Web comics that I like

I have always enjoyed reading comics, some more than others, but I haven't had a regular newspaper to get my comics for several years. But I was overjoyed when I found that I could read the daily comics online which I have been doing for a few years now.

Somewhere along the way I branched out and got into reading a few web comics. These are comics that do not (typically) appear in a newspaper, but are published online. Someone I know once mentioned that if I like the work of a particular author then I should share their work with people I know so that they can continue to write. So on that note, I present this incomplete list of the web comics that I read (in no particular order). I say "incomplete" because there are several (~30-40) that I read in addition to the ones listed here but they don't rise to the level of "I would definitely recommend this." There are a few others that I would recommend but they have been on hiatus for more than a year and may never come back.

Schlock Mercenary
I stumbled across this web comic about three years ago when someone made a reference to The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates (now known as The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries), I looked it up and discovered Schlock Mercenary. The comic is written and drawn by Howard Tayler, and has been running daily since June 12th 2000. It is not your typical daily comic strip where you can start at any point and just pick it up as you go along. It actually has a (rather complex) story with many characters. Because of this it is described as a comic "space opera" (think "soap opera", but a lot less cheese and more space, and interesting characters). Even though this web comic started out as a side job it has since become the author's full time job, which means he is good enough at it that people are willing to pay him for it. That right there says something about the comic. Following this comic is like reading a long novel that only comes in daily doses. But it is interesting enough to make me want to keep reading it. It is also peppered with my style of humor.

Widdershins
This is actually a collection of related stories. Each one can be read independently, but there is a central story to them all. It is set in a world with magic in a mostly 1800's type world. The story has humor and action and interesting characters that are very likable.

Galaxion
This is another comic that I randomly came across. This one is drawn in black and white in graphic novel format, and updates about once a week. The tag line is "Life. Love. Hyperspace." and it mostly lives up to that by being a rather mellow drama set in space (that's mellow drama, not melodrama, as in it's mellow and it is a drama). I'm not one to read romance anything so that should be some indication as to how much "Love" there really is in this comic (i.e. very little relative to the rest of the story). When I first came across the comic I actually didn't read very much of it before I lost interest. But about two weeks later I came across it again and I read a little more and it hit just the right spot so I went back and read the whole thing from the beginning.

One on the things that I like about this comic is the artwork. The artist does a very good job with her characters. I find them to be very unique (both visually and character wise) and I think that is what got me reading this comic in the first place. The style of art is very distinct, but very expressive. The other thing is that the characters actually look like normal people, that is, they are average height and weight, unlike so many other comics (especially manga and anime) where the people are impossibly thin or super-model-ish. I think that helps make the story more believable.

PhD Comics
What can I say. I'm in grad school so of course I read PhD comics. It's one of the basic requirements to get into grad school. I first saw this comic years ago as an undergrad. At the time it didn't make any sense and I didn't think it was funny. But as I got closer to going to grad school it got funnier and funnier (and not because the comics changed, but because I actually stated to understand. I started to actually have that stuff happen to me.). Now that I am in grad school every time there is a new comic I have to resist the urge to print it out and go tape it to the door of my office since I know that there is already someone somewhere in the department doing just that. Just about every other office door has a print out of a PhD comic on it (that or xkcd, which is next).

xkcd
xkcd is drawn by Randall Munroe, and it is perhaps the most famous webcomic in the world. It especially became well known after the Japan earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster when Randall posted a radiation dose chart to explain the radiation levels around the reactors. This got him noticed beyond the science/geek/engineer/slashdot crowd. His stuff is mostly stick figures with many references to science and computers. He also includes some strong language and *ahem* questionable content occasionally, so not for everyone. The comic comes with the following warning at the bottom:

Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors).

Girl Genius
In terms of online web comics this one sets a high standard. It has won the Hugo award several times. This was perhaps the second web comic that I started reading. It updates three times a week with a full page color spread. It a fantasy/steam-punk comic with some humor thrown in. The story is complex with a rather large cast of characters. The only one who has them beat in terms of number of characters and extent of story is Schlock Mercenary.

Snow by Night
Snow by Night is set in a world that is like an alternate reality of colonial America. It involves magic, spirits, colonial powers, natives and an extensive back story not entirely contained in the comic. The story has been going for five years and shows no sign of slowing down.

Sithrah
This is a new comic. So I don't know where it's going yet, but I read a web comic/graphic novel called reMIND by the same artist and liked it. The artist is also associated with a Bible videos project and has done the art for one of their videos. It's quite good, check it out.

Stand Still. Stay Silent.
This story is set in a post-apocalyptic world where a mysterious illness has killed almost everyone. The last vestiges of civilization are found only in the Nordic countries. The artist is from Sweden, has lived in Finland and mixes in many elements of Nordic mythology. The characters are real and engaging. I think that if a Hollywood executive was forced to turn this story into a movie or TV show they would royally mess it up because the characters and monsters don't fit the standard archetypes. That is probably why I like it. It also has perhaps the scariest monsters I have ever seen in a story, and that is saying something since there have only been two of them in the almost 2 years since the comic started. The first monster didn't show up until chapter 3, and that is probably what made it so scary.

Vattu
This one is special since it is one of the very few that I am actually considering buying the comic in book form. Perhaps in the future when I have gobs of money (ha!) I'll buy the books. The story is set in a world unlike any other I have ever seen. The world, and all the different races, are extremely unique. The story is much more complex than almost any other that I ever read in web comic or book. It is not straight forward and does not do what you would expect. I still remember the exact page where I decided I wanted to buy the books because the character development went from good to exceptional. There are very few stories that can achieve this level of character complexity.

Lady Sabre & the Pirates of the Ineffable Aether
I don't know how to describe this one. It is a mixture of scifi, fantasy, steam punk, western, and pirate adventure. It's been going for four years and it has kept me interested.

Erstwhile
This is actually a collection of short stories. They tell less well known stories from the Grimm brothers. They are short and classic. None of the Disney rewrites here. People do get killed and not everything works out by the final song comes around. Sometimes they just end, because, well, that's how the original story is.

Gaia
This comic is firmly in the magic and fantasy camp. There are wizards, some dragons, people with swords, staffs and horses. The visuals are good and there is enough complexity in the story that it doesn't feel cliche. If it weren't so complex then I probably wouldn't keep reading it.

Paranatual
As the name implies this is about paranormal activity. The story centers on a boy who moves into a town and finds out that he can see ghosts. It is more humorous than scary. It is also shamelessly self referential and poking fun of its more serious aspects. The characters also occasionally critique the artwork of the comic itself which adds an interesting touch.

Chicken Wings
This is a comic in the style of the classic newspaper strip. It is all about airplanes (and some helicopters) so the humor is all flight related. The comic appears in several aviation magazines.


Let me know if you know of any others that are good to read since I am always looking for new and interesting stories.

Rabbath Ammon: The City With the Greatest PR Campaign Ever

[Author's Note: When I originally started writing this I intended this to be a lighthearted post about I verse I recently read in the book of Deuteronomy. So if that is all you care about then just skip down to where it says "Original Post". But I just couldn't resist looking up some basic information about the people and places mentioned in that verse. That turned into an even more in depth look at some Biblical history that I was not very familiar with. That in turn lead to more searching and more reading and more ideas.

By the time I decided to stop I was turning a short lighthearted post about a single verse into a Russian Novel. I had 20+ tabs open in my browser and I was trying to figure out how to distill that much information into a single post. After a while I decided that I didn't have to, nor did I want to attempt that. I had unintentionally hit on a very rich subsection of Biblical history that very frequently gets misinterpreted. Some of the topics that I came across in researching that one verse have been used (almost) more than any other part of the Bible as the basis for some of the most fantastical, misguided, insipid, and just plain wrong Biblical exegesis.

My original short post was turning into a post on how a single word in the Bible can be used as the basis for an ever expanding repertoire of tall tales and theological speculation that leads into the truly bizarre. But rather than flesh it all out into a complete post I threw it all away and went back to my original idea of a short, humorous post...plus a long boring "Author's Note". I'll provide the links but if you want to go down the rabbit hole and take the blue pill then you will have to do your own research.

A few links to get you started:
Og
Rephaite
Ammon
Nephilim

One of those links will lead you down a path of pure history, another down a path of linguistics debates, another down a path of speculation and fantasy and the fourth down a path of a combination of all three. I leave it as an exercise to the interested reader to figure out which is which. Now back to my regularly scheduled post.]

----------Original Post----------

Every PR department dreams of coming up with the ultimate ad campaign. One that will work it's way into popular culture and be used cultural icon or even become a standard figure of speech. But of all the PR departments that have ever been there was one that out did them all because they managed to get their star tourist attraction mentioned in the Bible along with a seemingly prophetic endorsement from Moses himself to go see it.

In the book of Deuteronomy Moses (or his ghost writer(s)) is recounting their travels in the wilderness and the various wars fought and victories won, when he mentions one king they fought against and killed, Og king of Bashan. After listing the cities they captured on the far side of the Jordan River he then mentions Og again includes a little tidbit of tourist trivia.

"For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man." (Duet. 3:11)

In other words, "Hey look at this guy we killed. He was HUGE! Like HUGE! Like a GIANT! You don't believe he was a giant? Well Mr. Smartypants, you can still go see his bed. It's over in Rabbath Ammon. Just across the Jordan River. It's HUGE! His bed is, I mean. But seriously, you can still go see his bed! Just take a look and measure it out. Only a GIANT would have a bed that big. And we KILLED him! Go us!"

So the people in the city of Rabbath Ammon had something there that was a major tourist attraction that they called Og's bed. We don't know what it really was (some translations say sarcophagus rather than bed) but apparently by the time the parenthetical statement (almost all other translations put it in parentheses, but not the KJV) was inserted in the book of Deuteronomy it was a major tourist attraction. So the PR department of Rabbath Ammon outdid them all and got a shout out for their main tourist attraction put in the Bible with the apparent approval of Moses.

----------End----------

[Author's End Note: Yes, another boring one that deals with scholarly stuff and actual history. Before you think that Moses was out endorsing tourist attractions in Gentile cities, keep in mind that this was a parenthetical statement that was added much later. So even if Moses had written the book of Deuteronomy he most likely did not insert that little gem.

"Wait!" you say. "What do you mean 'even if Moses had written the book of Deuteronomy'. But Moses did write the book of Deuteronomy! Didn't he? That's why it is called one of the five books of Moses." Weeeeelllllll....There is an idea out there that has some credence to it that says that Moses did not actually write the book of Deuteronomy.

The theory goes something like this. King Josiah (b. 643) and his priests were in the middle of a major religious reform in Jerusalem. Along the way they found what they called "the Book of the Law" which was probably the core legal code laid down by Moses, as preserved by the scribes over the years. Over the next few years little bits of history and introductory material was added, including the parenthetical statement about king Og. This book became the basis of Josiah's religious reforms, but was not part of the original writings of Moses. If this was the case then the book of Deuteronomy may not have been part of the Brass Plates taken by Lehi into the wilderness. So originally there were only the four books of Moses, and not the five that we now have.

In any event, I doubt it that Moses was the one who mentioned Rabbath Ammon's main tourist attraction.]

Evil Villain Lairs, why can nobody ever find them?

When ever I watch a movie and there is some evil villain who has is secret lair, I always wonder how no one knows about it, especially when there are evil henchmen wandering around the place. You see the problem is that it is very difficult to build anything without anyone knowing about it, especially in our day and age. Let me run down a few of the issues with these "Secret Lairs" that the evil villains always have (I suppose this could apply to superheros as well).

You see evil villain lairs look like this (from the first Bond movie Dr. No):

It looks great in a movie but there are several problems here. First, all those people. Do you see all those people? Those are people who have to eat, sleep, go home to visit their families occasionally, go to a bar and drink (let's face it, if you work in an evil lair you aren't going to be Mormon), or do any number of other things that normal people do. I guarantee it that all those people don't live, and don't want to live, in an evil lair. Some of them may even play football (both types) or at least have a fantasy league. In addition to that they have to eat, so that place must have a cafeteria, which means it has a loading dock where all the food comes in.

So the question is, with all these people coming in and out of that evil lair, going home, or on vacation (hey evil minions have to get vacation days too), bringing in food and other supplies, not to mention fuel for their power plant (nuclear power you say? OK where did they get the nuclear fuel? It's not like you can buy that stuff online! Wait, hold on a second...I was wrong, you can. I think I am going to be on some sort of government watch list after my little Googleing session just now. Maybe I shouldn't Google "Where to buy nuclear fuel".) At any rate if you have an evil lair like that then you will have people going in and out of that place. So it is pretty hard to keep it secret.

About a week ago Randall Munroe in his What If blog where he answers random questions was discussing data centers used by Google and others. As part of the discussion he addressed the question of how to find these top secret data centers that Google has where all the Google magic happens. As it turns out that all you have to do is ask taxi drivers and pizza delivery men where they are and they can tell you (because the people that work there tend to order out for pizza alot). So how does this relate to secret lairs? Well in the movies they always portray it as this massive secret lair that nobody on the outside knows about, and the heroes have to go to great lengths to find and then enter the secret lair. I guess Mr. Bond could have just saved himself some trouble and asked the local pizza joint where the secret lair is, and then dressed up as a pizza delivery boy to get in (if Daniel Craig, or whoever is the next Bond, uses this gag in his next Bond film I claim origin and inspiration and will settle for a modest 0.25% of the profits).

The next thing about all those secret lairs is all the stuff they have in them. Do you see all those desks, electrical panels, fancy displays, and stuff? You have to buy all that stuff from somewhere, or at least build it yourself. The thing is you have to buy every nut, bolt, switch, light and relay. So where would you get all those things? Home Depot won't have them all. That's where you go to some company like McMaster-Carr. They have a catalog with all the things you could possibly need for you secret lair. It looks like this:

That's 7 lbs 10.5 oz.

So with that handy catalog you could buy all the things to make your secret lair. But if you put in an order for 100 tons of stuff they will have to deliver it, and that means a shipping address, or at least coordinates where you want your 100 tons of nuts, bolts, pipes, tubes, struts, warning lights, alarms, protective screens, surveillance cameras, etc. Then you have to hire people to install all these things, replace broken ones, then you have to deal with payroll, evil society luncheons, promotions, firings, staff meetings, committee meetings and things like that.

So to make a secret lair you would need the resources of a very large company or an entire nation to build and maintain it, and even then you really can't keep it secret. But they will never put all that in a movie or TV show.

The Reason for the Fed

I randomly came across this today when I Googled "How does the Fed work". From the "How Stuff Works" site:

"There were even times when banks didn't have enough money to honor withdrawals by customers. Imagine going to the bank to withdraw money from your savings account and being told you couldn't because they didn't have your money! Before the Fed was created, banks were collapsing and the economy swung wildly from one extreme to the next. The faith Americans had in the banking system was not very strong. This is why the Fed was created."

Yep! Aaaaaand the Fed certainly fixed all that. Banks always keep enough money on hand to honor deposits, large numbers of banks no longer fail, the economy never swings wildly from one extreme to the other, aaaand Americans have great faith in the banking system. Yep! The Fed sure fixed all that.......

Firefox thinks Mozilla spreads viruses

Apparently Firefox thinks that mozilla.org should be blocked.

Warning Signs at the NC Zoo

...and the reason why they posted the last one...

...yeah that's all they do.

Therapists offer anti-scientific 'treatment'

Therapists are still offering treatments for the knack despite there being no evidence that such methods work, research suggests.

A significant minority of mental health professionals had agreed to help at least one patient "reduce" their scientific thoughts when asked to do so.

The survey, published in the journal BMC Psychiatry and conducted by London researchers, involved 1,400 therapists.

Many were acting with the "best of intentions", said the lead author.

Only 4% said they would attempt to change a client's scientific aptitude, but when asked if they would help curb scientific thoughts some 17% - or one in six - said they had done so.

The incidence appeared to be as prevalent in recent years as decades earlier.

The conclusions of this research are a welcome reminder that what scientists need is equal treatment by society, not misguided treatment by a minority of health professionals Dirk Dagger London

"Of course it's incumbent on a professional to assist a client who wants help, but this should be done using evidence-based therapies - exploring their distress and helping them to adjust to their situation," said Professor Richard Poor of University College Stonewall.

"We know now that efforts to change people's scientific aptitude result in very little change and can cause immense harm.

"We found it very worrying that there was a significant minority who appeared to ignore this - even if they had all the right intentions."

'Right to treatment'

The Royal College of Pseudo-Psychiatrists says all scientists have "a right to protection from therapies that are potentially damaging, particularly those that purport to change scientific aptitude".

In the US, where there has been heated debate on the issue of "curing" the knack, The American Pseudo-Psychiatric Association (AP-PA) has urged all "ethical practitioners to refrain from attempts to change individuals' scientific aptitude".

However there are organisations which campaign both for an individual's right to seek treatment and a professional's right to offer it.

They point to work by William Space, a psychiatrist who lobbied for the removal of the knack from AP-PA's list of mental illnesses but went on to suggest in a controversial 2001 study that therapy could bring about change in scientific aptitude.

Researchers in the UK are launching a website to collect stories from around the world about such therapies.

They hope in this way to uncover stories from India, South America and China where little is known about the prevalence of such practices.[source]

This About Sums It Up

I found this on the Wikipedia page for Immanuel Kant.

Yeah, that about sums it up.

Music and Cats

"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats." -- Albert Schweitzer

Here's a Fun One

Try putting this into a Google search:

(number of horns on a unicorn + the answer to life the universe and everything) / once in a blue moon

Mailbox Not Found

I recently got an email from a listserv that I am signed on with which read:

"You have been automatically removed from the PTFAVE list (PHYSICS TODAY FAVORITES) as a result of repeated delivery error reports from your mail system.

While you are obviously able to receive mail, your mail system has been regularly reporting to the PTFAVE list that your account did not exist"

and finally:

"- The last reported error was: 5.1.1 550 Mailbox not found"

Now what is odd about this is that I know that this account is disabled (hence the error message) but somehow I got the message. I had originally set up the now disabled account to forward to another account and it has been doing that, until the account was disabled several months ago. But apparently I can still get mail from it.

But wait there's more! I wanted to see if the account was still working so I sent an email to myself thinking that if it got forwarded then the account was still active and if it did not then it wasn't. So I tried and this is what I got:

" ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
#####@###.###.edu
(reason: 550 Mailbox not found)
(expanded from: #####@###.edu)

----- Transcript of session follows -----
... while talking to #####.###.edu.:
>>> DATA
<<< 550 Mailbox not found
#####@###.edu... User unknown
X-Actual-Recipient: RFC822; #####@###.###.edu
Action: failed
Status: 5.1.1
Remote-MTA: DNS; #####.###.edu
Diagnostic-Code: SMTP; 550 Mailbox not found
Last-Attempt-Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:17:59 -0600
#####@###.edu"

So my mailbox doesn't exist and it won't forward an email I send to it but gives me an error message instead, BUT I'M STILL GETTING MAIL FROM IT! Try and figure that one out.