Starship Asterisk*

Ann wrote:... And yet, and yet... the hot dogs must have been there from the beginning, in the Big Bang, as an incredibly, unfathomably remote future possibility. Even in the Big Bang, the first ingredients of hot dogs were cooked up. The first ingredients of free dance performances were cooked up too, and mild sweet summer nights, and happy people milling about, and strawberries. In the Big Bang.

Today I discovered mud, the constituents of which were also made, or at least implied, in that very same Big ShaZam.

I went wandering off on back roads I haven't been on in years. Here's a few pics from the bridge over the Shubenacadie River, near South Maitland, Nova Scotia. The Shubenacadie is one of the many tidal rivers in Nova Scotia, with vast in- and out-flows of water occurring every day from the Bay of Fundy, where we see the highest tides in the world. This old railway bridge remnant is just a few kilometers from the Bay.

Since this was midday almost at the New Moon, this was an extremely low tide, so lots of interesting mud flats were exposed. I walked down to the shore and jumped over that little stream coming in from the left in the first pic, to take the second pic. (You can see the high tide line on the board cladding underneath the new observation deck.)
Alas, I quickly realized it was a very fresh mud flat, resulting in the third pic. But it was sandy mud, so after a few minutes a lot of it could be stamped off, and I didn't muddy the car too much on the drive home.
Rob

Hey Rob, you really get involved in picture taking.

geckzilla wrote:Censorship is stupid (NSFW URL). I just deleted all the word filters which just get in the way on occasion anyway. We know what's behind the censorship replacement anyway. It's better to maintain decorum without resorting to it.

Geckzilla, you are some kind of amazing! I'm not sure as to just what kind of amazing, but it seems to be rather neat

Beyond wrote:

geckzilla wrote:Censorship is stupid (NSFW URL). I just deleted all the word filters which just get in the way on occasion anyway. We know what's behind the censorship replacement anyway. It's better to maintain decorum without resorting to it.

Geckzilla, you are some kind of amazing! I'm not sure as to just what kind of amazing, but it seems to be rather neat

Not sure if sarcasm, or... well, that's a weird thing to be called amazing for.

Art: I have a fondness of Hyneman but, to my confusion, a lot of people hate him. I don't know why!

NO sarcasm intended! Well, it's not just for that. That was just the tipping point.

Lukas Novy from Brno in the Czech Republic has been granted the right to wear a sieve on his head on his official ID card. Novy is a Pastafarian and believes in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and he wears his sieve to honor his god. His god is an invisible alien made of spaghetti and meatballs who created the universe after drinking heavily.

So when you hitch a ride through the Spaghetti Monster galaxy, don't forget your sieve.

Ann

WOW! I lack the words for the weirdness of that

The FSM religion is a perfect satire. It's not any weirder than any other religions.

Perhaps if it's nakedness was covered by spaghetti sauce, more people would eat it up

Beyond wrote:WOW! I lack the words for the weirdness of that :!:

There are people fighting in the courts to do this in Austria, the U.S., and probably elsewhere. It's to make a case against religious exemptions in official photos- wearing special hats that people wouldn't be able to do without a religious purpose. A government that claims to respect all religions equally can't make an exception for the Church of the FSM. So it's let anybody wear what they want, or have no exceptions.

It's an effective strategy.

Can the Spaghetti people form a church and file to be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3)of the Internal Revenue Code if they really, really, well, sort of believe in the Spaghetti god?

stephen63 wrote:Can the Spaghetti people form a church and file to be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3)of the Internal Revenue Code if they really, really, well, sort of believe in the Spaghetti god?

There are already FSM churches operating in the U.S. and elsewhere, treated just like any other church by taxing authorities and government entities. There's no need to even believe; it isn't the role of government to assess your actual commitment to any religion. Heck, plenty of people who identify as Christian or Jewish or Muslim are actually atheists. Even pastors. That doesn't change anything legally.

Chris Peterson wrote:
There are already FSM churches operating in the U.S. and elsewhere, treated just like any other church by taxing authorities and government entities. There's no need to even believe; it isn't the role of government to assess your actual commitment to any religion. Heck, plenty of people who identify as Christian or Jewish or Muslim are actually atheists. Even pastors.

Pastafarian Pastors

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,

neufer wrote: Pastafarian Pastors :?:

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,

Ramen.

Luckily, I'm not part of a silly government organization or I'd have to ban you both to be fair.

Chris Peterson wrote:

neufer wrote: Pastafarian Pastors

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,

Ramen.

I once knew a guy that really loved to eat Ramen. He liked the little cups.
It's a good thing geckzilla is only part of the Asterickian spaced out government, or you two would be gone and i wouldn't have been able to post my very important $0.02 worth

Well, banning is an exaggeration. Hardly anyone ever talks about religion on the board. I think I probably do it more than most people.

geckzilla wrote:Well, banning is an exaggeration. Hardly anyone ever talks about religion on the board. I think I probably do it more than most people.

Banning is an exaggeration? That sounds a bit like a blatantly religiously governmental statement, to me

Can't sleep. Weird observation I made a while back that I just thought of:

When Pat holds my iPad while it is plugged in and charging, if I run my fingers lightly on the skin of his leg, I feel a very delicate tingling, vibration. Pat was dubious about my claim and he tried to do the same except with me holding the iPad but couldn't. However, if I shut my eyes I could accurately tell whether or not he was touching the iPad based on the sensation at my fingertips. Our hypothesis immediately centered on electrical conductivity of the human body. We tried using the multimeter to measure it but couldn't find anything consistent with the measurements.

Beyond wrote:
I once knew a guy that really loved to eat Ramen.

Everybody Loves Ramen

Not me He's ok, in a bland sort of way, but that's it. But then, compared to Beyonder Land, everything else is just sort of... so-so.

geckzilla wrote:Can't sleep. Weird observation I made a while back that I just thought of:

When Pat holds my iPad while it is plugged in and charging, if I run my fingers lightly on the skin of his leg, I feel a very delicate tingling, vibration. Pat was dubious about my claim and he tried to do the same except with me holding the iPad but couldn't. However, if I shut my eyes I could accurately tell whether or not he was touching the iPad based on the sensation at my fingertips. Our hypothesis immediately centered on electrical conductivity of the human body. We tried using the multimeter to measure it but couldn't find anything consistent with the measurements.

You've got The Touch.

neufer wrote:

geckzilla wrote:
Maybe some of you have the same problem I have. I have been wanting to share some things but not having a topic to put them in and yet they are unworthy of their own topics. Like, last night I had a dream that an office building at the top of a hill had a telescope on top of it but it was the worst design because the entire building rotated and leaned over at night when the telescope operated. Strange.

What would Sigmund Freud say

Oh....I know:

http://www.shakespeare-oxford.com/?p=39 wrote:
“I no longer believe that… the actor from Stratford was the author of the works that have been ascribed to him. Since reading Shakespeare Identified by J. Thomas Looney, I am almost convinced that the assumed name conceals the personality of Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford… The man of Stratford seems to have nothing at all to justify his claim, whereas Oxford has almost everything.”

- Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

Pretty much well established Shakey was that Italian guy who moved to England.

geckzilla wrote:Can't sleep. Weird observation I made a while back that I just thought of:

When Pat holds my iPad while it is plugged in and charging, if I run my fingers lightly on the skin of his leg, I feel a very delicate tingling, vibration. Pat was dubious about my claim and he tried to do the same except with me holding the iPad but couldn't. However, if I shut my eyes I could accurately tell whether or not he was touching the iPad based on the sensation at my fingertips. Our hypothesis immediately centered on electrical conductivity of the human body. We tried using the multimeter to measure it but couldn't find anything consistent with the measurements.

That is leakage current. As a rule, with modern electronics you should not feel it. It may be a minor deal, but it is also potentially dangerous, lethal even. What feels like a tingle when you are poorly grounded could result in a serious shock if you were hanging on to a water pipe. Basically, it means there is a non-isolated current path between the case of the tablet and the hot side of the power mains. It can be caused by a component (like an isolation capacitor) being a bit out of spec, or by a component failure. It's usually only an issue with things that plug in using ungrounded plugs. Devices that use two-prong plugs and which are routinely used in situations where the operator might become well grounded (e.g. power tools) are normally double insulated to shield the user from leakage. Apples unfortunate choice to use a metal case eliminated that option, however.

Keep in mind that there have been several electrocution deaths in China recently tied to Apple chargers. Supposedly those were counterfeit, but Apple isn't the sort of company I'd trust very far with disseminating accurate information. Consider replacing your charger.

Back when I had a company that made instruments for removing cataracts, we had to design very carefully to deal with leakage current. The business end of things was a metal probe inserted in the eye... no skin resistance to reduce the current. Every device was tested with a special meter to ensure the leakage was below limits set by the FDA, and every device was challenged with high voltage at the power plug to make sure nothing that happened there made it to the probe. But consumer devices are usually only tested during design, and then by statistical sampling during production. Bad units do slip through.