That old tuba argument again

This comic is very similar to discussions I have had, though without the unicycles. Really I do play the tuba, though I haven't in a long while. I need a tuba nook.

(via the excellent Wondermark, which you should read every day.)

The Marketing Hierarchy

So True.

I am trying to get to Baron Münchhaussn, although Fiji Mermaid exhibitor could be a stretch goal.

(via Savage Chickens)

Science - is there nothing it won't do?

Two comics today that perfectly capture the hubris of science and engineering.


(via Savage Chickens)

I also like the contrast between normal person and doctor or engineer, it doesn't appear that you can be both.

(via Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal)

Another graphical anaysis of something or other

It is really quite clear from the chart above that my conclusions are flawless and that I am very clever.

(maybe to many of this, this, these or this recently)

(via Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal)

The end of the semester dream

I am glad that someone else still has this dream. It has been 15 years since I was in grad school and I still have the assignment-not-done or the final-is-today-but-I-didn't-go-to-class-all-semester nightmares, especially at the beginning of the school year. Education trained my body well.

Now I know I am not the only one.

(via xkcd)

The Unexpected cost of genetic algorithms in computing

This xkcd.com comic on the correct costs and perils of using a genetic algorithm is timely, given my desire to use a genetic algorithm to find the best fantasy football playoff pool. In all of my discussions of how to approach the problem (simulating the playoffs, games the teams play), I have still neglected to take into account the effect of my excell spreadsheets achieving sentience and trying to take over the world. Let me get right on that.

How would superheroes do in real life?

I have been reading a graphic novel series called Powers. It imagines a world with superheros, but where it is illegal to be one. The idea is similar to that in the Incredibles. After some damage caused by the Powers, the government has generally frowned on the idea of people with "powers". The stories center around superhero crimes, especially murders of the heroes with powers.

I ordered all of them, but surprisingly the older out of print ones came faster (almost overnight) than the still in print ones from Amazon. I am up to Volume 10, and waiting for Volume 11. I wholeheartedly recommend them. They have adult themes and some adult art so they are not for kids. Here is the list thus far:

• Powers Vol 1: Who Killed Retro Girl? by Brian Michael Bendis
• Powers Vol. 2: Roleplay by Brian Michael Bendis
• Powers Vol 3: Little Deaths by Brian Michael Bendis
• Powers Vol. 4: Supergroup by Brian Michael Bendis
• Powers Vol. 5: Anarchy by Brian Michael Bendis
• Powers Vol. 6: Sellouts by Brian Michael Bendis
• Powers Vol. 7: Forever by Brian Michael Bendis
• Powers Vol. 8: Legends by Brian Michael Bendis
• Powers Vol. 9: Psychotic by Brian Michael Bendis
• Powers Vol. 10: Cosmic by Brian Michael Bendis

The story does a good job of exploring really what might happen if people with "Powers" existed and how they might not be as welcome as they are in the traditional comic book hero stories. The stories also center around how some of these people with powers would still have the same needs and wants as regular people, still have the same loves and hates, still be subject to the same pressures, hurts and insanities, but be able to act on these impulses in a much more powerful way than a regular person. No wonder the police are overwhelmed and "powers" are outlawed in the stories.

As to what the best moral or ethical approach to "powers" would be I suppose the adage "to whom much is given much is expected" is as appropriate as any. One could apply "Do unto others as you would have done unto you" as well. See the X-Men movies for two diametrically opposed approaches to the problem, training by Doctor Xavier, war by Magneto. The cartoon series of the "Justice League" has a government developing their own superheroes as a balance against the ones that they can't control.

Poignant xkcd comic "to Be Wanted" begs to be made into animated gif

This poignant xkcd comic entitled "To Be Wanted" begged to be made into an animated gif because of its recursive nature. I hope I haven't ruined the artistic intent of its creator by doing so.



Computer minded boy longs for sailing adventurer girl who longs for computer minded boy who longs for sailing adventurer girl who longs for computer minded boy who longs for sailing adventurer girl...

(small animated gif is here, larger one with gickr logo as above is here)

(comic from xkcd, animated gif from gickr)

The peanuts live on

As archetypes of human behavior the Peanuts have a lot to teach us about ourselves and others. This quiz allows you to find your inner peanut and tell the world.

My results follow:

You are most similar to
Pigpen

"I have affixed to me the dirt and dust of countless ages ... Who am I to disturb history?"

Yes, Pigpen is dirty -- very dirty. But there is more to his personality than his obvious lack of hygiene. To his credit, he is quite secure about his messy appearance, and he dismisses others' concerns about it with eloquence. He has come to accept the filth, and he maintains a rosy outlook despite all. Pigpen is a kind fellow with an independent spirit and an active imagination.

I am cleaner than Pigpen, yet I am proud to hold his worldview.

(via Exploding Aardvark, who else?)

Steampunk Internet LOL Oujia board

Not that I believe in superstitions of the sort suggested by a Ouija board, but if I had to contact the spirit of the Internet while away from my keyboard I might want to use Jeffrey Rowland's Internet Ouija board, called OuijaNet . Certainly the value and veracity of things that can be gleaned from the web of lies that is the Internet is about equivalent to the ghostly smoothness of the Ouija planchette gliding over your spirit message letter by letter, and about as quick if the broadband is screwed up.

Rowland is the (starving) artist responsible for Overcompensating, which has brought great humor in the past ("a lot" is two words! ephemerality of digital information, tinfoil hats and RLS). Since he included some LOLCATS I thought I would spruce up the picture a little. (Webcest is almost self-explanatory, and has not survived to become a new word according to Wikipedia)

As with all things there is an alterior motive, to enter the contest to win a t-shirt, mousepad and Ouija board. He should sell a computer mouse that looks like the ouija glider to compliment a mouse pad with this image (without my words of course, see right) on it.

The contest is a random drawing - I like those odds.

Better Gaming Through Chemistry

One slogan the DuPont company used in the 60's was Better things for better living through chemistry, often shortened to "Better Living Through Chemistry". I think we can say the same thing for the Dungeons and Dragons gaming online comic "The Order of the Stick". Or perhaps we should say "Better Gaming Comics Through Chemistry"(tm).

Instead of the stodgy old Earth, Fire, Water, and Air elementals that are used in current fantasy gaming, Rich Burlew has a character that paid attention in chemistry class and suggests the use of element based elementals. In my comments on the titanium elemental he used in an earlier strip, I presciently wondered how scary a chlorine or plutonium elemental might be. In Friday's comic he has the goblin cleric use a chlorine elemental to clear the way during the epic battle that's in progress. Though I had seen the comic that day, Zak3056 kindly pointed out that I guessed right.

I like how the comic artist had a nice periodic table of the elements label on the elemental so we know which one it is. Chlorine's effects are well know, but there are some other nasty elements in pure form, like fluorine, that would kill even faster. Oxygen elementals would cause things to burn fast. Call up a sodium elemental and a water elemental and let them mix for a big boom. Mercury elementals would be cool to look at, all reflecting and liquid, like the Terminator in the second movie.

Some of the effects of elements depend on their valence state, a pure chromium elemental would be shiny or could be used to make your other metal elementals shiny, but chromium at +6 is a strong oxidant and is known to cause cancer, I guess in the gaming world it would have a Touch of Death or some such thing. Can the spellcaster also suggest the isotope of the element that is summoned? Depleted Uranium (low in U235 almost all U238) is good for bullets, but too big a U235 isotropically pure element would go critical and cause a nuclear explosion as soon as it was summoned (no uranium 235 elementals over 52kg). We all know what a polonium 210 elemental would do.

Can we do chemistry with the elementals? If I summon three chlorine, one hydrogen and a carbon elemental, does that make one chloroform elemental that can put everyone to sleep? Enough fluorine and carbon elementals (four F's to every C and some F's for the ends) strung together should give me an untouchable Teflon elemental.

Speaking of carbon elementals, which physical or crystal state do the elementals arrive in (allotropes)? Can I could have a slippery graphite carbon elemental, or a hard diamond carbon elemental? What special properties would a nanotube or fullerene carbon elemental have (everything you could think of according to the scientists that try to get funding for that type of research).

The possibilities for chemistry element based elementals seem to be endless. I guess it is whatever the Dungeon master can think of and the players will let them get away with. In the comic its all up to Rich Burlew.

Elemental my dear.

One of my favorite webcomics is Order of the Stick. Rich Burlew combines D&D style role-playing and fun with some observations of the world into quite a few clever comics. Sometimes the strips have many fun points, not just one. As a chemical engineer I really appreciated a recent strip in which he has the bad guys create Elementals to storm the good guy's castle walls in a siege.


These are not your scientifically inaccurate fire, air, water and earth elementals, his characters have taken and passed chemistry, so these are periodic table of the elements elementals. These titanium elementals even have the properties of titanium that makes it so good for golf clubs and rocket ships, light but strong.

Dungeons and Dragons updated to at least the 19th century. Mendeleev would be proud (I recommend Mendeleyev's Dream by Paul Strathen to hear the interesting story of the periodic table). Does this mean there are now 118 or so elemental planes instead of the four from the original Dungeons and Dragons game? Can you imagine a chlorine elemental or plutonium elemental being sent after your player character during a rousing session of Dungeons and Dragons? Neutralize the first with water and the second with graphite rods I guess.

Sequential paintings by James Collinson interpreted as comics

At the Philadelphia Museum of Art several paintings placed serially suggested their interpretation as comics, if we follow the definition from the book Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud.


The right one is For Sale, while the left one is To Let and are painted by James Collinson. The paintings are hung right next to each other at the museum, I stitched my two digital photos together. The many interpretations of the titles are left to the viewer, but Wikipedia describes them as such: "the best-known of which are To Let and For Sale, both of which lightheartedly depict pretty women in situations that suggest moral temptation."

Are William Maw Egley's sequential paintings comics?

I have been reading the book Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud. It attempts to describe not only what comics are, but also to teach about the various tools of comics as well as relating these tools and comics to art and literature in general. He starts with a definition.

Comics - juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer.

One other hallmark of comics is the space between the panels. Much of the action in a comic can take place there within that space. The reader fills in what happens between the panels and takes part in telling the story.

The definition of comics could include a lot of art that you might not expect and so I began to see comics in all kinds of art during yesterday's visit to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I noticed some paintings that fit the definition and had an interesting story to tell in the blank space between them.


These paintings hang next to each other at the museum (I took two digital photos and joined them together) and are called "Just as the Twig is Bent" (left) and "The Tree's Inclined" (right) which William Maw Egley (see a short biography here) painted in 1861. The first picture shows the young boy playing at being soldier to impress the blond sister while the brunette looks on and then in the blank space between the pictures they have grown. Yet the scene is the same and the boy, now a young man and a real soldier, is still courting the blond sister while the dark haired sister looks on in jealousy.

How do you know?


The brunette sister can be seen in the mirror at the top of the painting on the right, fuming away. I suggest that these pictures taken together form a comic of the sort described by Scott McCloud, and tell an interesting story besides.

Restless Leg Syndrome just the Jimmy legs?

Do you remember Kramer and the jimmy legs from Seinfeld? There is a crippling disease called Restless Legs Syndrome that is stopping Baby Boomers* from having normal productive lives. Luckily the folks at GlaxoSmithKline have come up with Requip, a drug which combats this terrible syndrome.

There are some side effects though. From the website (curiously the statement was a .gif so I had to retype it):

"Important Safety Information

Prescription Requip Tablets are not for everyone. Requip may cause you to fall asleep or feel very sleepy while doing normal activities such as driving; or to feel faint or feel dizzy, nauseated, or sweaty when you stand up. If you experience these problems talk with your doctor. Tell your doctor if you drink alcohol or are taking other medicines that make you drowsy. Side effects include nausea, drowsiness, vomiting, and dizziness. Most patients were not bothered enough to stop taking Requip."

Some stunning revelations:

• There is a disease called Restless Leg Syndrome
• There is a medicine for it.
• Nausea, drowsiness, vomiting, and dizziness were not enough to stop patients from taking Requip, but restless legs were enough to make them take it and fall asleep vomiting.
  

Inspired by similar observations at Overcompensating. The Mayo clinic has help without medication- get up and walk around for goodness sake. (he says smugly 'til he gets old and gets restless leg syndrome)


*Primary Restless Legs Syndrome most often affects people who are middle-aged and older.

Get ready Jesus is coming.

Overcompensating has been sure to point out an article on Yahoo in which 25% of people surveyed think that 2007 is the year of the second coming of Jesus! Let's hope their apocalyptic fervor doesn't cause them to find ways to hasten the arrival of this event. (Remember you will not know the day or the time, the Son of Man comes like a thief in the night, so stop guessing already.)


Jefferey has a tinfoil hat on, which we all know will not protect him from mind control. I do like the thinly veiled reference to Futurama in the final panel. In the "Parasites Lost" episode, Fry is infected with alien intestinal worms that fix him up and improve him. He gets smarter and better, just like John Travolta in Phenomenon. The crew finally try to get rid of the parasites by travelling inside Fry a la Fantastic Voyage. They do it as as miniature remote controlled robots, instead of being shrunk in a ship.

We can only hope that Jefferey's intestinal parasites are doing him as good a turn.