Amazon Deals

New at Amazon

Saturday, July 23, 2016

Fatwa against Pokémon Go: It's prohibited, #1 modern spying tool worldwide and spreads Darwinism

Via MEMRI: You Pokémon Go players may not realize it, but you're participating in a game that promotes the idea of evolution, and you're a spy because everything on your camera goes directly to the global servers.

Dr. Khlifa Al-Makhrazi, head of the Family Consultative Council in Dubai, speaking on Sky News Arabia TV, discussed the new Pokémon Go rage. Dr. Al-Makhrazi declared that playing this game is prohibited, in keeping with a recent fatwa by Al-Azhar and by "some jurisprudents." He further explained that Pokémon Go is "genuinely and directly" linked to Darwinism and to the theory of evolution. He concluded by saying that anybody playing the game is a spy. The interview aired on July 14.



Transcript:

Dr. Khalifa Al-Makhrazi: 

"For us Muslims, living in an Arab and Muslim society – what is the ruling of playing this game (Pokémon Go)? Well, there is a clear and official fatwa from Al-Azhar prohibiting this game. Some jurisprudents have also rules that this game is prohibited. One might ask: 'This is just a game. It's fun. Why is it prohibited?'

These jihadists have their religious priorities straight.
It is prohibited because it is connected to things we are not aware of. It is connected to one's faith. This game is genuinely and directly linked to Charles Darwin's doctrine of Darwinism, to the theory of evolution and to the transmutation of the species, where a weak species transforms into a superior species. In our religion, this doctrine is forbidden. Therefore, Al-Azhar issues a clear fatwa prohibiting playing this game.

[...]

"I take full responsibility for what I am saying. Any person playing this game is a spy, because the pictures he takes go straight to the global servers. All the places, all the streets and even inside the homes all the way to the bedrooms – the pictures go straight to the global servers, where they are saved, in order to expose all that is private. This game is the number one modern spying tool worldwide. A person unknowingly turns into a spy by playing this game."

More:

No word yet from the pope, but
presumably he's OK with the game.
Saudi Arabia issues fatwa against playing Pokemon Go: Edict first issued in 2001 when Pokemon was played with cards is renewed with warnings the game contains devious and forbidden images:

First issued in 2001 when the game was played with cards, the decree says Pokemon violates Islamic prohibitions against gambling, uses devious Masonic-like symbols and promotes “forbidden images.” 
...

The edict notes that a six-pointed star in the game, for example, is associated with the state of Israel and that certain triangular symbols hold important meanings for the Freemasonry. Crosses in the game are a symbol of Christianity, while other symbols are associated with polytheism, says the edict.

Friday, July 22, 2016

'Game of Thrones' Season 6 Blooper Reel

HBO debuts new Game of Thrones blooper reel for Comic Con:

Friday links

Child labor photos from the Library of Congress.

How many fireflies would it take to match the brightness of the Sun?

Exiled Italian prince, only male heir to throne, now sells pasta from a van in California.

Universal law of urination in mammals - everything pees for (approximately) 21 seconds.

Why Old Men Have Big Ears.

Illustrated Travel Books of the Edwardian Era.

ICYMI, Wednesday's links are here, and include the anniversary of the 20th of July plot (the unsuccessful bomb attempt to kill Hitler in 1944), calculating the Ghostbusters' 35 foot long Twinkie in real life, Apollo 11 anniversary, and male contraceptive news (just wear a polyester sling, and let the heat and electrostatics do all the work).

Universal law of urination in mammals - everything pees for (approximately) 21 seconds




You'll never look at Dumbo in the same way again. Elephants, cows, goats and dogs all take roughly 21 seconds to empty their bladders. A "law of urination" now explains the physics behind what happens when you just gotta go.

The team filmed rats, dogs, goats, cows and elephants urinating and gathered footage from YouTube of others relieving themselves. Combining this with data on mass, bladder pressure and urethra size, they were able to create a mathematical model of urinary systems to show why mammals take the same time to empty their bladder, despite the difference in bladder size.

Previous models have only considered the effects of bladder pressure, but the length of the urethra turns out to be important as well.

"Most of the research is on humans or animals smaller than humans," says Yang. In these species, the effect of gravity can be ignored. That's not true of elephants, whose urethral dimensions are comparable to a household pipe: a diameter of around 10 centimetres and a length of about 1 metre.

In this case size matters, as it means urine has time to reach higher speeds. This means that as it travels down the pipe, the urine accelerates and its flow rate rises, resulting in an elephant's large bladder being emptied in a similar time to those of smaller animals.

Medium-sized animals like dogs and goats have shorter urethras, so get less of a gravitational boost: their flow is slower. In addition, they have smaller bladders. The result of both effects is that they empty their bladders in roughly the same time as elephants.

Kind of related: German man went to court, won the right to pee standing up.

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Wurst robot ever? Watch A German Robot (the Bratwurst Bot) Grill Sausages

Popular Science:
Just like any of us in the summer months, it locates empty spaces on the grill and places bratwursts as needed, eyes them and turns them to ensure even crisping of the skin, and plates them when they're done, with a waggle of its moustachioed tablet face.
More detail at Phys.org:
The BratWurst Bot was developed for the Stallwächter-Party and is made of shelf robotic components such as the light-weight Universal Robots arm UR-10, a standard parallel gripper (Schunk PG-70) and standard grill tongs. A regular tablet with a ROS-based web frontend was used as an interface. The guests could easily order a sausage via this tablet. Then the ordered bratwurst appeared in a queue on the tablet with the name of the guest and the remaining preparation time. In addition to that, a tablet-based chef face behind the robot interacted with the guests.
The robot turned the sausages multiple times until they were ready to be directly served on a guest's plate. 

More at Phys.org, h/t Dyspepsia Generation

Wednesday links

It's the anniversary of the 20th of July plot, the unsuccessful bomb attempt to kill Hitler in 1944.

These photos are quite extraordinary: c. 1890: Venice in Photochrom.


Male contraceptive news: just wear a polyester sling, and let the heat and the electrostatics do all the work, with bonus Monty Python.

Miracle breakthrough in high-tech armpit cooling. Be sure to translate.

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon

ICYMI, Friday's links are here, and include the world’s largest Nerf gun, bad taxidermy, how much of his ear Vincent Van Gogh sliced off, testing mobility in medieval armor, and drawing eyes on cow butts to protect them from lions.