Karl! Karl!

• Slate has a somewhat interesting take on the mathematics of counting sexual partners.
  
• The NYT has a short article on some solipsistic ideas. (More commentary on this week's Science Times)
  
• Also in the NYT, a nice fluff piece on the Veyron (if you wonder what it is, you're probably not interested). I actually debated mentioning it here but the kicker was the line ``like an antiproton in a particle collider.''
  
• From Gizmodo:
  
  
  
  • A homemade telescope made with a cooking pot?
    
  • Ever seen a large supercomputer?
    
  
  
• The FSP is upset about a crude and offensive conversation she overhead between two male ministers. I certainly don't defend what was said, but I would hate to be judged by various conversations I've had! I think I can objectively say I'm fairly progressive, but in the confines of good friends, it can be a bit exhilarating to say verboten stuff. Of course, you could argue then I must be a cretin even to be able to say them in private (even though I don't really think them). Perhaps, but I can sense my primitive, ``animal'' roots within...sort of like one might say "he/she is in touch with his/her female/male side."
  
• Julianne at Cosmic Variance has some weird eating habits that she suspects typifies science geeks (Sean is not going to be happy about such generalizations of science-types). I find this a bit strange. I don't do such things, but food for me is fairly sacred. Nor do I do crossword puzzles (we just saw the reasonably captivating documentary Wordplay). In fact, I've never been any sort of puzzle person. I'd read all the popular physics stuff I could find. And I'd take apart anything I could...that I couldn't get it back together again was always a nuisance. Oh, one other geek thing I did was to construct an elaborate string-crane system by which, without leaving my bed, I could maneuver a paper clip anywhere in the room and retrieve things (well lightweight things).
  
• I've been trying to understand why Bush supporters piss me off so much. Intuitively I've known, but it's hard to put into words. It's not that they disagree with me or my positions...such diversity is good. No, instead it's a bit reminiscent of the classroom environment of Bart Simpson...sort of like Martin Prince piping up asking for the assignment to require more pages and that it be typed. Or imagine aliens come invade and enslave the Earth, only to find some resident of say Albania helping the aliens. You could accept them working to further Albania's interests, but not the aliens'. In the current environment, support for Bush is essentially unforgivable. Sort of like those people who make it profitable for spammers and like people who support inane and inflammatory talk radio/tv (speaking of, it sounds like Imus is coming back).