Frosty turns out to be a dirty, nasty little grade schooler:

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Posted by: Physics Geek at 02:15 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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It's a great cause. A really, really great cause.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 02:56 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Yeah, it's an oldie, but it's still on my list of favorite holiday repeats.
===========================================

CHRISTMAS INFO MEMO 12/21
IT CAME UPON A SERVER CLEAR...
***************************************************
Archaeologists working in the Holy Land have discovered an ancient
diskette mixed up with the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Here is what they found on the diskette:

Date: Mon, 2 Dec

To: all@gol.com

From: Caesar_Augustus@Rome.gov

Subject: Taxes, Census

I decree that all the inhabited world shall be counted and taxed. You must
every one go unto your own city.
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Date: Wed, 4 Dec

To: Inn@Bethlehem.com

From: nazrthjosph@gol.com

Subject: Reservations

Please reserve room for two, perhaps three, for December 24 to
January 6.
------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 6 Dec

To: nazrthjosph@gol.com

From: Inn@Bethlehem.com

Subject: RE: Reservations

Sorry, no room available. We've got the Hanukkah rush and the census crowd.
Thank heaven Athens beat us out for the Olympics this year! Why not come in
the off-season and get our special rate? Anyway, if you have a forms-capable
browser, you can register for the census and pay your taxes on the Med Wide Web
at http://mww.Caesar.gov/render.html.
------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 8 Dec

To: Inn@Bethlehem.com

From: nazrthjosph@gol.com

Subject: RE: RE: Reservations

Forms-capable browser? You must be kidding! It'll probably take
Galilee OnLine a couple of thousand years to work out access like
that. Please place us on waiting list for room.
------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 23 Dec

To: Inn@Bethlehem.com

From: healthdept@ci.beth.judea

Subject: Temporary Permit

Due to the crush of taxpayers and holiday visitors, you are hereby
granted a permit to use your stable, barn, or any agricultural outbuildings
for temporary lodging or shelter for up to 30 days from this date.

Address any appeals to:
Herod@Jerusalem.gov
ATTN: Manger Manager
-----------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 25 Dec

To: Webmaster@houseofdavid.net

From: nazrthjosph@gol.com

Subject: It's a boy!

Unto us a son is born.

Let the family know. He came upon a midnight clear, away in a manger.
Hope to upgrade room.

Love, Joe
-----------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 25 Dec

To: shepherds@nightwatch.com

From: heraldangels@lord.org

Subject: Hark!

Tidings of great joy: Unto you is born this day in the city of David
a Saviour.
-----------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 25 Dec

To: shepherds@nightwatch.com

From: heavenlyhost@lord.org

Subject: Praise the Lord ...

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward
men.
-----------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 25 Dec

To: shepherds@nightwatch.com

From: heavenlyhost@lord.org

Subject: ... and Pass the Admonition

If ye do not act now, rates for heavenly hostingWeb sites will go up
January 1. Sign up now to lock in current prices, so ye can make known
abroad (at our famous low rates) the saying which was told you
concerning this child, glorifying and praising God for all the things
that ye have heard and seen, as it was told unto you.
-----------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 25 Dec

To: heavenlyhost@lord.org

From: shepherds@nightwatch.com

Subject: RE: ... and Pass the Admonition

Angels we have heard on high. We'll sign up, but only if you can get
us the domain name we want: FirstNoel.com.
-----------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 25 Dec

To: nazrthjosph@gol.com

From: melchior@magi.edu

Subject: Star sighting

We've seen the light! Heading your way. May take a few days. Caspar wants
to pick up some gold, frankincense, and myrrh before leaving. And for some
reason, everything seems to be closed today. Also, transportation is heavily
booked westward leading, still proceeding. We just got bumped off a caravan
because Balthazar wanted a non-smoking camel. See you January 6 or so.
Sorry we'll miss the bris. So, what are you going to name the kid, anyway?
------------------------------------------
And his name shall be called Jesus.
That's what this is all about...
------------------------------------------

Posted by: Physics Geek at 08:12 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Don't say that I didn't warn you about the Christmas-time repeats....
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Barbie's Letter To Santa

Dear Santa,

Listen you fat little troll, I've been helping you out every year,
playing at being the perfect Christmas Present, wearing skimpy bathing
suits in frigid weather, and drowning in fake tea from one too many tea
parties, and I hate to break it to ya Santa, but IT'S DEFINITELY PAY
BACK TIME! There had better be some changes around here this Christmas,
or I'm gonna call for a nationwide meltdown (and trust me, you won't
wanna be around to smell it).

So, here's my holiday wish list for 1998, Santa.

1. A nice, comfy pair of sweat pants and a frumpy, oversized sweatshirt.
I'm sick of looking like a hooker. How much smaller are these bathing
suits gonna get? Do you have any idea what it feels like to have nylon
and velcro up your butt?

2. Real underwear that can be pulled on and off. Preferably white. What
bonehead at Mattel decided to cheap out and MOLD imitation underwear to
my skin?!? It looks like cellulite!

3. A REAL man... maybe GI JOE. Hell, I'd take Tickle-Me-Elmo over that
wimped-out excuse for a boy toy Ken. And what's with that earring anyway?
If I'm gonna have to suffer with him, at least make him (and me)
anatomically correct.

4. Arms that actually bend so I can push the aforementioned Ken-wimp
away once he is anatomically correct.

5. Breast reduction surgery. I don't care whose arm you have to twist,
just get it done.

6. A jog-bra. To wear until I get the surgery.

7. A new career. Pet doctor and school teacher just don't cut it. How
about a systems analyst? Or better yet, a public relations senior
account exec!

8. A new, more 90's persona. Maybe "PMS Barbie", complete with a
miniature container of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream and a
bag of chips; "Animal Rights Barbie", with my very own paint gun,
fitted with a fake fur coat, bottle of spray on blood and handcuffs;
or "Stop Smoking Barbie," sporting a Nicotrol patch and equipped with
several packs of gum.

9. No more McDonald's endorsements. The grease is wrecking my vinyl.

10. Mattel stock options. It's been 37 years-I think I deserve it.
Okay Santa, that's it. Considering my valuable contribution to society, I
don't think these requests are out of line. If you disagree, then you can
find yourself a new bitch for next Christmas. It's that simple.

Yours Truly,

Barbie

----------------------------

Ken's Letter To Santa

Dear Santa,

I understand that one of my colleagues has petitioned you
for changes in her contract, specifically asking for anatomical and
career changes. In addition, it is my understanding that disparaging
remarks were made about me, my ability to please, and some of my
fashion choices. I would like to take this opportunity to inform you
of some issues concerning Ms. Barbie, and some of my own needs and
desires.

First of all, I along with several other colleagues feel
Barbie DOES NOT deserve preferential treatment - the bitch has
everything. Along with Joe, Jem, Raggedy Ann & Andy, I DO NOT have
a dream house, corvette, evening gowns, and in some cases the ability
to change our hair style. I personally have only 3 outfits which I am
forced to mix and match at great length.

My decision to accessorize my outfits with an earring was my
decision and reflects my lifestyle choice.

I too would like a change in my career. Have you ever considered
"Decorator Ken", "Beauty Salon Ken", or "Out Of Work Actor Ken"? In
addition, there are several other avenues which could be considered such
as:

"S&M Ken" , "Green Lantern Ken", "Circuit Ken", "Bear Ken", "Master Ken".

These would more accurately reflect my desires and perhaps open up new
markets. And as for Barbie needing bendable arms so she can "push me
away," I need bendable knees so I can kick the bitch to the curb.
Bendable knees would also be helpful for me in other situations - we've
talked about this issue before.

In closing, I would like to point out that any further concessions
to the blond bimbo from hell will result in action be taken by myself and
others. And Barbie can forget about having Joe - he's mine, at least that's
what he said last night.

Sincerely,

Ken

Posted by: Physics Geek at 10:49 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Yes, I posted this last year. There'll be a lot more of that until end of year.
===============================================

Repeat from last year. Don't say that I didn't warn you.

This, I loved:

Translation to follow upon request.

BTW, here is the Taylor series expansion for the natural log Euler's constant. Behold:

Substitute "1" for x and there you have it.

Update: As someone else noticed, the series expansion is for the root used in the natural log: e, also know as Euler's number, Euler's constant(not the Euler-Mascheroni constant), or Napier's constant. Sorry for any confusion.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 10:39 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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To any and all who read this: last weekend while out and about, I heard a bit on the radio which I supposed could be called "The Shatner Before Christmas". Actually, I don't know what it was named, I'm just guessing. Anyway, it was a comedian spoofing Shatner's inimitable delivery doing a Star Trek: TOS version of The Night Before Christmas. I've searched around the Intertubes and haven't been able to find the audio yet in any format. Here are some particulars of the bit:

• "Kirk" does the whole narration, mentiong Uhura, Spock and Bones by name
  
• Klingon C(K?)laus makes an appearance
  
• Kirk's gift is "a girdle with a message that said 'Just your size'"
  
• Kirk then blows Klingon Claus to smithereens with photon torpedoes
  

No, I can't remember which radio station I was listening to, as I was busy trying to avoid commercials. If I knew which station it was, I could call the station and ask. Anyway, has anyone else heard this? More to the point, does anyone know what it's actually called and where I can find it?

Posted by: Physics Geek at 09:18 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Be honest: you thought the exact same thing.

Link via that puppy blending law professor.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 11:39 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I've been as tough on Hugh Hewitt as anyone when it comes to what I see as his relentless shilling for the old vanguard GOP types and Mitt Romney. To be fair, I actually like Mitt and understand why you want to pump up your candidate, but when it turns into hero worship, it becomes downright creepy. Anyway, Iowahawk pummeled Hugh in the usual fashion. HH, to his credit, linked to the, umm, parody.

I'll be honest: I thought that Iowahawk had merely transcribed Hugh's former post, but I'll assume that it's a little more over the top than the original.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 09:40 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I've listened to and read way too many elitists who think that scifi is a crap genre. I will grant you that a lot of what is written sucks, but I would add that most of what pretends to be literature also blows great big enormous chunks. Anyway, Megan McAardle links to what she calls "a stirring defense of science fiction". I can't disagree. Excerpt:

The big problem with being sniffy about SF is that it’s just too important to ignore. After all, what kind of fool would refuse to be seen reading Borges’s Labyrinths, Stanislaw Lem’s Fiasco, Orwell’s 1984, Huxley’s Brave New World or Wells’s War of the Worlds just because they were SF? These are just good books, irrespective of genre. But they are also books that embody the big ideas of the time – both Wells and Lem were obsessed with human insignificance in the face of the immense otherness of the universe, Huxley with technology as a seductive destroyer and Orwell with our capacity for authoritarian evil. Borges, like Lem, suspects we know nothing of ourselves. Interested in these things? Of course you are. Read SF.

As an addendum, here's a link to the short story Answer referred to in the article above.

Update: It appears that both Vox and Bane have started related threads, which mainly state that the vast majority of new scifi writers suck. A lot.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 10:45 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Michele reposted her classic rewrite of one of the holiday season's favorite TV specials. Excerpt:

So what happens? Does Rudolph finally have enough of the bullying and dons a trenchcoat, listens to Marilyn Manson and mows down his enemies? No, Rudolph goes off on an adventure. He escapes his problems instead of confronting them. When you think about it, running away on adventure isn't so bad, as he could have turned to a life on the streets, doing "favors" for old barflys in exchange for salt licks.

I really missed Michele's blogging during her absence. And her post put me in mind to repost an old image:

Posted by: Physics Geek at 10:50 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 That would have been the perfect image to put with the post. Now, it might make the perfect Christmas card

Posted by: michele at December 04, 2007 04:08 PM (t3OS0)

2 Color me cynical, but the message I always got from that show was that if you're a freak, the mob will attack and abuse you, until and unless they find a way to exploit you. "Then all the reindeer loved him" my ass. The next Christmas, Santa had installed a GPS, and Rudolph was run out of town.

Posted by: Glenn at December 04, 2007 06:00 PM (jzSh4)

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Color me green over this little gizmo.

Thanks go to Brian Tiemann for the link.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 04:22 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Annika popped her head out of the studying for and taking the bar hole to post that she's most definitely NOT back. And she keeps on NOT being back. Repeatedly. Which would make me doubt her veracity except hey, it's Annie, so I'll take her at her word. And I'll keep NOT reading her.

Welcome NOT back, Annika.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 10:26 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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While some of you might think that the picture below is cute and creative, what you're missing is that it's a crime against nature. Look closely and see if you can spot what's wrong.
more...

Posted by: Physics Geek at 08:31 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Not surprisingly, it's from the maker of worlds:

How strange it is that atheists would be so widely loathed when we have spiteful, antagonistic morons like this to vindicate us.

Really, what more is there to add to that comment.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 08:17 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Well, I'm down to 190 spam comments to clean up. About 2-3 more painful sessions and I'll be back to a clean blog. Except for the crap that I write, of course. I've got a potty keyboard.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 10:18 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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There is a lesson to be learned here somewhere.......

First-year students at Texas A&M's Vet school were receiving their first anatomy class, with a real dead cow. They all gathered around the surgery table with the body covered with a white sheet. The professor started the class by telling them, "In Veterinary Medicine it is necessary to have two important qualities as a doctor: The first is that you not be disgusted by anything involving the animal body. For an example, the Professor pulled back the sheet, stuck his finger in the butt of the dead cow, withdrew it and stuck it in his mouth.

"Go ahead and do the same thing," he told his students. The students freaked out and hesitated for several minutes. But eventually they took turns sticking a finger in the anal opening of the dead cow and sucking on it. When everyone finished, the Professor looked at them and said, "The second most important quality is observation. I stuck in my middle finger and sucked on my index finger. Now learn to pay attention.

"Life's tough, it's even tougher if you're stupid."

Posted by: Physics Geek at 02:43 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Let's assume that you're already a Linux user. Let's also stipulate that your particular desktop of choice is KDE. With both those things being true, you can easily convert video files from within your file manager, such as Konqueror or Dolphin. Excerpt:

KDE users, hereÂ’s a neat application that creates a Â’serviceÂ’ in your file manager that allows you to easily convert videos to other formats using ffmpeg.

ffmpegmenu is what you need. After copying the simple script into the right directory, an action will appear in the sidebar of either Konqueror or Dolphin (your choice), which easily allows you to convert selected video to DVD, MPEG or into iPod format with a couple of clicks.
...
Once installed, highlighting a .avi file should show the following in the sidebar (this screenshot from Dolphin):

And itÂ’s done!

Anyhoo, check it out.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 11:05 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Iowahawk reports on the dismal box office takes for many of the anti-Santa movies. He ends it with my favorite line from one of my favorite jokes:

Despite the disappointing weekend showing, MPAA spokesman Bell said that industry still has high hopes for 17 more anti-Santa films that will open nationwide this weekend, including "The Reindeer Hunter," "Shop Loss," and Quentin Tarantino's much anticipated "Workshop of Blood."

"Chances are, one of them will be a hit," said Bell. "There's got to be a pony in there somewhere."

Actually, the joke is pretty old. I heard it long before Reagan started telling it. Between that punchline and "At least we've got feathers!", I generate more perplexed glances from people than you can shake a stick at.

Ahh, here's the version that I remember. Apparently the joke's been massaged many times over the years, but the punchline hasn't changed.

A couple had twin boys of five or six. Worried that the boys had developed extreme personalities -- one was a total pessimist, the other a total optimist -- their parents took them to a psychiatrist.

First the psychiatrist treated the pessimist. Trying to brighten his outlook, the psychiatrist took him to a room piled to the ceiling with brand-new toys. But instead of yelping with delight, the little boy burst into tears. "What's the matter?" the psychiatrist asked, baffled. "Don't you want to play with any of the toys?" "Yes," the little boy bawled, "but if I did I'd only break them."

Next the psychiatrist treated the optimist. Trying to dampen his out look, the psychiatrist took him to a room piled to the ceiling with horse manure. But instead of wrinkling his nose in disgust, the optimist emitted just the yelp of delight the psychiatrist had been hoping to hear from his brother, the pessimist. Then he clambered to the top of the pile, dropped to his knees, and began gleefully digging out scoop after scoop with his bare hands.

"What do you think you're doing?" the psychiatrist asked, just as baffled by the optimist as he had been by the pessimist. "With all this manure," the little boy replied, beaming, "there must be a pony in here somewhere!"

Posted by: Physics Geek at 08:46 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I've just spent a few minutes cleaning up 60 spam comments. I have 600+ still to go. Ugh. However, since I seem to have stemmed the flow of new ones, I'll slowly clean up this pile of pigshit that the spammers have left behind. In any event, I'm glad that comments are open once again. Talk at all of you soon.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 11:06 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I know that someone else is bound to have posted about this "nuclear battery", but I think that it's pretty cool. Carry it to wherever, bury it and voila! 27 MW electric power. My questions, of course, would concern waste disposal and economic viability. Assuming that the answers are reasonable, I'd be fine with the idea. I'll be interested to see where it leads.

Update: I should have known the the Slashdotters would be all over it.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 02:28 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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