CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2013-05-18 15:45:11 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 3 +1s)

Young Americans Lead Trend to Less Driving

For six decades, Americans have tended to drive more every year. But in the middle of the last decade, the number of miles driven — both over all and per capita — began to drop, notes a report to be published on Tuesday by U.S. Pirg, a nonprofit advocacy organization.

2013-05-18 01:31:23 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

+Patty Garza  Since I couldn't post the comment on your post, here it is instead. 

Wait wait wait....on what basis are you making the claim that homosexuality isn't normative? Homosexual behavior has been observed in all simians and in most mammals. 

You can't "hate the sin" and "love the sinner" without causing distress, this is coming from someone who was tortured by folks like you all through highschool, not because I was actually gay, but because I didn't see the point of HS relationships and I was a cheerleader. 


You might not realize it, but it is people like you who make hate groups possible, you legitimate their hate and bigotry with your soft-version. 

2013-05-18 01:10:01 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

I don't hate gays ..but completely understand the resistance to accepting homosexuals. However, it's the behavior/act that is appalling, especially when they want it taught in schools and want to normalize it when it is not normal behavior but a disorder. I can love the sinner, but not the sin.

Sadly the homosexual lobby got them to remove it from the DSM of mental disorders and this is the result since the 70's they have been pushing it down our throats with gay parades and rainbow flags, etc and now pushing it in schools by using 'anti-bullying' programs. Here is a good article on how they are pushing it on our kids: School Indoctrination Centers&The Homosexual Agenda:Girls Told to Kiss at School   

2013-05-17 23:38:11 (38 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

On the topic of free will and first causes I have a question. 

Neurology aside, does the fact that no one chooses to be born, chooses their starting position in life, or chooses their community of origin in any way detract from the idea of humans being 100% in control of their lives?
or
Is it philosophical evidence that free will is illusory? For if we had no control over our initial conditions, and said conditions define and constrain future endpoints, how could we be said to have Free Will?

2013-05-17 20:22:51 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 9 +1s)

We started our victory garden :-)

2013-05-17 04:05:57 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

It seems all of corporate America is trying to dodge paying their fair share. Corporations that have been sheltering profits overseas should not get a break. 

2013-05-15 21:02:45 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

OMG auto hash-tagging now, Google is using semantic search to read your posts and auto-tag them..... dude..2013 is going to be great year for services from le Google. 

2013-05-15 21:01:50 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

If you aren't using the new Google Music service yet you REALLY have to check it out. 

2013-05-15 20:55:02 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Loving the new feed layout, although I do have a few bugs, it will only show me my "all" stream, my individual circle streams are all coming up empty. 

2013-05-15 18:48:42 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

You have got to check out the new google music service, its like Pandora, Spotify, and Slacker all in one! 

2013-05-15 16:03:29 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

2013-05-15 13:37:15 (1 comments, 2 reshares, 3 +1s)

Participants who reported using marijuana in the past month had lower levels of fasting insulin and HOMA-IR and higher levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C). These associations were weaker among those who reported using marijuana at least once, but not in the past thirty days, suggesting that the impact of marijuana use on insulin and insulin resistance exists during periods of recent use. Current users had 16% lower fasting insulin levels than participants who reported never having used marijuana in their lifetimes.

Large waist circumference is linked to diabetes risk. In the current study there were also significant associations between marijuana use and smaller waist circumferences.

"Previous epidemiologic studies have found lower prevalence rates of obesity and diabetes mellitus in marijuana users compared to people who have never used marijuana, suggesting a... more »

2013-05-15 13:27:23 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

The stronger you are(physically), the more likely you are to be opposed to Welfare or other forms of redistributive economic policy. 

2013-05-14 14:29:12 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

2013-05-14 14:01:10 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 3 +1s)

I take a friend and fellow writer to task in this week's Opinion section. 

2013-05-13 20:48:02 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Hey if you have never seen this site you should check it out, I found some really interesting research in this repository. 

2013-05-13 16:34:46 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Up to 10% of Congential Heart defects are the result of spontaneous mutations in regions of the DNA that affect histone methylation in 2 sites known to be related to regulating key developmental genes. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-05/hhmi-sma051013.php

2013-05-12 19:23:01 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

"The question of whether or not crustaceans can experience pain is unresolved. Because of the ambiguous nature of pain, most people who contend that crustaceans do have this capacity approach the issue using "argument by analogy" – that is, they hold that certain similarities between crustacean and human biology or behaviour warrant an assumption that crustaceans can feel pain."

2013-05-11 23:58:10 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Short post up on the recent adoption of a limited pesticide ban in the EU and the adoption of Suflaxor as a pesticide here in the states. 

2013-05-11 15:47:01 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

So I noticed that I have had quite a few new additions to the community, just wanted to say hi, sorry I didn't post much last week "real life" got hectic and busy. 

I am a fairly quixotic individual and I post on a variety of different topics so if you see things you aren't particularly interested in one day, don't fret because chances are I will be posting something on a completely different topic the next day. 

Anyways thank you for joining with me on this grand adventure we call life, I hope that our digital connections will lead to mutually beneficial enlightenment. 

If I haven't circled you back its because a few thousand of you have added me in the last month and sorting through who is who takes a little bit of time. It is not that you aren't awesome, I just may have not noticed you yet. 

2013-05-11 15:34:16 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

Share this video with your moms, I know I did. 

2013-05-10 22:42:59 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

I really love classical/dubstep fusions. 

2013-05-06 21:32:43 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Hacktivist group Syrian Electronic Army has struck again, targeting the Twitter account of The Onion, a US-based satirical news organisation.  @TheOnion posted an unusual series of parody tweets and images relating to Syria, prompting online users to point out the potential hacking. 

2013-05-03 15:36:38 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

2013-05-03 02:38:01 (2 comments, 2 reshares, 8 +1s)

The Physics of Baseball

Yu Darvish is a 26-year old pitcher from Japan. His throwing motion for different kinds of pitches is so similar, it makes it very difficult for batters to detect what's coming. (This animated GIF shows 5 pitches superimposed in one image: watch how his arm follows a similar path, but the balls go 5 different ways.)

Why is that important? According to Steve the Ump (http://goo.gl/SYoS9), a batter has 4/100th of a second to decide to swing or not. If a right-handed batter swings 1/100th of a second too soon, the ball goes foul. If the batter swings 1/100th of a second too late, the ball goes foul. So when an announcer talks about "split-second decision-making" by a batter, that's how much the second gets split.

(GIF source: Deadspin http://goo.gl/WKPQK)

2013-05-01 17:55:12 (0 comments, 4 reshares, 3 +1s)

More Moore's law in action, the "pixels" in this stop motion film are atoms. Way to go IBM!

For more information on this, check out IBM's release about it here. http://goo.gl/oozYg

2013-04-30 01:47:01 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 11 +1s)

Hahaha! :)

2013-04-30 01:34:31 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

While social media is still maturing as a medium for cultural exchange, it cannot be denied that it empowers citizens to challenge authority. It also provides a platform upon which individuals can congregate to share what gives their lives meaning.

Whether it be a person’s philosophy on life, what they had for breakfast,their feelings about Justin Bieber, or just a funny cat picture, the activities of persons on social media sites are more than just words and pixels on a screen, they are fundamental expressions of identity. These expressions, even if they appear from your perspective to be vapid and narcissistic, still have value and articulate meaning.

2013-04-30 01:12:52 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Researchers performed an integrated survival analysis on a large breast cancer cohort of 466 patients, using genome-wide data for miRNA/mRNA expression and DNA methylation. The resulting integrated prognostic signature, composed of seven miRNA and 30 mRNA genes, was very compact, and it was successfully validated on eight breast cancer cohorts.

2013-04-29 14:04:12 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

SciTech #ScienceSunday  Digest 17 - 28th Apr 2013
Transmitting magnetism, self assembling nanowires, semiconductor spray paint, artificial human-like touch sensors, keeping external organs alive and more.

This regular weekly post has been abridged due to getting married yesterday and going on honeymoon tomorrow!

1. New materials allow magnetic fields to be transmitted over long distances.
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/514201/physicists-build-worlds-first-magnetic-hose-for-transmitting-magnetic-fields/

2. Spontaneously self-assembling multi-core nanowires grown on graphene via new controllable method.
http://www.nanotech-now.com/news.cgi?story_id=47307

3. New gene therapy bypasses blood-brain-barrier to rescue dying neurons.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/foas-ana041813.php

4.... more »