I have been thinking about all of the revenue generated from the many many weight loss treatments and diets out there. So many people make money every day, millions of dollars i would imagine, from selling weight loss and fat burning advice. Usually these campaigns talk about how to lose weight ‘fast’ and with minimal work.

All of these, every dollar made from these products boils down to one thing, laziness. Everyone wants to have the ‘perfect’ body. But no one wants to work for it. Not that i blame them, exercising blows. It’s hard work, you sweat, it takes up time from your day, you have to watch what you eat and pay attention to things like nutrition, vitamins and grams of protein in your diet. Who the hell wants to do that? Who has the time, the patience or the energy? Not many it seems from the cash there is to be made.

This being said, losing weight is cheap. The only things that anyone(ANYONE) needs to do is have a little bit of ambition and pay attention to their lives, just a little. Watch what you eat, cut out snacks when you are bored ( i found i eat quite a bit because i am bored ) and exercise, just a bit, on a schedule. There is much to be said regarding simply getting into the mindset of it. Your body will follow your mind more than most people think. As long as you do a little and feel like you are losing weight and getting in shape you will. This all requires patience and dedication. You have to keep working at it, get into the habit of watching what you eat and adopt a regular work out schedule. The hardest part about any of this is simply starting a routine. Once you get it going it will maintain itself. You will start feeling worse when you don’t work out than when you do.

My story is a little different, but not much. I have lost 21 pounds in the last 5 months (from 210 to 189). I have restricted my calorie intake fairly well and worked out three times a week at the gym. I busted my ass to get in shape and it has been working out for me. That being said, it should not discourage anyone. The heavier you are the more calories you will burn when working out and the harder you work out and the more you restrict your calories (within reason, less than 1200 calories a day can be unhealthy) the quicker it will happen. All it takes is just a little bit of conscientiousness and patience.

The better shape you are in, the better off you will be when the apocalypse comes and we all have to survive in the wild. So get ready, those zombies won’t kill themselves, and if you are in good shape they might just not be able to kill you.

Let me begin with this statement: I am not an environmentalist. Not in the traditional sense of the word. I am not a conservationist. I do not recycle. I do not follow any ‘green’ movement, nor do i support the usage of the term ‘green’ other than referring to the actual color. I do not believe we are “killing mother earth”.

Every time i hear anyone say anything about conservation, environmentalism, pollution, recycling, global warming or the like, there seems to be this unspoken idea that humanity and nature are separate and at war. That we, who live on this planet, evolved from this planet, consume food and water from it and eventually die upon it, are somehow separate from it and almost unnatural in behavior.

This is false. We are natural. There is no separation between us and what you would call nature. Everything we create, destroy, consume and excrete is of this earth. Even the most man made of objects have their origins in elements found on this planet. We are not gods. We do not have the power to create anything new, nor to completely destroy anything. All we do is move things around, from one place to the next, from one density to another, sometimes one molecule at a time, sometimes in large heaps of matter. The sheer idea that we could ‘kill mother earth’ reeks with human pride and pompousness.

I would not presume to be able to do any actual harm to this earth. The worst thing we can do is kill ourselves off and even that is entirely improbable, we just aren’t that powerful.

A spec on a spec on a spec

See us? That tiny light spot in that lighter beam. All we are is millions of tiny specs on that tiny spec. How dare we pretend we are gods.

For a long time now I have been planning to develop my own humanoid robot. Mind you, this is a long and expensive process. But this engine is a good place, i think, to begin this persuit. I will start at an intellectual level, with parts lists, theory and design. Hopefully this will eventually move on to actual production. This project is for my own edification, i want a robot humanoid that can walk, talk and interact with objects on its own. The final result should be as close to human as possible, with breathing, a pulse, saliva, sweat and the ability to eat and drink (or at least just drink). Preliminary plans for this already exist in some of my many notebooks.

The skeleton should be made of some lightweight metal, slightly flexible but sturdy. Processing and computing will be stored in the chest and cooled by a respiratory system that circulates a liquid to the extremities and back to the cpu.

The circulation will be done by a pump, much like a heart. In addition, air will be pulled into lungs that fill an air sack in the chest. This air will fill a sack (artificial lungs) that also serve to cool the liquid. Excess liquid will be expelled through ‘glands’ in the mouth and pores and replenished through drinking. Liquid drank, preferably water to start (although eventually i would like to allow juice and other liquids), will be filtered, then added to the cooling system.

Servos and artificial muscle fibers will provide skeletal movement. A gyroscopic balancing system will allow for the being to stand and walk on its own.

As you can imagine, just the parts listed above come at a hefty price tag. This project will take a few years to complete. But by the end i want a moving, artificially intelligent robot, that hopefully, will be very close in appearance and action to human.

I have dubbed the project HRB-34, in honor of Isaac Azimov. I know its kinda cheesy and a bit over-reaching, but who cares.

I am trying to keep this blog interesting, and am hoping to restrict it to theories and craziness that is original. But sometimes, sometimes the internet just says bizarre things. Today was one of those days.

I’ll start off with this: pedisedate.com

“PediSedate is a medical device consisting of a colorful, toy-like headset that connects to a game component such as the  Nintendo Game Boy system or a portable CD player. Once the child places it on his or her head and swings the snorkel down from its resting place atop the head, PediSedate transparently monitors respiratory function and distributes nitrous oxide, an anesthetic gas.”

This is one of the crazier things i have seen. If the creator wants to make a profit they should absolutely, and as soon as possible, release this for general purchase. I know more than a few gamers that would buy this. Don’t immediately assume it would be used for abuse of nitrous oxide (but probably would), you could fill the device with asthma medicine for children (or adults) with severe asthma.

Also, the webcomic Penny Arcade released the first comic in a while that has actually made me laugh out loud. Maybe too soon

I realize that this is probably in poor taste to those of you who actually care about things like taste. But I think it is hilarious.

Now let me preface this by saying that i neither believe nor disbelieve in the devil as a being or force. My beliefs center around the idea that the devil is actually just a personification of the ‘evil’ side of humanity. The vile and pernicious parts of our bizarre race.

I have always said that if the devil was a corporeal being his profession of choice would be advertising.

It’s not a big stretch to see the old fellow working for a large marketing firm guiding them to pinpoint human weakness in order to sell product. Think about it. What are the main focuses of advertising? You are not sexy enough, at least not as sexy as this guy/girl because of our product. You will clearly be shunned by the opposite sex without it. So you have three right there, lust, vanity and pride. Our car makes you look sophistocated and hip, vanity, pride. When you eat this food it will feel like you are having an orgasm, lust and gluttony. The list really does work out that way. Watch a few commercials, you can easily pinpoint the particular group of ’sins’ they are targeting.

El Diablo is definitely in marketing, and anyone who works in marketing is his consort.

My hypothesis is that ‘probability jumping’ happens occasionally, at least more than most people realize. Here is how is goes…

Lets state our assumptions. Time as we know it is linear, but, it branches out into an almost infinite number of probabilities as things happen. Lets imagine time as an extremely large tree. Each branch represents a particular and specific probability of actions and reactions. For each action that has the probability of many outcomes a branch is created for every outcome. This tree’s trunk has it’s base at the beginning of time (whenever that might have been).

The walls between these branches, or the bark, if you will, is fairly thin and allows permeation. So, it is possible to for a being to jump from one branch to any immediately parrallel branch. As you would imagine, it is much more difficult and unlikely that a being traveling along one branch would leap over nearby branches to a more distant branch. This would become more unlikely as the distance increases between branches.

The differences between neighboring branches, as far as noticeable differences in reality are concerned, are so minute that most people would not notice them if they changed suddenly. For example, the difference between the current reality and a neighboring branch may be as small as a blade of grass growing in a different place or a ant that takes a different path down the sidewalk. Not all ants mind you, just a singular ant in a particular part of the world.

Occasionally there are larger differences. Even more rarely, they are noticed. Maybe a tree exists where it didn’t exist 3 years ago. This would not be a sapling, but an aged tree that appears to have been there for many years. Or a style of sneaker that you remember as a child doesn’t exist anymore. These things can be taken in stride as just the fog of memory creating confusion. In fact, i see this as a coping mechanism for dealing with the phenomena. Eventually you forget about the difference, as it is usually meaningless and has no effect on your every day existence, and live your life.

My theory is that these jumps happen all the time and go unnoticed the majority of the time. To account for the duplicate you in the destination probability, a switch happens, you and your double ’swap’ realities. Furthermore, i believe that eventually we will be able to traverse these ‘branches’ intentionally and at greater distance. Wouldn’t it be great to retire to a probability where you are a billionaire? (not a good deal for the billionaire you, mind you, but he has lived his life as a billionaire so its probably time he really had to work for a living)…

This sounds, in all likely-hood, to you, like a load of bullshit. It is possible that these ideas are just the rantings of a fevered mind. But consider this and keep an eye out for changes. Maybe you won’t just brush off the next strange memory lapse as just that.

A 1994 census lists a total of 27 supervoids with a distance of up to 740 Mpc.