The Hunting (and Gathering) of the Snark

This is one of those lines that that just cry out for a snarky, sarcastic comment:

Domino's Pizza credited its investment in IT for significant sales and profit gains for the first half of 2007.

That must be the explanation, because it certainly isn't their pizza, which is pretty inedible.

Giant Sun

It's the weekend, and before you go frolic in the sun, here are They Might Be Giants singing about the sun, performing their rendition of the 1950s science class favorite "Why Does the Sun Shine?" taped, appropriately enough, at Mohegan Sun in July 2006.

Oh, Too!

The Angry Toxicologist (an informative new science blog I found) takes on one of the silliest products one could ever market:

The POD, or Personal Oxygen Device, by GO2, is simply that: portable oxygen for you to "energize" and "refresh, restore, renew your mind and body on the cellular level with oxygen". Ooooo...cellular. Sounds scientificy, let's get it!

First I have to note that if your body is short on oxygen, you'll simply breathe harder.

However, as I have probably discussed on this blog before, breathing oxygen in excess of what we normally breathe in the air is really quite harmful. Why? Well, one more time for the world:

Oxygen is reactive, our bodies exploit this aspect by having O2 accept the energy that we use to keep our bodies going (that's a really broad definition of why we need oxygen). However, this reactivity can have unintended consequences; for one, oxidation is the main reason our bodies age (oxidation is also why iron turns to rust). This is the reason that anti-aging creams try to pack in the anti-oxidants.

Too much oxygen in the lungs can really damage the tissue with its reactivity. Researchers started measuring the damage a couple years ago by looking at isofurans, a chemical that signals that the cell walls are being damaged by oxidation.

When this damage occurs, the lungs heal themselves, but that's exactly where the problem occurs, because the lungs are a really flexible and permeable tissue. Scar tissue isn't. So eventually, the scar tissue builds up and it's not only harder to breathe, but less air gets across the lung surface to the blood and vice versa. As you can imagine, asthmatics and smokers will feel this first.

So there! Marketers attempting to sell the health benefits of pure oxygen are just spouting so much hot air.

I, Robot

Via Pharyngula, a self-test to discover one's personality defects. Oh, the irony; I was hoping for "haughty intellectual."

Your Score: Robot

You are 100% Rational, 0% Extroverted, 14% Brutal, and 42% Arrogant.

You are the Robot! You are characterized by your rationality. In fact, this is really ALL you are characterized by. Like a cold, heartless machine, you are so logical and unemotional that you scarcely seem human. For instance, you are very humble and don't bother thinking of your own interests, you are very gentle and lack emotion, and you are also very introverted and introspective. You may have noticed that these traits are just as applicable to your laptop as they are to a human being. You are not like the robots they show in the movies. Movie robots are make-believe, because they always get all personable and likeable after being struck by lightning, or they are cold, cruel killing machines. In all reality, though, you are much more boring than all that. Real robots just sit there, doing their stupid jobs, and doing little else. If you get struck by lightning, you won't develop a winning personality and heart of gold. (Robots don't have hearts, silly, and if they did, they would probably be made of steel, not gold.) You also won't be likely to terrorize humanity by becoming an ultra-violent killing machine sent into the past to kill the mother of a child who will lead a rebellion against machines, because that movie was dumb as hell, and because real robots don't kill--they horribly maim at best, and they don't even do that on purpose. Real robots are boringly kind and all too rarely try to kill people. In all my years, my laptop has only attacked me once, and that was only because my brother threw it at me. In short, your personality defect is that you don't really HAVE a personality. You are one of those annoying, super-logical people that never gets upset or flustered. Unless, of course, you short circuit. Or if someone throws a pie at you. Pies sure are delicious.

To put it less negatively:

1. You are more RATIONAL than intuitive.

2. You are more INTROVERTED than extroverted.

3. You are more GENTLE than brutal.

4. You are more HUMBLE than arrogant.

Compatibility:

Your exact opposite is the Class Clown.

Other personalities you would probably get along with are the Hand-Raiser, the Emo Kid, and the Haughty Intellectual.

*

*

If you scored near fifty percent for a certain trait (42%-58%), you could very well go either way. For example, someone with 42% Extroversion is slightly leaning towards being an introvert, but is close enough to being an extrovert to be classified that way as well. Below is a list of the other personality types so that you can determine which other possible categories you may fill if you scored near fifty percent for certain traits.

The other personality types:

The Emo Kid: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Starving Artist: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Bitch-Slap: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Brute: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

The Hippie: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Televangelist: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Schoolyard Bully: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Class Clown: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

The Robot: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Haughty Intellectual: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Spiteful Loner: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Sociopath: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

The Hand-Raiser: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Braggart: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Capitalist Pig: Rational, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Smartass: Rational, Extroverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

Be sure to take my Sublime Philosophical Crap Test if you are interested in taking a slightly more intellectual test that has just as many insane ramblings as this one does!

About Saint_Gasoline

I am a self-proclaimed pseudo-intellectual who loves dashes. I enjoy science, philosophy, and fart jokes and water balloons, not necessarily in that order. I spend 95% of my time online, and the other 5% of my time in the bathroom, longing to get back on the computer. If, God forbid, you somehow find me amusing instead of crass and annoying, be sure to check out my blog and my webcomic at SaintGasoline.com.

Link: The Personality Defect Test written by saint_gasoline on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Seasoned Greetings

Boy, I must be amazingly popular! The sheer number of notices I have received in the past several weeks telling me that I have received an electronic greeting card has now exceeded the number of people in the world who would actually be likely to send me an electronic greeting card. And who is sending me these notices of joy? Well, no names are given, just:

a School mate
a Partner
a Colleague
a Family member
a Mate
a Class mate

The cards apparently are from real card companies (Hallmark, AmericanGreetings) but closer examination shows that a letter or two is off. That and the fact that neither I nor the sender is specifically named made me more than a little suspicious (as did the fact that I am in touch with only two "school mates" and I can't imagine either of them ever being inclined to send me a greeting card apropos of nothing--or, at all, really).

I did some searching and discovered that this is indeed a hoax, designed to trick you into accessing a site that will load a Trojan horse onto your computer (which was my initial suspicion). More info here. This Greeting Card Hoax first made the rounds in 1999, but seems to have become a little more malicious.

Kind of reminded me of the "I Love You" virus that hit in 2000--my suspicion was immediately raised when I received an e-mail from Cygnus' Senior VP with the subject line "I Love You." Entire books could be written about why that was an incredibly unlikely scenario...

And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead

The dark side of today's ubiquitous gardgetry (assuming there's a bright side) is that we are edging closer to the dystopia presented in the movie Idiocracy. Just when I thiougbt that talking on cellphones was among the dumbest, most sociopathic things humans could do, now I find that apparently the hip-yet-utterly-fucking-moronic new thing to do is text while driving, with, of course, the fairly predictable trail of carnage. What is wrong with people?

The debate now is whether to ban texting while driving. Y'know, what is the point? There reaches a point, even in our overly paternalistic society, where you just have to let natural stupidity take its course. It should be obvious that texting while driving is a dumbass thing to do, but then would be barbecuing a steak while driving, or reading Proust while driving, or assembling a bicycle while driving, or doing jigsaw puzzles while driving, or building bookshelves while driving, or playing volleyball while driving, or solving Schrodinger's wave equation while driving...some things should just be obvious. But, I guess not. Why I take great pains to not drink and drive is beyond me...

Keep the Change?

Bank of America--the bank at which I have my account(s) for reasons passing understanding*--has this program called "Keep the Change," which is pitched at me every time I spend the 20 minutes required to to get money out of their lethargic ATMs. I have never been able to understand why anyone would think it was a good idea. And it seems that I am not the only one. Over at Marginal Revolution, economist Alex Tabarrok writes:

The Bank of America's Keep the Change program freaks me out. Every time you make a charge with your B of A debit card it rounds the figure up to the nearest whole amount and transfers the change to your checking account. Commercials for this service are all over the television and radio - tagline: "you don't even have to think about saving" - and every time I see one I feel the gulf between me and the rest of humanity widening (MR readers excepted of course).

Look, I can understand Ulysses tying himself to the mast, I can understand locking the refrigerator and I can understand Christmas accounts but I will never understand how anyone can increase their savings by taking money from one account and putting it into another. I think I will write a book, I will call it Mental Accounting for Dummies:

The secret to saving more money is simple. In your right hand is money for spending. In your left hand is money for savings. Now take some money from your right hand and put it into your left hand. Tada! Wasn't that easy?

Consumer Reports also had a pretty thorough debunking of the program some time ago, as well.

It wouldn't work for me anyway because I adamantly refuse to use a debit card.


*Actually, I remain there because after seven years the managers and tellers all know me, which makes the rare special request so much easier to ask for and be granted.

Head Trip

Sometimes a lollipop is just a lollipop--no matter how freakish.

Tasmanian Devil

Why can't I ever stumble across these things when out for a walk on the beach?

A giant squid washed up on the shores of Tasmania has scientists in a frenzy.
...
They will take samples from the massive creature, which has been identified by Tasmania Parks and Wildlife as giant squid Architeuthis.
...
The hood of the squid is about two metres long and the body a couple of metres long.

A TPWS spokesman said the tentacles have been badly mangled so their length could not be measured.
...
A member of the public made the discovery last night.

Heh

The Onion is on top of things with a new magazine launch:

New Pompous Asshole Magazine To Compete With Cigar Aficionado

NEW YORK—Upscale consumers who enjoy cigars, wine, and "all the finer things in life" will have a new magazine to enjoy beginning next month when Pompous Asshole hits the stands. Targeted at the 23- to 60-year-old pompous-asshole demographic, the new monthly magazine is expected to compete directly with Cigar Aficionado for advertising dollars. "Pompous Asshole is the magazine of the good life," said publisher Paul Westman, "And, unlike Cigar Aficionado, we truly cover it all: From tips on choosing the right humidor to advice on where to gamble in Monte Carlo to the lowdown on the new Jaguar XJ8, Pompous Asshole is the magazine no rich prick can afford to be without."

More Walkies

Yesterday, the Two Rivers group and I went for a hike up Bash Bish Falls near Taconic State Park, in the "three corners" area (where New York, Masschusetts, and Connecticut meet). It was billed as an easy hike to the falls, then a "slightly" more arduous trek up the falls (or, more properly, up the side of the falls). At the bottom is a bulletin board containing a half dozen or so news stories of people who have died while hiking there--typically by ignoring the "do not go beyond this point" signs or doing similarly dumb things. (My recurring question was whether the name "Bash Bish" came from the sound of hikers caroming off rocks.)
Anyway, the extremely steep ascent was quite arduous indeed; fortunately, there is a metal handrail you can use to help hoist yourself up (would installing an escalator chairlift kill them?). We lunched on a small plateau midway up the falls, which I thought was part of the legal trail but actually wasn't so we got chased off by a park ranger. The view from the top was quite spectacular, and the very steep descent even more challenging than the ascent, IMO, thanks to the, um, gravity of the situation. Happily, the six of us made it up and down none the worse for wear--a few bruises and cuts and some aching muscles, but that's about it. Still, it was a great deal of fun.
I think it's time to invest in a good pair of hiking boots....

Aloha, "Octosquid"

This is cool:

Scientists at the University of Hawaii at Manoa will soon have a chance to investigate a creature that appears to be half squid, half octopus that was found in waters off the Big Island.

It appears that the creature was sucked up in a deep seawater pipeline at the Natural Energy Laboratory Hawaii Authority at Keahole on the Big Island.
The pipeline pumps cold water up from 3,000 feet below sea level. Occasionally deep-sea marine life will get caught in a filter in the line, officials said.

Workers call the latest find an "octosquid." It has the body of a squid and the tentacles of an octopus.

This isn't entirely unheard of; marine biologists have already found Taningia danae, an eight-armed deep sea squid.

Cold Calling

If you're eager to get out of your wireless contrat (and, quite frankly, who wouldn't be?), Sprint makes it easy: just call customer service too much:

A Sprint customer, whose personal information has been obscured in this image, recently received this letter from Sprint Nextel saying that his contract would be canceled because Sprint believed he had contacted customer service too much. Other subscribers received similar alerts.

Cutting Remarks

You know, not all economic news has to be depressing. If you're in the market for a machete and are worried about overpaying for one, you're in luck:

The price of machetes has halved in parts of Nigeria since the end of general elections in April because demand from thugs sponsored by politicians has subsided, the state-owned News Agency of Nigeria reported.

NAN surveyed prices in the northeastern state of Gombe and found that a good quality machete was now selling for 400 naira ($3) compared with 800 naira before the elections, which were marred by politically motivated violence in many states.

It's common to overlook the "hired thug" factor when analyzing economic data.

Electile Dysfunction

It's safe to say that politics is the entertainment branch of government, and nothing is more purportedly entertaining than Presidential election campaigns. So I say, let's make 'em more entertaining, by giving this list of dark horse candidates a chance on the national stage. I mean, come on, does not this sound like appealing commander-in-chief, if only for the kicky robe:

Jonathon Albert "The Impaler" Sharkey — 43, Satanist/pagan who is the founder, national chair and commanding general in the 1st Vampyre, Witches, Pagans Party Regiment (2006-present); former U.S. Army soldier; former board member of Hillborough, New Jersey's County Executive Republican Committee; dark priest/ advisor to the Church of the Followers of Lucifer; founder and national chair of Vampyres, Witches, Pagans Against Impaired Driving (2005-present). As an ordained Satanic dark priest, vows to perform same-sex marriages at White House at least once a month and to only impale criminals and terrorists, not law-abiding American citizens.

Hmm...I dunno, the Hillsborough NJ Executive Republican Committee... Sounds fishy to me.

But having this guy in a debate would be fun:

Gene Amondson — 64, running for the second time for the Prohibition party, Amondson has spent the past 20 years dressing up as the Grim Reaper with a whiskey bottle in one hand and a scythe in the other to preach the ills of liquor. Also a wood carver, oil painter, pie baker, children's book author and professional impersonator of 1900s evangelical anti-booze preacher Billy Sunday.

It would be fun to watch, but I can't get on board with the whole Prohibition thing...

And it's almost hard to believe this guy is single:

Jackson Kirk Grimes — 56, a single pagan with a GED who once portrayed Hitler on "Star Trek," this director of the United Fascist Union (which promotes the economic theories and political ideologies of Benito Mussolini and Saddam Hussein) and two-time presidential candidate promises to abolish paper money and create a global government if elected.

You have to admit, these clowns are not appreciably worse than the usual bozos who run--or who have even been elected.

Airport Insecurity

Oh, this is comforting:

The Albany International Airport supports efforts to improve security, after government inspectors managed to sneak fake bomb parts through an airport checkpoint.
...
In one test, TSA inspectors hid the components of a fake bomb in carry-on luggage that also had a bottle of water. The TSA screeners at the airport confiscated the water bottle -- passengers cannot carry on more than three ounces -- but missed the bomb.

Well, at least the water bottle didn't get through! Call me cyncial, but I can't help but think that is designed so that passengers are forced to buy the extortionately priced water at the airport convenience stores (assuming bottled water isn't extortionately priced to begin with).

I would have thought that security at smaller, less crowded airports would be more thorough than zooish big airports, but maybe not. Perhaps small airports have a false sense of...security.

List-O-Mania

TV Guide has revised its list of the top 30 cult TV shows. Let's see: Nos. 1 (absolutely), 2, 4, 5, 6, especially 7, 9, very much 13, 14, definitely 16, and you betcha 25 are some of my favorite shows...well, ever, and pretty much sum up a large chunk of my DVD library. (What, no Futurama?) As for the rest of the top 10, well, I liked Buffy (I rented all the seasons at various points) but never obsessively. And The Simpsons--well, that goes without saying, although it's been years since I have watched it. Never liked Xena.

London Calling

Buoyed by the success of the Atlanta flight, I have officially booked a flight to London for next month. Blimey! Depending on the willingness of my hosts to indulge an utter dork, I do hope to get a chance to visit Portmeirion Village in Wales, if only to make Vince N. jealous.

Chime and Punishment

I love the "Selling It: Goofs, Glitches, and Gotchas" in the print edition of Consumer Reports. I did like this one offer:
Stun gun...wind chimes...it's a fine line. Actually, having lived next door to people who have had wind chimes, I don't find that the difference is too great. Wind chimes do tend to do more lasting psychological damage, as, on windy days, they gradually drive you to madness. At least a stun gun is quick.

A Show of Hands

Last night, I trotted up to the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) to see one of my all-time favorite bands in the world--Rush. Scarily, it has been 25 years since I went to my first Rush concert (1982's Exit...Stage Left tour at the now-gone Boston Garden). I saw them three or four more times since--the 1983 Signals tour, probably the 1984 Grace Under Pressure tour, and in 1985 while in college, Ken A., Todd B., Steven H., and Mike K. and I trekked to Binghamton, NY, battling Mike K's increasing psychosis (don't even ask) to catch them on the Power Windows tour. That was actually the last I would really listen to Rush until "rediscovering" them in 1999. They toured again in 2002 and I had caught them at SPAC at the time.

Anyway, they put on a terrific show. They have never been ones to just "phone it in"; they put 100% into every note and it shows. The new album (Snakes and Arrows) is really good and the songs were even better live. The background visuals worked well and there were some funny video clips (Rush have rarely gotten credit for their sense of humor). Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas (actually old school friends of singer/bassist Geddy Lee) appeared in their old SCTV roles of Bob and Doug McKenzie, doing a skit to introduce "The Larger Bowl" (I couldn't tell if it was an old clip or a new one) and a South Park animation had the kids pretending to be Rush and screwing up "Tom Sawyer" (I never liked South Park, but it was pretty funny). The 2002 stage set had included--oddly--three clothes dryers that were never explained, and this time there were three large rotisseries full of chickens. Occasionally, in the middle of a song, someone would come out in an apron and chef's hat and baste them. It tied in tenuously with the introductory video clip, but was just kind of surreal.

The most striking thing about the show was the song selection. Since Rush have never had any real hits to speak of, the band's entire discography has always been fair game--in fact, Rush fans would probably love it if the band picked more obscure album tracks. "Tom Sawyer" and "The Spirit of Radio" are really the only two "must-plays" and everything else is up to what the band feels like playing. In 2002, they had played a lot of tracks from the 1989-1996 period, but this time around, they only played one song from that period, instead favoring the 1980-1981 period. The oldest song was actually my least favorite song from 1976's 2112. The Permanent Waves album was almost played in its entirety. They even did two songs from 1982's Signals--their ill-advised "synth" album whose songs seem to work better in a live setting. I'm certainly not complaining ("Natural Science" is probably my favorite Rush song, even if they did excise a verse, but then it is a 10-minute song), although one misses old concert staples like "The Trees" or "Red Barchetta."

They did two one-hour sets and a 15-minute encore. They had quite a lot of energy for three fifty-somethings--more than I did, as my feet were killing me after having had to stand for three hours. I also discovered that SPAC is a 40-minute walk from my house.

The complete song list played last night (with the album the song is from) was:

Limelight (Moving Pictures, 1981)
Digital Man (Signals, 1982)
Entre Nous (Permanent Waves, 1980)
Mission (Hold Your Fire, 1987)
Free Will (Permanent Waves, 1980)
The Main Monkey Business (Snakes and Arrows, 2007)
The Larger Bowl (Snakes and Arrows, 2007)
Secret Touch (Vapor Trails, 2002)
Circumstances (Hemispheres, 1978)
Between the Wheels (Grace Under Pressure, 1984)
Dreamline (Roll the Bones, 1991)

break

Far Cry (Snakes and Arrows, 2007)
Workin' Them Angels (Snakes and Arrows, 2007)
Armor and Sword (Snakes and Arrows, 2007)
Spindrift (Snakes and Arrows, 2007)
The Way the Wind Blows (Snakes and Arrows, 2007)
Subdivisions (Signals, 1982)
Natural Science (Permanent Waves, 1980)
Witch Hunt (Moving Pictures, 1981)
Malignant Narcissism (Snakes and Arrows, 2007)
Neil Peart's Drum Solo
Hope (an Alex lifeson solo acoustic 12-string piece) (Snakes and Arrows, 2007)
Summertime Blues (yes, the Eddie Cochrane song, from Feedback, the band's 2004 30th anniversary EP of cover songs)
The Spirit of Radio (Permanent Waves, 1980)
Tom Sawyer (Moving Pictures, 1981)

Encore:

One Little Victory (Vapor Trails, 2001)
A Passage to Bangkok (2112, 1976)
YYZ (Moving Pictures, 1981)