Suspended Animation
January 20, 2006
Here’s an interesting article on the implementation of suspended animation.
US doctors have developed a method of inducing hypothermia to shut down the body’s functions for up to three hours.
In tests, they reduced the body temperature of injured pigs from 37C to 10C before operating on them and then reviving them.
Now they are applying for permission to test the procedure on casualty patients without a pulse who have lost large amounts of blood, New Scientist magazine reported.
It is thought this method and others could one day be used on car crash and gunshot victims, as well as in the battlefield to treat wounded soldiers.
That’s pretty cool, if you ask me.
College Illiteracy
January 19, 2006
You know, I’m not so sure that I really missed out that much on a college education. According to some study:
More than 50 percent of students at four-year schools and more than 75 percent at two-year colleges lacked the skills to perform complex literacy tasks.
The way I see it, I’m bound to be stupid. I’d just rather not have student loans to go along with it.
Guns Don’t Kill People
January 19, 2006
My son, Byron, who’s all of 5 years old, said something really funny today. It seems that when he came home from school, he turned to Mom and said, “You know what, Mom? Guns don’t kill people. People kill people. And, when I play Warcraft on the computer, I kill people.”
He’s a funny kid.
25 Years Blind
January 19, 2006
A woman has regained her eyesight after 25 years of being blind. It turns out that all it took was to have a heart attack. Weird.
A woman who had been blind for 25 years awoke in hospital after suffering a heart attack and found that she could see again.
Since 1979, Joyce Urch had lived in a world of shadows and near-darkness, but was astonished to find her sight restored when she came round after being resuscitated.
Doctors have been unable to explain what happened, but Mrs Urch, 74, was happy yesterday to put it down to a “miracle”.
Regarding Intelligent Design Instruction
January 18, 2006
I’ve read today that a California school district has cancelled a course on “intelligent design.” First things first, let’s mention that this was an elective course, and I’m all for people learning about religion.
BUT, in all honesty, do you really want your kids to be learning about religion in a public school? One can reasonably presume that if you want your kids to learn about religion in school you probably belong to a certain church or denomination. By virtue of the fact that there are different denominations, one can also reasonably presume that the teachings of the denominations are different.
This leads to some interesting questions (or more appropriately, “some questions that are interesting to me”): Who would determine what the instructor teaches, with regards to intelligent design? Who would determine which theories of the “First Parents” would be taught? Would Lillith be mentioned? What theories regarding the name of the Lord would be taught? Would only Christian prophets be mentioned? What about Christian denominations that are not splits off of the Catholic Church?
I’ll be completely honest here. I don’t want my child going to school only to learn religious teachings that are contrary to what they learn at home. If I wanted my child to be taught religion at school, I’d send them to a religious school. If I were Lutheran, would I want my child being taught religion by a Baptist minister’s wife? Most likely, no.
Let’s just keep public school and religious instruction separated.
UPDATE: It’s not that I don’t like people of other religions, or that I don’t think that they have anything to offer. Most assuredly, I believe that they do. The problem is that I just wouldn’t want somebody teaching my child doctrine that I firmly believe to be wrong.
Coolest 404 Error Page
January 17, 2006
This is the coolest/funniest browser 404 error page that I’ve ever seen.
Just Joking Around
January 16, 2006
I have this friend at work named Shaun. I don’t know what it is, but I always feel the need to play practical jokes on him. In fact, tonight my other co-worker, Josh, and I got him with at least 4 different pranks which he’ll find out about in the morning. One of them involved taking off all of the keys on his keyboard and putting them back on in the wrong order. For me, I’d be able to deal with it because I type without looking at the keyboard. Shaun, however, is a guy who hunts and pecks while typing. It will be quite interesting for him in the morning. I wish I would be there to see it but, well, that would involve getting in to work before 9 am. Needless to say, that’s not likely to happen.
Lend Me Your Ear
January 12, 2006
So, we purchased a couple of the new Dual Core Power Mac G5 and they were delivered today. I opened up the first one and got it all hooked up on our workbench, hoping that I could get it installed by the end of the day. Unfortunately, upon pushing the button on the front, I did not get the normal startup sound. All I got was was a loud “POP” that eminated from the bottom of the computer. It turns out that the power supply blew, and, as I was leaning toward the computer at the time, it happened to go off right in my left ear. I was no more than about 8-10 inches from the thing, and it was so friggin’ loud that it just about scared the crap out of me.
I called our PC Mall rep to let him know that we had a DOA machine, and he told me that he was just then getting some reports in from his Apple rep that there were others who were experiencing the same problems. I decided to try out the second computer with our rep on the phone, and it also blew the power supply, blue sparks shooting from the bottom front of the computer. The second one wasn’t as loud, as I had the front pointed toward the center of the room instead of pointing directly into the corner like I had done with the first one.
It turns out that I now have a retracted eardrum and some muffled hearing in my left ear. Hopefully, it’s all better by the time I have my follow-up doctor appointment next Friday.
UPDATE 01/13: It turns out that I now have a retracted eardrum and some muffled hearing in my left ear. Hopefully, it’s all better by the time I have my follow-up doctor appointment next Friday.
We received one of our replacement G5s today and it didn’t have the power supply problem. We’ll be able to check the second one when it arrives on Monday.
Chinese Cars Coming to US Market?
January 12, 2006
It’s possible that they will but, if they do, I’ll have no part of them. I’m not the least bit interested in bolstering the Chinese economy by purchasing items made there. If I have a choice between purchasing a “Made in China” item versus a “Made anywhere but China” item, I’ll take the latter, thank you very much.
Common Sense
January 11, 2006
I can’t believe that the woman even tried to get out of a carpool lane violation ticket by claiming the unborn child she was carrying amounted to the second passenger. This one wasn’t even close.
