Olivia also decided she needed to be awarded a new sun dress. A long sun dress. A POOL dress not less. So this is what I stitched up in a 1/2 hour for her.

The top is that scrunchy fabric with a straight skirt. Not bad if I say so myself!

Posted by Ellen at 10:02 PM | Comments (2)

First Wheels

This is the reward Olivia got for not wearing pull-ups anymore. ROLLER SKATES! HEELIES NO LESS!

Posted by Ellen at 09:56 PM | Comments (4)

HAPPY HAPPY!!

Happy Anniversary

Amber & Ron

2 years!! WOW!

I'll let animal expert Ellen make the call on whether or not this fox was sick or simply being a goob. In my (extremely expert, of course) opinion, it doesn't seem all that sick.

Hey, at least they're not flinging it across the lawn!

It's nice to know foil hats will fit under all sorts of headgear. I'd like to think I'd be strong enough to walk away from someone making ridiculously antisemitic remarks. However, when I consider my track record with people who make ridiculously racist remarks, well, I'm not so sure.

Making the rounds: The New York Times is actually reporting on positive progress on the war in Iraq. I've read things like this for perhaps a week or so on various in-country blogs, so to me it's not a huge surprise. To the MSM? Ah, well, better late than never I suppose.

The latest surgical innovation? Performing operations via your mouth. The thought of having defective bits of me pulled out through my mouth gives me the skeevees something fierce, but if it makes the job less painful and reduces the risk of infection, I guess it's a good thing.

But if it happens to you, make sure you brush your teeth before you leave the hospital, ok?

While I'd more or less outgrown Saturday cartoons by the time these Filmation series were new, I'm certain others of you will remember them all in detail. I will admit, however, to yelling "I have the power!!!" a few times at the playground eons ago.

Dinner whilst hanging from a crane, anyone? Finally a place we can have dinner without Olivia crawling under the table switching sides.

At the National Arboretum.

Yeah I don't know what this tree was thinking either.

I wanted to wait until everyone had moved out of the shot, but Olivia definitely wanted to move on. Snapped what I could.

A rare camel fossil has been discovered under a Wal Mart parking lot in Mesa Arizona. It was found at the bottom of a hole dug for a citrus tree. All parties involved have already agreed to donate the find to the local university.

Seems like on-line love is alive and well out in cyberspace. Ellen and I are so old-school we remember when shenanigans like these were carried out on talkers and muds. The fact that a lot of you out there don't have any idea what a talker or a mud actually is just makes it worse.

Oh, and by the way, it is cheating. Period. Here are some rules that might help.

If I'm looking at this one right (no promises there), it provides further proof to bolster the argument that well-compensated CEOs generally repay that compensation with increased earnings and growth. I'm not surprised that there a few (but only a few) "upper-left" types... as Jason (from whom I found the graphic) notes, some of the industries are cyclical, so it may just be a snapshot issue. Like him, I think the real warning would be if a CEO got in the upper-left and stayed there. That you can create a graph that actually shows these things is pretty neat. That Luddites like previously mentioned Mr. Brush ignore such information is not surprising at all.

Joshua gets a no-prize that's all wet for bringing us a brief video of the Jeep Waterfall, an amazing computer-controlled fountain that "inkjets" a waterfall to create an image. How this thing has been around for 7 years without me seeing a video about it is beyond me. I need to get out more.

Duh.

No, really, space.com is carrying a short film on what, exactly, happens when two stars hit each other out in interstellar space. As with most things involving such objects, the first answer is, "it depends." The second answer is a lot more colorful. Kinda puts a whole new perspective on that fender bender you had awhile back, no?

Ron gets a puritanical no-prize for bringing us a typical rant against the "outrageousness" of CEO compensation in the corporate world today. While warning shareholders that the boss may be playing fast and loose with one's money is in general a good thing, further reading of Mr. Brush's other articles indicates to me his motives come more from envy than anything else.

The bottom line is, if the CEO is steering the ship well, with profits rising and costs declining, why not give him or her nice things? The costs of what a bad, albeit cheaper, CEO would do to a large company's bottom line will most certainly exceed the costs of keeping a good one.

Fussing about a $6,000 wine allowance is a good idea when a company, no matter what its size, is struggling. Doing so when that company just increased profits by 30% and raked in billions of dollars in profits for its shareholders, well, that's just clucking to me.

The Archimedes Palimpsest has revealed yet another hidden work in its pages. This time, it appears to be an ancient commentary on Aristotle's Categories, "one of the foundations of Western studies of logic."

It's very exciting, in an admittedly nerdy and bookish sort of way, to think these new techniques could unearth writings considered lost forever by generations of scholars.

If the family dog steals some food off your plate, he's in trouble. When a fifteen foot hammerhead shark does the same thing to your hard-won tarpon, well, not so much. Ready for a swim?

I have now officially created my very first ASP .Net web application. It don't do much, but it works. Onward and upward!

Another day, another "they'll never ever ever use it prediction about Windows Vista. Which is nearly identical to the stories they wrote when Windows XP came out, which were nearly identical to the ones they wrote when Windows 2000 came out, and on and on and on.

The truth is people don't buy operating systems. They purchase computers and then use the operating system that comes with it. While corporate users can (and will) specify which OS goes on their system after it's been purchased, home users won't, and so Vista, like XP before it, will slowly leach into the population through normal computer turnover. As people become more comfortable with it at home (and early adopters populate various documentation portals with advice), they will become more comfortable with it at work. Eventually someone will make the decision and the next big workstation upgrade in a company will be with Vista-equipped systems.

It won't happen overnight. It never has, and it never will. Long ago I took seriously the computer media's claims that the latest OS from Redmon was a complete flop due to slow uptake just after release. It was only after the fourth or fifth time they hailed that exact same OS as a crushing success a few years later that I realized they simply had no idea what they were talking about.

Microsoft's not called the Borg for nothing, you know?

I'd always read that the Japanese are an insular people, but I had no idea it was anything like this:

The scam was uncovered when Japanese moviestar Maiko Kawamaki went on a talk-show and wondered why her new pet would not bark or eat dog food.

She was crestfallen when told it was a sheep.

Buying something you were told was a poodle and then finding out it's actually just a mutt with fuzzy hair is one thing. Finding out it's not even the same species is another. Surely this must be some sort of joke?

If not...

Scientists have made new discoveries about how "white matter" found in the brains of schizophrenia sufferers relate to the disease:

[The report] provides evidence that alterations in myelin [the lipid layers that sheath and insulate nerve fibers and are the main constituent of white matter] can cause defects in neurons and the central nervous system in general that are related to neuropsychiatric disease," says the study's senior author Gabriel Corfas, a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School's Children's Hospital Boston.

The hope is the discovery will point the way toward earlier detection and newer, more effective treatments.

Ya know, I'm such a fan of 'za, I'm not completely sure a loon wacking his own wang off would really put me off my slice. Certainly I'd make sure to grab it said slice* on the way out!

---
* Just so's the grammar police don't get all confused.

Spaceflightnow is featuring the coolest celestial panorama you'll see today. The largest too, as this anniversary present from the Hubble telescope is the largest ever made by that instrument.

Scientists are speculating the very early Earth may have been tinted purple, not green. It only got green when the photosynthesizing critters poisoned the purple retinal-using ones with all their poo oxygen. Right now it's nothing more than an hypothesis, but an interesting one nonetheless.

It's a toy! No! It's an archaeological tool! We never got much use out of metal detectors when I was a kid; however, looking back I have a feeling they weren't useless, they were just cheap. Thirty years of technological progress and a bigger budget will most likely yield better results.

I dunno, I think maybe they should arrest him for banking under the influence or something. Article includes priceless pic.

Film critic Roger Ebert doesn't care what anyone thinks he looks like after a recent operation to stop his cancer from spreading. Might not be able to talk, but he most definitely can still write, much to the chagrin of film executives all over the world.

Scientists have found what appears to be the smallest Earth-like planet outside the solar system. It's five times the mass and whirls around its sun every 13 days, but it appears to be the only one discovered so far that inhabits the "sweet spot" where temperatures and light should be just right to allow liquid water to exist, potentially making it a place where life could exist. The upcoming Spitzer telescope should be sensitive enough to gather more data on this enigmatic object.

~EEEKK!!! 39!!! Wow, that's OLD!!!

So this is the first week after my six week class marathon, and the payoffs are already showing up. Visual studio did something weird to one of my programs in a very obscure spot, a spot I'd already got working a few hours ago*. The old, quirky, broken way I did things would've kept me from finding that goof for hours, if not days or even weeks, long after I'd forgotten how it was all done in the first place. Even worse, bugs like that can stay hidden until a tester or even (gasp!) a user finds them in production. I built programs this way, and had bugs roar out at me this way, for most of ten years. My stuff worked, eventually, but it wasn't very much fun.

But my new, slick, right way spotted the problem immediately, and I was able to fix it right away. No muss, no fuss! That is teh RoXor!

Oh be quiet. It's all new to me!

----
* Technically, it set the ExecuteMode of the insert query of my dataset from scalar, which returns the ID key of the record just created, to non-query, which just returns 1 (which stands for "true" or, "that worked", I think), which promptly broke the clean-up code right next to it. But you knew that already, eh?

To me, this is what TV news looks like all the time (takes a little while to start, but the payoff is worth it). Which is why I read the Post instead. Because we all know how much better print journalists are than...

Oh hell, nevermind.

Bryan Caplan: "Yes, separating newspapers saves paper. But it costs time. Why don't we recycle in our house? Because our time is worth more than a pile of newspaper." I resist most recycling efforts for the same reason. However, economic truth has no affect on wifely disapproval, so things end up in the recycle bin anyway. You see, there are costs, and then there are costs.

Toyota has officially passed GM as the largest auto maker in the world. This was a title GM held for what, sixty, seventy years? Change may come slowly, but it will eventually arrive.

Job I think that's scary but still pretty darned cool # 42: high voltage cable inspection and repair. As impressive as this is on YouTube, it must be freaking spectacular on HDTV. We gotta get us one of those some day.

Apropos of nothing, just thought it was a funny picture.

Slashdot linked up news of The Making of Star Wars, which bills itself as the "definitive" account of how that movie was created. By using a previously unknown collection of interviews conducted by a Lucasfilm publicist made with the principles between 1975 and 1977, the author was able to create what he termed, "as close to an oral history as I could."

Considering that modern interviews with said principles tend to produce a lot of, "I just don't remember" quotes and screwy, "Nerd! Nerd! Get away! Get away!" looks, getting these sources to the public should be a real achievement. Well, to nerds anyway.

Get away! Get away!

From song writing to toilet advice. Is there anything Sheryl Crow can't do?

I can't help but think this will turn out to be some sort of joke the folks at the Beeb just didn't get. At least that's what I hope, at any rate.

~ All I wanna do, is wipe some butt ~

Scientists have developed a new technique for imaging Earth-sized planets that's passed all its lab tests and "could literally be put on a space telescope today." Unfortunately the only promising candidate is the Terrestrial Planet Finder mission, which (predictably) has no funds at the moment.

"Could it be that we have won the war but are too dense to realize it?" It would be nice to think that was at least possible.

Via Instapundit.

Scientists have developed a new drug which, in mice, helps treat certain kinds of diseases like cystic fibrosis. The drug works by helping cells avoid "nonsense" stop points in their messenger RNA, thereby preventing the malformed proteins that cause these kinds of genetic diseases. The treatment appears to affect only certain types of these diseases, but since those types tend to be found in specific population groups, the opportunity for therapy is still very real.

While the narration is in German, videos of cats gorking themselves stupid on catnip pretty much speak for themselves. I tell ya, there aughta be a law!

Those of you wondering what the recently opened adult theme park in the UK might look like need wonder no more. Pictures of an "adult" theme park. Filed under "naughty bits." On a Sunday. Can you say "NSFW?" Thought you could...

Well why not build a toaster for your hot dogs? One of Ellen's and my favorite go-to lunches was Esskay-based hot-dogs, until the day we looked at the nutrition label. They were good because they were very bad for you! Nowadays Olivia is distinctly unimpressed with hot dogs, so they're even further down the menu list.

Mark gets a no-prize that the hippies will ignore while they shiver for bringing us the Straight Dope on global dimming. Yep, you heard that right, dimming.

Someone's been watching way too many episodes of America's Funniest Home Videos.

~ Slip slidin' away... ~

I agree with Siflay, we're all going to look like this, some day. Meh, there are worse things. I think.

Looks like another "you can ride it" B-17 has started operation, this time seemingly based in the Southwest. It includes a nice video, with shots that go well with my own memories of flying a different B-17. At $430, what's not to love?

Ron gets a supermassive no-prize for bringing us this report on "ghost spirals" observed in a (relatively) nearby galaxy. By using a set of continually evolving (and increasingly sensitive) instruments, scientists have been able to determine the size, shape, and composition of "arms" of matter being shot out by the rather ungainly-named M106 galaxy's central black hole. The discovery proves, in a graphic and conclusive way, that these jets need not be perpendicular to plane of the galaxy in which they reside.

Aside from being just plain damned cool, the discovery and continued observations should provide insights into other wacky celestial objects.

Fans of Stephen J. Drubner's work will be happy to know a sequel to his best-seller Freakonomics is in the works. I found the original fascinating and insightful, and so can't wait for the sequel to come out. With monkeys!

Headline says: Baby Boomers Appear to Be Less Healthy Than Parents. What the article actually says is that boomers are saying they feel less healthy than their parents. Which is to say, they're still the whiney self-involved narcissists they've always been, only now with Geritol and Depends.

Meh, who am I to criticize? I think their shrieking fear of death has a real chance at sweeping us all to immortality. Including them.

Oh... wait...

The quartet duck is now a trio. Of legs, that is.

While the skills involved to create something like this are impressive, I can't actually see a steering wheel anywhere. That would seem to make this thing an exercise in creating a monstrous self-powered portable stereo system. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but in my opinion if I'm going to spend that kind of dough I better not have to push the damned thing anywhere.

Mike J. gets a no-prize that throws rocks at hippies for bringing us George Will's incisive counter to the current global warming fad. Readers of The Skeptical Environmentalist (and if you're not one, you should be) will not find much new here, but that's not surprising. Like Vegas magicians, global warming enthusiasts have done little more than re-tread tricks discovered (and, for the most part, debunked) years ago.

Ron gets an inflatable no-prize for bringing us the latest progress report on Bigelow industries, who's eponymous founder hopes to one day make space-based hotel visits a reality. Aviation Week has been covering his progress for several years now, and as noted in this article their reporting has been that the space stations are the (relatively) easy part. The trick is for someone else to come up with a commercially viable manned orbital solution, which is orders of magnitude more difficult and expensive than what Rutan's bunch did with SpaceShip One.

So goes the universe, if this mathematician's hypothesis proves correct. Unlike string theory, this one seems to use comparatively straightforward mathematics and makes predictions which should be testable by the upcoming Large Hadron Collider. I think. Remember folks, I can't even manage to play a mathematician on TV.

Tractor Trailer: 1, 120 mph motorcyclist: 0. One can only hope what's left won't end up on Consumption Junction or some other place. Not that you'd be able to recognize it.

Olivia's latest taste combo is...

Cheetos dipped in orange juice. Judging by the lip-smacking, this is quite good. I'll take her word for it.

Today marks the start of the last of my training classes. For those who're counting, that's three in six weeks! Oy, my head!

Posting will be intermittent, with scattered silliness throughout the afternoon.

Update Well, not the last, but the last in this sequence. I take a final web development class in June, and that'll complete my training cycle for this FY.

Instapundit had an interesting paper to note that's quite relevant to today's tragic shootings at V. Tech. For those unfamiliar with the layout of the state, VT is well south of us, so no worries there. However, VT banners, stickers, and flags must be the most common college logo I see in the area, so this will most likely be hitting many longer-term locals much closer to home.

Frakken maniacs...

Robert H. gets a no-prize that's far more sophisticated than anyone else imagined for bringing us news that plant photosynthesis may in fact represent the oldest instantiation of a quantum computer. The money quote:

"We always thought of it as hopping through the system, the same way that you or I might run through a maze of bushes," Engel explains. "But, instead of coming to an intersection and going left or right, it can actually go in both directions at once and explore many different paths most efficiently."

Just when you'd thought nature had run out of surprises!

Ron gets a no-prize that'll bitch slap him silly if he don't stop lookin' at it for bringing us the misadventures of Pac man. Abuse! Assault! Use!

After a recent hardware survey of our equipment at work, I realized I was actually the proud owner of the oldest active system on the floor. This time, because Visual Studio uses up so much screen real estate, I spec'd out the largest monitor Dell sold that wasn't actually a TV screen. I now look out at the world through 32" 24" of 1900x1200 goodness. It's like I'm piloting a starship or something.

Paul Wolfowitz, meet the Duke lacrosse team.

Reading the above in detail sure makes me look at this article in a different light. I recall reading The Post's initial article on the breaking "scandal," and I remember it being every bit the snickering hatchet job The Wall Street Journal op-ed is criticizing.

Via Instapundit

Having solved all other problems, the New York City government is considering promoting circumcision amongst male residents. The motivation appears to be the heightened AIDS resistance the procedure seems to provide. Then again, it also appears that NYC legislators simply have too much time on their hands. Personally, I recommend re-deployment as meter readers. At least then they'd do something useful.

Even the Wehrmacht could have a sense of humor when it needed to. The motivation behind such things reminds me of an old story attributed to Creighton Abrams: "Give a soldier an anvil, just a hunk of metal, and drive him out into the desert and leave him. In two weeks - when you go to get him, the anvil will be broken."

Slashdot linked up news of the discovery of one of the most symmetrical objects ever seen. As I read the article, the symmetry isn't in the squarish cloud, but rather in bands made of unknown material that cross the cloud's surface.

Olivia decided that she needed to be a belly dancer like her Mom tonight. So we got her costume out and put a DVD in for her. Note the hands!! She is copying the DVD! I am so proud!!

My take with the same setup.

Experimenting with a live model. Turns out the hardest part is keeping her from sweeping across to me and saying, "What the F--?!?!" between shots. Once I got her to be still, it worked, as an experiment. Props to her when it counted, she was completely still across 3 exposures, in this light, say, 30 seconds. Against a more neutral background, I think we might have something here.

Thanks to Amber and Ron for the pix!

I dunno, there definitely seem to be a few advantages to being on the outside looking in. A lining, yes, but it does seem to glitter a particularly nice silver, no?

Via Instapundit.

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- A zoo worker had his forearm reattached Thursday after his colleagues recovered the severed limb from the mouth of a 440-pound Nile crocodile, an official said.

The crocodile severed Chang Po-yu's forearm on Wednesday at the Shaoshan Zoo in the southern city of Kaohsiung when the veterinarian tried to retrieve a tranquilizer dart from the reptile's hide, zoo officials said.

Read article and see picture here.

For-real, operational rail gun, anyone? Prototype isn't production of course, but even the promise of being able to fling projectiles around at mach 8.5+ is pretty damned spiffy. With a range rivaling that of cruise missiles, if it does reach production would it herald the return of the battleship? We'll see.

Considering how relentlessly negative the Post's coverage of the war has been lately, I was quite surprised to find them running an op-ed that actually talks about real, positive progress in that conflict. Probably Krauthammer's syndication deal means they have to run what he writes no matter what he writes?

Via Instapundit.

Hey, if installing a complex electronic crosswalk system is what it takes to keep elk and cars apart, I'm all for it. Damned things are huge! I can only imagine what damage they'd do to a high-speed vehicle. Oh, don't worry, I know there are most likely lots of grisly pictures displaying just exactly what happens, but I think I'd rather just imagine, thankyouverymuch.

Nina gets a no-prize that's too clever by half for bringing us news of a kitty that's learned to take the bus to the nearest fish and chips shop. I'm lucky if ours are smart enough to make it to the food dish without running into something. Twice.

Nice to know the US doesn't have a corner on loony lefties. For whatever reason, the 2007 Tokyo gubernatorial results are available, and it looks like Pol Pot's spiritual twin ended up with 15,000 votes. Maybe his name looks like some other famous guy?

Scientists have managed to extract protien from 68 million-year-old T-rex fossils, and now think their closest living relative may be chickens. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

HELP!! The Animal Rescue needs your HELP!!

Feed An Animal In Need. Just click the link and click on the purple button. Each click give 0.6 bowl of food to an animal.

Click daily! We even have the link on our site! On the left side below our topics.

I agree with Jane: the real question about CEO pay is... so what? Those of you who regularly talk about "corporate evil" should read this one, and very slowly. Then come back and tell me how government is the "solution."

Via Instapundit.

Scientists now think they'll be able to tell what color the plants will be on another planet. The thinking goes that the light reflected by a planet will be strongly affected by the color of the plants growing on it, creating a tell-tale signature that should be readable.

From across interstellar space.

Ain't science grand?

Beats the hell outta that goofy 'Cat, I'm a kitty-cat' song.

Ron gets a boozy no-prize for bringing us some of thrash's finest.

No, really, when elephants attack.

Note to self: When on safari in Africa, do not let the guides steer the boat anywhere near a shoreline containing large, pissed-off pachyderms with little babies in tow. Nothing good comes of it.

Scientists have developed a kind of cement that's both nearly transparent and electrically conductive. It's clear enough to be used in place of rare (and sometimes toxic) elements normally used to create things like LCD screens, while at the same time being cheaper and safer than those elements. Can you hear another LCD price drop in the future? I thought you could.

You only need the Hamster Dance song to make it complete. ~Dee-da-dee-da-diddly-doh-doh~

Hamster powered paper shredders. Whodathunkit?

Hee!!! See-ya!!!

Far as we can tell, no squirrels were kilt making the video. Scared and bruised, well, can't say about that. WTF you want? They're rats with fuzzy tails!

Via Siflay

Scientists keep finding more and more proof that we are hard-wired for egalitarianism. I sometimes wonder if the acceptance of market economics has been such an incredibly slow, painful, and always belittled process precisely because it cuts against this deeply rooted need we all seem to have to make sure everyone gets a share.

Like our hard-wired dietary preferences, these seemingly hard-wired social preferences simply don't "scale up" very well. While they obviously work when they involve very small groups, egalitarianism sets up precisely the wrong set of incentives required to make large, complex societies grow and prosper over time. For that growth to arrive, and stay, history has proven quite conclusively you need free markets, private property, and a strong rule of law.

Unfortunately the successful application of these conditions inevitably results in income disparity, often very large income disparity, which as noted above rattles the cage of our inner chimp something fierce. To me, this neatly explains humanity's constant, tragic, and utterly intransigent fascination with experiments in large-scale egalitarianism such as Christianity, Islam, and Communism. Even when each of these systems has proven completely (and, in the case of Communism, murderously) incapable of bringing real wealth to the masses, large swathes of us simply refuse to admit their failure.

We create societies so wealthy our poor drive to demonstrations because they're eating themselves to death, and people support them. Mass graves yawn open at the foot of every communist government ever created, and people still wave red flags. Fanatics state flatly their purpose is to dismantle and destroy the economic systems that have put the stars within our reach, and people promptly give them the money to do so.

It's almost enough to make one despair. But, as with our predilection for booze and donuts, many, perhaps even most, of us are now able to resist. It's taken some fifteen thousand years for us to create stable complex societies, but we seem now to have done so. There have been mighty setbacks, but the keys uncovered by Adam Smith and John Locke seem to have finally freed us of the chains we wrapped ourselves in for so long.

Was it fair? Of course it wasn't fair, that's the point. Harnessing greed and balancing ambition is how this game is played. Oppress these natural urges, and nothing moves. Let them run wild, and murderous totalitarianism always emerges. Deny they exist at all and the entire race ends up buried in a mass grave with a red flag fluttering atop it.

We are busy creatures, with large hearts and quick minds. Give us a lever, and a reason to try, and we will by God move the world. Take away that reason, and then try to guilt or force or frighten us into action, and we won't even bother picking the thing up. It really is that simple.

Which is not to say it's obvious, as anyone attending an anti-globalization rally, environmental protest, or Democratic fundraiser will plainly see. We must be careful to make sure our brethren drunk on the milk of their Utopian dreams aren't allowed to borrow or steal the keys to our free-market systems, but it is a care we seem able to take.

It won't stop them from trying, of course. After all, it's an urge we're hard-wired to feel. But as long as we pay attention, they'll fail.

You awake yet?

Running around fat, drunk, and stupid with a bikini on is no way to go through life, son. Pictures are SFW, but probably not SFE (safe for eyes).

Server too hot? Dip it in oil!

While the criticism in the article pointing out that purpose-designed fluids for cooling electronic components has existed for years is well taken, I can't help but think using garden-variety machine oils would be less expensive. Getting people to buy into the whole "dip your server in oil" paradigm would seem to me a far harder trick.

Ron gets an ancient but detailed no-prize for bringing us news of new attempts to help tourists experience Egypt's ancient tomb complexes while protecting the sites from wear and tear. I'd like to see the camera and technique used to make very high resolution full-size images of tomb paintings. From the article, it sounds like a variant of the HDR stuff I play with.

NASSAU, Bahamas (CNN) -- Former boyfriend Larry Birkhead was declared the father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby Tuesday, and Howard K. Stern, listed as Dannielynn's father on the birth certificate, said he would not fight for custody.

Article and picture of the victory can be found here.

Just got off the phone with my Learning Tree contact. Scored an 85 on 419 (learning C#) and 87 on 511 (.net Design Patterns). I'm now officially 1/2 way to Official Certificationdom. Or something.

Which isn't helping in the actual utilization of the knowledge. I definitely feel like I just completed the training module on a new shooter, and now am taking live fire. Brain smoke is definitely filling the air.

So you're gonna pony up for the latest 1080p television technology. Will you see a difference? Maybe, maybe not. If the article is to be believed, 1080p (and the high-def formats that can reach that resolution) substantially increases the size of a TV you can have in a given space, instead of improving the perceived image you get from a set of a fixed size. In layman's terms (if I'm reading it right) the great advantage to 1080p is that TVs can be much bigger, or can be placed in a room much smaller, without showing a jagged or blurred image from a given viewing distance.

This actually tracks well with what I've seen in electronics stores. The blu-ray demonstrations are damned impressive, but only because I'm standing right next to the screen. Step a dozen feet away or more, and the effect is much less noticeable. Considering the modest size of our living room, and the fact that we often have people scattered about the room quite close to the screen, it looks like another plus to our planned Christmas upgrade to new display technologies for the home theater rig.

Introducing the Kay effect, which (in this example) causes a jet of shampoo to spontaneously arc away from a thin, fast downpour of the same stuff. Not sure how useful it is, but it definitely looks neat.

Got no spine, but it can open a bottle. Unfortunately it appears making a bottle interesting enough for a squid to open it requires placing a lobster inside, which lessens the critter's potential as a beer-getter.

There's also this neat video of an octopus escaping through a 1" hole in the side of a box. Lacking bones comes in handy sometimes!

Hey man, nobody's perfect:

What most commentators—and many scientists—seem to miss is that the only thing we can say with certainly about climate is that it changes. The earth is always warming or cooling by as much as a few tenths of a degree a year; periods of constant average temperatures are rare. Looking back on the earth's climate history, it's apparent that there's no such thing as an optimal temperature—a climate at which everything is just right. The current alarm rests on the false assumption not only that we live in a perfect world, temperaturewise, but also that our warming forecasts for the year 2040 are somehow more reliable than the weatherman's forecast for next week.

Ron gets a no-prize that'll throw rocks at hippies for bringing us this all-too-often ignored counterpoint to the Al Gorians of the world.

...And my boat is so small.

I'm sure there's a story behind that, not sure what it is. Hopefully it just had the crew on board at that point (she looks like she's under power). I'd be one unhappy customer to have paid a ticket for that ride.

Robert H. gets a graduated no-prize for bringing us this interesting look at all solar system bodies greater than 200 miles in diameter. Note the Sun is so big it has no appreciable curve, and Jupiter's is only just noticeable.

Alternate title: cop car: 1, crackhead: 0. Hey, at least he was wearing a helmet!

"AMCG," we hear you ask, "They're everywhere, and they're out to get me. But gosh darned it, there just don't seem to be any clothing outlets catering to my needs. Even Rosie can't help! What can I do?"

Fear not, friendly paranoid wack-job, AMCG is here to help! Presenting Conspiracy Clothes, your one-stop-shop for the five real conspiracies we know you love! From 9-11's "Thermate" to Pyramidical precession, it's all there for your wearable enjoyment. Act now! The plot you uncover could be your own!

Ron gets an ancient but oh-so-stylish no-prize for bringing us news of the discovery of clothing ornamentation used by the same people who built Stonehenge. The object itself is a diamond-shaped lump of jet with enigmatic carvings that essentially duplicate those of a gold object found near Stonehenge some years ago. From the article, the scientist seems to be implying the two items were used together, even though they were found far apart from each other.

If this fark-linked article is to be believed, that's exactly what NASA did when it plunged the nuclear-powered Galileo probe into the Jovian atmosphere four years ago. The guy claims that the 144 pellets of plutonium-238 used to provide electricity for the probe not only survived re-entry, but held together long enough to be imploded by the atmospheric pressure of Jupiter's atmosphere.

While the concept of a nuclear implosion being triggered by atmospheric pressure alone is a staggering concept, it's definitely not out of the range of possibility when it comes to Jupiter. As I understand it, the pressures there are so great the planet is thought to be covered in thick layer of superconducting solidified hydrogen. However, I can't help but think that, considering the violence of the re-entry was utterly beyond any sort of design specification of Galileo's power supply, the pellets were simply scattered to the winds like dandelion seeds on a breeze.

Still, I suppose anything is possible. I mean, look at Al Gore...

In honor of Easter's most beloved candy.

How I was NOT allowed to spend my Easter day.

Bless Wikipedia, without which we would not have such easy access to a detailed description of Medieval cuisine. Hop-less beer drunk fresh from the keg. Progress is a good thing!

Well, this week at any rate. I learned design patterns are sometimes tricky, most likely always useful, and too complex to cover in a week. I also realized I'm the proud owner of a first print edition of the original Gang of Four book. I got to page 28 in 1996 (the mark was still there) when my head 'asploded and I put it down. I can now read it, and even understand most of the fiddly bits.

I learned test driven development is a far more automated (and therefore easier and more efficient) version of what I'd been doing all along. Which I suppose means I'm not quite the coding hick I always thought myself to be. Oh, and NUnit rox!

I also learned that by not learning any Javascript or Ajax development techniques, I'd been doing application layers the entire time. My Model may have had gluey fingerprints all over it, my View was most definitely cracked, and my Presentation may have wobbled dangerously and made scary noises, but they were there.

On the way up to NY I also learned that 10000 years from now, Mark will be unfrozen because it'll say on the outside of his cryo container, "KNOWS COBOL."

Updates will be very slow this weekend! We are visiting family in NY for the holiday!

Make sure you check back daily to see new posts.

AMCG will resume normal activity on Monday.

Another day, another "weer in ur" thread on fark...

The more time that children spent in child care, the more likely their sixth-grade teachers were to report problem behavior.

Also, children who got good quality child care before entering kindergarten had better vocabulary scores in the fifth grade than did youngsters who received lower quality care.

And this is news?

The Next Magazine, a weekly publication from Hong Kong, reported that infant corpses and fetuses have become the newest supplements for health and beauty in China. Not only is the placenta considered a beauty remedy, but also aborted fetuses are much sought after delicacies. In Guangdong, gourmet body parts are in high demand and can even be purchased through hospitals. The magazine’s investigations into this form of cannibalism took them to Liaoning province.

Read entire weirdness here.

Ron gets two completely unrelated no-prizes for bringing us news of the development of a drug dispensing tooth and the discovery of a nearly complete pliocene whale fossil in Italy. Well, at least they're both science-y.

To me, they are the extreme strange of the Asian world. I mean what do you expect? They eat dogs and cats.

If you have been denounced they toss you in prison. You get pregnant in prison, they abort you, even at 5 months. Hide it? They kill the children.

They are savages.

But back to the bunnies!

An east German pensioner who breeds rabbits the size of dogs has been asked by North Korea to help set up a big bunny farm to alleviate food shortages in the communist country. Now journalists and rabbit gourmets from around the world are thumping at his door.

Read entire article here

Communism is a shitty thing. It does not work out.

Comments? Fuck You. You don't get them this time.

This is what happens to Amber at my house every time she comes over. Mind you Magrat is black, but it is the SAME thing!

Poor Amber. She has been watching the AMCGLTD bunch for nearly...er...5-7 years now.

Magrat still hates her. We have no idea why, but she feels Amber needs to "die in a fire."

A very hissy spitty NO-PRIZE to Amber for the link!

One outlet reports cautious optimism on the troop surge in Iraq. The next day, another reports deepening pessimism.

Were I paranoid, I'd speculate that MSM heavyweights were trying to do their Democratic buds a favor by spinning the war in a slightly positive way to show what a great thing it was to have "rational" people in charge. Now that it is becoming clear that a) this also helps the president and b) the Dems are going to spend most of their time in pointless pissing contests instead of trying to get things done, the standard negativity is returning to the forefront.

But, knowing only to well the truth in the axiom, "never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence," I'm more inclined to think Iraq is still a bubbling gumbo of conflict so complex nobody on the street can claim to have a handle on the whole thing. Which, of course, doesn't prevent the media from trying.

First link via Instapundit.

In spite of appearances, I did not use a polarizing filter. Although I just might, next time. And I do hereby promise to bring a white sheet of paper with me next time, so I can white balance outside the camera instead of inside the darkroom. Twiddling can only recover so much!

Turns out you need a permit to take a picture of this fountain (at least with a tripod). Who knew? So this is the only shot I got before I got shoo'd away by the security guard.

The second of my four training courses starts today, this time Design Patterns and .Net Best Practices. Last time, they sent me to four days of learning the rules of football. This week I'm hoping to learn how to coach a team.

Update: Ok, not coaching a team, rather learning how to call a play. Graduating from the guy that holds one of the posts to the offensive coordinator. I'll take it.

Virtue(R)'s subtle blend includes top notes of apricot, pomegranate and fig that transition to a gentle heart of iris, warming to a golden base of rich, exotic woods of frankincense, myrrh, aloe, and spikenard. Several ingredients cost up to $4,500 per kilogram, making Virtue(R) a truly precious mixture of oils. It is available in a 1.7-fluid ounce French bottle and over cap, with 24-kt gold raised lettering on the bottle and embossed gold foil lettering on the box, pamphlet enclosed. Virtue(R) retails for $80 and is available only via the Internet at www.virtueperfume.com.

Rush your order now!

Read article here.

It is NOT on video yet dammit!

I would win the OSCAR of movie nights! And I will...oh yes...I will.

15 million gallons of sewage don't just disappear, ya know? Something tells me there's a picture of guys in hard hats peering down a hole featured in a local paper this week. Push!

The Chicago Cubs are now officially for sale. Will this lead them to greatness, or more Wrigley-esq mediocrity? Only time will tell!

Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. I respect motorcycle racing. The same way I respect rabid dogs. For some of the same reasons!

NASA scientists have used the Cassini space probe to image a bizarre cloud formation above the north pole of Saturn. Shaped like a hexagon and about four times the size of Earth, the feature was imaged previously by both Voyager space probes, indicating it is either very stable or recurs regularly. As with most weird space observations, scientists currently have no explanation for it.

Scientists have developed a cheap and effective way of converting blood of any type to O. The trick involves a special enzyme that removes the sugar molecules that characterize the other blood types. While techniques like this have been developed before, this is the first to use a non-exotic process that can be done at room temperature.

Today's "going from the very very big to the very very small" visualization is brought you by Nikon. I found it a bit leisurely, but clicking the different scale measurements will scoot it along.

Happy Birthday Joshua!

Now this is MY kind of rental truck!

So my family came to visit and steal Olivia for a week. At this visit, my sister decided to bring 'ear cones' to clean out our ears with. Now, I'm skeptical of it. I look in cat ears all the time. I don't see profuse amounts of wax. Well, they are rather dirty, but not 'OH MY GOD!!! WTF GROWING IN THERE?!?' dirty.

Needless to say, it was an interesting experience having a cone stuck in your ear, lit with a huge flame spewing from the top and then 'smoking' to create a soothing vacuum. Note the word "soothing."

How did I feel? Good. My eardrums were warm, and today I feel pretty good. Would I do it again? Sure why not? Maybe next time it will suck my brain out.

Probably one of the most unintentionally enigmatic monuments at the cemetery. Students of a very specific point in history probably know what this is on sight (and groaned at my title for the same reason). But most likely nobody else would, and you'd probably have to explain it twice before they really understood. If then.

Yet there was a time when everyone thought it was all so important they stuck the mast of the ship in its own memorial.

How times change.

Oh, and unlike my cathedral pictures, these prints are quite available for purchase. E-mail me for (my very reasonable) pricing information.

Also (eventually) from Instapundit, this first-hand account of what it's like to have one's house searched by US troops. The catch this time? The subjects were none other than Omar and Mohammed, of Iraq Now.

Like I've always said, the only real difference between them is the shape of their tie-tacks. So, left side of the peanut gallery, just how does it feel to dine on ashes?

Via Instapundit.

A very shelled NO-PRIZE to Amber for sending us this video!