This article is about the recent discussion about global warming and how scientists are required to use words that change the significance of their findings:

Check it out here (Boston.com)

Well the Mooninites have struck again, and this time they wrecked havoc on commute times instead of just taunting drivers. Check out the story here. The bomb squad eventually detonated the ’sophisticated electronics device’ after shutting down some of the northbound lanes of I93 for an hour today.

So as some of you know, I’m friends with my mailman Steve. I recently bought a nice keyboard off of Craigslist from this kid who goes to Berkeley. So I mentioned to Steve what I bought and he said he played in a jamband, which was surprising because he looks like a pretty straight guy (in the partying sense). They play some Phish tunes and bluesy jams, but no singing, just beer drinking and playing. They play at his folk’s house, and he told his parents that someone new was coming to play, and his mom is cooking a nice meal on account of that, which is really nice of her.

Anyone have any tips for playing with a new group of musicians for the first time? I’m worried I’m going to play A minor all night long… Hopefully the beer will kick in and it’ll flow. We’ll see. I’ll let everyone know how it turns out. I’m certainly looking forward to it!

UPDATE:

So I jammed with the band last night, and it was awesome!  The food was excellent (ribs, beens, fluffy mashed potatoes, and cornbread).  And the beer was excellent (Sam Adams Pale Ale, Magic Hat Circus Boy).  This is pretty much the situation I’ve been looking for.  A band that knows a bunch of Phish songs, that doesn’t sing or play out.  Very cooperative, no one was really dominant.  Very relaxed feel.  You show up with whatever licks you know, and everyone listens and jams to it.  They all said they had fun and that it was cool to have the second guitar, and for me to come back next week.  We all like the same music for the most part, which was cool, too.  So for next week, we decided to learn a song that no one knew… Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad.  Should be a blast!

Hello fellas.  Just wanted to make a quick post to say that I have joined the McCrappy world.  I have been reading posts for a while and I have a few months of pent up responses to comments/posts ready to unleash.

Just so there is some value added to this post, here is a website, http://danmccarthy.org/news/00.news.html, of my favorite artist that I have found out about in the past couple of years.  He has pretty cheap prints that are awesome.

(ps. I would have made that a link but I am not sure how to do that)

yff Kstone

So I was skimming through my usual slashdot reading and I saw this article on using Bose-Einstein condensates for curcuit design.  In reading the story summary that name really struck me as familiar, then I remember that it was the guy I had for 20th Century Physics.  Sure enough I go into the actual article, and it mentions that this was done at WPI in conjunction with a few other places.

I recently took the time to read through some remembrances of my Grandfather written by two close friends and colleagues of his. I thought I knew the man before but came to find a wealth of new information that somehow had eluded me in the past. He died when I was 5 years old, but somehow I remember him clearly. I was amazed by the range of his efforts throughout his life and his everlasting devotion to his fellow man (and woman, of course, as they are much more precise…this’ll make more sense if you read the article).

To avoid blabbing, here is a link: http://tinyurl.com/28brgg
There is a lot of info there, but I think most of you would find it interesting, even if only skimming. Though the beginning and end are particularly insightful.

I am utterly humbled when I think about those in my family that came before me. He was a remarkable man.

from http://www.lightfromheat.com/ http://www.extremeinstability.com/

Ok, you’ve all probably seen the videos of the giant squid and the most recent shark capture. Now, there are these huge teams of “scientists” looking for and attempting to capture other denizens of the deep all over the world. I have thought about this for a while and it makes my head want to f-ing explode. I feel like Lewis Black…

So, to the title of my post: What the hell are scientists thinking trying to capture something that lives 3000ft under the ocean and expecting to have them in holding tanks for study? *head starts steaming* Have they no common sense? Why the hell are they always so surprised when they die after capture? Unknown causes? HELLO? *face turning red* At 3000ft, the pressure is 98atms, or 1440psi. You cannot expect an organism to survive at 1/100 their native environmental pressure. That’s like putting a person in space without a space suit. GEH! Not one article I have read about these events mentions it, and they are always so shocked when they die. *waving arms around like crazy*  STUPID! *head explodes* (much like the organisms internals I’m sure)

E-Prime, a variant of the English language, attempts to remove the verb “to be” in all its forms from English: be, is, am, are, was, were, been and being, plus all the contractions. This has the tactical effect of eliminating the passive voice. According to proponents, it forces the writer (or speaker) to think differently, and often results in language that most people find easier to read. Some call E-Prime a variant of the English language, while others approach it like a mental discipline to filter their own speech and translate the speech of others. For example, the grammatical construct changes “The movie was good.” to “I liked the movie.” Telling someone “the movie was good” imparts the state of goodness to the movie, rather than communicating the subjective nature of one’s experience of the movie.

Here is a good example from Shakespeare’s Hamlet:

English version:

To be or not to be,
That is the question.

E-Prime version:

To act and therefore to exist, or to abstain and so to disappear,
That choice confronts me.

So yeah, I have a genuine and sincere dislike for anything and everything to do with Ayn Rand.  So I took some distinct pleasure in seeing this article about altruism.  Effectively some researchers at Duke, have identified the region of the brain that provides the function for empathy and the other altruistic behaviors.  In essence this should show that our biology and thus psychology is rather contrary to the view that altruism is unnatural.

http://www.lowellsun.com/opinion/ci_5030047

Criminal Records, Second Chances

by Yakov Kronrod

Yakov wrote this opinion piece in the Lowell Sun yesterday. A good look at what he’s been working on with EPOCA and the issue of employment opportunities with a criminal record. I’m sure he’d love feedback!

Has, or is anyone planning to, take the plunge and upgrade to an 802.11h home network setup?  If so, would anyone be getting rid of an old 802.11g wireless router?

In particular i’d like another Linksys WRT54G to go with the one I have, but I can make do with another I guess as well.

As the topology in my apartment expands I really want to start playing with some open source/freeware network tools.  In particular I found this little ditty on sourceforge and want to drop it onto a router to try out.  Between the 2 of us Gabe and I have what seems like every corner of the apt networked short of the toaster and the coffee maker (and if I could I’d network both).  SNMP would seem to hold some decent potential for managing it, if only there were cheap off the shelf routers, switches and hubs that supported it cheaply.

In short I’m still a little sketched about flashing the firmware on my router with something off sourceforge, and risking losing the whole router.  Then again its 2 years old and has done its job pushing trillions and trillions of bits well for me, so I guess if I had to buy a new one it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

Link hereThere is a classic IQ test, and then there is a Star Wars test (DaCunha!), and some other tests. I did the classic IQ test and scored pretty well I’d say. You gotta sign up for tickle.com so just use a mailinator.com fake address (thanks Brian) if you don’t want to sign up.

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/publications/reports/2007/top10_2006.htm

Doctors Without Borders has released it’s annual list of the Top 10 Most Underreported Humanitarian Crises in 2006.

i’d like to also mention that CNN.com’s top story right now is that David Beckham signed to some MLS team, and there is no mention of ANY of these issues anywhere on the entire CNN.com frontpage. Hooray for the news.

This video is creepy/cool/fucking crazy. Not work friendly. If you like crazy electronic music set to even crazier video, you HAVE to watch this. It’s sick. Well produced, but again, F-ing weird.
Don’t get tricked like most people and stop watching after the intro. It’s about 5 minutes long. Wait until the video stops playing, and make sure you volume is up.