Just found an April Fools joke on Google Earth. Area 51 has some visitors.
Update: Yow – this page currently has over 2500 Diggs (and a total of over 150,000 hits!!!) and is the top Digg story of the day! Thankfully 1&1’s servers are handling the load quite well…
Update: also listed on Wikipedia and waxy.org
Update: hello Washington Post readers…
Will Wright, creator of SimCity, The Sims, and other sim-games, discusses and demos his latest masterpiece, Spore, at the 2005 Game Developer Conference.
This game looks like a must buy! It’s coming out in Q4 2006.
Originally from Cecil Adams’ The Straight Dope column, May 7, 1982:
bq.. Dear Cecil:
Cecil, you’re my final hope
Of finding out the true Straight Dope
For I have been reading of Schroedinger’s cat
But none of my cats are at all like that.
This unusual animal (so it is said)
Is simultaneously live and dead!
What I don’t understand is just why he
Can’t be one or other, unquestionably.
My future now hangs in between eigenstates.
In one I’m enlightened, the other I ain’t.
If you understand, Cecil, then show me the way
And rescue my psyche from quantum decay.
But if this queer thing has perplexed even you,
Then I will and won’t see you in Schroedinger’s zoo.
— Randy F., Chicago
p..
bq.. Dear Randy:
Schroedinger, Erwin! Professor of physics!
Wrote daring equations! Confounded his critics!
(Not bad, eh? Don’t worry. This part of the verse
Starts off pretty good, but it gets a lot worse.)
Win saw that the theory that Newton’d invented
By Einstein’s discov’ries had been badly dented.
What now? wailed his colleagues. Said Erwin, “Don’t panic,
No grease monkey I, but a quantum mechanic.
Consider electrons. Now, these teeny articles
Are sometimes like waves, and then sometimes like particles.
If that’s not confusing, the nuclear dance
Of electrons and suchlike is governed by chance!
No sweat, though–my theory permits us to judge
Where some of ’em is and the rest of ’em was.”
Not everyone bought this. It threatened to wreck
The comforting linkage of cause and effect.
E’en Einstein had doubts, and so Schroedinger tried
To tell him what quantum mechanics implied.
Said Win to Al, “Brother, suppose we’ve a cat,
And inside a tube we have put that cat at–
Along with a solitaire deck and some Fritos,
A bottle of Night Train, a couple mosquitoes
(Or something else rhyming) and, oh, if you got ’em,
One vial prussic acid, one decaying ottom
Or atom–whatever–but when it emits,
A trigger device blasts the vial into bits
Which snuffs our poor kitty. The odds of this crime
Are 50 to 50 per hour each time.
The cylinder’s sealed. The hour’s passed away. Is
Our pussy still purring–or pushing up daisies?
Now, you’d say the cat either lives or it don’t
But quantum mechanics is stubborn and won’t.
Statistically speaking, the cat (goes the joke),
Is half a cat breathing and half a cat croaked.
To some this may seem a ridiculous split,
But quantum mechanics must answer, “Tough @#&!
We may not know much, but one thing’s fo’ sho’:
There’s things in the cosmos that we cannot know.
Shine light on electrons–you’ll cause them to swerve.
The act of observing disturbs the observed–
Which ruins your test. But then if there’s no testing
To see if a particle’s moving or resting
Why try to conjecture? Pure useless endeavor!
We know probability–certainty, never.’
The effect of this notion? I very much fear
‘Twill make doubtful all things that were formerly clear.
Till soon the cat doctors will say in reports,
“We’ve just flipped a coin and we’ve learned he’s a corpse.”‘
So saith Herr Erwin. Quoth Albert, “You’re nuts.
God doesn’t play dice with the universe, putz.
I’ll prove it!” he said, and the Lord knows he tried–
In vain–until fin’ly he more or less died.
Win spoke at the funeral: “Listen, dear friends,
Sweet Al was my buddy. I must make amends.
Though he doubted my theory, I’ll say of this saint:
Ten-to-one he’s in heaven–but five bucks says he ain’t.”
— Cecil Adams
…when you could have the FSM sitting atop your tree?
This week’s South Park episode, “Free Willzyx”, gave us a glimpse of what the boys would look like is real life. After “rescuing” a killer whale from Denver’s version of Sea World, a police sketch is circulated of the kidnappers:
We then get a closeup of Kyle, the “ringleader”:
From what I’ve read, Stan looks like a young Trey Parker and Kyle is a young Matt Stone. Kenny? Who knows. Cartman? Perfect. 
If there is ever a statue made in honor of good project managers, I suspect the inscription would say, “Bring me your randomized, your righteously confused, your sarcastic and bitter masses of programmers yearning for clarity.”
— Scott Berkun, “The Art of Project Management”
Donald Rumsfeld is giving the president his daily briefing. He concludes by saying: “Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed.”
“OH NO!” the president exclaims. “That’s terrible!”
His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the president sits, head in hands.
Finally, the president looks up and asks, “How many is a brazillion?”
Here’s a list of search terms that have brought people to jarnot.com recently:
Since the Supreme Court doesn’t seem to mind watering down the 5th Amendment so that eminent domain can be used for private development, the judges’ own personal property should also be eligible. Right?
Right.
From FreeStar Media:
bq.. Weare, New Hampshire (PRWEB) Could a hotel be built on the land owned by Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter? A new ruling by the Supreme Court which was supported by Justice Souter himself itself might allow it. A private developer is seeking to use this very law to build a hotel on Souter’s land.
Justice Souter’s vote in the “Kelo vs. City of New London” decision allows city governments to take land from one private owner and give it to another if the government will generate greater tax revenue or other economic benefits when the land is developed by the new owner.
On Monday June 27, Logan Darrow Clements, faxed a request to Chip Meany the code enforcement officer of the Towne of Weare, New Hampshire seeking to start the application process to build a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road. This is the present location of Mr. Souter’s home.
Clements, CEO of Freestar Media, LLC, points out that the City of Weare will certainly gain greater tax revenue and economic benefits with a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road than allowing Mr. Souter to own the land.
The proposed development, called “The Lost Liberty Hotel” will feature the “Just Desserts Café” and include a museum, open to the public, featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. Instead of a Gideon’s Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged.”
Clements indicated that the hotel must be built on this particular piece of land because it is a unique site being the home of someone largely responsible for destroying property rights for all Americans.
“This is not a prank” said Clements, “The Towne of Weare has five people on the Board of Selectmen. If three of them vote to use the power of eminent domain to take this land from Mr. Souter we can begin our hotel development.”
Clements’ plan is to raise investment capital from wealthy pro-liberty investors and draw up architectural plans. These plans would then be used to raise investment capital for the project. Clements hopes that regular customers of the hotel might include supporters of the Institute For Justice and participants in the Free State Project among others.
p. Hey. It’s only fair…
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