Blog – Page 25 – Home of the Autographed Cat

Your mind, well and nicely blown

On November 26, 2010

The world is not only stranger than we imagine, it’s stranger than we can imagine. And that is *awesome*.

Mark Morford: Your mind, well and nicely blown

We are never going to run out.

This is the good news. Wait, check that: This is the astonishing, God-exploding, soul-altering, holier-than-wow news you must sip like a fine absinthe and jack straight into your bloodskin like a heroin bomb and then suck into your very anima like Lindsay Lohan on a coke bender.

It might sound obvious, the idea that wonders will never cease, that we will continue to be blown away by new discoveries for as long as we shall exist, that the world will keep astonishing us with stunning ideas, organisms, diseases and cures, synapses and connections, modes of being and ways of understanding for all eternity, despite our efforts to thwart it, deny it, reject it, or dumb ourselves down so much that we no longer have a goddamn clue what’s going on.

But it’s not obvious at all. We are, after all, nothing if not preternaturally jaded and wary. Many assume we’re at a point in history when we’ve made most of the major breakthroughs and discoveries, have established all the laws of time and physics we are ever going to need. No more man on the moon, no more discovery of antibiotics, no more E=MC2, no more sorry-Pope-the-world-ain’t-flat kind of epiphanies left.

My Helical Tryst: Review of the TSA X-ray backscatter body scanner safety report: hide your kids, hi

By autographedcat

On November 26, 2010

In Blog

I’ve been reluctant to weigh in on the TSA scanners because there simply wasn’t enough data, pro or con, to really make a decision about their safety. Jason Bell goes a long way towards giving us more hard data to consider, and it’s somewhat alarming.

I still maintain that the real problem with this sort of thing is that it doesn’t actually improve the safety of air travel to any meaningful degree, unless the object is to make flying so onerous that no one bothers to do it anymore.

My Helical Tryst: Review of the TSA X-ray backscatter body scanner safety report: hide your kids, hide your wife

Last spring, a group of scientists at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) including John Sedat Ph.D., David Agard Ph.D., Robert Stroud, Ph.D. and Marc Shuman, M.D. sent a letter of concern to the TSA regarding the implementation of their ‘Advanced Imaging Technology’, or body scanners as a routine method of security screening in US airports. Of specific concern is the scanner that uses X-ray back-scattering. In the letter they raise some interesting points, which I’ve quoted below:

“Our overriding concern is the extent to which the safety of this scanning device has been adequately demonstrated. This can only be determined by a meeting of an impartial panel of experts that would include medical physicists and radiation biologists at which all of the available relevant data is reviewed.”
“The X-ray dose from these devices has often been compared in the media to the cosmic ray exposure inherent to airplane travel or that of a chest X-ray. However, this comparison is very misleading: both the air travel cosmic ray exposure and chest X-rays have much higher X-ray energies and the health consequences are appropriately understood in terms of the whole body volume dose. In contrast, these new airport scanners are largely depositing their energy into the skin and immediately adjacent tissue, and since this is such a small fraction of body weight/vol, possibly by one to two orders of magnitude, the real dose to the skin is now high.”
“In addition, it appears that real independent safety data do not exist.”
“There is good reason to believe that these scanners will increase the risk of cancer to children and other vulnerable populations. We are unanimous in believing that the potential health consequences need to be rigorously studied before these scanners are adopted.”

250 Introductions of 185 People, Groups, & Things

By autographedcat

On November 24, 2010

In Blog

Adam Savage: TSA saw my junk, missed 12″ razor blades

By autographedcat

On November 24, 2010

In Blog

Ok, this is both hysterical and illustrative of why I dislike the TSA security protocols. I don’t personally care if they see or touch my junk. I would happily strip naked and walk through the scanner if it just meant getting through the line faster.

I dislike the TSA security protocols because they don’t actually work. There’s a reason the term “security theatre” was coined, and why it’s appropriate here.

Adam Savage: TSA saw my junk, missed 12″ razor blades

The TSA isn’t the most respected of governmental agencies right now, but at least it comes by the poor reputation honestly. The lack of standards, inconsistent application of searches and policies, and occasional rude agent all combine to make flying an unpleasant experience. It’s often derided as “security theater,” which describes the experience of Mythbuster Adam Savage before a recent flight.

Savage was put through the full-body scanner, and while he joked that it made his penis feel small, no one seemed to notice the items he was carrying on his person. The video tells the rest of the story.

If we try to engineer perfect children, will they grow up to be unbearable? – By Katie Roiphe – Slat

By autographedcat

On November 24, 2010

In Blog

Not being a parent myself, I have no personal insights to add here, but have long wondered at the incredible amount of structure most kids seem to grow up in these days, compared to when I was growing up.

If we try to engineer perfect children, will they grow up to be unbearable? – By Katie Roiphe – Slate Magazine

Can we, for a moment, flash back to the benign neglect of the 1970s and ’80s? I can remember my parents having parties, wild children running around until dark, catching fireflies. If these children helped themselves to three slices of cake, or ingested the second-hand smoke from cigarettes, or carried cocktails to adults who were ever so slightly slurring their words, they were not noticed; they were loved, just not monitored. And, as I remember it, those warm summer nights of not being focused on were liberating. In the long sticky hours of boredom, in the lonely, unsupervised, unstructured time, something blooms; it was in those margins that we became ourselves

A viral transmission

By autographedcat

On November 18, 2010

In Blog

Story about the duo who wrote and produced the NPR rap video I posted the other day.

A viral transmission

Fresh out of Ivy League colleges, a pair of unemployed 2005 Corvallis High School graduates have created a rap parody song about National Public Radio. And in the time it takes to say “Talk of the Nation,” it’s gone viral on YouTube.

The four-and-a-half minute video parody, “Good Radiation,” is the work of Adam Cole and Jenna Sullivan. Since it was made public on YouTube on Monday, as of Wednesday it has drawn more than 28,000 views and comment from some of the best-known names in public radio.

Pretty good for two well-educated college graduates with biology degrees and stellar resumes who can’t find jobs. Both are currently living with their parents in Corvallis. Cole graduated with a master’s degree from Stanford University earlier this year. Sullivan earned an undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College in 2009.
Both public radio fans, they wanted to do something creative. The whole project took about a week to produce, including the writing, recording and filming, which was completed at Cole’s parents house in Corvallis.

YouTube – Have Sex With a Guy With a Mustache Day

By autographedcat

On November 17, 2010

In Blog

Seeing as this is tomorrow, I suppose I should post it, just to…er, raise awareness. Or something.

(Not safe for work, due to language, adult themes, and the high likelihood of the viewer making inappropriate outbursts of laughter and/or astonishment.)

YouTube – Good Radiation (public radio rap)

By autographedcat

On November 16, 2010

In Blog

Yeah, that’s what I’m talkin’ about. You might think you have an Internet, but you don’t, ’cause these guys just won it.

(My only disappointment with this song is the complete lack of love for legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg. That seems a grievous omission in an otherwise outstanding work.)

mental_floss Blog » The True Size of Africa

By autographedcat

On November 16, 2010

In Blog

Perspective. Let me show you it.

(I love infographics like this. Sometimes, a picture really *is* worth a 1000 words.)

mental_floss Blog » The True Size of Africa

Africa is the world’s second-largest continent (Asia is #1), but gauging the actual size of something that seems so far away can be difficult. Fortunately, Kai Kraus has created this incredible visual aid to help put the mind-boggling size of the land mass into perspective. It is fascinating to see that the U.S., most of Europe, China and Japan still don’t fill up the entire surface area of the continent.

It would be interesting to see a few different models that contain other countries, such as Russia, Canada and Mexico.

(h/t Marian Call)