Hawking

Stephen Hawking recently said:

"I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark."

I'm grateful for him. He calls it like he see it, and I see it the same way. There is nothing wrong with a reality based existence and atheists shouldn't have to feel the need to keep that to themselves for fear of offending someone who believes in space ghosts.

Sweden

Orchids and Sedums and Trebuchets, OH MY!

Kalmar (AKA home this week)

Site first occupied around 100 AD

Traction Trebuchet

Miniature Plants of the Alvar Plain

A dry place with fossiliferous limestone, a very short growing season

shallow soil

and tiny Orchids

and other tiny flowers, too. Found a geranium 2mm across in full bloom.

Stockholm

No Surer Sign of Spring

More Brownwater Adventures

Science Geek Video Share (SGVS)

You have to be a geek to like these:

Ion Torrent apple/pc spoof

Ambry got an Ion Torrent

I like them, therefore I'm a geek.

If you watched those and liked them, then you have probably already seen this:

Bad Project Lady Gaga

Just for the fun of it

Brownwater Adventures

Nice mornin' fer a float, aye matey?

Consider the south fork of the Palouse River, bagged and tagged.

That's the best boat dog ever made.

Highlights: Finally running "the falls" at Reaney park and the Grange. Two portages on a five hour tour from the Pullman movie theaters to Parvin. One at an illegal fence (if you count hanging a 5ft metal fence all the way across a river hung by 10 or so 3/8" cables from the county road bridge guard rail with a bunch of wood snagged in it as an illegal fence). To make it interesting, it is at a pretty swift and deep place to try a pull out. Only side left has a place to stand big enough to pass the boats over the fence. Once step from shore has no bottom. The second is at a huge log jam on a railroad trestle above Albion from the previous flooding. Lots of trees and log jams you could just squeak by. Great wildlife day; including Beavers, Otters, Muskrat, Mink, Night Heron. Riley needing to be on the lead boat.

Melt