Decrepit Old Fool

I love this, but it freaks Phil Plait the hell out

Missed “Talk like a pirate day”?  It’s Talk like a physicist day!!!  Here are a few examples to get you started:

Any actual personal experience becomes “empirical data.” i.e. a burn on your hand is empirical data that the stove is hot.
You’re not being lazy, you are in your ground state.
A semi-educated guess is an extrapolation
You aren’t ignoring details, you are taking the ideal case

When I read the list, I realized how geeky our house is…
Tip ‘o the hat to Chad Orzel at Uncertain Principles

Update: I am pleased to note that today is also Pi day!  Will have to celebrate by having a piece of pie today.  Pies, after all, are round…  Oh what the hell, do I really need an excuse? MrsDoF just called to say she is bringing a homemade rhubarb pie home from the Mennonite Relief Sale.

Saturday Night Live: It’s 3 AM… who answers the phone?

Doh!  Diebold accidentally releases results of 2008 election early.  Our voting machine overlords should be more careful.

I wouldn’t worry except this particular news source has shown amazing accuracy before.

Look away!  Zoom out! Zoom out! Zoom out!!!

It’s no wonder that paranormal studies don’t receive any respect: not enough sciencitifical-looking equipment.  Well here is the remedy: Look Around You… Ghosts!

But watch out when employing ghosts in the la-bor-atory… they can be naughty!  Also, I’d like to know; is that a plutonium crucifix?

I have a nasty cold today, which takes the edge off weekend fun.  So it is the perfect day to post a link one of my sons sent to me, for
The Nine Most Bad-Assed Bible Verses Of All Time.  Here’s a sample:

If the Bible had been written by King Leonidas and the rest of the Spartans from 300, it would probably read pretty much the same as it does now. It turns out, the Bible is already chock full of ass kicking. Here are the verses that make us want to take to the streets and put some unbelievers to the sword.
#9;  Exodus 2:11-12

Sure, Moses was a great leader, an emancipator of his people and a prophet. Most people don’t know that he also was the Biblical equivalent of Splinter Cell’s Sam Fisher—a well-honed killing machine, able to slay from the shadows without pity or remorse. Martin Luther King may have had a dream, but Moses had a body count.

You can almost picture the scene: An Egyptian soldier is wailing on a hapless Hebrew when Moses, clothed in head-to- toe black, drops down from the ceiling. Moving with cat-like grace, he sneaks up behind the soldier and, taking his head in his hands, snaps the man’s neck with one savage twist. As the lifeless body slumps to the ground, Moses lights up a cigar. “Well,” he quips, “looks like someone bit off more than he could Jew.”

(I’m going straight to hell for linking to this, aren’t I?)

But almost any bible verse can be made more bad-assed with a little tweaking.  Take Ezekial 25:17 and misquote it significantly.  Put it in a pointlessly violent Quentin Tarantino movie (yes, I know that is a tautology).  And have Samuel L. Jackson perform the 9-minute scene while holding a 9mm pistol in a robber’s face.  Presto!… the restaurant scene from Pulp Fiction. 

(Please note both of the links above have, uh, some profanity.  If that bothers you.)

They’re both (in) “So much cooler online!”

(Yes, I said William Shatner. Prove me wrong.)

Since you cannot see me, I am thirty years old, six-foot-three with a six-figure income, full luxuriant hair, chiseled good looks, and drive a red Porsche.  (Full disclosure: the foregoing statement may contain some apparent distortions of fact).

First, a joke from those two knuckleheads on Car Talk, discussing a book called Philomedy, which explains philosophy by telling jokes:

Aristotle, Plato and Descartes are on a plane. The flight attendant comes by to take their drink orders. She asks Aristotle if he’d like a beverage. Aristotle says, “I’ll have a ginger ale.”

“And how about you, Mr. Plato?”

Plato says “Diet Coke, please.”

She says, “and Mr. Descartes, anything to drink for you?”

Descartes says, “I think not,” and disappears.

.

Second thing: Do you know what cigarette your doctor smokes?  – a great collection of TV cigarette commercials with commentary by a surgical oncologist with a wry sense of humor.

Third thing is no funnier than giant corporations selling addictive carcinogens with happy jingles, but still mining a rich vein of dark humor:  How ‘bout them 350,000 names on the no-fly list?  I could imagine an Al-Queda mole undermining the effectiveness of the list by making sure it has 350,000 names on it.

UPDATE: Maybe that no-fly list really isn’t funny, since according to Leonard Boyle, director of the FBI’s terrorist screening center, it can be used for hiring too.  With that many names it is a given that most are “false positives” and they may find their employment prospects curtailed.

Chris Clarke at Creek Running North relates a little episode from his day:

I possess rank prejudice against people who use cell phones while driving, and people who speed on mountain roads in SUVs, and he was both of those things, so I eased up on the gas as he passed.

So I was only doing about 50 when he fishtailed and spun his ass-end into my lane about seven lengths up, and then

just

stopped.

In my lane.

We were in lane number two, and the lane to our right was empty. I made a lane change. This lane change involved a Δv perpendicular to the axis of the Tacoma, which Δv was significantly in excess of the recommendations of both the Toyota Motor Corporation and the National Traffic Safety Board.

Which means I did a little fishtailing myself. I managed not to hit the Nokia Dementia sufferer in the Escalade…

There’s more – it’s a humorous look into the human mind when faced with death and careless drivers…