A Spaceman, They Say I Am.

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Sat, 18 May 2013 12:52:50 -0700

Hahaha. Why did I not download this meme generator sooner?

Sat, 18 May 2013 11:53:19 -0700

Hahaha. Why did I not download this meme generator sooner?

“Foaming at-the-mouth diatribe”. Classic.

Sat, 18 May 2013 11:36:17 -0700

“Foaming at-the-mouth diatribe”. Classic.

Quiz Show (Bible Contradictions)

Sat, 18 May 2013 10:11:44 -0700

Quiz Show (Bible Contradictions)

Two Justices Involved In Bush Vs. Gore Decision Admit It Was Flawed

Sat, 18 May 2013 10:11:38 -0700

A little morning annoyance to start your day. “Get over it”…Fucking pricks. In...

I really don’t want to post a picture of this fucking...

Fri, 17 May 2013 16:50:57 -0700

I really don’t want to post a picture of this fucking piece of shit but I will in this case. Anyone that compares Obama to this tyrant deserves to get punched in the face.

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Fri, 17 May 2013 12:59:24 -0700

Hahahaha

Fri, 17 May 2013 11:31:36 -0700

Hahahaha

Poor little Tartar…

Fri, 17 May 2013 11:16:52 -0700

Poor little Tartar…

Um…ok? You could have just gone to the nearest bus stop,...

Fri, 17 May 2013 10:58:36 -0700

Um…ok? You could have just gone to the nearest bus stop, Deer.

Rude.

It looks like, “Don’t Masturbate” is gonna break 100,000 today or tomorrow! SO...

Fri, 17 May 2013 10:54:06 -0700

It looks like, “Don’t Masturbate” is gonna break 100,000 today or tomorrow! SO...

Spinosaurus is rapidly gaining on Tyrannosaurus Rex as the...

Thu, 16 May 2013 23:15:05 -0700

Spinosaurus is rapidly gaining on Tyrannosaurus Rex as the world’s most popular carnivorous dinosaur. Here are 10 things you may or may not have known about this giant predator.

1. The original fossils of Spinosaurus were destroyed in World War II.

The German paleontologist Ernst Stromer von Reichenbach discovered the remains of Spinosaurus in Egypt shortly before World War I—and they wound up in the Deutsches Museum in Munich, where they were destroyed by an Allied bombing raid in 1944. Since then, experts have had to content themselves with plaster casts of the original Spinosaurus fossils. Read more about the discovery of Spinosaurus

2. Spinosaurus was bigger than T. Rex.

Pending further discoveries, Spinosaurus is the current record-holder in the “world’s largest carnivorous dinosaur” category: full-grown adults outweighed Tyrannosaurus Rex by about a ton and Giganotosaurus by about half a ton. Since so few Spinosaurus fossils are extant, it’s possible that other individuals were even larger!

3. The skull of Spinosaurus was unusually long and narrow…

Despite its rough similarity to T. Rex, there was no mistaking Spinosaurus for your average tyrannosaur. Besides its prominent sail (about which more below), Spinosaurus’ skull was long, narrow and distinctly crocodilian in profile, and studded with relatively short (but still sharp) teeth.

4. …possibly because it fed on fish.

The shape of Spinosaurus’ skull—combined with the fact that it lived along the north African shoreline—has led some paleontologists to surmise that it (at least occasionally) speared fish out of the water, in addition to hunting down and killing smaller dinosaurs. It’s even conceivable that this huge predator pursued a strictly aquatic diet.

5. The closest relatives of Spinosaurus were Suchomimus and Irritator.

Suchomimus (“crocodile mimic”) and Irritator (so named because the paleontologist examining it was having a bad day) both resembled a vastly scaled-down Spinosaurus. In particular, the long, narrow shape of these dinosaurs’ jaws hint that they inhabited a similar niche in their local ecosystems, the first one in Africa and the second in South America.

6. No one knows why Spinosaurus had a sail…

Over and above its size and the shape of its skull, Spinosaurus’ most notable feature was the elongated sail along its back. This sail may have been a sexually selected characteristic (that is, Spinosaurus males with bigger and more colorful sails had a better chance of mating with females), or it may have helped regulate this dinosaur’s body temperature.

7. …but we do know it was supported by “neural spines.”

Spinosaurus’ sail wasn’t simply a flat, oversized outgrowth of skin that flopped wildly in the breeze. This structure grew on a scaffold of scary-looking “neural spines,” long, thin projections of bone—some of which attained lengths of nearly six feet—that jutted out from this dinosaur’s individual vertebrae.

8. Spinosaurus may have occasionally tangled with Sarcosuchus.

Spinosaurus shared its northern African habitat with Sarcosuchus, aka the “SuperCroc”—a 40-foot-long, 10-ton prehistoric crocodile. Since Spinosaurus fed mostly on fish, and Sarcosuchus spent most of its time half-submerged in water, these two mega-predators must have occasionally crossed paths.

9. Spinosaurus may have been an occasional quadruped.

Based on the size of its front limbs—much longer than those of a comparable T. Rex—some paleontologists think Spinosaurus may have occasionally walked on all fours. Combined with its aquatic diet, this would make Spinosaurus a mirror image of contemporary grizzly bears, which are mostly quadrupedal but occasionally rear up on their hind legs.

10. Spinosaurus wasn’t the only sail-backed dinosaur.

Nearly 200 million years before Spinosaurus, Dimetrodon (not technically a dinosaur, but a synapsid reptile) sported a distinctive sail along its back. And a close contemporary of Spinosaurus was the north African Ouranosaurus, a hadrosaur (duck-billed dinosaur) equipped with either a true sail or a thick, fatty hump of tissue.

http://dinosaurs.about.com/od/dinosaurbasics/a/spinofacts.htm

Atheist Sees Image of Big Bang in Piece of...

Thu, 16 May 2013 22:57:37 -0700

Atheist Sees Image of Big Bang in Piece of Toast

(ACPA-London) Excitement is growing in the Northern England town of Huddersfield following news that local atheist Donald Chapman saw an image of the Big-Bang in a piece of toast. In an exclusive interview with “The Huddersfield Express” Chapman, 36, explained that he was sitting down to eat breakfast when an unusual toast pattern caught his eye.

“I was just about to spread the butter when I noticed a small hole in the middle of the bread surrounded by a burnt black ring,” said Chapman. “Then I saw the direction and splatter patterns of the crumbs - they were flowing outward from the center of a black hole, changing shades as their distance from the center grew. A perfect match to the chaotic-dynamic non-linear patterns that followed the Big-Bang. It’s the beginning of the world - right there in my breakfast!”

Ever since news of the discovery made national headlines, local hoteliers have been overwhelmed by an influx of atheists from all over the country who have flocked to Huddersfield to catch a glimpse of the scientific relic. “I have always been an Atheist and to see my unbelief validated on a piece of toast is truly astounding,” exclaimed one guest at the Huddersfield Arms hotel.

To the surprise of many, the UK Atheist Association has asked its members to ignore the story despite its potential to inspire less faith. “Given what the religious believe already, this is an easy sell,” complained one disgruntled activist who said he was going to Huddlesfield anyway noting that “Seeing is not believing.”

http://www.satireandcomment.com/0208toast.html

Nasa buys into ‘quantum’ computer A $15m computer...

Thu, 16 May 2013 22:50:59 -0700

Nasa buys into ‘quantum’ computer

A $15m computer that uses “quantum physics” effects to boost its speed is to be installed at a Nasa facility.

It will be shared by Google, Nasa, and other scientists, providing access to a machine said to be up to 3,600 times faster than conventional computers.

Unlike standard machines, the D-Wave Two processor appears to make use of an effect called quantum tunnelling.

This allows it to reach solutions to certain types of mathematical problems in fractions of a second.

Effectively, it can try all possible solutions at the same time and then select the best.

Google wants to use the facility at Nasa’s Ames Research Center in California to find out how quantum computing might advance techniques of machine learning and artificial intelligence, including voice recognition.

University researchers will also get 20% of the time on the machine via the Universities Space Research Agency (USRA).

Nasa will likely use the commercially available machine for scheduling problems and planning.

Canadian company D-Wave Systems, which makes the machine, has drawn scepticism over the years from quantum computing experts around the world.

Until research outlined earlier this year, some even suggested its machines showed no evidence of using specifically quantum effects.

Quantum computing is based around exploiting the strange behaviour of matter at quantum scales.

Most work on this type of computing has focused on building quantum logic gates similar to the gate devices at the basis of conventional computing.

But physicists have repeatedly found that the problem with a gate-based approach is keeping the quantum bits, or qubits (the basic units of quantum information), in their quantum state.

“You get drop out… decoherence, where the qubits lapse into being simple 1s and 0s instead of the entangled quantum states you need. Errors creep in,” says Prof Alan Woodward of Surrey University.

One gate opens…

Instead, D-Wave Systems has been focused on building machines that exploit a technique called quantum annealing - a way of distilling the optimal mathematical solutions from all the possibilities.

Annealing is made possible by physics effect known as quantum tunnelling, which can endow each qubit with an awareness of every other one.

“The gate model… is the single worst thing that ever happened to quantum computing”, Geordie Rose, chief technology officer for D-Wave, told BBC Radio 4’s Material World programme.

“And when we look back 20 years from now, at the history of this field, we’ll wonder why anyone ever thought that was a good idea.”

Dr Rose’s approach entails a completely different way of posing your question, and it only works for certain questions.

But according to a paper presented this week (the result of benchmarking tests required by Nasa and Google), it is very fast indeed at finding the optimal solution to a problem that potentially has many different combinations of answers.

In one case it took less than half a second to do something that took conventional software 30 minutes.

A classic example of one of these “combinatorial optimisation” problems is that of the travelling sales rep, who needs to visit several cities in one day, and wants to know the shortest path that connects them all together in order to minimise their mileage.

The D-Wave Two chip can compare all the possible itineraries at once, rather than having to work through each in turn.

Reportedly costing up to $15m, housed in a garden shed-sized box that cools the chip to near absolute zero, it should be installed at Nasa and available for research by autumn 2013.

US giant Lockheed Martin earlier this year upgraded its own D-Wave machine to the 512 qubit D-Wave Two.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22554494

Hadfield’s Return to Earth: ‘I’m Still Learning How To Walk...

Thu, 16 May 2013 22:35:31 -0700

Hadfield’s Return to Earth: ‘I’m Still Learning How To Walk Again’

Astronaut Chris Hadfield described himself as a man who never looks back. Still, he spoke fondly of his five months in space during the first press conference with media today (May 16) after his return to Earth earlier this week.

“I don’t spend my life going gosh, I went to [space station] Mir in 1995 and now everything else is boring. That’s not how I ever felt,” the Canadian said in a wide-ranging conversation that talked about everything from his future, to the science he performed, his favorite tweets while up in space.

First, let’s get a big question off the plate. Hadfield says himself he doesn’t know what he wants to do next. “I’m still learning how to walk again!” he exclaimed to one journalist who asked if he wanted to be Canadian Space Agency president.

Rehabilitation is occupying a lot of his time, he added: “I’m trying to stand up straight, and I have to sit down in the shower so I don’t faint and fall down. It’s like asking an infant if they’re ready for their Ph.D. yet. I’ll get there, but it’s too early to say.”

Hadfield brushed aside notions that he is famous for himself, saying it is a reflection of the hard work his crew put in on the station orbiting Earth. Expedition 35 was the most productive in terms of the science-to-maintenance ratio aboard the station, despite an ammonia leak gumming up the schedule very late in the mission.

He spoke most warmly of the science performed while aboard station. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer found possible hints of dark matter during his stay, for example. Hadfield and colleague Tom Marshburn also did aging research in space on behalf of the University of Waterloo, specifically looking at how blood pressure and blood flow changes among astronauts in orbit.

Education and outreach were also something Hadfield was proud of. “The purpose is to help people to understand what is possible on the space station, and the things we are doing,” he said of his prolific tweeting and video creation.

The results, in many cases, were incredible. More than 7,000 Canadian students took part in experiments linked to the International Space Station, he said. Thousands more took part in a nation-wide singalong starring Hadfield.

Once Hadfield gets his feet underneath him and the mission fades into the past, he said he’s hoping to resume his life normally.

Astronauts of yesteryear, he said, often had big missions thrust upon them early in their lives. At age 53, for example, Hadfield is roughly 15 years older than Neil Armstrong was during the first moon landing in 1969.

For Hadfield, with two decades under his belt as an astronaut — three missions, several backup crew assignments, and some management positions to boot — he treats his everyday life with the same enthusiasm as his high-flying job.

“I take just as much pride in the big dock that my neighbor Bob and I built at the cottage as I do in building Canadarm2 on the space station. Those were both very complex projects that required a lot of physical effort, planning, decision making, and the product is out there for everybody to see. I feel really good about them both.”

He acknowledged that in a budget-conscious environment, the Canadian Space Agency is facing uncertainty, but he added that to treat today’s uncertainty as something unique is the wrong thing. Every mission carries a real risk of death. Every budget vote can kill or revive a space program — the station itself was only funded by a vote in one crucial Congress session in its history, he added.

“To say that things are uncertain is to talk about the space business. We are always hostage to our next launch. There has never been a period of certainty in the space business, ever,” he said.

His advice to those wanting to follow in his footsteps?

“The key thing is within yourself. If you want to become something, you have to start turning yourself into that thing, step by step, as a demonstration of personal will. That’s what I did when I was nine. I started turning myself into an astronaut.”

http://www.universetoday.com/102196/hadfields-return-to-earth-im-still-learning-how-to-walk-again/#more-102196

So if “God” loves Saturn so much that he put a ring...

Thu, 16 May 2013 22:04:07 -0700

So if “God” loves Saturn so much that he put a ring on it, then he must reaaalllyyyy love Uranus if it’s raining diamonds…

There’s crazy, and there’s batshit crazy. The driver was across...

Thu, 16 May 2013 21:52:00 -0700

There’s crazy, and there’s batshit crazy. The driver was across the street wearing a neon green top hat. Managed to take this pic after he had gotten back in his sex predator van. I literally made a U- turn just to park somewhere so I could take this picture lmao. You simply don’t pass up on good comedic material…

Asperatus Clouds Over New Zealand Image Credit &...

Thu, 16 May 2013 21:37:49 -0700

Asperatus Clouds Over New Zealand
Image Credit & Copyright: Witta Priester

Scientists find ancient water on earth cut off for THREE BILLION years. So does this mean life has survived on Mars?

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:09:57 -0700

Groundwater found bubbling up from nearly two miles beneath the surface of Canada may predate the...

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Thu, 16 May 2013 16:57:49 -0700