Pirate

Bryan Killian is a high school student in North Buncombe, North Carolina who came to school in pirate regalia - with an eye patch and an inflatable plastic cutlass.

After warnings that he must revert to conventional landlubber attire, he was suspended.

"I feel like my First Amendment was violated," Killian, 16, said. "Freedom of religion and freedom of expression. That's what I tried to do, and I got shot down."

Freedom of religion?

Yes, Killian says, his "pirate regalia" is part of his faith -- the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (featured in the sidebar) does, indeed, prescribe pirate dress.

But, really, this all about a teenager trying to stir things up and push various adult buttons.

And I must say that I heartily celebrate that behavior, however difficult it makes some people's jobs.

Here at Dirty John Bonny the only objection is that he put the patch over the wrong eye. Proper pirates around here always "dress right."


Linky, and thanks for the picture, to the Asheville Citizen-Times.

More Feynman

Richard Feynman: Rules of chess, rules of nature.

A bit more about the theory of science, from the bongo-playing, lock-picking, Nobel laureate, atomic-bomb developer, and all-around cool guy:

About two and a half.

One way, that's kind of a fun analogy, to try to get some idea of what we're doing in trying to understand nature, is to imagine that the gods are playing some great game, like chess, let's say. A chess game.

And you don't know the rules of the game, but you're allowed to look at the board, at least from time to time, and at a little corner, perhaps.

And from these observations, you try to figure out what the rules are, of the game.

What the rules are of the pieces moving. You might discover, after a bit, for example, when there's only one Bishop around on the board, you might notice that the Bishop maintains it's color.

Later on you might discover that the law for the Bishop is that it moves on a diagonal, which would explain, the law that you understood before, that the Bishop maintains it's color.

That would be analogous to when we discover one law, and then later find a deeper understanding of it.

Q.E.D.

Quod erat demonstrandum is the sign-off to mathematical proofs and formal syllogisms, sort of like the "-30-" at the end of a press release.

I referred earlier to another QED, quantum electrodynamics. Everything I know about that comes from physicist Richard Feynman.

I know of at least one reader who might enjoy watching Feynman lecture about physics. Here's a link to a series of about five hours of lectures that are totally fascinating, at times funny, and generally challenging.

You can get a sense of how preposterously weird this stuff is from the title of Feynman's best-selling book: Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!

And a couple quotations:

If I could explain it to the average person, it wouldn't have been worth the Nobel Prize.

I think I can safely say that no one understands quantum mechanics.

By the way, and in case you were wondering too: As near as I can determine, the use of "-30-" comes from the practice of U.S. civil-war-era telegraphers who would signal the end of a transmission with "XXX," which is thirty, if you read it as Roman numerals.

Non-Newtonian fluid

A non-Newtonian fluid is a substance that changes viscosity under stress or shear forces, suddenly acting more like like a solid than a liquid. Silly putty, a toy from the 1960's, is a silicon plastic that acts like a soft putty. But make a ball, throw it forcefully at the floor, and it will shatter like hard plastic - into pieces of soft, pliable putty.

Mixing cornstarch and water in the right proportions will make a fluid the consistency of dairy cream that you can literally walk across, so long as you slap your feet down hard enough.

Corn starch and water. Really.
About four.

So you don't have to watch the whole thing:
It's really a liquid.

I'm fascinated by the counter-intuitive aspects of the real world, from examples from cognitive psychology to the weirdness of quantum electrodynamics. I think that cherishing these things helps keep up one's sense of skepticism and critical thinking.

Bunny Robot

I recently found a Bunny Robot image at Flickr that I liked, and e-mailed the owner asking permission to use it here.

She cordially replied, saying she'd prefer I didn't, but thanks for asking.


Related at Dirty John Bonny.
Bunny Robot at Dirty John Bonny.

For Steve

The Discovery Institute is a stealth-religious creationist think tank (Bill Maher: "You can't call yourself a think tank if all your ideas are stupid.") public-relations organization.

They promote a list of "scientists who dissent from Darwinism" that, they recently boasted, exceeded 700 signers.

At the same time, the National Center for Science Education has been collecting signers to a statement that begins

Evolution is a vital, well-supported, unifying principle of the biological sciences, and the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the idea that all living things share a common ancestry.

As serious as the core issue is, the NCSE project is intentionally silly: In order to be a signer, you have to be named Steve. And there are over 700 Steves, by the way.

Meanwhile, the DI's William Dembski put together a lame flash animation mocking Judge Jones of the Dover trial with a squeaky, high-pitched voice and fart jokes.


Why, in the culture wars, is it that the good guys are the only ones with a sense of humor?

(OK, except for P. J. O'Rourke.)

The easy, self-aggrandizing answer is: "Well, we're right, and are reality-based, and know how to pronounce "Colbert," and why that matters."

But I suspect that there's something deeper at work here. I'll let you know if I figure it out.



Linky-link:
The National Center for Science Education Project Steve.

Twelve million

Scholastic Publishers has announced that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be released on July 21, 2007, with a record breaking twelve million copies.

Remarkably, they're planning a multimillion-dollar marketing campaign to try to reach those twelve people who've never heard of the series.

And sorry, your first edition copy will never be worth more than the cover price.


Linky.

Colossal squid update

Credit GrrlScientist.

Here's an update on the the colossal squid, Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, that I wrote about here.

The beast was frozen and taken to the New Zealand national museum. The upshot of the story is that the squid will be preserved and studied, but not for at least a year, as the museum adjusts to accommodate this huge specimen.

It's cool that the commercial fishermen took the time, effort and expense of hauling it in and transporting it back, contrary to their business interests.


Linkey to:
Living the Scientific Life at ScienceBlogs.

Cooter-word update

An update of a post I did here, about kids saying the dirty word "vagina."

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) -- The one-day suspensions imposed on three high school girls for including the word “vagina” in a reading from “The Vagina Monologues” have been rescinded, one of the girls said.

Hannah Levinson, 16, said she and her friends received formal letters Tuesday from the school superintendent lifting the suspensions.

Link.

I've resisted the temptation so far, but it's my blog, so here it goes: Cunt. If you think that's offensive, that's just my point. The power of the offense comes from the power of the patriarchy, which is what of so much of The Vagina Monologues is about.

If you don't get what we're talking about here, go see Eve Ensler at TED (linked page plays automatically; about twenty minutes).

Editorial

This and that, but more of that, and some of those.

I try. I really want to give credit for every image I use here, but I've missed very many, especially those from a year or so ago when nobody was looking so I was very loose with considerations of property or proper thank-yous.

Retracing my steps, to try and find where some of them originally came from, has been fruitless. I just find Dirty John Bonny. Especially with those heavily-Photoshopped signature images, sources are long lost.

I think that giving credit or offering a thank-you for someone else's work isn't just the right thing to do, but gives me more credibility and self-respect.

So if you see something that's yours, there's an email link prominently displayed near the top of the sidebar. This is one reason why it's there.

Let me know. I'll give public thanks or remove it, as you wish.

Best Google search term leading to Dirty John Bonny yet:

i don't understand what you said so here's a rabbit with a pancake on his head

Post here. Wish I'da really said that.

Other recent Google search terms:

large testis

Others than me can't properly make a plural. For all I go on about balls around here, you'd think that I'd get that one right, but no.

albino giraffe scientific name

There isn't one. In spite of three slightly differently worded searches. And they kept clicking through. There's an aphorism about repeating the same thing and expecting different results...

roy orbison k d lang

Embedding video is fun. Except when it disappears. I've just updated that post with a rescue video. All the search traffic makes me feel responsible and obliged to accommodate.

dont say that you love me song

I can just hear the "Aha" moment - it was called Tusk! The featured video is gone now. No rescue to be had, I'm afraid.

Note to self: At Dirty John Bonny post titles get initial caps, not newspaper-headline-style caps.

If I have to say this out loud to get me to remember it, then so be it.

Another rule: Any click-link that leads to unexpected territory, like a PDF or autoplay media must always be accompanied with a warning. I really wish everyone would do that.

I always try to use a new window for any link - that way you can quit it and get back easily wherever I send you.

And I still think that that siggy was cute. Even if nobody agrees with me (an inside joke, for an audience of two).

I use Google as an advanced spell-check: The usual tools will flag a mistake but Google will helpfully offer alternatives "did you mean ...", usually including the correct spelling. I find myself relying on that more every day.

I do edit and fix typos and design misadventures at Dirty John Bonny from time to time. Only if I change something substantive do I flag it as an update. I've no idea how that works with anyone subscribing to a feed.

If all those little updates create noise then I apologize, but I can't really see things properly (or check them in IE) until after I publish.

Bunny update

Back in June I wrote about an Oregon zoo's program to save the endangered pygmy rabbit, Brachylagus idahoensis.

So far, so good. The captive breeding program was a success and some of the rabbits have been released into the wild.

On Tuesday, March 13, 20 endangered Columbia Basin pygmy rabbits raised at the Oregon Zoo were released into the wild near Ephrata, Wash. The rabbits were released at the entrances of artificial burrows, which had been placed prior to their arrival.

Story here.

Related: zoos rescuing amphibians at Dirty John Bonny here.

I think there's an interesting story to be told of the history of zoos, from the menageries of ancient Rome and the middle ages, maintained purely for entertainment, to the modern institutions that are up to their elbows in research and preservation of natural wonders - not as exhibits, but for their own blessed sake.

Today is Albert Einstein's birthday

Einstein photo generator.

I'll claim fair use.

Via Courtnix at A Blog Around the Clock at ScienceBlogs.

OMG!

I sent a bit of fan-mail and a thank-you to Mr. Diety. I was thrilled to get a response from the Supreme Being Mr. Brian Dalton himself:

Thanks so much. I love your blog and all the retro pictures. Awesome stuff!
Brian

Quoted with permission.

Mr. Deity is producing very slick and professional videos published on YouTube in a bid to become a television series. I wish them all success.

Linkies:
Mr. Deity at Dirty John Bonny here.
Must-see videos at MrDeity.com.

Bats saved by radar?

I didn't know that this was a problem.

Bat deaths at wind farms are thought to exceed those of birds and it is feared some species could eventually become endangered if action is not taken.

Bat fatalities at wind turbines has been documented in Australia, North America, Germany, Spain and Sweden but really the scale of the problem in the UK has yet to emerge as the area is largely under-studied.

Three years ago nearly 3,000 bats were killed in a six-week period at one wind farm in the USA, and nearly 1,700 were killed over a same period of time at another wind farm.

Interested researchers noticed that bats stay away from radar installations, and speculate that radar of other electromagnetic radiation might act as a repellent, and save the flying mammals from windmill havok.

We think the bats either feel the heat of the radiation or can actually hear it. Either way, they appear not to like it, and forage elsewhere.

From BBC News.

Tennessee

Found while looking for something else:
Tennessee Ernie Ford 16 Tons.

I was born one mornin' when the sun didn't shine
I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine
I loaded sixteen tons of number nine coal
And the straw boss said "Well, a-bless my soul."

You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store.

Jazz, blues, country, whatever; it's a wonderful song.

They don't allow embedding (WTF is up with that?) so you'll have to click through to YouTube for this two-and-half minute video.

When I hear him I get this squirmy tinge of inadvertent racism: "That guy can't possibly be white" that I'm ashamed to say out loud. But so be it.

A link for you youngsters: who is Tennessee Ernie Ford?

Boys kissing

Some bunnies.

Click for bigger.
I go there so you don't have to,
Cute Overload

Related.

[Update: Link changed after Blogger lost the original post.]

Daylight

The start of daylight saving time started today. After two decades, the date was moved from the first Sunday in April to the last Sunday in March. Many expected a "mini-Y2K' since many automated systems were still on the old start and stop dates.

The computer I'm using now, running a well-patched version of Windows 2000, was not aware of the change. I'll have to remember to fix it again, as it will presumably make the change when due in April.

A friend remarked that daylight saving time is exceptionally unobserved in Indiana. Actually, I think that's mostly in northwest Indiana, owing to the large number of people there who commute every day into Chicago. And in the south, bordering Louisville, Kentucky, for a similar reason. But there may be other pockets, seeing as daylight saving time is un-Biblical. Which logic seems to rule the rest of that most southern of northern Midwestern states.

Daylight saving time is a nuisance of changing clocks and smoke alarm batteries.

But the deeper message is easily unobserved in our modern world: The daylight-days get longer and shorter, the moon (see the sidebar) waxes and wanes. We are awash in a natural world but expend so much effort trying to deny it, and mitigate or remedy it's effects.

Like the equinoxes, it makes me think of the tilt of the earth, the celestial dance, and all that.

By the way, it's daylight saving time, not daylight savings time - it's not an S&L, folks.

Seasons at Wikipedia.
Daylength at Wikipedia.

Al Gore's vision

America's Independent Light and Power Companies, 1960.

Amazon.com and the Internet tubes presaged nearly fifty years ago.


Another from Plan59.com.

Science news

Public domain.

This squid caught (accidentally, I think)
by a New Zealand fishing boat working in Antarctic waters, is over thirty feet long and weighs over 900 pounds.

This is the colossal squid, Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, which is even bigger than the giant squid of the family Architeuthidae.

Link.

Picture

Take your medicine.

Tink got between his lips and the draught, and drained it to the dregs.

"Why, Tink, how dare you drink my medicine?"

But she did not answer. Already she was reeling in the air.

"What is the matter with you?" cried Peter, suddenly afraid.

"It was poisoned, Peter," she told him softly; "and now I am going to be dead."

"O Tink, did you drink it to save me?"

"Yes."

"But why, Tink?"

Her wings would scarcely carry her now, but in reply she alighted on his shoulder and gave his nose a loving bite. She whispered in his ear "You silly ass," and then, tottering to her chamber, lay down on the bed.

***

"Do you believe?" he cried.

Tink sat up in bed almost briskly to listen to her fate.

She fancied she heard answers in the affirmative, and then again she wasn't sure.

"What do you think?" she asked Peter.

"If you believe," he shouted to them, "clap your hands; don't let Tink die."

Many clapped.

Some didn't.

James M. Barrie, The Adventures of Peter Pan.
Click if you believe in fairies.

Picture credit Plan59.com.

More Mr. Deity

Mr. Deity and the Tour de Hell

Whoah, whoah, what?
The Jews are my chosen people, and the homosexuals, are, you know, they have design sense.

Well, they're at the top of the list.

What list? I didn't ..

I called Larry on Tuesday and asked him for a list.

Tuesday... He comes into my office muttering something - you know how he mutters - I'm cleaning my golf shoes, I'm still in the kilt. I've told him: "Don't talk to me when I'm in the kilt." And he says something about needing a list, I thought he said "of the people who were going to do well."

About four minutes.

Mr. Deity and the Top Ten

Do we need ten? I mean, those three are good ...

I know, but ten's kinda of a magical number. You've got your fingers, your toes, Letterman ...

Letterman's good.

***

Last weekend they killed a man - for picking up sticks.

Is that true?

That's actually true. Well, it goes back to when you took off the seventh day ...

About four.

MrDeity.com.



Yes, it's true. Numbers 15:32-35 (KJV):

And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day.

And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation.

And they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be done to him.

And the LORD said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp.

"Vagina Monologues" raises hoohah over cooter word

So let's see. You're in charge of a school, and some teenagers want to do a reading from Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues," and you tell them that they can, so long as they don't say the word "vagina."

What do you think will happen?

"Vagina," in unison, by all three students.

Students suspended.

Principal roundly mocked for being an idiot.


Story here, via Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon.

Related: scrotum.

[Update: update on this story is here, at Dirty John Bonny.]

Opera

What's Opera, Doc?

This is widely considered Chuck Jones’ masterpiece. And one of my favorites. His similar sendup of Rossini's The Barber of Seville is funnier, but this even goes so far as to parody the whole Buggs-Elmer conflict itself. Elmer finally does kill the rabbit, and feels awful about it.

It borrows from Richard Wagner's operatic cycle The Ring of the Nibelung, with bits of Tannhäuser and The Flying Dutchman thrown in. It's best best known for the "kill the wabbit" lyrics set to the Ride of the Valkyries.

More than once I've heard the soundtrack on my local public radio classic music station.

About seven and a half.

Links:
Chuck Jones.

For My Friend Steve

Who I know loves this sort of stuff.
Delicious.

1959 Pontiac Bonneville.

There is so much that is wonderful about this painting. Together the forced perspective and horizontal composition make the car look huge (well, it was huge). Even the bit of cropping on the left plants the subtle psychological seed of the notion that it could go on even farther.

Babe and dudes.
And so totally queer.
Am I reading too much into this?

She's disrobing. Yet his body language is moving away. And he's nicely juxtaposed to the shirtless hunk to the right.

And I recognize that shirt. Must be a California thing. Posted earlier here:

There is something of naivete and un-self-consciousness in these nineteen-fifties-era artworks that makes them so charming.


Credit to Plan59.com, "The Museum (and Gift Shop) of Mid-Century Illustration."