Friday, April 27, 2007
Cherry Blossoms 2007
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
The Picard Song
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Darth Vader Balloon
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
VT Attack: And so the madness begins...
From the AP, Student Arrested Over Va. Tech Remarks:
A University of Colorado student pleaded not guilty Wednesday to making comments that classmates deemed sympathetic toward the gunman blamed for killing 32 students and himself at Virginia Tech, authorities said.
During a class discussion Tuesday of Monday's massacre at Virginia Tech, Max Karson "made comments about understanding how someone could kill 32 people," university police Cmdr. Brad Wiesley said.
Several witnesses told investigators Karson, who turns 22 on Thursday, said he was "angry about all kinds of things from the fluorescent light bulbs to the unpainted walls, and it made him angry enough to kill people," according to a police report. Witnesses "said they were afraid of him and afraid to come to class with him," Wiesley said.
Karson, of Denver, was arrested Tuesday on a misdemeanor charge of interfering with staff, faculty or students of an education institution.
His father, Michael Karson, told the Camera newspaper that the comments may have been misinterpreted and questioned whether his son's free speech rights had been violated.
"I would have hoped that state officials would know their First Amendment better than they seem to," he said.
Turkey threatens to attack N. Iraq at the end of April. And Iran to get involved as well.
David Ignatius writes, in the Washington Post, A New Threat In Iraq:
[T]he Turks might invade by the end of April unless the United States contained the PKK...If the Turks do attack, counters one Kurdish official, "their own border will not be respected. They will not be the only ones to choose the battlefield."...Like the Turks, the Iranians have a restless Kurdish minority and would be tempted to intervene militarily against a militant group called PJAK that operates from Iraqi Kurdistan.
At least 130 Faculty, Students and Staff Killed in Bombings at Universities in Iraq so far this year
From IraqSlogger:
In January, Baghdad’s Mustansiriya University sufferred a double suicide bombing in January that killed at least 70 people, including students, faculty, and staff. A month later, another suicide bomber struck at Mustansiriya, killing 40.
On Monday, the same day as the Virginia Tech mass shooting, two separate shooting incidents struck Mosul University, one killing Dr. Talal Younis al-Jelili, the dean of the college of Political Science as he walked through the university gate, and another killing Dr. Jaafar Hassan Sadeq, a professor from the Faculty of Arts at the school, who was targeted in front of his home in the al-Kifaat area, according to Aswat al-Iraq.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Iowa Republicians to Bush: "Out of Iraq"
The Strategic Vision polling group asked 600 likely Republican caucus goers:
QUESTION: Do you favor a withdrawal of all United States military from Iraq within the next six months?
ANSWER: Yes 52% No 39% Undecided 9%
via The Nation
Leaping shampoo and the Kaye effect
Shear-thinning fluids exhibit surprisingly rich behaviour. One example is the Kaye effect. As pouring proceeds, a small stream of liquid occasionally leaps upward from the heap.We show that the Kaye effect works for many common fluids, including shampoos and liquid soaps.
arXiv:physics/0603183v1
See also, from Nature, Physicists explain how shampoo streams can bounce.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Bjork in a Garden, Wearing a Fern
No need to hot-link images
Use http://imgred.com instead. Just add http://imgred.com in front of the URL for the image. For example, my headshot's URL is
<img src="http://home.comcast.net/~countvotes/blog/headshot1.jpg">If you wanted to use a copy but was feeling polite and didn't want to get Comcast pissed off at me, you would use
<img src="http://imgred.com/http://home.comcast.net/~countvotes/blog/headshot1.jpg">Tuesday, April 03, 2007
A Mandelbrot the size of the known universe
