coffee rings and catapults, courtesy of Holly.

In brief, i just received an email from Victoria's Secret with the subject "Be the sparkliest one at the party!". As i've mentioned to Holly, i do not feel as though i relate to a large percent of my gender. Giving it more that 3 seconds thought, i've now unsubscribed.

Moving on, this youtube clip regarding coffee rings was forwarded to me by Holly. i frequently notice it as i pay attention to my coffee mug tasseography, and do notice that the coffee from the single serving dispensers, for whatever reason, particularly displays this effect. i guess it might involve the manufacturing of the coffee serving cup things gives rise to round particles? i'll post a picture tomorrow. Note on coffee rings; there have been several Nature papers out regarding the general mechanism and altering it's effect (with nods to application in printing, biology, etc). It's a thing.

Which brings us to the differences between a trebuchet and other catapults, namely in that a trebuchet uses a raised counterweight to provide force. There's a surprising number of catapult designs, and wikipedia states that they all are strongly related a crossbow, mechanistically.

Update, my coffee mug:

football stadiums, movies, pullups, crown braid

i recently had a conversation with Tyler regarding the size and intimidation of football stadiums. The stadium at my current institution is very midwestern friendly/bowl style, and while it holds 82,000, doesn't feel super imposing. The stadium from my undergrad institution only holds 8,000 more (at least, 90,000 people have crammed into it, and i certainly believe it), but dominates the landscape completely.

The Wachowski sibs (of The Matrix) have a new movie coming out, Cloud Atlas, co-directed with the guy who did Run Lola Run. i really liked Run Lola Run when i saw it at a friend's house in high school, even to the point of even awkwardly staying around to finish viewing the movie with her dad when she fell asleep. Anyway, there's an excellent New Yorker article featuring the sibs and the making of Cloud Atlas.

A friend posted National Geographic's Top 10 cycle routes on FB the other day, interesting.

Found this article regarding pullups and women on the NYTimes the other day (in short, pullups are used as a fitness measure, but might not be a valuable metric). Despite the fact that they tried to remain objective, i feel a little insulted that this was even studied.

Full disclosure, i spent an embarrassingly long time attempting to put my hair in a crown braid this morning, and was foiled mostly due to hair length, lack of coordination, and arm cramps. It has become a thing; i WILL conquer the crown braid. Hopefully by Halloween?

a couple quotes

Note regarding semantics; i was raised to use the term 'a couple whatever' to mean more than one, less than 5. Others use the term to mean specifically two. Pretty much all agree that 'a few whatever' is more than a couple, but to me, between 3-7ish, and others, 3 solid. Interesting, baffling, and seems to vary geographically (with the fixed number being more west coast).

For Holly, a quote from Marcus Aurelius, via climber Will Gadd's blog, "“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”"

From Mario Testino, a fashion photographer with work currently exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, "“Photographers are like cowboys. The quicker you draw your gun, the more likely you are to survive.These moments exist for a split second. This picture could have been nothing the second before, or the second after.”"
The man has it completely correct, and this is a nice bit of simile for the sentiment reflected in the 'the best camera is the one you have with you' theory. This is why i drag around at least one camera with me at all times. i realize i'm not the best photographer, but you never know when a shot will present itself.


Karl Metzler is a highly successful trail runner who recently did an interview with the magazine Trail Runner. Regarding the barefoot shoe trend, " Minimalistic shoes are for folks who buy into fads and salesmen. People should, in my opinion, run in something with cushioning. I see lots of folks start a race in little shoes, then drop because their feet are destroyed. ". I think it's nice to a.) hear this from a professional runner in b.) a trail magazine. Additionally, as far as crosstraining goes,

"Do you do any cross training?

No, I drink beer.

What is your favorite beer?

The brown kind. "

 (grins) i appreciate a little bit of orneriness in people during interviews.


Speaking of orneriness, this is one heck of an idea; instead of asking a celebrity for a picture with them, this guy gets them to take a picture of him (with his own camera, of course). (Astounded and slightly delighted by the audacity).

toast, friends, chocolate and nobel laureats, and nsfw cooking blogs.

One 'this, that, and the other' sort of posts.

While at my graduate program's retreat this past weekend, i toasted one of my classmates with a Scottish toast ('Here's tae us'), then mentioned that i usually hear it in my head as in a Boondock Saints-like accent (specifically the mother (sort of nsfw)). i fully realize that the Boondock Saints leads portray Irish characters (NOT SCOTTISH, i'm very aware those are completely distinct), but regardless, in my head, the toast comes with their mum's accent. Anyhow, i tracked it all back, and it is indeed a Scottish toast attributed to Robbie Burns.

Apparently, the person who places last in the Tour de France is is a somewhat coveted spot referred to as the lantern rouge, so named for the red lantern that French train conductors hang on the caboose to easily reference that none of the train has come unconnected.

This is a rather well-written post from NPR's MonkeySee blog regarding the adults and the term 'best friend', with specific instances drawn from the movie My Best Friend's wedding. i suppose i particularly liked it because i'm super fortunate in having several close friends, and that makes the idea of a best friend sort of sticky sometimes.

Another dispatch from NPR, this one regarding a rather striking correlation between the amount of chocolate a country consumes and their number of Nobel Prize winners. (i'm particularly fond of the part starting"One rainy afternoon, while stuck in a Katmandu hotel, Messerli got to playing around with the data.",   because that's a very science thing to do; you're stuck in a hotel, so... for funsies, let's crank through some sort of data!)

i did not know that Andy Warhol was apparently a rather devoted, practicing Catholic.

More on the not really safe-for-work front, LZ recently made some Habanero Brownies of Doom ("the Doom is pineapple") based on a recipe from this equal parts hilarious and offensive cooking blog. The brownies are reportedly pretty decent-though-surprising, and i'm setting it here for future reference. Another equal parts funny and offensive post is this piece entitled, It's Decorative Gourd Season....

legs, costumes, clothing sizes.

And, while i should be wrapping things up on a Friday, a bit of a post.

i want my legs to look like Anna Dello Russo's at 50. (And we can forgive her the pink heels with the red dress; she's editor of Vogue Japan and they do their own thing over there.)

While researching my Halloween costume this year, i came upon this great movie smash-up image. Also, thinking of getting these boots this weekend, 'cause i've been stalking them for at least 5 years (and stealing my younger cousin's at family gatherings). Anyway.

The Lumineers' self-titled album has been in my head for a week solid, with a nod to both Pandora (during the past month) and Asuka (who put a copy of Flowers in Your Hair in the mix she made me for the Chicago trip). i'm reasonably certain i've sent relevant tracks to most of you, so you all know this.

The Chicago trip was enjoyable, speaking of, but not as effective as hoped. Asuka PR'd by 11 minutes (!!) with the marathon, and tolerated being dragged to Zara and Topshop (so i could figure out their sizing systems for ordering purposes).

Clothing sizing systems are ridiculous. i'm a pretty solid 2 here in the States, but a 6 in most European sizes, and a Zara medium. Looking into it, anthropometry is, literally, the measure of (a) man. Wikipedia's clothing size charts are pretty fascinating, and size zero gets it's own wikipedia entry (frequently being "measurements of chest-stomach-hips from 30-22-32 inches (76-56-81 cm) to 33-25-35 inches (84-64-89 cm)".). (sigh)
Interesting NYTimes article here, as followed from wiki references.

going the distances, and gran fondo origin

30 minute break this afternoon involved:


Calculating the mileage per week one would need to run (presumably over a lifetime, let's say 30 years) to equal the distance between the Earth and the Moon (238,900 miles, averaged between the two apogees), you'd have to run 153 miles/week.

LZ wanted to know if it was a do-able life goal. Short answer, not really.

i'd say it's reasonable to say that most of us range around 15-25 miles/week, pending race schedule. Let's say 15 miles/week, over 30 years you'd run 23400 miles. Nothing to sneeze at, for sure. The circumference of the Earth at the equator is 24901.55 miles, which is roughly 15.9 miles/week over 30 years, so that's a tiny bit more workable.

She also linked this picture of an otter, whom i imagine saying, 'oh, you!'

And then this happened via gchat with BryanS, as he cycles and i've been reading too many cycling blogs: 

me:  question

 Bryan:  answer

 me:  what's a fondo?

as in the Italian cycling term gran fondo?

 Bryan:  i am not sure

internet says distance or endurance

 me:  googling  yeah

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclosportive

i'm simply curious as to the origin of the term

"The Gran Fondo or Open is derived its origin in Italy and is commonly translated "Big Ride""

hrm

 Bryan:  google translate says fondo is bottom

 me:  big bottom.

(raises an eyebrow)

 Bryan:  http://dictionary.reverso.net/italian-english/fondo

it seemed to have many definitions based on context

 Bryan:  most of them seems to be depth related

 me:  hm

 Bryan:  sooo, i guess endurance kind of fits

going as far as possible

 me:  particularly hilly races?

no

to the depths!

thank you,.

 Bryan:  we're a good google team

if only i could get a paper on that

 me:  meeeee, too