Is it too early to put up holiday decorations?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/inktea/4110914171/

Ink Tea posted a photo:

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/malcubed/~3/ZhWG50cAOE0/1148916.html

http://malcubed.livejournal.com/1148916.html

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/hoB3CVnobYA/arrr-this-be-pleasin.html

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=darwin-in-battle-of-wits-against-un-09-11-17

November 24th marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species. On November 19th, a guy named Ray Comfort, who does not accept evolution, will celebrate the fact that when copyrights expire and works enter the public domain you’re free to do with them what you will. Thus Comfort will be distributing his own edition of Darwin’s masterwork, with a new introduction. This is roughly the equivalent of me fingerpainting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel so as to improve the work.

According to the folks at the National Center for Science Education, the NCSE, who monitor efforts to interfere with evolution education in public schools, Comfort in his intro repeats numerous familiar anti-evolution claims. For example, that there’s a lack of transitional fossils and that the second law of thermodynamics makes evolution impossible. These assertions have been disproved more often than the chant “Yankees suck.”

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=your-brain-on-books

Stanislas Dehaene holds the chair of Experimental Cognitive Psychology at the Collège de France, and he is also the director of the INSERM-CEA Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit at NeuroSpin, France’s most advanced neuroimaging research center. He is best known for his research into the brain basis of numbers, popularized in his book, “The Number Sense.” In his new book, “Reading in the Brain,” he describes his quest to understand an astounding feat that most of us take for granted: translating marks on a page (or a screen) into language. He answered questions recently from Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook. [More]

What's your favorite color?

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/photos/veteransday.asp

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TwitchEverything/~3/JNyUvE4GyCQ/tetes-short-fim-fumikos-confession-impresses.php

http://twitchfilm.net/news/2009/11/tetes-short-fim-fumikos-confession-impresses.php

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TwitchEverything/~3/F_oyC1FoRMY/tadanobu-asano-to-join-kenneth-branaghs-thor.php

http://twitchfilm.net/news/2009/11/tadanobu-asano-to-join-kenneth-branaghs-thor.php

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/insolence/~3/5XBpp2ihsUM/submit_submit_to_the_skeptics_circle_1.php

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/11/submit_submit_to_the_skeptics_circle_1.php

In case you've forgotten, it's only two days until that festival of critical thinking, that feast of reason, The Skeptics' Circle to land over at Beyond the Short Coat. Instructions to submit can be found here.

Please help make this Circle another success!

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/malcubed/~3/OUjJERgeyAc/1148554.html

http://malcubed.livejournal.com/1148554.html

http://www.metafilter.com/86729/Two-men-with-big-hair-and-the-nature-of-IQ

http://www.metafilter.com/86728/Weve-lost-sight-of-the-numbers

http://www.wordpress.tokyotimes.org/?p=4400

The Japanese notion of wabi-sabi is notoriously difficult to describe, let alone try and define; however, whilst many would disagree — including the missus who maybe ought to know more and maintains I’m miles off — this scene, with its sense of transience, silence and certainly sadness, personally at least almost perfectly encapsulates the concept.

As does this, yet somehow not quite as clearly.

Or indeed, completely.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-11/byu-cch111609.php

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-11/aiom-pmp111309.php

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-11/modf-uga111109.php

http://www.metafilter.com/86727/In-the-Shadow-of-the-Patriarch

http://www.metafilter.com/86726/LyticoBodig-the-mysterious-killer-of-Guam

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/ErRE_3JsNzo/karen-armstrongs-ted.html

Bonnoe says: "The folks at the TED Prize have been working with partners around the world to fulfill the wish of best-selling author and former nun, Karen Armstrong – the Charter for Compassion. The Charter is a document collaboratively written with contributions from thousands of people from more than 100 countries. With a sense of urgency, the Charter is a call to action for all of us to live more compassionately with each other in the hopes of ending global suffering. People from every corner of the world – including Oslo, Buenos Aires, Vancouver, Tehran, Capetown, Sydney, San Francisco, Mumbai and more - have embraced the Charter’s inclusive message by affirming the Charter at the Charter for Compassion website and posting the official widget on their blogs in a show of solidarity (see below). It’s a powerful message and one that we wanted to share."

Charter for Compassion

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/I85ftrZZHbY/100-word-fiction-com.html

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/arstechnica/science/~3/R0svrcXFRus/cray-rides-amds-opteron-to-top-of-supercomputer-list.ars

http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2009/11/cray-rides-amds-opteron-to-top-of-supercomputer-list.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

You might think that Cray, the company whose name has practically been synonymous with "supercomputer" three decades, would be a regular fixture at the top of the Top 500 Supercomputer List. But you'd be mistaken. Today's first-place win by Cray marks the company's debut in the top slot—at long last, after 34 lists, Cray won.

Drilling for Scotch whiskey on frozen continent

A beverage company has asked a team to drill through Antarctica's ice for a lost cache of some vintage Scotch whiskey that has been on the rocks since a century ago. The drillers will be trying to reach two crates of McKinlay and Co. whiskey that were shipped to the Antarctic by British polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton as part of his abandoned 1909 expedition.

Workers from New Zealand's Antarctic Heritage Trust will use special drills to reach the crates, frozen in Antarctic ice under the Nimrod Expedition hut near Cape Royds. Al Fastier, who will lead the expedition in January, said restoration workers found the crates of whiskey under the hut's floorboards in 2006. At the time, the crates and bottles were too deeply embedded in ice to be dislodged. The New Zealanders have agreed to try to retrieve some bottles, although the rest must stay under conservation guidelines agreed by 12 Antarctic Treaty nations. [...]

Richard Paterson, Whyte & Mackay's master blender, said the Shackleton expedition's whiskey could still be drinkable and taste exactly as it did 100 years ago. If he can get a sample, he intends to replicate the old Scotch and put McKinlay whiskey back on sale. "I really hope we can get some back here," he was quoted as telling London's Telegraph newspaper. "It's been laying there lonely and neglected. It should come back to Scotland where it was born.

Previously, previously, previously.
Current Music: Kate Bush -- Under Ice

http://www.metafilter.com/86725/Rupert-Murdoch-and-Mark-Cuban-vs-Google

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/uncertainprinciples/~3/BycGA0pxFyo/companions_in_zealous_research.php

http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2009/11/companions_in_zealous_research.php

Blogging has been light of late because I was in the Houston area for the weekend, at the annual meeting of Sigma Xi, the scientific research honor society (think Phi Beta Kappa, but for science nerds). Every chapter is required to send a representative to the annual meeting at least once every three years, and as I'm the current president of the Union chapter, I got to go this year.

In a lot of ways, the meeting was more Boskone than DAMOP, and I'm not just saying that because there were little ribbons for everybody's badges. This is an obvious consequence of the fact that it was mostly a business meeting with a small research conference attached, rather than a scientific conference with a few business meeting activities that take place when most of the attendees are having dinner. It had a lot of the same vibe as parts of an SF convention-- many of the people there clearly had a deep emotional investment in the operation of the organization, and were there primarily for that aspect of things.

This was, alas, less than completely enthralling for those of us who don't have a similar emotional investment in the whole business. As is the case with most con-running discussions, to be honest-- they're sort of fascinating in an anthropological sort of way, but not interesting enough for me to want to go to the Worldcon business meeting. Because, you know, I won't shed a single tear if I never hear another request for a ruling from the parliamentarian.

I did have a few very enjoyable conversations with students who were there for the student poster competition. In the small world file, one of these students was from Davidson College, and knows Greta Munger a little, and another was working with the same research group at Ohio State that one of our distinguished recent alumni was with (he graduated a year or so ago).

The real highlight, though, was getting to talk to Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman from Mythbusters. They were inducted as honorary lifetime members of Sigma Xi, and were great sports about posing for hundreds of pictures, signing lots of autographs, and chatting amiably with random idiots. For the record, they're pretty much exactly the way they seem on tv-- Savage is more excitable, and tells lots of True Lab Stories, Hyneman is more reserved and serious. As Savage pointed out, this makes their lives much easier-- when people come up to them and want pictures taken, they're not expecting them to be playing characters. (Which makes me think that Stephen Colbert's experience of the autograph-seeking public must be a very strange thing indeed...)

Anyway, all in all, it wasn't a bad time. The business meeting parts weren't remotely worth flying halfway across the country for, but the posters were pretty good, and the banquet was a good deal of fun. I also got to visit with an uncle who lives in Houston, who I haven't seen in a few years, so that was a nice bonus. I'll be perfectly happy to let someone else make the trip the next time we need to send a delegate, though.

http://www.metafilter.com/86724/Kenny-wasnt-like-the-other-kids