This was originally said as part of a very strange summation of New Atheist (whatever that is) thought, but this chunk before the crazy kicks in is actually quite good:

Religion is something that sells you something invisible so you may feel that which you cannot find elsewhere. It is something for which there is insufficient evidence. It is something people do because they have always done it, not because they know how to think about it. Religion is irrational, it is emotional, and it is instinctual. Religion enslaves you with its wiles, then forgets to remove the handcuffs. It is the fortune teller reading entrails, not the captain consulting his compass. It massages and preys and toys and plays and screws you over, time and again, with a promise it won't keep because of its irrationality and its whimsy. Religion is a know-at-all with no knowledge. It makes "a virtue out of not thinking."

Taken gleefully out-of-context from Kathryn Lofton, via the ever-clever PZ Myers over at Pharyngula.

So...what's this "Simz" thing everyone's been going on about lately?

http://balldroppings.com/js/ ...well, that's just neat.

One reason I will always be glad to be Jewish (yes, even with the whole penis-cutting thing): the food. Oy, the food. Hamantaschen are very nearly the perfect cookie, especially the apricot or chocolate ones...

I have the arithmetic representation of yesterday. It goes:

(Matt+Dee+Ryone+Flykat+Cubbi+Mae)*(Eternal Darkness)*(Nerf Guns) = AWESOME.


Also, does anyone know the general equation for a cube centered at the origin? It's been bugging me for awhile. I think that the equation for a sphere is x^2+y^2+z^2=r, but I'm not entirely sure of that either.

Just browsing around a bit, and I ran across this on the LEGO page (yes, they started doing pirate stuff again - I would love to have the big pirate ship, but unfortunately no room):



Pretty neat, right? A nice cheap set with a couple of minifigs and a bit of a Jack Sparrow-ish feel to it.

But there's something very, very wrong in that picture. Can you find it?

Need some help?



Let's take a closer look:



Big, bulbous, rounded head...no fins to speak of...and one, two, three...eight, count 'em, EIGHT tentacles! That's no freaking squid, it's an octopus! A cool red one, but no squid at all!

Get your animals right, Lego! Because if you don't, that makes them angry. And you wouldn't like your kraken when it is angry.

Bonus cookie to anyone who gets the reference in the title!

Sorry for the inconsistency in Dr. Scientist's color...I decided that the brown is her skin color, but if she ever actually gets drawn (for reals!) she'll have red hair. And stylin' shades that are, unfortunately, a bit less stylin' by the end of this strip.

I love Charly. I want a plushy of him.

Stolen'd from darkangelyuu (btw, Yuu: it's lj user="username", all in HTML tags)

Making up a Gurren Lagaan meme here. Make up your own Who the hell do you think I am speech about yourself, just have fun with it.

Wherever I am.
Whatever I do.
Whenever code needs writing, a wrong needs righting, a friend is in need!
If you ask my help, I'll be there!
Helping my friends to rise up through my own strength!
If I fail, I will only try again harder!!
WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM?!
GREAT CODER HARRY, TYPE-ON!

My new favorite euphemism: "Threading the corn". Just watch the video and it'll make sense (TECHNICALLY SFW - no nudity at all - but you might disagree. Maybe. I dunno.)



Also: 3.3 miles today, so far! Not a bad start for the weekend. I even left before 10 AM!

Mae Infected me. >_>

So, I've survived two whole weeks of work. Well, almost. Was something of a two-thirds day today, the office closed early 'cuz of Labor Day so I was able to walk home while the sun was still fairly high.

I like walking. My legs don't like me, but I don't care. Walking is good.

Also, it seems one intrepid explorer needs to realize the thing about dwarves:
They like the stereotypes. If everyone knows that dwarves are heavy drinkers, it's good for the dwarves.

If you want information from dwarf? Buy him a drink.
You want to buy something from a dwarf, but can't quite afford it? Buy him a drink.
You beard care tips from the best? Buy her a drink.

It's simple. This way, everyone knows what to get them, and the dwarves get what they want without having to uppercut any bigfolk in the crotch! Well, maybe just that one. Or two. Or that git at the end of the bar who said something unkind about bearded ladies...

I need to know - for "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon", does someone count for purposes of Bacon Number if they WORKED ON, but did not actually appear in, a film? Like, say, does the director of a Kevin Bacon film have a Bacon number of 1 if they don't have a cameo?

If so, then I actually have a Bacon number of only four!
My cousin is Amy Pell.
Amy Pell worked as executive producer for Disney's Aladdin, starring (among others) Robin Williams.
Robin Williams was in Flubber (1997) with Marcia Gay Harden, and
Marcia Gay Harden was in Rails & Ties (2007) with Kevin Bacon!

(Much thanks to the Oracle of Bacon, for the links from Williams to Bacon.)

Anyone here who can beat me?

Richard de BuryPhilobiblion, I, 9:

Postremo pensandum
Quanta doctrinae commoditas sit in libris
Quam facilis, quam arcana!
Quam tuto libris humanae ignorantia paupertatem
Sine verecundia denudamus!
Hi sunt magistri qui nos instruunt
Sine virgis et ferula,
Sine verbis et colera, sine pannis et pecunia.
Si accedis, non dormiunt;
Si inquirens interrogas, non abscondunt;
Non remurmurant si oberres;
Cachinnos nesciunt, si ignores.

...

Latin is cool.

Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the best damn person in the world. If I joined the Peace Corps. If I devoted myself to righting wrongs and undoing injustices. If I fed the poor. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being good.
MRL used to feel this way, too, but then he heard about Norman Borlaug. In a way, this was liberating. He no longer has to worry about being the best person in the world. The position is taken.

In regards to the question from yesterday, the answer is:
The poor!

If you get it right, give yourself...six points. If you cheated, give yourself a two-point penalty and a stern talking-to. I guessed the clergy, myself, when I saw the show - I'm fairly sure I had never in my life encountered that word before, and there are very few words that I can't at least puzzle out what they mean, especially when they have a Latin root.

(I knew what translated to "window" in French before the teacher told us the definition, from knowing the word "defenestrate". It pays to be a bookworm, sometimes.)


Also: I have heard of, but never seen, "Two girls, one cup". I am very, very glad of that fact.
...glad I've never seen it, I mean. I wouldn't much care if I'd never heard of it.



Oh, and I forgot to mention: on "Millionaire", the guy asked the audience and they guessed "clergy" at nearly 70%...then used 50/50, and "clergy" was one of the two answers eliminated. He phoned a friend who guessed "The poor?", and then chose the correct answer. I'm not sure what happened after that, though. Hope he got up to $25,000.

Slovak TV station fined for mocking Vatican

Slovakia's broadcasting regulator Tuesday slapped a two-million-koruna (60,000 euros, 88,400 dollars) fine on a private TV company for mocking the Vatican, a report said.

The broadcasting council said a programme screened by commercial station Joj's last year, which mocked Vatican instructions on applying the concept of Christian love to driving, abused viewers' religious sensibilities and was not objective, the CTK agency reported.

...reading stories like this make me SO damn glad I don't live in Europe. Religious freedom and freedom of speech, of necessity and by their very nature, require the freedom to criticize and, yes, mock religion. The right to not be nice to other people about their invisible Man in the Sky of choice is fundamental to the freedom to worship the one you choose.

So, with no personal offense intended to any Catholics, other Christian flavors, Muslims, Jews, or Buddhists who read this:
Jesus, Peter, Paul, Muhammad, Moses, God, Gabriel, Raphael, Michael, Buddha, and Zoroaster can go ride a Sit'n'Spin for all I care. Stay out of my schools, off of my toast and oil stains, and I won't bring physics textbooks into your churches.


(...it probably helps that I'm reading Monkey Girl right now. Nothing like some good old-fashioned religious dishonesty to get you riled up.)