Creating Universes in the lab, yup, we've done that

MIT Technology Review reports that multiverses have actually been created using a bit of cobalt and kerosene.  

 First Toy Multiverse made in a laboratory, Physicists say 

Real Soldier vs. Fake Soldier

I am nearly literally sickened when I see a Christian preachers on TV, who are watched by hundreds of thousands if not millions of Americans, and who claim that Christians are being persecuted in America.  Here's what's really happening.  Just for he record, this has been reported equally by Christian sources.

Atheist Soldier and the discrimination thereof

But then, here's what other Christian sources claim is going on in the military.  

The Soldier

It's one step more ridiculous than the bully who forces you to hit yourself and asks "Why are you hitting yourself?"  This situation is the bully hitting you directly and saying "Stop hitting my fist with your face!"  Not only that, this story outrageously insults our armed forces by even using them as such an example in the first place!  Disgusting.

All Seeing Eye sees all, or at least it is translucent

Sometime in Fall of 2011, I was almost randomly driving around MetroWest-ish area of Massachusetts and ended up at this one museum that used to be a lodge of the Free Masons, in Lexington, MA.  At this building, there was this stain glass window with the All Seeing Eye as the focal point.

 


Look familiar to anyone? If you do a Google image search, you'll find this is not unique in topic for stain glass windows. However, this particular piece is interesting and beautiful in its own way. I serve the eye...I...i...I don't know what came over me there for a second. Oh, Hypnotoad is on. Catchya later!

Senseless Sunday: White House responds to Death Star petition

In this special edition of Senseless Sunday, we learn that plans to build a Death Star will not happen under the current U.S. Administration. On We The People, when a petition reaches 25K votes, the White House issues a formal response. The petition to build a Death Star got 34K+ votes in its first 30 days.  However, it was politely rejected by the White House recently. In short, the White House doesn't support the costs, nor do they support blowing up planets.

Tweeter comment: Top Bing search is "Google"

Even after all these years the number one thing searched in Bing is still 'Google'
— Bart Brejcha (@bartbrejcha) January 25, 2013

Some mistakes just don't matter. #ocd

https://www.instagram.com/p/U4QU9nhR0o/

Great time at Islands of Adventure

Allie, I and other friends had a great time at the SolidWorks World 2013 Special Event at Universal's Islands of Adventure at night. Even though time was short, we did a full circuit of the park, enjoying the Harry Potter ride, Jurassic Park ride, Spider-man ride, Mind Eraser ride and The Hulk rollercoaster. The food was great too!

SolidWorks World 2013 brief photographic overview

I have arrived and settled. #sww13 (at Walt Disney World Dolphin)

Walt Disney World Swan

Walt Disney World Dolphin

Good morning from the SolidWork World Pre-Day kick off #sww13 (at Walt Disney World Dolphin)

Will I fill this room in a few hours? (at Solidworks World 2013)

Lining up for General Sesion #ssw13 (at Solidworks World 2013)

Lining up for General Sesion #ssw13 (at Solidworks World 2013)

General Session of Monday of SolidWorks World 2013 filling up. #sww13 (at Solidworks World 2013)

General Session filled #sww13 (at Solidworks World 2013)

Filling in my session #sww13

#CSWE event location. (at Solidworks World 2013)

#SolidWorks World 2013 General Session Day 2 #sww13 (at Solidworks World 2013)

Standing room only at day two of #SolidWorks World 2013 General Session #sww13 (at Solidworks World 2013)

#SolidWorks World 2013 General Session Day Two in session #sww13 (at SolidWorks World 2013)

#CSWP Now 15 yrs #sww13 #SolidWorks (at Solidworks World 2013)

SolidWorks World 2013 general session day 3 filling up #sww13 (at SolidWorks World 2013)

#BertrandSicot closes up day 3 general session #sww13 #SolidWorks World 2013 (at SolidWorks World 2013)

Swan and Dolphin on a nice sunny day #SolidWorks World 2013 #sww13 (at SolidWorks World 2013)

Virtual fun, as opposed to actual fun? #downtowndisney (at La Nouba by Cirque du Soleil)

https://www.instagram.com/p/U2BczRhR-2/

There's so few clouds in the sky somebody thought they needed to create your own

https://www.instagram.com/p/U1dn8KBR4m/

Fake Geek Girls Vs. Real Geek Girls? Really, this??

An interesting meme is making its rounds on the Internet. There seems to be a bunch of hoopla about “fake geek girls”. What’s a fake geek girl? Apparently Urban Dictionary doesn’t have an entry for it yet (as of today, anyway). Umm, I did find a definition at some site called Geek Feminism Weekly (whatever that’s supposed to mean…kinda sounds like random words thrown together that only vaguely represent what it really is, similar to California Pizza Kitchen.) Anyway, their definition for fake geek girl is:

Fake geek girls - allegedly women who show up at geek events, possibly while hot, with not enough geek cred for you.

This all seems to have started with an article on Forbes (Really, Forbes? Yes, Forbes.) called Dear Fake Geek Girls: Please Go Away. In this article, the author talks about being a “geeky girl” growing up and how she now sees “pretentious females” now posing as geeks when they haven’t put the time in to justify the claim.

What’s with all the hate? In fact, why are girls singled out as being fake geeks (especially by other woman) for being posers? I think a commenter on a recent article by @Mikeynerd says it well (article: Fake Geek Girls),

The Fake Geek Girl thing bugs me. Because I do feel there is an underlying sexism at play.

If someone is a poser, then it doesn’t matter if they are a woman or man. But, is it even bad to be a poser? Isn’t a poser just someone whose trying to figure out what everyone else already knows? Aren’t they really an outcast too? As outcasts trying to fit it, doesn’t that make them more geeky (since being a social outcast is technically a major component of geekdom)? The answers to this series of rhetorical questions are as follows: no, yes, yes, and yes.
May your journey to higher geekdom find much success!

Senseless Sunday: Rolling space wax

• The inability to roll your tongue is a genetic trait that may involve more than one gene.¹
• American pronunciation of tt and dd in words like letter and bladder make the same tongue movement and similar sound as the rolled Spanish “r”.
• A person in orbit around the earth gets taller while in orbit.
• Sahara Desert is growing about 1/2 mile southward per year.
• Before an official name was chosen in Mandarin Chinese, one of many transliterations of the name Coca Cola was “bite the wax tadpole.”   Another was “female horse fastened with wax”.  Current official transliterate trademark is made up of the characters of K’o K’ou K’o Lê which translate as ”to all the mouth to be able to rejoice”.²

Who are we calling producers and who are those who refuse to produce?

One of the sad sign of our times is that we demonize those who produce, subsidize those who refuse to produce, and canonize those who complain. --Thomas Sowell

This is a particularly disgusting statement.  First, those who produce and those who do not is a matter of perspective.  What do you tell the father of 3 who has relied on a job for most of his life, who then lost his job because the company who he worked for was mismanaged by executives and had to shut down?  What do you tell that same father when the same guys that ran his company into the ground got huge bonuses "so they wouldn't leave" before operations were completely shut down?  If the father had stock in that company, he lost on two fronts because of those executives.

Given Sowell's statement above, I would ask, who is he calling the producer?  Who is he calling "those who refuse to produce"?  Would it be the executives that drove their company into the ground, not only losing value in the company, but also within the greater economy?  If anything, they are anti-producers.  This makes them worse than the supposed people who "refuse to produce", whoever they are.  The producer is the father who worked his entire life at his company, making the goods and services that found their way into homes all across America.

Fed has spent trillions to keep a dying financial industry on life support, who in turn gave huge bonuses to the very people the caused the last melt down of our economy.  What did those people do with the rest of the taxpayer's money?  Most of it is locked away, being kept out of the economy (likely for good).

Are we really all that worried about giving a few pennies (comparatively) to people who are likely already not putting enough food on the table because they believed in this very system that eventually let them down?  It's this kind of nonsense that makes communism start to look good to the starving masses.  We would not need to raise taxes had it not been for the massive problems that we, the voters, allowed in Wall Street by putting congresspersons in office that are more worried about the next big donor than they are about the solvency of our system.

How badly do we want to lower taxes?  Well, let's consider something.  Out of the last three crashes of our economy, two were caused by real estate financials games that started happening as a direct result of deregulation of particular financial institutions.  The games these institutions were playing eventually stopped working, but the corporations still needed to pretend they were making money (when, in fact, they were losing massive amounts of money).  So, they created paperwork fantasies to keep showing profits on Wall Street in order to convince everyone that nothing was going on until it was too late.  The third economic crash was caused by too much speculation on Wall Street. The common thread here is Wall Street and all the money that the taxpayer is continuously asked to pay to keep these guys rich when really they should be in jail.

Why these guys were at CES 2013 (Consumer Electronics Show) confused some people, but I get it. (Sourced from this article: Bad Dog Tools Demos Drill Bits That Cut Through Basically Everything There Is [Video].)

Just say NO to free bridges in Detroit!

Just say NO to free bridges in Detroit! (Daily Show report)

 

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-january-9-2013/bridge-to-canada?xrs=share_copy

Cavity causing bacteria, your days are numbered!

Gotta love the 21st Century! Now we know how cavity causing bacteria evolved and we can use that information against them!

Evolution of Cavities