medical escalation

One thing leads to another. Don’t let it happen to you.
Step one. August 08. Fall off bicycle, smash elbow.
Step two. August 08. Surgery. Ten-inch scar.
Step three. January 09. Second surgery. Ten-inch scar reopened and closed. Five days with arm in perpetual motion device.
Step four. Sometime in the next year. Third surgery. Same scar reopened, but [...]

blog theme/DSL mystery

If anyone really hates the new WordPress theme I’m using, let me know. I like this one because it has a calendar and three columns.
For more than a month our DSL service was totally unstable. It would go off and on, sometimes every ten minutes. I was rebooting the modem and router all the time. [...]

another silly ploy

Speaking of the intelligent design creationism folks, they are trying another strategy to insert mythology into science education. Now they’re claiming that consciousness cannot be fully explained by the physical brain, therefore there is something mystical-spiritual going on. It’s the same old dumb reasoning from these people: whatever we don’t completely understand equals god. That’s [...]

you want to have a debate?

There’s a wonderful post on the Pharyngula blog. It describes how a University of Vermont professor received a letter from Seattle’s own evidence-denial organization, the Discovery Institute. The DiscoToot, as some call it, wrote to suggest a university-sponsored debate: intelligent design creationism vs. science (evolution). The professor’s response is absolutely brilliant. Creationists should read it, [...]

the future is late

Is it just a coincidence that the future is arriving just as I’m getting old? I mean “the future” as in science-fiction-like cool technology. Why couldn’t the future have arrived when I was a kid? Sure, we switched from operator-assisted telephones to dial telephones back then. That was a big deal. Another advance was moving [...]

danger monkeys on bikes

I promise I’ll never ride my bike with a monkey mask again. Also, no more LSD before bed.
(Stick with this video till at least 1:45 mark. Then the bad trip begins.)

pirates, gods, spaghetti, and patriotism

After becoming an independent nation, the United States had to deal with pirates. Most notable were the Barbary pirates in North Africa. The pirates were enabled by host countries like Morocco and Tripoli. Ultimately the U.S. signed treaties with these nations to allow U.S. ships to pass without hindrance. The Treaty of Tripoli was signed [...]

100% natural selection

Happy 200th, Charlie.