Coming soon…
Oct 212015
Oct 212015
Had to happen sometime; 14 seasons is a pretty good run. I suppose this’ll clear up some room on the schedule to squeeze in another paranormal investigation show. Maybe a “reality” series about some family of mutants or something.
Mythbusters to end with final season
Oct 212015
I’m hardly alone in pointing this out, but today, October 21, 2015, is the day that Doc and Marty traveled to in “Back to the Future II.” Sure, we don’t have hoverboards or flying cars, and you’re hardly likely to have Frodo tell you that your latest Playstation or Xbox is like a baby’s toy, but hey, at least we got Facebook.
Oct 202015
Remember the kid who took apart an old clock, glued it into a pencil case, trolled his school, collected a bunch of swag and met with the Presidents of Sudan and the US? Guess what…
Ahmed Mohamed Reportedly Moving to Qatar
Well, have fun with that.
Of course, Clockmed has a history of hoaxes and pranks, so who knows.
Oct 202015
Life May Have Gotten Started On Earth Almost Immediately
A tiny, tiny piece of graphite has been analyzed and shown to have possibly been produced biologically. Nothing new there… micro-organisms produce graphite just through the natural course of things. The neat bit here, though, is that the chunk of graphite has been dated to 4.1 billion years ago.
The graphite in question was trapped within a western Australian zircon crystal formed during the Hadean period (4.6 to 4.0 billion years ago, when Earth was, as the name suggests, a molten Hell hole, with asteroids and comets regularly plunging out of the sky).
If this is an actual sign of life 4.1 billion years old, it’s a sign that life had evolved (or arrived) on Earth within 500 million years of Earth coalescing from a primordial cloud, and 400 million years after the impact that created the Moon. This pushes up the appearance of life in the geological record by several hundred million years. This indicates that either life is more readily evolvable than previously thought, or perhaps was drifting around in space even earlier. Either explanation would mean that the chances of life elsewhere in the universe are increased.
Here’s a link to the official paper:
Oct 202015
A month or so ago there was a stampede at the “Stoning of the Devil” event at the Hajj-land theme park in Mecca. At the time the death toll was reported in the hundreds. Seems like it might’ve been under reported.
Stampede At Hajj In Saudi Arabia Reportedly Killed At Least 2,177
This is approximately 2/3 the death toll of 9/11 (or about 1.5 Titanics). All because some people wanted to chuck some rocks at some posts.
The article suggests that the Iranian government claims the death toll is over 4,700.
The Saudi government seems pretty blase about a death toll that would be considered horrific had it occurred in the civilized world. This therefore reminds me of a thought I expressed some time back… if someone wanted to create the greatest carnage possible via biological warfare (spreading plague or smallpox or ebola or some such), Mecca during the hajj would seem to be the prime target. *Vast* numbers of people from all over the third world, packed in tightly for a short period and then re-distributed back out into the world. Given how little the local government cares about the health and wellbeing of the visitors, it seems that spreading a horrifying disease should be relatively straightforward and easy. It seems like even if the Saudis found out about an ongoing plot to spread ebola (say by way of handheld “misters” with tainted water), they’d probably not do much of anything terribly effective to deal with it. Probably get the moneybags hajjis out of harms way and leave the peons to their fate, hoping they all get home before they get sick and keel over.
With that, it might be time for modern nations to consider an automatic quarantine period for anyone returning from Mecca.
Oct 202015
Buttons had to go back to the vet yesterday; his fur-pulling has reached epic proportions, to the point where he has stripped bare patches on his hind feet. So he needed another steroid shot to reduce his itching. On the way there he made clear his displeasure at being stuck in the carrier, so for a brief period I let him out to look at the world go by.
Oct 192015
I’ve seen this vehicle bopping around from time to time, but this morning was the first time I’ve seen it stopped where I could get some photos of it. I have no doubt it’s a bit of a gas guzzler, but it does look like a fun family vehicle.
Oct 192015
An Airbus A319 took off from Santiago, Chili, on October 14, and promptly lost both port engine cowl doors. Probably weren’t properly latched down. Whoopsie!
ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 180383
9:38 Carcasa de turbina se desprende en pleno vuelo a Copiapó. Avión SKY w112 se devolvió a Stgo @reddeemergencia pic.twitter.com/Ey8PZcI3RP
— Informaciones Chile (@InformacionesCL) October 14, 2015
Oct 192015
Guess what city this happened in. Go on, guess.
Pastor kills brick-wielding man during church service
During a service, a guy went after the preacher with a brick. But the preacher had a Glock, and plugged him four or five times. The guy might’ve been bugnuts, there may have been a love triangle between the guy, the preacher and the guys wife. Or both.
Classy!