Other updates

These are probably not really exciting to others than myself.

Revamped the background on the website. It doesn't look nearly as crappy as it did before. Though now it looks a lot more pastel-ly and New-Agey (whatever that means).

I also changed the quotes on the initial page. While I feel an intrinsic closeness with Quaker ideals, I felt the quotes didn't really reflect the atmosphere of the description that came next.

Now, the two pages I need to focus on are Brain Links and Media That Help Pierce the Veil. The latter is utterly barebones, something I've only put one night's worth of work into. It needs a lot of work. Suggestions are appreciated, as are corrections, or short descriptions I could attach to film names, book titles, and so on. I'm just afraid that the amount of work that is needed to make that page successful will not be available in the not-too-far-off future.

So, Wednesday, I guffawed at South Park. It makes me think, as I do every once in a while, that once my parents have passed on, I might call into one of those shows (probably Sally Jessie Raphael) and just give my life story. Short as it has been, I feel it's been chock full of talk-show gems and goodies.

Ice Age "news"

Random Noise Could Have Affected Climate in Ice Age

Under certain conditions, random noise such as electrical static can paradoxically increase a weak signal's detectability, and in general amplify the signal's influence on its surroundings. This phenomenon, called "stochastic resonance" (SR), has been observed in settings as diverse as chaotic lasers and human reflex systems.

Interestingly, researchers originally proposed the concept of SR in 1982 to explain how random climate events may have helped generate a regularly repeating interval of approximately 100,000 years between Ice Ages. However, subsequent evidence did not support this idea.

Now, SR is coming back home to climate: New research suggests that random "noise" could have triggered a climatic rollercoaster during the last Ice Age.

[...] If confirmed, this mechanism may help to explain why the Ice Age climate was so much less stable compared to that of the past 10,000 years, in which human civilization was able to thrive.