Hat Tip Steve

A person recently told me that a lot of people die from the flu. She told me that a lot of people don’t realize that the flu can be deadly. She told me that a lot of people do not do what they should do to prepare for the flu.

She was saying this in sight of a nurse giving out free flu shots. Which was funny, because she also said that she would never get a flu shot because all you need to do to not die from the flu is to “eat healthy” and take lots of vitamins. If you eat healthy and take lots of vitamins and get the flu, your lymph nodes will swell up a little but that’s all.

I think I get it.

Continue reading If You Get Sick, It’s Your Own Fault →

WASHINGTON—After more than five decades of tireless work, brave exploration, and technological innovation aimed at a single objective, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced Wednesday that it had finally completed its mission to find and kill God.

…

“One of our lunar rovers captured an image of God at approximately 2100 hours last night, and we immediately launched a vessel manned by our best assassins,” said Richard Egan, Mission Control Chief at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. “After exiting the lunar lander, the astronauts approached God under the false pretense of peace, but He must have sensed something was amiss and fled. Our men gave chase in a moon buggy, finally overtaking Him in a crater where He was subdued after several minutes of violent hand-to-hand combat.”

Egan told reporters that it took as many as five highly trained astronauts to fully restrain the Supreme Being….

Read more

Below the fold…
Continue reading LeRoy Bell Makes It! →

Fool Me Twice is a book that was just released, last night, by Shawn Otto. I attended the release party and wrote it up for your reading pleasure.

Read it here.

My sister won the science fair with a “frictionless puck” using CO2, two jars, and two hockey pucks. This is not that:

More here.

The real question is, if sea levels rose due to melting glacial ice, what percentage of the word’s population would get their feet wet? There are several problems with addressing this question, including the fact that it depends on how high sea levels rose. Most studies or calculations are based on what most people consider to be a large rise in sea level of about 10 meters/30 feet. Given this sort of consideration, the number of people living in the global food zone is significant. Here are a few tidbits from the Intertubes:

• Three-quarters of the world’s mega-cities are by the sea.*
• By 2010, 80 per cent of people will live within 60 miles of the coast.*
• …by 2010 some 80 percent of people will live within 62 miles of the coast, with about 40 percent living within 37 miles of a coastline.*
• “For a while, it was said, ‘Oh, two-thirds of all the population lives within 100 kilometers of a coastline,” … The numbers showed that low-elevation areas (under 10 meters/30 feet) are home to 634 million people….”Roughly one in 10 persons in the world lives in this low-elevation coastal zone,” Balk says.*

Current estimates for the absolute maximum sea level rise, if the glaciers at both polls melted, range from 225 to 365 feet, with the latter being more likely accurate. If sea levels rose that much, coastal lands would be depressed several meters and transgressive erosion would also occur. So, for instance, even though Long Island has many points that are above 300 feet or so, none of it would survive the transgressive erosion because it is all glacial till. It is hard to extrapolate from the numbers above to a 100+ meter rise, and improper to do so, but consider that if the human population is concentrated near the seas, and 10% live below the 10 meter line, then it is probably true that well more than half live below the 100 meter line, and many more within the area that would be claimed by the sea through erosion and depression.

I’ve only done a cursory check for sources. If you have better information, please send it my way and I’ll update the post.

Tonight, Tuesday, October 18th, the Final 16 will be revealed.

7 central time.

Here’s LeRoy’s performance, on which he’ll be judged:
Continue reading XFactor Update →

Tonight, Tuesday, October 18th, the Final 16 will be revealed.

7 central time.

Here’s LeRoy’s performance, on which he’ll be judged:
Continue reading XFactor Update →

Below the fold (it starts automatically)
Continue reading LeRoy’s Journey, so far →

Below the fold:

Continue reading LeRoy’s Video Diary →

From Rob Pike

Dear Rob–

As Dennis’s siblings, Lynn, John, and Bill Ritchie–on behalf of the entire Ritchie family–we wanted to convey to all of you how deeply moved, astonished, and appreciative we are of the loving tributes to Dennis that we have been reading. We can confirm what we keep hearing again and again: Dennis was an unfailingly kind, sweet, unassuming, and generous brother–and of course a complete geek. He had a hilariously dry sense of humor, and a keen appreciation for life’s absurdities–though his world view was entirely devoid of cynicism or mean-spiritedness.

We are terribly sad to have lost him, but touched beyond words to realize what a mark he made on the world, and how well his gentle personality–beyond his accomplishments–seems to be understood.

Thank you.

Continue reading “I got this note from John Ritchie, Dennis’s brother” →

This morning, Minneapolis, Minnesota:
Continue reading The Big Gay Race →