Moe Lane

…they’re fairly sure that Jesus was not actually born on December 25th.  In all probability, shepherds wouldn’t have had flocks out in the fields at that time of year.

Moe Lane

PS: Apparently, the question of whether or not the ancient Romans had a religious holiday on December 25, and whether it was or was not a Mithraic one, is a matter of some dispute that has not quite reached the level of ‘academics fighting each other with knives.’  You learn something new every day…

…that’s exceedingly interesting, and neatly deflates the “Well, Candidate X can’t win because of [insert random bit of historical trivia here]” arguments that we get a lot.  Well-played, although there’s a typo for 1800 and the forums are right: 1996 IS a slight stretch. Forgivable, to be sure.

Gloriously.

Although I don’t know if Randall intended to, this time:

(more…)

Wait, what?

I mean, everybody knows that you can’t synchronize Narnian time.  Don’t laugh; Randall Munroe’s probably getting flack for that in the forums… nope, they’re instead standing up for the year 1958.  Which was… a surprisingly good year for B-films.

…only I don’t have a suitable audio instrumental track to sync to it.

There is a problem with this argument:

And it can be summed up as follows: you read newspaper articles online, yes?  And you know full well that the comments sections to said articles are universally filled by crazy people who write like they had to cram to pass the Turing Test, yes?  And so you know to either not read newspaper comment sections, or else simply skim them for particularly good examples of Teh Crazy, yes?

Yes?

…So why are you assuming that you’re unique in all of that? – Because, well, you’re not. (more…)

No markup on those.

Link.

It’s… weird.  I know that Randall Munroe visibly does not care if you hotlink – he invites you to do that, in fact – but it still feels somehow icky to do it.

…and xkcd has me pegged.  Doubly, in fact: I also like the Robinson map.

And if you to were wondering what the big deal is about the Gall-Peters map projection, check it out.  I already knew that cartographers were very, ah, enthusiastic about their craft; but I’m legitimately shocked that this controversy didn’t end with knives in the sewers.

Moe Lane

It’s the alt-text that does it for me.  Although my favorite types of music are still mostly sold via CD.

Still, I forget who, but somebody once mourned the death of vinyl mostly because it also meant the end of the glory days of album covers…

This xkcd cartoon is interesting:

…both for the science behind it (feel free to demonstrate your superior grasp of biomedical research by understanding this better than I do – which is to say, at all) and the commentary about the strip, which ranges from “ZOMG you’re making jokes referencing cancer you bad person” to “ZOMG you have completely gotten wrong three or four arcane bits about biomedical research you bad person” – although admittedly both of those types of responses are being treated with mockery that was more gentle than it could have been.  All I know is, I think that the possibility was first brought up in “Our Neural Chernobyl.”

Hmm.  I should look up the date that that story was supposed to have taken place.

…comes from xkcd.  Hidden in its depths is a Truth about… well, if I have to explain it then it isn’t true Illumination.  Just go look at it. Do not fail to look at it!

You’re welcome.