. . . and going to get same sex married . . . enjoy fine, legal, state-sanctioned same sex marriages in Netherlands and Belguim. But wait, there's more!! Now including: Spain and Canada!
And the Catholic Church can bite my hairy, white, lesbian ass! See the twelve reasons why.
Attention, RSS feeders! There's a new tech section on the site with its own RSS feed. (Site visitors may have already noticed the new link at the top.)
I've been exploring a lot of new technologies lately, and I wanted to write about them without flooding the main site with esoteric techno-commentaries. Readers, take a look. Authors, let me know if you'd like me to add it to your admin interface.
Mermaid
Water with Air
Astrologically associated with Pisces and the Twelfth House
Mermaid types are warm and caring in a passive, receptive way. They are given to daydreaming and to contemplation, a combination that can make them seem curiously absent and fey. They are among the most unworldly of all the types. Despite this they have a strong ability for clear, rational thinking that can be startling. They seem to have a deep, intuitive understanding of the oneness of the universe. They have a desire to help the world at large and are acutely aware of and sensitive to suffering. This is partly because they do not recognize the customary boundaries between people, other living things, time, space, this world and the Otherworld. They are frequently psychic. They can be brilliantly original and highly creative. They are usually regarded by others as benign eccentrics or as plain weird.
My "shadow" is the wodwose:
Wodwose
Earth and Fire
This shadow is beset by inertia and a feeling of hopelessness and stagnation. They are prone to depression linked to apparently insuperable odds. They exhibit an attitude of defeat that is betrayed by their fatalism and pessimism. They often find themselves trapped in a rut of grinding routine. They have no energy or sense of direction. They often alienate others because of their negativity and narrow outlook and because they feel anger and resentment toward them. Passive aggression is used to good effect. They are self-neglectful of their physical needs although they may binge on unhealthy foods and substances. The biggest obstacle of weak Fire is to overcome anger and aggression; the biggest obstacle of weak Earth is to overcome self-centeredness and greed.
I can't help it. These things just find me. Like when I'm driving around listening to NPR. Enjoy the audio!
According to a recent AP article, Space Shuttle Discovery is ready to launch on July 13th. Perhaps even more interesting is a little blurb at the end of the article:
The Iran Non-Proliferation Act would effectively bar U.S. astronauts from staying on the space station after April 2006. The bill, passed in 2000, had aimed to prevent Russia from helping Iran expand its nascent nuclear program.
Whoops. That might be something to look into...
For those of you in the San Diego area, be sure to check out Velvet Smog, our own Mike Roufa's jazz trio. They're playing this Sunday (6/26) and next (7/3) at Hennessey's Tavern in the Gaslamp. (Details are on the Global Spin calendar.)
If you can't make it to one of the gigs, be sure to download a song or two from their Web site and have a listen.
Cosmos 1, the solar-sail probe launched yesterday by the Planetary Society, has apparently failed on launch. The failure was in the first-stage rocket launching the probe into orbit, not the probe itself, so it seems that the thing to do is to build the same thing over and try it again.
For the naming challenged I present the Institute for Naming Children Humanely." You might laugh, but have you been checking on celebrity baby names lately? It's a sad, scary state of affairs.
This may sound like something out of a Snopes entry, but it looks like the House is actually looking to cut all funding for NPR and PBS over the next two years.
If that angers you as much as it does me, then consider signing the MoveOn petition telling Congress to save NPR and PBS.
As the girl in the Midwest with East Coast time (doesn't make sense to me either), I get to be the first one to wish kk a happy,happy, happy birthday!
By the way, this shows up third on Google if you search "Happy Birthday Karen."
~5 days ago... no post yet?
Now this is science. Next time I sink all four wheels of my car into deep sand in the desert near Blythe (as I have done twice in the past), maybe they'll have published the amazing driving techniques I can use to drive away without getting out of the car, digging under the car with my hands, jacking up the car, digging to get the wheels uncovered, and putting stuff under the wheels to drive away. OTOH, I've done it in about four hours, versus five weeks. (Note: Adam Houston was along for one of these adventures.)
Because it's fun in a language/culture/kids way.
Leela: Didn't you have ads in the 20th century?
Fry: Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio. And in magazines. And movies. And at ball games and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts and written on the sky. But not in dreams. No siree!
I heard the most wonderful thing on Fafblog today. Jeff Coleman has turned a great ol' rambling post into a great ol' rambling song and posted same for the world to hear.
To Deb from KK via Deana: News of the pending Zogg invasion. It just had to be posted, people.
This is for anyone interested in gay square dancing. I came across it and felt that I had to make it known, just in case.
Overheard on slashdot today:
If you could go back in time to 1980 and tell everyone that in 25 years, European governments would be spearheading an initiative called Operation Spam Zombies, and that this name was not in any way meant to be humorous, the looks on peoples faces would be priceless.
Now that's what I'm talkin' about. None of this mumbling about the end of the world or strange portents. Prophet Yahweh has a simple, straightforward prophecy: Spaceships Will Appear Over Las Vegas On My Signal.
His press release has all the details, including, "The spaceship will hover in the sky ... for almost two days. All Las Vegans will be able to see it, day and night..." Even James Randi would approve of such a bold, falsifiable statement.
I recently accepted a position at EVDB, a start-up which is building an events database. It's a deceptively simple concept with far-reaching applications and more than its share of challenges; that translates to "lots of interesting work to do" and makes it a good fit for me.
Now, if I could just decide on a calendar to include in the sidebar here as a test. Any ideas?
I've been trying desperately to determine why this technique for reconstructing a scene from a different vantage point is useful (as opposed to just a neat trick). It's probably a great technique for use with live-action-plus-CG films, but I'm at a loss to find any other application.
Still, it reminds me of a discussion I had with Adam Houston a while back about using a regular wall as a mirror by reconstructing the paths of all the light rays hitting it. They aren't quite doing that, but they can still see the back face of a playing card using a similar trick. (View the video at the bottom to see the trick in action.)
