fafblog gets it right

Fafnir of the very funny Fafblog finally sums up what the events of September Eleventh have meant to all of us:

"It's true - 9/11 changed everything, even math and Jesus."

Link to the specific post: an interview with the US Constitution.

vin diesel once ate seven orangutans after losing a game of go fish to jesus

The Random Vin Diesel Fact Generator is exactly what you think it is, except that the facts are not just insightful but also hilarious. I'm sorry to say I may have missed the boat on this one, because the link is not working right now, but you can find a lot of the facts on this forum.

these toads a splode

Toads in a certain pond in Germany keep spontaneously exploding.

"According to reports from animal welfare workers and veterinarians as many as a thousand of the amphibians have perished after their bodies swelled to bursting point and their entrails were propelled for up to a metre."

Link to full ABC article.

the new-clear age

There's been some friendly banter around SFB about the merits of nuclear energy, or lack thereof. By "friendly banter", I of course mean "everyone else thinks I'm crazy."

Well, apparently I'm not the only one who sees nuclear power as our society's best chance to kick the energy-by-fossil-fuels habit without majorly curbing our electricity-guzzling ways. This paper, for example, shows that the cost of nuclear energy is comparable to that of fossil fuels depending on location - for Canada in particular, nuclear is second to coal in terms of cost. That's including maintenance, waste disposal and decomissioning costs. When the "cost" of venting carbon dioxide is factored in, through a tariff on gas emissions a la Kyoto, nuclear energy is more economic than coal.

As for uranium availibility, this page puts known recoverable uranium ore at 3,107,000 tonnes. This page agrees. It takes approximately 8kg of ore to produce one kg of usable fuel, which produces 315,000 kWh of energy per kilogram. Nuclear energy is responsible for about 2500 TWh of energy annually. Crunch those numbers, and you come out with about 50 years worth of uranium at present consumption levels. This is a huge underestimate for many reasons. First, because it doesn't take into account spent-fuel reprocessing, which recycles unburned uranium. Second, the 8kg ore per 1kg fuel figure assumes about 1% "good" uranium (U235) in the ore, while over 15% of the world's stores (mostly in Canada) are high grade and contain 10-20% U235. Third, it doesn't take into account the many tonnes of weapons-grade stockpiles held by Russia and the States that are now being sold off. These are already mined and highly-enriched fuels that actually have to be diluted 30:1 before they can be used in reactors. Fourth, and most importantly, this is only the uranium that we know for sure is out there and economically available with current methods. I doubt even the most optimistic oil forecasts involving dubious "likely oil here" and "tear up a national park there" schemes could give us another 50 years of burning oil at our current rate.

There has also been some buzz about pebble-bed reactors. These new designs use helium-gas turbines to reach much higher operating temperatures and efficiencies, while being inherently meltdown-proof. And not just the many-redundant-cooling-systems safety of conventional reactors: tests have shown pebble beds with all control systems switched off, all coolant flow stopped, reaching their maximum design temperature and happily staying there for hours. While they won't be ready for commercial use for another 10 years, these next-generation reactors will provide more bang for your nuclear buck with thermal efficiencies of around 50%, compared to 30% for today's reactors.

Waste disposal is a tough issue. Even if you take the cost of proper disposal into account, you can't get around the fact that more nuclear power means more radioactive spent fuel slowly decaying underneath a mountain somewhere. Until we finally build a space elevator, there'll be no economic way to completely get rid of the stuff, and there's always the chance that an earthquake, flood, terrorist attack, or some other force of nature will leach radioactive toxins into our soil and kill us all. To this, I can only say that I'd rather have hundreds of tonnes of vitrified uranium to bury than millions of tons of carbon dioxide venting into my atmosphere. Until wind and solar power lower their costs by an order of magnitude and somehow solve that pesky problem of not working when the sun don't shine and the wind don't blow, nuclear's all we got, baby.

you damn kid

Having watched the most recent episode of Space Tree the Space Tree in Space, I was checking out some other Keenspot offerings and came across You Damn Kid. The archives run all the way back to 1999, and they're worth a look. The strip mostly consists of the author earnestly reminiscing about his childhood, attending Catholic school and misinterpreting adult humour. There are also a ton of funerals and an inordinate amount of instances of the word "wang".

Also, can you actually do this?

small flightless birds are not terrorists

These two cute little penguins proved they weren't terrorists by passing through an airport's metal detector. The one on the left had to leave his toenail clippers with the security guard, but the incident was otherwise uneventful. Pictures!

guess the google

This flash game shows you a bunch of pictures found using Google's image search. You have to guess what word was searched for. It is fun. (via Waxy)

In other news, I'm gonna see Wolf Parade and Final Fantasy open for Arcade Fire tonight. Hot damn diggety.

the saddam hussein - paul martin connection

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin appeared on national television for seven minutes last night (read the full text here). Among other things, he promised to call an election 30 days after the close of the Gomery inquiry into the sponsorship scandal - next January. The Conservatives, however, may very well force an election as soon as they can (May 18) with support from the Bloc Québécois; the NDP will support the Liberals if they "drop all corporate tax cuts in the proposed budget." (CBC) In other words, they probably won't support the Liberals.

All this is bad enough for ol' Paul. I think the country is starting to catch sponsorship scandal fever, and any election soon could mean a (*shudder*) Conservative minority government led by (*spasm*) Stephen Harper. The NDP may stand to make significant gains from angry left-wing Liberals, though, which would be something.

But get this: yesterday, Canada Free Press reported that Saddam Hussein invested a million dollars in a Martin-owned company. The article is fascinatingly unclear, but here's the idea: Paul Martin owns Canada Steamship Lines (CSL). CSL owns 4.6% of Cordex Petroleums Inc., "launched by Martin’s mentor Maurice Strong’s son Fred Strong". Hussein invested $100-million in Cordex through Tongsun Park, "the Korean man accused by U.S. federal authorities of illegally acting as an Iraqi agent" in the UN Oil-For-Food scandal.

The article goes on to rhetorically ask, "Was Martin using the Adscam scandal as a distraction in a Maurice Strong Cordex oil-for-food scandal that would inevitably lead back to him?" Maybe a better question would have been, "Given what we knew about Paul Martin before he was elected, is any of this all that surprising?"

please forgive us

The writers of Small Flightless Bird are all in University, and are deep in the mire of final exams. When we see the sun again, we hope to return to a more normal schedule of speaking to you, but in the meantime we beg of you to be patient. Don't forget you can always email us with suggestions of things to write about.

one hundred and fifty hostages, or maybe nine, or none

In recent days, a lot of Shi'ite politicians claimed there were 150 people being held hostage by Sunnis in the town of Madaen, 25 miles southeast of Baghdad. So Iraqi security forces diligently headed out there to check it out, and instead of a tense hostage crisis they found... nothing. Or maybe a few hostages, but no-one is sure of that.

The BBC seems convinced that the whole story was a lie from the beginning, devised by Shi'ite politicians "as an excuse to raid Madain" and "a pretext for cracking down on the town's Sunnis."

Meanwhile, Reuters spoke with people from a nearby village who said that there were scores of bodies dumped in the Tigris river. "There were 100 bodies in the river and beside it. I think they are the people from Madaen," Sattar al-Shamari said.

"Confusion over events -- including if any hostages were ever held by anyone -- has underlined how out of touch Iraq's authorities have become as a political vacuum, created since the Jan. 30 election, deepens, with no government in sight." (Reuters)

i hear the moon's nice this time of year

Always sunny, close to water, and with temperatures near a balmy -50 C, this looks like the perfect spot to set up camp with the kids, toast a few marshmallows, and really appreciate the complete lack of atmosphere. No, silly, not the mood. Your capillaries are going to explode!

Seriously, folks, where do I sign up? I hope this doesn't go the way Hubble's looking to, because I'd like to give my 2 weeks and leave "Northern rim of Peary Crater. The Moon" as my forwarding address.

learning is fun!

Do you know where your states are? Do you care? If the answer to the second question was yes (the answer to the first question has no effect on the outcome in this case), you should go play Geography Games! Europe is especially challenging. Someone forward the Middle East one to Bush.

nike admits to sucking really bad

Man, I bet you could jump really high with these shoes.

Years and years of boycotts and protests have successfully linked the Nike brand with poor working conditions. Finally, the Nike Corporation has started its twelve-step program. They are currently on step one: Admitting they have a problem.

"Nike Inc has disclosed for the first time the names and locations of more than 700 contract factories that produce its sneakers, apparel and other products.

Industry experts said the disclosure, included as part of the company's corporate responsibility report, makes the sneaker giant the first major apparel manufacturer to voluntarily disclose its entire supply chain.

In the report released yesterday, Nike also acknowledges that factories with which it contracts to produce goods have harassed workers and forced some to work overtime." (Bangkok Post)

It's an interesting move, and if you read more it sounds genuine and thorough. But the key will be to see how well they follow through with fixing the many serious problems, which range from forced overtime to sexual abuse.

In other Nike news, go watch the video of Tiger Woods' absolutely crazy Masters shot before they really do turn it into a commercial.

bringing freedom and democracy to oppressed star systems everywhere

NASA's previous administrator, Dr. Sean O'Keefe, stepped down a little while ago. The position has yet to be officially filled, but apparently the writing is most definitely on the wall. Barring some major calamity, Dr. Michael Griffin will be the next NASA Administrator. However, his prepared statement left a bad taste in my mouth. The paragraph that pretty much sums it up is this:

"In the twenty-first century and beyond, for America to continue to be preeminent among nations, it is necessary for us also to be the preeminent spacefaring nation. Or are we willing to accept the world of a generation or two hence where other nations will be engaged in the development of the Solar System, and we are not? If not, then it is time to recognize that we have squandered a once-insurmountable lead in the arts and sciences of spaceflight. The best we can say for ourselves today is that our grounded Space Shuttle is much more sophisticated than the operational vehicles belonging to the two nations which have sent people into space since we have last done so."

He then cordially acknowledges the Russians for basically holding the entire International Space Station together for the past two years. (which NASA has incidentally spent going "oh me! oh my! You mean space travel's dangerous? But that's the opposite of what we've spent a decade getting you to believe! We didn't sign up for this! oh me! oh my!") Don't worry, though, he promptly suggests that Big, Beautiful America need no longer rely on any other nations for critical spacefaring systems.

The whole thing has a hugely colonial bent to it that leaves no doubt in my mind as to why Bush nominated this particular guy for the job. Pardon me, but it's always been my belief that any effort to explore the space beyond our planet should be an effort made by the whole planet, benefitting everyone. Not a heated competition amongst its petty nation-states to get the biggest piece of the cosmic pie.

adbusting

I am very much enamoured of the Firefox extension Adblock. (Have we mentioned how great Firefox is, and how you should be using it right now?) All you do is put in a few filters and the program will automatically stop images whose urls contain those filters from loading. And it's a lot simpler than it sounds.

Below: Boing Boing without Adblock (left); and with Adblock (right). Click for larger images.

spam is funny

Spamusement takes the subject lines from spam emails and draws funny pictures about them. Shown at right: "Have The Body You've Always Wanted"

This is very much along the lines of Exploding Dog.

robot jockeys

I thought this headline was hilarious until I read the article:

Robot jockeys to ride Gulf camels

The United Arab Emirates says it will use robots as jockeys for camel races from next season. The move comes after widespread international criticism of the use of young children to ride camels during the long and often hazardous races.

Officials say a prototype of the robot was successfully tested on Saturday.

Link to BBC article.

weapon of choice

In celebration of Christopher Walken's recent victory on Who's The Boss (a fitting result, with Ed as moderator), SFB is offering up a link to an awesome old Fatboy Slim video. If you remember it, enjoy a hearty laugh of reminiscence. If you've never seen it, you and I have absolutely nothing in common and can no longer associate.

Fatboy Slim - Weapon of Choice (39 MB, mpeg)

Got this from the site Jared mentioned.

bringing isps into the game

Although it's occurring "across the pond", this story over at The Register alarmed me. Apparently, the European versions of the RIAA and MPAA (music and movie industries, people) have kindly drafted a new "code of conduct" agreement they feel ISPs should have all customers sign. Among other things, it states that your identity should be freely available, your ISP can and should monitor everything going over your connection, and people should be forcibly discouraged from "consuming excessive amounts of bandwidth where such consumption is a good indicator of infringing activities." Or, you know, using a webcam. Or VoIP telephony. Or distributing a Linux distro over BitTorrent. Whatever. You're all pirates.

monkeys moving frikkin robots arms with their frikkin brains

I'm not kidding. They hooked up electrodes to a monkey's brain, and attached those electrodes to a robotic arm. The monkey then learned to feed itself using the robotic arm. Check it out.

copyright in a digital age

Some of you may be familiar with the US' Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), that notorious piece of legislation that allows the RIAA to sue pretty much anyone it feels like. Well folks, Canada is now considering a bill that would amend the Copyright Act to provide similar "protections for artists" (read: money and power for those who exploit them) north of the border.

Although it doesn't seem likely that Canada will implement the DMCA in all of its ISPs-must-disconnect-you-when-the-RIAA-raises-an-eyebrow glory, in its current state it does include an anti-circumvention clause that makes it illegal to work around any encryption of content, including any DVD or copy-protected CDs (most of them, these days). So you could end up paying for a CD, paying a tariff on your CD-R for fair use personal copying, but not being able to legally back up your CD (which falls under fair use; that doesn't change) solely because the label decided they didn't want you to, and applied a DRM scheme to the CD.

If this makes you as mad as it does me, consider getting together with your friends and signing this petition.

For more general information, Michael Geist, a U of Ottawa-based law professor keeps an informative weekly column about Canadian internet privacy and copyright issues.

Check out his article, "Piercing the P2P myths". Apparently, the tariffs we pay on CD-Rs and MP3 players have reimbursed Canadian artists and copyright holders about 10x as much as they could reasonably have lost due to file sharing. Huh. Who knew?

and then there were four

Neil will be joining us. He will write for Small Flightless Bird.

You will be amazed! Nothing will be as it was! We all four went to the same high school! This is only a coincidence in the most literal sense of the word.

anti-us protests in iraq

On Saturday, Iraqis marked the second anniversary of the fall of Baghdad by taking to the streets to protest the continuing US occupation.

"Tens of thousands of Iraqis joined an anti-US protest in Firdus Square, where Saddam Hussein's statue was toppled on 9 April 2003 as millions watched on TV.

Chanting 'No to America' and 'No to the occupiers', they pulled down and burned effigies of Saddam Hussein, US President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair."

15 Iraqi soldiers were also killed that day by insurgents. Link to BBC article.

scandal, canadian-style

I must admit, almost everything about the Sponsorship Scandal has bored me to tears since it first broke, approximately seventy-three years ago. No matter how much I heard about it, it still seemed almost totally irrelevant to my everyday life.

But a few days ago (give me a break, it's exam time), Justice Gomery lifted a media blackout on testimony given at the hearings, and the most explosive stuff has come to light. Specifically, Montreal ad executive Jean Brault testified at length (and I mean length) about how corrupt every single person in the Liberal party is.

I confess that due to the magnitude of my recent workload I have not had time to read all of the four page Globe and Mail article on the subject, but suffice it to say that the shit has hit the fan.

bionic eyes!

Wow:

"US scientists have designed a bionic eye to allow blind people to see again. It comprises a computer chip that sits in the back of the individual's eye, linked up to a mini video camera built into glasses that they wear. Images captured by the camera are beamed to the chip, which translates them into impulses that the brain can interpret." (BBC)

If they have this technology, which senses visible light, then it should be easy to adapt it to detect radiation in the ultrared end of the spectrum, which means that my lifelong dream of having Predatorvision^TM may finally be realized.

movie news for a sunny saturday

It is sunny. It is 11 degrees Celsius outside, which is one of the warmest days Montreal's had since last summer. I've been sitting on the fifth floor of the science library working on a lab report about thermistors since noon.

But hey! Here's a trailer for a new movie called Mad Hot Ballroom. It is about kids in a ballroom dancing contest, and it reminds me of Spellbound, which was excellent.

(I found this trailer on Waxy.)

looking down from above

Google has added a satellite view to its Maps service. This is very awesome. It means you can switch between a normal map view to a satellite image of the same area, with the same zoom and drag capabilities.

So awesome is this service, in fact, that it has spawned a blog called Google Sightseeing, where Olly posts new interesting things to see from a geosynchronous orbit every day. It will distract you endlessly.

on tom delay

I'm not too into this whole thing, but lately the scandal surrounding the U.S. House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay (R-TX), has really blown up. First, there were allegations that at least three of his very expensive business trips were paid for by various international lobbying groups - including Russian oil interests. Now it seems that his wife and daughter may have been paid more than $500,000 through his political committees.

"The three foreign trips at issue share common elements. The sponsor of the Moscow trip, the Capitol Hill-based National Center for Public Policy Research, also sponsored the later London trip. The center is a conservative group that solicits corporate, foundation and individual donations."

Link to Washington Post article about the business trips; link to CBS article about paying his wife and daughter; link to Progress Report's succinct wrap-up.

starbucks delocator

So there's this website which helps people find alternatives to Starbuckses in their areas. Afraid of copyright issues, they decided not to use the word Starbucks anywhere on the site, calling themselves simply "The Delocator". Let's all help 'em out by linking to them using their real name, the Starbucks Delocator, so that their site will show up near the top of a Google search for Starbucks locations. The internet is a kind and giving place. (via The Regular)

cbc radio is awesome

Yeah, so a while back I was angry at a CBC Online article, but I was tired and irritable. The CBC is awesome and always has been. Now it turns out that the ol' Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is offering downloadable audio from the radio science show Quirks and Quarks - a huge archive of stuff from as far back as 1988. Go see it here. (via Boing Boing)

secret friend society

The Secret Friend Society is a site featuring two webcomics publishing on alternate days of the week. It's a pretty new deal, but already the colour schemes and moods are complementary and the matchup seems to make sense. Just today, Jellaby got a little more creepy.

we're just like a big family

Ian, circa 1886

You may have noticed a decrease in posts around here lately. We're sorry, but there were some mitigating circumstances: Jared's sole remaining typing finger was shattered in the recent Kingston bearbaiting incident, and Chris has been nearly catatonic since as far back as November 1991.

It is thus a lucky break that our old friend Ian (see photo) may be writing some things for Small Flightless Bird every once in a while. He and Jared scared the hell out of me when I met them eight years ago, but they're older now and only slightly less reckless.

Please be kind to our new co-blogger, and for god's sake do not feed him after midnight.

if you're flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit

Jared alerted us to the sad death of Mitch Hedberg on Thursday. Since then, I've been meaning to link to some Mitch-related things.

• Mike Davidson has a post with two audio clips you can listen to
• The Mitch Hedberg page has a ton of quotes
• There is an official site with things on it
  
• The webcomic "Death to the Extremist" paid tribute to a good joke of his

Also, here's an AP article which comments on the rumours that Mitch's death was drug-related.

i hate my downstairs neighbours

The people downstairs are either having a party or are experimenting with new deadly sonic weaponry or both. They are firing goddamn bass guns at the ceiling at regular intervals. I feel like the Banks family in Mary Poppins, trying to keep all our crap from falling off shelves and walls and stuff.

Anyway apparently the cross turned purple, and the Montreal Livejournal has photographic evidence (I mentioned this Friday). Thanks to Opti for the up-heads.

Now they're yelling in French. Please leave me a comment telling me how peacefully you are sleeping right now.

on the pope

Pope John Paul II is not doing very well. Yesterday, he was breathing through a tube in his throat and being fed with a feeding tube. Then he got a fever and suffered heart failure.

"On Thursday, he received the Holy Viaticum, the Catholics' last rites for the sick and dying, the spokesman said.

This is a sign that his closest advisers fear the end of one of the longest papal reigns is fast approaching, says the BBC's David Willey in Rome." (BBC)

There's a big cross (see photo) on the top of Mont Royal here in Montreal which lights up at night and can be seen from almost anywhere in the city. A number of people have been saying that the cross has a device which turns the lights purple when the pope dies. I have no idea if this is true, but it sounds like it won't be long before we find out.