A slice of life.

torrain: What are you looking at?

Me: The creepy guys at realdoll.com have something new.

torrain: Realdoll - that sounds familiar. Is that the guy who made an amusement park full of women you could beat up who all looked like his ex-wife?

Me: [. . .] <---- [Editor's Note. This is extremely rare]

torrain: Judging from your expression, probably not. So what's realdoll.com?

Me: ... uh, it's the people who sell the ultrarealistic $4000 sex dolls.

torrain: Oh. That's... wait. *$4000*?

Me: Yes.

torrain: Does it COOK?

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The concept of Brent spawning is inherently hilarious.

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Alaska deploys new electric anti-moose mat to stop them from pouncing the airplanes during takeoffs and landings. No, really.

Creationist Michael Behe, in addition to saying that God is dead and astrology is the same as astronomy, now says that ID advocates can see into the future.

Every time Rothschild would ask Behe about a statement, some he wrote himself, he'd say he'd have to disagree that it said what it said. I expected Rothschild to ask Behe whether he was able to read and understand the English language.

At one point during Rothschild's cross-examination, the lawyer asked the scientist whether he was co-authoring a book, a follow-up to "Of Pandas and People," with several other intelligent design mullahs. He said he wasn't. The lawyer showed him depositions and reports to the court, quoting two of the other authors as saying he was a co-author.

Behe said that he wasn't a co-author of the book but that the statements by those guys weren't false. He said one of the authors was "seeing into the future. Duh, I eat poop."

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The Kansas Supreme Court ruled Friday that the state may not punish illegal underage sex more harshly if it involves homosexual conduct.

The Supreme Court sided in a unanimous decision with convicted sex offender Matthew Limon. In 2000, he was sentenced to 17 years and two months in prison because, at 18, he performed a sex act on a 14-year-old boy. Had one of them been a girl, Limon could have faced only 15 months behind bars.

The court ordered Limon to be resentenced as if the law treated illegal gay sex and illegal straight sex the same, and it struck language from the law that resulted in the different treatment.

Writing for the high court, Justice Marla Luckert said the Kansas law specifying harsher treatment for illegal gay sex is too broad. "The statute inflicts immediate, continuing and real injuries that outrun and belie any legitimate justification that may be claimed for it," Luckert wrote. "Moral disapproval of a group cannot be a legitimate state interest."

Court records say his encounter with a boy identified only as M.A.R. was consensual, but Kansas law makes sex with someone under 16 illegal. He and M.A.R. lived at a group home for the developmentally disabled. In court, an official described M.A.R. as mildly mentally retarded and Limon as functioning at a slightly higher level but not as an 18-year-old.

I love Roger Ebert.

The movie has been "inspired by" the famous video game. No, I haven't played it, and I never will, but I know how it feels not to play it, because I've seen the movie. "Doom" is like some kid came over and is using your computer and won't let you play.

[...]

The monsters are still there on Mars. They are big mothers and must have awesome daily caloric requirements. How they survive, how they breathe earth atmosphere in the station and what, as carnivores, they eat and drink -- I think we can all agree these are questions deserving serious scientific study.

Meanwhile, their pastime is chasing humans, grabbing them, smashing them, eviscerating and disemboweling them, pulling them through grates, and in general doing anything that can take place obscurely in shadows and not require a lot of special effects.

Toward the end of the movie, there is a lengthy point-of-view shot looking forward over the barrel of a large weapon as it tracks the corridors of the research station. Monsters jump out from behind things and are blasted to death, in a sequence that abandons all attempts at character and dialogue and uncannily resembles a video game. Later, when the names of the actors appear on the screen, they are also blasted into little pieces. I forget whether the director, Andrzej Bartkowiak, had his name shot to smithereens, but for the DVD, I recommend that a monster grab it and eat it.

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Model railroad slums, in amazing detail. Many more pictures behind the link.

From Making Light, which is worth a click just for the discussion of modelling.

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Alabama legislators accidentally delete the law that says theft over $1000 and less than $2500 is illegal in Alabama.

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I'm invincible!

Also,
Scientists build car 4 nm across. That's "nanometers", not "nautical miles".