Not quite as scary as Tom Cruise, but the religion is just as real.
And Anonymous’ reply…
I always thought that General Rieekan and John Kerry were separated at birth.
Finally – a sport for sysadmins and network engineers everywhere! From http://www.speedcabling.org/:
Speedcabling is a competitive sport in which contestants race to unravel a bundle of wires.
The Regulation Cable Set
There are two types of competition. In 2-2-2 competition, the contestant’s set consists of two 7-foot cables, two 14-foot cables, and two 21-foot cables. In 4-4-4 competition there are four of each type of cable.
CAT-5 Ethernet cables are to be used. Contestants may use any cable they wish, as long as it is capable of carrying 100Mb/s prior to competition. During competition, the colors red, blue, and yellow are used for the 7, 14, and 21 foot cables resepectively.
Bundling Regulations
The process of bundling the cables must be applied uniformly and methodically, to ensure the integrity of our sport. During official competition bundling may only be performed by certified bundlers.
The first step in bundling is the establishment of the figure-8. The set is stretched out, with the cables unentwined and approximately colinear. One set of ends is grabbed in one hand. With the other, the cables are smoothed and a figure-8 of one meter in length is formed.
The second step is the tangling process, which is performed at a laundromat or similar facility. The figure-8 structure is placed into a dryer, on high heat setting, for exactly three minutes. When performed correctly, the set becomes denser and more entangled.
The final step is the cooling period. The bundle must be allowed to cool until it regains room temperature. Then the competition can begin!
Competition Structure
The bundles are placed on a table at waist height. The beginning of time is sounded by the referee. The contestants begin cabling. A wire is considered separate when it is in contact with no other wires. Each contestant must separate each wire, and demonstrate its separation by holding the wire above their head.
The full body of the cable must be held above the head to complete a separation. This requirement is in place so that separation will be visually clear to the referee. The last cable must also be held above the head in this manner.
After each separation, the separated wire must be placed on the floor. If a non-separated wire touches the floor, the contestant is immediately disqualified. The first contestant to separate all of their wires wins.
Updated: Boing Boing has some video
A very important question was raised on kottke.org last week –
Let’s say you’re a new father and a movie fan. When your child is of an appropriate age to start watching movies, in which order will you show him/her the six Star Wars movies? By original release date (Star Wars, Empire, Jedi, Phantom Menace, Clones, Sith) or according to the intra-movie chronology (Phantom Menace, Clones, Sith, Star Wars, Empire, Jedi)?
In the comments section, Jeffrey Veen gave what was arguably the best answer:
Actually, I guess I do have a preference for order: Show him Episodes 4 and 5 together and let him know that “They find Han – he was ok.” Leave it at that. Let him experience the later disappointments as we did – all grown up.
Amen.
I have no idea why I thought of this song, but I feel a need to rant…
This is most likely my least favorite song of all time. They played it every freaking hour on the radio back in 1980. These guys made the Knack seem talented. Bad lyrics, bad music, bad bad BAD. I’m sure they were a great band to see live, but since I hated them so much I never bothered.
Damn, that sucks.
Looking back to the early 1980’s, this song along with anything by Bruce Springsteen, Bob Seger and Jackson Browne made me jump up and change the radio channel.
From Wired.com:
2. Schrödinger’s cat
A cat is trapped in a box with radioactive material, a Geiger counter, and a mechanism rigged to release poison if particle decay is detected. According to Erwin Schrödinger, the cat exists in two probable states. But that doesn’t track with reality (cats are not both alive and dead). Proposed in 1935, the postulate illustrates that some quantum concepts just don’t work at nonquantum scales. Also that Schrödinger was a dog person.
8. Parfit’s teleporter
Philosopher Derek Parfit is famous for basing thought experiments on sci-fi.
In 1984, he envisioned a teleporter malfunction, like the one that made two James T. Kirks in an episode of Star Trek. Teleporters annihilate every particle in you, then rebuild them from scratch. What happens if the original isn’t destroyed? Which is the real you? Parfit says both. Evil Kirk would disagree.
Great article from David Wong – why 99.99999% of the world’s population are “one-dimensional characters” to us:
Picture a monkey. A monkey dressed like a little pirate, if you wish. We’ll call him Slappy.
Imagine you have Slappy as a pet. Imagine a personality for him. Maybe you and he have little pirate monkey adventures and maybe even join up to fight crime. You’d be sad if Slappy died, wouldn’t you?
Now, imagine you get five more monkeys. Tito, Bubbles, Fluffy, Marcel and ShitTosser. Imagine personalities for each of them. Maybe one is aggressive, one is affectionate, one is distant and quiet. And so on. They’re all your personal monkey friends.
Now imagine a hundred monkeys. Then a thousand.
How long until you can’t tell them apart? Or remember their names? At what point, in your mind, do your beloved pets become just a faceless sea of monkey? If you get enough monkeys, you’ll eventually have enough that you no longer even care if one of them dies.
Now, each of these monkeys is every bit the monkey that Slappy was. It’s just that you don’t give a rat’s ass any more.
EDIT 20100601 – updated with new link to cracked.com
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