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Topics - Iason Ouabache

#151
http://www.periodicvideos.com/#

Interesting site from the University of Nottingham.  They do a short video on every single element.  I haven't watched all of them yet but the ones I have watched were interesting.
#152
Or Kill Me / Children of Chaos
July 13, 2008, 03:39:56 AM
You are not supposed to be here.  You are a cosmic fluke of the universe.  You are an accident of epic proportions.  Figuring the odds of your existence would require more decimals places than a normal pocket calculator would allow. Just determining the odds of life forming on earth is enough to make your head reel.

And yet, you are still here.  Not because of fate or destiny or karma.  You are here because someone had to be here.  Something had to exist eventually and it might as well be you. We exist in defiance of the universe.

And believe it or not, that is a good thing.  The universe doesn't get to tell us why we exist or what we are supposed to do while we are here.  We get to make our own purpose and our own paths. Fuck anyone who tries to get in our way.

We are the Children of Chaos.  Born of Disorder. Against the odds and because of the odds.
#153
I know that this is an oooolllddd subject and isn't technology, but the Skeptoid podcast had an episode on Reverse Speech and pareidolia last month.  Pareidolia is a very good scientific explanation of the Law of Fives.

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4105

QuotePareidolia is the perceptual phenomenon by which we perceive familiar patterns in disorder. It is the brain's incredible computing power that lets us recognize people, understand language, and read handwriting. For the brain to have this capability, it necessarily results in the ability to perceive patterns where none in fact exists. Most of us can say "Hey, that tree bark looks like Ernest Borgnine," without actually concluding that Ernest Borgnine has somehow become a tree. Our intelligence allows us to not make that mistake. But sometimes a horse might see a garden hose on the ground; its pareidolia tells it that it's a snake, but it lacks sufficient intelligence to overcome the instinctive recognition. I'm not saying that reverse speech believers lack intelligence, only that they lack critical thinking skills; because there is a genuine gray area where it's hard to tell if a pattern is accidental or deliberate. But speech is a deliberate speaking action, so the reverse speech advocates do have a point they can make. It's not an accident of nature like the tree bark, speech is the deliberate result of a speaker's brain communicating. What the reverse speech advocates are missing is that the well-known, well-understood, and well-evidenced phenomenon of pareidolia is a much more reasonable, simple, and probable explanation for why we can often perceive patterns in meaningless noise, in this case reverse speech.
#154
Literate Chaotic / Psychic Mafia
June 30, 2008, 07:11:22 AM
http://mihd.net/2li76zh
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3748334/The-Psychic-Mafia

What is it that compels a person, past all reason, to believe the unbelievable? How can an otherwise sane individual become so enamored of a fantasy, an importure, that even after it's exposed in the bright light of day, he still clings to it - indeed, clings to it all the harder?

M. Lamar Keene, who came to be known as the "Prince of the Spiritualists", enjoyed the riches and fame that accompany a life of a sought-after medium. He claimed to be clairvoyant and to produce objects out of thin air. He conducted séances in which participants talked with and even touched the dead.

Yet every miracle Keene performed was a fraud, a lie and a trick played on willing, gullible victims. In this powerful and brutally honest book, Keene exposes the secrets of the séance room, including ghostly apparitions, floating trumpets, "spirit sex", and other tricks used by mediums to exploit believers.

Originally published in 1976 and long out of print, this classic work is a fast-paced autobiographical account of a confessed charlatan who was one of the first mediums to admit his deception. The Psychic Mafia offers an incredible look inside the world of fraudulent spiritualists by a man who rose to the top of a tawdry and lucrative business before he chose to renounce it all.


Sage Edit to add Scridb link.
#155
Principia Discussion / Shortest Definition
June 26, 2008, 02:16:30 AM
I really really really hate it when people ask me what religion I am.  Mostly because Discordianism is such an obscure religion that not many people know about. But the main problem I have is that it is almost impossible to describe to someone in just a couple of sentences.  It usually takes about 5 minutes of explaining and/or throwing a copy of the PD at their head. 

So here is the challenge I presenting to all of you:  What is the shortest explanation of Discordianism that you can give?  I'm not asking what Discordianism means to you. We've got plenty of other threads about that.  I want a short universal definition that I can spit out and get people off of my back.

Ok, ready?  Go!
#156
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14094-bacteria-make-major-evolutionary-shift-in-the-lab.html?DCMP=ILC-hmts&nsref=news1_head_dn14094


QuoteTwenty years ago, evolutionary biologist Richard Lenski of Michigan State University in East Lansing, US, took a single Escherichia coli bacterium and used its descendants to found 12 laboratory populations.

The 12 have been growing ever since, gradually accumulating mutations and evolving for more than 44,000 generations, while Lenski watches what happens.

Mostly, the patterns Lenski saw were similar in each separate population. All 12 evolved larger cells, for example, as well as faster growth rates on the glucose they were fed, and lower peak population densities.

But sometime around the 31,500th generation, something dramatic happened in just one of the populations – the bacteria suddenly acquired the ability to metabolise citrate, a second nutrient in their culture medium that E. coli normally cannot use.

Indeed, the inability to use citrate is one of the traits by which bacteriologists distinguish E. coli from other species. The citrate-using mutants increased in population size and diversity.

"It's the most profound change we have seen during the experiment. This was clearly something quite different for them, and it's outside what was normally considered the bounds of E. coli as a species, which makes it especially interesting," says Lenski.

The even funnier part of this is that human stain/founder of Conservapedia Andy Schlafly accused Lenski of fraud and demanded to see all of the raw data.  He promptly got pwned in the face!!!

http://acandidworld.wordpress.com/2008/06/24/beneficial-mutations-in-bacteria-wherein-conservapedia-is-pwned-take-ii-andy-schlaflys-lawyer-gambit-fails/
#157
GASM Command / PrintGASM
June 24, 2008, 07:52:05 PM
If you've been following the Memebomb thread then you saw that I was able to get 3 of our memebombs printed in the Indianapolis Star's Let It Out column a short time ago. Roughly 200,000 people were able to see our memebombs in print.

This got me thinking that maybe we should push this idea further. Several other papers have sections like Let It Out which is basically a low tech message board.  Other papers have sections in the classifieds where you can place non-advertisement messages very cheap (or for free).  If we want to be really adventurous we could even start writing letters to the editor on relevant issues with a couple of memebombs sprinkled in the middle.  If anyone here knows anyone in who actually works in at a newspaper we could try to convince a journalist to even slip a few phrases in. 

Anyone else have suggestions with what we can do with this?
#158
The number one thing Christianity gets so wrong is this whole business of determinism.  They often repeat the mantra of "Everything happens for a reason" or "God's Got a Plan" or sing little songs like "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands".  This is the biggest thing I had a problem with when I was still a Christian.  As a philosophy it completely denies the very existence of Chaos.  Everything has a reason or a purpose.  Nothing is out of place, nothing is superfluous.  Every part does something.  They use these little sayings as a security blanket to protect themselves from reality. They want Someone Else to be in control.  They want it all to make sense on some cosmic level. They want their narrative where Good eventually triumphs over Evil. 

Well, guess what.  The Universe doesn't give a fuck what we want. The word "purpose" is a literary fiction.  It's a grid that we place on our own reality to help us sleep at night.  We decide the purpose of something, not God. There is no Cause. There is no Effect. Everything is probabilistic. Whatever happens, happens. Whatever doesn't happen, doesn't.

The problem is that they can't see the glory in being a happy little accident of the cosmos.  The odds are incredibly stacked against you ever existing, and yet you are still here.  The powers of CHAOS and ORDER conspired to bring you where you are today.  It's not God who has you in His Hands, it's Eris. And She is ready to drop us at any time.
#159
Techmology and Scientism / OMG, WTF! LAG!
June 18, 2008, 08:10:13 AM
http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/080602-foresee-future.html

Scientists have figured out one of the reasons that optical illusions play such weird tricks with our brains:  we have a 1/10 of a second neural lag between our eyes and our brains.  Our brains compensate for this by trying to predict what will happen next.  Hence why we have problems seeing lines in some optical illusions and why it looks like certain illusions appear to be moving when they are actually static.
#160
Techmology and Scientism / OFC Approved
May 24, 2008, 04:47:57 PM
Found an interesting torrent on Mininova with about 270 popular science books (2.5 GB worth).  I'm still in the middle of downloading it, so I haven't sifted through all of it yet.  I know that not everyone here can do torrents so if you see anything on there that you want just let me know.

http://www.mininova.org/tor/1414061
#161
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11326188

For sheer adrenaline, the new computer game "foldit", does not match the likes of "Grand Theft Auto IV". But for the world's obsessive problem solvers, a three-dimensional Tetris which allows them to help design a new life-saving vaccine seems certain to be a hit.

"foldit" is the latest incarnation of a project, called Rosetta@home, that uses spare computer time, via a screensaver, to work out how proteins fold. Proteins are the building blocks of life inside cells; they are first made as long chains of molecules and work properly only after they have folded into their final shape. But understanding the rules of protein folding remains one of biology's central problems.

The existing program uses trial and error, and pre-programmed mathematical rules that govern folding as understood today. But users of the screensaver told David Baker, a biochemist at the University of Washington and lead scientist on Rosetta@home, they could do better. So Dr Baker, Zoran Popovic, a computer scientist at the University of Washington, and graduate students Seth Cooper and Adrien Treuille set about creating a compelling computer game.

Players use their computers to fold proteins. The more chemically stable the folded protein becomes, the more points the players are awarded. In trials of the game hundreds of players were given 40 protein puzzles to solve (for the trials, the folding solutions were already known). Many of the best players were not scientists but were able to find the correct structure faster than computers.

The next big step will be to give players proteins for which the optimal folding is not known. They will then be doing cutting-edge research in protein-structure prediction. If all goes well, the game will move on to protein design this summer, by including options that allow players to modify sections of the protein. This will allow them to design a protein that blocks the action of a virus.

Although this may strike some as a remarkable bit of scientific outsourcing, the group is adamant that players who make breakthroughs will share in the scientific glory. This places parents of young "foldit" enthusiasts in a quandary: should they tell their children to stop playing games and get on with their homework, or encourage them to continue playing and possibly share in a Nobel prize?


http://fold.it
#162
Techmology and Scientism / Science Podcasts
May 14, 2008, 07:30:00 AM
I've gotten into listening to a lot of podcasts on my Zune lately and thought that I'd share a few of the better science podcasts with the rest of you:

The Naked Scientists:  http://www.thenakedscientists.com/   Sadly, not as much nudity as advertised.  It's a pretty good podcast from a bunch of scientists from Cambridge University.  Good at covering science news and Kitchen Science is always fun for O:MF ideas. 

The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe:  http://www.theskepticsguide.org/  Run by the New England Skeptical Society. Interesting topics but not always about science.  Interviews are very well done.  Plus Rebecca Watson is hawt!

Point of Inquiry:  http://www.pointofinquiry.org/  Podcast of The Center of Inquiry.  Typically about atheism/humanism but they have had a few good science shows (especially loved the one with Neil deGrasse Tyson).  They lean heavily toward militant atheism, which can get annoying after awhile.

This Week in Science:  http://www.twis.org/  Haven't actually been able to listen to any episodes yet, but heard an interview with host Kirsten Sanford on The Skeptic's Guide.  I'll let you know my opinion when I get a chance to hear it.

Anyone else here like podcasts and got any good recommendations?
#163
Techmology and Scientism / Weird "coincidences"
April 22, 2008, 06:45:58 AM
Not sure if anyone has been paying attention to the Midwest lately, but some very very odd things have been happening in the last week.  On Wednesday night of last week (the 16th) there was an odd streak going across the sky in central Indiana.  The official word from the government is that it was a pair of F-16 flying too close to the sky, but a couple of my coworkers who saw it said that it looked more like a long streak of light.

A little less than 2 day after that (early Friday morning), a series of earthquakes started with an epicenter roughly 5 miles away from my hometown.  Several of the quakes have been over 4.5 on the Richter scale.  (All of these were along the Wabash Fault Line, btw.) 

In the way of coincidences, I happened to read this section of RAW's Prometheus Rising this afternoon:

QuoteI once proposed in a magazine article that the UFO is caused by some unusual electromagnetic or gravitational field fluctuation; and that this geophysical anomaly creates (a) real energy disturbances - jumping furniture, electrical failures, ball-lightning making odd lights in the sky, etc. and (b) disturbances in the brain functioning of animals and humans in the afflicted area, causing the well-documented animal panics and the rather obvious human hallucinations occurring in such areas.

Seems like a very plausibly explanation, especially since I also heard this on The Naked Scientists' podcast from April 13th just the night before:

QuoteScientists in China are investigating the possibility that seismic events might trigger the creation of strange cloud formations.

Anvil shaped cumulus cloud, February 2007Writing in the International Journal of Remote Sensing, Chinese scientists Guangmeng Guo and Bin Wang from Nanyang Normal University in Henan report that about 60 days before each of the two magnitude 6 earthquakes that struck Iran in 2004 and 2005 respectively, a gap hundreds of kilometres long appeared in the clouds over the main fault in the south of the country.  The gap remained in place, despite the surrounding clouds all moving, and thermal images showed that the ground around the fault was warmer than the surrounding areas.  The Chinese researchers suggest that hot gases escaping from the active fault could have caused water in the overlying clouds to evaporate.


It's sorta freaking me out how all of this information hit me at the exact time that the  two natrual events happened. A bit of scinchronicity, if you will.
#164
Or Kill Me / The First Church of the Holy Lie
April 12, 2008, 09:02:28 AM
You are a liar.

Yes, you.  You and every single other human on this planet.  All of us have told some lie or another at some time in their life.  A little white lie here, a small fib there, a sin of omission every now and then. Why do we do it?  Because we can't help ourselves. We lie to our friends to make them feel better.  We lie to our enemies to place traps in their way.  But most of all we lie to ourselves to protect us from the bitter truth.

Now, imagine what would happen if every single person on this planet had to tell the absolute truth for one day.  Every man, woman, and child. Every politician and lawyer. Every priest and holy man. Every salesman and haggler. What would happen? How many marriage would be destroyed? How many wars would be started? How many people would riot in the streets? Would all of society be reduced to rubble in less than a day? Maybe we need all of these little white lies and slight embellishments to glue our civilization together.

Being honest is over-rated.
#165
Principia Discussion / Agnostic Prayer
March 20, 2008, 07:34:34 AM
Blatantly stolen from somewhere else:

The Nutter's Prayer to the Agnostic Goddesses Ida Know, Inat Sure, and May Bea.

Great Agnostic Goddesses, I pray thee and beseech thee to deliver me from the idiotic certainty as to whether or not undetectable, omnipotent sky-thingies are there. Bless me with the wisdom to see that gods, goddesses, skybullies, ghosts and space aliens are all equally viable explanations for why weird things happen in this world. Let me not be locked into unimaginative scientific thinking ALL the FRIGGEN time, because sometimes it's fun to believe in dragons. We ask this of you in the name of our lord and saviour, Whatshisname "Bob"

Amen
#166
Discordian Recipes / Fried Brain Sandwich
February 20, 2008, 10:09:16 AM
Here's a little local recipe for ya.

1  lb    Pork brains (used to be beef brains, but they are almost impossible to get due to mad cow disease)
1      Egg, beaten    
1/2  c    Flour    
1/2  ts    Baking powder    
Salt to taste    
Pepper to taste

Soak brains in salt water a short time.
Cover with clear water and remove membrane.
Drain; beat in other ingredients with spoon. If too thin, add a small amount of flour; if too thick, add small amount of milk.
Fry on griddle until well done, turning once.
Serve on buns, of course.

Should be served with a side of squirrel burgoo and a bottle of Double Cola.  Followed by a fried candy bar for dessert.