Month: February 2006

Funeral Homes Sold Body Parts in ‘Ghastly’ Case

I’m not even sure I can say much about this. I’ll have to just put some of the information from the article down instead.

NEW YORK (AP)—The owner of a biomedical supply house and three others were charged with selling body parts for use in transplants in a scheme a district attorney called “something out of a cheap horror movie.”

Prosecutors said Thursday the defendants made millions of dollars obtaining bodies from funeral parlors in three states and forging death certificates and organ donor consent forms to make it look as if the bones, skin, tendons, heart valves and other tissue were legally removed.

Science myths

Here’s an interesting set of myths and truths in science. I’ll just start with the first one I saw:

It takes seven years to digest gum

While it may prove a bit more difficult to break down than organic foodstuffs, chewing gum gets no special treatment from the digestive system. Doctors figure this old wives’ tale was invented to prevent kids from swallowing the rubbery substance.

and another interesting one for anyone with kids:

The five second rule

Having an arbitrary rule justifying the consumption of food dropped on the floor within a certain time frame is convenient, especially when said food is a brownie. Unfortunately, tests (and logic) confirm that germs will stick to most foods right on contact.

[tags]Science, myths[/tags]

Bark at the moon – Guitar Hero savant

If you are a gamer, you’ve probably heard of Guitar Hero.  And if you’ve read much about it, you’ve probably heard people talking about how hard the hard level is.  If you have any doubts, check out this video by some insanely great Guitar Hero savant.  The image quality isn’t great, but it’s enough to get an idea of how hard this is.  Every time one of the circles at the bottom of the screen lights up, this guy has to hit a key on the guitar controller.  That’s fast, and tough. (via Dubious Quality)

[tags]Guitar Hero, Bark at the Moon, gaming[/tags]

The real reason blogging is hard

As someone who is just getting in to maintaining a web site and trying to keep it active, I completely understand this article. I’ve tried doing web sites in the past, but always ran out of steam within a few weeks. Blahblahblahg is the first I’ve kept going and stayed interested in maintaining for a more extended time period. And reading the linked article does say pretty much what I’m finding true. And I’m not even running a real blog yet – more a link to other sites and comment briefly on them when it interests me site.

Day in and day out, day after day, night after night, you have to keep working. Read, write, comment. Over and over. A lot of the time, it comes natural and it’s fun, but sometimes it doesn’t and it isn’t.

. . .

So What Does It Mean?

It just means that like a lot of things, blogging is hard. It’s hard for all the reasons we’ve talked about over the past few months: because of the gatekeepers, because of the people who whine about the gatekeepers, because someone didn’t answer our email, because somebody else sent us an email, because of the blog networks, in spite of the blog networks, because some of our posts are boring, because the RIAA is suing dead grannies.

But mostly it’s hard because of the grind.

If you have ever thought about running a blog-type web site, read this and see if you are still interested.

[tags]Blogs, blogging[/tags]

Unsurprising headline of the day…

This from Live Science:

Sex Still Satisfying For Men In Their 50s

Call Guiness. I don’t think anyone could have predicted that! More from the article:

Despite weakened sex drives and flagging erections, men in their 50s enjoy sex almost as much as those in their 20s.

The 30s seem to be a time of disappointment.

Researchers in Norway surveyed 1,185 men aged between 20 and 79 about various aspects of their sex lives, including drive, erections and ejaculations. The men were asked to rate their satisfaction with each aspect on a scale of zero to four, with four representing good sexual function and no problems.

The average scores for men in their …

20s: 2.79
50s: 2.77
30s: 2.55
40s: 2.72

As a man in his 30s, let me just say I’m not so sure I’d call the 30s a time of disappoinment. This study makes it look like the 40s and 50s could be better, but calling the 30s a time of disappointment sounds like a headline grab to me.

[tags]Science, Sex, Satisfaction[/tags]

Classic Sierra games re-released

Headline stolen directly from Joystiq.  I don’t have any more information than what is in the Joystiq article, but you can bet I’ll be watching for these.  Full article follows.  Hit the article for links to Amazon listings of these compilations.

Point and click adventure gamers rejoice! If you’ve been struggling to (legally) complete your collection of Sierra classics, Vivendi Universal is finally ready to give you just such a chance. They are releasing “compilations” of King’s Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, and Leisure Suit Larry, available March 30th through Amazon, Target, and who knows where else.

There is almost no other information about the compilations, except that they run on Windows XP. Have they been ported or are they running through an emulation layer like Sarien? Does the compilation include all the games in the respective series? At $20 each, this could be a great way to build that collection. Then they’ll just need to release Gabriel Knight and Quest for Glory… then maybe LucasArts will get in on it…

[tags]Sierra, Retro gaming, Classic adventures[/tags]

A fashion don’t tip

Trey Stone and Matt Parker

Normally, I wouldn’t even want to admit looking at an Academy Awards fashion page of do and don’t tips, but I couldn’t pass this one up. I remember this event. I remember everyone talking about it. What really makes this worth pointing out is the caption for the picture:

DON’T… let sunglasses ruin an otherwise elegant outfit.
(Matt Stone & Trey Parker in 2000)

And here is the original dress that set up the above picture.

J.Lo Versace Dress

[tags]Academy Awards, Do and Don’t fashion tips, Matt Stone, Trey Parker[/tags]

A computer only a geek could love

digi_big3.jpg
I know you are tired of hearing this, but man, I need to get one of these. I don’t think my wife would approve, though. (via Engadget)

No doubt about it, the original Digi-Comp I is a rare item——in more ways than one. For example, there’s the Yahoo group FriendsOfDigiComp… How many other educational toys can boast their own Internet fan club? Remarkable, considering Digi-Comp is over 40 years old and has been off the market for at least 30… Which explains why the originals (if you can find any) are so scarce, commanding $100 or more on eBay.

But perhaps the rarest thing about Digi-Comp is the combination of hands-on and minds-on fun it affords. It definitely still has things to teach*, like Boolean logic and problem-solving… and it’s rewarding to build and use. That’s why Minds-On Toys decided to reintroduce it in an affordable kit format, with a thorough and professional revamp of the original documentation.

[tags]Digicomp, 3-bit computer, Kit computer[/tags]

Top 10 reasons geeks…

Here’s a set of 3 top 10 lists about geeks.

1) …make great fathers

  • LEGOS. The Geek is really more of a Man-Child than an adult. In their minds, they are still 10. They freakin’ still love to play with their legos, and have never grown up. I have one friend, WHO WILL REMAIN NAMELESS, that still has legos in his room. He doesn’t have kids. Just legos. Of course, my children love legos and Steve will lovingly spend hours playing legos with them.

2) …aren’t easy to be married to

  • MEMORY. Their minds are complete and utter LINT TRAPS. Not steel traps, LINT TRAPS. They capture all kinds of useless crap and store it up there. He can remember all the characters in a book he read when he was 8 years old but he can only remember 2 of the 3 things he was supposed to get at the grocery store. He can remember the date of Nolan Ryan’s no hitter, but he can’t remember our anniversary. He remembers every battle of WWII, but can’t remember what he gave me for a wedding present.

3) …make great friends

  • I like the fact that Geeks have no pretense of social norms. They will invite you over to their house to play board games or D&D, never realizing the rest of the world plays poker or drinks.

[tags]Top 10, geeks[/tags]