The octopus who loves his Mr Potato Head

Friday, January 11, 2008

Louis cuddles his Mr Potato Head

Louis the octopus clearly thinks two heads are better than one when it comes to toys.

The 1.8m-wide (6ft) creature is so attached to Mr Potato Head that he turns aggressive when aquarium staff try to remove it from his tank.

The giant Pacific octopus was given the toy for Christmas and has even learned to dig out food hidden in a secret box at the back of it.

‘He’s fascinated by it,’ said Matt Slater, of the Blue Reef Aquarium in Newquay, Cornwall. ‘He attacks the net we use to fish the toy out every time we try to take it away.’

Mr Slater added: ‘Octopuses are very intelligent and they like to be stimulated and busy.’

Last Updated: 12:22PM GMT 03 Nov 2008 

The short-circuit had baffled electricians as well as staff at the Sea Star Aquarium in Coburg, Germany, who decided to take shifts sleeping on the floor to find out what caused the mysterious blackouts.

A spokesman said: “It was a serious matter because it shorted the electricity supply to the whole aquarium that threatened the lives of the other animals when water pumps ceased to work.

“It was on the third night that we found out that the octopus Otto was responsible for the chaos.

“We knew that he was bored as the aquarium is closed for winter, and at two feet, seven inches Otto had discovered he was big enough to swing onto the edge of his tank and shoot out the 2000 Watt spot light above him with a carefully directed jet of water.”

Director Elfriede Kummer who witnessed the act said: “We’ve put the light a bit higher now so he shouldn’t be able to reach it. But Otto is constantly craving for attention and always comes up with new stunts so we have realised we will have to keep more careful eye on him - and also perhaps give him a few more toys to play with.

“Once we saw him juggling the hermit crabs in his tank, another time he threw stones against the glass damaging it. And from time to time he completely re-arranges his tank to make it suit his own taste better - much to the distress of his fellow tank inhabitants.”

This is my final bit on The Exodus Decoded on the History Channel. One of the frequent comments left on Chris Heard’s website was that because he was pointing out Simcha’s errors/oversights/manipulations he has no faith and he was making the blog and the program all about the science. Actally Chris was just dealing with Simcha’s stated beliefs/observations that the 10 plagues could be proven be science. Simcha took God out of the Biblical 10 plagues, not Chris.

My question is why can’t we come up with a scientific explanations for God’s creations? If God uses the Earth to send us a message… should we take that message less seriously? No, of course not. Think back to a place and time when you could have been in the middle of a great tragedy, but weren’t because you decided to go the other way. Or even missed a huge traffic jam because you went home a way that you is normally off your route. Why did these things happen? A subtle push by a Divine hand of which you aren’t aware? But just because it’s scientific doesn’t mean it’s not divine. But then again on the other hand… just because it’s a big earth quake or tsunami doesn’t mean there’s a reason behind it. It could just be the earth stretching. It a fine line to be sure. Science isn’t always the answer. It may, in time, be able to explain many things in the Bible, but I don’t think it will ever explain everything. Which is ok in my opinion. The Bible is about faith, not science.

Will we ever find the reasons behind the 10 plagues? Maybe, but we probably won’t. Which, in my opinion, is fine. The Bible is about faith, not science. I think the Bible is a collection of stories that teach us to be better people. Are they real? It’s hard to imagine a 900 year old man doing anything but being a mummy. In a time when the average lifespan was 25, even a person 75 would have out lived 2 generations! So maybe… just maybe… some things are exaggerated. Slowly the archeology is catching up with the Bible. That’s science, isn’t it?

Not all things in life should be explained, even if it’s just a simple card trick. It’s about keeping a sense of wonder at the glories we have given to us every day. Look at a sunrise or a sunset or a rainbow. We can explain them with science. Does that make them any less amazing or beautiful? Not to me. It’s God taking his paint brush and painting us a daily reminder of how good life is.

Never mind that slowly we are able to define miracles in scientific terms. Does the knowledge of how a baby is formed make the actual delivery of a living breathing moving human (or animal) any less miraculous? I don’t think so. Here are some of the things that I am questioning about Simcha Jacobovici’s conclusions that Chris Heard didn’t touch on.

Plague 1 - Water to Blood. Simcha uses Lake Nyos, Cameroon as his example of this. “geophysicist George Kling explains the Cameroon phenomenon as high concentrations of iron in the deep waters at the bottom of the Lake Nyos bubbling up to the surface and reacting with oxygen in the air to form iron hydroxide. To put it crudely, the waters of Lake Nyos ‘rusted.’” Ok. Here’s my main problem with this… the movement of the water. Rivers flow, lakes eddy. I’m not geophysicist or a enviromentalist or any such person that studies water and it movement. But to my untrained brain it just doesn’t fly. Wouldn’t the ENTIRE Nile have to pass gas in order for it to turn “rust” long enough for the 2nd plague to happen? Wouldn’t the flow of the river take the containated water away? In order for this to happen, wouldn’t the gas release have to be like a very large oil spill contaminating 100’s and 100’s of miles of river? We’re not talking about a little body of water here. It just doesn’t make that much sence to me.

Ok. Someone goes over this point in the comments. And I am following the same logic. Ok. that was the only thing Chris missed that I saw as important. He covered everything else. I found his critiques helpful in forming complete conclusions. Or as complete as possible. Simcha would present a point, gloss over the supporting evidence, call it fact and use this conclusion to support the next point. Chris took these point by point, looked at the supporting evidence, when he could find it, did his own research as necessary and gave the bits that Simcha glossed over or completely ignored because they didn’t support his conclusions.

I’m not one to mind the refudiation of traditional scientific theories. I think new ideas are good. But if you present new ideas as fact, as Simcha does, with flimsy and cobbled together “evidence” I do have a problem.

Initially watching ED I was ready to believe. I was thrilled that maybe there was a link between Thera and the Biblical Plagues. But then “evidence started dropping into place to quickly and too neatly. And I was disappointed to find that Simcha’s own expert could only find 40 grains of ash in his much larger sample - thus nullifing Simcha’s argument that Thera was the cause of the darkness plague. Simcha’s own expert refudiated one of Simcha’s claims. I will admit disappointment. I really wanted Thera to be the root if the 10 plagues.

One of my main concerns, which Dr. Heard does not address, probably because Simcha doesn’t as well, are the 2 cities mentioned in Exodus 1:11 (my verse may be off just slightly). They are Pithom and Ramses. Why does Simcha ignore these 2 very obvious clues? Because, if my history is correct, these 2 cities date to the wrong Pharoh. They date to the generally accepted Exodus Pharoh … d’uh, it’s pretty obvious … Rameses. Thus blowing Simcha assertion that the time line needs to be revamped. I found that if the given clues or facts didn’t fit with his theory, Simcha glossed over them, ignored them, or took snippets from them to support his conclusions.

Take the time to read Chris Heard’s blog. Take the time to read TheExodusDecoded.com - if you can get it to come up (I’ve been trying for 2 days and I keeping getting the same error). Make your own conclusions. But make sure your conclusions are based on the facts available (the Bible, the historical evidence, and the archeological evidence) not just the hype of a good story and a slick (and very well done) presentation.

Also one other thing that I have to say something about, even though Chris does a great job of debunking the theory. It’s Joseph’s seal. There is no way on God’s green earth (be it Pharoh’s gods or Joseph’s (and my) God) Pharoh would allow Joseph to use his father’s name as Pharoh’s seal of authority. It would be Pharoh’s name or symbol. And maybe, and this is a long shot, it would have been Joseph’s name or symbol. I work for a local government, and I know how “weird” our officials can get about signatures and the seal. It’s all about the power these thing represent, and this is a democracy. I can only image what Pharoh would have been like, when his ability to control the power was all that kept him in “office” a times. Total control - which leads back to Joseph and the seal. There is no was it could have been anything other than Pharoh’s name or symbol.

Let me repeat. Watch with a skeptical eye, read with a skeptical eye, and most of all learn as much as possible from the experts and the ameutur’s. Learn, learn, learn. Use you brain. If something seems too good to be true, maybe it is.

Ok… I’ll admit it.  I love Lego’s.  I guess I should have been an architect or something… Here is a really neat Lego site.  The Brick Testament

I just finished watching the Exodus Decoded, on the History Channel by James Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici. I didn’t realize it was originally aired in 2006.  I thought it was a new program.  But since switching to Verizon from DirecTV (I loved DirecTV and will most likely go back at some point) I’ve lost the ability to know what the original air dates are of programs.  It’s one of my major complaints… but I digress.  I was going to write up my thoughts on Exodus Decoded, but a professor Dr. Chris Heard did it for me. I haven’t finished reading his take … it’s long … but here’s the link. http://www.heardworld.com/higgaion/?page_id=119 

He’s basic reason for doing this is sound. Simcha is a journalist, not a scholar.  He’s actually quite an accomplished film maker.  Chris is a scholar, not a journalist.  In presenting the show the way he did Simcha took liberties and stretched things where he needed to - a common activity for journalist.  Anyway.  I’m going to finish reading the blog and get a bit of biblical lesson along the way.  More later.

Oh, and what I thought was kind of interesting is Simcha’s rebuttal’s to Chris critiques.  I find it very interesting that Chris included Simcha’s comments on his blog and actually encouraged reads to go to the comments and read them.  It’s up to us the reader to decide who has the more persuasive argument.

I got this from my Boss and I love it.  The answers are in the comments.  But don’t peek.
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1.) How do you put a giraffe in the refrigerator?
Stop and think about it and decide on your answer before you go to comments.

2.) How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?

3.) The Lion King is hosting an animal conference. All the animals attend …. Except one. Which animal does not attend?

4.) There is a river you must cross but it is used by crocodiles, and you do not have a boat. How do you manage it?

According to AndersonConsulting Worldwide, around 90% of the Professionals they tested got all questions wrong, but many preschoolers got several correct answers. AndersonConsulting says this conclusively disproves the theory that most professionals do not have the brains of a four-year-old.

Happy Thanksgiving

So, how DO astronauts go to the bathroom?
The following video explains it all.
Astronaut Potty