Category: Miscellaneous

Today is the centennial anniversary of the province of Alberta. I should make a cake or something.

An interesting look at regenerating mice and the potential for the science to be applied to humans.

Creating a design in 3D space and then having it printed in the material of your choice is something I’ve been hearing about for years; even the design class at my high school had a 3D lathe, but reading this Wired Article on 3D Printing, it seems they’ve taken things to a new level.

Oh and while I’m on the topic of Wired Articles, you should probably check out the expose on the clone capable claiming religious group the Raelians.

“Two amateur documentary makers say they’ve infiltrated the UFO cloning sect known as the Raelians and come away with candid videos they hope will further tarnish the group’s reputation and even help shut it down.”

I found it kind of funny (funny strange, not funny – haha) because the guy making the video said he became suspicious of the group after learning they ask their members for a whopping 1% of their annual income; nope his suspicions didn’t come from the sex parties or their claim of aliens cloning humans – but when he found out they want money?! Well it must be a cult based on the 1% donation request.

I stumbled upon an interesting site that explains how to start a fire using a pop can and some chocolate. I’ll have to try this sometime.

Even though it’s kind of old news, I stumbled upon a selection of photos from the i am 8-bit video game art show opening. Too bad all the cool stuff happens in California.

The NPR has a short interview with David Mikkelson, the co-founder of Snopes.com. (Snopes is my favorite site for information about Urban Myths and other rumours).

While reading Malcolm Gladwell’s bestselling book, Blink, I learned that sometimes we have subconscious biases that are not exactly politically correct. A research team at Harvard University has come up with what they call the Implicit Association Test, or IAT for short. The IAT measures implicit attitudes and beliefs that people are either unwilling or unable to report.

Take the test and it may surprise you what your subconscious mind thinks about:

• Age (‘Young – Old’ IAT)
• Gender – Science
• Race (‘Black – White’ IAT)
• Presidents (‘Presidential Popularity’ IAT)
• Sexuality (‘Homosexual – Straight’ IAT)
• Gender – Career
• Arab-Muslim (‘Arab Muslim – Other People’ IAT)
• Weight (‘Fat – Thin’ IAT)
• Religion (‘Judaism – Other Religions’ IAT)
• Disability (‘Disabled – Abled’ IAT)
• Native American (‘Native – White American’ IAT)
• Asian American (‘Asian – European American’ IAT)
• Weapons (‘Weapons – Harmless Objects’ IAT)
• Skin-tone (‘Light Skin – Dark Skin’ IAT)

I took the tests both on Age and Gender and it was calculated that I do not appear to have either an age bias or a gender bias. Sometimes a person’s results can indicate a bias and in retaking the test it may still be hard to correct that bias even though you know you have it and are trying to avoid it from showing.

I’m back from my trip to Drayton Valley and Edmonton. I saw Jackie and Glen’s new house and played with my nephew Ryker. He’s so amazingly cute!

In Edmonton we went to the Fringe Festival to check out the street performers and had a great time. We wanted to see one of the plays but couldn’t get through dinner and get down there fast enough after we decided which play to see. The thing about the plays at The Fringe is, they are selected based on a lottery system, so just because a play is selected to be performed, doesn’t mean it will be good. But that’s part of the fun – finding a good play. Based on the reviews we thought we had a winner.

The only other Fringe Festival I’ve been to was in Adelaide, Australia, and I think the one in Edmonton is a little bit bigger and therefore a little bit better. We had a good time anyway.

I’m just finishing up my packing for a weekend trip to Drayton Valley and Edmonton. No new posts until I’m back on Sunday night.

I found a site with a tutorial on how to make your own spider out of five $1 bills. I never tried it, but it looks pretty cool all the same. Plus I don’t have five American dollars just lying around and don’t really feel like folding up five Fives.