April 30, 2006
Or does it simply depend on where you are? Admittedly I have only seen a couple episodes of The Colbert Report, but from what I have seen, it is fairly well-written and original. Somehow Stephen was invited to not only attend the annual White House Correspondent Dinner, but he was allowed to give the keynote speech. He grilled, lampooned and otherwise chastised the 4th Estate for being a sycophant of the Administration. I found a copy of it on YouTube — I should warn you however, the definition is fairly low-quality but the audio comes through great. Part 1, Part 2
Reminds me of the South Park episode involving the 1st Amendment. See also Truthiness.
Update: Here is an overview of the evening from the Washington Post.
April 28, 2006
Remember those relatively old cells discussed earlier this week? Well, now comes word that various soft-tissues have been found residing in the bones of our friend Mr. T Rex. At 68 million years of age, I think we have a certified senior citizen. (God I really wanted to say bonified there). Oh and our ID friends try to spin this data like a record from DoA.
I wish the students at A&M’s Mays Business School oozed this much creativity.
Picture of the day from our friends at the EFF.
April 26, 2006
And you thought solitaire was a distraction (lawsuits over surfing on the company doll). Now the developers of Facebook are rolling it to the corporate world.
I wonder when they will let you upload a resumé, work history, references, cover sheet and otherwise your complete CV. That would be very useful considering the fact that many employers already look at your profile (not sure entirely why, most profiles show off your goofy side and/or visually illustrate how much alcohol you can consume on the weekends).
Ever heard of an organism that is an extremophile? It is something that can live in relatively extreme conditions (i.e. pressures from the deep, hot acidic gases from geysers, cold arctic frosts, etc.). Well, the BBC has an interesting report on what is thought to be the oldest organism still alive: microbes discovered in water droplets which were contained in salt crystals dating to 200 million years of age. That’s alot of candles. And no, this is not a real case of an extremophilia, I just wanted to throw that in for good measure.
Other age-related factoids:
Some bowhead whales can reportedly live to be 200+ years old.
Galapagos tortoises can also hit 125+ years as well. In fact, Harriet, the tortoise that Charles Darwin originally captured on his voyages to the Galapagos islands, is still alive and kicking at the ripe age of 175.
I’ve previously mentioned the music video from A-ha called “Take Me On” which utilizes an artistic technique known as rotoscoping. Here is a great parody of it from The Family Guy.
I swear everyone was forced to watch this video at some point in their early childhood. And I still have no clue why they count to 12 and not 11 or 13. See also A-ha and rotoscoping.
After watching this, someone should tell Kirk Cameron that banana’s were domesticated by humanity and not a deity.
