Geoff’s Place

(picture of my cousin with bright blue eyes)

According to an article I was just reading in Discover Magazine, the genetic mutation that caused blue eyes is now thought to be only 10000 years old (quite new in the “long time” sense of the world being around).

The primary reason for thinking that blue eyes are thought to be a new phenomenon is that the genetic similarities between a sample-set of blue eyed people from varied backgrounds and geographic regions showed that the similar genes responsible for the blue eye mutation (and associated mutations in general levels of melanin and skin pigmentation) were next to identical with little or no new genetic distortions in surrounding stretches of DNA.

Not only is the mutation thought to be new, but they also theorize that it can be traced back to a single ancestor! It just blows my mind to think that we are that we, humans, are so interrelated that everyone that has blue eyes are most likely from the same macro-extended family.

Very interesting results from a recent Mythbusters episode:

So, the other night, my car was broken into. It happened about half an hour after getting to AJ and Jenny’s place with dinner. Not so fun.

Whoever did it took one of Lauren’s sweatshirts from the UofA, some gifts a few clients gave her, and a lunch box with apples and other stuff in it. Nothing else in the car was taken and, luckily for us, it wasn’t much of a financial loss. Unluckily for the jerk that did it, he didn’t get much in his smash-and-grab.

Thankfully, we had AJ and Jenny around to help us with the obligatory call to the police (who, not to their own faults, couldn’t do much to help us since there were no fingerprints left) and the removal of the thousands of small pieces of glass from everywhere in the car. The nice thing to come from this is that my car hasn’t been this clean in a while!

Pictures to come as I get them from AJ’s camera.

AJ sent me the pictures below:

As the title of the post says, shit happens (that was a bumper sticker we saw while driving around Tucson the next day and was quite fitting for this event).

Here’s a great link that sums up all of the differences of egos and personalities that each of the main programming languages and their followers take on:

C would be Judaism - it’s old and restrictive, but most of the world is familiar with its laws and respects them. The catch is, you can’t convert into it - you’re either into it from the start, or you will think that it’s insanity. Also, when things go wrong, many people are willing to blame the problems of the world on it.

…

C++ would be Islam - It takes C and not only keeps all its laws, but adds a very complex new set of laws on top of it. It’s so versatile that it can be used to be the foundation of anything, from great atrocities to beautiful works of art. Its followers are convinced that it is the ultimate universal language, and may be angered by those who disagree. Also, if you insult it or its founder, you’ll probably be threatened with death by more radical followers.

C# would be Mormonism - At first glance, it’s the same as Java, but at a closer look you realize that it’s controlled by a single corporation (which many Java followers believe to be evil), and that many theological concepts are quite different. You suspect that it’d probably be nice, if only all the followers of Java wouldn’t discriminate so much against you for following it.

…

Follow the link to read the rest of them…

I’d say just about all of them are spot-on, though they leave out Assembly (which I would consider to be one of the pagan-inspired religions that require human sacrifices to make things work properly.)

[originally seen on Slashdot]

Wow!

I just ordered some gifts for the holidays on Amazon.com and found that I’ve been a member of that site for just over 10 years! My first order there was “The Best Test Preparation for the AP European History with Disks” placed in mid-September to help with one of my classes in high school; if I remember correctly, the book was OK at helping to study for the class, but the software was useless.

That order was followed promptly (almost a year later) by my purchasing some summer reading books: “Foundation” by Isaac Asimov (Unfortunately, I don’t think I actually ended up reading this one), “A Wizard of Earthsea” by Ursula K. Le Guin (great book from what I can remember), and “Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett (I still say “WTF!?!” every time I think about that book).

Any other early internet commerce participants have interesting first purchases from Amazon?