INTERESTING: Discovery About Galaxy Distribution

Sunday, January 13, 2013

http://science.slashdot.org/story/13/01/06/2138243/teenager-makes-discovery-about-galaxy-distribution?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

Teenager Makes Discovery About Galaxy Distribution
by samzenpus

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Janek Kozicki writes “It has been long thought that dwarf galaxies orbiting Andromeda galaxy (M31), or any other galaxy for that matter, are distributed more or less randomly around the host galaxy. It seemed so obvious in fact that nobody took time to check this assumption. Until a 15 year old student, Neil Ibata, working with his father at the astronomic observatory wanted to check it out. It turned out that dwarf galaxies tend to be placed on a plane around M31. The finding has been published in nature. Local press (especially in France) is ecstatic that a finding by a 15-year-old got published in Nature. However, there’s another more important point: what other obvious things didn’t we really bother to check?”

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So we don’t know what we don’t know and we don’t bother to check either?

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INTERESTING: Luddite comes up with a good find

Saturday, January 12, 2013

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For all you tool freaks…..and then some!

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=E3mzhvMgrLE&NR=1

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I expect that we’ll see this in a lot of tools over the next century!

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INTERESTING: A legal filing as a comic

Sunday, December 30, 2012

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/content-and-e-books/article/53819-a-work-of-art-bob-kohn-submits-doj-amicus-brief-as-comic-strip.html

A Work of Art: Bob Kohn Submits DoJ Amicus Brief as Comic Strip

By Andrew Albanese | Sep 04, 2012

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For those in publishing who have followed the DoJ price-fixing case, it has from the start seemed at times like a cartoonish affair. Now, thanks to former music executive and RoyaltyShare founder Bob Kohn, it is a cartoon. Handcuffed by the court’s decision to re-file his argument against the DoJ’s settlement with three publishers in just five pages, Kohn filed the brief in the form of a comic strip.

***end quote ***

Not sure how this will work out for him, but I loved it.

Easy to understand and quite rational.

And, why do we allow music to be price fixed?

Or milk?

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INTERESTING: Is this the “gay gene” that everyone was seeking?uote

Monday, December 17, 2012

 

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/12/11/scientists-may-have-finally-unlocked-puzzle-of-why-people-are-gay

Scientists May Have Finally Unlocked Puzzle of Why People Are Gay

Lesbians get it from fathers, gay men from mothers?

By JASON KOEBLER

December 11, 2012

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Long thought to have some sort of hereditary link, a group of scientists suggested Tuesday that homosexuality is linked to epi-marks — extra layers of information that control how certain genes are expressed. These epi-marks are usually, but not always, “erased” between generations. In homosexuals, these epi-marks aren’t erased — they’re passed from father-to-daughter or mother-to-son, explains William Rice, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California Santa Barbara and lead author of the study.

“There is compelling evidence that epi-marks contribute to both the similarity and dissimilarity of family members, and can therefore feasibly contribute to the observed familial inheritance of homosexuality and its low concordance between [identical] twins,” Rice notes.

Rice and his team created a mathematical model that explains why homosexuality is passed through epi-marks, not genetics. Evolutionarily speaking, if homosexuality was solely a genetic trait, scientists would expect the trait to eventually disappear because homosexuals wouldn’t be expected to reproduce. But because these epi-marks provide an evolutionary advantage for the parents of homosexuals: They protect fathers of homosexuals from underexposure to testosterone and mothers of homosexuals from overexposure to testosterone while they are in gestation.

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Is this the big breakthrough that allows the human race to move forward?

–30–

 

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INTERESTING: What’s the “jedi religion”?

Sunday, December 16, 2012

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9737886/Jedi-religion-most-popular-alternative-faith.html

‘Jedi’ religion most popular alternative faith

Today’s Census figures show that 176,632 people in England and Wales identify themselves as Jedi Knights, making it the most popular faith in the “Other Religions” category on the Census and the seventh most popular faith overall.

***

You have to be kidding me!

I could understand a lot of the possible answers, but … this one stuns me!

–30–

 

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INTERESTING: Bitterly disappointed

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9686219/I-am-bitterly-bitterly-disappointed-retired-naval-officers-email-to-children-in-full.html

‘I am bitterly, bitterly disappointed’: retired naval officer’s email to children in full

This is the full email that retired Royal Navy officer Nick Crews sent to his son and two daughters in February expressing his and his wife’s disappointment in them.

***

When I read this, I saw a boomerang.

Were you such a bad parent that you weren’t able to steer the children correctly?

My parents made a lot mistakes. But, I would never fault them for the choices they made. I’ve made a lot of my own bad choices.

This 0 for 3 tends to make me blame the “builder”.

imho.

–30–

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interesting: Obamacare is NOT about h, hc, or hci; it’s about control

Friday, November 23, 2012

http://personalliberty.com/2012/11/19/obamacares-real-costs/

Obamacare’s Real Costs

November 19, 2012 by Bob Livingston

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“The Obama Care Health Care Reform Plan or Health Care For America Plan will cost the average American around $70.”–obamacarefacts.com

First of all, allow me to disabuse you of the notion that Obamacare has anything to do with “health” care. Obamacare is not about health. It’s not about lowering the cost of health insurance. And it’s not about ensuring that everyone is insured.

It is about locking more Americans into the clutches of the Big Pharma/Medical Industrial complex, providing more customers for Big Insurance and confiscating more wealth from individuals and businesses.

The American healthcare system should properly be called “sickcare.” It’s a subtle and esoteric system of population control with prescription drugs issued at the public expense by the drug cartel — the conglomerate of pharmaceutical houses.

They commit population control under the pretense of “healthcare” and make people pay for it. And this medical cartel has no legal liability. It is forced — or at least deceptive — medication. And most doctors don’t have a clue. They write prescriptions based on falsified data and kickbacks — from speaker fees and ghostwriting glowing medical reviews — without regard to whether their patients will benefit.

*** end quote ***

I too am very disillusioned with this whole discussion.

It’s NOT about “Health”, “Healthcare”, or “Healthcare Insurance”. It’s all about “control”.

“Death Panels” was a good two word summary of the Gooferment’s objective.

When we think of the drag that seniors represent in socsec, medicare, and the taxes that they don’t pay, no wonder cigarettes are legal!

The exemplar for this is the (American) Indian Healthcare, wwhere the rule is ‘don’t need anything expensive after June’. Or maybe the VA, “die”!  (Some old vets firmly believe that VA wants to kill them. And, not with kindness.)

If it was about health insurance, then it wouldn’t be tied to your employment.

Argh!

–30–

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INTERESTING: Hillary Rodham Clinton has been and is running

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/opinion/sunday/collins-hillarys-next-move.html

Op-Ed Columnist
Hillary’s Next Move
By GAIL COLLINS
Published: November 10, 2012

Times Topic: Hillary Rodham Clinton

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“Maybe I’ll get a decorating show,” said Hillary Clinton.

It was a few weeks before the election. Clinton was flying back from an overnight trip to Peru, talking — without any great enthusiasm — about the topic that would begin to obsess the American political world as soon as the presidential ballots had been counted: Will Hillary run in 2016?

*** end quote ***

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She’s the obvious candidate. 

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INTERESTING: What are the odds?

Sunday, November 11, 2012

NewImage

What are the odds?

 

 

 

 

Every house on the block, shared with my shore house has damage, but mine.

Note the water line on the outside shower and hot water heater. That’s about ¾ of the way up the black cinder block foundation.

If it reached the top of the black, storm water would have gotten in to the porch, dining room, three bedrooms, bathroom, and one BRAND NEW kitchen.

Very lucky! Very Providential.

I wish everyone hit by Sandy was this lucky. Sadly it’s not so. Some lost everything. Nothing down the shore will ever be the same. Now I have had a little taste of what the folks in Katrina have felt.

Scuttlebutt was that FEMA was going to stiff those with flood insurance if they were part-time resident. Not a lot of happy people with that assertion.

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INTERESTING: How to Bug-In

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

http://artofmanliness.com/2012/11/01/how-to-bug-in-what-you-need-to-know-to-survive-a-grid-down-disaster/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheArtOfManliness+%28The+Art+of+Manliness%29

How to Bug-In: What You Need to Know to Survive a Grid-Down Disaster
by A MANLY GUEST CONTRIBUTOR on NOVEMBER 1, 2012 · 35 COMMENTS
in MANLY SKILLS
Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Creek Stewart of Willow Haven Outdoor.

As the East Coast of the United States recovers from Hurricane Sandy, aka “Frankenstorm,” the rest of us watch the unfolding aftermath from a distance – thankful Mother Nature hasn’t unleashed her fury on our doorstep today. Hurricane Sandy is yet another sober reminder that none of us are exempt from disaster. Mother Nature doesn’t discriminate. She doesn’t care where we live, what we drive, how much we make, or what we do for a living. Her antics are diverse and far-reaching. She has a recipe of devastation for all parts of the world: hurricanes, tornados, floods, wildfires, winter storms, earthquakes, tsunamis, droughts, heat waves, volcanoes, land-slides, and sometimes even a combo pack.

It is human nature to avoid potentially bad news. It is also human nature to procrastinate. Consequently, many of us avoid going to the dentist, taking our car in for routine maintenance, implementing a home security plan, getting our yearly physicals, and many other important preventative and preparative tasks. Unfortunately, avoiding the thought of potential bad news has absolutely no bearing at all on whether or not it will happen. In fact, this attitude is completely self-destructive. Avoiding preparing for or prevent a very dangerous and probable threat is irresponsible and incredibly foolish. Yet, people do it all the time when it comes to potential natural disasters. The mentality of “it’s not going to happen to me” is no longer an acceptable excuse. In the 15 years I’ve taught Survival and Preparedness courses I’ve come to the conclusion that there are no acceptable excuses and I have run thin on patience to those that offer them. Burying your head in the sand is not a strategy and depending on the government to save you is not a plan.

Many of you remember the article I wrote a while back titled How to Make a Bug Out Bag. “Bugging Out” is the decision to abandon your home in search of a safer destination in the event of a large-scale disaster. Sometimes, Bugging Out is not necessary nor is it the best decision. A disaster may, in fact, make it impossible to Bug Out. The alternative is called “Bugging In.” Bugging In or hunkering down during a large-scale disaster can present many challenges to a survivor. Oftentimes, the utilities we depend on are ripped off-line – known as “Grid-Down.”

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[JR: I have my kits. Do you?]

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