Stuff around the net

I got so frustrated with iTunes slow downloads and failure to update my podcasts that I removed it from the computer. The tipping point was when they refused to let me listen to iTunes Univ lectures unless I signed in to buy "additional materials needed" for the lectures.

Now that many Universities have lectures on Youtube, or will download vs RSS feed, I figure I don't need it anymore for the few that don't.

But if you have more patience than me, and want to figure out how to get your older stuff back, AnneIsAManBlog has instructions HERE.

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I'm now on Firefox 18, but it still freezes when flash is used. Guess I'll have to erase it and go back to Firefox 4.0 again...

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Instapundit points out another White House Gaffe
Wired calls it a "nerd Fail"...

Hint: Jedi can only force "weak minds" to agree with them, but can't read minds or mind meld...
In constrast, Spock can mind-meld with anyone but he needs their permission, however, he does it to understand their point of view, and he cannot force them to change their mind.

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Speaking of geekdom: Here is your Sherlock quiz of the day.

Sigh. I only got 90 percent: guess I missed an episode.

More Trivia: Sherlock quips that Mycroft runs the British Government, but in what book does Mycroft run the Moon? Answer.

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Linked for later reading:
Instapundit links to articles discussing the upcoming (possible) Comet strike on Mars next year, and the possibility that planet could be terraformed. More HERE.

related item: did Mars "sputter" away it's atmosphere?

Since Mars doesn’t have a strong intrinsic magnetic field, the atmosphere could have been eroded by interactions with the solar wind, and this video shows how that occurs.

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 The Dark side of Downton Manor: the rich American heiress marriage to keep the marriage alive may have worked in Downton and for Jenny Churchill (at least until her husband's syphillis destroyed his brain) but for other girls, it was a living hell.

From Tea AtTrianon a book review
of a new auto-biography:

An heiress of the Vanderbilt fortune, Consuelo was married as an unwilling teenager to the Duke of Marlborough, who needed her money for the upkeep of his ancestral estate at Blenheim Palace. Although Consuelo dutifully fulfilled her role as wife and mother as well as bountiful lady of the manor, her marriage to the Duke was one long misery, later to be annulled. Consuelo eventually married to her true love, dashing French aviator Jacques Balsan, with whom she shared many happy years

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Interest rates are so low that savers are essentially paying for the country's debts.

In America and Europe, there is a silent transfer of wealth taking place, day by day. Cash-strapped and heavily indebted governments are desperate to hold down the interest rate at which they borrow. Unfortunately, this also means perennially low interest rates for savers: rates so low that they do not match the rate of inflation. Negative real interest rates imply that retirees must consume their wealth in order to pay the bills.

Yeah. Just got my IRA report back and essentially I'm losing money. The same thing happened in the Carter years, when I returned from Africa only to find my hard earned savings could buy only half of what I could before I left the country.

Heh...check Dilbert's cartoon

Stuff below the fold

Who really invented the internet?

If you are reading this, thank....Xerox? (and Steve Jobs)

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The latest Hobbit Vlog is up.

a report from Comic.con and the last days of shooting...and it will probably be  posted later today on youtube...
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Latest "we're all gonna die" hysteria says we're all gonna get cholera because of climate change.

Well, that explains the 1854 London , and the 1832 Philadelphia cholera epidemics.

Well, it's more PC to blame global warming than the fact that governments aren't doing their job keeping the water supply clean.

I actually heard a lecture about public health that told how the introduction of tea helped eliminate cholera...and  of course, the reason Paul told Timothy to "add a little wine to your water for your stomach's sake" is that he knew from experience drinking ordinary water made you sick....

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An interesting article in AlJezerah, about hunger elimination via government food distribution

He notes that giving out vouchers means they lose value due to inflation, and reminds us corruption doesn't destroy the ability to keep people from hunger...

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Jellyfish pacemakers?

Scientists have created an artificial jellyfish .. made from silicone and heart tissue from rats, could be used to help create a new generation of ‘biological’ pacemakers which do not need electrical signals.

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Cebu is getting one of their own declared a saint.
A teenaged OFW who worked with the Jesuits in Guam as a catechist, and was martyred there.

The Ceremony will declare several others are saints, including two Americans: Sister MaryanneCope, a nun who nursed lepers in Molakai, and Kateri Tekawitha, a Native American from the Iroquois/Algonquin tribes.

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Michael Auslin's essay reminds us that behind the terrible stories, Bravery still exists... 
 
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Survival tip of the day _

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  fashion advice to Wonder Women and other superheroines:

Geed Gift items of the day

TechRepublic has suggestions of gifts for StarWars geeks. such as this Wampa skin rug (and no, Leia doesn't come with it, but you can get the costume here).
and they suggest:

After you've killed your Wampa and made him into a rug, you'll need a Tauntaun Sleeping Bag (ThinkGeek, $99.99) to survive the cold, Hoth nights.

Image courtesy ThinkGeek.

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if you are rich, just take your Leia to a honeymoon in Hobbiton

(headsup AICN)

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and if you are too poor for either of the above gifts, well, you can always make Bacon dippin dot IceCream.

On the other hand, maybe not. Here is a list of what you need to make it:

Liquid Nitrogen- 10-15 liters

1/4 cup Torani Bacon Syrup

1 cup heavy cream

3 cups half & half

8 egg yolks

1 cup sugar

1/8 tsp salt

Safety Gloves

Safety Goggles- with splash guard

Squeeze Bottle or Marinade Injector

Stuff below the fold

Rewriting the story of the Mayans...no, Apocolypto was wrong, but so were a lot of other stories about these tribes.

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Evidence? Evidence? we don't need no stinkin' evidence...

no, it's not the Bush war on terror, it's the MPAA...and their fight against privacy in the name of copyright has some frightening implications, but unless you read BoingBoing or the geekblogs, you probably are unaware of what's going on...more HERE.

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Duct Tape to the rescue:
MikeTheMadBiologistBlog reports another leak: Q fever from a CDC level three lab in Atlanta..
and after the lead was discovered, they fixed it with ductape...

Well, that makes me feel safe.

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Anesthesia makes post op pain worse...one of the things about untreated pain is it leaves a "ghost" on the nervous system, meaning later pain is worse. Anesthesia only keeps you unaware you are hurting, and the local changes continue...this may explain why some studies that show if you give a CoxA painkiller before surgery, you don't need as much painkiller after surgery.

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And finally: The Marines have Underware problems.
Wicking polyester longjohns are forbidden in the military because polyester underware burns/melts (if you get caught by an explosion), but cotton doesn't work as well.
So they are working at new underware.
Hmm...how does it work for Bras? Are underwire bras also forbidden? I mean, sports bras are fine, but as a D cup, I can tell you they don't work well...
For that matter, does body armour come with curves?
Enquiring minds want to know...

Gift item of the day

a mini pet cactus...

he website explains

The Mini Pet Cactus will love you unconditionally. All you have to do it is water it once a month for about a minute (instructions on packaging). Each cactus comes with a strap to attach to your jacket, cell phone, etc., so you can take it with you everywhere. Nothing says fun like talking to your cactus in a public place - until security asks you to leave, that is.

Global warming. It's Mario's fault

From the (Melbourne) Age:

Worldwide computer use requires 14 power stations for the necessary electricity, producing more harmful carbon dioxide emissions than the entire airline industry -- not including the emissions created and manufacturing and shipping around the products in the first place.

And games consoles -- of which 62 million were sold in last year -- are the gas guzzlers of this industry, using huge amounts of energy to generate the necessary mindblowing graphics and sounds....

Math lessons for geeks

1. Ratio of an igloo's circumference to its diameter = Eskimo pi
2. 2000 pounds of Chinese soup = Won ton
3. 1 millionth of a mouthwash = 1 micro Scope
4. Time between slipping on a peel and smacking the pavement = 1 bananosecond
5. Weight an evangelist carries with God = 1 billigram
6. Time it takes to sail 220 yards at 1 nautical mile per hour = Knotfurlong
7. 16.5 feet of silver in the Twilight Zone = 1 Rod Sterling
8. Half of a large intestine = 1 semicolon
9. 1,000,000 aches = 1 megahurtz
10. Basic unit of laryngitis = 1 hoarsepower
11. Shortest distance between two jokes = A straight line
12. 453.6 graham crackers = 1 pound cake
13. 1 million microphones = 1 megaphone
14. 1 million bicycles = 2 megacycles
15. 365.25 days = 1 unicycle
16. 2000 mockingbirds = 2 kilomockingbird
17. 52 cards = 1 decacards
18. 1000 kilograms of falling figs = 1 FigNewton
19. 1000 milliliters of wet socks = 1 literhosen
20. 1 millionth of a fish = 1 microfiche
21. 1 trillion pins = 1 terrapin

From onehappydogspeaksblog

Is Heaven hotter than hell?

The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed.

Our authority is Isaiah 30:26, "Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days."

Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition 7*7 (49) times as much as the Earth does from the Sun, or 50 times in all.

The light we receive from the Moon is one 1/10,000 of the light we receive from the Sun, so we can ignore that ... The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation, i.e., Heaven loses 50 times as much heat as the Earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation, (H/E)^4 = 50, where E is the absolute temperature of the earth (-300K), gives H as 798K (525C). The exact temperature of Hell cannot be computed ...

[However] Revelations 21:8 says "But the fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." A lake of molten brimstone means that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point, 444.6C. We have, then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C.

The inbox of Nardo Pace, the Empire's worst engineer

The visuals of the StarWars saga are wonderful, but they are a bit...weird from an engineering point of view.
TechRepublic links to the Inbox of the Empire's engineer, with questions about his designs.

Subject breathing device too fuckin LOUD
From Lord Vader
Date A Long Time Ago 12:20 AM
To Nardo Pace

yo hey i still dont understand whats going on with this thing

can u put a knob on my breather apperatis so i can turn down the volume when im in the library or sneakin up on maintenence droids? why did u put a speaker on this thing in the first place lol