The Prairie Pooch Hole
Scientists have come a bit closer to achieving the "Star Trek" feat of teleportation. No one is galaxy-hopping, or even beaming people around, but for the first time, information has been teleported between two separate atoms across a distance of a meter — about a yard.
This is a significant milestone in a field known as quantum information processing, said Christopher Monroe of the Joint Quantum Institute at the University of Maryland, who led the effort.
Teleportation is one of nature's most mysterious forms of transport: Quantum information, such as the spin of a particle or the polarization of a photon, is transferred from one place to another, without traveling through any physical medium. It has previously been achieved between photons (a unit, or quantum, of electromagnetic radiation, such as light) over very large distances, between photons and ensembles of atoms, and between two nearby atoms through the intermediary action of a third.
None of those, however, provides a feasible means of holding and managing quantum information over long distances.
Now the JQI team, along with colleagues at the University of Michigan, has succeeded in teleporting a quantum state directly from one atom to another over a meter. That capability is necessary for workable quantum information systems because they will require memory storage at both the sending and receiving ends of the transmission.
In the Jan. 23 issue of the journal Science, the scientists report that, by using their protocol, atom-to-atom teleported information can be recovered with perfect accuracy about 90 percent of the time — and that figure can be improved.
"Our system has the potential to form the basis for a large-scale 'quantum repeater' that can network quantum memories over vast distances," Monroe said. "Moreover, our methods can be used in conjunction with quantum bit operations to create a key component needed for quantum computation."
A quantum computer could perform certain tasks, such as encryption-related calculations and searches of giant databases, considerably faster than conventional machines. The effort to devise a working model is a matter of intense interest worldwide.
http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/090123-teleportation-atoms.html
Low-life humanoid types, bow down low before the presence of the great Pooch Doggy Dog!
Monday, February 2, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
New Look Pooch Doggy Dog
Well, Pooch Doggy Dog fans! After an extensive snoot lift, and tummy tuck and genital augmentation (not visible in picture)...
The NEW ME!!!
And, the Subway Jared "before" look...
Eat your hearts out, you bitches...
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Citigroup Plans For Corporate Jet Outrages Everyone. O Gang Tells Citigroup to "Fix It"
According to a report from ABC News, President Obama is not taking kindly to corporate greed, especially when it's funded by taxpayer money. The high-flying execs at Citigroup caved under pressure from President Obama and decided today to abandon plans for a luxurious new $50 million corporate jet from France...ABC News has learned that Monday, officials of the Obama administration called Citigroup about the company's new $50 million corporate jet and told execs to "fix it."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/27/obama-officials-tells-cit_n_161202.html
I can't imagine W facing down a corporation. But, for you who tire of my tirades against our former president, I will have vented my bile in about one week. Then, a self-imposed W mention moratorium.
Pooch Doggy Dog
Y.W.C.A.: 1919
1919. "Young Women's Christian Association. Scenes at YWCA camp." Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative, Library of Congress.http://www.shorpy.com/node/5428
I'm a Shorpy! Click on me...
Republican Leadership Wants Limbaugh To Cool It
Some recent developments on the Republican side give me hope they might not be simple reactionaries. PoocherRush Limbaugh is taking heat from all sides for his comments about hoping President Obama's administration is a failure. Bill Bennett disagreed with his fellow conservative and said Limbaugh was wrong to say he wishes Obama will fail. Now Politico reports that Republican House member Phil Gingrey has a message for Limbaugh: back off.
"I think that our leadership, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, are taking the right approach," Gingrey said. "I mean, it's easy if you're Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh or even sometimes Newt Gingrich to stand back and throw bricks. You don't have to try to do what's best for your people and your party. You know you're just on these talk shows and you're living well and plus you stir up a bit of controversy and gin the base and that sort of that thing. But when it comes to true leadership, not that these people couldn't be or wouldn't be good leaders, they're not in that position of John Boehner or Mitch McConnell."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/27/gop-house-member-to-rush_n_161484.html
Interview With Dick Van Dyke About 'Mary Poppins' And More
Dick Van Dyke thought Walt Disney wanted to see him about "Mary Poppins" because of his singing and dancing skills. But the legendary studio founder had something else in mind."He had heard me in an interview talking about what was happening to family entertainment," says Van Dyke in a phone interview, still amused by the memory. "I was decrying the fact that it seemed like no holds were barred anymore in entertainment. ... That's why he called me in, because I said something he agreed with."
Disney, after years of cajoling "Poppins" author P.L. Travers, was finally mounting a production of the books about a magical nanny. With Van Dyke, he knew he was also getting a star as well as a like-minded performer. The actor's TV sitcom, "The Dick Van Dyke Show," was a steady hit at the time, and he had won a Tony for his work in the stage version of "Bye Bye Birdie."
With Van Dyke as the Cockney chimney sweep Bert, fellow Tony winner Julie Andrews (in her movie debut) as Poppins and several old pros in tow, Disney went ahead with production on the 1964 film, which was to become one of the biggest hits his studio ever produced.
The movie earned five Oscars -- including a best actress win for Andrews -- and its Richard and Robert Sherman songs, such as "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," "Feed the Birds" and the Oscar-winning "Chim Chim Cher-ee," have become standards.
Forty-five years later, "Poppins" is also a hit stage show, with excerpts of the Broadway production featured on a new 45th-anniversary DVD. Van Dyke, 83, took a few minutes to talk about the film, his much-maligned Cockney accent and Michelle Obama's fondness for his old TV show.
Read the interview with Van Dyke here...
http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/01/27/van.dyke.poppins/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
Autopsies of Six Football Players Show Stunning Brain Damage
For years after his NFL career ended, Ted Johnson could barely muster the energy to leave his house."I'd [leave to] go see my kids for maybe 15 minutes," said Johnson. "Then I would go back home and close the curtains, turn the lights off and I'd stay in bed. That was my routine for two years.
"Those were bad days."
These days, the former linebacker is less likely to recount the hundreds of tackles, scores of quarterback sacks or the three Super Bowl rings he earned as a linebacker for the New England Patriots. He is more likely to talk about suffering more than 100 concussions.
"I can definitely point to 2002 when I got back-to-back concussions. That's where the problems started," said Johnson, who retired after those two concussions. "The depression, the sleep disorders and the mental fatigue."
Until recently, the best medical definition for concussion was a jarring blow to the head that temporarily stunned the senses, occasionally leading to unconsciousness. It has been considered an invisible injury, impossible to test -- no MRI, no CT scan can detect it.
But today, using tissue from retired NFL athletes culled posthumously, the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy (CSTE), at the Boston University School of Medicine, is shedding light on what concussions look like in the brain. The findings are stunning. Far from innocuous, invisible injuries, concussions confer tremendous brain damage. That damage has a name: chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
CTE has thus far been found in the brains of five out of five former NFL players. On Tuesday afternoon, researchers at the CSTE will release study results from the sixth NFL player exhibiting the same kind of damage.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/01/26/athlete.brains/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
Spiderman Weapon In The Works
Say you're in charge of security at an air base. Suddenly, you look up, and there are dozens of would-assailants are coming down, on parachutes and hang-gliders. What do you do?Well, if you're one of the imaginative members of the Headquarters Air Force Security Forces Center, you whip out your non-lethal net-launcher -- and bag the baddies like Spiderman.
At least, that's what seems to be the vision behind the awfully-acronymed, "Counter Ultra Light Aircraft/Paratrooper System," or CULAPS. According to a military request for proposals discovered by Stephen Trimble, the gizmo is "envisaged as a lightweight net aimed and fired from the ground that envelopes the target and thereby removes the target's lift bringing it to the ground."
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/01/air-force-seeks.html
Miniaturized Laser Weapons Take Another Step Forward
Last month, a small robotic plane flew into the skies over New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range. Tracking the drone was an experimental Humvee, equipped with a laser. The real-life ray gun then took aim at the drone, and began blasting. Soon, the drone had a hole burnt through it -- and was crashing down to the desert.For decades, the Army and the Air Force have used laser prototypes to zap unmanned planes. But what makes this test, held last month, a little different is that the laser was small, and low-powered. Which makes the ray gun, at least in theory, fairly easy to fit into an existing combat vehicle. In the summer of 2007, this modified Humvee -- a Boeing "Laser Avenger" -- blasted five targets on the ground, including some unexploded ordnance.
Those initial trials raised some eyebrows, because the Laser Avenger used only one kilowatt laser; 100 kilowatts is generally considered the minimum for weapons-grade. Since then, the power has been "doubled," Boeing executive Lee Gutheinz says in a statement. And Boeing swears the weapon performs just fine, despite its relative weakness.
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/01/laser-1-drone-0.html
Antelopes Used By Israelis As Shock Troops To Charge Enemy Lines! (Well, at least they are used to graze grass screening view)
Israel already uses spy drones, automated sentry towers, and slew of sophisticated sensors, to keep watch over its borders. The latest addition to the arsenal: a group of eight African antelope, each weighing nearly 1100 pounds.The antelope have been stationed on Israel's border with Lebanon, to eat up the "problematic foliage that distorts views of the Lebanese side and within which Hezbollah guerrillas could hide," Ha'Aretz reports.
The beasts, known as "elands," were introduced to Israel from east Africa in the 1970s, to fill zoos. But when these animals "impressive chewing abilities were discovered," the animals were recruited by the military.
"The elands eat tremendous quantities and do a wonderful job clearing the weeds at enormous or secret military installations, and in places were there are ammunition storerooms, where the fear of fires is greater," says Yossi Ben tells Ha'Aretz. "In these places the elands save on manpower and obviate the need for spraying chemical herbicides."
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/01/israel-unleash.html
New Smart Tank Round Being Developed
Last week, the Army conducted a full test of the Mid-Range Munition, a "smart" 120-mm cannon round. It's part of a push to give tank gunners the same kind of precision that artillery crews have with munitions like the Excalibur, an extended-range, precision guided 155-mm artillery round that has seen service in both Iraq and Afghanistan.Here's the concept: The Mid-Range Munition pops out small "wings" in flight; the round can then be guided to a target with a laser designator, or it can be fired in the general direction of the target and the infrared seeker will guide it home. In theory, this would for the first time give tank gunners an "indirect fire" capability, meaning that they could hit a target, say, on the other side of a hill with the aid of a spotter.
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/01/the-little-tank.html
Browser Wars Heat Up... Microsoft IE 8 Is SUCKY!
(In picture... Sunspider, short bars good; Google, tall bars good.)A release candidate of Microsoft's next-generation Internet Explorer browser made available this week has twice finished last in a five-browser benchmark competition.
Microsoft's overnight posting of the final Internet Explorer 8 pre-release build prompted ZDNet Australia to run it through some benchmark tests against its counterparts.
On the Sunspider JavaScript performance test, despite all the performance improvements Microsoft says it's making, IE8 finished last by roughly 3,000ms. It was narrowly bested by Opera 10 alpha, while bunched at the top of the performance ranks and separated by slight margins were Google Chrome 2.0.158.0, WebKit r40220, and Firefox 3.1 beta 1. WebKit serves as the foundation of Apple's Safari browser.
ZDNet was not surprised to find that Google's browser came in first on Google's own V8 JavaScript Benchmark, while WebKit finished a close second. Opera and Firefox trailed well behind in third and fourth, while Internet Explorer was a distant last.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/01/27/ie8s_javascript_performance_lags_well_behind_safari_chrome.html
Microsoft's overnight posting of the final Internet Explorer 8 pre-release build prompted ZDNet Australia to run it through some benchmark tests against its counterparts.
On the Sunspider JavaScript performance test, despite all the performance improvements Microsoft says it's making, IE8 finished last by roughly 3,000ms. It was narrowly bested by Opera 10 alpha, while bunched at the top of the performance ranks and separated by slight margins were Google Chrome 2.0.158.0, WebKit r40220, and Firefox 3.1 beta 1. WebKit serves as the foundation of Apple's Safari browser.
ZDNet was not surprised to find that Google's browser came in first on Google's own V8 JavaScript Benchmark, while WebKit finished a close second. Opera and Firefox trailed well behind in third and fourth, while Internet Explorer was a distant last.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/01/27/ie8s_javascript_performance_lags_well_behind_safari_chrome.html
Dueling Jokes... Pooch Dog Won!
Pooch Dog received very poor quality joke from daughter this morning. His majesty chastised daughter, showing her better form with a few jokes and comments. Said Pooch Gal responded, doing a little better with her followup jokes. Despite her efforts, the International Committee on Jokes Between Family Members ruled me the champion.Pooch Dog
From: Pooch Dog Daughter
to: Pooch Dog
date: Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 11:05 AM
subject: Redneck Sensitivity
Three Rednecks were working up on a cell phone tower: Cooter, Ronnie and Donnie. As they start their descent, Cooter slips, falls off the tower and is DRT (Dead Right There).
As the ambulance takes the body away, Ronnie says, 'Well, damn, someone should go and tell his wife.' Donnie says, 'OK, I'm pretty good at that sensitive stuff, I'll do it.'
Two hours later, he comes back carrying a case of Budweiser. Ronnie says, 'Where did you get that beer, Donnie?' 'Cooter's wife gave it to me,' Ronnie replies. 'That's unbelievable, you told the lady her husband was dead and she gave you beer?'
Well, not exactly', Donnie says, 'When she answered the door, I said to her, "you must be Cooter's widow".'She said, 'You must be mistaken, I'm not a widow.' Then I said 'I'll bet you a case of Budweiser you are.'
Rednecks Are Good AT That Sensitive Stuff!
Reply from: Pooch Dog to Pooch Dog Daughter
You and your brother have been telling some VERY bad jokes lately! Adding him should he want to apologize also...
Now, here are two that are worth their salt..
A woman rushed to see her doctor, looking very much worried and all strung out. She rattles off: "Doctor, take a look at me. When I woke up this morning, I looked at myself in the mirror and saw my hair all wiry and frazzled up, my skin was all wrinkled and pasty, my eyes were bloodshot and bugging out, and I had this corpse-like look on my face! What's WRONG with me, Doctor!?" The doctor looks her over for a couple of minutes, then calmly says: "Well, I can tell you that there ain't nothing wrong with your eyesight."
You and your brother have been telling some VERY bad jokes lately! Adding him should he want to apologize also...
Now, here are two that are worth their salt..
A woman rushed to see her doctor, looking very much worried and all strung out. She rattles off: "Doctor, take a look at me. When I woke up this morning, I looked at myself in the mirror and saw my hair all wiry and frazzled up, my skin was all wrinkled and pasty, my eyes were bloodshot and bugging out, and I had this corpse-like look on my face! What's WRONG with me, Doctor!?" The doctor looks her over for a couple of minutes, then calmly says: "Well, I can tell you that there ain't nothing wrong with your eyesight."
And...
A woman gets on a bus with her baby. The bus driver says: "That's the ugliest b
aby that I've ever seen. Ugh!" The woman goes to the rear of the bus and sits down, fuming. She says to a man next to her: "The driver just insulted me!" The man says: "You go right up there and tell him off – go ahead, I'll hold your monkey for you."
Or...
"How do you make a Nazi Cross? Tread on his corns".
(OK, that last one wasn't!)
Many don't know about the undercover joke warfare in WW II. It is documented here...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Funniest_Joke_in_the_World
Seems someone on the British side came up with a joke so funny that it killed whoever read it. They finally translated it into German, each translator responsible for only one word. (One translator accidentally saw two words, and was hospitalized.) It killed thousand
s of Germans before the war was over. In retaliation, the Germans soon formulate a counter-joke, which is translated into English and played over the radio to London, but with no success. The joke is:
"There were zwei [two] peanuts walking down der Strasse [street]. Und one was assaulted (a salted)... peanut!")
It went no where!
Now! Do better than that...
A disappointed father in Texas
"There were zwei [two] peanuts walking down der Strasse [street]. Und one was assaulted (a salted)... peanut!")
It went no where!
Now! Do better than that...
A disappointed father in Texas
From Pooch Dog Daughter to Pooch Dog
I am sorry I can’t counter with any “bad” jokes but I do have some very GOOD ones for you…even some good ol’ classy, non-fiction insults…
A member of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease." "That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "whether I embrace your policies or your mistress."
"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it." - Moses Hadas
“George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill "I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend.... if you have one." --Winston Churchill, in response - "Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is one."
"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily." - Charles, Count Talleyrand
"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork." - Mae West
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang (1844-1912)
"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." - Groucho Marx
Spanish for the day – Words used in sentences
Texas: My fren always Texas me when I'm not home wondering where I'm at!
Herpes: Me and my fren ordered pizza. I got my piece and she got herpes.
Rectum: I had 2 cars but my wife rectum!
Harassment: My wife caught me in bed with another women and I told her, honey, harassment nothing to me.
Bishop: My wife fell down the stairs, so I had to pick the bishop.
Why boys need parents... (See picture.)
Things you’ll find out having sons…
• If you spray hair spray on dust bunnies and run over them with roller blades, they can ignite.
• If you hook a dog leash over a ceiling fan, the motor is not strong enough to rotate a 42 pound Boy wearing Batman underwear and a Superman cape. It is strong enough, however, if tied to a paint can, to spread paint on all four walls of a 20x20 ft. room.
• When you hear the toilet flush and the words 'uh oh', it's already too late.
• A six-year old Boy can start a fire with a flint rock even though a 36- year old Man says they can only do it in the movies.
• The spin cycle on the washing machine does not make earthworms dizzy.
New Drones Enlisted as Bomb-Fighters
The U.S. military has tried everything to stop roadside bombs, from radio frequency jammers to hulking trucks to blimps to lightning guns. Now, the Pentagon is getting set to deploy out a new crew of bomb-fighters: robotic aircraft with specialized sensors, designed to spot the deadly weapons and the militants who are planting them.The agency has invested in robo-planes before. But these latest efforts seem to be concentrated on smaller, lower-flying drones that can closely track the action on the ground.
The "Sentinel Hawk" is a modified Silver Fox drone, equipped with infrared sensors and "built to keep tabs on a specific road or path," Defense News explains. A single operator will be able to command teams of the eight-foot long aircraft, as they patrol the roadways for bombs.
The "Yellow Jacket" robo-copter gives warzone convoys an unmanned eye-in-the-sky. For up to eight hours, the drone will follow around -- and keep watch on -- a vehicle, beaming what it sees down to the ground.
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/01/anti-ied-drones.html
Thrift store MP3 player contains secret military files
A man walks into a thrift store... It sounds like the opening line to a bad joke. And this case was a bad joke -- for the Pentagon.
Chris Ogle of New Zealand was in Oklahoma about a year ago when he bought a used MP3 player from a thrift store for $9. A few weeks ago, he plugged it into his computer to download a song, and he instead discovered confidential U.S. military files.
"The more I look at it, the more I see, and the less I think I should be," Ogle said with a nervous laugh in an interview with TVNZ.
The files included the home addresses, Social Security numbers and cell phone numbers of U.S. soldiers. The player also included what appeared to be mission briefings and lists of equipment deployed to hot spots in Afghanistan and Iraq. Most of the information appears to date to 2005.
The New Zealand journalist who first reported the story was able to contact at least one of the soldiers by dialing a phone number found in the files. He hung up once she explained why she was calling. Pentagon officials told CNN that they are aware of the MP3 player, but can't talk about it until investigators confirm that the information came from the U.S. Department of Defense.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/01/27/confidential.mp3.player/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
Chris Ogle of New Zealand was in Oklahoma about a year ago when he bought a used MP3 player from a thrift store for $9. A few weeks ago, he plugged it into his computer to download a song, and he instead discovered confidential U.S. military files.
"The more I look at it, the more I see, and the less I think I should be," Ogle said with a nervous laugh in an interview with TVNZ.
The files included the home addresses, Social Security numbers and cell phone numbers of U.S. soldiers. The player also included what appeared to be mission briefings and lists of equipment deployed to hot spots in Afghanistan and Iraq. Most of the information appears to date to 2005.
The New Zealand journalist who first reported the story was able to contact at least one of the soldiers by dialing a phone number found in the files. He hung up once she explained why she was calling. Pentagon officials told CNN that they are aware of the MP3 player, but can't talk about it until investigators confirm that the information came from the U.S. Department of Defense.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/01/27/confidential.mp3.player/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
Pooch & Google Reader
Are you using software to find and read blogs? A news/blog aggregator. Then, you are simply a simpleton! A lowlands maggot. I use Google Reader, and am adding a screen capture so you can get an idea of what it offers. Other worthy software exists. Check out the links below, you newbies, for ramp up help.Pooch Doggy Dog
Monday, January 26, 2009
Wired: 1920
"Interior Department, Bureau of Mines." Another circa 1920 view of research activities at the bureau's Washington offices. Harris & Ewing.http://www.shorpy.com/node/5419
I'm a Shorpy! Click on me...
New and Improved: 1924
1924. "Bureau of Standards. New and improved measuring board for U.S. Children's Bureau." Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative.http://www.shorpy.com/node/5423
I'm a Shorpy! Click on me...
Forward Into Light: 1916
"Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage, 1916." One of the banners used in a memorial service for Inez Milholland, the lawyer who became a martyr to the suffrage movement following her death from anemia while campaigning for the 19th Amendment. Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative.http://www.shorpy.com/node/5414
I'm a Shorpy! Click on me...
1,800-year-old marble head unearthed in Israel
Archaeologists in Israel have discovered what they believe is the bust of a Roman boxer from the second or third century."It seems that what we have here is a unique find," the two directors of the excavation said in a statement released Monday by the Israel Antiquities Authority.
The figurine, made of marble, comes from a time when "the art of Roman sculpture reached its zenith," Doron Ben-Ami and Yana Tchekhanovets said.
It's tiny -- only about 6 centimeters high by 4 centimeters wide, Ben-Ami told CNN. "That's why it is so impressive. It's so small, but still you can see every little detail on the marble," he said.
The archaeologists believe a merchant family from the eastern part of the Roman Empire most likely passed down the "precious object" through the generations until the fourth or fifth century, when an unfortunate family member had it with him at a public building, perhaps a hostel -- and an earthquake struck.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/01/26/israel.ancient.find/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
Can "Relationship-ized" Folk Safely Have Cross-Gender Relationships
When Suzanne Babb, a 34-year-old professional organizer from Gilbert, Arizona, is having a bad hair day, she does what many women do. She calls her best friend."I'll be crying my eyes out and will say, 'I'm fat and ugly, and I don't have a boyfriend,'" she says. "Then Eric will come over and tell me I'm pretty, and we'll watch '300.' It's like having all the benefits of a really great husband -- without having to do the laundry."
Babb is one of many adults whose platonic friendship contradicts the old "When Harry Met Sally" maxim about sex always getting in the way of men and women being buddies. Though they have been close since high school, Babb says she and Eric have never even kissed.
"It would be like kissing my brother," she says. "Ewwwww."
Although opposite-sex friends inevitably hook up in movies and on TV (Chandler and Monica, anyone?), many people think that it is possible to be platonic pals.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/personal/01/23/lw.opposite.sex.friends/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
I tend to agree with Harry... sex always gets in the way. Unless someone is too "something" (old, skinny, fat... not much else), sex always gets in the way. And, for men I believe that is generally true. (Don't call me a pervert, you low life ignorant pee brain! Read The Hite Report on Men, or the Kinsey Report, or any of a host of studies on male sexuality.)
Seraphina and I have always thought it best to have mutual friends, and avoid one-on-one friendships with the opposite sex. And, we generally do avoid such situations. But, sometimes circumstances dictate otherwise.
Recently, a good friend of ours, a woman moved in with us while job hunting. Then, Seraphina left town to visit a good friend of ours with cancer. I was left in the same house with a woman my age. Even one I had dated (once) in high school.
We watched movies together and enjoyed visiting. So, we don't always hold to the Verboten! rule of ours when it comes to opposite sex friendships. But, we don't hunt for them either. And, truthfully, I avoid them by policy unless circumstances clearly indicate otherwise.
After all, if we both didn't have some self control, I suspect the Japanese company Canon (see previous post) and the geneticists that want our gene pool spread far and wide with as many combinations as possible, would have been happy with both our contributions!
Pooch Dog
Go Home Early On Us. Make Japaneses Babies Canon Employees Are Told!
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) -- Even before one reaches the front door of Canon's headquarters in Tokyo, one can sense the virtual stampede of employees pouring out of the building exactly at 5:30 p.m.In a country where 12-hour workdays are common, the electronics giant has taken to letting its employees leave early twice a week for a rather unusual reason: to encourage them to have more babies.
"Canon has a very strong birth planning program," says the company's spokesman Hiroshi Yoshinaga. "Sending workers home early to be with their families is a part of it."
Japan in the midst of an unprecedented recession, so corporations are being asked to work toward fixing another major problem: the country's low birthrate.
At 1.34, the birthrate is well below the 2.0 needed to maintain Japan's population, according to the country's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/01/26/canon.babies/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
Until recently, I worked for Canon. They said, "Go home, and you and Seraphina, have some fun! Yuk! Yuk!! Make some nice babies to take care of all of us when we get old." So, I did. Many times. Many fine times. Then, they found out Seraphina had been spayed years ago. Canon was pissed! That was it for my Canon duty.
I work for Veterans Administration now, and with O in office and with his administration's support for birth control... maybe a new day is here.
Pooch Doggy Dog
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Is It True White People Can't Tell Black People (or Asians) Apart?
It's a joke, although maybe a bad one... "White people can't tell black people apart." But, is it true?Unfortunately, from children to adulthood, my little bit of research seems to indicate it is so. Here's some links discussing the phenomenon...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/police-cannot-tell-black-people-apart-1121901.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/police-cannot-tell-black-people-apart-1121901.html
http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2008/02/problems_in_identifying_people.php
Here's an article indicating it might be possible to train people to distinguish black faces, and thus reduce racistic behavior...
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/01/racetraining.html
Finally, here's an article indicating the bees can distinguish human faces...
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Face+time:+bees+can+tell+apart+human+portraits-a0140143992
Bees can do it...
You humanoid types are total MAGGOTS! Low life types. How you ever managed to invent the dog collar I'll never know.
Pooch Dog Wants To Wring A Few Goose Necks and Shake Their Eggs to Death!!
Pooch Dog was raised in Missouri and saw geese flying overhead in the fall. But, when winter arrived, the geese were nowhere around. This is no longer the case! A friend of mine still
lives in the Columbia, Missouri area near a lake. Canada Geese now winter on his lake, crapping all over the place! He has become an accomplished goose egg shaker! Seems you need a permit to sneek up on goose nests, find their eggs, and shake them to tambourine heaven! That kills the embryo in the egg, and the mother goose continues to lay on the egg. And, wonders! No goslings.Or, that is what I was told.
But, on to the actual topic: birds striking aircraft. US Airways 1549. Seems the number of such incidents has been increasing dramatically in recent decades. Seems the goose populations in the United States is increasing rapidly. Here's a map showing goose densities, following by some excerpts from the article...
Growing populations of birds and humans in the same areas have put the species on a collision course in the air that's almost always deadly for the birds and severely hazardous, if not fatal, to humans, too. Human developments and bird-restoration programs have created new ecological niches that some bird species have jumped in to fill.
In particular, the Canada goose population is proving particularly problematic. Their numbers have ballooned to more than 3.5 million, and the birds don't migrate, they stick around our cities. Many of the geese along the eastern seaboard are closer to feral than wild. After their forebears were nearly hunted to extinction, many domesticated birds were released into the wild (pdf), creating a specific population of geese uniquely suited to the "current landscaping techniques" of our urban and suburban landscapes. In the map at the right, you can see that most of the country is seeing large annual increases goose populations. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Report (linked above) found that the population of Canada geese in the eastern United States increased at a rate of 14 percent a year from 1989 through 2004.
The rising bird numbers are overwhelming the efforts of airport operations managers to cope with the problem, despite increasingly sophisticated technology to scare the birds away. Joseph also said that the Federal Aviation Administration wasn't taking the bird strike problem seriously.
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/01/birdstrikes.html
Capuchin Monkeys Learn Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite!
In what may be a modern-day snapshot of humanity's technological infancy, researchers have observed wild capuchin monkeys carefully selecting stone hammers best suited for the task of cracking nuts.Previously, Visalberghi's team was the first to see capuchin monkeys put nuts on boulders and smash them open with stones.
On its own, this observation was monumental: Outside of humans, the only other primate species in which this behavior — more complex than even the much-celebrated chimpanzee use of "spears" — had been observed was chimps.
Questions remained, however, as to whether the monkeys consciously selected their tools or merely grabbed the first stone at hand.
The latest findings, published Thursday in Current Biology, answer the question conclusively: The monkeys know that certain stones work better than others, and choose accordingly.
When Visalberghi's team presented the monkeys with stones of different sizes, and later with stones of similar sizes but different weights, they routinely selected the heaviest, densest stone, ignoring those too light or fragile to break a thick shell.
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/01/monkeytools.html
Old Time Mining Pictures, and More!
Pretty darn cool old mining pictures from early 1900s, and some misccellaneous old time pictures at the end of this Powerpoint presentation. The accompanying music was good, but got old by the time the show finished. Just turn down the volume.And, as a bonus for those interested, with some slight mathematical and digital wizardry, you might be able to quantify the length of Johnny Weismuller's pecker in the flaccid resting state! (It's toward the end of the display... odd, I might say, mate! But, then no odder than some of the skanky outfits some of the early century women were wearing.)
http://www.magnet1.com/OldAmerica.pps
Old Timey Photographs
Another plug for the Shorpy.com website here. It is just the single most fabulous collection of high resolution old timey fabulificent photographs anywhere on the planet! Including here the picture of the kid called Shorpy, from which the site got it's name.When you see a "I'm a Shorpy! Click on Me...", well click on the picture you big stupid dolt! (I swear, some day I am giving up hope entirely on every life form not canine!)
Pooch Doggy Dog
I'm a Shorpy! Click on me...
Battle Lines Move in Social Network Sites vs Porn Sites War
On the graph, the red line represents hits on porn sites, and the blue line represents visits to social networking sites. In September, 2008 for the first time, social network hits surpassed adult site hits.This seems to indicate that some Internet users are shifting from porn sites to social networking. Some think that this is not the case, but that some of the softer content of porn sites is shifting onto the networking sites like Facebook.
This article discusses these trends at depth. A worthwhile read...
You, Oh Persecuted Scientific Genius Have Company!
Do you know more than your countrymen because you have a Master's Degree in Science? Are you ridiculed because you see the world as no one else, and might you say, more accurately and completely? Have women quit wafting favors your way due to your social downfall?Well, you have company! Lots of company. This article lists 12 people who were judged loony, but weren't. All were vindicated, some before they died! Which gives me hope regarding my theory that dogs will rule the world as soon as we learn the door knob principle. (I think humans have made door knobs that only open when I don't have to pee so bad I have to stamp all my feet in little mincing steps, but since I am middle-aged and have to pee all the time, hence the door never opens!)
Pooch Doggy Dog
Here's a teaser...
Robert Goddard launched the world's first liquid-fuel rocket but was laughed off when he suggested its potential as a weapon of war. Scientists in Germany weren't laughing, however, and during World War II their V-2 rockets were used to attack England.
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/multimedia/2009/01/gallery_science_spurned
Interactive Newspaper Front Page Viewer
Wonder what is on the front page of the latest edition of the Jerusalem Post? Any "dog news"? Maybe the St Louis Post-Dispatch front page has some juicy news about the greatest professional baseball team to ever don uniform? Well, wonder no more! Just choose a part of the world, click on a newspaper. And, voila! There she blows (across your screen.)
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