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I'm sure this is just a coincidence (yeah, right!) with this news coming on the heels of all the Intelligent Design news.
The prestigious US journal Science publishes its top 10 list of major endeavours at the end of each year. The number one spot was awarded jointly to several studies that illuminated the intricate workings of evolution. -- source
Also check out the amusing comments on Slashdot.
More than eighty people run through the UC Berkeley library nude, some wearing absolutely nothing, some with a backpack, some doing cartwheels, and the last with "The End" written on her buttocks. Apparently it's a regular event done every finals week. The blog entry where I found this includes a few user comments, and links for downloading a spectator's video of the event. Here are some mirrors of that file (22.7MB):
Mirror 1: YouSendIt direct link
Mirror 2: RapidShare (click the "Free" button and then wait 20sec for the download to start)
The video is in quicktime format (.mov), so you need a compatible player. If you don't want to install Apple's bloated player (33.8MB download), you can get a copy of the freeware Quicktime Alternative v1.67 (11.6MB download). It's what I prefer.
Yeah, 80 of 'em. That's a lot of nude college students running through a library. That's something you'd just have to see for yourself to believe.
I encourage you to view the video. It's "required reading" for the rest of this article. Trust me.
So you're saying to yourself, "I'm not a perv; I don't want to look at naked people." You couldn't be more wrong, my friend.
I'm not saying you are a perv. I'm not saying that you really do want to look at naked people. (While either/or might in reality be entirely true, that's not my point.)
My point is that nudity is seen as taboo in mainstream American society. It doesn't seem logical to me, though. Under normal social circumstances, there is nothing wrong in going without clothes. As unreasonable taboos fall away with our clothes, seeing folks naked in public might be a bit unusual. But it won't be that way for long. It's our natural state; we're born that way. Certainly clothes serve a functional purpose; they keep us warm, protect us from the sun/wind/rain, protect us from injury when we're working and playing. But that functional use has transformed into a perceived sociological need.
Watch the library-streaking video again. (You know you want to.) There isn't shame in what they are doing. In fact, there's a certain freedom and happiness conveyed by the participants. Some even hug (albeit a bit cautiously) afterwards. Why is nudity so taboo? By restricting nudity to private/intimate times, we are in fact part of the cause for social nudity being taboo.
I'm not the only one questioning it. A Christian (yes, you heard me) nudist camp, Natura, is opening in Florida.
"As evidenced by Adam and Eve, we believe that when God's children are in the right relationship to Him, they will be naked and unashamed," explains one of Natura's brochures...Martin and his supporters argue that nudism is unhealthy, especially for children, unless it occurs in a proper Christian context. He has criticized non-religious nudist camps for encouraging alcohol and sensuality. "We are going after a totally different group, a group that doesn't want a sexual atmosphere," he said. "There is absolutely no relationship between nudity and sex."
-- Source
If you find the idea of a Christian nudist intriguing, you need to check out Naturist Christians, including their news and forum pages. Take special note of the photo-articles about social nudity, modesty, and living as a nudist/naturist.
As you read through the photo-journals, and yes... look at the pictures too, you'll be able to gain a better understanding that being nude isn't a naughty thing. It's simply who you are... and most people cover up who they are, both physically and emotionally. It doesn't have to be that way. It's simply a matter of choosing to be open and honest with yourself and the world around you.
Related story on this site: Science blindness
Hot off the presses... Pennsylvania District Courts determine that intelligent design shall not be taught in high school science classes.
Dover Area School Board members violated the Constitution when they ordered that its biology curriculum must include the notion that life on Earth was produced by an unidentified intelligent cause, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III said.
"We find that the secular purposes claimed by the Board amount to a pretext for the Board's real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom," he wrote in his 139-page opinion. -- Source
There's a lot more information available in the article. If/when I find the full text of the 139-page judge's opinion, I'll post a link.
Updates:
12/24/05: I pulled some strings and did a little digging... here's what I came up with: I printed the summary of the court case and judgement. It's 53 pages with the margins I set; I'm not sure where the CNN reporter got the 139-page figure. There were two other rulings I could have printed, but didn't see the need: 1) Dover's motion for a summary judgement was denied on Sept. 13, and 2) "Foundation for Thought and Ethics" (FTE) is a group with court-listed members in AZ, TX, and Lancaster, PA. FTE's motion to intervene denied on July 27.
12/25/05: NPR has a podcast that is a report on a pro-ID group who states they will not be deterred by the court ruling. WindowsMediaPlayer RealPlayer
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Moscow archives show that in the mid-1920s Russia's top animal breeding scientist, Ilya Ivanov, was ordered to turn his skills from horse and animal work to the quest for a super-warrior. According to Moscow newspapers, Stalin told the scientist: "I want a new invincible human being, insensitive to pain, resistant and indifferent about the quality of food they eat."
Mr Ivanov's ideas were music to the ears of Soviet planners and in 1926 he was dispatched to West Africa with $200,000 to conduct his first experiment in impregnating chimpanzees. Meanwhile, a centre for the experiments was set up in Georgia - Stalin's birthplace - for the apes to be raised. Mr Ivanov's experiments, unsurprisingly from what we now know, were a total failure. He returned to the Soviet Union, only to see experiments in Georgia to use monkey sperm in human volunteers similarly fail. -- Source
Does size matter?
It's not like I go around looking at everyone else's wondering if they have one that's bigger than mine. It's not an obsession.
Mine is 40.5 inches long, quite thick at the base, and a little bent near the tip. It's likely not a record, but comparatively it's huge. I'll take some measurements over the next few days/weeks to see if there is any change in its size.
With all the email I've been getting, it seems like size matters. The spam tells me that I might be judged inferior, and with supplements it can get bigger. Or maybe if I fasten some weights to it it will get longer. I thought about trying some supplements to improve the length and thickness of mine, but I'm concerned that it might break off. That's a severe side effect, but I see it as a possibility. I've decided it's probably best to not mess with nature.
I thought I'd post a photo of mine and share it with the world.
Updates:
12/19 - 41"
12/22 - 41"
Sadly, on 12/23 it fell off. It wouldn't have lasted; today and the next 3 days are supposed to get into the low 40s F (6C).
Maybe it will grow back. I hope so.
These $100 magnets should hold just about anything onto your refrigerator door. But watch out for flying knives as you do food prep!
Beware - you must think ahead when moving these magnets. If carrying one into another room, carefully plan the route you will be taking. Computers & monitors will be affected in an entire room. Loose metallic objects and other magnets may become airborne and fly considerable distances - and at great speed - to attach themselves to this magnet. If you get caught in between the two, you can get injured. Two of these magnets close together can create an almost unbelievable magnetic field that can be very dangerous. Of all the unique items we offer for sale, we consider these two items the most dangerous of all. Our normal packing & shipping personnel refuse to package these magnets - our engineers have to do it. This is no joke and we cannot stress it strongly enough - that you must be extremely careful - and know what you're doing with these magnets. Take Note: Two of the 3" x 1" disc magnets can very easily break your arm if they get out of control.
I've played with smaller, less powerful magnets like these. I've been injured by smaller, less powerful magnets like these. Any time a hard drive dies, I'm the first to tear the thing apart to pull the armature magnets. I have about a dozen hanging about. They are great for hanging things on the fridge or just playing around. Do be careful, I've had smaller plate magnets snap together and grab a fingertip. And I can confirm that the magnets can fracture/chip/explode if they fly together unimpeded.
I'd hate to see the damage that a 3x1" magnet would cause. The thought of the fun (mayhem?) one could have with these gets the scientist (hooligan?) in me giddy.
Yeah, my hovel is a bit run down. It's old. Something always needs to be fixed. Come heating season, I usually end up working on the furnace a few times to keep it running reliably... which basically means it's not so reliable. This year it turned into a bigger project.
Winter (ok, technically late Fall) has been pretty mild this year. When I first fired up the furnace, I measured the oil in the tank and estimated the run-out date. For me, that involves application of trigonometry to determine volume and forecasting based on prior rate data. At least I don't factor in degree-days! Why wait to buy fuel oil? I factor in the historic cost of fuel oil over past years to predict the optimal purchase time within the window of need. Usually this means buying in mid-summer, or mid-December. Usually I procrastinate. For other folks it might be too much effort to save $0.50 per gallon, but in some sad way I find it entertaining. Scary. Of course this year it didn't work out so well with oil prices nearly doubling during hurricane season and never coming down much. If you look at the price graph, I caught that dip early in December. Keep in mind in my area, oil distributors charge over $1 more than the price on the graph.
Now to the fun part. Recently I got my fuel tank filled after nearly running out. The next time I turned on the furnace, it worked. The time after that, it wouldn't light. I pulled the gun, changed the filter and changed the nozzle, even though both checked out fine. I figured that when the tank was filled some sediment was stirred up and got in the line. The furnace worked when I put it back together. Once. I pulled it apart again and checked the nozzle. It seemed ok. I put it all back together, and no-go. I could hear the spark, so fuel was the problem. It was late, so I put it to bed. An electric space heater would have to do, even though the night's low was 3F (-16C) and it was the season's first major snowstorm that delivered 8" of powder.
The next step was a bit more drastic. I pulled the gun and set it up on my front porch for testing. I was getting tired of working with the stink of fuel oil inside my home. Short the thermostat contacts and put a little electrical tape over the photocell and you're good to go. Or not. Again, spark but no fuel spray. Obviously it's a clogged nozzle. By the way, did I mention that it's really cold and there's snow everywhere? I pulled the nozzle and ran without one. Again, no fuel. Now it's time for more extreme measures. I disconnected the nozzle feed line from the pump. Nothing came out of the port when it running. Next I pulled the entire pump and tested it with a drill. Low and behold, it blew bubbles out the inlet port when running clockwise. How cute. I thought the it was marked for CW operation, but put the drill in reverse, and the pump works from the inlet to the return ports, but no fuel ever comes out of the nozzle port. The pump is a dud.
Try to find a CCW 1725 rpm fuel mini-pump with a right-hand outlet. I dare you. I spent quite a bit of time trying to track one down at a few local stores. In fact they do exist; they just aren't kept in stock because no one uses them. I know my furnace is old, but I didn't expect its pump to be so unusual. I drove back home and double-checked everything before special-ordering a new unit and getting stuck with something I didn't need. I verified that the pump did function when turned CCW. But amazingly the motor does turn it CW. So either 1) the pump is labeled correctly and broken, or 2) the motor is running backwards (possible), the pump is mislabeled, and the pump is also broken. Being the optimist, I opted for the lesser of two failure scenarios.
I picked up a "standard" CW pump with a right-side outlet. Of course, the other ports didn't match up perfectly so the tubing had to be adjusted considerably. First I tested the pump. No suction at all. Oops, I forgot to read the directions, which indicated a 2-line configuration requires the installation of a 1/4" internal plug. Once that was done, everything worked fine, and a nice flame was produced. There's nothing like running a furnace gun on your front porch to make your neighbors wonder.
It's just a matter of reinstalling the burner and hooking up to the new port locations. I did all that... and then nothing happened. Rather, I was in the same boat as when I started this journey. Was there also a problem with the lines? Was one plugged or crushed or iced up? I blew out both the feed and return line; everything seemed ok. Then I found an inlet fitting was loose. Tightened it up and away we go! It's working as good as a 40-year old furnace can.
It is kind of like camping. At least that's what I told myself. In the time I spent working on the furnace off-and-on, it was a cool 55-60F in my home. The poor little electric heater could only do so much. Once I reminded myself that I enjoy camping, it wasn't a big deal. You just put on a sweatshirt and use an extra comforter at night.
In all, I replaced the pump, filter, electrodes, insulators, nozzle, and bought oil for the winter. The pump was $75, the other parts were about $20, and the oil was $360. With the oil prices so high, I didn't order enough for a toasty winter. I'll try to stretch it, but might have to buy more. We'll see. Maybe I should take up knitting... blankets.
Total costs:
keeping a decrepit furnace running one more winter, $455;
another misadventure in home repair, priceless.
The power was out for six hours earlier this week. It blinked off shortly after 3p. At the time I was running the washer and dryer, a computer, entertainment system, a space heater, etc. so I thought I might have blown a fuse. Yeah, a fuse. My home is so old it has fuses instead of breakers. As such, it's not easy to determine if the power is out entirely or a main fuse blew.
I peeked out the window and saw my neighbor setting up some Christmas decorations on his porch. I put on shoes and walked over to ask if their power was out as well. They were both on the porch working on some lights. I probably saved them some time, because they were trying to figure out why the lights wouldn't turn on. She went inside and confirmed their power was out as well. It's not just me, about six homes were without power.
Back at my place, I gave in and shut down the computer since my UPS wouldn't do much for a prolonged outage. I'm without a computer, without internet, without radio, TV, DVDs, or anything else that's so convenient to fill time... let alone getting any work done. Perhaps more importantly, I'm without heat and without refrigeration. Why is that power always goes out the day after you buy ice cream?
It's a strange feeling, not being sure what to do with yourself. I curled up up with a comforter, bribed my cat-heater to curl up on me, and started to fill the time by reading a book. I've been neglecting Black House for a long time, and it was good to get back into it. As the light quickly faded with dusk, I lit an oil lamp and kept reading until about 7p. At that point I checked the ice cream and found it was very soft, soon to be soup. Obviously, I had to eat it. (No, I didn't eat it all, or even come close to it.)
What does one do after eating too much ice cream? You pull a Craig. Yes, you go out into the pitch black of night and walk. Walk anywhere. When I left at 7:30p, the one utility truck was joined by two more. Three trucks to fix the problem. That meant to me that either the problem was really big, or they were gathering for union meeting. An hour an a half later, I came back to my home right as the power came on. What timing!
I got the heat back on, the computer rebooted, and all the other bells and whistles turned on. I felt like I had rejoined the 21st centurty. It was nice to turn the heat on; it had gotten down to 50F, a bit chillier than I normally keep it.
One new thing I discovered is that if my washing machine sits for six hours full of water, it leaks a little bit. So the rest of the evening was designated to pulling out the washer and dryer to clean up the water underneath. Oh what fun.
Soupy ice creaml! Why must the innocent ones always suffer so greatly?
