Voder-Vocoder

The latest data, as of March 2006, shows CO2 levels now stand at 381 parts per million (ppm)—100ppm above the pre-industrial average.

Despite its small concentration, CO2 is a very important component of Earth’s atmosphere, because it absorbs infrared radiation at wavelengths of 4.26 µm and 14.99 µm and enhances the greenhouse effect.

The initial carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of the young Earth was produced by volcanic activity; this was essential for a warm and stable climate conducive to life. Volcanic activity now releases about 130 to 230 teragrams (145 million to 255 million short tons) of carbon dioxide each year. Volcanic releases are about 1% of the amount which is released by human activities.

Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, the atmospheric CO2 concentration has increased by approximately 110 µL/L or about 40%, most of it released since 1945. Monthly measurements taken at Mauna Loa since 1958 show an increase from 316 µL/L in that year to 376 µL/L in 2003, an overall increase of 60 µL/L during the 44-year history of the measurements. Burning fossil fuels such as coal and petroleum is the leading cause of increased man-made CO2; deforestation is the second major cause.

(SOURCE)

Scott, the source you were quoting was simply wrong.

Volcanoes also eject the kind of compounds that environmentalists call greenhouse gases. A single eruption the size of the Mt. St. Helens eruption released more of these gases, dust and ash into the atmosphere than all such emissions by human activity since the beginning of recorded human history. And there are numerous volcanic eruptions yearly.

Here, he’s comparing apples and oranges. Greenhouse gases vs. volcanic ash. Most of what volcanoes spew out is simply ash that falls to the ground over the next few months. And he doesn’t cite any of his sources.

I am not the first to notice this; I’m just putting the evidence out there you you to consider.

John Williams - Empire - End credits - 345 seconds in.

Claude Debussy - Nocturnes - Sirènes - 62 seconds in.

How to make iced tea. The one true way.

Any tea that does not use boiling water runs the risk of not killing
the bacteria that might be living in the tea leaves.

prep:
0) Make two trays of ice.

1) Bring about 1.5 quarts of water to a boil.

2) Get a two-quart pitcher (Thick high-density polyethylene () is
good.) Add two large (6g) tea bags. Add about 5 cups of boiling
water (This will fill the pitcher about 60% of the way.)

3) Let steep for exactly 5 minutes.

4) Remove tea bags.

(Optional) Add sweetening agent now. This is completely unnecessary.
If you drink unsweetened tea for a while, you will acquire the taste
for it. The most common sweetening agent is sucrose, which should be
classified as a Schedule II Drug.

5) Fill the pitcher to the 2-quart line by adding
ice cubes. This will bring the tea down to room temperature.

6) Put it the the refrigerator to bring it down further. Or just pour
over ice to cool it immediately.

Drink within 12 hours, or it tastes bad.

I enjoy Achewood more and more each day.

This is for Jules, who did not believe that the asymetric budding devil horns on my head were in fact benign.

Definition of wen.

Why do I find trigonometry so beautiful?

(source)

By definition, versin(A)=1-cos(A), and exsec(A)=sec(A)-1.

POSIX defines a command-line calculator language/interpretor known as
bc. bc is convientent but fairly light on the included math
functions. I wanted a power function that would take floating point
numbers as exponents. bc’s basic math library provides the following
functions: sqrt(), sin(), cos(), atan(), ln(), and exp()—abriviated
to sqrt(), s(), c(), a(), l(), and e().

Since

a^b = e^( b * ln(a) ),

I can define a new fucntion—

define pow(a,b) { return e(b*l(a)); } 

—for my power function. While I was at it, I went ahead and created
defininitions for the most common trig functions:

#DTPD#
define ln(a) { return l(a); }
define exp(a) { return e(a); }
define pow(a,b) { return e(b*l(a)); }
define sqrtt(a) { return e(0.5*l(a)); }
define log(a) { return l(a)/l(10); }
define sin(a) { return s(a); }
define cos(a) { return c(a); }
define tan(a) { return s(a)/c(a); }
define sec(a) { return 1/c(a); }
define csc(a) { return 1/s(a); }
define cot(a) { return c(a)/s(a); }
define asin(x) { return a(x/sqrt(1-(x^2))); }
define acos(x) { return a(sqrt(1-(x^2))/x); }
define atan(x) { return a(x); }
define asec(x) { return a(sqrt((x^2)-1)); }
define acsc(x) { return a(1/sqrt((x^2)-1)); }
define acot(x) { return a(1/x);}
define sinh(x) { return (e(x)-e(-x))/2;}
define cosh(x) { return (e(x)+e(-x))/2;}
define tanh(x) { return (e(2*x) - 1)/(e(2*x) + 1); }
define asinh(x) { return l(x+sqrt((x^2)+1)); }
define acosh(x) { return l(x+sqrt((x^2)-1)); }
define atanh(x) { return 0.5*l((1+x)/(1-x)); }
pi = 4*a(1);

Of course, now that I read more about it I find that I could have just looked up the answers.

And Florida:

Old:

New:

UPDATE: This is what I was looking for:

While we’re redesigning state flags, why not have a go at my current home state’s flag?

Old:

New:

UPDATE: More options.

“His suggestions for securing the U.S.-Mexico border went beyond walls to include moats, fiery moats and fiery moats with fire-proof crocodiles.” (source)

Fire-proof crocodiles are expensive. Wouldn’t ut be easier to have TWO parallel moats, one filled with crocodiles, and another one filled with fire?

Rob Balder, creator of PartiallyClips, suggested that no matter how boring the flag of Virginia is, it is still cool because it featured a female human breast. (the discussion)

Andrew Rogers suggests scrapping the original flag—which features the state seal desiged by George Mason—for something more geometrical.

I still say you could jazz up the original design just a bit and make something very good:

Old flag:

My proposal for a new Virginia Flag:

Here, I take a 10 second clip from “Whole Lotta Love”, 133 seconds
into the song, where Plant is orgasmily screaming and Page’s guitar is
doing the same. Then I increase the volume by a factor of 4. I then
reencode the wav as ALARM.mp3 and use it as the alarm sound for my egg
timer program.

FILE=~/Music/led_zeppelin/Led_Zepplin_-_BS_CD1_01_whole_lotta_love.mp3
lame --decode $FILE file.wav
sox file.wav trim.wav trim 133 10 vol 4
lame trim.wav ALARM.mp3
rm trim.wav file.wav
mv ALARM.mp3 ~/Music/

#!/bin/sh
# EGG TIMER.  #DTPD#
# ${HOME}/bin/timer
MINUTES=$1
echo ${MINUTES}:00
for M in $(seq -w $(($MINUTES - 1)) -1 0); do
    for S in $(seq -w 55 -5 0); do
	sleep 5 ; echo ${M}:${S}
    done
done
echo -e "\n\n\t\tALARM! ALARM! ALARM!\n\n"
exec mplayer ~/Music/ALARM.mp3 &> /dev/null