Flatulence Cured!

Everyone gets gas from time to time. Anyone that has eaten at Taco Bell after a night at the bar will attest to that. Evidently there is hope. According to the story from CNN.com Indian scientists have used radiation to “knock out” the guilty chemicals that cause flatulence. I say they rush deliver this technology to Taco Bell, Gianni’s, and the entire country of Mexico.

The real treasures of Slashdot

Hi. My name is Joe Stump and I’m a Slashdot comment troll. I admit it. I spend at least 20 minutes a day reading posts to stories that interest me. Why? Read on for more …

Slashdot comments make up the truly intelligent commentary that make Slashdot so popular. I have my settings so that I never read a comment below a ranking of 3 and must say that I read a LOT of good stuff. Some are informative, others are thought provoking, and a good majority are extremely funny.

My only question is why they aren’t exploited more. Maybe have a top 20 comments that I could browse through? Or promote journals more like Kuro5hin does. I dunno. It seems more could be done with this user added content.

Robot Reporters == Scary

There is a story running over at CNN.com about a researcher building a robot reporter that would be used to rove around battles and feed live audio/video back to the station. Read on for why this is a bad idea.

First off, how many mothers, fathers, daughters, and family members of servicemen are going to want to watch their loved ones dying LIVE ON THE TV? I have two family members whom are enlisted and I can vouch for my family when I say I DON’T want to watch them die in real time.

Second – do we WANT to see the destruction that our sophisticated military wreaks on the enemy? I personlly live in blissful ignorance about how much distruction actually happens. The Daisy Cutters which desimate everything within a 600 yard radius sounds devestating on paper, much less watching it live on a video screen.

Lastly, is the military going to allow this? Nevermind the fact that this is potentially an intelligence nightmare. This could turn into the largest PR fiasco the military has ever seen.

The thing that scares me the most is that this could possibly become POPULAR. That’s right – America’s well known appetite for destruction (ie. WWF, boxing, Ultimate Fighting Championship, etc.) combined with it’s large appetite for “real” TV (ie. Real World, Survivor, etc.) could prove to boost support for this type of reporting.

Personally, I think time would be better spent finding ways to PREVENT the use of our military than building sophisticated robots to view our weapons in action.

Graffitti Party

This last Friday my fraternity threw a “Graffitti” party. For those who don’t know what one is, it’s a party where the guests wear white tshirts and run around in black light writing on each other with highlighters. A ton of people showed up and everyone was wearing tshirts, which made the night fun.

Cat Oddities

Many people who own cats know that cats do everything their way. My cat is not different. One of the things that will never cease to amaze me is the way he eats and drinks his food. He takes his paw and dips it in the water and THEN licks the water off of his paw. Food he digs out with his paw and eats off the floor. It boggles my mind, but I’m sure there’s a method to his madness.

Fraternity Stuff

I haven’t posted in a while mainly because I really haven’t had anything interesting to say and I’ve been really busy doing fraternity stuff. I’ve been traveling a little here and there as well (mostly Wisconsin for conferences). Some good news is that our chapter won Most Improved Chapter in the Great Lakes Region. At any rate I guess I owed you guys an explanation …

See Through Scanners

I’m all for security at airports, but I think those nutheads in charge of security have finally gone too far. It’s a scanner that pretty much allows you to see through clothing making the person look practically nude. Read on …

The worst part about this is that people actually support this. Have you not thought about your wives and your children walking through this thing? How long will it be before there is “scanner porn” on the internet? Are you comfortable letting the creepy scanner guy look at your small daughters naked body?

I’m completely against this and outraged that this might actually get used. If it does get put into place I will NOT be flying to or from airports using this technology. And in the even that I do have to I’m going to write rude messages all over my body to let them know how I feel.

Tip Jars

I’ve been noticing a growing trend – Tip Jars. It seems like all the weblogs I visit now has them. Does this bother me? Not really – I think it’s pretty cool actually. The amount of time, effort, and money that it takes to maintain a consistently interesting weblog is enormous. You’ll probably never see a tip jar on this site, but that’s only because I have a good job and I’m not interesting enough to tip.