science for sissies

The Four Schmuckateers

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 09:00:00 -0500

On March 31st, these four fine European gentlemen will climb into a fake spaceship in Moscow and spend the next 105 days simulating a trip to Mars for the European Space Agency (ESA). And I, for the life of me, cant understand what they’re so happy about. I mean, look at them. Especially the bald guy. It looks like they all just got off Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean ride and are making a solemn pack to get right back in line and ride it again, and again, and again.

Here’s what they have to look forward to: over three months locked in a cramped metal chamber eating freeze-dried Beefaroni, endlessly checking and re-checking fake instruments, and having the following conversation, or something similar, day after day after day…

“Is today Tuesday? It feels like a Tuesday. But yesterday felt like a Tuesday too. “

“Well, what are we having for dinner tonight?”

“Semi-liquefied chicken cacciatore in a tube with freeze-dried pistachio pudding balls.”

“And to drink?”

“Hans’ recycled urine sweet tea.”

“Yep. It’s Tuesday.”

And at the end of their mission they don’t even get to land on Mars and assume their place in history. At best, they’ll emerge from their capsule (weary and smelling like Beefaroni) and be greeted by a couple of ESA interns wearing Martian costumes.

Maybe it’s just me, but I assumed that anyone who would sign up for such thankless torture would look more like this:

Further proof that we still know so little about our own planet....

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 14:32:48 -0500

Further proof that we still know so little about our own planet. Why bother spending billions of dollars trying to get to Mars when there’s plenty of kooky lifeforms at the bottom of our oceans?

I can’t remember his name, but an oceanic archaeologist recently said that one year of NASA’s budget would fund ocean research for 1,000 years. But it’s not in humankind’s nature to look down into the murky depths of our own world for knowledge, enlightment, and salvation. Instead we look out and up into the heavens, looking for something outside of our own world to give us an answer to that age old question: Is the grass greener on Gliese 581 c?

Instead of looking up into space in hopes of seeing into the eyes of God, I’d rather look down and see into the eyes of one of those barreleye fish. Because I have a feeling that we have a hell of a lot more in common with those fishbulb-headed freaks than we do with anything in the cosmos.

(via Huffington Post)

Robopocalypse: The Warrior Code

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 10:00:00 -0500

The US Navy’s super secretive Office of Naval Research has issued a report entitled Autonomous Military Robots: Risk, Ethics, and Design. It’s a must-read for anyone like me who sits up at night wondering if his toaster is going to kill him in his sleep.

The most disturbing thing about the report is that it’s serious. This isn’t a science fiction writer writing about robot ethics, this is the US Navy. And they are clearly taking the idea of robots going berserk very seriously. They address such feel-good topics as:

Who is to blame if a robot goes berserk in a crowd of civilians and starts killing for fun?
How do we protect our precious robot armies against terrorist hackers, software malfunction, and general malaise?
Should the robots have a “suicide switch,” and if so, should they be programmed to write a suicide note before they off themselves in which they say things like “My programmer never loved me?”

You can read the whole report here, but I advise against it unless you want to simultaneously get really bored and really freaked out. The whole thing can be summed up in this quote from Dr. Patrick Lin, the chief compiler of the report:

“There is a common misconception that robots will do only what we have programmed them to do. Unfortunately, such a belief is sorely outdated.”

Which means that just because your toaster has been programmed to make you toast (and to completely disregard the number setting knob), doesn’t mean it won’t one day decided it would much rather be a Multiple Kill Vehicle* and blow your brains out.

Dr. Lin goes on to say “We are going to need a code. These things are military, and they can’t be pacifists, so we have to think in terms of battlefield ethics. We are going to need a warrior code.”

Unfortunately, Isaac Asimov’s “Three Laws of Robotics” isn’t going to cut it, because those laws forbid robots from killing. And what good is a robot army that can’t kill? That’s not a robot army. That’s a robot marching band.

Anyone want to hear “Robo Louie, Louie” again? No? Too bad.

Here’s the US Navy’s suggestion for what the new Robot Warrior Code should be:

A robot may not injure a human being, unless that human being is getting in the way of America getting its hands on gobs and gobs of oil. In that case the robot may go batshit crazy with the shootin’ and killin’.
A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except when those orders say silly things like “Hey robot, don’t kill so much” and “Hey robot, that guy only wanted some number 4 toast. Maybe you should have just given him number 4 toast instead of toasting his balls off.”
A robot must protect its own existence, unless that robot has second thoughts about any of the following: shootin’, killin’, plunderin’, terrorizin’, fightin’, scarin’, and nukin’. If a robot ever has second thoughts about any one of those things, said robot must kill himself immediately, but only after writing a very long and sad letter in which he blames his human makers and robot friends for his death.

I think that covers everything. Well done, Navy!

* For those of you who don’t know what a Multiple Kill Vehicle (MKV) is, I will leave you with this US Missile Defense Agency video of the first free-flight hover test of Lockheed Martin’s MKV. If you don’t think that robots need a code of ethics, this might change your mind…

That is not an animation. That shit is real, and it’s coming soon to a battlefield (or backyard if the whole “Warrior Code” thing doesn’t work out) near you.

(via Times Online)

Stay Tuned...

Thu, 25 Dec 2008 22:56:00 -0500

Novel writing has beckoned this old chimp back to his cruel mistress. The blank page. So this blog will be on hiatus until February, while I put a final coat of wax on The Monkey & the Barrel: A Novel of Kung Fu and Twisted Love.

Aiko 2000

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 09:14:00 -0500

“Like a real female she will react to being touched in certain ways. If you grab or squeeze too hard she will try to slap you.” - Lee Trung

Canadian genius - and certified creepy mofo - Le Trung has been perfecting his fem-bot Aiko for a few years now. Videos of her in action have been all over the internet, but if you haven’t see it check out one here.

Whenever I hear about these android projects I always wonder why people devote their lives to building robots that are more and more human-like when there are billions of actual humans running around out there. It’s kind of like when Hollywood tries to remake a perfectly good movie. Case in point, The Day the Earth Stood Still. The original is a fantastic movie that still holds up today. The remake? Pure Keanu crap.

Anyway, there’s an article today in The Sun where Trung confesses that he built Aiko because he never had time to find a real partner. So now he drives around the Canadian countryside with Aiko and even sits down at the dinner table with her.

I’m sure you can see where all this is headed. A nice drive through the countryside. A candlelit dinner. A fem-bot with a stunning 32, 23, 33 figure. A lonely dorky scientist…

Hot, steamy, metallic, Robosex.

In the Sun’s article Trung even said that Aiko could be tweaked to be a sexual companion.

So there you have it. Now I know why men build androids. So they can have filthy robot sex with them.

Looks like 1987’s Cherry 2000 (which I must have watched 50 or so times as kid for the sex scenes) was more prophetic than I thought.

A Year Without Acorns

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:31:00 -0500

Looks like there’s going to be a lot of hungry squirrels in Virginia all the way up through New England this winter, due to the mysterious disappearance of acorns in the region. How bad is it? Naturalists in Arlington County haven’t been able to find a single acorn. And this is during a time when you normally crunch a handful of acorns every time you take a step into the Northern Virginia oak and hickory forests.

“I’m used to seeing so many acorns around and out in the field, it’s something I just didn’t believe,” said Rod Simmons, a field botanist. “But this is not just not a good year for oaks. It’s a zero year. There’s zero production. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

While this is most likely an extreme in the natural acorn cycle, that doesn’t make it any easier on all those poor squirrels. Especially since last year was a great year for acorns, which caused the squirrel population to increase. Now there are already reports of skinny squirrels eating garbage, sucking down bird feed like vacuums, and feasting on pumpkins.

So if you’re the kind of person (like me) who likes seeing squirrels and other critters in your yard, you might want to put out some extra bird food this winter.

Because if you don’t, you’re going to see a lot more of this kind of stuff in your towns and cities:

A Thanksgiving Prayer

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 19:57:00 -0500

Ever since I wrote a dark, ridiculous (and apparently unpublishable) book about the First Thanksgiving, the holiday has been bittersweet for me. Not because of my publishing woes. It’s because while writing the book I spent almost an entire year thinking about the holiday. Who among us has spent 12 months thinking about Thanksgiving almost every single day? No one save a few lunatics, the CEO at Butterball, and me.

I came out on the other end of that writing process with a lot of things I didn’t like about the holiday and what it signifies. The problem was, before I started writing that book I loved Thanksgiving. It was probably my favorite holiday because it was just another excuse to crowd around a table with my family and stuff our faces with meat and pie.

Now here is where I was going to write a long list of the things I hate about the holiday, side by side with all of the things I love. But after I wrote it out it didn’t really work. It was just a bunch of floating facts, with little feeling behind them.

So instead I’m going to leave you with two videos which, when taken together, sum up perfectly how I feel about Thanksgiving.

The first is A Thanksgiving Prayer by William S. Burroughs…

Now that you’re all depressed, here’s how the other half of me feels about Turkey Day…

I Know Why The Caged American Girl Doll Sings

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 17:03:00 -0500

Just look at this picture for one minute and ask yourself this: Just what in the hell has gone wrong with us as a species? Did we take a wrong turn somewhere along the way? Or was this the great divine plan all along? To have humans rise up to rule over the animal kingdom so that one glorious day we could take a poodle and shave and spray paint the shit out of him to make him look like…like…I actually have no idea what the hell this poor dog is supposed to be. A chicken? Turkey? Punk rocker? No that’s not it.

Oh I know. It’s supposed to look like a dog who wants someone to shoot him. Success! Seriously, look into that dog’s eyes. He’s begging for the Old Yeller treatment.

And the award for most likely to happily run into oncoming traffic goes to…

Welcome to the world of creative dog grooming.

The Pygmies Are Back!

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:56:00 -0500

Sharon Gursky-Doyen, a Texas University anthropologist, and her team of researchers have discovered a group of the long-lost pygmy tarsiers of Indonesia. These 2oz nocturnal primates (pictured above) are about the size of a mouse and have not been observed since 1921.

Unlike all other primates, the pygmys have fingers with claws instead of nails.

Also unlike all other primates, pygmy tarsiers don’t have sex to reproduce. Instead, they perform a most unusual mating ritual which involves one pygmy sneaking up behind another pygmy and putting a drop of water on his head. This causes the now wet pygmy to start smoking and, before you know it, a big furry boil forms on his back. That boil then pops off the creature and grows into another pygmy.

The only drawback to this method of reproduction is that each new pygmy seems to be a bit more evil than the last one. Probably a result of the extreme inbreeding that takes place when one creatures replicates itself. Luckily you can always tell an evil pygmy from a nice one since the evil ones tend to have a mohawk.

Not much else is known about the pygmies, but that will soon change.

“I’m going to be up around the clock studying these fascinating creatures,” says Sharon Gursky-Doyen, “In fact, it’s already after midnight here and I’m about to go back into the lab to try and determine what these creatures eat. I think I’ll start with some leftover fried chicken.”

Good luck to you, Sharon. I’m sure that your reserach will yield all sorts of fascinating details about these mysterious creatures.

UPDATE: Sharon Gursky-Doyen’s lab has been burned to the ground. Firefighters responded to the blaze at approximately 12:39am last night. While fighting the flames, firefighters reported that they heard loud cackling noises coming from inside, along with what one fireman described as “A bunch of goddamn freaks singing that Hi Ho Hi Ho, Off to Work We Go song.”

The fire was put out at approximately 1:45am. However, Sharon Gursky-Doyen is nowhere to be found. The only clue to her whereabouts that authorities have to go on is the fact that her Facebook profile picture was changed moments before the fire broke out.

This is the new picture:

Looks like we’re all one step closer to being able to survive in the impending Waterworld, as...

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 12:03:37 -0500

Looks like we’re all one step closer to being able to survive in the impending Waterworld, as predicted by Dr. Kevin Costner, Professor of Egomaniacal Filmmaking at USC.

NASA’s space shuttle Endeavour has been equipped with a $250 million wastewater recycling system which will allow the lucky seven astronauts on-board to drink their own urine.

Once again. They will be drinking their own URINE.

NASA’s Bob Bagdigian says that the water tastes just fine to him. Just a faint taste of iodine.

“I’ve got some in my fridge,” said Bob. “It tastes fine to me. Who wants a glass? Anyone? Anyone want a nice cold glass of Big Bob’s urine? No? Really? Alrighty then. How about a purified piece of my own feces? Other than a faint aftertaste of human shit, it’s just as delicious as your mom’s fresh baked brownies.”

Endeavour blasted off Friday night on a mission to spruce up the international space station. Other than the urine watercooler, they’ll also be adding a couple extra bedrooms, an additional bathroom, and a kitchenette.

Not sure why they need the extra bathroom since they’ll now be able to piss right into their drinking supply.

Oh the joys of living in space. If drinking your urine isn’t enough to make you realize that humans are meant to live on Earth (and not in space, or on the moon, or Mars, or anywhere else in the universe as far as I can tell), and that we should make it a top priority to protect our planet’s natural resources, then I don’t know what will.

(via Reuters)

Blue, Blue Saturn

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 17:57:00 -0500

“We’ve never seen an aurora like this elsewhere.”

- Tom Stallard, scientist, University of Leicester

A blue glow was recently detected over Saturn’s north polar region. It was discovered by NASA’s Cassini Spacecraft, which can view parts of Saturn that Hubble cannot.

Auroras like this (such as the Earth’s Northern lights) are caused by charged particles flying along the magnetic field lines of a planet into its atmosphere.

Where could all of those blue particles on Saturn have come from? That’s the question NASA scientists asked themselves. And here are the five competing theories they came up with as to how blue particles could make their way up high into the Saturn sky.

(via Daily Mail UK)

Robopocalypse: Goodbye Wales

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:31:56 -0500

After watching the following video I may have to move up my estimated start date for the Great Robohuman War, from 2058 to 2009.

Meet Jules. The biologically designed robot who only wants to do one thing: obliterate a large part of England.

Jules is the first android that can mimic the facial expressions and lip movements of human beings. The evil monster observes people’s expressions through its video camera eyes and then converts the image into digital commands. Those commands are then sent to the 34 tiny electronic motors underneath the robot’s rubber skin (which is hilariously called Frubber, short for flexible rubber).

All this happens in real time with no delay. So if Jules ever decides to go through with his little plan of mass destruction, we won’t have those precious few seconds to react while he boots up.

The project is called “Human-Robot Interaction,” and was created by the blood-thirsty lunatics at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory in England. It certainly is reassuring to know that one of the first projects studying human-robot interactions ended up creating a robot who wants to destroy Wales. Talk about starting off on the wrong foot, robots. Jerks.

Thankfully, right now Jules is just a head with no body. So he can’t come after us. But I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before some idiot slaps good ‘ol Jules on top of one of those hexapods.

(via Daily Mail)

Robopocalypse: Invasion of the Hexapods

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 23:19:00 -0500

Every April, ambitious (and deranged) robotics students gather in Austria to compete in the annual Austrian Hexapod Championships.

What’s a hexapod, you may ask? It’s simply a six-legged robot. Why six legs instead of two or four? Isn’t it obvious? They give them those two extra legs so if one leg gets damaged the robot will still be able to chase you down and kill you.

That’s really all I know about hexapods. They have six legs. That, and the fact that they’re modeled after insects. I assume they do that to make them extra creepy to humans. If so, mission accomplished.

The site for the Hexapod Championships is in German, and since I don’t spreken ze deutsche I can’t really get a handle on exactly what these robots are competing for. But I kind of like it that way. I’d hate to learn that they’re competing to see which robots can bring about the fall of man in the shortest amount of time.

Here’s a compilation video of all the hexapod contestants from the 2008 event. Take a look and see if you can tell what they’re competing for. Funniest hexapod? Creepiest hexapod? Dumbest hexapod? You be the judge.

UPDATE: I just found out that the below hexapod won the 2008 grand prize. So my greatest fears have been confirmed. They were competing to see which hexapod will bring about the fall of man in the shortest amount of time.

How else can you explain the reckless, heartless, and downright diabolical use of Mambo #5?

(via Robots.net)

Beautiful Bastards

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 22:26:00 -0500

If you hate looking at pictures of yourself like I do, then you’re going to love what researchers at Tel Aviv University have come up with.

They’ve built a Beauty Machine that takes a picture of your ugly face, manipulates the image, and then spits out a photo of a more beautiful you.

In short, it’ll help you visually lie about how you look on Facebook. This will go along perfectly with all those other lies you slap up on Facebook to try to make yourself look more interesting and cuter than you really are (e.g. all that nonsense you write in the “Interests” section. As if you’re really into Nietzsche, dancing naked, and bubble baths).

Here’s a sampling of some before-and-after photos which show the Beauty Machine in action:

Samples of photos manipulated by the Beauty Machine. Original photos on top, manipulated ones on the bottom. Looks like the machine made Lincoln uglier.

If you’re wondering how the machine knows what beauty is, Professor Daniel Cohen-Or of the Blavatnik School of Computer Sciences at Tel Aviv University says this:

“Beauty can be quantified by mathematical measurements and ratios. It can be defined as average distances between features, which a majority of people agree are the most beautiful. I don’t claim to know much about beauty. For us, every picture in this research project is just a collection of numbers.”

So there you have it, guys. Next time you get an unexplained boner you’ll now know why. Numbers. You were probably doing some kind of quadratic equation in your head and that made you hornier than a two-peckered Billy Goat.

In the future this technology could be used as a guide for plastic surgeons, and it may even be a function on your digital camera. So instead of having to photoshop the hell out of all your pictures, you and your friends can live the lie in real time.

(via Science Daily)

Devourer of Time

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 23:19:00 -0500

For those of you who didn’t hear about this when it came out back in September, the Corpus Clock is a large sculpture/clock outside a library at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge. It was created by inventor John C. Taylor, unveiled by Stephen Hawking, and recently named one of the Top 50 Inventions of 2008 by Time Magazine.

I, however, think it’s crap.

Don’t get me wrong. Mechanically speaking, the thing is a wonder. And if you want to learn a little about how the clock works, watch the below video where Taylor explains its inner workings.

My problem with the Corpus Clock is this idea of time as a monstrous bug with an insatiable appetite for seconds. Because like Taylor (and Einstein) says, time is relative. Sometimes it passes slowly, other times it flies by. It all depends on what you’re doing.

For example. If you turn a corner into an alley and run into these guys…

Time will move way, way, way too slowly for you.

But if you turn a corner into an alley and instead run into these guys…

Time will go by way, way, WAY too fast.

This is true for your daily life as well. Whether you’re sitting in a cubicle or having dinner with a friend, the passage of time is relative.

Unless of course there’s a giant bug on your wall eating away the seconds with flashing blue lights and a constant tick, tick, tick noise. Then it won’t matter what you’re doing because it will be painfully obvious how quickly time is flying by. Why don’t they just have the grasshopper monster shout out “YOU’RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME YOU OLD BASTARD!” as every minute goes by. That should do wonders for productivity. And horrors for peace of mind.

Nope. No thank you. Not for me. Hawking and Taylor can have their devourer of time if they want. But I’ll stick with Faulkner…

“Clocks slay time… time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.”

I don’t know what CNN is getting all excited about here....

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 23:55:05 -0500

I don’t know what CNN is getting all excited about here. This hologram technology has been around since at least the early 1990s.

I mean, am I the only one who remembers that Jessica Yellin was a hologram way back in 1992?

And then again in 1993.

This is old news CNN. Show me some technology that goes beyond Mortal Combat I and II and then maybe I’ll get excited.

This has absolutely nothing to do with science, but on a day...

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 13:42:24 -0500

This has absolutely nothing to do with science, but on a day when we’re all freaking out about politics, it’s just what I needed.

Kung Fu. And clowns. Together at last in a one minute commercial that is the greatest piece of cinema I’ve seen since the opening ED-209 scene from Robocop.

Who knew Yellow Pages had it in them.

(via Holy Taco)

It's on!

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 23:16:00 -0500

Good news for fans of breathtaking photos that will boggle your mind if you’d only stop for a cottonpickin’ (or, in most people’s cases, a nosepickin’) minute and think about them.

After a few weeks of downtime, Hubble is back online!

Speaking of being back online, so am I. Since late last Wednesday I’ve been a bit consumed watching the Phillies win the World Series. Hence the lack of blogging.

Not that anyone noticed, what with a certain, incredibly important political event taking place tomorrow which apparently (if recent media reports are to be trusted) will determine if our country is headed for this:

Or this:

Now, it’s probably hard for some of you to understand how someone can get so caught up in a sports team, especially with the election-to-end-all-elections upon us. But as anyone from Philly will tell you, I just had some deep, internal wounds healed when the Phils hoisted that trophy. Twenty-five years of following Philly teams lose in heartbreaking fashion will do that to a Philly child, who became a Philly teenager, who is currently a Philly/NYC man-child who will one day (hopefully) become an adult.

See if you can pick me out from the crowd at the Championship Parade in Philly this past friday.

Now, back to Hubble. A couple days ago the telescope aimed its Wide Planetary Camera at Arp 147, a pair of galaxies a mere 400 million light years away. The image at the top shows that the galaxy on the left passed right through the galaxy on the right. Which is why the one on the right looks like someone just put their fist through it.

When I look at Arp 147 I’m reminded of just how violent our universe can be. When you look up at the night sky it seems like it’s all quiet up there. Nothing but a bunch of peaceful little stars twinkling away.

Outer space is super fun!

Couldn’t be further from the truth. Because there’s nothing quiet about one galaxy smashing into another and ripping a hole right through it. And here we are worried about a kooky old man and his pet pitbull winning an election. A walk in the park compared to having a whole galaxy slam into us.

I guess it’s all relative. The only thing that stars have to worry about is other stars slamming into them. And the only thing people have to worry about is other people screwing things up. Whether it’s a sports team blowing it year after year, or a political party blowing it year after year.

At least we have the power to change the way things are. Even the stars can’t do that. All they can do is close their twinkling eyes and wait for impact.

Which, coincidently, is exactly what I’m going to do tomorrow night. Because I don’t know about you, but power to change or not, I am pretty damn terrified right about now.

Robopocalypse: The Lying Duck Snatcher

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 10:36:00 -0400

Take a long, hard look into the glowing blue eyes of Aldebaran’s Nao robot. No, he doesn’t want to punch a hole through your skull and then feast on your brain’s delicious electrical activity. But good guess since, deep down, that’s what 96.4% of robots want to do.

Nao, on the other hand, wants something else. A certain object. And he wants it so bad that he is willing to lie and steal just to get his little humanoid hands on it.

Nao…wants…

This

That’s right. The robotics industry has really outdone themselves this time. They’ve created a robot with a simple, and completely bizarre, three-part directive.

Steal another robot’s rubber ducky.
Throw stolen ducky in the trash.
When confronted about whereabouts of stolen ducky, totally lie your robot ass off about it.

In case you’re having trouble believing that a robot would do something so mean-spirited and pointless, Aldebaran has released the following video of Nao in action.

These things are going to be on sale sometime in late 2009 for around $15,000. So if you’re the kind of person who gets his or her kicks watching robots steal and lie to each other, then you may want to start saving up.

Tree Hugging Terrorists

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:04:00 -0400

For over a year, three environmentalists working for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network were under surveillance by the Maryland State Police for suspicion of “involvement in terrorism.” The men found out about this earlier this month when the police sent them all letters informing them of their year-long status as suspected terrorists.

Let’s take a look at what these dastardly environmentalists were up to land themselves on a police terror list.

Promoting windmills and solar panels
Helping to pass the Maryland Healthy Air Act
Serving as a youth delegate to the United Nations
Saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ at the dinner table
Organizing a coalition of faith leaders, students, nurses, doctors, and every day citizens to clean up Maryland’s air and protect her shores from sea level rise and global warming.
Peacefully promoting clean energy and clean cars
Throwing monthly Puppy-Rainbow-Marshmallow-Kitten themed Parties.

Those dirty sons-of-bitches.

OK 4 and 7 aren’t real, but everything else is. These men were all placed on a suspected terror list for peacefully promoting clean energy.

What does it say about our country’s chances for a greener future when the powers-that-be look at someone like this:

And instead see this:

For more details on this troubling story, you can read a response letter from Mike Tidwell, or view the below video from Josh Tulkin, both of whom are environmentalists that were named on Maryland’s terror list.

(via New York Times)