The Ottermanempire.com

Erin with Teller. ( I love his voice, his writing’s rather good too)

I’ve been a fan of Penn and Teller since being exposed to them in the mid 80’s and one of the life goals, as far as I have plans, was to see them perform live. That’s another collective 40 years experience up on stage and if they were great in the 80’s they are now fucking amazing. During the intervening time I didn’t turn out to be an atheist as I always was one, as are all newborns it’s only the prevailing culture that tells a three year old that he’s a Christian child and sadly he’s doomed to burn in hell unless he thanks the zombie jew for his gift of ever lasting life, feeling sick yet?

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Seemingly I was not the only one with a misspent childhood.  With access to guns, a scrapyard , welding gear and about any dangerous farmyard tool that have caught the unwary  over the years I still wanted to make my toys more , well, interesting.  So it’s with great joy that I  find that there’s a book coming out devoted to the art of the plastic projectile launcher.    I managed to get an  2  x 12  to stick into drywall using rubber bands x 3 and a massively and in retrospect  a wasteful  design that was more likely to me having a face full of bricks than forward motion.  How long till the TSA bans blocks;)

 
Boing Boing: Forbidden Lego: dangerous Lego projects!

Forbidden Lego, a new book from No Starch Press, is a compendium of recipes for building anti-social Lego projects — looks like good, eye-removing fun.

All we do is subject our official to is public ridicule and a cozy life in the private sector after a quiet period. China seem to take corruption just a tad more seriously.  Oddly enough it’s better here, more democratic, e.g you bribe more people;)

China executes former food and drug safety chief

BEIJING - China executed the former head of its food and drug watchdog on Tuesday for approving untested medicine in exchange for cash, the strongest signal yet from Beijing that it is serious about tackling its product safety crisis.

The law of unintended consequences has better representation  presently than we do as a race. It’s nice that we have a myriad of ways  to attempt to keep living in the manner to which a certain part of the world has been accustomed but where the real work seems to be lacking in removing the need for the need to  try to maintain a status quo that’s so brief a time in our history  is weird.
 How much energy we waste just to have people show up  same time, same place to interact remotely with those they never see face to face based on what?  a fear your employees will “steal” and goof off your time?   Some will, and already do,   because as long as we still keep seeing most things as  jobs ,  things you -have- to be paid to do and ends up with us treating  people with the level of contempt that causes.

Seriously, adults  checking up on  the bowel movements  of those with a different job title   leads to what benefit to the customer?  Bad enough  you have to suffer the “piss police” and their shoddy  inaccurate tests ,that can’t tell a cold medicine from a drug , but grown people  having to account for the time they took to shit?   Until that mindset alters I’m not sure how much we gain by making the transport to and from the workplace archipelago more efficient.

Well that was a nice digression.  New Scientist has an article that asks what next? Prior to us even getting into the  efficient non polluting technologies ( least in then conventional sense) we’re basing most of this tech on rare and pretty much unknown  reserves materials  like  platinum, tantalum and gallium  the latter two rather useful in semi conductors and solar panel construction.

Earth’s natural wealth: an audit - earth - 23 May 2007 - New Scientist Environment

This could prove lucrative, but Prichard is motivated by something far more significant than the chance of a quick buck. Platinum is a vital component not only of catalytic converters but also of fuel cells - and supplies are running out. It has been estimated that if all the 500 million vehicles in use today were re-equipped with fuel cells, operating losses would mean that all the world’s sources of platinum would be exhausted within 15 years. Unlike with oil or diamonds, there is no synthetic alternative: platinum is a chemical element, and once we have used it all there is no way on earth of getting any more. What price then pollution-free cities?

Nikon | Universcale

Nikon’s total perspective flash,”Universescale” is missing the fairy cake but can take you all the way from femto meters to light years with interesting stops along the way. I still think HHGTTG put it best.

“Space,” it says, “is big. Really really big. You just wont believe how vastly, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean you think it’s a long way down the street to the chemist but that’s just peanuts to space,”

Holy shit,  has hell frozen over?  Er no it doesn’t exist and besides it would need to exist first.  Anyway it was the inaugaral  meeting of the first non theist “church” , there’s still debate over using that part as a word, I mean  from the Greek,”house of the lord” it seems to have an insurmountable issues.  That being said I totally arsed up the recording  due to unfamiliarity with the recorder (which I own so I am in the dumbass club tonight)   It’s very early days yet I probably am going to assist with the web community and recording / podcasting the  sermons and trying to get more people involved that way.

Come on in , we have no sin:)  More on this soon but I don’t have the time tonight.

My little flapping head “Ike”  had to recalled once more from daycare, the day part is at least correct, for going rashy/ spotty over much of the body.  It looks very much like a reaction to, not necessarily allergic,  the amoxycillin. Dobh’s fine with it, I’m not that happy though  I’ve never taken so much time off on an ad hoc basis since day care was involved it’s a shocking piss poor compromise that you either have to be

earn over 100k on one income 

Be poor enough to have morons like me pay for your daycare ( thanks Janet) 

If you are in the middle ground you end up needing to nearly  double your salary to get back in real terms what you can  get from the “state” for free, oh and pay no taxes doing it.

Rant coming.. ANGRY    for once though I can  bring up my child, someone other than myself , see I’m not a self centered capitalist  I also wuv my family That  nearly 50% of my salary goes to paying for food, for daycare,for medical care  for just about every other need we have to provide for our kid  is supplied gratis to others  by the state holding a gun to our heads and “inviting” us to pay.  It’s a shite state of affairs Tommy and all the fucking Red Rock in the world ain’t going to change it” 

While I am in a pissed off mood   this time.. at myself. I once passed my radio ham test, I must have known how to explain waves and propogation and various other bits of info that would make my current project easier.  Today  I realised that  “just so” is useless as a way to pass info and that not understanding the why  is pointless even if you know the how.. :)  I feel an expensive educational solution coming on:)

Failing that I will continue to wallow in my ignorance.

Only 5.5 million?  of my “fellow countrymen” have escaped that nightmare of poor drink chilling, socialist bullshit nanny state , can’t mass produce a decent car without having an external company do it and home to the most pathetic games on the planet, CRICKET , SNOOKER And QUEING politely. 

So where do we all escape to?    Mainly USA, OZ, NZ and then Europe. 

News anchor wonders if the money from NASA buys us anything which as the commenters to their blog remind them of the benefits right under her nose.Firstly it’s nice that the comments are in place since they are harsher than you usually see talkback taking. I.e it’s not just name calling, though there are some really good ones,  

The Bad Astronomer takes her down   with some choice phrases

Look, I know a lot of people don’t know this stuff. I know, too, that NASA could do a better job of talking about this kind of stuff. I also know Ms. Couric is not a journalist, but c’mon, she plays one on TV. It’s simplicity itself to actually, y’know, do some research.

Love it.   People make their voting choices based on these talking heads, I tell you we’re scroomed

*screwed and doomed.

Guardian Unlimited | Science | Pregnant women infected by cat parasite more likely to give birth to boys, say researchers

Counter intuitive.. Don’t cats need more crazy old ladies to keep them than men?  Maybe we have to ask what the parasite wants?

Determinism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Narrator: ( you know the guy with no fucking neck)

There are those that say that free will is an illusion and that it’s but a figment of the mind possesing a complete picture of the universe  it is perceiving.
We “have” to have this or a god would be kinda #1 bastard of the ‘verse .( should one exist) to condemn people to the role of actors where the part you are studying for is baby with a hole in heart #2 or rape victim. Most godheads claim free will is a must for the very reason it’s kinda horrible to think that we’re mechanical animals truly damned by  a very unoriginal sin , poor craftsmanship, to star in the soap opera that’s planet Earth. ( I’m rather undecided about the theories advanced by the other participants since it falls into my “no practical use” category.
So this was a topic around the campfire this weekend which included such joys as primate penis size, sperm competition, women that have fought off all the shackles of their faith apart from their model of how men/women should form relationships and whether a Doctor that refuses to inform rape victims of mitigating treatment to prevent pregnancy  can be counted as a Doctor and not some  Doctor like object.. kinda like a Taxi Driver that will get you to the airport but only  by using right turns.

More on the no practical use. Even if determinism  , of the seemingly fatalistic kind, was 100% true    what action can one take?  More dangerously ,should it be a total pile of horseshit,  what harm would the  inaction do to a person convinced by this argument?   Later, I’m determined to get some rest.

CNN.com - Pluto gets the boot - Aug 24, 2006

pluto, how ironic,
“death” to a “planet” leaving
just a goofy rock

Isn’t defining things fun?  See how ephemeral most of this shit is?

CNN.com - Study: Hybrid cars will pay for themselves over time - Aug 22, 2006

DETROIT (Reuters) — Some hybrid cars will make up for their premium cost because of higher gas prices and tax credits from the U.S. government

Credits from WHOM? Jesus it’s not the U.S gov it’s everybody that pays taxes driver or not. To say that a hybrid , costing 10k more than a suitable alternative ( yeah cheap Kia) but still, has to make up 10k plus in fuel savings over its life. ( most break even points at today’s price’s come in at $40k a year. If you don’t have a long commute or gas goes to $8 a gallon most of the hybrids touted wont break, have higher servicing costs. Current diesels, way cleaner than their forebears, already do 50mpg. No tax breaks,less complex and longer lasting engines yet.. yet. seemingly they have a sucky lobbyist group.:D

Mass murder in the skies: was the plot feasible? [printer-friendly] | The Register

After a few hours - assuming, by some miracle, that the fumes haven’t overcome you or alerted passengers or the flight crew to your activities - you’ll have a quantity of TATP with which to carry out your mission. Now all you need to do is dry it for an hour or two.

Binary explosives , while we’re still waiting to hear from the UK re the  alledged plot to bring down the planes the language coming from the gov is rather amusing and  until they show up with  people possessing passports ( useful for getting aboard a plane so I hear,  and a working method on how to create a practical device  it would all seem a little .. unbelievable?
I may just as well intend to build a teleporter to remove all the gold from fort knox, oh and a time machine to go back to when there really was enough to  make such an endeavour worthwhile.

Usually the UK lags the states by about 10-15 years in their rush towards a police state it looks like they are taking a slight lead for the time being.

Check out this UK Documentary with yet another Hitchens, nope it’s not Christopher this time and if you’re having any doubts which side of the phrase.

“we’re from the government we’re here to help you”  you are on hopefully this will further help you.

Having been on the wrong end of an extremely serious accusation in the UK, police, actually in this case I prefer the term Pigs like to threaten those on the periphery with whatever crime they thought has taken place rather than use common sense to determine what’s occurred. E.g They are not your friends. Sadly the vast majority of people haven’t had such experience and maintain that those with nothing to hide , have nothing to fear. Just wait till they get granular enough
Hey mate, yer papers guv’nor