Yes, it be Talk Like a Pirate Day, landlubbers. So we'll talk about distributing illegal copies of media at some point in the entry. Also, it was
tinchen's brithday, either today or yesterday, so be sure to wish her a happy birthday.
Super Mario Brothers Wedding Cake. Despite what it looks like, the cake is edible. My jaw drops at such a lovely artistic sight. (Wowed by the design? Check out some of the other cakes this company has done)
USB-rechargable batteries. Now this is an interesting idea. I wonder how well they work. These seem like the perfect batteries to have with you for peripherals and computer-related materials. The question is, of course, whether they have good life and are inexpensive, relatively.
The world's first penis transplant receiver has had it removed. Apparently, there were mental problems that could not be overcome. Science proceeds apace, but this might be one of those times where we truly aren't quite ready for it. I wonder whether it's a matter of the trauma etching a memory onto the body and mind that says "This is gone now" and not being able to resolve that there is something there again. Were that true, though, artificial replacements should have a similar effect, but they don't seem to. Maybe it's because they're obviously unnatural, so the body still knows that there's not a regular limb there, but something they can use in its place instead?
Hearing voices may not be a universally bad or insane thing, at least for researchers at the University of Manchester. They're trying to figure out whether hearing someone when there's nobody there is just a normal part of our lives, perhaps as a reaction to stress or significant events in life.
Predicitons made on another attack sequence by Al-Qaeda. I'm not sure whether this is a threat or blowing smoke. We'll see, one way or another, I suspect.
Are the poll machines ready for Nov. 2006? If glitches, gaffes, and bugs dominate, there's going to be very little confidence. If you add on top of that maliciousness and vote-changing done by election officials or other hackers, then there's not only no confidence, but no point in voting, as the numbers will say whatever they have been programmed to say. It would give the illusion of legitimacy to any number of things.
Empathy with people, actions, and things, might turn out to be due to the firing of mirror neurons in the brain. Apparently, there's a spectrum of empathic response, depending on whether those mirror neurons fire or not.
Cereal On-the-Go container design. Perfect for taking your Chocolat Frosted Sugar Bombs into work with you when you're running late. Or when you just need sugary pick me up in the middle of the day.
A bad day for an Australian man - charged with having sex with a corpse, he also confesses to drunk driving and arson. Something must have pushed him over the edge.
And the last mark... showing that it's been a ways since the 50s, but that there's still a lot of work to be done. At least these days, when we hear of homosexuals, the reaction isn't like Greensboro, North Carolina, 1957: the "gay scare". Where the judge was biased, the jury was likely biased, the black mark has stuck, and nearly everything about it was wrong by today's standards. I just wonder whether we still have gay scares, even in this day and age.
Also, because I suspect someone will notice, on piracy: the DeCSS algorithm was developed as a way of playing protected DVDs on a computer without using proprietary software. I believe it was for a Linux environment, for which such official things had not been released, nor were likely to. Thus, while the reverse-engineering of the protocol was illegal, likely, under a license that one supposedly implicitly agreed to by buying the media format, it was also a technical achievement. Perhaps much like the Linux kernel itself. DeCSS also made it possible for movie ripping and other such wonderfully piratical acts. Ah, well. In this case, sometimes you have to take the good with the bad.
Super Mario Brothers Wedding Cake. Despite what it looks like, the cake is edible. My jaw drops at such a lovely artistic sight. (Wowed by the design? Check out some of the other cakes this company has done)
USB-rechargable batteries. Now this is an interesting idea. I wonder how well they work. These seem like the perfect batteries to have with you for peripherals and computer-related materials. The question is, of course, whether they have good life and are inexpensive, relatively.
The world's first penis transplant receiver has had it removed. Apparently, there were mental problems that could not be overcome. Science proceeds apace, but this might be one of those times where we truly aren't quite ready for it. I wonder whether it's a matter of the trauma etching a memory onto the body and mind that says "This is gone now" and not being able to resolve that there is something there again. Were that true, though, artificial replacements should have a similar effect, but they don't seem to. Maybe it's because they're obviously unnatural, so the body still knows that there's not a regular limb there, but something they can use in its place instead?
Hearing voices may not be a universally bad or insane thing, at least for researchers at the University of Manchester. They're trying to figure out whether hearing someone when there's nobody there is just a normal part of our lives, perhaps as a reaction to stress or significant events in life.
Predicitons made on another attack sequence by Al-Qaeda. I'm not sure whether this is a threat or blowing smoke. We'll see, one way or another, I suspect.
Are the poll machines ready for Nov. 2006? If glitches, gaffes, and bugs dominate, there's going to be very little confidence. If you add on top of that maliciousness and vote-changing done by election officials or other hackers, then there's not only no confidence, but no point in voting, as the numbers will say whatever they have been programmed to say. It would give the illusion of legitimacy to any number of things.
Empathy with people, actions, and things, might turn out to be due to the firing of mirror neurons in the brain. Apparently, there's a spectrum of empathic response, depending on whether those mirror neurons fire or not.
Cereal On-the-Go container design. Perfect for taking your Chocolat Frosted Sugar Bombs into work with you when you're running late. Or when you just need sugary pick me up in the middle of the day.
A bad day for an Australian man - charged with having sex with a corpse, he also confesses to drunk driving and arson. Something must have pushed him over the edge.
And the last mark... showing that it's been a ways since the 50s, but that there's still a lot of work to be done. At least these days, when we hear of homosexuals, the reaction isn't like Greensboro, North Carolina, 1957: the "gay scare". Where the judge was biased, the jury was likely biased, the black mark has stuck, and nearly everything about it was wrong by today's standards. I just wonder whether we still have gay scares, even in this day and age.
Also, because I suspect someone will notice, on piracy: the DeCSS algorithm was developed as a way of playing protected DVDs on a computer without using proprietary software. I believe it was for a Linux environment, for which such official things had not been released, nor were likely to. Thus, while the reverse-engineering of the protocol was illegal, likely, under a license that one supposedly implicitly agreed to by buying the media format, it was also a technical achievement. Perhaps much like the Linux kernel itself. DeCSS also made it possible for movie ripping and other such wonderfully piratical acts. Ah, well. In this case, sometimes you have to take the good with the bad.