What would the world be, once bereft of wet and wildness?
Let them be left, O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
Feel like you're paying too much for your cell phone? You might want to try bluffing your way to cheaper service. I remember when I canceled my Verizon contract last year they offered me some deals that I normally would have taken had I not switched to the Treo. Matt Haughey recently experienced the same thing when he tried to cancel his T-mobile contract. Apparently cell providers are quite willing to make a sacrifice for your business, but you've got to "ask" for it.
In a couple of hours Mary Pat and I are heading up to Tennessee for some fun in the Smokies. We'll be spending days trekking through virgin wilderness, eating berries and wildflowers, slaking our thirst at crystal mountain streams lots of money at the outlet malls near Pigeon Forge. I really do need a completely new wardrobe for work so we're mixing business and pleasure, staying at a rustic little cabin on the mountain behind Gatlinburg. We might even get matching sweatsuits and walk around town holding hands. Country kitsch, here we come.
"They are presented as alternatives that exclude each other," the pope said. "This clash is an absurdity because on one hand there is much scientific proof in favor of evolution, which appears as a reality that we must see and which enriches our understanding of life and being as such."
He then pointed out the obvious fact that evolution does not answer all the questions, such as "Where does everything come from?" which is accurate because the theory of evolution does not attempt to answer such an unanswerable question.
It is remarkable that the Pope, whose very power and influence stem from the belief that the Bible is the authentic word of God and is historically accurate, would make such an admission. And of course his statements will have little influence over millions of Protestant Americans who insist on the historical legitimacy of the Bible and allow themselves to be threatened by scientific discovery. But it's a start.
Interesting article on Russia's attempt to claim the North Pole. Even though the polar region is technically frozen ocean, the terrain below the ice contain billion of tons of oil and natural gas. Under internation law, a country's territorial boundary can be extended if it can prove that the continental shelf into which it wishes to expand is a natural extension of its own territory. So Russian scientists recently spent almost two months researching the "Lomonosov ridge", an underwater ridge which they claim links Russia's Arctic coast to the North Pole. Controversy has, of course, ensued.
Good list of the World’s Stupidest Fatwas. My favorite: Rashad Hassan Khalil, former dean of Islamic law at al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, ruled in January 2006 that for married couples, "being completely naked during the act of coitus annuls the marriage."
I've posted something like this before, but The Taxonomy of Logical Fallacies is a fascinating voyage into the thicket of errors in reasoning. It's actually quite helpful if you can learn to recognize the all-too-common ones. For example, the "Masked Man" fallacy is one that occurs frequently in jury trials. The formula is where a = b, and C is believed to be a, C is also (and erroneously) believed to be b. The popular example is this:
The masked man is Mr. Hyde.
The witness believes that the masked man committed the crime.
Therefore, the witness believes that Mr. Hyde committed the crime.
For one trying to convince you (erroneously or not) that Mr. Hyde committed the crime, this inference is highly desirable. The opponent would need to expose the fallacy by proving that there could have been another masked man on the scene. Understanding this distinction can be crucial.
Other fallacies aren't necessarily logical per se. Another common one is the "Appeal to Nature" fallacy which plays on the (natural) supposition that anything natural is good and anything unnatural is bad. The best example is on food labels. Everything is "all-natural" these days, even though it is clear that the word natural has a very specific meaning when it appears on a label. It think it's safe to say that most of these fallacies appear in or on advertisements every day of our lives. Read the list, get hip. Or better yet, buy a book:
Throughout the course of the generations
men constructed the night.
At first she was blindness;
thorns raking bare feet,
fear of wolves.
We shall never know who forged the word
for the interval of shadow
dividing the two twilights;
we shall never know in what age it came to mean
the starry hours.
Others created the myth.
They made her the mother of the unruffled Fates
that spin our destiny,
thev sacrificed black ewes to her, and the cock
who crows his own death.
The Chaldeans assigned to her twelve houses;
to Zeno, infinite words.
She took shape from Latin hexameters
and the terror of Pascal.
Luis de Leon saw in her the homeland
of his stricken soul.
Now we feel her to be inexhuastible
like an ancient wine
and no one can gaze on her without vertigo
and time has charged her with eternity.
And to think that she wouldn't exist
except for those fragile instruments, the eyes.
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
There was an old father of Dylan
Who was seriously, mortally illin'
"I want," Dylan said
"You to bitch till you're dead.
"I'll be cheesed if you kick it while chillin'."
"The budget should be balanced; the treasury should be refilled; public debt should be reduced; and the arrogance of public officials should be controlled."
Flash Earth is by far the best mapping site on the Interwebs, integrating instantaneous map zooming and multiple hosts such as Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, and Nasa Terra. The speed and resolution are stunning. Now if I could just get this on my Treo..
Not sure if anyone has read the book Sarum by Edward Rutherfurd, but it's a fascinating piece of historical fiction, spanning 10,000 years and the lives of five families in high Michener style. What I've never forgotten about the book is its opening chapter, which follows a Stone Age man as he watches a massively huge flood pour down the valley separating what are today England and France. The flood is so cataclysmically huge that it creates the English channel--not an inauspicious start for a novel. Well, it turns out that Rutherfurd wasn't merely embellishing. Scientists have recently studied sonar scans of the channel and confirmed that Britain became separated from Europe after a catastrophic flood over 200,000 years ago.
The Two Switches puzzle is driving me crazy. Help.
The warden meets with 23 new prisoners when they arrive. He tells them, "You may meet today and plan a strategy. But after today, you will be in isolated cells and will have no communication with one another.
"In the prison is a switch room, which contains two light switches labeled A and B, each of which can be in either the 'on' or the 'off' position. I am not telling you their present positions. The switches are not connected to anything.
"After today, from time to time whenever I feel so inclined, I will select one prisoner at random and escort him to the switch room. This prisoner will select one of the two switches and reverse its position. He must move one, but only one of the switches. He can't move both but he can't move none either. Then he'll be led back to his cell.
"No one else will enter the switch room until I lead the next prisoner there, and he'll be instructed to do the same thing. I'm going to choose prisoners at random. I may choose the same guy three times in a row, or I may jump around and come back.
"But, given enough time, everyone will eventually visit the switch room as many times as everyone else. At any time anyone of you may declare to me, 'we have all visited the switch room' and be 100% sure.
"If it is true, then you will all be set free. If it is false, and somebody has not yet visited the switch room, you will be fed to the alligators."
What is the strategy they come up with so that they can be free?
The Isle of Sark in the Channel Islands off the cost of Normandy seems like a fascinating place, where the only vehicles allowed are horse-drawn vehicles, bicycles, and tractors. It was first inhabited by the French pirate "Eustace the Monk," is actually the last feudal state in Europe, and was the site of the moderately famous Operation Basalt during WWII. I want to go.
"The Morning Glory cloud is one of the most spectacular meteorological phenomena in the world. It is quite rare as it is usually only observed in Northern Australia's Gulf of Carpentaria. A Morning Glory cloud can best be described as a roll cloud that can be up to 1000 kilometers long, 1 to 2 kilometers high, and can move at speeds up to 40 kilometers per hour. The morning glory is often accompanied by sudden wind squalls, intense low-level wind shear, a rapid increase in the vertical displacement of air parcels, and a sharp pressure jump at the surface. In the front of the cloud, there is strong vertical motion that transports air up through the cloud and creates the rolling appearance, while the air in the middle and rear of the cloud becomes turbulent and sinks. The cloud can also be described as a Solitary wave or a Soliton, which is a wave that has a single crest and moves without changing speed or shape."
Speaking of science, it appears that a cultural crisis is looming in America. This New York Times article states that while scientific literacy has doubled over the past two decades, only 20 to 25 percent of Americans are "scientifically savvy and alert," acording to Northwestern science professor Jon D. Miller. Most of the rest "don't have a clue," he said. The scariest part? One adult American in five thinks the Sun revolves around the Earth, an idea science had abandoned by the 17th century.
Who are these people? Where do they live? Why have they not been shunned from society?
Virtual Parks is "The product of eleven years of hiking, exploring, and VR photography . . . successful proof of a concept that showed high quality panoramas could excite people about our wild places." (Quicktime required to view these amazing photographs)
I hear the music
The music is playing
The music is soft
The music is now fading
The music is gone
Which means so is my life
No music means no life
The music is gone
Come back to me music
The Music is begining
I have a life
The music is pretty
The Music is wonderful
Oh no
The music is fading again
I love the music
The music is gone
Good bye music
Great story about the fiasco that was the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis. Best line: As he took his place in the starting crowd, Carvajal found himself in an odd group to be running the first Olympic marathon in America. In addition to legitimate distance runners such as Sam Mellor, John Lordon, and Michael Spring, each of whom had won the Boston Marathon, there were a professional strikebreaker from Chicago and two Zulu tribesmen, named Lentauw and Yamasani, who were at the fair as part of the Boer War exhibit and thought they would take the afternoon off to run.
We have received your accident-claim reports for the month of June—they total 27. I regret to inform you that GEICO will not be able to reimburse you for any of those repairs. I feel that I have sent the same letter to you once a month for the last six months, and I am now sending it again.
Since becoming a GEICO customer in January of this year, you have reported 131 accidents, requesting reimbursement for repairs necessitated by each one. You have claimed not to be responsible in any of them, usually listing the cause of the accident as either "Sneak attack by Decepticons" or "Unavoidable damage caused by protecting freedom for all sentient beings..."
This is hilarious. According the rules of 'urban sprinting,' you must first find a shop with a security guard and an alarm system, preferably in a mall. Then you grab a security tag (no merchandise) and walk out the door, setting off the alarm. When the guard chases you, you must evade him. Your time stops when you reach the nearest burger joint.
Incredible story about the fishermen of Lamalera, a village on Lembata island, Indonesia, who hunt - and kill - whales with primitive spears and knives.
The Encyclopedia of Alabama is a "comprehensive online reference work on the state’s history, culture, geography, and natural environment" which will be available in 2008. A rather dauting task, but I look forward to seeing the result.
In an ironic turn of events, a provision in the tax code that allowed farmers and small-business owners to recover the cost of buying trucks and heavy-duty working vehicles has become a tax break for luxury SUVs and Hummers. To the tune of $25,000. Luckily some legislators have wised up and are trying to change this.
