Blogging in the Olden Days

"What's that?" The Murloc asked me.

"Ink, on paper," I reply, holding up the article my mother gave to me. "The ink forms shapes which are used to represent sounds. Sounds can be combined into words which express ideas."

She rolls her eyes. "I mean, what's it from?"

"First Things."

"I've never heard of it."

"You've never heard of First Things?"

"No. Is it like a blog?"

"I suppose, yes it is, although it pre-dates the word. You see, before the internet, we called blogs magazines. Each month, you had to have blogs hand-delivered to you. A nice man would come to your house with the new issue of your favorite blog, printed on paper. And if you wanted to leave a comment, you had to give your comment to the nice man, and it could take up to a couple months for it to appear on the blog."

"I don't know why I married you," she says, shaking her head.

"Neither do I. As soon as I found one that didn't run away from me, I slapped a ring on her finger before she came to her senses."

Great Minds?

From Google: motion-controlled Gmail.



From Blizzard: motion-controlled StarCraft.



Coincidence? I THINK NOT!

April Fools

Celebrate Human Achievement Hour!

Everyone turn on your lights! It's human achievement hour! Celebrate all the wonderful advancements cheap electricity has enabled us to make. From heating our homes, to providing food for our families, to treating the sick with advanced medicine, to enabling more women to work outside the home, there's no doubt that cheap electricity has improves our everyday lives in myriad ways that we take for granted.

Watt's Up with That? – Earth Hour: A Dissent.

I Can Has?

Our Little Boy, The Charmer

Hi!

So Damien's favorite word is "hi!" He says it to everyone and everything. Today, at Mass, he was standing in the back, next to the door, and greeting everyone who came in with a "hi!" and a wave.

He was also giving hugs to a lady in the pew behind us. Later, we might need to explain strangers and personal space to him, but right now, he's just too cute.

Point/Counterpoint: Japan's Nuclear Plants

Point: There is no cause for alarm

by Jethro van Goterhoffeschen, Doctor of Nuclear Science and Other Smart-Sounding Stuff

While the news of a release of radioactive material may sound alarming, I assure you there is no reason for concern. It is true that after the earthquake in Japan, a small amount of radioactive material was released into the air. This is mostly only a problem for those in the immediate vicinity, who are rightly being treated for potential exposure.

The prevailing winds in the jet stream are indeed blowing eastward, towards the west coast of the United States, but the cloud of radioactive particles has not reached that high altitude. Instead, it seems to be caught in the low pressure zone formed over the north pacific.

For this reason, it is highly unlikely that any radioactivity will reach the west coast. And even if it did, the radiation dosage you get from eating one banana would be greater than that from the Japanese nuclear reactors. 6000 miles is simply too great a distance for the radiation to maintain any significant concentration.

While the reactor meltdown is a concern, this incident is nowhere near as bad as the Chernobyl incident, which poisoned the surrounding area with nuclear fallout and caused the deaths of at least 50 people. We should not allow emotion and fear to lead us into rash behavior and abandon our successful nuclear program.

Counterpoint: Oh God, oh God, we're all gonna die!

by Hugh Jass, Professional panic-stirrer and New York Times correspondent

Did you hear that? There's a giant cloud of nuclear waste heading towards the United States! It was caused by a catastrophic nuclear explosion--think mushroom cloud--which is due to the total meltdown of several nuclear reactors in Japan.

The radioactivity is being carried by winds to the west coast of the US, which will sometime today be completely enveloped in the noxious cloud! Everyone run for the hills! Shortly after, the cloud will creep over the rest of the states, and people in New York will be dropping dead in the streets by next week!

Quick, everyone buy up all the Potassium Iodide tablets you can! Only that can save you from the fallout which will likely cause a nuclear winter!

This is the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl! Everyone abandon nuclear power--wait, that isn't enough. We should abandon electricity altogether, since it was the melting of the polar ice caps caused by global warming that caused the tectonic shift that started the earthquake to begin with! This is all the fault of Big Oil! Come get your pitchforks, torches,and Potassium Iodide!

And run for the hills!