23 January, 2004

You All Ready For Me To Drop Science On Your Ass?

Well, the sex blogs are gonna be in mourning - Helmut Newton died. I've seen some of his work and it's OK. Nothing especial, IMHO.

And Rush Limbaugh is going to have to face charges. Poor guy. Mr. Prosecutor has 10 felony counts for him but offers a bargain: Rush plead guilty to 1 count and get 3 years probation. And fatboy's lawyer says this is unfair! That he's being singled out for being a celebrity. Oh, that's right - if you're a celebrity, you get 100% of the charges thrown out instead of 90%. Christ, do you think Joe Six-Pack could get such a good deal?

Speaking of celebrities getting busted, Art Garfunkel was slapped with a fine for possession. The accounts I've read are all sure to mention that the cop didn't recognize him. I guess Paul Simon would have gotten off scot-free.

Oh, I love this. God came to some Latter Day Saints nutcase named Rulon Jeffs and told him to excommunicate several people from the church. This also involved the men leaving behind their wives, children, and possessions. Wives (and presumably the children) would be "reassigned". Among those dissed were a couple gents in their 90s who were favored to take over the leadership role in this Jonestown when Jeffs usurped the position.

Thankfully contact has been reestablished with the Mars rover so research into mineral exploitation of the planet can continue. Wait, no. It's in critical condition. Nevermind. The evil capitalists have been thwarted. ;)

On the good side, the European Mars Express has confirmed the existence of water ice on Mars' southern polar cap. Hell, maybe we can terraform the place, melt the water, and make Mars a nice spa resort destination.

From The Times:

ISAAC NEWTON had one, as did Michael Faraday and some chap called Murphy. What if you could distil your own sharpest observation into a scientific law that would bear your name? The literary agent John Brockman recently posed the question to the scientists, thinkers and technology innovators who visit his online salon at Edge.org. Now 164 of them have replied — and their insights make for wonderful reading.

Sir John Maddox, former editor of Nature, offers an immutable law of the peer-review process: “Reviewers who are best placed to understand an author’s work are the least likely to draw attention to its achievements, but are prolific sources of minor criticism, especially the identification of typos.”

Then there is Devlin’s First Law, from the acclaimed mathematician Keith Devlin: “In the hands of a charlatan, mathematics can be used to make a vacuous argument look impressive.” (His second law: “So can PowerPoint.”) But the most precise formula comes from Kai Krause, the legendary developer of graphics software. According to Kai’s Exactness Dilemma, “93.8127 per cent of all statistics are useless”. And who can argue?


Here's Godwin's Law: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."

Punset's First Law: "If fully conscious, don´t trust your brain."

Gershenfeld's Law on Research: "Experiments take pi times longer than planned (no matter how many factors of pi you account for)."

Kai's Existential Dilemma: "I think....there....4a.m."

Bharucha's Law: "To understand what people are thinking and feeling, look beyond what they say." (Why are we men so horrible at this? Girlfriends have always seemed to know what's on my mind despite how well I tried to lie.)

Now who says scientists have no sense of humor or don't live in the real world?

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