Philosoraptor

I chuckled at this one ...

Ayn Rand - Faith vs Reason

Interviewer: You do not accept the existence of a god, a divine prime mover?
Ayn Rand: No.
Interviewer: Now the reason you don't is because you can't prove that such an entity or being or energy exists.
Ayn Rand: I can't nor can anyone else. There is no proof.
Interviewer: There is no proof so therefore you've concluded that there isn't one?
Ayn Rand: That's right.
Interviewer: You can't prove there isn't.
Ayn Rand: You are never called upon to prove a negative. That's a law of logic.



I have been a fan of hers for years and yet, this is the first time I have heard her speak ...>

No Agenda Episode 247

This Episode’s Executive Producer: Sir Charles Jordan
Associate Executive Producer: Sir Robert Alter
Knighthoods: Dame Carol Jordan, Sir Robert Alter
Art By: Nick the Rat
PR:
No Agenda Shots
Welcome to the global Resistance!
No Agenda Mother Ship

How God and the Devil Spend their Time

Puts things in a different perspective, don't you think? ...

From Joel Pett

Joel Pett / Lexington Herald-Leader (October 22, 2010)

:-)

Time Traveller Unearthed from 1928 Film Clip?

Like JCD said, could be a hoax, but pretty convincing. I'm sure Adam Curry will love this ...

No Agenda Episode 246

This Episode’s Executive Producer: Ron Lange
Executive Producers: Nolan Waugh, David Wright
Knighthoods: Ron Lange
Art By: Nick the Rat
PR: Welcome to the global Resistance!

Code for Biodiversity!

Super Accurate Engine Impressions

Super Accurate Engine Impressions - Watch more Funny Videos

we should all have a talent, excellent impressions ...

No Agenda Episode 245

This Episode’s Executive Producer: Borislav Marinov
This Episode’s Executive Producer: Fredric Guimont
Executive Producer: Adam Burkepile, Eric Hertha, Thomas Nussbaum
Associate Executive Producer: Marco Scari
Knighthoods: Sir Adam Burkepile Sir Thomas Nussbaum
Art By: Nick the Rat
PR: YouTube - noagendashots's Channel

Bow to the Aqua Buddha

Women Makes Hilarious Video For Her Own Funeral

Carla Zilber-Smith died May 21st, 2010 of ALS, but at her funeral, she had one final surprise: a video that she had kept secret for over a year, even from her own family, that brought the audience (because of course her funeral had an audience) to laughter and tears.

Well done Carla ...

Healthcare Spending and Life Expectancy by Country

Wow, if true. The US once again is out of control, and quick to demean Canada's system based on??? ...

Down at the end of the garden ...

... is a very special place. Where fantasy and folly meet greenery and stone. Old sits with new made old and cool breezes ruffle scented foliage. In the heat of the day blue water beckons and secret garden rooms are filled with forgotten treasures. Michael Trapp travels the world to find antiques and architectural fragments to weave his magic at the bottom of a very special garden.



This just caught my eye as something interesting, the kind of place I would like to have ...

Mindblowing Macro Photography from The Micro-Cosmos, by Blepharopsis – with Exclusive Interview

For today’s showcase we have a very special and honorable guest: Igor Siwanowicz, a.k.a. Blepharopsis. He is an absolutely amazing photographer and has a life-loving spirit.

This post will present 50 of the best photographs shot by him, along with an exclusive interview that he kindly honored us with and where he reveals not only some secrets about the beautiful art of photography, but also a short, interesting and inspiring biography.

His photos are absolute amazing and we will mix some of them into the interview… Answers continue below the photo…

Let’s get started!



Simply, great ...

Illusions and Paradoxes: Seeing is Believing?

This page illustrates that our visual perception cannot always be trusted. The components of an object can distort the perception of the complete object. Our mind is the final arbiter of truth. Most optical illusions are the result of 1) incongruent design elements at opposite ends of parallel lines, 2) influence of background patterns on the overall design, 3) adjustment of our perception at the boundaries of areas of high contrast, 4) afterimages resulting from eye movements or from kinetic displays, or 5) inability to interpret the spatial structure of an object from the context provided by the picture. How we perceive things has a direct correlation to how we react. Games like bingo and poker provide only partial information and the players have to make decisions based on their intuition. A hand can be perceived as either weak or strong depending on the strategies, such as betting and bluffing, that are used to intimidate opponents.

The altered perception is caused because the eyes combine adjacent colors.
Optical illusions have been studied for millenia. The ancient Greeks used a technique known as entasis which incorporates a slight convexity in the columns of the Parthenon to compensate for the illusion of concavity created by parallel lines. Many of the following illusions have been popularized by psychologists and artists like Hering, Ehrenstein, Meyer, Zöllner, Müller-Lyer, Poggendorf, and Escher.

A nice collection of the many illusions that we have seen on the web. Sorry that I couldn't copy a sample, apparently it is beyond my abilities ...

Is Saturn's Titan Producing DNA in its Atmosphere Without Water? Experts Say "Yes"

Saturn's moon Titan has many of the components for life without liquid water. But the orange hydrocarbon haze that shrouds Saturn's largest moon could be creating the molecules that make up DNA without the help of water – an ingredient widely thought to be necessary for the molecules' formation according to a new study.

The researchers warn however that although Titan's atmosphere is creating these molecules, that doesn't mean that the molecules are combining to form life, But the finding could entice astrobiologists to consider a wider range of extrasolar planets as potential hosts for at least simple forms of organic life, the team of scientists from the US and France suggests. ...

If it's on the Internet then it must be true ...

Mesmerizing Perseid time lapse video

I missed the Perseids last week — a combination of bad weather and having to get up early to go to SETIcon the next day — but I, and now you, can get a good feel for them via this lovely timelapse video taken by photographer Henry Jun Wah Lee:

Joshua Tree Under the Milky Way from Henry Jun Wah Lee on Vimeo.

I'm a bit late on this, but still a pretty cool event ...

No Agenda Episode 244

This Episode’s Executive Producer: Ernie Ernst
This Episode’s Executive Producer: Zachary Geesaman
Executive Producer: Janice Kang
Knighthoods: Dennis Cruise
Art By: Nick the Rat

Form 990

John Nolan Films

A great animation, special effects, engineering, and you name it site, my new favourite ...

Stem cells used to grow new windpipe for British teen with cancer

A British teenager has been given a new windpipe grown from her own stem cells in a pioneering operation.



The 19-year-old has now been discharged after having the procedure in Italy.

She was suffering from a rare form of trachea cancer and would have died without the operation.

Doctors took tissue from her nose and bone marrow stem cells to create a trachea biologically identical to the original organ.

The girl's stem cells were grafted on to the cartilage of another trachea, from a donor, which had been stripped of its own cells.

A similar operation was conducted on British boy in March but in that case the stem cells for the windpipe were grown inside the body. For this latest trachea transplant stem cells were used to grow a new trachea outside the body.

Because the new trachea contained no cells from another person, no anti-rejection drugs were needed.

Doctor Walter Giovannini, from AOU Careggi Hospital, in Florence, Italy, said the British woman was speaking after only three or four days after the surgeries on July 3 and 13.

And people say this is wrong, to use stem cells ...

No Agenda Episode 243

This Episode’s Executive Producer: Michael Zelina,
This Episode’s Executive Producer: John Weaver
This Episode’s Executive Producer: Thomas Nussbaum
Associate Executive Producer: Dennis Laarman
Knighthoods: Sir Ernie Ernst, Sir Fredric Guimont
Art By: Kirk
PR:
Scott McKenzie from GNE - One Day in Gitmo Nation
NO AGENDA STATS http://www.noagendastats.com/

Big Soda

Ben Rich Lockheed Skunk Works CEO Deathbed Ufo Confession

Ben Rich Lockheed Skunk Works CEO had apparently admitted in his Deathbed Confession that Extraterrestrial UFO visitors are real and the U.S. Military travel among stars.

According to this article published in May 2010 issue of the Mufon UFO Journal  – Ben Rich, the “Father of the Stealth Fighter-Bomber” and former head of Lockheed Skunk Works gave a Ufo confession upon his last days.

The article was written by Tom Keller, an aerospace engineer who has worked as a computer systems analyst for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

A summary of this interview came up with some interesting points:

1 Inside the Skunk Works (Lockheed’s secret research and development entity), we were a small, intensely cohesive group consisting of about fifty veteran engineers and designers and a hundred or so expert machinists and shop workers. Our forte was building technologically advanced airplanes of small number and of high class for highly secret missions.”

2 : “We already have the means to travel among the stars, but these technologies are locked up in black projects, and it would take an act of God to ever get them out to benefit humanity. Anything you can imagine, we already know how to do.”

3 : “We now have the technology to take ET home. No, it won’t take someone’s lifetime to do it. There is an error in the equations. We know what it is. We now have the capability to travel to the stars. First, you have to understand that we will not get to the stars using chemical propulsion. Second, we have to devise a new propulsion technology. What we have to do is find out where Einstein went wrong.”

...

Yesterday they were supposed to reveal themselves.  As much as we wish that this was true it seems proof  is hard to come by.  What are we afraid of? ...

35 Life Hacks You Should Know

Miscellaneous Hack #1, My skull is close enough to being a parabolic reflect, who knew ...

First frictionless superfluid molecules created

Chill them enough and some atoms creep up walls or stay still while the bowl they sit in rotates, thanks to a quantum effect called superfluidity. Now molecules have got in on the act.

Superfluidity is a bizarre consequence of quantum mechanics. Cool helium atoms close to absolute zero and they start behaving as a single quantum object rather than a group of individual atoms. At this temperature, the friction that normally exists between atoms, and between atoms and other objects, vanishes, creating what is known as a superfluid.

To see if molecules could be made superfluid, Robert McKellar of the National Research Council of Canada in Ottawa and colleagues turned to hydrogen, which exists as pairs of atoms. The team created a compressed mixture of hydrogen and carbon dioxide gas and shot it through a nozzle at supersonic speeds. Once released, the molecules spread apart, cooling and arranging themselves so that each CO2 molecule sat at the centre of a cluster of up to 20 hydrogens.
 
I particularly like the comment from FrankenPC, "Hey, if science can make a better sex lube, I'm all for it." nyuk, nyuk  ...

Creepy Wikipedia Articles

Check it out, a source of articles in Wikipedia that are a bit "unusual".  Great time waster, since there are soooo many of them ...

No Agenda Episode 242

This Episode’s Executive Producer: Nicolas Pelsmaekers
This Episode’s Executive Producer: David Hoffman
Executive Producers: Sir Lawrence Roik <-- That's me!!!, Sir Wouter Seljee, Sir Paul Couture
Associate Executive Producer: Anonymous1, Anonymous2, Sheigh Obrein
Knighthoods: Sir Zengarten, Sir Zachary Geesaman, Sir Borislav Marinov, Sir Wouter Seljee
Art By: Paul T. bonus by Nik the Rat
PR:
http://www.noagendabackupstream.com/
No Agenda Mother Ship http://www.noagendamothership.com/

Squalid Nullification

Happy Thanksgiving Canada!

See you Tuesday ...

Unbelievably Cool – Swedish Subway System

This is really sharp. Looks like a James Bond villain hideout. Yeah Sweden ...

Things That Are Not In the U.S. Constitution

Have you ever heard someone say, "That's unconstitutional!" or "That's my constitutional right!" and wondered if they were right? You might be surprised how often people get it wrong. You might also be surprised how often people get it right. Your best defense against misconception is reading and knowing your Constitution.

A lot of people presume a lot of things about the Constitution. Some are true, some are not. This page will detail some of the things that people think are in the Constitution, but are not.

One critique of this page is that it is full of nit-picks. Slavery, for example, may not be "in" the original Constitution, but it is in the original Constitution — the word may not have been there, but the concept was. This is absolutely true. But by studying the words and coming to know them intimately, we gain a better understanding of our history and how some arguments about the Constitution endure.

Interesting, to say the least, great reference page ...

No Agenda Episode 241

This Episode’s Executive Producer: Steven Pelsmaekers

Executive Producers: David Hoffman, Michael Zelina, John Weaver, Tanya Weiman, Cathryn Girard, Thomas Nussbaum, Samuel Vanderplancke, Charles Jordan, Larry Lee,
Associate Executive Producer: Sander Hoksbergen
Art By: Paul T. with Bonus art from Nik the Rat
PR
Hitting people in the mouth! Meetups Everywhere - Meetup
the no agenda 101010 superkarma 42 package medallion and lapel pin noagendasuperkarma.com

Germany Boy

Iraq War Coalition Fatalities

Follow the link to see the cost of life in Iraq. Current to Oct 2007 ...

50 Dumb Liberal Quotes

Without much preamble and hardly any ado, I present to you 50 dumb quotes from those on the left side of the aisle. From crazy ideas about toilet paper usage to freak-outs over balloons, this list will make you laugh and shake your head in disbelief (and maybe even vote Republican in November?).

For every action there is a reaction ...

Top 50 Dumbest Conservative Quotes

When politicians and pundits mess up, flub their words, or make Freudian slips, they often do so in the most spectacularly hilarious ways.

Former Vice President Dan Quayle reminded us not to lose our minds. (That would be a truly terrible loss, after all.) And Sarah Palin volunteered that that she was keeping an eye on Putin -- and on all of Russia -- from her perch up there in Alaska (you betcha!).

Kids say the darnedest things ...

Graphene Carbon (The Basis of All Life on Earth) Promises to Change the Future of Technology

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics yesterday to University of Manchester professors Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov for their work isolating graphene from graphite and identifying its behavior. Graphene, a one-atom thick sheet of carbon densely packed in a honeycomb crystal lattice, is the thinnest, strongest material ever discovered. It conducts heat and electricity, and despite being one atom thick, is so dense even helium cannot pass through it. As the Swedish Academy of Sciences said in the Nobel Prize announcement: "Carbon, the basis of all known life on earth, has surprised us once again".



Now can we make ftl spaceships? ...

Wacky Sci-Fi “Laws”

Sci-Fi writers seem to enjoy coining Laws: adages bearing their own names that live on past their appearances in Sci-Fi stories. Here are five of my favorites, plus one bonus law (actually a Principle) from the world of cartoons.

1. Hanlon’s Razor (aka Hanlon’s Law)

“Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.” Ascribed to various authors, including Robert Heinlein. (Or perhaps it was Napoleon, or another candidate.) This law’s name is also a take-off on Occam’s Razor.

2. Sturgeon’s Law

“Ninety percent of everything is crap.” This adage came after a less successful “first law” by Sturgeon, “Nothing is always absolutely so.” Read more on this bit of wisdom.

More

How many of these did you know? ...

9 American drives of a lifetime

All it takes is a car to enjoy these scenic routes across the U.S.  From sea-sprayed coastlines to rambling country roads, here are nine worthy reasons to fill up your gas tank.


Courtesy Muffet/Flickr

Enjoy the drive ...

Looxcie: The Perfect Camcorder for the Social Media Age

Capture memorable moments anytime, anywhere with this new slip-it-over-the-ear Bluetooth enabled camcorder. Perfect for capturing candid, unexpected moments, Looxcie is is always in an on state, thus enabling users to record anything without worrying about pressing the record button.

Prepare to be assimilated ...

European Union Will Ban The Sale Of Herbal Medicines In 2011

Thanks to legislation that was first put in place six years ago, virtually all herbal medications and supplements will become illegal in the EU as of April, 2011.

The European Directive on Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products (THMPD) was first enacted back in March of 2004. This legislation established new rules and regulations for the use of herbal products that have been freely traded for hundreds of years.



Codex Alimentarius? Shut up Slave ...

No Agenda Episode 240

This Episode’s Executive Producer: Sir Paul Couture
Associate Executive Producer: Scott Singer, Sander Ouwekerk, Jared Forrester
Art By: Sir Paul T.

Prince Charles is Gay

Stephen W Oachs - Photography

Another great photography site, featuring landscapes and wildlife ...

Revealed: previously unpublished photos of Marilyn Monroe

Actress Marilyn Monroe is seen in these handout images from a collection of previously unpublished photos of her in Alberta, Canada taken in the summer of 1953. The collection of more than 100 previously unpublished photos of Monroe can be seen for the first time in a new book "Marilyn, August 1953: The lost LOOK Photos." The book, published this week by Calla Editions, features digitally restored black and white images of a then 27-year-old Monroe. The photos were taken by John Vachon for LOOK magazine, and only 3 were published. Monroe was in the area filming River of No Return.

All photos are credited to John Vachon/Dover Publications/Reuters

Safe for work :-) ...

The Dirty Little Secret of Inkjet Printers

hmmmm ....

The 12 Most Expensive Objects in The World

Here’s a list of the world’s most expensive single objects. These are the most expensive man-made objects ever created.



Maybe they should include Iraq and Afghanistan? ...