As promised yesterday, here's some cool stuff I've come across with all my free time (mostly at work unfortunately........)

EPSON digital paper: (found at DailyTech.com) Remember that movie with Val Kilmer, where they went to Mars and their robot got all wacky and started hunting them down? Me neither, it was pretty lame, but they did have some cool gadgets, including these flexible computer displays that they could roll up. Epson's one step closer to them with their digital paper. Here's the run down; it's a thin sheet of flexible plastic that can display a black and white digital image. It only requires power while the images is changing, and even then it's only 6 volts. There's so many uses for this thing it's ridiculous. Imagine not having to get a paper copy of the newspaper everyday, carrying around your current reading material on something slightly larger than a single piece of paper, or being able to download a map of your next hike that was more durable than paper, but not locked in a fragile, and expensive, PDA. I've been intrigued by e-book readers in the past, but the sheer bulk (ok, and the cost) have always turned me away. If they could make the screen touch sensitive, you could cram it full of crossword puzzles and sudoku.........

REAL life alien...uh... life: (Popsci.com) Ok, it's not much more than some unidentified dust, but as potentially the first evidence of life from a non-Earth type place, I'm really surprised this story hasn't been more widely published. It's not definitive, but it does open up some interesting possibilities about the origin of life on Earth. Did life develop here because of the hospitable climate, or did it merely survive here after being carried from somewhere else? It's one of those questions that's really fascinating but has an answer that has practically zero bearing on your day to day life, which are just about my favorite type of question.

Monkey man: (Boingboing.net) Ok, this may fall into the category of "stupid" more so than cool, but it made me laugh, so it's in the mix. Apparently, intrigued by the idea that the dietary needs of a primate and the needs of a person wouldn't be that far off, this guy decided to subsist on nothing but zoo grade primate chow (PDF file) for one solid week. (According to him, the manufacturer add the phrase " non-human primates" after he began the experiment.) It is economical, I'll give him that. And looking over the ingredients, there's not much there you don't find in stuff you eat every day. I'd like to see how this stuff stacks up against a good ol' MRE. Of course, the zoo doesn't have "Chili Mac" flavored primate chow, so there's no danger of me switching.

I've been meaning to write about this for a while now, but paradoxically, it seems the more bored I am, the lazier I become. I know you're saying to yourself "Wow, Kip must have spent a large portion of his life extremely bored." Not really, it's just that my zero-point on the lazy scale is already pretty high in comparison to most productive members of society.

So anyway, the thing that caught my eye in the news a week or so ago was Bill Bennet's interview on "The Daily Show". Go ahead and watch it, I'll wait.



Wow, I love John Stewart. Why do we have to rely on a comedy show to get such an aggressive debate? Some have argued that it wasn't a true debate, and that Stewart just makes quips and smart ass remarks. I'm almost tempted to agree. In fact I will agree, it wasn't a debate, but only for one simple reason; There can't be a logical debate on the subject, because the argument against gay marriage isn't based on logic.

I'm sure some of you are saying "But Kip, marriage between a man and woman is one of humanities oldest traditions". That's very true, but so are slavery, genocide, exploitation of the lower class, and religious persecution. Sorry, but status quo isn't a logical argument for continuing a social policy.

Most social conservatives have have used the phrase "Defense of Marriage" as the basis for their argument. What the hell does that even mean? Defense from what? I would love a good explanation of this. In my opinion they just slapped two words that people are inherently supportive of together to make a nifty catch phrase. How does extending the right of marriage to same sex couples weaken or change the marriage of the traditional heterosexual union? Technically, all a marriage is, in a legal sense, is a piece of paper granting the couple involved certain rights, (and defining certain obligations). Anything beyond that is defined by the couple themselves. The law doesn't affect what vows you make, or don't make, it doesn't define your commitment, and makes no guarantees on the strength of your union. So if Steve and Scott get a piece of paper too, does it somehow cheapen your commitment to your better half? Does it nullify your vows, or make your marriage weaker? If you answered "yes", I'd really like to know why (and hear what your spouse has to say about your reply).

I realize that a large percentage of the people that are for an amendment banning same sex marriage base their opinion on religion. That's fine. I respect your view. That doesn't mean it needs to be federal law. There's lots of things in religion that make poor social policy, and people seem to base their enforcement of it on convenience. For example, the Bible says that the Sabbath is a day of rest. Some people I knew growing up wouldn't even mow their lawns on Sunday, let alone go to work. You know what they would do though, right after church even? Go out to eat, then maybe stop by Wal-Mart or the mall. So because it was convenient for them, they weren't advocating that nobody work, they just weren't going to work themselves. Pretty clever how well that works for them.

Wait, I've figured it out. The whole amendment thing is being secretly sponsored by commitment phobic homosexuals. "Sorry Steve, you know I'd love to get married and spend the rest of my life with you, but you know, there's that damn amendment." Pretty clever guys (and gals). Ok, that was a joke, but at least that would almost make sense.

I'm sure somebody out there is just dying to argue with me, and I hope somebody does. I've yet to hear a rational argument that didn't involve some sort of pseudo logic. I'll be back later today with a list of cool stuff I've been meaning to direct your attention to. Right now though, laundry calls.