Did a criminal search for bro.. he’s not listed as absconded or locked up, so he must’ve made out ok.

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The following are a series of Stongman stunts:
How to Tear a Telephone Book in Halves
How to Tear a Deck of Cards in Halves
How to Drive a Spike Through a Board or Sheet of Metal
How to Bend a Heavy Steel Spike with the Hands
How to Lift a Man Overhead with One Hand

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Doing Blood today, because I missed Wednesday. It happens right in the middle of my day, so I’m going to miss Kev now. Feh.

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Beast’s real mark devalued to ‘616’ – Revelation fragment

Satanists, apocalypse watchers and heavy metal guitarists may have to adjust their demonic numerology after a recently deciphered ancient biblical text revealed that 666 is not the fabled Number of the Beast after all.

A fragment from the oldest surviving copy of the New Testament, dating to the Third century, gives the more mundane 616 as the mark of the Antichrist.

Ellen Aitken, a professor of early Christian history at McGill University, said the discovery appears to spell the end of 666 as the devil’s prime number.

“This is a very nice piece to find,” Dr. Aitken said. “Scholars have argued for a long time over this, and it now seems that 616 was the original number of the beast.”

The tiny fragment of 1,500-year-old papyrus is written in Greek, the original language of the New Testament, and contains a key passage from the Book of Revelation.

Where more conventional versions of the Bible give 666 as the “number of the beast,” or the sign of the anti-Christ whose coming is predicted in the book’s apocalyptic verses, the older version uses the Greek letters signifying 616.

“This is very early confirmation of that number, earlier than any other text we’ve found of that passage,” Dr. Aitken said. “It’s probably about 100 years before any other version.”

The fragment was part of a hoard of previously illegible manuscripts discovered in an ancient garbage dump outside the Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus. Although the papyrus was first excavated in 1895, it was badly discolored and damaged. Classics scholars at Oxford University were only recently able to read it using new advanced imaging techniques.

Elijah Dann, a professor of philosophy and religion at the University of Toronto, said the new number is unlikely to make a dent in the popularity of 666.

“Otherwise, a lot of sermons would have to be changed and a lot of movies rewritten,” he said with a laugh. “There’s always someone with an active imagination who can put another interpretation on it.

“It just shows you that when you study something as cryptic and mystic as the Book of Revelation there’s an almost unlimited number of interpretations.”

The book is thought to have been written by the disciple John and according to the King James Bible, the traditional translation of the passage reads: “Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.”

But Dr. Aitken said that translation was drawn from much later versions of the New Testament than the fragment found in Oxyrhynchus. “When we’re talking about the early biblical texts, we’re always talking about copies and they are copies made, at best, 150 to 200 years after [the original] was written,” she said.

“They can have mistakes in the copying, changes for political or theological reasons … it’s like a detective story piecing it all together.”

Dr. Aitken said, however, that scholars now believe the number in question has very little to do the devil. It was actually a complicated numerical riddle in Greek, meant to represent someone’s name, she said.

“It’s a number puzzle — the majority opinion seems to be that it refers to [the Roman emperor] Nero.”

Revelation was actually a thinly disguised political tract, with the names of those being criticized changed to numbers to protect the authors and early Christians from reprisals. “It’s a very political document,” Dr. Aitken said. “It’s a critique of the politics and society of the Roman empire, but it’s written in coded language and riddles.”

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I love Monsters, Inc.

Why not the adorable snowman… or the agreeable snowman!

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“Day in the Life” is the largest photography event in history, recording the culture of countries from around the world for 20 years. Celebrated photojournalists from around the world disperse throughout various countries and regions and use their cameras to capture the characteristics of one day.

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Created community with mootpoint and myid8myego to follow a set of writing exercises (and to remember how to spell exercise.)

It’ll be good to get back into practice with some folks helping me to do some work.

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This is fascinating, and worth a look right away. WTSP Tampa’s Teresa Moore passed this on to Al Tompkins, who posted it on his Morning Meeting site: Unique ID. This lets you put in a name and DoB and get a Florida driver license number or put in a number and get a name.

It’s a standard code that attaches numbers to letter sounds (so p and b have the same number since they sound alike), skips vowels, and then adds part of the DoB to the final license number. You could figure out anyone’s license number, or name, without this program if you had the algorithm.

A few other states are available too, as well as a page that gives you the Soundex code.

Is this valuable? Nahhh. How often are you going to have someone’s driver license number, or their complete name and date of birth, and need the number? But, it’s fun….

However, if you did have someone’s date of birth, made this work and got a valid number, you could go on to the Florida HSMV site, put in the number and at least find out if the license is current.

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Chlamydia Outbreak Kills a Dozen Penguins

SAN FRANCISCO – An outbreak of chlamydia at the San Francisco Zoo has left a dozen penguins dead, according to a spokesman.

The bacteria, which was most likely transmitted to the birds by an infected seagull, is spread through airborne saliva or other bodily fluids, said Bob Jenkins, the zoo’s director of animal care and conservation. A similar disease is sexually transmitted in humans.

“One quick exposure and you’re off and running,” Jenkins said, adding that at its height, nearly 80 percent of the zoo’s penguin colony was infected. “It required very aggressive treatment on our part.”

Zoo workers first noticed several lethargic birds about two months ago. The penguins that died were mostly original members of the colony and about 20-years old, Jenkins said. Their weakened immune systems led to kidney failure and respiratory distress, which eventually killed them. The average penguin’s life span is 15 to 20 years.

Precautions were taken to ensure no other animals or human visitors were infected. Only certain keepers wearing special clothing and masks took care of the penguins, the whole area was routinely disinfected and the birds were treated with antibiotics, Jenkins said. He added this was the first chlamydia outbreak among the penguins.

Some of the zoo’s 55 remaining penguins are still recovering, he said.

“It’s a strong colony, so it seems to be bouncing back well,” Jenkins said.

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TV Car lover’s dream. The Barris Motor Car Collection is going up for auction on May 14th, and among the varied and famous one-of-a-kind movie and TV star accessories up for bid is the customized 1958 Plymouth Fury that played Stephen King’s Christine, Starsky and Hutch’s 1975 Ford Gran Torino, “The General Lee,” the original Batcycle, “Greased Lightning” from Grease, Back to the Future’s DeLorian, autos from The Beverly Hillbillies, The Munsters, Green Hornet and K.I.T.T.

I’d just settle for the Beverly Hillbillies Jalopy. – via glassdog

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1 year ago – quorn, sunset, mena newt face, pet stroller, entertainment pondering, jail hubbub

2 years ago – There pirate quest (still no beards, but eye patches!), first PT, Being D’s spokesmodel, orange cat fan club

3 years ago – Slept in, Star Wars Field trip, getting into php/MySQL, brush your cat’s teeth, pix of me working on bro’s computer, haiku, classic tv

4 years ago – embedding is verboten, apartment desc, Mateo’s Josie is born!, good stuff, all around.