Before yesterday I think I had been to two funerals in the last fifteen years. I was actually kind of clueless about certain conventions that everyone else seemed to know, and as I left, I remarked to others in my own self defense that "I guess I haven't known enough people that have died". Well, it turns out that while I was at the event with my ( Read more... )

In early June I started playing ultimate Frisbee with a group from work. We were organized by a cool postdoc named Doug (I don't think anyone would mind, I guess I don't see how using someone's name in LJ can be a problem, especially if I'm saying good things about them). Doug was really cool. He was an outgoing, friendly guy, and totally full of ( Read more... )

Just heard about this. Hope those of you who are working out there will be ok ( Read more... )

When they give out free TVs. I now own my own TV (a tiny, black and white, portable one) because I went to a meeting at work and asked a question. I'm not really sure this is how they should be trying to motivate us though. Perhaps they do not realize that they have given me the necessary tools to sit in the back of the room watching TV instead of ( Read more... )

To make a totally non-Halloween related post, yesterday I finished reading another absolutely amazing survival story. It made a bit of an impression on me, so I decided to write something about it:

( something )

You would think that by now we would know better than to believe any of the shit this administration tells about environment or science issues. But it amazes me how many people (including liberals) are swallowing the explanation they are being fed for the latest round of climate change censorship ( Read more... )

I went to a bar today and got in a (semi-drunken) conversation with an atheist about the logical implications of atheism. It's interesting when they try to do the whole victim complex thing of "I'm going to die someday and I'll cease to exist", and then you argue that if there's nothing supernatural then you can create a copy of you using science ( Read more... )

I think I am going to chop my work computer up with a hatchet. Then I am going to take the little pieces of computer kibble, disolve them in some concentrated HCl, chant some death curses over the chemical stew that remains, freeze it in liquid nitrogen, and drop the ice off a cliff onto some detonating high explosives. Maybe I'll think of a couple ( Read more... )

This has been around for a while, but it's the first time I've seen it, and it really blows my mind. The blue galaxies seen in this hubble telescope picture are actually all the same. There is only one real blue galaxy and it is behind the orange galaxies that you see in the center. The gravity of the central galaxies is so intense that it bends ( Read more... )

In other me related news, I went and gave an educational demonstration at an elementary school the other day. I forgot how entertaining little kids are (as long as you're only around them for an hour or so). Third graders are fun. Plus, they're really easy to impress when you have a machine that turns on fluorescent lights using mini lightning ( Read more... )