Neural Gourmet Archives | Feed Your Brain
Neural Gourmet Archives | Feed Your BrainPi Day Rap
Couldn't miss the opportunity to promote everybody's favorite transcendental number on this day devoted to the most amazing ratio of all. Happy Pi Day everyone.
Talk Like A Pirate Day lasts all year: If you're at Cap'n Dyke's blog. Home of the Lesbian Pirate Queen.Avast ye scurvy dogs! In case you haven't noticed it's Talk Like A Pirate Day and on Neural Gourmet that means everyone talks like a pirate -- whether they want to or not. But why should TLAPD come only once a year!? It doesn't have to if you sign on to our good Lesbian Pirate Queen's, Cap'n Dyke, ship. I'm not sure I understand Cap'n Dyke's blog... Actually, I'm sure I don't understand Cap'n Dyke's blog. But that's OK because I'm always having too much fun to care. 'Sides... She has great beer and it's a ship full of lesbians. What could be better than that? Well, Flying Spaghetti Monster heaven, but on this Earth, er sea, I mean. Anyway, we need more rogue bloggers.
This blog is rated PG: Not enough gay porn I guess.Hey gang, I've got some bad news. This site is just not living up to societal expectations. We're a bunch of evil atheists and commie pinko secular humanists and all we can muster up is a lousy 'PG' rating fer cryin' out loud!? And that for a measly two mentions of gratuitous porn. Jeesh. That's just sad. I know you can do better. So from now on I expect to see much more sex, violence and overall general depravity. Oh well, at least we did better than Pharyngula.
If we're really going to defeat Christianity (and that is our goal as atheists right?) then we clearly need more atheist owned and operated coffee shops well stocked with Islamic reading materials (or perhaps more coffee shops owned and operated by deconverted Muslims -- it works either way). I don't know why this never occurred to us before, it's so blindingly obvious, but thankfully Chuck Colson let it slip the other day that the three biggest threats to Christianity are Islam, atheism and coffee shops. Now we just need to unite this perfect trinity of anti-Christian forces into the single most powerful, irrestible force against Christianity ever! I forsee a chain of franchises all across the nation. Who wants to buy into this amazing business opportunity that will allow you to maximize your earnings potential all the while having fun, enjoying great coffee and insuring the destruction of all that's good and holy?
Guy Smith, producer of the BBC documentary 9/11: The Conspiracy Files which was the subject of our first Neural Gourmet open discussion via Skypecast yesterday recently appeared on the Alex Jones show to defend his work agains Jones and Dylan Avery. I've updated the post for our discussion to allow you to listen to Smith online or download the MP3. Probably nothing you've never heard from truthers before but it can be humorous to hear Jones and Avery twist logic and spew countless baseless factoids as if nobody would notice.
read more »
Wayne Madsen doesn't seem to have liked Neural Gourmet contributor Muriel Volestrangler's post revealing the underlying anti-semitic bias in Madsen's conspiracy theories concerning the radiation poisoned Russian spy.
[Note: It is always interesting how the neo-con Mafia reacts when someone gets close to their sordid actions. A web site that appears to be quite close to the fake progressive web site Democratic Underground had a fit with the exposure of the Litvinenko case}.
Madsen's website software apparently doesn't support permalinks so here is an archived copy of Madsen's front page as of today.
In my neverending quest to avoid actually writing, I found this quiz over at Living The Scientific Life. As we all know, it's those high school stereotypes that really define us and really, aren't we all burning to know whether we're nerd, geek or dork?
According to this silly blog quiz I'm a nerd which is interesting because I tend to refer to myself as a geek, leaving the nerd designation for an earlier generation of techies who concentrated primarily on hardware hackery. Which is fine. I'll proudly call myself nerd. I just wonder when I'll be getting my Λ Λ Λ membership kit in the mail.
So how about you? What culturally marginalized high school social clique do you belong to?
Sign of the times: Pagosa Springs, CO homeowner Lisa Jensen's peace symbol wreath. Photo credit: AP.It seems as though often you just can't win as southwestern Colorado homeowner Lisa Jensen is finding out. In the spirit of the holidays she decorated the side of her home with a festive wreath that also communicated what some Christians say is the true message of Christmas. And still people managed to take offense (bolding mine):
"Some residents who have complained have children serving in Iraq, said Bob Kearns, president of the Loma Linda Homeowners Association in Pagosa Springs. He said some residents have also believed it was a symbol of Satan. Three or four residents complained, he said."
A handful of loonies is objecting to Jensen's wreath on the grounds that it violates the subdivision's prohibition against advertising, billboards and signs without prior consent from the architectural control committee. Jensen who is being fined $25 per day until she removes the wreath is not deterred. She says she'll leave the wreath up until after Christmas despite the fines exceeding the $1,000 mark.
I have to wonder though if this isn't so much about the culture wars as it's about politics. Jensen is a past president of the homeowner's association so it makes me think there might be a little bit of bad blood between Jensen and Kearns, unless Kearns is just a total jerk. Which he might be:
"Kearns ordered the committee to require Jensen to remove the wreath, but members refused after concluding that it was merely a seasonal symbol that didn't say anything. Kearns fired all five committee members."
Updated December 1, 2006: Jin Wicked has an amusing comic about this.
Just a quickie before I head out to do early morning battle at Big Box Mart... Slashdot has a story on the Star Trek: The Next Generation LCARS theme being developed for the Nokia 770 tablet PC. While this rates very high on my coolness scale, I can't say I would find such a thing enjoyable. Don't get me wrong, Michael Okuda will probably go down in history for this bit of graphic design and I must admit that it's visually stunning. In fact, I'll go so far as to cop to having had a LCARS theme on my Windows box back in the Win 98 days but for everyday use it's just too visually cluttered. Judging by how many icons I see on the typical Windows user's desktop perhaps I'm abnormal in this perception.
The biggest drawback though is that every damn interface component emits a sound. Sure, in the heat of battle on a noisy starship I can see where this would be an advantage; giving audible feedback of an action. I would think though that in the 24th Century humans would have figured out how to give tactile feedback on touchscreen displays. However, here in the early 21st Century the constant stream of bleeps and bloops is just damn bloody annoying.
Still, even if I should not have been, the Slashdot blurb surprised me. Did you know there's an LCARS standards board? Which leads me to wonder... When will we see the Klingon computer interface standards board?
Of course, he doesn't say directly it was an internet legend - he just accepted it. He might be lying about the whole thing, but that then brings up questions like: "Does he think we're dumb enough to accept the story too?" or "How insulted will the police and security services be by a claim that they never thought of an attack, but a fifth-hand rumour easily found on the internet alerted them?"
Anyway, on to the story: David Blunkett, who was British Home Secretary in 2001, in charge of the police, MI5, immigration and more, has brought out a book of his diary entries from when he was in office (he got sacked for misbehaving. Twice. Too long a story to go into now). From the serialisation on BBC Radio 4 this morning:read more »
So I'm feeling a bit under the weather today and a bit braindead too. So I thought we'd go with something not at all serious. Well, in point of fact, it's not even Friday anymore but I'm backdating this to 11:59PM just so I could use 'Frivolous Friday' which is too good of an alliteration to let slip just because it's actually Saturday. Well, it's still Friday on the west coast so I've got my bases covered.
Simple question: What classic rock albums do you have no desire to own (or possibly hear again)?
I think for myself it has to be Frampton Comes Alive. How the hell did this album go gold? It's awful and grates on the ears in a way not quite unlike an industrial sander on the tongue. Sure, there's some good licks in there, and I admit to almost, but not really, liking one or two of the songs but the overall experience is distressing.
Now, how about you?
There’s a popular game that has been sweeping the internets over these past five years. The object of the game is to achieve the highest number of points as possible whilst discussing the events surrounding the terrorist attacks on the U.S. on 11th September 2001. The winner in any given debate wins a prize and that prize is the self-satisfaction you feel knowing that you’re not in on the conspiracy that 99% of the world is in on. Remember you’re never wrong and if you can’t twist events to fit your viewpoint then you’re a “shill for bushco.”read more »
Have you ever had a need to know exactly where you'd end up if you started digging a hole to the other side of the Earth? Sure, lots of us have. Fortunately, now we can all avoid the embarrassment of coming out hundreds of miles from our intended destinations with this handy tool. Just pan and zoom on the Google map to your starting position, double click to mark it and then click 'Dig here'.
I haven't found the website that tells you how to deal with the molten core of the Earth yet, but I'm sure it's out there.
I thought you might enjoy this page on Platypus Comix's site that has a ton of rare Bill Watterson comics including pre-Calvin and Hobbes drawings and a 1984 review by Watterson of a Bloom County book!
Sad, but true. While I'm missing the pocket protectors and slide rule (hopefully this slide rule deficit will be rectified soon) and it's been so long that I actually have to stop and think when converting to hexadecimal I am still more nerdy than all but 1% of you. I even beat out Jenna at Cyberspace Rendezvous. Ah well, I say revel in it. So, how nerdy are you?
All my made-up predictions this time are related to government and the nation state, and I guarantee that they are up to 100% true.
2007: (Society, U.S.A.) President Bush speaking to a PTA group announces his plans to strip away US citizenship from suspected "pedagogiphiles."
...and more stuff inside!read more »
All my made-up predictions this time are science-related and I guarantee that they are up to 100% true.
2008: (Medicine, U.S.A.) A brain scan of Tom Cruise is leaked to the press showing that he has a severely-diminished frontal lobe. Cruise threatened to sue the press citing "Thetans are evil and are distorting reality to make it seem that I am not sane."
...and other interesting predictions. read more »
Our Cheif Executive Officer called me early Friday afternoon.
"Modem! How are you! Listen, you know that VP of Sales position we have open? Well do I have someone for us! She's a real killer, she's had big results everywhere she's been. I think she could give our sales team the shot in the arm they need. Hell, I think her influence will be good for the whole company!"
"Gee, Mr. Whitman, that's great," I said, trying not to sound like I was more interested in the upcoming weekend then I was in the job candidate.
"Yeah, but there's a couple of things, Modem. She's, well she's a little unorthodox,"
"Um... okay..."
"Yeah, but you know, she could be a really important player in our sales efforts. I'm not sure how we can win in 2006 without her. And the most important thing is that we don't let the competition get her! With someone like her on their side, we won't stand a chance,"
I didn't say anything. Sales had been flat at best. We definitely needed a winning strategy.
"Yeah, I'm bringing her down there on Monday. She wants to meet the WHOLE team, Customer Support, Operations, IT, Accounting, the whole group! She's really going to shake things up Modem, I mean really get people out of their comfort zones!read more »
Finally, absolute proof that religious conservatives are utterly humorlous and incapable of understanding satire...
Cold-blooded murder, as documented by The Onion
