tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-124273722024-03-23T11:28:58.780-07:00Strange/TrueAn Odd Blog For Odd Times.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12427372.post-1160854390138231412006-10-14T12:24:00.000-07:002006-10-14T12:35:08.026-07:00My Favorite Blogger Errors<span style="font-size:130%;">Collect 'em all!<br /><br />1) Your request could not be processed. Please try again.<br /><br />2) Files published…0%...Files published…0%...Files published…0%...Files published…0%<br /><br />3) There were errors. (Hide details ...)<br /><br />001 java.io.IOException: EOF while reading from control connection<br /><br />4) The connection was reset<br /><br />The connection to the server was reset while the page was loading.<br /><br />* The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few moments.<br /><br />* If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer's network connection.<br /><br />* If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.<br /><br />5) Blogger Problem<br /><br />This server is currently experiencing a problem. An engineer has been notified and will investigate.<br /><br />Status code: 1-500-36<br /><br />6) Try publishing your post 5 times and get nowhere 5 times according to the fun 0% dealie. Then check your blog and discover 5 identical posts. Attempt to delete 4 of them. Get one of the other errors. Repeat.<br /><br />Now, I know it would be too much to expect a small-time mom-and-pop operation like Google to get its act together and run a blogging service with the uptime of your average Geocities page, but I haven't given up hope. After all, I'm still using them, aren't I? (Quietly calculating how long it would take to switch all my posts over to...any suggestions?)<br /><br />But maybe the <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,127499-c,webauthoringsoftware/article.html">creative hackery and network outages</a> of the past month or so have finally gotten their attention. Why, just listen to their PR person: "We know how important Blogger is to our users, so we take issues like this very seriously."<br /><br />While Google is busy taking this all very seriously, feel free to post any errors I've missed in the comments below. If that particular function is working today.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12427372.post-1160157977028806952006-10-06T11:06:00.000-07:002006-10-12T23:42:12.846-07:002006 Ig Nobel Prizes AnnouncedThe Annals of Improbable Research has announced the winners of the 2006 <a href="http://www.improb.com">Ig Nobel Prizes</a>, the slightly less prestigious counterpart of the Nobel Prizes awarded this month. Scientific breakthroughs honored this year included:<br /><br /><li>An explanation for why woodpeckers don't get headaches<br /><br /><li>The invention of a teenager repellant, which emits an annoying noise audible to teenagers but not most adults<br /><br /><li>Why the sound of fingernails on a blackboard is so bloody awful<br /><br /><li>A paper entitled "Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital Rectal Massage." Which pretty much speaks for itself, I think.<br /><br />Read all about these and the other Ig Nobel Prizes in the <a href="http://www.improb.com/">Annals of Improbable Research</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12427372.post-1159302320868645962006-09-26T13:15:00.000-07:002006-09-26T13:25:20.910-07:00Dead llama dumped on the street in Oakland. Yeah, it's a rough townThe SF Chronicle has just reported that a dead llama was found dumped in the middle of the street on 89th Ave in Oakland's scenic eastern precincts. For some reason its legs were tied, though the authorities claim there's no sign of foul play and the unfortunate beast appears to have died of old age. So obviously the Chronicle's in on the cover-up. My personal theory is that a rogue gang of ruthless alpacas is expanding into East Oakland, which has historically been llama turf. <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/09/26/BAG8MLCVAI11.DTL">Read all about it</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12427372.post-1152560626364178952006-07-10T11:55:00.000-07:002006-07-18T10:27:26.746-07:00New rules for soccer - a modest proposal<span style="font-size:100%;">Having just finished watching the World Cup with a mixture of boredom, disillusionment, and the occasional short-lived burst of excitement, I'd like to make a modest proposal that I feel will dramatically improve this beloved game we know as soccer, or football, or futbol, or footie, or kick-ye-the-ball, etc.<br /><br />As I see it, far too much time is wasted by players running incessantly around the field, attempting to dribble the ball around other players only to be tripped up and stomped upon, passing to their teammates only to be intercepted, and attempting time after time to score goals only to be blocked by the opposing defenders and their goalie. Countless hours are consumed by such pointless activities, and all too often, players are seriously injured by collisions with each other, with the ball, with the field, with the goal, and various combinations thereof. What a shameful waste of time and talent!<br /><br />After watching this latest World Cup, I think we can all agree that soccer is really about penalty kicks, corner kicks, and other set pieces. A disproportionate number of goals are scored this way, and all the running around, collisions, falling down, rolling about in agony, etc. are clearly intended to produce opportunities for free kicks and their ilk. And if the free kicks scored during the game don't give one team a clear advantage, the penalty kick shootout at the end will. For instance, in the World Cup final yesterday...what an inspiring ending! So if you aren't scoring on free kicks of one sort or another, you clearly aren't playing soccer.<br /><br />Therefore, I propose that we streamline this revered sport by cutting right to the chase and basing all scoring entirely on free kicks. Fortunately, an excellent model already exists in the time-honored playground game of H-O-R-S-E. While H-O-R-S-E originated on the basketball court, it could work equally well on the soccer pitch. For those unfamiliar with this noble pastime, here are its rules - rules I think you'll find truly elegant in their simplicity:<br /><br />The game may be played with as few as 2 people, and as many as desired. The only skill required is shooting; no player is allowed to defend. [For soccer the goalie would be kept since it's such fun to watch him dive and flail about.]<br /><br />With 2 players, the first player may shoot from anywhere on the court [aka pitch]. There is no penalty if the first player misses; the second player then gets to shoot from anywhere on the court. If either player makes their shot, the next player must make the same shot from the same position; if the next player misses, they get a "letter" from the word "horse". The first player is again free to shoot from another spot on the court, however the player may not shoot from a spot where a shot was already made in the same game. A player is knocked out of the game once they have enough letters to spell out the word "horse;" the last player remaining wins.<br /><br />The game is essentially the same with 3 or more players but the rules may vary slightly. [Imagine three soccer teams competing at once - what an innovation! "And Brazil makes the shot, and stays at 'H' - and now Italy makes the shot as well, and they're safe at 'H' too - but it's bad news for France, as Henry misses! Sorry France, I'm afraid it's 'H-O' for you. They're raging in the brothels of Montmartre right now, I can tell you that! And what's this? It appears Zidane has set fire to an Italian player's jersey - oh, the humanity!"<br /><br />Often, the shots in H-O-R-S-E are trick shots that are rarely, if ever, taken in a real game; although unlikely, if the shot succeeds, the opponent is much more likely to miss and therefore receive a letter. Elaborate routines and "call" shots, such as "off the backboard" or "left-handed hook shot," are frequently allowed, and the shooter's actions must be followed exactly for the next player's shot to be considered good. [Yet another advantage of H-O-R-S-E - instead of waiting around for hours to see a creative or exciting shot, you'd get to see them all the time, as players strive to outdo each other for the honor of team and country. Each player on a team would step up and make the most challenging shots of which he's capable, striving to make things as difficult as possible for the opponent who must equal his prowess or receive the dreaded letter.]<br /><br />To keep things interesting, why confine ourselves to H-O-R-S-E? Why not use different words from the respective languages of the competing teams? "Schadenfreude," for instance, or "prosciutto". What a stellar opportunity to build cross-cultural understanding while improving the vocabularies of foreign language students everywhere!<br /><br />So who's with me? Isn't it time we retire all the tedious "passing" and "dribbling" that's led to so much wasted time, so many lost scoring opportunities, and so many players brought down in their prime? Let's join together in shouting "Hurrah for H-O-R-S-E!" Post your support in the comments and I'll forward our humble petition to FIFA in time for the next meeting of their rules committee.<br /><br />(Thanks to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org">Wikipedia</a> for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_%28game%29#H-O-R-S-E">Rules of H-O-R-S-E</a>.)</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12427372.post-1147458385022998332006-05-12T11:03:00.000-07:002006-05-12T11:28:58.023-07:00Sea lion runs amok at the Berkeley MarinaThe Berkeley Marina, one of the more idyllic spots in the East Bay and where I once embarked on an <a href="http://anglerama.blogspot.com/2005/05/salmon-and-dramamine.html">ill-advised fishing trip</a>, has recently been terrorized by a 1500 pound male sea lion, who seems convinced it's his turf. 1500 pounds is a lot of sea lion -- for comparison, a classic VW Bug tips the scales at about 1786 pounds, though a newer one weighs quite a bit more, especially with a <a href="http://strangetrue.blogspot.com/2006/04/finally-jet-powered-vw-bug.html">jet engine installed</a>. So an angry male sea lion driving an old Beetle could easily have a combined weight of over 3000 pounds, not something I'd care to see hurtling down the street anytime soon.<br /><br />Anyway, enough with the weights and measures, there's marauding wildlife on the loose. According to the <a href="http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/05/12/BAGPNIQS5Q1.DTL">SF Chronicle</a>, the sea lion's most notorious assault was an attempt to drag the crew member of a fishing boat into the water by biting her leg, after which a tug of war ensued with another crew member who had the presence of mind to grab her arm. Being bitten by a surly sea mammal and then pulled in two directions, especially with 1500 pounds on one side of the equation, really can't have been a lot of fun. I hope she got a tetanus shot afterwards, too; lacking opposable thumbs, sea lions are not known for their oral hygiene.<br /><br />Since California state law prohibits harassing sea lions, even those prone to harassment themselves, marina folk had to petition the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for permission to fend off the raging pinniped with the admirably humane strategy of spraying him in the face with hoses. Which doesn't sound that bad to me, particularly on a hot day down at the docks, but then I'm not a sea lion. Maybe it's like kryptonite for them.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12427372.post-1146945400113112932006-05-06T12:27:00.000-07:002006-05-06T13:04:44.806-07:00See if your home will escape rising sea levels!A friend has just alerted me to one of the <a href="http://flood.firetree.net/?ll=43.3251,-101.6015&z=13&m=7">best uses</a> of online mapping software yet devised -- helping you plan your future relocation once rising sea levels have inundated your home! You can use the handy pulldown menu in the upper left corner to choose the potential increase in sea level. In case you're wondering, which you ought to be, some predictions call for a 7 meter rise over the next 50 years. (For those unfamiliar with the exotic, Eurotic ways of the metric system, a "meter" is just over three feet, what we right-thinking folk call a "yard". Fascinating, eh? It's like taking a trip to Europe, it is!)<br /><br />As luck would have it, my Oakland, CA domicile will escape a 7 meter rise by at least a half-mile. News this good makes me want to go burn some tires in the yard, barbecue an endangered salmon, and finally, as the sun sets behind a pretty petro-haze, drive a vintage 8-cylinder automobile to the beach and leave it idling while I frolic in the ever-rising tide.<br /><br />For the rest of you closer to sea level, fret not, many a happy home has been <a href="http://www.travelblog.org/Photos/115824.html">built atop stilts</a>. In other good news, local lagoon <a href="http://flood.firetree.net/?ll=37.8056,-122.2574&z=3">Lake Merritt</a> will fulfill its destiny and finally be reunited with the sea.<br /><br />Yes, now you can see Waterworld the way it should've been made -- on a global scale, and without Kevin Costner.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12427372.post-1146761442853371912006-05-04T09:43:00.000-07:002006-05-04T09:52:48.246-07:00New MSN AdCenter doesn't support Firefox browser. How very surprising.OK, this is more a tech rant than a real strange/true post, but true to form, Microsoft refuses to let you navigate their new <a href="http://advertising.msn.com/msn-adcenter">search advertising site</a> with arch-competitor and damn fine browser Firefox. Shocking, I know. Given that my curiosity about this new product outweighs my Firefox loyalty (albeit barely), I guess it's time to fire up the creaky IE browser I have lying around here somewhere. Now if I can only remember where I left it. Somewhere in the Program Files, maybe? No way I'd leave it someplace so obvious as the desktop. Maybe behind this pile of dirty socks?<br /><br />For those of you who don't give a rat's ass about such petty dot.com foolery, apologies for the digression. We'll be back to bigfoots and lake monsters and jet cars shortly.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12427372.post-1146427051430702362006-04-30T12:37:00.000-07:002006-04-30T12:59:29.820-07:00Finally, a jet-powered VW BugI'd always wondered why none of our local Silicon Valley techies had gotten around to customizing a Volkswagen with a jet engine. Well, at long last one has: Ron Patrick, owner of ECM, a Sunnyvale-based automotive technology firm, has put a quarter-million dollars into attaching a General Electric T58-8F jet engine developing 1450 horsepower to a 2000 VW Beetle. The SF Chronicle provides <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/04/30/MNGJGII7BB1.DTL">in-depth coverage</a> of his engineering feat, and I think I smell a Pulitzer in their future - or maybe it's just jet fuel.<br /><br />While it's illegal to power up the jet engine on California's highways, Patrick admits to having done so on occasion and hasn't been pulled over for it yet. (And I have to wonder if a cop would be able to catch him anyway if he really opened up the throttle.) In addition to the intoxicating speed, he mentions that the deafening sound is a big part of the experience: "Just starting it up, it's like a (Boeing) 747 landing in your front yard."<br /><br />As to why he did it, the motives are straightforward and most excellent: "The purpose of this car is to have fun and be stupid...This is entertainment. It's a toy, a toy for silly boys."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12427372.post-1146109924520403542006-04-26T20:36:00.000-07:002006-04-26T20:53:19.456-07:00Quantum effects in biology: enzymes use quantum tunneling to speed chemical reactionsFor those who, like me, are curious how the strange behavior of particles on a subatomic level affects the biological processes that make life possible and keep us walking around everyday, some fascinating new research has come out in the journal <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/">Science</a> on how quantum phenomena help enzymes speed biochemical reactions. Indeed, without such quantum help, it seems unlikely we'd be here at all. <br /><br />"While classical theory states that enzymes speed up the reaction by lowering the energy barrier, quantum tunneling allows the reaction to occur by tunneling through the barrier," explains one of scientists involved, David Leys of the University of Manchester. "As such, the reaction can occur at greater speeds than if the particle would have to reach energies high enough to surmount the barrier."<br /><br />You can read more about the enzyme research in the April 14 edition of Science as well as in <a href="http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2006/04/the_quantum_shortcut.php">this article</a> from Seed Magazine entitled "The Quantum Shortcut". Some interesting questions this raises are how the unusual quantum effects of nonlocality and entanglement addressed by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell's_theorem">Bell's Theorem</a> might impinge on reactions that rely on quantum phenomena.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12427372.post-1144798284551619502006-04-11T16:31:00.000-07:002006-04-14T18:26:26.320-07:00Giant chunks of ice falling mysteriously from the sky? Just another day in Oakland...It's been raining for weeks and weeks here in the Bay Area, and lately the precipitation has taken a rather disturbing turn. It seems a large chunk of ice recently fell to earth in Oakland's scenic Bushrod Park, less than a mile from my house. By large, I mean over 200 pounds. No ordinary hail, to say the least. According to this <a href="http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_3697520">Oakland Tribune story</a>, such mysterious ice falls have been recorded the world over. Some ostensible experts claim that pieces of ice on this scale form on aircraft, and tend to break off as they're preparing to land. So that's one possibility, especially since the Oakland airport isn't too far from where the marauding cube dug its two-foot wide crater. Though the article also helpfully notes that similar impacts were being recorded well before the invention of aircraft.<br /><br />Just for speculative kicks, one can't help but wonder what else might it be...a miniature comet, spillage from a celestial cocktail hour, debris from a secretive, high-impact version of <a href="http://www.usacurl.org/basics/main.html">curling</a>? Beyond the eminently sensible and equally dull aircraft hypothesis, the scientific community doesn't seem to have many answers. "I don't like to claim that anything is absolutely impossible, but this comes awfully close," one expert on hail told Science magazine. <br /><br />Reassuring words indeed. While our nation's scientists continue to seek the source of our enigmatic frozen adversary, I'm going to go price some titanium roofing.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Ice Update, April 14:</span><br /><br />It seems that disconcertingly large pieces of ice continue to plummet earthwards here in California, with another chunk landing on the gymnasium of Loma Linda University in San Bernardino County, way down there in SoCal. <a href="http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/04/14/MNGM9I9BUC8.DTL">Read all about it</a>...if you dare. Of course you dare.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12427372.post-1144020547050014762006-04-02T15:58:00.000-07:002006-05-18T08:55:08.736-07:00Ever wonder how you'd go about eating the snails in your garden? Well wonder no more...After discovering hordes of cute but voracious little snails overrunning my garden, I got to wondering, as I often do about living things that cross my path, whether they're edible. I had a plateful of escargot long ago at Chez Jean in Cambridge, MA (now <a href="http://www.bostonphoenix.com/alt1/archive/food/reviews/11-23-95/CHEZ_HENRI.html">Chez Henri's</a>) and I kinda liked the flavor -- the flavor being primarily butter and garlic and salt and also more butter. So I did some research on the handy Interweb and discovered that the snails colonizing my garden here in the Bay Area are the very same species that populate the plates of French gourmands. Apparently a French entrepreneur imported them to the region during the Gold Rush in the hopes of satisfying the palates of sophisticated miners. It turned out there weren't many miners matching that description, so he ended up dumping his inventory, bequeathing us the legions of pesky escargot who defoliate our gardens today.<br /><br />If you like combining your pest control efforts with culinary experimentation, you can learn how to serve up the slimy yet savory suckers in this <a href="http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2003/05/05/urbananimal.DTL">SF Chronicle interview</a> with Berkeley horticulturist and snail aficionado Victor Yool. The key steps are: <br /><br /><li>Obtain a supply of snails by perusing various outdoor plants. Calla lilies are apparently one likely locale.<br /><br /><li>Rid the snails of any impurities, such as snail poison set out by less enterprising gardeners. This can be accomplished by feeding them corn meal or tasty greens or some other mild vegetarian diet for a couple weeks. Yes, a couple weeks. I never said this would be fun. You'll also need a secure place to keep your snails; some sort of large plastic bin with a top to prevent escape should do the trick.<br /><br /><li>Next, toss them all in a pot of boiling water and skim off the vast quantities of nasty scum that will apparently arise as a result. In fact, you may need to change the water, such are the quantities. Again, never said this would be fun. After all the scum's gone, your snails are ready for eating.<br /><br /><li>Since snails don't taste like much (though one ungenerous soul mentioned in the interview likened them to burned rubber bands) you should now douse them in some combination of butter, salt, pepper, garlic, and any other spices that come to mind. Or if nothing in particular comes to mind, here are some <a href="http://www.cooks.com/rec/search/0,1-0,escargot,FF.html">escargot recipes</a> to help things along.<br /><br />Incidentally, I also once ate a plate of grasshoppers. Or perhaps they were locusts. Definitely not katydids, though. In flavor, they combined the subtle charms of shrimp and corn nuts. In appearance, they resembled a car windshield after a high-speed crossing of the Great Plains. One of these days I'll track down some recipes for those tasty critters as well.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12427372.post-1138305951952986642006-01-26T11:31:00.000-08:002006-05-13T01:07:30.940-07:00Malaysian Bigfoot?As reported in <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060126/ap_on_re_as/malaysia_bigfoot">this AP story</a>, it seems three of the mysterious hominids were recently spotted lurking around a fish farm near Endau Rompin National Park in Malaysia. One has to wonder if they were planning to do some illicit fish harvesting when spotted by workers at the farm. If so, you can't blame them -- it's got to be easier than foraging out in the wilds for whatever it is Bigfoots eat.<br /><br />Spotting an opportunity for both a scientific and eco-tourism coup (haven't you heard? Bigfoot adventure travel is all the rage) the Malaysian government has taken the bold step of forming an official Bigfoot tracking team to gain further evidence of the man-beast's existence, and perhaps evidence of his fish thievery as well. Still unanswered is whether Bigfoot could stand trial for theft in a court of law. If so, I'd nominate the incomparable <a href="http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y189/tundraclown/caveman-lawyer2.jpg">Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer</a> for the defense.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12427372.post-1117603496140647502005-05-31T21:42:00.000-07:002005-05-31T22:45:32.673-07:00The Tahoe Lake Monster - Tessie, To His Friends<span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >A recent ski trip to Tahoe (yes, skiing in May - strange but true) piqued my interest in that vast, beautiful lake and the wildlife beneath its waters - particularly its fish, since I'm a <a href="http://anglerama.blogspot.com/2005/05/tahoe-fishing-downrigger-cameras.html">pretty avid fisherman</a> when I can escape my computer. So when I returned home to Oakland, I did a little online research into the Tahoe ecosystem. What I discovered, in addition to the fact that Tahoe is 1645 feet deep and harbors fish species including rainbow, lake, and brown trout, is that the lake may (or may not) be home to a Nessie-esque lake monster, nicknamed, surprise, Tessie.<br /><br />Tessie is purportedly a long, serpentine beast who's spotted from time to time breaking the surface to breathe and paddling around leaving mysterious v-shaped wakes in the lake. One witness quoted in <a href="http://www.nevadaappeal.com/article/20050515/NEWS/105150036/-1/rss02">this </a><a href="http://www.nevadaappeal.com/article/20050515/NEWS/105150036/-1/rss02">article</a><span class="body2"> </span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">about Tessie observed that the creature </span></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" ><span class="body2">"seemed very lethargic." Perhaps he'd had a few too many trout that day.<br /><br />On another occasion Tessie, perhaps yearning for a screen career, interrupted the filming of a TV commercial being shot on the shores of Tahoe. Unfortunately the footage taken that day was destroyed under mysterious circumstances. If it ever existed at all.<br /><br />As with all alleged monsters, there is no shortage of sensible, level-headed explanations for what's really going on. Tessie could be a beaver, or a sturgeon, or a log, or...anything but a giant landlocked lake serpent from the age of the dinosaurs. And as usual, such explanations are a total joykill, so they're best ignored.<br /><br />If you're ever in the Tahoe region and want to experience the Tessie phenomenon for yourself, stop in at <a href="http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide-2837363-tahoe_tessie_s_lake_tahoe_monster_museum_south_lake_tahoe-i">Tahoe Tessie's Lake Tahoe Monster Museum</a></span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><span class="body2"><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >in Kings Beach, a town on the north shore of the lake. Here you'll find everything you'd want to know about Tessie - well, except for a physical specimen of the beast. For that, you'll have to mount your own expedition into Tahoe's depths. If you ever put one together, let me know...I'll bring the beer.</span><br /><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12427372.post-1116720956187870372005-05-21T16:58:00.000-07:002005-05-25T00:47:20.936-07:00Bigfoot Speaks<span style="font-size:130%;">For all the cryptozoologists out there (and all you kids aspiring to this lucrative and prestigious field) may I recommend the funniest book I've read this year - possibly this decade, in fact: </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=literatelemur-20&creative=9325&camp=1789&link_code=ur2&path=tg/detail/-/091639784X/qid=1114128767/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2?v=glance&s=books"><span style="font-size:130%;">In Me Own Words: The Autobiography of Bigfoot</span></a><span style="font-size:130%;">.<br /><br />In this illustrated memoir sasquatch describes his loathing for Chewbacca, his longing for the girl who ditched him on prom night, his short-lived grunge rock and screenwriting careers, his troubled friendship with Koko, celebrity gorilla and cat fetishist, and his problems with his own cat Craig. I was particularly moved by his memories of childhood, when he had a hard time making friends because the other kids "say I too rough. Say I kill <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">too</span> much. Who make them judge and jury?"<br /><br />And then there are the chapters titled simply "I You Private Dancer" and "I Feel Pretty" which I shall not describe here, since they really must be seen to be appreciated.<br /><br />The fellow responsible, one Graham Roumieu, has another volume out entitled </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=ur2&amp;camp=1789&tag=literatelemur-20&creative=9325&path=tg/detail/-/0740731777/ref=pd_bxgy_img_2?v=glance%26s=books"><span style="font-size:130%;">A Really Super Book About Squirrels</span></a><span style="font-size:130%;">. If his bigfoot book is anything to go by, it's probably...well...super.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12427372.post-1116525486669094942005-05-19T09:43:00.000-07:002005-05-19T23:43:29.760-07:00Isolation Tanks and Altered States<img height=212 src="http://www.dacre.org/flash/www/gbq00090.jpg" width=328><br /><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >When I was 11 or 12 I happened to see the movie <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080360/">"Altered States"</a> on TV and it made a big, weird impression on me. It was directed by the director Ken Russell, known for such freaky fare as The Who's "Tommy" and "Lisztomania". William Hurt plays a Harvard scientist who begins investigating the outer limits of consciousness by floating in an isolation tank, a water-filled box used to create nearly total sensory deprivation. Hurt's character, Dr. Eddie Jessup, discovers that lying in the isolation tank produces hallucinatory visions that seem to reach beyond conventional reality into other, more mystical dimensions of being. When he starts taking a potent hallucinogenic drug (something akin to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaje">yaje</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peyote">peyote</a>) before these "tank trips," things get far stranger, with the help of some cool, 2001-esque special effects; while regressing psychically to a state of primordial awareness, Jessup begins to regress physically as well, eventually taking on the form of an early hominid, busting out of the isolation tank, and going rampaging around the local zoo. Good stuff.<br /><br />Upon discovering that the movie was based on a book of the same name by Paddy Chayefsky, I scampered to the library and checked it out. It proved to be a fine and fast read, and filled in many of the details that the movie, being a movie, couldn't really go into. It also made me want an isolation tank of my very own - yes, they're <a href="http://www.samadhitank.com/">commercially available</a> - but my parents weren't about to shell out for one.<br /><br />In the 1950s and 60s a series of pioneering isolation tank experiments were conducted by <a href="http://www.johnclilly.com/">John C. Lilly</a> at the National Institutes of Health. Chayefsky clearly based much of "Altered States" on Lilly's accounts of these experiments, which you can <a href="http://www.cyrus.org/lilly/experimentx.html">read online</a> and in his book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=ur2&camp=1789&tag=literatelemur-20&creative=9325&path=ASIN/0895560712/qid=1116523706/sr=2-3/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_3">"Tanks for the Memories"</a> (oh, what a title). Like the fictional Dr. Jessup, Lilly used a hallucinogen (LSD) during a "tank trip"; here's how he described it: "That's when I learned that fear can propel you in a rocketship to far out places. That first trip was a propulsion into domains and realities that I couldn't even recount when I came back. But I knew that I had expanded way beyond anything I had ever experienced before, and as I was squeezed back into the human frame, I cried." A common theme in many tank experiences seems to be this sense of leaving the body behind and entering a vast metaphysical space where truths obscured by earthbound reality are revealed.<br /><br />While Lilly never actually changed his physical form in a tank, he did recount the following anecdote about a colleague of his, Dr. Craig Enright: "While taking a trip with me here by the isolation tank, [he] suddenly 'became' a chimp, jumping up and down and hollering for twenty-five minutes. Watching him, I was frightened. I asked him later, 'Where the hell were you?' He said, 'I became a pre-hominid, and I was in a tree. A leopard was trying to get me. So I was trying to scare him away.'"<br /><br />So if you ever invest in a tank of your own, remember to watch out for leopards.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12427372.post-1116352943125217672005-05-17T09:27:00.000-07:002005-05-17T11:08:36.380-07:00Psi Captured on EEG? The Research of Jacobo Grinberg-Zylberbaum<span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >Along with the Ganzeld experiments discussed in <a href="http://strangetrue.blogspot.com/2005/05/does-psi-exist.html">this post</a>, one of the most intriguing areas of psi research involves the use of EEG (electroencephalogram) </span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >readings to monitor the brain wave activity of a sender and receiver for telepathic functioning. This research was pioneered by Dr. Jacobo Grinberg-Zylberbaum at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and was originally reported in the journal Physics Essays (Volume 7, pages 422-428, 1994). The results are summarized by Grinberg in his article <a href="http://www.start.gr/user/symposia/zylber4.htm">"Brain to Brain Interactions and the Interpretation of Reality"</a>:<br /></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" ><br /></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >"We have found that when two subjects interact and later on are separated inside two isolated Faraday cages, and when one of the subjects is stimulated and his brain responds with a clearly evoked potential, the other brain is also activated and responds with what I have called a 'transferred potential'."<br /></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The evoked potential Grinberg refers to was generated with a strobe light flashed into the subject's eyes, producing a distinctive brain wave pattern on the EEG. When the receiver's brain waves were measured by EEG, the same pattern was detected at the same point in time that the sender had seen the strobe flashes. This correlation of patterns did not occur when no stimulus was provided to the sender. In addition, increases in distance did not present any barrier to transmission between brains. A more detailed introduction to the procedure can be found in </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.fiu.edu/%7Emizrachs/quantum-brain.html">this description</a><span style="font-family:arial;"> by Dr. Amit Goswani.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">What does it all mean? If the results are accurate, they point to the existence of some form of nonlocal, instantaneous connection between human brains. The phenomena of </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonlocality">nonlocality</a><span style="font-family:arial;"> and </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement">quantum entanglement</a><span style="font-family:arial;"> -- what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance" -- are often cited as possible factors in the underlying mechanism of transmission.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">In a strange footnote to this scientific saga, Grinberg-Zylberbaum disappeared in late 1994, not longer after this research was published. He hasn't been seen since, and </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.sustainedaction.org/Explorations/professor_jacobo_grinberg.htm">theories abound</a><span style="font-family:arial;"> as to what might have happened to him.</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12427372.post-1115661894033846332005-05-09T10:41:00.000-07:002005-05-09T11:08:35.450-07:00More Solar Dieting...<span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >Following up on our <a href="http://strangetrue.blogspot.com/2005/04/sunlight-diet.html">April 26 post</a> about Hira Manek's purported sunlight diet...Ananova <a href="http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1388470.html?menu=">now reports</a> that a German scientist, Dr. Michael Werner, has subsisted for four years solely on sunlight and water mixed with a little fruit juice. He claims to have even gained weight on this remarkable regimen.<br /><br />Dr. Werner's also got a book out on the subject, entitled "Living through the Energy of Light" (looked for it on Amazon, no luck). While no scientific explanation is yet available, German scientists are on the case and perhaps one will be forthcoming. For his part, Dr. Werner suggests "just a little bit of faith" is a factor in his (non)diet's success.<br /><br />The Werner and Manek cases both recall earlier accounts of people who had learned to live without food. For instance, in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=ur2&camp=1789&tag=literatelemur-20&creative=9325&path=tg/detail/-/0876120796/qid=1115661775/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2?v=glance%26s=books">"Autobiography of a Yogi"</a> the author Paramahansa Yogananda describes a female Indian yogi, Gira Bala, who had not eaten in over 50 years. Yogananda wrote that her "nourishment is derived from the finer energies of the air and sunlight, and from the cosmic power that recharges [her] body through the medulla oblangata."<br /><br />When asked why she didn't share her miraculous dietary secret with the world, Gira Bala replied, "I was strictly commanded by my guru not to divulge my secret. It is not his wish to tamper with God's drama of creation. The farmers would not thank me if I taught many people to live without eating! The luscious fruits would lie uselessly on the ground."</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12427372.post-1115335352825883962005-05-05T15:32:00.000-07:002005-05-05T16:25:19.930-07:00Does Psi Exist?<span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >A topic that's interested me since my first eager perusal of the "Encyclopedia of the Occult" in my junior high library is the existence or non-existence of the phenomenon variously known as telepathy, precognition, ESP, and psi. Essentially, this is the ability to accurately perceive locations, images, thoughts, and objects without the involvement of the known senses. While this purported ability has been the subject of much controversy, and is looked upon with scorn in many academic circles, a substantial body of work has accumulated over the past several decades suggesting that it may in fact be real.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span> <span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >Perhaps the most persuasive studies are those using the Ganzfeld technique, a method for achieving nearly total sensory isolation of the individual attempting to demonstrate psi abilities. In a Ganzfeld experiment, a sender attempts to transmit an image to a receiver in sensory isolation; following the sending period, the receiver attempts to pick the correct image from a selection of candidates, generally four, one of which is the target. </span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span> <span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >According to Daryl Bem of Cornell University, results achieved across a number of Ganzfeld trials yielded a hit rate of around 35%, when random guessing ought to have produced results in the 25% range. In Bem's </span><span style="font-size:130%;"><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://comp9.psych.cornell.edu/dbem/psi_world.html">article on the subject</a></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >, he notes that the odds of achieving a 35% hit rate at random are over 1 billion to one. Remarkably, a group of artistically-gifted receivers recruited from the Juilliard School achieved a hit rate of 50%, suggesting that psi abilities might be closely linked to creativity.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span> <span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >Needless to say, Ganzfeld research has provoked quite a bit of controversy and skeptical rejoinders, which are nicely encapsulated in </span><span style="font-size:130%;"><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://skepdic.com/ganzfeld.html">this article</a></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >. Its defenders, however, have pointed out that continued Ganzfeld experiments have consistently yielded results that deviate significantly from chance. Dean Radin's article </span><span style="font-size:130%;"><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.royalinstitutephilosophy.org/think/article.php?num=13">"Thinking About Telepathy"</a></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" > does a good job of summing up the evidence in favor of psi, and pointing the way towards possible explanations - for instance, in the phenomena of non-locality found in quantum physics. But all that's beyond the scope of this little blog entry - if you're interested in this sort of strangeness, there's no shortage of online material on the subject to help you reach your own conclusions.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span><strong style="font-weight: normal;"><span style=";font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;" ></span></strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12427372.post-1114538185533231372005-04-26T10:26:00.000-07:002005-04-26T11:01:13.043-07:00The Sunlight Diet<span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >This story first cropped up a couple of years ago and I was utterly intrigued and wondered if there was any truth to it. Mr. Hira Ratan Manek (also called Hirachand) an Indian mechanical engineer in his sixties, has purportedly not eaten a thing in almost a decade. He survives on liquids (water, coffee, tea) and by staring directly at the sun for an hour in the evening, which he says provides him all the nutrition he needs. (For most people, staring at the sun is a quick route to blindness, so I'm not recommending this - though Manek claims that in the evening the damaging ultraviolet rays aren't as intense.)<br /><br />According to <a href="http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2003/07/07/surviving_on_a_diet_of_sunlight.htm">some reports</a>, NASA, the US space agency, observed Mr. Manek for over 4 months and declared the phenomena to be real - but after a bit of digging, I've come across <a href="http://web.mid-day.com/news/world/2003/july/57637.htm">this report</a> that NASA had never had any contact with him. James Randi, noted skeptic and debunker, looked into the story with <a href="http://www.randi.org/jr/071103.html">similar results</a>. (Randi also mentions that Manek consumes buttermilk and fruit juices - things that can be quite nutritious. In related news, I've just finished a delicious smoothie and I don't think I'll be hungry for hours. A miracle!)<br /><br />So I'm left with the feeling there's a lot less to this wonderful tale than I first thought. But if you want to find out for yourself, you can always look up Manek through his <a href="http://www.solarhealing.com/">web site</a> and see if he's coming to your area. Just remember to bring sunglasses.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12427372.post-1114452095429296982005-04-25T10:17:00.000-07:002005-04-26T17:54:25.256-07:00Wisconsin Freezerburn<span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >Welcome to Strange But True, a blog devoted to all things odd, anomalous, enigmatic, unexplained, uncanny, and whenever possible, comical. For our first post, I'd like to honor a fellow straight from today's headlines. Hearty Wisconsonite Philip Schuth was hauled in after police found his deceased mother encased in a block of ice in a freezer in his basement. I'm sorry to say it, but he looks exactly like the sort of guy - I mean, troubled loner - who'd keep his mother frozen in a block of ice. </span><span style="font-size:130%;"><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-04-25-freezer-body_x.htm">Doesn't he?</a><br /><br /></span> <span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >Post-refrigeration, Philip proceeded to cash his mom's Social Security checks for almost 5 years. And he undoubtedly would've continued to do so, if he hadn't slipped up and hit the neighbors' kid, and hadn't then pulled a gun on said neighbors when they came over to chat about it, and hadn't then holed up inside the house with his extensive firearm collection when the police came. Best quote from the subsequent armed standoff: Philip's claim that he had "more than 10 but less than 100" bombs stockpiled in the house.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span> <span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >Oh, and there's also some likelihood he actually killed his mom (shocking, I know), since he has a singularly strange excuse for not reporting her death in the first place - that there were bloodstains on the walls from a "cat attack" on his mom many years ago, and because of all the blood he thought the police might consider him a suspect in her death. I can't imagine why they'd go thinking that. People who hole up in houses full of firearms are so rarely violent.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span> <span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >If that's not odd I don't know what is. See you next post.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0