The Off Topic Topic

[DGuller]

Got a new keyboard.  I hate getting used to a new keyboards.

I'm OK with them.

[Phillip V]

Got a new keyboard.  I hate getting used to a new keyboards.

I'm OK with them.

Agree.

[CountDeMoney]

I love me new keyboards.

Should get one of those Commodore 64 revamped keyboards.  I miss a keyboard that sounds like a .30 cal.

[Ideologue]

I just buy new cheap Logitech ones about every six months, since I learned that really cleaning a keyboard usually means accidentally breaking a keyboard.

[derspiess]

I am in Chicago. They're filming Transformers 4 in the alley next to our hotel.

[CountDeMoney]

I am in Chicago. They're filming Transformers 4 in the alley next to our hotel.

So, it's a bunch of guys working on servers to support CGI?  The hum must be comforting.

[Syt]

I am in Chicago. They're filming Transformers 4 in the alley next to our hotel.

So, it's a bunch of guys working on servers to support CGI?  The hum must be comforting.

[derspiess]

The scene they're filming is a few crashed cars. I filled in the rest with my imagination. I told my son about it and he was seriously disappointed that they didn't have the "real" transformers there.

[CountDeMoney]

Small KKK group holds rally at Civil War battlefield
Group met by heavy police presence despite small size

On a Civil War battlefield where tens of thousands of men clashed fifteen decades ago, eight Ku Klux Klan members unfurled their group's banner Saturday afternoon and called for a new uprising to oust President Barack Obama.

The Klansmen — who jostled for numerical superiority with a herd of cows grazing nearby — were watched by officers from the United States Park Police and about 15 spectators, as one of them explained how he believes Obama's foreign, economic and immigration policies are threatening America.

"Barack Hussein Obama has been out to destroy American from the beginning," said the hooded speaker over a microphone. "Our forefathers would have already started something."

The speaker explained that he did not believe the president is a United States citizen and described the Affordable Care Act health care law as "communism at its finest." The group, known as the Confederate White Knights, has a petition calling for Obama's impeachment on its website.

The group obtained a permit to demonstrate at the battlefield, which is operated as a national park, the second time a KKK group had done so. A now-defunct outfit known as the World Knights of the Ku Klux Klan was the first in 2006.

Sgt. Paul Brooks, a spokesman for the U.S. Park Police, said any group regardless of their views is welcome to hold a demonstration as long as they apply for a permit and follow the rules.

"That's the First Amendment, and that's the beauty of living in America," he said.

The police carefully marked out areas with orange fences for the KKK group, sympathizers, media and counter-demonstrators. Spectators were asked to watch from the back, about 125 yards from the hooded Klansmen.

The Klan members were driven into the park in a U.S. Department of the Interior minibus flanked by four motorcycle outriders. Mounted police officers stood nearby during the rally.

Brooks said the police were not expecting any problems but that they wanted to be prepared.

But the hooded speaker questioned the need for all the security and said the KKK's reputation for violence was ill-deserved.

Richard Preston, the leader of the Baltimore area group who uses the title Imperial Wizard, explained in an interview Friday that the organization was not racist at its origins, saying that it lost its way during the civil rights era of the 1960s.

"There was a lot of conflict ... it gave the Klan a very bad name," he said.

But David Harty, 61, the lone person occupying the designated area for counter-demonstrators, said he found that hard to swallow.

"The KKK is not racist? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard," he said. Harty, who held a sign reading "KKK go away," said he used to come to the battlefield with a Scout troop to light candles to remember the soldiers who fell there on Sept. 17, 1862.

He described the Klan's use of the place for its rally as a "desecration."

The Battle of Antietam, fought near Sharpsburg in Washington County, was the bloodiest single-day engagement of the Civil War, with 23,000 casualties. The battle was not a clear win for either side, but ended the first Confederate invasion of the Union and led President Abraham Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves in the rebel states.

The KKK was founded after the Civil War to oppose Reconstruction, a set of policies designed to cement the rights of freed slaves.

While Preston said that "slavery should have never happened" he added that "things for the United States started to go wrong with Lincoln. ... He was the first liberal president."

[Phillip V]

Police mistake Prince Andrew, brother of Prince Charles, for palace intruder and force him to the ground.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/09/world/europe/brush-with-police-spoils-a-british-princes-palace-stroll.html

[mongers]

The odd things one comes across on the interwebs; looking for an article about the safety of paraffin lamps in the 3rd world, a search generated this article as one of the top results:

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/113/4/e377.full

Extremely Elevated Relative Risk of Paraffin Lamp Oil Exposures in Orthodox Jewish Children

Robert J. Hoffman, MD*, Solomon Morgenstern, MD‡, Robert S. Hoffman, MD§, Lewis S. Nelson, MD§

Abstract

Background. In observance of the Sabbath and other religious holidays, many Orthodox Jews maintain a burning lamp that uses paraffin lamp oil as fuel. Unintentional pediatric exposure to paraffin lamp oil, a hydrocarbon, is typically by ingestion and carries a risk of aspiration with subsequent pneumonitis. This investigation was prompted by an apparent increase in paraffin lamp oil exposures during the Jewish Sabbath, from sunset Friday until sunset Saturday, noted by the staff of our regional poison control center.

Objective. In this investigation, we retrospectively reviewed all exposures to paraffin lamp oil occurring in our large city in children <18 years old reported to our regional poison control center between January 1, 2000, and February 1, 2003. Reports were investigated to ascertain the frequency of occurrence of paraffin lamp oil exposures on the Jewish Sabbath and Jewish religious holidays. Caregivers of involved children were surveyed by telephone to determine the exposed child's religion and circumstances of exposure.

Results. During these 25 months, 45 cases met inclusion criteria, and all were ingestions. Orthodox Jews accounted for 32 cases (71%), 4 cases (9%) occurred in children who were not Orthodox Jews, and demographic data were unavailable in 9 cases (20%). Twenty-four cases (53%) occurred within 10 hours before or during the Jewish Sabbath or Jewish religious holidays. The relative risk of Orthodox Jewish children to ingest paraffin lamp oil, calculated by using census data, is 374 times that of other children.

Conclusions. Public health authorities and caregivers of Orthodox Jewish children should be cognizant of this phenomenon. Educational efforts directed toward both Orthodox Jews and the general public aimed at preventing paraffin lamp oil exposures are warranted.

Thought it might appeal to one or two Languishites, (Viking?).

[mongers]

So the way he found out about the full extent of his sons 'addiction' to all things Minecraft, was via a letter from his ISP?   

Minecraft's creators revealed this week that the blocky freeform building game has 33 million users. It can easily become an obsession.

"You've exceeded your usage allowance," read the email from my ISP.

I was pretty sure I hadn't but I know a couple of people, my two boys, who might have done it for me.

That message clued me in to the depth of their obsession with Minecraft.

The game is set in a virtual world made of cubes of different materials - dirt, rock, sand, lava, obsidian and many more. Almost all of these can be used as building blocks and a few can be refined into usable raw materials (wood, iron, diamond etc).

....

Full article here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23572742

[garbon]

"Minecraft celebrities"?

[Tonitrus]

My 10-year old nephew is hooked on Minecraft, and has friends into it as well.  Shits crazy...it's not like it can be as good as Karateka and the Ultima games were when I was at his age.   

[Ed Anger]

For Mongers:

https://mobile.twitter.com/BadgerWarning