The Zombible

Well, this is an odd project:

Though the Bible is an ancient book, full of beautiful prose, timeless stories, and great truths, there has long been a barely spoken of dissatisfaction over the one element it sorely lacks: zombies. At Zombible, we hope to remedy the situation by carefully inserting lovingly crafted zombie-oriented text into the Bible, for the enjoyment and enlightenment of all.

It’s odd because when I read the Bible, I see a great big zombie story already. The central figure in the New Testament is a zombie, and the chief function of the book is to turn people into zombies. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to clean up the metaphors and make it a little more explicit.

Real sign, real poll

The Joliet Jackhammers, a baseball team in Illinois, have put up an interesting sign to get people to buy tickets.

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Some people are unhappy and want it taken down.

“It’s in very poor taste,” Councilwoman Jan Hallums Quillman said. “To have God tell you to buy tickets? Give me a break.”

I wonder if Quillman felt the same way about the serious billboard campaign that had God announcing his will and intentions? There was one that read, “Let’s Meet At My House Sunday Before the Game -God.” Was that in poor taste? It seems to me that many people think it’s perfectly alright to put words in their imaginary deity’s mouth as long as it sounds serious and respectful, no matter what it may be.

Anyway, there’s a poll at the team website.

Should the JackHammers take down the current I-80 billboard?

56%: yes
44%: no

Since it appropriately trivializes the foolishness of claiming that a god speaks, I had to vote no. Keep it up!

It’s as rational as tradition, I suppose

You’re supposed to close your eyes and randomly jab at this picture to choose your deity for future worship.

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I tried it — just closed my eyes and spun around in my chair and reached out and touched the screen — and have discovered that I am now supposed to praise “System Preferences” on my laptop. All hail System Preferences! My System Preferences is mightier than your System Preferences!

GOATS ON FIRE!

Kooks are like stray cats: give them a little bit of attention, and they end up following you everywhere, making annoying squalling noises and clawing at your door. A perfect example is David Mabus aka Dennis Markuze aka That Insane Prat, who, now that registration is a barrier to posting his little kook-droppings here, has taken to trying to flood my mailbox. Ha ha, the laugh is on him, my mailbox is already flooded! Also, I’ve got filters up the wazoo there, anyway.

There a whole lot of skeptics (and the entire faculty of the University of Minnesota Morris, too, who have marveled and laughed at is output) who have been getting these lunatic emails, but I just filter them and delete them. However, Rebecca Watson has pointed out one felicitous random phrase from his recent eruption: GOATS ON FIRE! It’s just sitting there. I have no idea what he’s talking about. But it does seem to me to be a useful term for flagging weird stuff, so I’ve added it to my email filters to highlight any comments that use the phrase. It’ll be handy for bringing the crazy to my attention…as long as you don’t abuse it.

And again, the stray cat effect: crazy David Cumming, author of the God Equation, really wants my attention, and sent me a four page summary of his reasoning. It was too long and too stupid, so I only skimmed it, but in case anyone else wants to add it to their cracked pot collection, I’ve scanned it in. No, don’t thank me. I’m just hoping one of you will shred it apart so that Cumming will follow you home.

It’s very GOATS ON FIRE! There is a section that asks, “Where is the science?”, but when I looked, there isn’t any there.

Cuttlekitsch

I’d happily hang that on my wall. The trophy wife would even more cheerfully tear it down, shred it, and set it on fire. But then, she’s the one with taste*.

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*Don’t judge her by her taste in men. That was a momentary lapse of reason, a one time thing.

Science cookies

I don’t know about this. It’s a page of science-themed cookies, and although I like the sentiment, and they certainly are pretty, little alarm bells go off in my head when I see cookies decorated up like gels. I’ve had to tell students not to eat the acrylamide, it’s toxic. And the cookies that look like streaked petri dishes…oh, horrors! Don’t eat the random colonies of bacteria, either!

The God Equation?

We atheists are done for now. Behold, the God Equation, which I received in email and proves that a deity created us all:

Scientists working in the UK have discovered robust evidence that the creation of the earth and moon was a deliberate act. The researchers found that the earth, moon, and beyond were engineered according to a specific equation. They have dubbed it the God Equation. The equation, which looks like this:

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shows a constant, unchanging relationship between the speed of light, the ratio between the circumference and diameter of a circle, and the radio frequency of hydrogen in space. Artificial intelligence engineer David Cumming, CEO of the Edinburgh-based company Intelligent Earth, recently discovered the equation, and said: “I am a scientist and as such I didn’t at first really believe it myself. But physics is physics, and maths is maths, and you can’t argue with it.”

The discovery of the equation began with research by engineer Professor Alexander Thom (1894-1985) of Oxford University, into the properties of megalithic constructions such as Stonehenge. He found that their construction did not follow existing measurement systems, but did fit in to a pattern of specific lengths which he called megalithic yards. Two independent researchers Christopher Knight and Alan Butler, based in York, then showed that the megalithic system of measurement was directly derived from characteristics of the Earth’s movements through space.

Linking this system of measurements with known constants such as π (pi, the relationship between the circumference and diameter of a circle), Hl, the radio frequency of the hydrogen fine transition in space, Ω (0.0123456789 representing all the characters of the base 10 number system), and the speed of light in a vacuum C0 (C0 = 299,792.458km/sec), and building on research by Knight and Butler, and the work of Professor Alexander Thom, former Reading University doctoral researcher Cumming followed a research programme that resulted in his discovery of the God Equation. The God Equation shows a direct link between the speed of light, the radio frequency of hydrogen in space, pi, and earth’s orbit, rotation and weight. As the possibility of the Earth having the exact required characteristics to fit the equation by chance is remote, and the equation has, in theory, been in existence since the beginning of the Universe, this means that the Earth’s orbit, rotation and weight must have been engineered to fit this equation.

Cumming states: “Although the ratio of a diameter of a circle to its circumference has been known for thousands of years, we have only recently discovered the hydrogen line, the speed of light, and rediscovered the megalithic measurement system. The advance of science, combined with the uncovering of ancient knowledge passed down through the ages, has only now made the discovery of the God Equation possible.”

Well, overwhelming, except for a few little problems.

For instance, the term Hl has units of MHz; the other parameters seem to be dimensionless; and C has units of km/sec. This does not compute. That seems like a rather fundamental error in a very simple equation that must have been formulated by a couple of the geniuses of the age, don’t you think?

Oh, wait…there’s that mysterious Ω term — maybe we’re just missing its units. Except…”0.0123456789 representing all the characters of the base 10 number system”. Oh, come on. I call shenanigans on that one. That’s completely arbitrary and contrived.

How do you get earth’s orbit, rotation, and weight from π?

So I plugged in all those numbers anyway, and did the calculation works out to a value for C of 361,448.9 MHz. This is a bit off.

Oh, but there’s more! There’s a footnote to the email I was sent that mentions that you have to calculate the speed of light in megalithic yards, derived by some esoteric calculation from the dimensions of Stonehenge. A megalithic yard = 0.82966 meters, which then gets you to the right number for the speed of light.

Not bad for a formula with three terms, one of which is pulled out of someone’s ass, and the whole thing requiring a magic fudge factor to bring it into line with neolithic technology.

In case you’re wondering who could be crazy and ignorant enough to propose this kind of nonsense, the mail included a handy set of bios for them.

David Cumming is an innovative scientist working in the field of artificial intelligence. A former PhD student of famous Professor Kevin Warwick at Reading University, England, David is also a graduate of Glasgow University, and Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen. At Robert Gordon University, he was awarded a rare MSc with Distinction for his work on a NASA space shuttle microgravity experiment that flew as a full canister experiment on the Space Shuttle Endeavour.

David was also leader of the Intelligent Earth team that developed the world’s first advertising system that changes advertising according to the gender and age of the person watching the advert – a technology that removes unwanted and annoying advertising and makes advertising appropriate to the watchers. The company also developed Doki, ‘the World’s most gender aware robot, featuring in the Guinness Book of World Records for several years’

He is also the CEO of Safe Cities, who developed a prize-winning intelligent custody photography system in collaboration with ACPO’s Facial Images National Database (FIND) Project and several large Police Forces. These systems are now installed around Britain as an important front end of the National Database.

Christopher Knight’s background is in research. From 1976 he investigated the origins of the rituals used by Freemasons before publishing his first book on the subject in 1996. ‘The Hiram Key’ became an immediate international best seller selling over a million copies and is now in 37 different languages. This was followed by several other bestsellers chronicling his investigations that were taking him further and further back in time.
In 1997 he teamed up with Alan Butler to continue his researches, which had taken him back to the late Stone Age. Following in the footsteps of engineer Professor Alexander Thom, Knight and Butler have reconstructed a complete system of measurement that was used in the British Isles and western France 5,000 years ago. These systems, still identifiable in existing artefacts, were more sophisticated than modern units of measure, although both the Imperial and metric systems have evolved directly from this Neolithic origin.

Alan Butler’s historical studies extend to an in-depth research into the Cistercian monastic movement and the Order of the Knights Templar, about which he has also written extensively. As a professional writer, who has always possessed an absolute fascination for history, Alan set out on a two decade search that led to the unravelling of some of the most important details regarding prehistoric knowledge and achievement in Europe. Alan has also been writing on the subject of astrology since his 20’s and is the most published writer on the subject in Britain.

Crackpots all across the spectrum.