Thursday, October 30, 2008

...and Six to Eight Black Men.


About 15 minutes long, in three parts, but utterly worth it:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

This is excellent marketing!

I could survive for -EVER! chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor Got this from Garit's blog.
I jacked the script and added my own, more correct and awesome answer (they thought I would only survive 57 seconds! Which is clearly in error). Also, I took out the link to their website... but, still, clever marketing.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Cashing Out: The End of an Era.

The deed is done.
We have sold our WoW accounts for $480. I really didn't think we would get that much, but it worked out really well. With the new expansion on the horizon, gear is less of an issue and peoples interest in WoW has been revitalized. Suddenly 4 poorly geared 70's became a worthwhile commodity.

Money in the bank, baby. Now to convince my wife to gimme some of that money to upgrade my computer so I can play WAR!

Which I do every day.... for hours....

Saturday, October 25, 2008

You are Challenged!!!

I took the Geek Test and scored a just shy of 50%, putting me on the winners end of Super Geekdom. CAN YOU DO THE SAME!? I think not, but to prove myself as reigning Geek-King (see below post), I need you all to bathe in the shame of your mediocre geeklessness.

Note that the test is very long. It is, however, also totally hilarious and worth it.

If anyone can gain a higher score than myself I will dedicate a whole blog in prostrate submission to your utter geekhood and my pathetic inferiority. Please don't cheat. I didn't. I am only really worried about Sam at this point... and I am hoping he doesn't work up the gumption to take me on.

One of the questions in there gives you geek points if you you listen to Ween! HAHAHA! Can you believe that? Well, that and seeing A-ron again has rekindled my old love.

...and here on my blog I am empowered to subject my friends to it. Behold, my Ween playlist for your casual enjoyment. These songs are hand-selected by myself. The first four tracks are required listening... the rest is for those who loved what they heard.

WARNING: I highly disrecommend delving further than this into the madness that is Ween. They are actually quite crude and offensive at times. To sensitive or principled folk they are a musical minefield that ought not be traversed.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Hail the Geek-Kings of Plato's Nerdy Republic.


Physical scientists and biologists were the first individuals to use energy flows to explain social and economic development. Joseph Henry, an American physicist and first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, remarked that the "fundamental principle of political economy is that the physical labor of man can only be ameliorated by ...the transformation of matter from a crude state to a artificial condition...by expending what is called power or energy."

The biologist-philosopher Herbert Spencer observed that human systems have the unique ability to temporarily halt and even reverse the spontaneous increase of entropy by tapping energy flows in nature. Spencer likened the evolutionary process, both biological and social, to the entropy law because the struggle for existence was a struggle for available energy and resources. Spencer stated that "evolution is a change from a less coherent form to a more coherent form, consequent on the dissipation of energy and the integration of matter."

There were a variety of Technocratic groups and organisations in a number of countries with a number of scientists, writers and others connected to ideas of thermoeconomics, bioeconomics and non-market economics. These ideas developed into the concept of an Energy Accounting based system, as opposed to a price system and the idea of a scientific social design based on thermodynamics. Technocracy Incorporated predominated these groups as to notability and popularity. That group became a popular social movement during the 1930's and is still active today. This group calls itself an educational and research organisation and continues to advocate a technate design for North America.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Thinking about Gretchen... Dying.


So, I was driving along State Street, Orem, at 5:30 this morning, and I was suddenly struck with one of those moments. I imagined that some incident left me dead on the side of the road. What would happen? I thought about it and ran through the scenario as I tend to do

...but, honestly, for whatever reason I was somewhat disinterested in it.

Then, I thought about what would happen if Gretchen died... and suddenly I was struck with how my life might be should she die. I was late for work, having driven around aimlessly, lost in this scenario. I really didn't think of the emotional trauma or sadness that might be involved, although I was always acutely aware of it.

My first thought: Exercise. I would have to lose weight! That's seriously the first thing that I thought of. Then I thought of Haven, and whether or not I could raise her alone... and when I would have to have help with her, and who I would seek it from. I thought of the sickness of uncertainty and how I would never have been uncertain alone before but how desperately frightened I would be having lost.

Then I thought finding someone else, which was the most sickening thought of all. I suddenly felt the distance in my associations and realized how utterly pathetic our attempts at connecting with others so often are. We really don't see each other, and I knew that attempting to reforge such a connection with someone... which would have been intriguing to me before I was married... would seem such a useless game to me now.

All in all it was quite a downer, but useful in that it has, at least for a few moments, allowed me to see a few aspects of my life in a new light. It was interesting.

Existence is a vulgar absurdity...


I love the Onion.

π! Mmmm... I love π!!


Interesting Pi Facts

  • You can determine your hat size by measuring the circumference of your head, then divide by Pi Pi or 3.1415, and round off to the nearest one-eighth inch.
  • The height of an elephant (from foot to shoulder) = 2 x Pi x the diameter of its foot.
  • It is more accurate to say that a circle has an infinite number of corners than it is to say it has no corners.
  • One of the more accurate fractions for pi is 104348/33215. It is accurate to 0.00000001056%.
  • The Babylonians, in 2000 B.C.E., were the first people known to find a value for Pi.
  • The Bible uses the value of 3 for Pi. This verse comes from 1 Kings 7:23: "And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from brim to brim: it was round all about, and its height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass about it."
  • If you were to type one billion decimals of Pi, they would stretch from New York City to the middle of Kansas.
  • People once thought that trying to square the circle was an illness called Morbus Cyclometricus.
  • To calculate the circumference of the known universe, you would only have to use 39 decimals of Pi and be off by one proton.
  • Half of the circumference of a circle with a diameter of 2 is Pi. The area inside the circle is also Pi Pi or 3.1415.
  • The most accurate version of Pi was by Dr. Kanada of the University of Tokyo calculated the value of Pi to 206,158,430,000 places in September 1999, surpassing the previous record by more than 150 billion digits.
  • The most inaccurate version of Pi In 1897, the General Assembly of Indiana enacted Bill No. 246, stating that Pi was just plain 4.
  • Memorizing Pi On February 18, 1995, Hiroyuki Goto of Tokyo, Japan recited Pi Pi or 3.1415 to 42,195 places at the NHK Broadcasting Center, Tokyo.
  • Pi and Atmospheric Pressure ... Jonathan Bradshaw points out that standard atmospheric pressure is defined to be P= 0.101325 MPa (this is a human-defined value, which is approximately the average pressure at sea level.) Curiously, if you take the square root of this number and then divide 1 by the result (the reciprocal of the value), you get 3.14153.
 

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