All posts by Chris

now with more iPhone goodness

iPhoney screenshotIf you’re browsing the site on an iPhone (insert pretentious comments here), you might notice our new look tailored for that device’s web-browsing experience. (See example screenshot at left.) This is all thanks to the iWPhone WordPress Plugin and Theme, which makes it incredibly simple to add an iPhone-specific theme to the site. And boy does it look purty! Now I just need to customize it a bit so it matches the look and feel of the regular theme.

International Mustache Month

Let it be known that I, Chris Radcliff, will refrain from shaving my beard for the entire month of February 2008. Why, you may ask? For the challenge:

The idea is simple: grow your beard throughout February, then shave back to a glorious mustache for a gala beer party at the end of the month.

On this site, we will chronicle the saga of the hairiest month, detail the ever-important rules, and provide a home for temporarily mustachioed men to unite.

More to follow, including regular updates on Apache Beard’s progress toward Mustacheland.

SpaceShipTwo is unveiled

SpaceShipTwoI haven’t looked at details yet, but Virgin Galactic showed off models of their new spacecraft today according to a New York Times article:

Mr. Rutan, the creator of SpaceShipOne, the first privately-financed craft to carry a human into space, traveled to New York to show detailed models of the bigger SpaceShipTwo and its carrier airplane, WhiteKnightTwo.

WhiteKnight, a two-fuselage, four-engine plane in its new incarnation, will ferry the smaller spacecraft high into the sky and release it. The spacecraft pilot then fires the craft’s rocket engine, which burns a combination of nitrous oxide and a rubber-based solid fuel, and shoots the vehicle upward to an altitude of more than 62 miles, the realm of black sky.

Once there, the pilot is to activate the craft’s innovative feathered wing, which rotates into a position that greatly increases aerodynamic drag and slows the craft for a glider landing back on earth.

Commercial flights are still a couple years away, but it’ll be great to see these things take off even on test flights…

dispelling myths about bisexuality

A recent long-term study published in the journal Developmental Psychology gives weight to the idea that although sexual orientation is somewhat fluid, bisexuality isn’t just a transition between orientations.

The study of 79 non-heterosexual women over 10 years found that bisexual women maintained a stable pattern of attraction to both sexes. In addition, the research appears to have debunked the stereotype that bisexual women are uninterested in or unable to commit to long-term monogamous relationships.

“This research provides the first empirical examination of competing assumptions about the nature of bisexuality, both as a sexual identity label and as a pattern of nonexclusive sexual attraction and behavior,” wrote University of Utah psychologist Lisa M. Diamond, PhD, who conducted the study. “The findings demonstrate considerable fluidity in bisexual, unlabeled and lesbian women’s attractions, behaviors and identities and contribute to researchers’ understanding of the complexity of sexual-minority development over the life span.”

I personally like her inclusion of ‘unlabeled’ as a choice in the surveys, which allowed the women to differentiate uncertainty from bisexuality. Sexuality is complex, and it’s good to see solid research which acknowledges that.