Blue Sky On Mars

Thoughts on Building Software Products

News Flash! Flying Spaghetti Madness!

by Kevin Dangoor

Since I started using the convenient L10 Hit Counter in June, I’ve been able to very easily see what people are reading here whenever I want. Mysteriously, the #3 URL here, just behind the BSOM front page, since mid-June is my posting about the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Apparently, the Pastafarians are a larger more dedicated lot than I originally expected. The original FSM site has grown quite a bit. 10 million hits (now up to 750k per day), and startling bits of work like Touched By His Noodly Appendage.

Bobby Henderson has finally provided reasons to convert to Flying Spaghetti Monsterism:

  • Flimsy moral standards.
  • Every friday is a relgious holiday. If your work/school objects to that, demand your religious beliefs are respected and threaten to call the ACLU.
  • Our heaven is WAY better. We’ve got a Stripper Factory AND a Beer Volcano.

The big news comes from Boing Boing (from whence all big news comes): there’s $750,000 up for grabs for anyone that can prove that Jesus is not the son of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Just as the original FSM open letter was a parody of the insanity of suppressing evolution science, this purse is a parody of an offer for $250,000 for proof that evolution occurs (with a big * that broadens the notion of evolution to include the proverbial kitchen sink).

Ahhh… the Net has been touched by his noodly appendage indeed.
Boing Boing: Boing Boing’s $250,000 Intelligent Design challenge (UPDATED: $750K)

What is Zesty News?

by Kevin Dangoor

After I first announced Zesty News, I mentioned that it was an RSS reader, and I talked a bit about making it browser-based and cross-platform, while still including reasonable support for things expected on Macs and PCs.

I hadn’t talked about what makes Zesty News special, and that’s just as well since I ended up delaying things a bit. Now that the alpha is out and available to testers, I have put more information about Zesty News up on the Blazing Things site.

The things that are talked about on the Blazing Things site are features right now. They’re not vaporware. There’s a bit more to add before Zesty News Lite 1.0 beta is done.