Yet more proof that Google is the best search engine ever. I just found thier version of babblefish but free. I tried to translate a page that I had trouble with before, but low and behold, nohope.org isn't the cool clock any more and I can't find the text I was looking to translate. Phooey.

Yay! It seems the tables are turning and the SUV backlash may be gaining momenteum.

I found this while I was trying to figure out how to get free internet access on my trip to Chicago this week. Jason said he had tried to find something like this before, but couldn't. I guess I am just better with google. ;) hee hee.

WTF?

Hutton Gibson follows a tiny wing of traditionalist Catholicism that views the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council as a conspiracy between Jews and Masons to take over the church.

Jews are a common target for a lot of things...but the Masons??

Very Cool way to use the iTunes you win from Pepsi caps. Lower down on the page is a link to a site which lets you figure out if the music you want is being put about by a member of the RIAA. Crush them!!

So these kids promoted a "day of purity" last Friday to show thier commitment to not having sex until marriage. The best quote is by a 17 year old:

The way sex is talked about, it's so casual, like it's an everyday thing, like going to McDonald's.

While I somewhat respect what these kids are doing, and understand, to some extent, thier modivations, that statement sounds like some one who doesn't understand sex at all. And I don't mean just that he is a virgin, I mean that he doesn't understand what sex is from a biological standpoint. It is casual, it is an everyday thing. Sex is the desire to reproduce, to pass on one's genetic material, and people are having it every day, and thinking about it every day because it is hardwired in our brains to do so. Granted, sleeping around isn't smart, but it isn't smart because there is a lot of responsibility that comes from having sex with some one--possible pregnancy, diseases, etc--not because sex isn't an everyday thing.

I, personally, think that many of these kids will end up not being virgins once they get to college. Talk about kicking that biological desire into high gear...

Plus, when it comes down to it, I know there are many people (myself included) that have sex more frequently than they go to McDonald's. If it ends up the other way around for these kids, they will be unloved for a long time, or are going to be very fat.

This article on CNN talks about a Texas woman who is being convicted for selling sex toys because:

Texas law allows for the sale of sexual toys as long as they are billed as novelties, BeAnn Sisemore, a Fort Worth attorney representing Webb, told the Houston Chronicle before a gag order was issued by the judge presiding over the case. But when a person markets sex toys in a direct manner that shows their actual role in sex, then that person is subject to obscenity charges, she told the newspaper.

She told two undercover cops how a vibrator could be used in sex. Some people are so uptight. A pastor had been counceling some women who had talked to Webb about the products she sold. "It was causing problems with their marriages," she said. I am curious just how. The men in these relationships were probably too insecure in thier manhood to let let anything else into the bed, otherwise I would think that most men would enjoy a little novelty in the sack.

Don't mess with Texas.

Wow. I bet that kid was mortified.

Parents are crazy.

This site has a really neat clock. I like how each previous number is erased. Very cool. I can't figure our what language the text is in. I ran it through this site (bablefish is now a real company...phoofy) trying a few different languages for the source (German, Dutch), but no luck. Any ideas what language it is?

A very cool blog entry about NADD (Nerd Attention Deficiency Disorder). I know I have it. Unless I am really engrossed in a project, I can't spend more than 10 or 15 minutes focusing on any one thing. I always have about 8 or 10 windows open on my desktop, and am easily distracted by things in my office. It happens all the time when I am cleaning up around our apartment. I go to put something away, and find something else that needs to be put away in the place where I put the first item away. My movements through the house, if captured as a function of time on a big cleaning day would look like a large web.

Of course, there is the alternate occurance, when I get focused. I can focus on reading, or writing a MATLAB script, or working on some engineering problem, or writing a poem/journal entry/etc. and completely lose track of the time and where I am. But I have to really get caught up in the project and forget that I have 8 or 9 other windows open, or that I have a cool toy sitting on the other side of my office that I need to open up and figure out how it works...

This article that was linked from MSN.com links to a couple sites that give detailed information about what seats are best on different planes. One of these sites is SeatGuru. I took a poke through the site and found the flights I am taking later this month for a trade show in Chicago. Come to find out, my seats are pretty bad, and that my company is cheap with the seats and I am sitting in the regular economy section. (Though, I should note that one business trip I took, I got 1st class seats, due to the flight being full otherwise, but it turned out that we really didn't get to enjoy it because it was a rather bumpy ride, and the flight attendents couldn't manuver the carts down the isles. Stupid turbulance.)

This is kind of bizzar. It is an index of FAQs, but it is amazingly short. Granted, it does give some very useful sites--US Library of Congress FAQ about copyright, IRS income tax FAQ--but then there is the American Phychological Association's FAQ about sexual orientation. That's cool, but it seems odd to have that and the USNET FAQ Archives listed as the most important resources. Plus, who are these residents of Naperville, IL who are the final goto on what questions and FAQs are important resources.

One of the links from the above site is to this site, which appears to be another bizzar site which is:

an on-line community of concerned citizens, researchers, independent investigators and journalists asking and exploring unanswered questions.

They seem to be focusing heavily on the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in NYC (I am not a big fan of the term "9-11," its way too kitchy). Some of the questions are very compellling, but I am still not sure what the point of the page is except to stimulate discussion and encourage the exchange of knowledge. I question, though, the validity of some of the comments and questions since there are so many conspearicy theories that can cloud one's thought when looking at information like this for too long.

Okay, so this is really cool. I wish the microscope I got for my computer could do that, but it only maginifies to about 200X, which doesn't get down to quite the molecular level.

The site the beer gallery is on also has a store with all sorts of fun stuff with molecular designs.

Tamagotchi is back. This time Bandi has taken a cue from The Sims and the creatures can interact on a more "wholesome" level than some of the clones that were out a few years ago. I had one at one point (I think I sold it on e-bay for 8 bucks) that you could train to fight against others of its kind. I was too old (in my late 'teens early 20s) when I got it to have any friends who would also have one, but I thought it was a cool idea; a great competition to get kids to interact and take thier agressions out a on vertual level.

Now, the cool thing about these, is they don't have to touch to talk to eachother, they use IR. Also, you have a nifty dating aspect that could help some lonely kid to come out and get to know the girl on the other side of the classroom whose Tamagotchi creature has fallen in love with his. Talk about a great way to answer the grandchildren when they asked how you met: "Well, your grandmother's Tamagotchi was soooo cute."

OMG Peter Jackson is such a twinkie. That link provides a very narrow definition. This one, down at the bottom, provides better insight as to what a twinkie is, once you get to the bottom of the page. Here is a sample (and an accurate one, from my experience):

Twinkies like Star Wars and Star Trek. Twinkies love computers. Twinkies are likely to own a cloak and wear it in public on a day that is not halloween. In groups they become confident and arrogant and flaunt their difference - but most are shy and nervous alone.

I don't like to think of myself as a twinkie because the majority of them scare me. I spent most of my time at MIT avoiding twinkies, even though I think some of the stuff they do is cool. I do have some twinkie qualities, but the majority of twinkies I have known are too passionate about LotR or D&D or Star Wars and wear too clokes too often for my taste...oh, and they tend to be very condesending if you let them, and argumentitive if you don't.

While this article on CNN about counterfit birth control says that the patches were traced back to India, the first thing I thought of when I saw the headline was that some ultra-consevative religious group was peddling fake patches as real birth control. I could imagine that happening with some of the cooks that are out there.

It looks like there is some good news for gays and lesbians in MA. CNN has the article here. (I know this was news yesterday, but I didn't have a chance to write an entry.)

I completely agree with this ruling, though it has the possibility of backfiring, since a constitutional ammendment may be put on the table to take away all such rights. I think that it shouldn't matter what sex you are; if you have the conviction to be legally committed to one person for an extended period of time, you should be granted all the rights and privilages there of. There is no reason not to, except for people's ignorance.

Another interesting Slate article. This one is from today, and focuses on how more technology can really bring too much of a good thing. Evidently with HDTV and Hi-Def movies you can really see the details of a star on the big (or little) screen, including blemishes that are usually hidden and the make-up that is hiding them.

It is an interesting thought--maybe we don't want/need to see the world in all of its reality. Part of the reason one (or at least I) watch TV is to escape from some of the reality of life. The last think I want to see is just how cratored Robert Redford's face is. (I had a roommate once who didn't think Redford was very handsome just for that reason.) I like the more blurred picture of him that I have in my head and on my 19" TV. (Esp. in The Sting, what a hotty!)

Yesterday was Groundhog Day and Punxsuawney Phil saw his shadow. For what it is worth, we now have 6 more weeks of winter. Fine with me, as I have not done nearly enough skiing. Slate published this yesterday on just where Groundhog Day comes from. Oddly enough, the current form is based on

Candlemas Day, an early Christian feast day commemorating the baptism of Jesus that involved a lot of candle-bearing

This day, as most Christian holidays are, is based on an earlier Pagan holiday. But, I have to say that the modern form of this day is extremely odd. How would you like to be woken up from your hibranation on a cold winter's day just so some schmuck can see if you have a shadow. They could do the same thing with a carboard cut out of a groundhog, or heck, the schmuch can do it himself...unless he's a vampire.