netscape Navigator, maybe I'll use NN for school and Firefox for everything else.
What I'm bitching about is that I've just discovered that, if I go into the archives for this blog (with IE), and try to read the comments that people have left (the Comment This comments, anyway), I can't. But if I use Firefox, I can.
Since only the Comment This comments tool shows up on the home page, (I can't figure out how to make the Blogger comments work on the home page) I really want to keep using it, but now with this IE bug... sheesh. Well, perhaps this bug will push me to use Firefox more often, and maybe it will also push me to figure out why the Blogger comments work fine in the archives but not in the index page. {{ sigh }} I've probably screwed something up in the template.
4 Comments:
test?
looks like i fixed the Blogger comments.
Never hurts to run it through w3's validator, maybe you can find something there next time. Troubleshooting can be a real pain.
Scott, I'd love to do that, but the template was originally 4.01 transitional, and Blogger plugs in XHTML tags, so the validator chokes... :-(
Armed and Dangerous
Predictability, Computability, and Free Will [Science]
Quoted from Eric Raymond's Blog:
"I've been reading some philosophical discussion of the free-will/determism question recently. Quite a number of years ago I discovered a resolution of this question, but never did anything with it because I assumed I had simply reinvented a well-known position and could not really contribute anything to the debate. However, the research I've done recently suggests that my resolution of the question is actually a novel one.
Like a lot of philosophy, the discussion of free will and determinism I've seen founders on two errors. One of this is Aristotelianism, an attachment to observer-independent two-valued logic in a system of universal categories as the only sort of truth. The other is a tendency to get snarled up in meaningless categories that are artifacts of language rather than useful abstractions from observed reality."
Read more...
Quoted from Eric Raymond's Blog:
"I've been reading some philosophical discussion of the free-will/determism question recently. Quite a number of years ago I discovered a resolution of this question, but never did anything with it because I assumed I had simply reinvented a well-known position and could not really contribute anything to the debate. However, the research I've done recently suggests that my resolution of the question is actually a novel one.
Like a lot of philosophy, the discussion of free will and determinism I've seen founders on two errors. One of this is Aristotelianism, an attachment to observer-independent two-valued logic in a system of universal categories as the only sort of truth. The other is a tendency to get snarled up in meaningless categories that are artifacts of language rather than useful abstractions from observed reality."
Read more...
0 Comments:
Eric Staller's Conference Bike!
Is this any worse than most team meetings you've been to, where everyone is trying to steer, and no one wants to pedal?
See the bike...
See the bike...
0 Comments:
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Lorem Ipsum Generator
Cool
http://www.lipsum.com/
http://www.lipsum.com/
0 Comments:
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
retroCRUSH: Worst Halloween Costumes of All Time
"When I was growing up, most of the kids in my neighborhood were fairly uncreative. Instead of thinking long and hard about what you wanted to be for Halloween, you'd run with your parent to the store at the last minute, and grab a prepackaged costume made by Ben Cooper or Collegeville of some famous character. Superheroes, Monsters, and Star Wars characters were usually the favorites, but every now and then you came across a few gems that really made you scratch your head."
This stuff is really strange. The site's comments for each costume are rude, very funny, and worth suffering through the various pop-ups and things floating around the screen.
View the costumes...:
This stuff is really strange. The site's comments for each costume are rude, very funny, and worth suffering through the various pop-ups and things floating around the screen.
View the costumes...:
1 Comments:
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
Sunday, October 10, 2004
Listen to Muslim silent majority in US | csmonitor.com
By Ahmed Nassef
"NEW YORK When Americans think of a Muslim American, most probably envision a bearded man or veiled woman, speaking accented English and holding traditional, conservative views of the world.
Although the reality is much different - most of the nation's Muslims are American-born converts or second-generation immigrants, not particularly religious, and liberal - you'd be hard-pressed to learn this by watching most Muslim spokespeople in the media."
Read more...
"NEW YORK When Americans think of a Muslim American, most probably envision a bearded man or veiled woman, speaking accented English and holding traditional, conservative views of the world.
Although the reality is much different - most of the nation's Muslims are American-born converts or second-generation immigrants, not particularly religious, and liberal - you'd be hard-pressed to learn this by watching most Muslim spokespeople in the media."
Read more...
0 Comments:
Saturday, October 09, 2004
Web Style Guide, 2nd Edition
0 Comments:
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
APOD: 2004 October 6 - N11: A Giant Ring of Emission Nebulas
Astronomy Picture of the Day
"Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer."
See the photo...:
"Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer."
See the photo...:
0 Comments:
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
Woot!
Woot!
So cool. They post one item for sale. If it sells out, tough. It you wait too long, tough. Sale ends at midnight, now going back. Looks like fun stuff, cheap.
So cool. They post one item for sale. If it sells out, tough. It you wait too long, tough. Sale ends at midnight, now going back. Looks like fun stuff, cheap.
0 Comments:
Gmail Improves Their Contact Manager
Wow. I was just writing over the weekend about how I wished that gmail had better contact management tools. Until today, all you could do was put name, email address, and a note. Now it is all customizable and stuff. Nice.
0 Comments:
Swiss Army Knife Meets the Kitchen Sink
(I haven't tried this one yet... it caught my eye because I was looking for a new RSS reader)
"Looking for a search toolbar, an RSS reader, online bookmark manager or web research manager? Look no further: Pluck incorporates all of these features into a single, elegant search tool.
"Pluck does so many different things that it's difficult to say exactly what kind of tool it is. Pluck includes a search toolbar, an online bookmark service, a web page clipping tool, an alerting service, an RSS News aggregator and several other tools all available from a remarkably clean and easy to use interface. And even though it boasts such an impressive array of features, Pluck is free."
Read the article...:
"Looking for a search toolbar, an RSS reader, online bookmark manager or web research manager? Look no further: Pluck incorporates all of these features into a single, elegant search tool.
"Pluck does so many different things that it's difficult to say exactly what kind of tool it is. Pluck includes a search toolbar, an online bookmark service, a web page clipping tool, an alerting service, an RSS News aggregator and several other tools all available from a remarkably clean and easy to use interface. And even though it boasts such an impressive array of features, Pluck is free."
Read the article...:
0 Comments:
Monday, October 04, 2004
NoteMap: Full-Featured Outlining Software
0 Comments:
Sunday, October 03, 2004
Clusty the Clustering Engine
This new search engine "clusters" the results of your search into different groupings. When I ran a vanity search, it grouped my name in to a set with blogs, a set with biblical items, and a set with movie actors. Cool.
Read more...
Read more...
