Nerd alert

Just when you thought maths was boring......

I Will Derive



Pi Day Song (Lose Yourself in the Digits)



Finite Simple Group (of Order Two)

I shouldn't, but I'll bite.....

The following comment was made regarding my last post:

God hater.

Let me give you some good advice. If you are walking down the street, and you come across God, your enemy, you will need weapons of power - a sword, a shield, and a dagger. You will need trinkets of magic - a ring, a magic bag, and a shawl.

Don't rely on helpful witches. eBay is your best bet.


I'll respond to this without attacking the anonymous author themselves, in contrast to what they have done. However I always find it curious that some claimants of a form of supernatural belief seem to be the angriest, most violent and unkind people. Chill out.

They claim that am I god hater. Just leaving aside the fact that hate is a very strong word, I don't hate god. How can you hate anything that, looking at all the evidence, doesn't exist. It's like saying I hate the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, or the Tooth fairy. It's a waste of energy to hate the non-existent. All I say is that we don't need the concept of a god or gods to explain the world around us. We've started to grow up.

How will I recognise this god they speak of if I'm walking down the street? Will they be wearing a badge, "Hello! My name is God."? And why does this being need to find me on the street? Can't this god find me anywhere? Why wait? Can I keep finishing each sentence in this paragraph with a question mark?

The weapons required seem a bit medieval. Surely if I'm to face this omnipotent being I'll need more firepower. How about a H-Bomb, or at least a 9 mm Uzi or a phased plasma rifle in the 40 watt range. A ring, a magic bag and a shawl are probably the best defensive measures. When dealing with imaginary beings it's best to use imaginary objects. And at least the shawl will keep me warm during these cold winter days....

As I don't know any witches, eBay was always going to be my first point of call. Do you think this shawl would look good on me? It's only $1200.

Rants that I would have been proud to have written

Here are a couple of posts from other bloggers that you have to read.

The first one is a response to an article written by Yvonne Fullbright on 'transcendent sex', whatever that is. It goes through the article line by line showing the flaws in the logic. For example,

'Some people actually supersede the state of climax and reach a state of transcendent sex.'

“Some people” is a fun trick to use when you have no actual evidence to support your premise. “Some people say that Yvonne Fullbright eats the souls of orphan children!” See? It’s easy and fun.

The next one is by PZ Myers on the curious case of a boy exiting a church after receiving communion without, shock horror, swallowing the host. This post was followed by a volley of vitriolic hate mail including death threats. He has posted some of the responses on his website complete with the offenders email addresses. Someone tracked down one of the death threat emails to the source and the perpetrator was using her work email. She was fired. Her husband then came out and said that he wrote the email and, get this, it was PZ Myers fault that she got the sack.

And to round it off with WYD nearly over, here is a bit about Padre Pio, whose body was flown in for the occasion. There's nothing like a corpse to get the youth of the world feeling happy.

World youth day: Good for the profession

With World Youth Day nearly upon us, here is one way the economy may be, um, invigorated.

Brothels braced for Papal visit
Check out the photos and their captions, superb. I can't paste them here due to copyright laws.

By the way, why is it called World Youth Day when it goes for 6 days? The church has never been good with anything that requires math. Too much thinking and rationality. We don't want that, do we?

And I like this bit of thinking from Julian Morrow..

Thanks to the World Youth Day Amendment Regulation signed by the the Deputy Premier, John Watkins, on June 25, doing something which "causes annoyance or inconvenience to participants in a World Youth Day" could now lead to a criminal conviction.

It is astounding this law was signed off by Mr Watkins, who is also the Minister for Transport. One of the main causes of annoyance and inconvenience in this state - and one likely to affect World Youth Day participants - is the public transport system. Atheism notwithstanding, I pray to God that Mr Watkins will cop a fine under his ridiculous law.

Among the Living 08: We may have a winner

Jane McGrath has left this earth, however for Minkey this takes her to the top of the leader board with 42 points.

This will take some beating.