About Wyrd Smythe
The canonical fool on the hill watching the sunset and the rotation of the planet and thinking what he imagines are large thoughts.
Here’s another favorite from my collection. This is a teasing hoax that dates back to at least 1989. It’s aimed at people who don’t know much about chemistry or are actively afraid of anything that smacks of “chemistry” (or sometimes even science). You can read about it on Wikipedia, or you can visit the official site. (Yes, it’s a hoax with an official website.)
I’ve seen an episode of the Penn & Teller cable show, Bullshit, where they send people out with petitions about DHMO to see how many signatures they could get. Many people accept it as dangerous without really understanding it.
It speaks to an interesting combination of fear and willingness to trust (or not) information based on certain attributes!
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3 Comments | tags: chemistry, DHMO, Dihydrogen Monoxide, hoax, humor | posted in Sideband
As Homer Simpson so eloquently puts it, “D’oh!!”
It seems to be an iron-clad irony of writing that the number of proofreads required to find all errors in your writing is:
PR = N + 1
Where ‘N’ is the actual number performed. This rule appears to apply regardless of the actual value of ‘N’.
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1 Comment | tags: debugging, errors, printed word, printing, proof reading, source code | posted in Sideband, Writing
One of the things that strikes me about the idea of God is how universal that idea is. To the best of my knowledge, every society in every age has had some sort of spiritual core belief.
I used to state this as the assertion that every society believed in some sort of god or gods, but it was pointed out to me that Buddhists don’t actually have a god. They do have some metaphysical entities, and more importantly, Buddhism is certainly a belief in a metaphysical reality that transcends this one.
So the question is: if humans universally find themselves finding God(s), what does this mean?
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10 Comments | tags: atheism, belief, creation, evolution, faith, God, psychology, spirituality, theism | posted in Basics, Philosophy, Religion, Science
A long, long time ago on a USENET far, far away, I was part of a debate that started with the idea that, even if we had disk drives with 64-bit addressing, people would still fill them up with videos, images and whatnot.
The idea grew from some of us old-timers reminiscing about our first brick-sized 5-meg hard drive and how we thought, “Gee, I’ll never fill that up!” (And look how that turned out; I have single image files that wouldn’t fit on that drive!)
The premise was that, even with seriously gigantic hard drives, we’d still manage to fill them and need more, more, more…
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1 Comment | tags: 64-bit, big numbers, bytes, disk drive, exabyte, hard drive, petabyte, terabyte, USENET | posted in Computers, Math, Movies, Sideband
I’m a big fan of books and reading.
I have a rather large library that I’ve been dragging around for almost four decades. It grew by leaps and bounds in my younger days, but the growth rate has slowed in the last decade or so. (Slowed, but not stopped!)
One of the bigger parts of moving has been getting enough boxes to pack the books, packing the books, unpacking the books, and deciding what to do about book shelves.
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2 Comments | tags: humor, reading | posted in Books, Sideband
This is an account of one of those perfect events when all the stars align, and things go your way. That doesn’t happen very often (at least for me), so it’s worth remembering. And recording.
So throw on a Bruce Springsteen album (yes, ‘album,’ damnit), grab a beer (or whatever) and join me in a little trip down Memorex Lane.
[cue wavy time fade effects…]
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5 Comments | tags: Bruce Springsteen, concerts, memories, rock & roll, The River | posted in Music, Writing
Happy Anniversary to my Mom & Dad!
They’ve been married for 64 years!!
Pretty amazing in this day and age!
«♥» «♥»
Thanks to them, I know that long-term true love is possible. (Not that I’ve found it (yet), mind you, but I know it is possible!)
So drink a toast to my ‘Rents!!
Way. To. Go!
4 Comments | posted in Sideband
In an earlier post, I wrote that:
The problem for any honest theist is,
“What if it isn’t true?”
The problem for any honest atheist is,
“What if it is true?”
Ultimately both represent ways of looking at the universe. There is no factual conclusion, no proof, about either one; both are matters of faith and belief.
Science can argue all it wants that the Logic and Scientific Method is superior to believing in an ineffable reality but given all we do know and all we don’t know, in the end it is still just a worldview.
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14 Comments | tags: atheism, big bang, deism, Heisenberg Uncertainty, infinity, quantum physics, spacetime, spirituality, The Matrix, theism, Yin and Yang | posted in Basics, Philosophy, Religion, Science
Now that Sidebands have turned 21 they can have alcohol, so…
Seems that just about everyone has a “perfect” margarita recipe. Not wanting to be left out of the crowd, I’ve decided to give you mine, a recipe based on the incredibly inexpensive, wondrously potent, double margaritas my friend, Nancy, and I used to drink at El Coyote in Hollywood long, long ago. Even back then, it was hard to believe that much punch came in a glass for only $1.95 USD.
It took me years of experimenting, and several false trails, to find a similar taste and potency, but finally I stumbled on the “secret” … pineapple juice!
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4 Comments | tags: drinks, El Coyote, lime juice, margarita, orange liqueur, pineapple juice, tequila | posted in Sideband
For the record, here’s a way to make some very tasty popcorn:
Firstly, start with good gourmet popcorn. Orville Redenbacker‘s is pretty decent, although I have noticed that it sometimes creates a bunch of smaller, broken pieces. You definitely don’t want the stuff that comes in a one-pound bag for 39 cents. The thing about good popcorn is that it all pops. When I cook up a batch of Orville’s, it’s usually the case that there’s only a few kernels that don’t pop.
And it’s not uncommon to find none!
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2 Comments | tags: Mrs Dash, olive oil, Orville Redenbacher, Parmesan cheese, popcorn, snacks, Whirley Popper | posted in Sideband
Logos con carne 
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