Tasmanian Devils

Now this is why i love boingboing... someone posts something weird, like the sounds of a tasmanian devil, then someone else follows up with a neat photograph:



then someone else follows up with a video of some tasmanian devils devouring some roadkill.

Isn't that the cutest little murderous attack marsupial you have ever seen? Awww, he's yawning:



Or is he preparing to "liberate" me of my throat?

Although Tasmanian Devils are difficult to see, most visitors to the Tasmanian bush stand a very good chance of hearing them - their noisy communal eating can often be heard several kilometres away. Tasmanian Devils will eliminate all traces of a carcass as they devour all bones and fur in addition to the meat and innards of a carcass.

I guess its the throat thing...

rock on.

Titan is awesome

On the Titan tip, the ep dedicated to Titan that we (blue vitriol) are working on has grown in scope to an album, we are up to 9 songs so far, maybe more... so we are delaying it a little more

In the meantime, Jake just sent me this rendering of the surface of titan based on the data collected from the huygens probe. Titan is really amazingly beautiful. Much more so than I had imagined it would be.

Humans rock the universe.

Chairman Kaga

Gotta love Chairman Takeshi Kaga



If you think you've seen Kaga before, it may have been in a PBS special with the international cast of Les Misérables; Kaga was Jean Valjean in Japan's 1994 production. He was also the first Japanese Tony in West Side Story (1977) as well as the first Japanese Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar (1976).

Evolution Fact

Amazing that there is a still a debate about the fact of evolution in American society. Here is a good discussion on slashdot (I know, I was shocked too) about the case of the stickers claiming evolution was "JUST a theory".

I found these words from Antioch's own Stephen Jay Gould about the "debate" over evolution/creationism in a comment on slashdot:

In the American vernacular, "theory" often means "imperfect fact" part of a hierarchy of confidence running downhill from fact to theory to hypothesis to guess. Thus the power of the creationist argument: evolution is "only" a theory and intense debate now rages about many aspects of the theory. If evolution is worse than a fact, and scientists can't even make up their minds about the theory, then what confidence can we have in it? Indeed, President Reagan echoed this argument before an evangelical group in Dallas when he said (in what I devoutly hope was campaign rhetoric): "Well, it is a theory. It is a scientific theory only, and it has in recent years been challenged in the world of science that is, not believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was."

Well evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.

Moreover, "fact" doesn't mean "absolute certainty"; there ain't no such animal in an exciting and complex world. The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us falsely for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.

Evolutionists have been very clear about this distinction of fact and theory from the very beginning, if only because we have always acknowledged how far we are from completely understanding the mechanisms (theory) by which evolution (fact) occurred. Darwin continually emphasized the difference between his two great and separate accomplishments: establishing the fact of evolution, and proposing a theory natural selection to explain the mechanism of evolution.

Source: Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory"

Doritos Pepper Jack

dont do it. just dont.

The New Monkey Trial

There is a great article over at salon.com called about what's going on behind the scenes in the fight by the loonie right to get creationism taught in public schools.

I found the connection with Sun Myung Moon funding many of the "scientists" who are quoted for pro-creationism "balence" in a lot of articles and at school board meetings and such. Gotta love it that so many republicans are in bed with such a wacky cult.

I Love The 80's: Bring Back The Death Squads

Just to prove how much we love the 80's, apparently we are considering to training death squads to hunt down and kill members of the insurgency in Iraq. Of course nothing could ever go wrong with us training and unleashing rogue paramilitary groups... nope... nothing to see here...

Eye of Science

This gallery of microscopic photographs came across boingboing recently but I just got around to looking at it. Pretty amazing stuff.

Jon Stewart Wins

CNN Fires 'Crossfire' Host Tucker Carlson.

"I guess I come down more firmly in the Jon Stewart camp," Klein told The Associated Press.

(Jonathan Klein is chief executive of CNN)

Update: According to this New York Times article there is actually some real truth to this:

Mr. Klein said he wanted to move CNN away from what he called "head-butting debate shows," which have become the staple of much of all-news television in the prime-time hours, especially at the top-rated Fox News Channel.

"CNN is a different animal," Mr. Klein said. "We report the news. Fox talks about the news. They're very good at what they do and we're very good at what we do."

Mr. Klein said last night, "I agree wholeheartedly with Jon Stewart's overall premise." He said he believed that especially after the terror attacks on 9/11, viewers are interested in information, not opinion.

Braaiinsss

Brains. It's What's For Dinner




Fill the plastic brain mold with a customized gelatin mix and a few hours later, out pops a life-size, anatomically correct brain. Delicious!

Japanese Pimp-Vans

These Japanese Pimp-Vans are so insane. Makes all the slammed honda's in the bay area look like some old guy's white crown victoria.




(from boingboing)

Damnit, where is my placebo effect...

I want to burn the world right now. My coffee placebo just isn't kicking in today. This means I still have an 45 minutes until the caffeine actually takes effect... damnit.

bling

nothing says bling bling like a wallet made of actual folded money: