this is some kinda heavy reading. It reminds me of when someone left a book on quantum physics in my bathroom and I read the whole thing over the course of two years

Is anything more boring than the UFO phenomenon? Look people. I bet you a million dollars that this is not an alien spaceship. Wake me when it’s been positively identified … oh wait it has?

Rich explains that, in essence, the “alien” image is a visual after-effect or ghost artifact of Mercury that was photographed the previous day.

zzzzzzzzz

You know, it’s probably
Proteus Syndrome or something but this is pretty wild.

More measurements to come, but so far…

I threw together this little video that explores the political pie-fight debate through the magic of stuffed toys.

A poll tax in modern America. Can you believe this shit?

And we have final confirmation that comic book genius Frank Miller’s secret identity is Total Right-Wing Douchebag Man:

“‘Occupy’ is nothing but a pack of louts, thieves, and rapists, an unruly mob, fed by Woodstock-era nostalgia and putrid false righteousness,” Miller wrote in a blog entry last week. “These clowns can do nothing but harm America.”

Though, for the most part, the participants in the now-global Occupy moment have protested the imbalances of the economy, corporate fiscal abuses and government officials’ close ties to Wall Street, Miller mentions the War on Terror in his slamming of the nascent movement.

“Wake up, pond scum. America is at war against a ruthless enemy,” he later continues. “Maybe, between bouts of self-pity and all the other tasty tidbits of narcissism you’ve been served up in your sheltered, comfy little worlds, you’ve heard terms like al-Qaeda and Islamicism.”

Miller then implores protestors to join the military, or otherwise, to go “back to your mommas’ basements and play with your Lords Of Warcraft.”

It has escaped his attention that if al-Qaeda had really wanted to destroy America, they would have become Wall Street bankers and invested in credit default swaps.

…My video response here: “Hey Frank Miller: Batman is the 99%”

…and the sequel to my video response here, featuring Frank Miller vs. Batman as foul-mouthed action figures.

You are not forgiven, you vain and stupid man.

A history of religion class would have helped this poor fool, but that might require some education in this country. But it’s pretty clear someone should have shown him this long fucking history of failed rapture predictions. He may have been less tempted to think of himself at the center of a cosmic drama, announcing he cracked the code of the Bible and whatall. Man I wish I had made some bets on his “predictions.”

Recent wars, terrorist acts, and cartel beheadings notwithstanding, the overall trend is that peace is breaking out everywhere.

“The decline of violence may be the most significant and least appreciated development in the history of our species.”

…but they seem to love gay prostitutes.

(joke stolen from “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me”)

Link.

Spence injured his eye as a child and has since replaced it with a prosthetic camera eye. This technological feat was named one of Time Magazine’s “Best Inventions of the Year.”

References to climate change censored from environmental report.

And the other 20% had abstinence-only education.

Because the Yeti Exists

I guess I thought there would be a little more fanfare.

It bears noting that, for a long time, a subset of heretical scientists have been arguing for a physics with no cosmic speed limit. Van Flandern:

For example, increasing the temperature slows a pendulum clock and increases its length, yet this does not mean that something happens to time or space. Only the attempted measures of time and space using the pendulum clock, but not time and space themselves, are affected by temperature. In a similar way, in Lorentzian relativity, only the attempted measures of the dimensions time, space, and mass are affected by speed, but not the dimensions themselves. …Time and space themselves are simply dimensions (concepts), and cannot be changed by motion, by potential, or by any material entity.

And that, in brief, is why there is no universal speed limit in LR – nothing ever happens to time itself, just to certain types of clocks attempting to keep time. Such clocks might malfunction or stop operating altogether at speeds at or above the speed of light. But there is no slowing of time to prevent reaching such speeds. And other types of clocks exist for measuring time unaffected by speed or potential, just as many types of clocks are unaffected by temperature.

Just sayin.’

At last, mostly all of our video works are together at a single link. Many thanks to our various collaborators!

Standard supervillain fare.

At one point, Ferdaus allegedly planned to fly three F-4 Phantoms filled with 16 grenades into the Capitol dome and opposite sides of the Pentagon at the altitude of the 4th floor. He allegedly said he’d detonate the planes three seconds prior to impact, and thought he could “blow the dome to smithereens.” But as Minnesota Public Radio points out, “the manufacturer says the flying weight of the model is 13 pounds, thanks primarily to its very large motor.”

Ferdaus allegedly referenced the F-4 Phantom II pictured on the website scalercmodels.com, which he said was capable of speeds of up to 160 miles per hour.

As his plot developed, Ferdaus appears to have scaled back the weight of the payloads he believed the planes were capable of carrying, writing that they “have a payload capacity of 10-12 lbs., and thus it is deemed to contain 16 handhelds [grenades] in each,” according to the affidavit. He allegedly planned to launch the planes from Eastern Potomac Park.

He should have worn spandex.

WDYFK.

Ereditato declined to speculate on what it might mean if other physicists, who will be officially informed of the discovery at a meeting in CERN on Friday, found that OPERA’s measurements were correct.

“I just don’t want to think of the implications,” he told Reuters.

Could be a game-changer, or could get seamlessly absorbed into the dominant paradigm. But hopefully SOMEBODY wants to think of the implications.

Yeesh, these people are disgusting … this is a report from someone who attended a racist “ideas” conference, and if you want to know the sci-fi wet dreams of the supremacists, read on … Money quote:

Dickson, the elderly former lawyer to the Georgia Ku Klux Klan, espoused the most creative ethnostate scenario. First, he said, the government would need to adopt a plan to move every white person in Cuba to the state of Florida, where they would form a new city called “Havana Nueva.” Once this was accomplished, the government could begin to move all the black people in America down to Cuba. He made a point of assuring the audience that this forced resettlement would be executed “in a civilized way.”

Blech

Dude. Quit losing sleep: it’s not only wrong, it’s the stupidest fucking idea in the history of science (with the possible exception of Dark Energy), and I say that without equivocation.

Scientists working on the problem have recently expressed dismay at the universally negative results coming from the LHC, and this has led some to consider that the standard model may be wrong.

We essentially predicted this 10 years ago. The standard model is wrong. Stop trying to prop it up; go where the facts take you: Dark Matter is fucking stupid.

While not being that explicit, that does seem to be Shatner’s opinion. Here’s the money quote:

“The pretty girls were prettier than the girls in ‘Star Wars.’”

Computer, beam Counselor Troy to my quarters immediately.

Link to video. I have seen this sort of image passed off as a lake monster so I thought I’d mention it. The effect may remain for several minutes after the boat is out of sight and may be misinterpreted by the credulous or by those “primed to believe”.

Debunking Building 7.

Regarding WTC 7: The long-awaited US Government NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) report on the collapse of WTC 7 is due to be published at the end of this year (although it has been delayed already a few times [ adding fuel to the conspiracy theorists fires!]). That report should explain the cause and mechanics of the collapse in great detail. Early on the afternoon of September 11th 2001, following the collapse of WTC 1 & 2, I feared a collapse of WTC 7 (as did many on my staff).

The reasons are as follows:

1 - Although prior to that day high-rise structures had never collapsed, The collapse of WTC 1 & 2 showed that certain high-rise structures subjected to damage from impact and from fire will collapse.

2. The collapse of WTC 1 damaged portions of the lower floors of WTC 7.

3. WTC 7, we knew, was built on a small number of large columns providing an open Atrium on the lower levels.

4. numerous fires on many floors of WTC 7 burned without sufficient water supply to attack them.

For these reasons I made the decision (without consulting the owner, the mayor or anyone else - as ranking fire officer, that decision was my responsibility) to clear a collapse zone surrounding the building and to stop all activity within that zone. Approximately three hours after that order was given, WTC 7 collapsed.

Conspiracy theories abound and I believe firmly that all of them are without merit.

Regards, Dan Nigro
Chief of Department FDNY (retired)

More at link. Case closed.

ScienceDaily (Aug. 23, 2011) — Rice University researchers have created a solid-state, nanotube-based supercapacitor that promises to combine the best qualities of high-energy batteries and fast-charging capacitors in a device suitable for extreme environments.

Universe Has Catchy Beat, Tender Melody

Plus: Black Hole Eats Star

Also: Y Dwarf Stars Cold As Fuck

And: Planet Sparkle

Scientists geek out.

It may not rank as the most compelling reason to curb greenhouse gases, but reducing our emissions might just save humanity from a pre-emptive alien attack, scientists claim.

Watching from afar, extraterrestrial beings might view changes in Earth’s atmosphere as symptomatic of a civilisation growing out of control – and take drastic action to keep us from becoming a more serious threat, the researchers explain.

This highly speculative scenario is one of several described by a Nasa-affiliated scientist and colleagues at Pennsylvania State University that, while considered unlikely, they say could play out were humans and alien life to make contact at some point in the future.

A new study adds to the body of research suggesting that “man’s best friend” may actually be able to smell cancer. Researchers in Germany found that dogs were able to pick up on the scent of organic compounds linked to the presence of lung cancer in the human body, and that their keen sense of smell may be useful for the early detection of the disease.

IBM has been shipping computers for more than 65 years, and it is finally on the verge of creating a true electronic brain.Big Blue is announcing today that it, along with four universities and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), have created the basic design of an experimental computer chip that emulates the way the brain processes information.

DARPA funded electronic brains. What fun.