CARTOONS: Researchers strive to understand brony culture

CARTOONS: Researchers strive to understand brony culture

best headline ever!

LINK URL: http://www.dailydot.com/society/bronies-brony-my-little-pony-study/

 

ARMCHAIR SCIENCE: The Darwin-ClintJCL Universal Evolution Theory

Given that I believe in natural selection, I have a theory: I think every sentient species in the universe goes through an awkward phase when the development of medicine causes natural selection to be halted, by allowing the survival of those who would have otherwise died. This changes the governing mechanism of survival from traditional Darwinism into Social Darwinism, where it is survival of the richest (and those in the best society) instead of survival of the fittest. Case in point: Genetically, we’re generally decendents of the richer people who lived in the middle-ages, not the poorer ones; they didn’t survive to reproduce as much.

Said awkward phase goes on, weakning the gene pool, as people who would have died in the old order survive and reproduce in the new order. Birth defects, bad eyesight, and other genetic illnesses propagate at a higher rate due to the people simply not dying.

Finally, all species that develop science must eventually conquer their own DNA or DNA equivalent. At this point, the science of genetics takes over. Once medical services are properly socialized throughout the whole species, defects like imperfect eyesite can be permanently ironed out. And to stop pesky mutations from watering down our DNA again in the future, natural evolution itself could be “almost” permanently halted by introducing error-correction code at a DNA level; first using parity, and later using more sophisticated techniques such as CRC checks. A lot of our DNA code is unused, and we can certainly set it up so that it repairs bad mutations.

Once this happens, natural selection has stopped, and even social darwinism has stopped. Once genetic mastery is achieved, the perfect being can be developed. Caution must be taken to ensure that peopel do not lose genetic diversity; everybody can’t be perfect in the same way or we would become vulnerable as an entire species — one plague could kill us all if we had the same immune system.

But there’s no reason everyone can’t be more or less perfect in his or her own way, and no reason that we can’t make ourselves a much more powerful species than we currently are. This may be the key to space travel and colonizing other planets: Don’t terraform the planets to suit the humans; change the humans to suit the planets. It’s probably far easier.

 

LINKS: Infocom, Blockbuster, water wars, fake shows, real drug addiction stats from the govt, UN pro-Islam censorship, what constitutes child porn?, Dollar Store tips

• WATER WARS: UN rejects access to water as basic human right — You have no right to live; you are a slave. “A hungry man is never free.” – Even truer for a thirsty man. They actually removed all references that recognized access to water as a human right from their resolution! Bottled water buyers have increased the potential profit so much that there are now likely corporate influences on global politics. The privatization of water has been one of the most important events to happen to us as a species in decades, is a much bigger deal than fighting over oil and energy, and is generally under-focused in the media. It’s only going to get worse. (tags: water rights UN)
• Read on for more stories.. Lots more today———>

 

LINKS: Federal marijuana decriminalization bill, Dubai bans Twitter, rape, RIAA, photographers’ rights, Darwin, wiretapping, and being firstborn sucks

WAR ON DRUGS: Federal marijuana decriminalization bill introduced — tell your congressman to support it here. Surveys tend to show that around half of Americans support decriminalization of marijuana. Since this is not a direct democracy, and you don’t get a vote, letting your congressman know what to do is the only way you will be represented. So speak up. Of course this wont make a real difference, as only 1% of marijuana arrests occur at the federal level. But federal penalties are draconian and extreme. (tags: marijuana Democrats BarneyFrank)

More stories past the jump —>

 

LINKS: Tim And Eric album, Pirate Bay anonymous blogging, Facebook disses the dead, Twitter saves someone, and more

I gotta figure out how to get this Tim And Eric album.  Anyway, read on for the list. I think I’m slowly learning what not to do to mess up the formatting with the new version of wordpress.

 

LINKS: Asshole Officer Franklin White shoots an 8-year-old kid, Parachuting cats, recreational drugs, bad cops & censoring ISPs, 6-year-old felony sexual harassment

ABUSE OF AUTHORITY / TECHNOLOGY WAR / CENSORSHIP / CORPORATIONS: Time Warner/RoadRunner blocking web access to BadCopNews.com — but only in Southern California, where Officer Franklin White shot a mom & her 8-year-old son in an alleged road rage incident. Assuming the cause and effect are true (And they certainly seem to be), then if this does not anger every American reading it, I question whether you belong in my country. Corporate censorship is legal, but you can be damn sure it was government pressure that caused this. DON’T PAY FOR ISPs THAT WORK AGAINST YOUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS. What the hell? You pay money to access the internet, a world of information, and you can’t even find out about a local cop that shoots 8-year-olds, because the company you paid has decided to give you the privilege of paying for your own censored ignorance? FUCK YOU, COMCAST. Someone should burn a flag in front of their headquarters. Read on for PARACHUTING KITTIES.

 

LINKS: This Is Your Brain On God, and Comcast sucks.

This Is Your Brain on God. Very interesting article about research into stimulating your brain to make you perceive God. Other research has already shown that our brain has been hardwired to have religious experiences from the start, so this is the next logical step. By the way, Comcast HDTV sucks. Just look at these screenshots. Comcast is a shitty company. Drop them now. Find alternative ISPs using http://www.broadbandreports.com.

 

LINKS: Starbucks hates Wiccans? Pregnant smoking not so bad? Cops kill people in and out of jail…

Starbucks hates Wiccans? We’ll see what the lawsuit eventually says. Smoking while pregnant found to be neglible (but not harmless) during the first 5 months of pregnancy. Sounds like an interesting study whose results are bound to be very unpopular, and thus highly contested due to the irrational emotions children bring out in people. I blame DNA.

ABUSE OF AUTHORITY: Cop’s tactics in arresting a DUI cause a man to go into a permanent coma. He was never charged. 17 years later (3/2008), he is charged with murdering disc jockey Donald Munsey. This is what happens when you ignore a problem. Penalties for police should be GREATER than those for civilians, not less. Those with more power must also have more responsibility for those actions. Christ, even Peter Parker’s uncle knew that. Either way, the growing trend is hurting both the people, and the law itself, because many have little respect for the law when they behave like this. And did Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Office in Maricopa County treat alcoholic inmate worse than a dog? Sheriff had bragged about treating dogs better than humans at their jail. Inmate dead from lack of medical attention. “Jurors won’t much like an alcoholic who steals from his family. But they also might recognize that being arrested is not a death sentence. And that once a person is in Maricopa County jail, he’s our responsibility.” Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s attitude and actions are quite pathetic to me.

 

LINKS: Scientology, Nicotine, Cop-On-Cop Abuse, and more Cop Abuse

SCIENTOLOGY IS A DANGEROUS CULT: The Profit – The movie Scientology doesn’t want you to see. (download torrent here). Get the banned movie here! Not just 8 minute clip that everyone has seen, but the whole banned movie. Special thanks to ANONYMOUS for fucking Scientology over at every possible juncture.

DRUGS: Researchers have deteremined which gene to ‘knock out’ to reduce tobacco carcinogenocy. Of course, study is funded by Philip Morris. Either way: Many people smoke, and many people will continue to. This cannot ever be stopped. EVER. Philip Morris must be considering that they would make more money if their customers didn’t die, and that their lawyer fees might be lower if they weren’t sued by states due to the strain on the health care system. (Cost of freedom, folks. Cost of freedom.)

ABUSE OF AUTHORITY: Federal agent sues after being tasered and arrested at a ball game for not immediately removing an american flag he was hanging. Lots of cop-on-fed violence for no charges being filed! In the end, the only way we may gain our civil rights is if more police are abused by other police. “He said she said” becomes a level playing field when both people work for the government. Someone’s going down. The best we can hope for is that our police start shooting, abusing, and brutalizing each other — that would reform the system much faster than lawsuits. OVERLY-HARSH PUNISHMENTS: Don’t call 911! Mom calls on her son for taking her car. Son is now paralyzed, most likely for life. They tasered him, against their own policy (lawsuit!) from the top bunk, where he fell, and broke his back. Don’t call 911 if you value the life of the person you are calling 911 about. This is why I propose a softer “811”, to be staffed by more heroic people than our gestapo police. People willing to risk their lives. Right now, police die less than fisherman, farmers, garbage men, & taxi drivers.

 

R.I.P. Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008)

I am sad to hear that my favorite creative mind in science fiction, Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, has died.  It was just a few hours ago, after suffering breathing problems. It’s not like I’ve read more than 6 or so of his books … and it’s not like I even enjoyed the 2001 movie.  But some of his works brought me great joy as a child, to the point of remembering them above all other books that I have ever read.  It is truly regretful to lose such a great creative genius.
This is the cover to The City And The Stars, my personal all-time-favorite Arthur C. Clarke book. And considering I don’t really read these days, and he was my favorite author way back when, that definitely puts it in my top books ever. But hey, I like science fiction & fantasy. You can click through to the wikipedia page and read about it if you are so inclined, but basically… In the future, there are only 2 small cities of humanity left, and neither one knows of the other. The main character lives in a city that is so eternal that even the people are recycled. You are born as an adult, able to speak and walk, and live for 1000 yrs. Then you go back to the chamber, get assimilated into the eternity crystals, and are stored for a million years or so. At around age 20, you begin to remember past lives. The society is pretty much timeless, to the point of having a designated jester born every 40,000 years, just to keep things interesting. The jester has little to do with the story, but all that basically just paints the backdrop for the actual story. I loved this book as a child — even more than Childhood’s End and Rendezvous With Rama, my other two major favorites.

If there’s any 3 Clarke books to read, it would be those 3.  Don’t fall for the 2001 trap; you’ll have to read at least 3 books to get out of it.

 

LINKS: Garfield comedy, RIAA lawsuits help musicians about as much as prozac helps depressed people, overly-harsh punishments

The peer-reviewed journal research article behind the news stories about antidepressants working no better than a placebo. This link was going to disappear from New Scientist story (New Scientist wants a subscription), so I needed to save it. Speaking of mental health, apparently if you take Garfield out of Garfield, you get a comic strip about Jon Arbuckle: A deranged schizophrenic man who talks to himself. It’s twistedly funny. Check out this comedy gold: Garfield minus Garfield. And also speaking of crazy — you know the RIAA lawsuits against the very fans who fund them? These were for the artists, right? WRONG! No artist has seen a penny. Just like the karaoke licensing scam, the artists don’t actually get any of this money, so it’s foolish to support such licensing under the guise of “protecting the artists”. So here’s the article: RIAA Keeps Settlement Money, Artists May Sue. Still, the RIAA isn’t as bad as Asshole Officers James Bryant and Chris Webley of Coquille — some guy broke a windshield, so, during the arrest, they broke his neck. He is now on a respirator for life. Of course the police think this is totally acceptable — after all, the guy swung at them! (Or so they say.) What this article doesn’t mention is that it’s more dangerous to be a fisherman, taxi driver, or garbage man, than it is to be a cop. They hurt people not out of self-defense, but unjustified paranoia. Douchebags!

 

CARTOONS/SCIENCE: How a fake word from The Simpsons ended up in a perfectly cromulent String Theory paper

“EMBIGGENS”: Scientific American. The best question in the interview: Have any of your colleagues recognized your use of the word? The answer is great!

 

LINKS: U.S. wiretapping to resume, Nethack porn, cellphone tattoo, crazy Muslims, children on sex offender lists

What a crazy day. The tattoo of a cellphone that works as a blood-powered cellphone is very cool. Interesting links today. Especially the nethack porn, hahaha. Is Ricky Really a Sex Offender? NetHack Porn. Cellphone tattoo. Danish cops too scared of Muslims to do their job. White House Says Phone Wiretaps Will Resume.

 

SURVEY: Enneagram Personality Type (9 types)

Take the test. My results below. 9 types listed here. Thanks, Parthena.

 

SEX: How Slugs Do It

Wow. So they are all hermaphrodites, and afterwards both partners conceive. The whole experience looks like it might actually be less awkward than human sex. Being able to entwine around each other is pretty cool.

 

TECHNOLOGY: Study indicates cellphones increase salivary gland tumors by 50%

I hate cell phones.  The real danger is that people who use cellphones while driving are about 3 times more likely to die in a car crash in a given year. Texting is even worse.  But anyway, increasing tumor probability by 50% is pretty significant.  This is just one type of tumor.  How many other specific risks have not yet been studied? How many studies have found harm, but have then been subverted by the corporations? A recent polling of scientists found that 30% of scientists have been asked or pressured by corporations to change their scientific results to fit the corporation’s desires. Cell-phones are a huge growth market, so this is one of the industries most likely to have its results interfered with.

 

LINKS: Marijuana does not make your teeth fall out, and curvy women may be smarter

Do you know why curvaceous women produce smart kids? Interesting study of 16,000 women — turns out those with hourglass figures are actually smarter, and more likely to have smarter children. I guess big boobs don’t automatically mean ditzy :) Latest Anti-Pot Quack Science: ‘Marijuana Makes Your Teeth Fall Out’. A sensible article dispelling many of the “Reefer Madness”-type articles that have come out in the last few months. The War On Drugs creates so much bad science; just a few decades ago they said smoking pot would make men grow breasts!

Pot + Curvy = this picture?

 

LINKS: Dear Babyboomers:Thanks for the debt; Free sex changes in Iran; Cellphones = poorer sperm quality?

Dear Babyboomers: The National Debt is a Grandchild Tax. Thanks for less than nothing!  Ryan Somma has captured exactly how I feel once again, with his sarcastic congratulatory letter to babyboomers are are about to retire. So long, and thanks for all the fish debt! My dad predictably quipped “Every generation thinks the last screwed up the world for him”. Of course, he grew up during the 1950s — the most prosperous generation in American history. And inherited ~$1M from his parents. So… It’s quite easy for anyone to cynically quip “every generation had it this bad” while sitting atop an ivory tower. As Ian so profoundly said: “Not caring — the privilege of the rich.”

And: Remember when Iran’s president said they have no gays in Iran? Perhaps this explains why people get free sex changes in Iran. “in traditional societies there is more pressure to conform to standard gender roles”. Odd indeed. And in some ways, more progressive than America. In other ways, it’s ass-backwards, because you can’t be both gay and have a dick. But on the other hand, hey: Free surgery. (I’m thinking of “Deep Thoughts” where Jack Handy says “Hey, free dummy!”) And, they let people be who they want to be without standing in the way with such excuses as, say, money. In many ways, that is superior to how America handles it (only the rich get what they want). Of course, Iran is a sucky shithole of a country, but still.

Heavy cell phone use tied to poorer sperm quality. Of course, correlation is not causation. However, it’s also good to be cautious. Me? I will now be buying a cellphone just to put it into my pants as birth control.

 

LINKS: Sangria, cola, The Boondocks, nuclear war recommendation, cop shoots cop, names in Georgia

I had no clue Sangria was not legal to sell in Virginia. Your kidneys will thank you if you read the cola article. Any good CartoonNetwork fan should be pissed off at B.E.T.  Fuck Nato’s recommendation for a pre-emptive nuclear war — we don’t need your goddamn war!  Also, the link where you can look up your name and see how many people in Georgia have your name is pretty entertaining.  I think it’s absolutely hysterical that somewhere in Georgia is someone named Clinterical.

 

LINKS: “understanding art for geeks” flickr set, new cellphone study, voting machines, abuses of authority, censorship

Lots of links today. No time to summarize. See below. The Flickr photoset was pretty neat; the cell-phone study is important; becoming a quadriplegic due to police abuse and only getting $100K really fucking sucks. Read on for the links.