Quick comments
1. Greatest award ever? The Ig Nobel for linguistics for this year:
Linguistics – A University of Barcelona team for showing that rats are unable to tell the difference between a person speaking Japanese backwards and somebody speaking Dutch backwards.
2. James Randi has challenged the reviewer of a pair of $7,250 audio cables to prove he can tell the difference between them and equivalent (and still overpriced) Monster cables. His million is the prize. While Randi is right in principle, it’s a little concerning. The review Randi quotes is absurd, but with the right equipment and really good ears it seems possible to hear a difference between the two cables. Extraordinarily unlikely, in my opinion, but possible in a non-paranormal way. In the end, Randi won’t be taken up for the same reasons the other famous purveyors of pseudo-scientific bullshit won’t: the risk to their livelihood is too great.
3. Downside to being an atheist: I have to deity to blame for the snow here. It’s October, I’m not prepared for this yet.
See if you can identify this obscure reference: Turn me on, dead man.
That’s supposedly what some Beatles song played backwards says, right?
God must have different plans for different parts of the country, because there’s a house nearby with a hand-painted in sign in front announcing that global warming (and the tsunami and the wars) are God’s punishments for our devilish
good looksdeeds.Right – “Number Nine” played backward sounded oddly like ernmeonedman – the Beatles publicity people or someone was doing a scam that Paul was dead, and this was part of the evidence.