New element discovered

The heaviest element known to science was recently discovered by investigators at a major U.S. research university. The element, tentatively named administratium, has no protons or electrons and thus has an atomic number of 0. However, it does have one neutron, 125 assistant neutrons, 75 vice neutrons and 111 assistant vice neutrons, which gives it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by a force that involves the continuous exchange of meson-like particles called morons.

Since it has no electrons, administratium is inert. However, it can be detected chemically as it impedes every reaction it comes in contact with.

According to the discoverers, a minute amount of administratium causes one reaction to take over four days to complete when it would have normally occurred in less than a second.

Administratium has a normal half-life of approximately three years, at which time it does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which assistant neutrons, vice neutrons and assistant vice neutrons exchange places. Some studies have shown that the atomic mass actually increases after each reorganization.

Research at other laboratories indicates that administratium occurs naturally in the atmosphere. It tends to concentrate at certain points such as government agencies, large corporations, and universities. It can usually be found in the newest, best appointed, and best maintained buildings.

Scientists point out that administratium is known to be toxic at any level of concentration and can easily destroy any productive reaction where it is allowed to accumulate. Attempts are being made to determine how administratium can be controlled to prevent irreversible damage, but results to date are not promising.

(Source unknown)

Rocky Horror what???

Here’s a fairly disturbing idea — celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Rocky Horror Picture Show by remaking it as a made-for-TV movie, keeping the original music and lyrics, but updating it to a more modern setting.

Okay, so maybe there’s a small chance it could work — but I don’t think i’m too optimistic about that. I do, however, like some of the ideas on casting that Rebecca Blood proposed.

Check out my (messy) apartment!

This is too cool! I was playing around at work with printing out some of the panoramic shots I’d clumsily put together using Photoshop, and one of the guys I work with pointed me to a really cool little PC program called Panorama Factory. After taking a series of shots, you feed them into the program, and it does all the work of warping and assembling the pictures into a finished panorama!

The coolest thing about this program, though, is that if you have a full 360-degree set of shots, it can create a Quicktime VR movie file! QtVR files allow you to click and drag around a photograph as if you were standing at the point where the photo was taken — they can be pretty cool to play with. So, on that note, check the rest of this post for a QtVR file I just made of my apartment! It’s a little messy, but that’s about the norm — it’s not too bad, or I wouldn’t put this up! You will, of course, need QuickTime installed on your system to view the file. You’ll also want to give it a moment to load if you’re on a dial-up modem, it’s a 1.1Mb file, so won’t be super-quick.

Mulholland Drive

Okay — so I rented the latest effort from David Lynch, Mulholland Drive. I was a little unsure about it, since the last new Lynch film I’d seen was Lost Highway, which I could not get into at all, and chalked up as two hours of my life that I wouldn’t get back.

After watching Mulholland Drive…

…I give up on David Lynch. Now I need four hours of my life back from him, instead of just two.

Maybe if I got it, I’d know if it was good or not — but Lynch is just too wierd, even for me.

Scooby-Doo

I just got back from seeing Scooby-Doo. It was a mildly entertaining way to waste a couple hours when I had nothing to do, but I can’t really say much more than that about it.

Plotwise — well, it’s Scooby-Doo — not exactly a subject known for its in-depth plots. The effects were passable, but barely. I was a little surprised at some of the more adult-aimed humor that was tossed in — enough that I got a giggle (or at least a smirk) from time to time, but not enough that most parents would have problems taking their kids to see it.

I can say that while most of the cast didn’t really impress me, I was really surprised with Matthew Lillard as Shaggy — he became Shaggy just as much as I thought Hugh Jackman did as Wolverine in X-Men.

All in all — well, a rental if you’re curious, but I can’t give it much more than that.

I’m alive!

I do exist! Really, I do…

I’ve just been more or less ignoring things here for a little while. No real reason — it’s just that there hasn’t been a whole lot going on. I’ve been spending a lot of time playing with music and hanging out in the chatrooms, which — unfortunately — means some of my other pet projects have been getting short shrift. This should be changing, though….

Good ruling, bad timing

Okay — so the Pledge of Allegiance has been ruled unconstitutional, and everyone in the country seems to be up in arms over it.

My take on the whole thing? Good ruling, bad timing. I happen to think that the ruling is quite correct — for a country that is supposed to have a Constitutionally-mandated seperation of church and state, the two words “under God” in the Pledge have always stood out to me as being a bit inappropriate. Of course, when you realize that those two words were added in 1954 as a counter to similar pledges being recited by the “godless commies” during the Cold War, it becomes even more obvious that it was a deliberate blurring of that speration between church and state.

However, I don’t think that the ruling is going to stand. In today’s political climate, with both patriotism and religious fervor running high due to the (ahem) “War on Terrorism”, I just don’t think that even the Supreme Court (should the case make it that high) will have the will to uphold this ruling. A shame, too — no matter my personal religious beliefs, I fully support the decision that was made here.

Simplest solution? Why not just take the words “under God” out of the Pledge?

I know most of these

Here’s a fun little read — someone’s made a list of the top 40 gay themes, compiled not (necessarily) by popularity, but by the songs themselves and their relationship to the gay world. More interesting and less campy than I expected at first.

(via MeFi)