People against science

Scary...

I really don't know how to respond to the other than what PZ says other than to say that yes, batshit crazy is pretty accurate.

I also had mentioned previously about the Cabazon Dinosaurs museum in Cabazon, CA (near Palm Springs). Its a creation museum. Yes, they believe that god created the earth and all things on it somewhere in the neighborhood of 6000 - 10000 years ago, dinos and humans coexisted and yes even dinos were on noahs ark. I unfortunately am on call but possibly next week, assuming I don't have some other work related thing going on, I may actually roll down there and take a look. I have seen the things from the freeway and have even been there when I was a little kid but I don't believe it was a museum at the time. Ill leave any other comments till I have actually been there.

Its funny as when I told my mom a while back that people actually believe that the earth is only 6000 years old, that all the fossils are supposedly either lies by scientists or that the devil put them there to test peoples faith, she thought I was full of it. Yes, people actually believe this stupid shit, nevermind the insane amount of evidence that proves (yes, PROVES) evolution. One thing I recently heard that even if we didn't have any other fossils or observable evidence, just the genetic evidence is enough to show that evolution occurs. But according to these crazies, its a conspiracy.

Short news bits

Girl gets suspended for coloring hair

This girl got suspended cause her hair is colored pink, and she is standing her ground. In my opinion its not even that bright of a pink (perhaps the video isn't showing it correctly but whatever.) Im glad shes standing her ground. We need these stupid people who restrict shit like this to get their heads out of their ass and realize that kids aren't that stupid. Some color in the hair at worst would get some comments the first time someone saw her, most would probably say it was cool. Instead they now have suspended her which I suspect will disrupt classes far more than her hair by itself ever would have.

Measles may be linked to vaccine fears

This one is about the old issue of people (parents) being stupid and not getting their kids vaccinated on stuff cause of the irrational fear that vaccines lead to autism. There so far has been no link to vaccines and autism, and believe me people have checked. So far nothing. So you have two choices. Get your get vaccinated and get them protected against diseases that are dangerous but easy to combat now or you can be a dumbass, not get your kids vaccinated, have to home school them (which I think has its own issues but thats for another day) as most schools require vaccination and expose them to many diseases that could cause a lot of problems in the short term, long term or really long term (death can occur). Stop being stupid, look at the evidence. There is no conspiracy.

Bigfoot fake

I dont have a link for this one, however I'm sure many have seen it. What a shock, the bigfoot thing was a fake. I love the quote the guys who started this had "Its bigfoot. There is no bigfoot. I can't believe people thought it was real." And thats something I can agree with him, I can't believe so many people bought into it. Still, douches for lying to everyone (dumb for the cop as he got fired for this.)

Blood from stem cells

I can't sleep, so I figured I would post something. A link to a wired story about creating type O negative blood from embryonic stem cells. I saw this story on http://www.onegoodmove.org and thought it quite awesome. Can you imagine the benefits of this if it continues to pan out? No more concept of not enough blood to assist in saving peoples lives. No more having to scrape blood from donors (especially the 7% of people who have type O negative blood which can be transfered to anyone). This is just one of many benefits of stem cells and one of the reasons that I can't stand that we don't do more research into it.

Now as the story will say (and im sure many people who are against embryo acquired stem cells) its possible for this blood technique to use adult stem cells. However usually one of the caveats of this type of cell is they tend to go cancerous, however since blood does not have DNA (lack of nucleus and all) its not a worry in this case. That being said embryonic stem cells still hold the best potential of coming up with cures and treatments for a variety of diseases. We just need to get those peoples head out of their ass to realize that we can save lives and the majority of stem cells that scientists want to play with, are from embryos that otherwise would be destroyed anyways.

I saw this the other day and wanted to post it for others to see as I think its fucking cool. On another cool concept is something I also saw the other day relating to technology. A guy by the name of Johnny Lee (do check out his site, he has some insane cool videos) has me impressed. He basically figured that there is a camera built into the Wii remotes that sense infrared and has come out with several projects that has some seriously cool applications. One is creating a very cheap whiteboard application that is much cheaper than one of the $3000 projessional whiteboards. For basically like $50 and a computer with the software on it (which most meetings and what not use laptops hooked to projectors anyways) you get a lot of the functionality for very cheap. He also has another application that lets him use the Wii remote for head tracking, possibly allowing for games and other applications a more 3d approach, again for next to no cost compared to comparable VR type stuff. His most impressive one I think regarding the Wii remote is a variable display system he designed.




Check it out, its some interesting stuff. Tomorrow I'm going to write something about a museum that someone on the Iron Chariots forums posted on.

First!

Im creating a blog here as im tired of using myspace for my rants and thoughts. Ill use the myspace blogspace more for my actual actions and things that I have been up to. Most of this blog will probably end up being my frustration on the things that I see that are stupid as hell. Im sure it will evolve (assuming I continue to post) .