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August 10, 2006
"The only true currency in this bankrupt world...is what you share with someone else when you're uncool."
For today's big story, I found the most useful information buried in the MetaFilter thread about the latest terrorist bust. You have to sift through a lot of BS, but there's good data hiding in that thread. Someone even managed to find some humor in it.
You and your fancy airplanes and your fancy luggage compartments and your fancy single serve friends.
Don't you deserve to travel in the style and luxury commensurate with your status? Consider instead, my friends, the grand steamships. White Star Line sets sails daily for New York City, the New World indeed.
Ah, these are halcyon days. Evening balls, tuxedos and dinner with the captain. The odd iceberg and Nazi submarine are trifles in the face of the impeccable duck a l'orange. Afterwards, would you care to join us on the Club Deck for billiards and brandy? Of course you would.
Or how about an airship! The dirigible is a vessel of both the noble and noblessed alike. Graf's Zeppelins truly are boats of air, sailing over the heads of the oxen and cattle, both animal and human. This is not travel, good sir, but a journey. Board with me the grandest of all, the 129. Oh, the gentility. Oh, the tranquility. Oh, the humanity.
This could be you, my friends. Sailing the skies on a boat of air, dining on cabernet and foie, passing judgment on the socialists.
So enjoy your airports, you sullen beasts of cubicled burden. Enjoy your fast food potatoes and ground beef sandwiches. Enjoy your pizzaed pies. Enjoy your sodaed beverages and your ever expanding waistlines. Enjoy the probations, indignations, and violations of the checkpoint.
I, for one, shall depart in the grand tradition.
Portnoy! To the skies!
posted by Pastabagel at 11:24 AM EST on August 10 [+ 13] [!]
Damn Interesting has a good piece about nature's nuclear reactor in Gabon. I've always wondered whether the Okla reactor had an impact on human evolution and a quick Googling seems to support that [EDIT] that's actually total bullshit, as millions are quite definitely different from billions. Wow, that was a stupid mistake on my part. Thank you for the comment, Ryan.[/EDIT]:
In 1972, natural nuclear reactor was found in a Western Africa in the Republic of Gabon, at Oklo. While the reactor was critical, approximately 1.7 billion years ago, it released 15,000 megawatt-years of energy by consuming six tons of uranium. This in itself might raise the issue of possible radiation based sources for such a rapid mutational change since radiation has long been known to cause different types of mutations. (see THE NATURAL NUCLEAR REACTOR AT OKLO: A COMPARISON WITH MODERN NUCLEAR REACTORS (WWW paper by Andrew Karam - 1998, updated 2005))
However, what one would need to look for is a simular event around 10 million years ago. But note, 2.8 million, 1.7 million and 1 million years ago coincide with major steps in human evolution as documented by the fossil record. Another factor in these periods was climatic changes. All of these themselves are over short periods of time. At 2.8 million years ago, the human family tree split into at least two major branches, Paranthropus and Homo. At 1.7 million years ago, humans' most immediate ancestor, Homo erectus, first appeared. At 1 million years ago, Paranthropus had died out and great numbers of Homo erectus began to migrate out of Africa into a variety of regions and habitats in Europe and Asia. Again the key time period was around 1.7 million years ago which does fit well with that natural reactor.
Cool photo of the sharpest manmade thing, a tungsten needle via
Watching Almost Famous on TNTHD, I'm struck by the realization that Frances McDormand's character is the movie analog of Jane Kaczmarek's character, Lois, from TV's Malcolm in the Middle. A sort of modern archetypal strong maternal figure.
Posted by Jon Rubin at August 10, 2006 10:30 PM
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