tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57253350396071405792024-03-12T22:05:59.785-04:00Dissent of ManScience, politics, religion, games, and assorted nonsenseErichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07264534786765734286noreply@blogger.comBlogger78125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725335039607140579.post-42176919506154967092014-12-16T22:40:00.001-05:002014-12-16T22:40:20.758-05:00Out of AestivationAestivation is like hibernation, in that an organism slows its metabolism to a trickle and avoids all activity, but during the summer months. As such it usually refers to animals who take a break in especially arid environments to avoid the most scorching months rather than people who work summer jobs with insane hours, but it's close enough. Will this blog now return to "regular" updates (as Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07264534786765734286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725335039607140579.post-84285659974415814122014-02-26T04:04:00.000-05:002014-02-26T22:32:36.981-05:00Getting started in Banished
This guide as a whole is intended for people who have little or no experience with the game. If you've played a bit and think you're doing everything right but still have failing settlements, the "Distribution" and "Miscellaneous advice" sections might be good places to check.
The PC strategy game Banished from one-man-show Shining Rock Software was released last week. I'd been Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07264534786765734286noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725335039607140579.post-75419823883418193492014-02-05T21:31:00.000-05:002014-02-11T01:48:11.974-05:00Answering creationists' questions on behalf of Bill Nye
This Buzzfeed list has been bouncing around Facebook, showing questions posed by creationists for Bill Nye* before the recent debate he had with Ken Ham. I don't know if Nye will actually go about addressing them himself, but if I might be so bold I'm going to answer them here on his behalf. The fact that these folks made it through a high school education without learning the answers to Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07264534786765734286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725335039607140579.post-88681464552353485282013-08-10T02:11:00.000-04:002014-12-16T22:28:17.669-05:00MS MR - "Hurricane"
I quite enjoy this song—the verse in particular—and have been listening to it over and over. If you decide to check out more from the band just be ready for things to get kinda weird/creepy/dark in their official videos. :PErichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07264534786765734286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725335039607140579.post-3894116091252154992013-06-18T20:59:00.000-04:002014-12-16T22:32:28.595-05:00Miscellaneous thoughts related to base-twelveIf you haven't already, read my previous posts, "The case for base-twelve" (Part 1 and Part 2)
FINALLY we can get this whole
counting thing sorted out...
So no, I don't think switching to base-twelve is a feasible idea. I do lament the fact that it's not what we're using right now, though. It strikes me as a more elegant system, and it's a shame that happenstance has pretty much dictated thatErichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07264534786765734286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725335039607140579.post-58211250630333068452013-06-18T20:58:00.001-04:002013-10-01T16:46:55.893-04:00The case for base-twelve, Part 2(If you haven't already, read Part 1, where I explain why we're going through all this trouble.)
An important thing to understand before we move on: what we tend to
call a "number" is actually comprised of several different aspects. It
has a value, which is the count of things it represents; it has a symbol,
which is made up of the numerals 0-9 which can be arranged in single-
and Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07264534786765734286noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725335039607140579.post-493044519955791492013-06-18T20:58:00.000-04:002013-10-01T16:12:33.641-04:00The case for base-twelve, Part 1
Image Source
This is going to be another of my pet rants (like this one)—the kind that people who know me in real life may have heard five or six times now. I'm going to go into waaaaay more detail than I ever have in person, though. So maybe getting it all out of my system on the internet will mean they won't have to hear it anymore? (HAH!)
This topic's a favorite of mine because it Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07264534786765734286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725335039607140579.post-40169720572863011842013-05-13T19:52:00.001-04:002014-12-17T00:08:14.278-05:00Here There Be Chickens: GeoGuessrThis post is going to have a lot of pictures. Click any of them to enlarge.
A couple of the PC gaming sites I visit pointed out this lovely browser-based game today: GeoGuessr. Basically it takes you to a random street somewhere in the world using Google Street View, and you have to figure out where you are. It's a simple idea but quite fun: it gives you a new way to experience the Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07264534786765734286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725335039607140579.post-68862508320648580892013-04-24T04:06:00.000-04:002013-04-24T18:30:28.661-04:00A Game of High-Stakes Bureaucracy
I suppose you'd be justified if you think the idea of a game based on checking papers at a border-crossing sounds like it could be a little boring. But if you're like me, then the forthcoming game Papers, Please will quickly start to win you over. It begins when you realize that far from simply pestering commuters at a rather benign border-crossing in Northern Europe or some such place, you're Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07264534786765734286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725335039607140579.post-50993989469546660972013-04-23T03:51:00.000-04:002013-05-21T19:24:46.259-04:00A little poem about murder
The image to the right turned up in my Facebook feed tonight. I almost looked right past it, but the last line happened to catch my eye and upon reading the rest I was disgusted.
Generally I don't start religious or political discussions on Facebook but I do make exceptions, so I thought for a while on whether this case should be one of them. In the end I decided it wasn't worth it. But I Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07264534786765734286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725335039607140579.post-29615917668241186992013-04-22T23:57:00.001-04:002013-08-10T02:13:05.012-04:00Grimes - "Oblivion"I think part of what originally drew me to this song was that the second half reminds me of the old GoldenEye and Perfect Dark soundtracks from the N64. :P
Even apart from that I like the song, though, and quite a few others from Grimes. Both she and her music are cute and goofy, with a nice hint of creepy.
(If you want a comparison for the old N64 games, I think the similarities are Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07264534786765734286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725335039607140579.post-20949935311972203682013-04-22T21:04:00.001-04:002013-04-23T00:44:39.607-04:00New Zealand gives me hopeLast week New Zealand's House of Representatives passed approval for same-sex marriage in that country, to take effect on 19 August. That's encouraging in its own right, but there have also been a couple of awesome videos to come out of the process.
The first is of National Party MP Maurice Williamson giving an impassioned and funny speech on why the bill should pass:
Wikipedia refers to Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07264534786765734286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725335039607140579.post-44635184742701371402013-03-28T00:08:00.000-04:002014-12-17T00:49:32.332-05:00A thing I made, because reasons
(Click for larger)
I was playing the lovely game FTL and as my hopes and dreams were being sucked into the void through a horrifying number of hull breaches I remarked to a friend, "Space is full of jerks."
His fantastic reply was simply "- Carl Sagan." This led to us modifying a bunch of Sagan's quotes. Billions and billions of jerks, jerks making apple pies from scratch, and of course, "Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07264534786765734286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725335039607140579.post-48137285497356116602013-02-18T22:00:00.001-05:002013-02-19T00:03:13.264-05:00Gods forgive usA friend asked me to help her with the visuals for a school assignment that involved making a Facebook page for Socrates, and here's what we came up with:
See the rest of it after the jump.
Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07264534786765734286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725335039607140579.post-89432832566321612282013-02-16T02:41:00.001-05:002013-02-16T04:40:24.973-05:00Meteor over RussiaObviously this story has been covered pretty much all over the place today, and given that I'm no astronomy expert I don't really have anything new to contribute, but there's also pretty much no way I could let this pass without mentioning it.
I first heard about it this morning, when my friend Tim—an enthusiast of both astronomy and Russia, so this thing was basically made for him—awoke me withErichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07264534786765734286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725335039607140579.post-42772150803286044102013-02-14T17:57:00.001-05:002013-02-14T21:30:50.431-05:00"Masculism": The joke that writes itselfIf you're not aware, there's a group of men out there who refer to themselves as Men's Rights Activists (MRAs) who appear to be genuinely under the impression that men are the oppressed sex in our society. If your immediate reaction is to laugh and shake your head in disbelief, that's because it's warranted. Their evidence for their oppression seems to come down to a bitterness over the fact thatErichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07264534786765734286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725335039607140579.post-55889707654354604162013-01-31T15:28:00.000-05:002013-02-14T21:35:55.286-05:00MoonriseHere's a beautiful video of the moon rising with people silhouetted against it:
It's a little hard to believe at first, but the video is realtime and the moon really does move that quickly across the sky. It's a little deceiving, though, since the video was shot through a telephoto lens from 2 km out, so you're seeing a smaller portion of the sky than you might at first assume. That's also Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07264534786765734286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725335039607140579.post-76163976185949653362013-01-30T22:06:00.002-05:002013-01-30T22:07:40.055-05:00Swim like an eagle
Human preconceptions of you are irrelevant when there's a tasty hunk of meat to be had.
(via 22 Words)Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07264534786765734286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725335039607140579.post-39017363991684563222013-01-27T05:46:00.002-05:002014-12-16T23:45:41.391-05:00The Life of Brian and Closed Systems of ThoughtIn a recent post on Pharyngula, PZ Myers reminded me of this frustrating but intriguing interview and debate from 1979 that members of Monty Python did about their film Life of Brian, which came out that same year. Two of the Pythons, John Cleese and Michael Palin, discussed the film with journalist Malcolm Muggeridge and Mervyn Stockwood, the Bishop of Southwark. The segment in its entirety Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07264534786765734286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725335039607140579.post-91854217779048432772013-01-26T22:07:00.000-05:002013-01-27T13:53:25.367-05:00Geek vs. Dork vs. Nerd
(Image Source)
I'm the sort of person who happily self-identifies as both a "geek" and a "dork," but as soon as someone tries to call me a "nerd" I'll vehemently deny it. Why?
Because I'm also a pedant, though I've come to realize that my pedantry in this particular area may be a lot more subjective than I used to think. To me, the terms "geek," "dork," and "nerd" have always had distinct Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07264534786765734286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725335039607140579.post-32139796079161850122013-01-17T00:13:00.000-05:002013-08-10T02:14:05.098-04:00The Temper Trap - "Fader"
It took me a while to realize how much I enjoy this song. It doesn't really have anything that reaches out and grabs me and so for a time I'd only half-listen when it played on the radio. But soon I realized that I always found myself feeling like it had ended too soon, that I wanted to listen to it some more. And upon closer listening I found that even though it is perhaps a bit subdued, Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07264534786765734286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725335039607140579.post-11281533115188989742013-01-16T23:55:00.000-05:002013-01-17T06:50:44.753-05:00An Ode to OddnessWhen I came across this video, it was presented in a way that made it seem like just another video of somebody showing off some dumb thing they'd invented. Because of that I almost passed it by, since the invention itself (a spring-loaded wrist mount for an iPhone) isn't terribly impressive. But I'm thankful to whatever tiny demon of whimsy prodded me to watch it, because while it starts off Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07264534786765734286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725335039607140579.post-39434054229668731872012-12-23T03:29:00.001-05:002012-12-23T03:29:52.708-05:00PrioritiesA great comic from The Oatmeal, which I don't think I need to add anything to. See the rest of it below the fold or the whole thing here.
Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07264534786765734286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725335039607140579.post-679838464556789512012-12-16T03:00:00.001-05:002013-01-17T00:19:52.272-05:00A nice little tour of the space stationPhil Plait posted the video below at his blog Bad Astronomy today, and I quite enjoyed it. It's not overly technical but also not too vague or over-glossing. It manages to strike a nice balance that provides an interesting overview of life on the station. I found the whole thing quite charming.
Plait mentions expecting to only watch a couple minutes of it, and similarly I almost didn't Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07264534786765734286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5725335039607140579.post-5782784095549720292012-12-15T07:27:00.001-05:002012-12-16T03:27:27.923-05:00Cephalopods because why not
Look on and despair. (Image source)
I'll ramble on about my love for cephalopods at the slightest provocation. They are, after all, the most-excellent of the invertebrates. Now I know there are some pretty fervent fans of beetles out there, and I'll admit their diversity of forms and downright beauty are impressive. And I personally know someone who studies the nudibranchs who would probably Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07264534786765734286noreply@blogger.com0