This being Dr Seuss’s birthday, in addition to my daughter Joy’s, someone felt inspired to write an atheist’s tributory piece. Following is an excerpt.
In a place known as Whoville the folks got distraught
When Horton the elephant said what he thought.
“The oddest of oddities isn’t as odd
As people believing that there is a god.”
The Who Jews and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists
The Who Vegetarians, Wiccans, and Nudists,
The Who Presbyterians, Baptists, New Agers:
All spread the sad news on their cell phones and pagers.
A Who Evangelical fell to his knees
And he said, “Oh no, Horton! I beg of you, please!
We always have liked you. We all think you’re swell,
And we can’t stand the thought that you’re headed to hell!”
A couple years ago, researchers were puzzled to find that people who are overweight are less likely to die than people who are either skinny, obese, or at a normal weight.
After further research, we now know why. While, as we’ve known for quite a long time, people who are at above-normal weight are at increased risks for deaths from diabetes, cancer or heart disease, these risks are not increased sufficiently to compensate for the significantly reduced risk of death from diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, infections, and lung disease!
So, in your face, skinny people!
…Oh, except… at ~270 lbs on a 5’11″ frame, my Body Mass Index of 38 would classify me as obese, not overweight. Ah, well, at least if I start dieting and getting regular exercise, I don’t have quite as far to shoot for any more!
A short but fascinating video discussing how we know that one of the 23 pairs of chromosomes that make up the human genome resulted from the fusion of what had previously been, and still remains so in other modern primates, two pairs of chromosomes, and how this provides evidence for a common ancestry between humans and other primates.
Albus Dumbledore is a homosexual. Guess that pretty much nails the coffin shut as far as fundamentalist Christians are concerned… Plus, all the many people who apparently can’t distinguish between homosexuality and pedophilia are going to raise all sorts of questions about what Dumbledore’s real interests in Harry Potter might have been.
Note that this information isn’t revealed in the Harry Potter books themselves, though it sheds a new light on some information in the final book. It’s simply one of those factoids that the author kept tucked away in her brain, and used to keep her world consistent. The article notes that when she found a reference in one of the movie scripts to a past, female love interest of Dumbledore’s, she sent a note to the director to set things straight.
Today’s xkcd comic seems to sum up rather well, the attitude many developers seem to have regarding the user experience. Moral: just because the user didn’t thoroughly familiarize perself with the documentation, it does not mean the program is excused from Doing The Right Thing.
Ah, well, at least if I start dieting and getting regular exercise, I don’t have quite as far to shoot for any more! 
