For your Friday fun-time you must go watch Yes and No a flash movie showing correct and incorrect driving practices and their usual outcomes. Very funny! [via #!/usr/bin/girl]

Ryan and Jacob are fakes! I hadn't noticed talk of the latest e-mail spam until a copy showed up in my box this morning, and I'll admit that it was compelling enough I read it. If you haven't received a copy, it starts:

There is something extremely wrong with every single person in this world. They seem to be part of a pointless simulation.

"The Matrix" has portrayed this idea somewhat, yet we watch it and go back to our daily lives. Yet in this very life, underneath the seeming diversity in people's opinions, values, talents, and interests, there is something that makes everyone the same. It is as though this planet is populated only by mindless fakes, objects that provide the appearance of intellect on the surface but are based on only mechanical reflexes and primitive thought patterns.

Having lost patience with trying their instructions to search for their word pairs in a non-Google browser after about two minutes, I found them in two clicks with the Google search "Ryan Jacob fakes", which led me to the weblog leuschke.org, which kindly supplied a link to their actual site: Eternal Ambition. Or, as I'm hoping a Googlebomb might eventually dub them, Ryan and Jacob are fakes! It's exactly as ridiculous as you would expect:

I exist as an impartial, and impartial only. I know of no bias or preference, I know of no wants or needs. I feel emotions like every human and yet I have no desire to change anything about them, and I don't see the need to act because of them.

I am only able to think objectively. I exist as nothing more than an instance of reason and intellect. I make decisions based only on that, and act only on that.

I have no ties, allegiances, bonds, or attachments. There is no material possession, friend, or acquaintance that means anything to me. There is nothing and no one that can be taken away from me that would matter. There are no activities that I want to do or that I would not be able to stop doing.

I have no regrets of anything I have ever done or not done, and I know I will not regret any actions I may take now. I do not believe in any moral codes or standards (there is no "right" or "wrong", just "logical" and "illogical", I have no objections to killing, suicide, theft, or just about anything, as long as the reason is logical), my thinking is pure and unconstrained.

reading:
Mrs. Dalloway; Virginia Woolf

While it's not as exciting as my friend who managed to buy a many-hundred-dollar-valued autographed book for a couple of bucks recently, I had what I think was a very cool used book experience yesterday. I spotted a copy of Penrose's The Emperor's New Mind on the $1 rack outside the local used book store, which I've been curious to skim. Well, it was on the cheap rack because there are notes scattered through the margins of the book, but they're tidy notes, so I decided to buy it anyway. However, on closer examination, the book was labelled as having belonged to a "W. Robert Mann", which any math major will immediately identify as the name of one of the authors of the classic Advanced Calculus by Taylor & Mann. Granted, it's plausible that multiple people would share this name, but the previous owner was also kind enough to note that the book was purchased at McIntyre's Book Shop, which is in Pittsboro, NC, not far from UNC, where Dr. Mann is listed as a professor emeriti. And the comments clearly come from someone fluent in mathematics. So, I am going to chose to believe that I'll be reading the criticisms of the man whose textbook introduced me to advanced mathematics. His very first note reads:

One of the seductive fascinations of mathematics is that every subject turns out, in the long run, to be merely a small part of something else.

reading:
Mrs. Dalloway; Virginia Woolf

In a headline that screams to be weblogged, the EPA says toxic sludge is good for fish (though a later article indicates that it was the Army Corps who said it, not the EPA - incidentally, the same group dumping the sludge). In studying the effects of toxic sludge in the Potomac, the report said that since the sludge forces fish out of the now toxic water, the fish go to more remote areas where they are less likely to be caught. The statement that it "protects" the fish is a real misuse of that word. It's sort of a "if you're going to make a hostile environment, make it hostile enough the wildlife just leaves" argument. Furthermore, the statement does not actually show evidence that the fish are successfully relocating - it just posits that this could be the case and suggests this be looked into before dumping is stopped. While I agree that current environmental legislation makes this a relevant fact to consider, to suggest that toxic dumping can be good just because nature may find a way to accomodate the poisons is morally repulsive. [via Sigma Xi: In the News]

Is your book collection getting out of control? I certainly have the occasional fantasy of organizing and databasing up my books, and do keep them in a roughly thematic ordering. If you want to get really obsessive, though, this site will help you determine the first three Dewey decimal digits of your books, which I would think would be plenty for any home library. It's also fun to browse around this really impressive classification structure for all of human knowledge. And it is pleasing to see computer science linked with information and general reference, rather than with technology, though it is a little surprising that it doesn't share a top level category with mathematics and other sciences.

Housekeeping days around here, both in reality and cyberspace. I finally updated my commenting code, so if you noticed the problems with HTML tags in them, that's hopefully fixed. Around here, I hung a ton of photos, baked a lovely blueberry pie, and finished seasoning my new frying pans. I didn't get around to making my new curtains yet, though. I mean, I've been pretty swamped by actual work around here too lately.

By the way, a comment below reminded me that some people don't like cast iron because they were told you can't wash it with soap. You absolutely can use soap in cast iron - just use a gentle liquid soap and don't scour, then dry thoroughly. And when I started using my own I remembered another oddity - don't panic when, the first time you use yours, it appears that you've horribly burned the bottom. Cast iron is silvery gray when you buy it, but well used cast iron is very dark black - obviously, there's a transition period. You can see in this picture how much it looks like I just ruined my pan, but it's fine (though it would appear that I didn't let it heat very evenly...) Eventually, the whole pan will change color, but don't worry if even after a dozen uses it still looks splotchy.

reading:
The Moor; Laurie King
O Jerusalem; Laurie King
Mrs. Dalloway; Virginia Woolf

Slowly, scientific evidence is piling up showing that mental state has real impact on one's physical state. A recent study concluded that thoughts can alter the expression of genes, though the causal channel of thoughts effecting hormone levels. This article draws together a number of studies, pointing out that many of the physical effects we see from medication, alcohol, or even environmental influence, may also come from the process of altering gene expression. Which suggests, to me, that we're on the edge of accepting that health care isn't as simple a "disease and treatment" formula as is assumed.

Not only have experts reconfirmed that smoking really does cause cancer, using a collection of data from many smoking studies, they've found it is even more cancerous than they thought. They also claim to finally have definitive proof that secondhand smoke causes cancer. I know that smokers already know they ought to quit, and I'm sure those irritating "truth" ads just make them want to smoke more out of spite, but if we're taking a public health approach to medicine, support of quiting smoking is way up there as a positive, even in an analysis of overall cost per person.

In case you hadn't heard, and I didn't until someone pointed it out to me, M&M has announced that the new color will be purple! That's a much better choice than the aqua and pink which, frankly, clashed with the existing primary colored M&Ms. Even the shade of purple they are using is a bit off, and should be less pastel. This article slipped in the fact that the purple candies will only be included for a limited time, though, starting in August. That's disappointing.

There's nothing so satisfying as being handy around the house, and there's nothing that makes you feel quite so handy with so little actual skill as a power drill. Sure, I just put some holes in a dowel to hang a quilt, but I got to test bit sizes and produce sawdust and fiddle in my toolbox. It was a lovely little power tool experience.

reading:
Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies; Douglas Hofstadter
The Moor; Laurie King

If you enjoy snarky commentary on odd pop culture artifacts, make your way over to Culture Freak. Advertisements, trademarks, and Americana all get their own photo gallery section. And if you actually go into the essays and archives, there's some more contentful, though still entertaining, analysis of modern culture. A good "between problems" browsing site. [via PCJM]

watching:
O Brother, Where Art Thou? [very fun]

Today I rediscovered Not My Desk, writings of a temp worker. Quite funny, the essays linked in the left tool bar are worth checking out. And, via the "Diversions" list I found the Castlemouse 2000 puzzle game and the amusing Etch A Sketch online simulator and the often cute Post-It Theater animations.

Oooo! Want to run a book store? Just enter the Win Ownership of While Away Books essay contest and you might become the new owner of an Oregon used bookstore. Oh yeah, on top of the essay, you'll have to send in a $250 entry fee. There are days when running a book store sounds like a great next step, though I suspect that my picture of what the job entails involves an unrealistic degree of sitting around reading. And I'd go about aquiring a store in a less sketchy manner. [via Metafilter]

"All I can say is that my life is pretty plain
I like watchin the puddles gather rain
And all I can do is just pour some tea for two
And speak my point of view but its not sane, its not sane

I just want someone to say to me
I'll always be there when you wake
Ya know I'd like to keep my cheeks dry today
So stay with me and I'll have it made

And I don't understand why I sleep all day
And I start to complain that theres no rain
And all I can do is read a book to stay awake
It rips my life away but its a great escape...escape...escape"
-- No Rain, Blind Melon