Along with soprano singing and boy-band appreciation, lactation is normally considered to be exclusivly for girls… wether we would want to or not the recieved opinion is that men cannot do it. Acording to this profoundly distirbing site, it’s not so much a matter of physiology rather mind over matter, and that if men really want to they can grow man-breasts and produce milk.
According to this passage from Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine by George Gould, M.D. and Walter Pyle, M.D. (1896), the the phenomina of man-milk is not as rare as you might expect:
Hunter refers to a man of fifty who shared equally with his wife the suckling of their children. There is an instance of a sailor who, having lost his wife, took his son to his own breast to quiet him, and after three or four days was able to nourish him.
According to this FAQ, male laction is not only impossible but undesirable from an evolutionary point of view. On the other hand, Wikipedia points out that it is common in other animal species and may result in people as a result of a hormonal imbalance.
eWeek is reporting in it’s typically dull way that the new BIOS from Phoenix is able to check ‘Outlook’ without having booted the computer’s operating system - how this will work they do not say, for example do they mean it will connect only to an MS Exchange server or have they built a generic email client into the laptop’s firmware? Thanks to phoenix it is now possible to run a bloatware operating system on top of a bloatware BIOS.
Regardless of how they implement this feature, it is a perfect illustration of Zawinski’s Law in action: “Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.” - Jamie Zawinski
Compare: Godwin’s Law.
Reginald Alec Martin (1900-1971) wrote more than thrity novels under the nom-de-plume E. C. Eliot. Iain M Banks admits that Martin’s novels were in part the inspiration for his childhood addiction to the science fiction genre.
To make a huge generalisation, there are two extremes of sci-fi: Hard science, typified by Arthur C Clarke, Isaac Asimov and Greg Egan. Alternativly there are the science-fantasists who include George Lucas and Garth Marenghi. Long before today’s men of ideas, Martin’s works were perhaps the first to brilliantly fuse the two opposing genres.
Martin’s compelling ‘Kemlo’ series first published between 1954 and 1963 shocked the world of science fiction. Each book comined a fast paced plot with realistic dialogue and something of a rarity in these cost-cutting times: captivating illustrations by former ‘Eagle’ artist Bruce Cornwell.
Martin was the Gene Roddenberry of his day - accurately predicting technology almost half a decade before it became reality. His descriptions of life aboard a space-station read like a NASA manual. He was also the first to predict that children born in outer-space might be able to survive unprotected in the vacuum of outer-space.
Keep a look out for the next writeup in this series, where co-blogger andy will review Norman Spinrad’s life-altering science-fiction masterwerk ‘Agent of Chaos’.
Continue reading ‘The Golden Age of Sci Fi’
(11am onwards on Saturday, 27th of March @ the 491 Gallery, London, UK) The event that asks WTF is the future going to be like? I got invited to go along to this free event by a bunch of people who hang out in #esp on the IRC network freenode. The idea is to have a gathering of hackers and activists and possibly create a means for social improvement. Well you can be arsed to get yourself down to the gallery in Leytonstone then it sounds like it could be fun! Andy, Dan do you hear me?
My new experiment is semi-live: it’s a portal / review site for the many DVD-rental-by-post companies that seem to have suddenly appeared in the last twelve minutes. It’s all done in super-semantic CSS2, which means it’ll probably look naff in Internet Exploder… I haven’t checked it yet. Opening IE makes me feel queasy, and I try to avoid it.
(’Catterick‘ BBC 3, Sundays) At last ‘Reeves and Mortimer‘ have produced a show to best their original Big Night Out series. Carl Palmer (Bob) and his gruff brother Chris (Vic) trying to find Carl’s long lost son who lives somewhere in the North Yorkshire town of Catterick. This road move consists of no more than ten miles in six thrill packed half-hour features.
Fans of their work will surely rejoice - after ten years of dissapointing shows ‘Shooting Stars‘, ‘Families at War‘, ‘Smell of Reeves and Mortimer‘ and the unwatchable ‘Bang Bang, It’s Reeves and Mortimer‘ they show that they still are masters of comedy.
BBC4 will broadcast the last episode of the first (and only) series this Sunday, however it will almost certainly be released on DVD. If you cannot wait, all of the major Bit-Torrent sites now have it as well as Gath Marenghi’s Darkplace.
At last, a beverage designed to provide sustenance to the criminals who procure and take advantage of women for prostitution. The expansion of the EU will most likely result in a growth of our sex-industry, in turn bolstering the pimping sector, its increasingly affluent middle-management layer.
Pimps work long hours - When they are not pandering, many ply their trade in narcotics or slavery, hence the need for an energy rich premium beverage.
“Pimp Juice is a healthy, non-carbonated energy drink possessing a tropical berry flavor. Pimp Juice’s artificial coloring gives it a smooth neon green glow, while its 10% apple juice content adds a natural sweetness to its taste.” BevNet.com
My two favourite programs on Radio 4 have to be ‘Letter from America‘ and Melvyn Bragg’s In Our Time, both programmes about history. People who know me might find this odd because as a child I displayed almost no aptitude at history, almost managing to fail it at GCSE. Anyway, thanks to this and many other programs produced by the BBC’s history unit I no longer believe the past to be a load of hogwash!
Melvyn’s last program was all about the Norse gods and ancient North European theology. The previous program was about the history of Encryption from the ancient greek to modern quantum techniques. I love the way he gives us so much perspective!
He also invites us to subscribe to his newsletter, a sample of which I have pasted below below. Instructions for subscribing are at the end.
Continue reading ‘In Our Time’
This lady rocks! Her mixes are great - a range of stuff from break-beaty sillynesses through to bangin’ trancey stuff. Plenty of downloads to keep your connection and your ears busy here. I’m listening to the chill-out one at the moment, although I wouldn’t say it’s particularly chillifying…
Coke’s horrible new bottled tap water experiment, Dasani, seems to have a mysterious ingredient… Why not go to www.dasani.com and rollover the lady in the downloads section?
I hope Coke’s horrible project and website bomb majestically.