I'm getting old

No doubt about it: I'm getting old and cranky.

I'm getting old

Super Mario Bros 25th anniversary

25 things you may not know about the Super Mario Bros on the 25th anniversary of the Super Mario Bros release.

Super Mario Bros 25th anniversary

Men and porn

This is an interesting and amusing article:

Researchers were conducting a study comparing the views of men in their 20s who had never been exposed to pornography with regular users.

But their project stumbled at the first hurdle when they failed to find a single man who had not been seen it.

"We started our research seeking men in their 20s who had never consumed pornography,” said Professor Simon Louis Lajeunesse. “We couldn't find any."

That's not a surprise, really: men are men and, as Jeff Foxworthy says, men's motivations tend to boil down to "I'd like a beer and I'd like to see something nekkid!" But what was rather interesting was that porn wasn't the corrupter of sexual preferences that it's popularly made out to be:

The study found that men watched pornography that matched their own image of sexuality, and quickly discarded material they found offensive or distasteful.

Prof Lajeunesse said pornography did not have a negative effect on men's sexuality.

“Not one subject had a pathological sexuality,” he said. “In fact, all of their sexual practices were quite conventional.

“Pornography hasn't changed their perception of women or their relationship, which they all want to be as harmonious and fulfilling as possible,” he added.

So, men like looking at dirty pictures (quelle surprise!) and it doesn't change their basic sexual makeup.

Men and porn

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Now we know!

Scientists have determined that the chicken came first. How do they know that? To form the egg shell, there needs to be a protein in the ovaries of the chicken, which means that at some point, there was an animal that developed this protein and was able to lay eggs. So the chicken did indeed come first.

It's fun to know that, but the article points out that there are potential applications for this knowledge.  But for a Friday after quitting time, I'll go for the baseline idea and be happy right with that. 

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Now we know!

Repost: "Mommy, what's gay marriage?"

This is a very moving article by Amanda G.

Repost: "Mommy, what's gay marriage?"

Repost: 6 slacker behaviors that are good for you

Cracked.com has really fascinating and funny articles. Here's one worth reading: it's about six different behaviors that are actually good for you, such as smoking weed (which appears to prevent cancer and Alzheimer's), sleeping in late (ensures you're getting enough), and wasting time on the Internet (which keeps your mind alive).
 

Repost: 6 slacker behaviors that are good for you

Manly men in a manly manner!

Thanks go to Sonya Reasor for pointing out this yummy website on The Art of Manliness. 

There was one piece in particular that Sonya liked: it's the Weasels Ripped My Flesh section. No, that's not referring to the name of the classic Mothers of Invention album; in fact, the album gets its name from one of the cheesy men's magazine covers featured in the link.

Manly men in a manly manner!

There's a reason we're geeks!

And this is it!

There's a reason we're geeks!

Chinese food and architecture

Back in 2002, we went to the reception for Brian and Fong Chinn's wedding. It was an amazing reception, with food that I never expect to have again. I wished I was able to eat two or three times as much as I was able to. Stunning stuff! Shark fin, bird's nest soup, prawn things... damn, it was good! Many of these dishes were in a fine, thin, velvety stock. The Babe observed at the time that all Chinese dishes are based on mucus. An interesting hypothesis and hard to refute given our incredible menu.

Okay, fast forward: National Geographic reports that the Chinese used sticky rice for building, specifically, for mortar. Apparently, mixing lime and sticky rice result in a mortar that has much smaller calcium carbonate crystals, making it much tougher and more water-resistant. There's no reason this technique can't be used again, so restorations can be done using this to make a nice, tight mortar. And it's a good way to make use of basic resources to achieve superior results. 

Those Chinese are very sneaky!  :)

Chinese food and architecture

7 Signs You're Taking Yourself Too Seriously on the Internet

This article is a wonderful warning that you may be taking yourself too seriously on the Internet.

7 Signs You're Taking Yourself Too Seriously on the Internet

How Nonsense Sharpens the Intellect

This is a fun article with more information about how the brain works. A little nonsense makes you think better.

This does not explain Fox News. There must be a premise of functioning neural pathways as a foundation, I guess: you know, you can't think better if you can't think at all. 

How Nonsense Sharpens the Intellect

10 most dangerous plants in the world

This is a cool article from Popular Mechanics on the 10 most dangerous plants in the world.  The pictures are very good, too. 

10 most dangerous plants in the world

Guess what? Gay "therapy" doesn't work!

Well, it seems that, after examining 49 years of evidence, that a panel of the American Psychological Association says that therapy to "change" from gay to straight doesn't work. (Boy howdy, now there's a surprise, eh?)

This article says that the panel voted 125-to-4 that this kind of change is unlikely and attempts to enforce this kind of change lead to depression and suicidal tendencies. As an alternative, for patients who are having problems reconciling their sexual orientation and their religious faith, therapists are being urged to consider such things as recommending switching churches.

This has been a long time in coming, but it's really nice that the religion is finally being regarded as the choice and the sexual orientation as the immovable object.

Guess what? Gay "therapy" doesn't work!

Handwriting analysis for stone tablets!

How wonderful! This reminds me of the use of infrared digital photography to discern letters that are no longer visible on ancient papyrus fragments.

Handwriting analysis for stone tablets!

Jedi Mind Trick, Do You Can!

This article describes a nifty little toy that lets you control the motions of a ball purely with brain waves.

Jedi Mind Trick, Do You Can!

Homeland Security, by any other name...

...would be just as bad. The original Department of Homeland Security was something from Germany in the 30s and early 40s, with the “Abteilung der Heimat-Sicherheit” ("Department of Homeland Security"). What I hadn't stopped to consider was that the Soviet "Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti” (better known as the KGB) translates as "Committee for State Security." There's a lovely short piece about this obsession with "security" here.

Homeland Security, by any other name...

Gay marriage opposition is much the same as interracial marriage opposition

Here's a truly stunning article on the similarities in the opposition to gay marriage today and the opposition to interracial marriage in past decades. I'd rather thought the arguments had the same shopsoiled feeling to them; it looks like I was right.

Gay marriage opposition is much the same as interracial marriage opposition

Roget in Love

A great Friday-ish article by Hart Seely in Slate.

Roget in Love
When there are too many ways to say "I love you"
by Hart Seely

It was a mistake, a gaffe, an error, plummeting in on Merriam that day. When she looked at me with those big brown organs of vision, I felt myself omit a cardio pulsation.

"Well, well, if it isn't Mr. Thesaurus, Peter Roget," she said. "Look what the Felis silvestris catus just imported."

Merriam had a way with units of language.

"I've come to talk, speak, communicate, converse, correspond," I said.

"Peter," she interrupted, "I don't have time to masti! cate the obesity. Excrete, or remove yourself from the cookery."

<>"Very well. I won't thrash around the foliage. I apologize if I urinated you off.

I've come to request your unclenched fist in holy matrimony."

Her mandible plunged and her occuli hydrated.

"Peter, I'm sorry," she said. "But you're a global cycle late and a Federal Reserve note short. We're through."

"Through? Do you mean, as in, done, completed, and defunct? Or through as in via or by means of?"

"Peter, we're ceased. I'm tired of beating my head against a permanent partition of oven-baked blocks. For a long time now, we've been like two floating vessels passing in the regular period of darkness between sunset and sunrise."

That's when it hit me.

"Webster?" I said. "You're seeing Webster!"

She toggled her head vertically and released air from her lungs.

"Webster loves me," she said.

"Webster doesn't know what love is!" I cried. "Merri, I adore you, ! worship you, I'm your admirer, your follower, your aficionado, your enthusiast, your fan, your devotee, your adherent, your buff! Webster can't be those things. What can he give you that I cannot?"

"Meaning," she whispered. "He gives me meaning."

"Wait a minute. I thought Funk and Wagnall gave you meaning! Remember them? I guess their meanings weren't so definitive, eh?"

"I don't do three-ways," she said.

"Well, you sure get around. Whatever happened to that 'May I quote you' creep? Remember how 'familiar' you were with him?"

"Leave Bartlett out of this," she said.

"Merri," I said. "Listen to me. Webster will dump you, ditch you, scrap you, chuck you, abandon you, discard you. Right now, he's probably out with Collier or Compton or some tramp from Oxford. You're just another plume in his visor headpiece.

"He'll abridge you!" I continued. "He'll file you under M for merriment or merry maker, or messy. That'! s what Webster does. He draws you the size of a postage stamp, then he turns the page!"

"You're too late, Peter," she said, raising a ringed metacarpal. "We've recited nuptials."

"You'll come back!" I shouted. "You'll crawl back on your grasping forelimbs and kneeling leg joints! You two have as much chance together as a compacted sphere of frozen water in hell!"

She closed the door. That was the last time I saw Merri.

Of course, these days, she's the last word on everything, the famous Merriam Webster. Me? I'm lost, misplaced, missing, alone …

I loved her.

I just couldn't find the words.

Roget in Love

"My Secret Life as a Muslim"

Stuart Stevens has written an exceptional article for The Atlantic entitled "My Secret Life as a Muslim." Stevens, who worked on President Bush's campaign, said:

"I had to be honest and put myself to the same test as the candidates. Here are the facts..."

It's a great article for those who are screaming about Obama's supposed Muslim connections.

"My Secret Life as a Muslim"

What the heck? It *is* the music of the spheres!

This article talks about astronomers recording the sounds made by stars using the Corot space telescope. There are recordings of three stars, including the Sun.

Professor Ian Roxburgh of Queen Mary College, London is among those trying to work out what the sounds from the stars tell us about processes occurring inside stars.

"It's not easy," he says "It's like listening to the sound of a musical instrument and then trying to reconstruct the shape of the instrument".

Fascinating stuff!

What the heck? It *is* the music of the spheres!