Kansas: As Dumb As You Think

This Kansan version of the periodic table from the re-Discovery Institute says it all. It's called 'flyover country' for a reason.

[h/t Primate Journal]

Sleepy colonist

Last year I took a ton of photos at my town's 'nation's oldest' 4th of July parade (on steroids). This year? Not so much. In addition to the tuckered out revolutionary above I didn't get too much. Just this outstanding tricycle with speakers, and remarkably unnecessary open tent exit sign. The parade was pretty standard but included a few oddities. Usually all the major office-holders march together in the parade, but this year we had the Governor, Senators, one Congressman, and then about 15 minutes later the other one, Congressman Patches, all by himself. Without a beanie, he just looks wrong. But my favorite was a float where they seemed to have soldiers dressed in the uniforms of different eras, WWII, WWI, Civil War, Revolutionary, and then, inexplicably thrown in there, a pirate.

Amusement park photos

Amusement parks are great places to take pictures. There is gaudy, interesting signage everywhere, and brightly colored inhuman machines full of screaming children. Unfortunately, since I was with somebody and spent most of my time there in various lines, I wasn't able to wander the place aimlessly looking for things to photograph.

A dramatically positioned, rickety roller-coaster.

Some ridiculous guitar-playing balloon.

What is that? Some kind of industrial hydraulic pump?

No! It is part of a gigantic flyswatter!

Twisty, orange ride.

The sun setting somewhere in relation to this roller-coaster.

A Great Time to be and Inanimate Object

This chip clip has an optimist bit of profoundity. Apparently, IT'S A GREAT TIME TO BE ALIVE™.

I don't know whether this comes from the cardiovascular therapy company or the financial company, and I don't want to. All I want to know is what makes this plastic trinket so happy about our present era. Not that I disagree, despite the more stylish architecture and fancier clothing of past decades, I certainly appreciate the technology, science, and antibiotics of the early 21st century. In fact, the mere existence of chip clips connotes a certain amount of progress in taking care of life's more essential demands. What about the future though? Does this clip have some kind of prophetic ability? Is it implying that civilization is soon to collapse? What does the chip clip know that we don't?

More importantly, how would a non-living object know how great it is to be alive, at this or any other time?

Biophysics: always coming in handy

The Providence Journal has an article about the current brainiac of the Sox farm system. Despite the reporter being impressed by his use of his word 'elucidate' it is fairly encouraging. Craig Breslow is a Yale Biophysics and Biochem major currently titrating* himself up the pitching ranks.

“In molecular biophysics,” he said, “you deal with methods of elucidating structures of proteins through such means as x-ray crystallography and spectroscopy. In biochemistry, I studied organic processes on a molecular level — things like DNA replication and genetics.”

Um, OK, Craig.

What say we talk about what pitches you throw.

“I have a ‘slurvy’-type slider I throw to lefties,” he said, “and a cut fastball I throw to righties. I have a big overhand curve I use to try to steal strikes. My best pitch is my changeup.”

So far this season, Breslow’s array of pitches has been almost as baffling to batters as molecular biophysics.

Going into last night’s game, the 26-year-old lefty had an earned-run average of 1.59 in 25 relief appearances covering 39 2/3 innings. He had given up just 30 hits while striking out 48 and walking only 9. He had a record of 1-1, with one save, and hitters were batting a mere .208 against him.

...
“For four years,” he said, “I studied with some of the most brilliant minds in the world. Now, I’m having fun playing baseball. When I get here (to the ballpark), I’m all baseball. If I keep pitching well, I’ll have a job in baseball.”

And if he doesn’t, he can put that Yale degree in molecular biophysics and biochemistry to good use.

Wow! That's my plan too. Hey Red Sox organization, I'll be a few miles from Pawtucket next year, and I've got at least a foot on Pedroia!

Bonus Biophysics Joke: Why is this guy such a good pitcher? Well imagine a tiny spherical cow...

*This is definitely the wrong use of this word, but we don't have to know about such things in cosmology.

Blog not dead

I've been traveling all over the place. Baseball games, parades, amusement parks. Not a lot of time or fodder for blogging. I will give you this however -- a video of some kids igniting 10,000 match heads in a bucket. The result? Mushroom cloud.


Kids Ignite A Matchstick Bomb

Vernacularisms 1

As I explained in this post, I compiled a gigantic list of wonderful but obscure words in high school. Here are a few:

Succedaneum- n. A substitute, resorted to when the real thing is not available
Pigsney- n. (A.S.) A term of endearment used when addressing a girl
Varlet- n. A low, menial scundrel
Zori- n.pl. Flip-flops
Ephetic- a. Habitually suspending judgement, or given to skepticism (n. Ephecticism)

Union of Concerned Science Cartoonists

The Union of Concerned Scientists took a break from being concerned long enough to set up a politization of science cartoon contest. You can vote on them. Most are actually kind of dumb, but a few are worth taking a gander at. I still prefer S. Harris for my cartoon needs.

Like Fish in a Barrel

More fun science from Conservapedia.

Big Bang Theory
You don't usually see something cite Max Tegmark and Answers in Genesis at the same time.

The Big Bang Theory has had many dissenters including the British astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle, the Nobel Prize winner Hannes Alfven, and astronomers Geoffrey Burbidge and Halton Arp. It was Hoyle who coined the term, although he used it disparagingly.

Well, Hoyle was a 'reasonable' dissenter when the Big Bang was still controversial, but since the evidence soundly defeated the steady-state model he's just been a crank. Burbidge and Arp are at least honest cranks, but they are not what you would consider 'relevant.' It also says something that all of these people are a bit past their prime. Hannes Alfven is actually so far past his prime as to be dead. He won a Nobel Prize for his work in Plasma Physics, not astrophysics, and his model is a joke which is conclusively ruled out by the existence of the Cosmic Microwave Background's blackbody spectrum. He thought that establishing a starting point for the universe was sneaky creationism. Which is interesting in light of the next passage:

Most Atheists believe in the Big Bang theory. There is active research and speculation into what caused the Big Bang, but atheists agree it was not a deity.

Many scientists who believe in the Big Bang Theory are Evolutionists, though not all are. One can believe that God both created the Universe AND laid out the plan for all life in the Big Bang, as opposed to the idea that life evolved randomly after the Big Bang.

Young earth creationist scientists contest the Big Bang Theory stating that it is scientifically unsound, though few creationist criticisms are found in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Do I need to comment on this stuff? Scientists 'believe' in evolution because they are scientists, and the phrase 'Young earth creationist scientists' is an oxymoron.
I also enjoy this sneaky little phrase, which is backed up by nothing at all.

Professional cosmologists are actively creating models (some of which contradict the Bing Bang scenario) and collecting data that probe the specific nature of the earliest observable aspects of the Universe.

Actually, no professional cosmologists are creating models that contradict the big bang. Anywhere.

Isn't is sad that in this day in age blah blah blah...

750 Shaqs to a mile

How often have you been forced to laboriously crank out the Can of Soda:African Elephant weight ratio by hand. Too often according to Weird Converter. Finally, a web interface that can tell us how many Human Eyeballs make up one Tom Cruise. Useful for his housemaid I'm sure, since he consumes hundreds each year and she has to know how many to buy. Now I'll know how many quarters to get for my life-sized Polar Bear replica. My only complaints, why no Smoots? And converting things into "football field" lengths is fairly redundant since everyone feels the incessant need to do that anyway.

Revenge of the Accordion

And now, for no reason at all, a man playing "Flight of the Bumble Bee" on an accordion. He looks as though were his accordian strap to rupture, the instrument would go flying across the room and burst into flames. I presume this is what keeps many people from learning the accordion, since They Might Be Giants have already taught us all how cool the squeezebox really is.

Blub

Today is the first day of PETA's "Fish are Friends, not Food" week. Silly PETA, why can't it be both?

It actually always bothered me how many people claiming to be vegetarians still ate fish. For about 8 years I didn't eat fish, while still eating meat, as a way of making up for these people. Of course, I didn't particularly care for how whitefish was prepared in my home, but that was the ostensible reason. If you are going to eat what food eats, at least be consistent about it. And then, I actually had a fish for a while, and who can eat an animal that is the same as your pet? It would be awkward.

[via]

Cat-blogging

Cat and pixilated likeness of that cat.