A slight tangent this time; If you’re looking for a good valentine’s day gift for men, specifically a watch, it can be a daunting task. Of course no one needs a watch into today’s world but that’s not the point.  The watch is the only piece of jewelry a man can legitimately wear so in my view it’s fairly important to put some thought into it. The worst thing you can do is walk into a jeweler’s not knowing what you want, you’ll end up $2,000 poorer with a boring …

Is there an intelligent designer? If so then they are surely a mad and cruel scientist. Observe the parasite “Cymothoa exigua” [LINK]. Here’s is an animal, a parasite, that attaches to a fish’s tongue. Once attached it cuts off the blood to the tongue which eventually falls off. It then happily lives in its unfortunate hosts’ mouth. I assume its incredibly painful for the host fish who is powerless to get rid of it.
Or how about “Sacculina”, the mind-control barnacle? [LINK]
“Upon finding a host crab, a female Sacculina will crawl …

Bob Proctor is at it again.  The Secret, which benefited greatly from “The Oprah Effect” essentially put The Law of Attraction, around which much of Proctor’s shtick is based, on the map. The Law is…
“Essentially, “if you really want something and truly believe it’s possible, you’ll get it”, but putting a lot of attention and thought onto something you don’t want means you’ll probably get that too.”
This claim is entirely fantasy based, with no clinical evidence to back it up AT ALL. Yet The Secret was purchased by over 2 …

I had a weird Serialization problem with Linq to SQL the other day and since I didn’t Google the fix I figured I’d publish it here.
I had a table which refers to itself, something like this:

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[node](
[id] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
[title] [nvarchar](50) NOT NULL,
[parentId] [int] NULL,
CONSTRAINT [PK_node] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED
(
[id] ASC
)
ALTER TABLE [dbo].[node]  WITH CHECK ADD  CONSTRAINT [FK_node_node] FOREIGN KEY([parentId])
REFERENCES [dbo].[node] ([id])

I have a stored function to retrieve all the nodes, including their descendants from the DB, mine’s based on the function included here [LINK]
Once I got the rows, …

Moore’s Law states that the level of technology/computing power available doubles every 18-24 months. This exponential growth has held true the last thirty years and shows no signs of slowing down. There is a physical limitation which will be reach but I have no doubt that by that time we will switch from silicon-based transistors to some other means. E.g. Just the other day scientists announced the world’s first molecular transistor consisting of a single molecule of benzene [LINK].
So what’s next? Well if computers get stronger/smaller/faster you might think we’ll …

“I wonder on what basis anyone can say condoms make AIDS worse. The Pope is either stupid, ignorant or dim.” so says Richard Dawkins, speaking at a the University of Valencia after having been awarded an honorary degree. [LINK]
Dawkins was referring to the Pope’s comments in Africa earlier this year where the Pope said this about HIV/AIDS: “You can’t resolve it with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, it increases the problem.”
Dawkins loves to stir things up as it were but he’s not alone. The pontiff’s comments have prompted …

Calamity! The Maui Jims have cracked. #
#riddle: when does 50+20 equal 60? #

Ok ok, I admit it, I've been having an affair with Tiger Woods. Not in a trashy way though. #
Bought a Ceci n'est pas une pipe + mario shirt #
At the "Radiation Oncologist" a new doctor added to the team #
Got my first U.S. Passport today #

Drawing is something most people will claim not to be able to do. “I can’t draw”, “I am no good at drawing” or “I wish I could draw”. The ability to visualize is a foundational piece of our intellect. Drawing is just a physical manifestation of an image in the mind. Just as music encourages us to use different parts of our brains, there is much to be gained by the practice of drawing, even if you’re “no good at drawing”.
In the book “What Do You Care What …

Herb and Dorothy Vogel did something amazing. Together over 50+ years they amassed the greatest collection of contemporary artworks in the world on a postal-worker’s and librarian’s salary. The collection, worth in the millions, was donated to the National Gallery and is currently on display*. They are a very cute couple and I admire them for having pursued their dream and having lived their lives regardless of their constraints.
Having watched the documentary on their lives and collection I couldn’t help but call bullshit on the contemporary art world and the …