Monday, January 28, 2013
Monday links
Dog Power and Dog Engines, with some sidelights on goat engines. Sort of related: How did wolves evolve into dogs?
The Ten Strangest Firetrucks Ever Built.
10 Most Quotable Movies for Geeks (That Aren't Star Wars Films).
The Military’s Most Science-Fictional Projects.
Everything you've ever wanted to know about toe wrestling.
The Ten Strangest Firetrucks Ever Built.
10 Most Quotable Movies for Geeks (That Aren't Star Wars Films).
The Military’s Most Science-Fictional Projects.
Everything you've ever wanted to know about toe wrestling.
How did wolves evolve into dogs?
Long ago, some brazen wolves started hanging around human settlements, jump-starting events that ultimately led to today's domesticated dogs. Now geneticists say they have identified one of the key changes that turned wolves into the tame, tail-wagging creatures well-suited to living by our sides — the ability to digest carbohydrates with ease.
Comparing dog and wolf DNA, the authors pinpointed several changes in starch and sugar-processing genes that would have made early dogs better able to digest the scraps they scavenged from dumps in early farming villages, helping them to thrive as they gave up the independent life of the pack to entwine their lives with ours.
This means that at some point in dogs' evolutionary history, packs of wild canids struck up a mutually beneficial relationship with early humans, and learned to subsist on people food — stuff like wheat, barley, corn, rice, and potatoes. In exchange, man earned himself a loyal friend and fierce protector.
More here.
Comparing dog and wolf DNA, the authors pinpointed several changes in starch and sugar-processing genes that would have made early dogs better able to digest the scraps they scavenged from dumps in early farming villages, helping them to thrive as they gave up the independent life of the pack to entwine their lives with ours.
This means that at some point in dogs' evolutionary history, packs of wild canids struck up a mutually beneficial relationship with early humans, and learned to subsist on people food — stuff like wheat, barley, corn, rice, and potatoes. In exchange, man earned himself a loyal friend and fierce protector.
More here.
Today is the feast day of St. Thomas Aquinas - some quotes and history
Ergo necesse est devenire ad aliquod primum movems, quod a nullo movetur; et hoc omnes intelligunt Deum.
- St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologica, Pt. 1, qu. 2, art. 3)
(Therefore, it is necessary to arrive at a prime mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.)
Si enim omnia mala impedirentur, multa bona deessent universo: non enim esset vita lionis, si non esset occisio animalium; nec esset patientia martyrum, si non esset persecutio tyrannorum.
- Id., qu. 22, art. 2
(If all evil were prevented, much good would be absent from the universe. A lion would cease to live if there were no slaying of animals, and there would be no patience of martyrs if there were no tyrannical persecution.)
Attributed to Aquinas, but unsourced:
Abuse does not rule out use.
Beware the man of one book.
Music is the exaltation of the mind derived from things eternal, bursting forth in sound.
The teachings of Thomas on the true meaning of liberty, which at this time is running into license, on the Divine origin of all authority, on laws and their force, on the paternal and just rule of princes, on obedience to the highest powers, on mutual charity one towards another - on all these and kindred subjects - have very great and invincible force to overturn those principles of the new order which are well known to be dangerous to the peaceful order of things and to public safety.
- Pope Leo XIII (reigned 1878-1903) (encyclical Aeterni Patris, 1879)
Today is the Roman Catholic feast day of St. Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225-1274), the "Angelic Doctor" who became the greatest of the Church's medieval theologians and by the edict of Pope Leo XIII, Catholicism's "official" philosopher. Born in the family castle near Aquino, Italy - hence his name, originally Thomas of Aquino - Aquinas studied at Monte Cassino and Naples, entered the Dominican order, and became a pupil of the philosopher/saint Albertus Magnus. In his major work, the Summa Theologica (1267-1273), one of the bedrock texts of medieval scholasticism, he sought to reconcile Christian theology with the rationalism and natural philosophy of Aristotle and thus to show that faith and reason constitute two harmonious realms. In the world of Aquinas, everything is arranged in ascending order to God, the only necessary and self-sufficient being. Following a mystical experience in December 1273,
he noted,
"Everything I have written seems like straw by comparison with what I have seen and what has been revealed to me..."
and thereafter, he ceased teaching and writing. Fittingly, Thomas Aquinas is the patron saint of academics, booksellers, students, and theologians.)
A typical "holy card" illustration of St. Thomas Aquinas:
- St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologica, Pt. 1, qu. 2, art. 3)
(Therefore, it is necessary to arrive at a prime mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.)
Si enim omnia mala impedirentur, multa bona deessent universo: non enim esset vita lionis, si non esset occisio animalium; nec esset patientia martyrum, si non esset persecutio tyrannorum.
- Id., qu. 22, art. 2
(If all evil were prevented, much good would be absent from the universe. A lion would cease to live if there were no slaying of animals, and there would be no patience of martyrs if there were no tyrannical persecution.)
Attributed to Aquinas, but unsourced:
Abuse does not rule out use.
Beware the man of one book.
Music is the exaltation of the mind derived from things eternal, bursting forth in sound.
The teachings of Thomas on the true meaning of liberty, which at this time is running into license, on the Divine origin of all authority, on laws and their force, on the paternal and just rule of princes, on obedience to the highest powers, on mutual charity one towards another - on all these and kindred subjects - have very great and invincible force to overturn those principles of the new order which are well known to be dangerous to the peaceful order of things and to public safety.
- Pope Leo XIII (reigned 1878-1903) (encyclical Aeterni Patris, 1879)
Today is the Roman Catholic feast day of St. Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225-1274), the "Angelic Doctor" who became the greatest of the Church's medieval theologians and by the edict of Pope Leo XIII, Catholicism's "official" philosopher. Born in the family castle near Aquino, Italy - hence his name, originally Thomas of Aquino - Aquinas studied at Monte Cassino and Naples, entered the Dominican order, and became a pupil of the philosopher/saint Albertus Magnus. In his major work, the Summa Theologica (1267-1273), one of the bedrock texts of medieval scholasticism, he sought to reconcile Christian theology with the rationalism and natural philosophy of Aristotle and thus to show that faith and reason constitute two harmonious realms. In the world of Aquinas, everything is arranged in ascending order to God, the only necessary and self-sufficient being. Following a mystical experience in December 1273,
he noted,
"Everything I have written seems like straw by comparison with what I have seen and what has been revealed to me..."
and thereafter, he ceased teaching and writing. Fittingly, Thomas Aquinas is the patron saint of academics, booksellers, students, and theologians.)
A typical "holy card" illustration of St. Thomas Aquinas:
Sunday, January 27, 2013
As Promised, Obama Energy Policy Bankrupts Coal Plant
Via Washington Examiner:
“The (Las Brisas Energy Center) is a victim of EPA’s concerted effort to stifle solid-fuel energy facilities in the U.S., including EPA’s carbon-permitting requirements and EPA’s New Source Performance Standards for new power plants.”
The Las Brisas power plant had been part of a larger Las Brisas Energy Center project planned for Corpus Christi’s Inner Harbor.Economists had projected that in the first 5 years of construction and operation the project would create as 1,300 direct and 2,600 indirect jobs. Now none of those jobs will exist.
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