Dan Jones

If there’s one thing I know for sure though, it’s that I’m just one person who is powerless in relation to societal influences.

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January 20th, 2014: I hope everyone had a good weekend! I ate at TWO different restaurants in the same day :o ps: new mug; best mug One year ago today: you are now reading "grinding XP" as "grinding and then there's this emoticon of a dead guy with his tongue hanging out" – Ryan

What do you think you get if you add 1+2+3+4+5+... all the way on up to infinity? Probably a massively huge number, right? Nope. You get a small negative number:

This is, by a wide margin, the most noodle-bending counterintuitive thing I have ever seen. Mathematician Leonard Euler actually proved this result in 1735, but the result was only made rigorous later and now physicists have been seeing this result actually show up in nature. Amazing. (thx, chris)

Update: Of course (of course!) the actual truth seems more complicated, hinging on what "sum" means mathematically, etc. (via @cenedella)

Update: As usual, Phil Plait sorts things out on this complicated situation. (via @theory)

Tags: Leonard Euler   mathematics   video

It turns out that one of the most sophisticated pieces of technology in the Marvel universe uses the same sort of software as a toy computer.

Yep, according to computer programmer John Graham-Cumming and his Tumblr “Source Code in Television and Films“, Tony Stark uses the same programming code that powers a Lego robotic toy for his specialized Iron Man suit.

Graham-Cumming spends a good chunk of his free time hunting through famous movies for scenes that depict programming codes. After doing some snooping through the latest Iron Man flicks, he saw that the code looked vaguely familiar.

What the crafty programmer discovered was pretty interesting. The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) confirmed his discovery, and posted the following on its Iron Man trivia page:

The code that appears on the computer screen at 34 minutes into the movie is a utility that downloads firmware into Lego robotic toy (called RCX). It may suggest that Tony Stark used this program to download firmware into his robotic suit.

Man, who knew that Lego toys could be so versatile? We should use them to power everything!

(via Gizmodo)

In what may be the sweetest, most romantic proposal ever, redditor ByTingo staged a Pride and Prejudice -themed proposal for his now bride-to-be. It wasn’t just him, but his her entire family that he got in on the event, dressed up in Regency-style dresses made by her mother. She’s apparently an English Lit major so he picked a theme he knew she’d appreciate. Now, all of you making plans for Valentine’s Day will have to step up your game.

See more pictures in a gallery after the break…

(via Happy Place)

The Polar Vortex that recently swept through the United States has people thinking about keeping warm. College Humor came up with five winter clothing innovations that I can only hope will be kickstarted by some enterprising individual before next winter.

Body-sized boots, jackets with insulated tubes that hold hot liquids, and the ultimate hoodie pictured above are just a few of the creative designs. I want one of each!

See the rest of the clever/hilarious designs after the break.

(CollegeHumor via GAS)

Ever wonder why everything tastes like chicken? Cori McLean explains, with "science" in this new BAHFest video.

Google, no.

http://i.imgur.com/nK5UwEu.png

fb | twitter

Maracana Stadium is hosting the 2014 World Cup this summer, and it means residents in the nearby areas are getting booted out of their homes. The plan is to destroy the homes in the slum in Rio De Janeiro to make room for construction of facilities for the soccer tournament. Residents are protesting and one of them dressed like Batman. A symbol of hope in dark times? Maybe. A way to draw the media’s attention to the issue? Probably.

Regardless of why the man put on the mask, children followed the hero around and played. They hid under his cape and smiled and maybe forgot their troubles for the day – and that’s more than a good enough reason.

See more of the moving photos after the break.

(via BuzzFeed, First four photos by Yasuyoshi Chiba, last photo by Ricardo Moraes.)

It’s like I have nothing better to do.

http://imgur.com/QVFuLZQ

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Disclaimer: Please pay special attention to the parts where I say that I love my stake president and all of the bishops I have ever had. This is not a criticism of them nor meant as any kind of personal attack. I just thought it needed to be said.

I want to preface this by saying that I love my stake president. He’s awesome. He gives so much to our stake and is incredibly Christ-like. That said, he ticked me off a few weeks ago and I’ve been meaning to write about it ever since.

Stake Prez spoke in my ward’s sacrament meeting, and referenced October’s General Conferece. I have a lot of bones to pick about the last General Conference, but Elder Holland’s talk was one that was mostly pretty good, and I was really happy to have the issue of mental health finally addressed in such a forum within the church. Stake Prez liked this talk too, and said that though he had never had depression, this talk was so inspiring for him that he just wanted to say to G-d “Bring on the depression!”

 

Umm…no.

Yes, Like a Broken Vessel was a great talk, and very inspiring and hopeful. But if you have never had depression, you really don’t understand what it’s like to go through it. And if you have had it, you would never wish to go through it again.

Stake Prez’s comment was not meant to be insensitive, or hurtful, or belittling of the struggle that people who have experienced depression have gone through, but that’s how it came out. And it’s not ok.

Stake Prez is only human, and all humans are going to have missteps and mistakes. Stake Prez also works in finance or something, so he may not be as aware of mental health issues as I would like, and I cannot fault him for this. What I can fault is that there is so little emphasis given to understanding mental health issues within the church.

To its credit, the LDS church does have LDS Family Services and LDS Social Services, that employs actual mental health professionals. I have known people who have benefitted tremendously from such services- often at no cost to them. Unfortunately, these services are not available everywhere, and not to everyone.

Bishops, stake presidents, and other church leaders are routinely put in positions to offer support and counseling to those struggling with very serious issues, but far too often they do not understand how to do so, and this is very dangerous. They are given a manual, and a few seminars and special meetings here and there, but they are thrown into situations where members pour out their souls and divulge incredibly personal, painful things, and can be met with insensitivity, ignorance, prejudice, and worse.  

Mental health issues are real, and cannot be prayed away. Yes, prayer helps, and my faith got me through my own struggles, but faith does not minimize the devastating effects of depression and other mental health issues. Being told to “chin up,” “snap out of it,” and “trust that the Lord has given you this because He loves you” (these are all things I have been told by different LDS bishops, btw) does not help. It is cruel and mocking to have such a real struggle minimized in this way. Again, I do not think this is the intent; all of the bishops I have known have been wonderful, kind, and generous men, who I know cared deeply for me. They just did not understand. This extends up the ladder to the stake presidents, mission presidents, and other church leaders. As a result, members struggle in silence, or worse, in shame.

I have always loved the fact that the church has a lay clergy; it makes me feel that we are all almost equal[1] and have the same opportunities for spiritual progression.  However, when it comes to the vital role of pastoral counseling, I struggle to support lay clergy that has no real training on the critically important issue of mental health. In some stakes there is some unofficial training, or opportunities for support, but this is not standard practice, and not a requirement for all those who will be called upon to provide pastoral care. This needs to change.

Those in leadership positions who are asked to provide pastoral care and counseling should be trained to understand even the basics of mental health, trauma, and psychology. Certainly they cannot be taught to understand every disorder, addiction, symptom, or condition, but they can learn to recognize major symptoms, how to make appropriate referrals, how to be sensitive to those struggling, and when to recognize that they are out of their field of knowledge and to say so, rather than say the wrong thing, and risk doing more harm.

We all need to recognize that we are only human; we all have our struggles, and we all have our blind spots. We need to recognize these, embrace them, and learn from them. In doing so, we can strive to help others, and work towards becoming more like Christ.

BAM

IT'S ALMOST HERE

Merry whatever you believe! Happy everything you hoped for. As always, comments are welcome!

The king of Candyland

http://i.imgur.com/SGxYQmZ.png

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A great way to celebrate the holidays is to pile around a TV with your family and watch a movie. And if you wanted to watch a Christmas movie, Google Play has you covered. It’s giving out the movie Elf for free to all users. It’s in standard definition, but awesome nonetheless.

So grab your favorite tablet with HDMI out, gather around a TV, hit the source link to get downloading and give it a watch! It has a 4.5 star rating on Google Play, so you’ll probably enjoy it. That is, unless you’re a cotton headed ninny muggins.  Tell us how you liked it!

Update: It seems that this deal, as almost all Google deals, is US only. Sorry to those outside of the US.

Zombie Mario photographed by Isidro Urena.

Send your cosplay pics to tips@fashionablygeek.com.

(via Pinterest)

Last week, Google announced that Gmail will load external images using a proxy. I have the new feature in my Gmail account and it's easy to tell when it's enabled - Gmail will show this message:

"Loading images in Gmail is now safer, so you'll automatically see all images within a message when you open it. You can learn about images or change this option in Settings."

So what's new? You no longer have to click "Display images below" to see the images from a message. Until now, Gmail only displayed the images automatically for the people added to your address book (you had to send them a message at least once or manually add them to the address book). Now Gmail shows all the images, except for spam and other messages that are likely to be dangerous. "Gmail scans every message for suspicious content and if Gmail considers a sender or message potentially suspicious, images won't be displayed and you'll be asked whether you want to see the images."

Images are no longer loaded directly from external sites, they're loaded using a Google proxy. Here's an example of URL (I highlighted the original URL of the image):

https://ci6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/WuyGWXPxgKnQjRUiz1tva8I8DAdNvnURSGw8TD5KUHWka12vCEvPGpD5g0C0jPtY8a0JqxflQfH7DqTxcoA_qsEi8HsYbQ=s0-d-e1-ft#http://qsf.is.quoracdn.net/-b94cd3f312ea9653.png

Images are only loaded when you open a message and they're not cached by Google (browsers can cache them). Google's requests include: "via ggpht.com GoogleImageProxy" and appear to be from Firefox 3.0.7.

Google compresses images, but sometimes the resulting image is a lot bigger than the original.


The proxy feature can't be disabled. You can only go to Gmail's settings and enable "Ask before displaying external images", so you can manually enable images, but this doesn't disable the proxy.

{ Thanks, Artem. }

Bitcoin is a digital currency that has increased in value in US$ by 900% over the past six months. Jason Kuznicki says Bitcoin is definitely a speculative bubble and has three graphs to illustrate his point. I found this one particularly interesting...it plots transactions vs. total Bitcoin market cap:

This chart shows a dramatic reduction in the total number of transactions, irrespective of size, per dollar of bitcoin's market cap, from December 2012 -- December 2013. In absolute terms, market cap has generally gone up, and the number of transactions has mostly just bounced around a lot. The total value of bitcoin is going up, but it's mostly getting parked rather than being put to work. Apparently there just aren't a lot of appealing ways to spend bitcoin, anecdotal news stories to the contrary notwithstanding.

Instead, an increasing amount of bitcoin's putative value (as measured in USD) is being squirreled away by larger and larger miner-investors. It's not fueling a diversifying, all-bitcoin economy: if it were, transactions would be keeping up with or even outpacing market cap, particularly if bitcoiners came to rely increasingly on bitcoins and decreasingly on dollars for day-to-day purchases. That's very clearly not happening.

The Wire's Omar Little once said to Marlo Stanfield, "Man, money ain't got no owners, only spenders." Bitcoin seems to have the opposite problem. (via mr)

Tags: Bitcoin   currency   economics   Jason Kuznicki   The Wire

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Last day for Christmas shipping. Thanks for another wonderful year entertaining all you geeks.