Elephant Hearts Dog

Elephant and dog as best friends. This is fracking amazing.

The Animal Odd Couple – CBS News Video

I Saved 500 Bucks Today. Saved, as in, ‘Didn’t Blow on an iPad’

Back off, Toby. I see that desirous look in your eyes.

I almost did it. I was in the Apple Store in Clarendon. My baby son Toby and I were taking our first look at the iPad. (Well, I was using the iPad. Toby was shouting “AAAGH! AAAGH!” with a big grin on his face.) I knew it would be dangerous. As I’ve already written, being someone who is plenty happy with his existing array of computing gadgets, I was going to try and resist the iPad’s siren song.

But then I played with it, and as I feared, it seemed as though I would be overwhelmed. It was so fast and smooth in execution. The iBooks app actually displayed text in a beautiful, very readable way. It really was fun to have a fully tactile interaction with the Web. And typing, even typing was great, particularly since I was used to the iPhone keyboard’s quirks and features. The iPad was a gorgeous, gorgeous device.

I called over the wife, who understood it was impressive, but was, as usual, not stirred in her soul. I tweeted that I wanted to persuade the wife to endorse the impulse purchase of the iPad. She seemed to be more acquiescent (I mean, it is my money after all). I could have done it. I almost did.

But I think I had something of a small revelation that only really dawned on me as the iPad lust began to filter itself out of my bloodstream. As I was tweeting to find moral support for my iPad lust, I was using my iPhone to do it. And I realized that the iPhone had everything I liked about the iPad: the speed, the interface, etc. I know this is not news or anything–feature for feature it’s well known that the two devices are extremely similar–but considering that the iPhone is always on my person and always connected to the Internet (unlike the WiFi iPad, which is all I’d ever be able to afford), has a camera that does still pictures and really decent video, it began to feel superior to the iPad in almost all ways, other than raw size (which, I admit, is a big deal).

So I fell in love with my iPhone 3GS once again. Love, that is, until the iPhone 4 comes out.

Dinosaur Fact

Dinosaur Fact

15 Seconds at a Time

A teaser for Star Wars, as remade by fans in 15-second increments. This is one of the coolest ideas I’ve heard of in a long time.

Star Wars Uncut “The Escape” (by Casey Pugh)

We’re Doomed

If a science teacher can’t even flatly state that the earth is 4.5 billion years old, not 6000, because philosophers will complain about epistomological boundaries, we’re doomed.

PZ Myers: I shall be no friend to the appeasers : Pharyngula

Oh Hai

There’s a cliche that I hear all the time, and that I despise because it is so trite — organizing atheists is like herding cats. I die a little inside every time I hear it because it is so old, but also because it is inaccurate. Everyone seems to picture masses of willful domestic cats wanting to scurry off to play with yarn or chase down mice; it’s just not right. Organizing atheists is like herding lions, or at least ideally it should be. What we want is a community of fiercely independent, roaring, wrestling, arguing, fighting freethinkers; cross them, and you will get rhetorically mauled, and our battles are not about polite batting about with little kitty paws at issues, but should involve claws and fangs and uncompromising forcefulness. Everyone who is complaining that the harshness of the debate degrades the discourse, get stuffed; I think the call to weaken the vigor of the disagreement is the real degradation here.

PZ Myers: I shall be no friend to the appeasers : Pharyngula

Settled

Is it likely that a man from the provinces with a limited education and a head for business wrote the plays of Shakespeare? In one sense, no — in the sense that it’s not likely that anyone could have written those plays, since they constitute some of the most amazing productions of the human mind. That they exist at all is a miracle. But if you go through the records of the theatrical companies of the era, and you listen to the testimony of people like Ben Jonson who knew Shakespeare as man and poet, and you scrutinize the surviving versions of the plays, I don’t see how you could come to any other conclusion than this: Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare.

Text Patterns: Who wrote Shakespeare?

As Opposed to Reindeer Games

We should create a competitive climate for investment and for renewables and alternatives that are economical and doable and none of this snake oil science stuff that is based on this global warming, Gore-gate stuff that came down where there was revelation that the scientists, some of these scientists were playing political games.

Sweet fat son of a bitch.

Sarah Palin, as quoted in “Palin: America does not need ‘this snake oil science stuff’” — Raw Story

Read on a Screen All Day

The iPad is emphatically not a serious readers’ device: the only people who would genuinely consider it a Kindle killer are those for whom the idea of reading for pleasure died years ago; if it was ever alive. The people who will spout bullshit like “I read on screen all day” when what they really mean is “I read the first three paragraphs of the New York Times article I saw linked on Twitter before retweeting it; and then I repeat that process for the next eight hours while pretending to work.” That’s reading in the way that rubbing against women on the subway is sex.

I Admit It, The iPad Is A Kindle Killer. I Just Wish It Weren’t Going To Kill Reading Too

Geek/Veg

Modern English has given us two terms we need to explain this phenomenon: “geeking out” and “vegging out.” To geek out on something means to immerse yourself in its details to an extent that is distinctly abnormal – and to have a good time doing it. To veg out, by contrast, means to enter a passive state and allow sounds and images to wash over you without troubling yourself too much about what it all means.

Neal Stephenson – Turn On, Tune In, Veg Out – New York Times