i was singing Buddy Holly and the Cricket's Everyday at my cycling partner Asuka this Saturday as we cycled (what felt like) directly into 18mph wind, and then ruminated on the fact that i've had to explain whom Buddy Holly is to various undergrads (for the record, a early rocker from the 1950s who died entirely too early but left some very short and awesome songs). Asuka, wiser than me as always, pointed out that many of our peers probably wouldn't know who he is either (outside of the Weezer reference), and further discussion involved Mr. Holly as the original hipster. ("Those glasses!!")
Speaking of cycling, Asuka, it looks like someone finally beat us to the punch regarding our athletic denim dream - Huff Post recently reported that some folks in Las Vegas have launched a kickstarter to fund a company for production of 'functional denim', or stretchy jeans for athletes.
While discussing this with a labmate, the question arose, is $100 too much to pay for jeans? Short answer, not for high end jeans (no pun intended), and particularly not for bespoke jeans. ('Bespoke' refers to clothing and other products made-to-order, " The word bespoke is derived from the verb to bespeak, to "speak for something", in the specialised meaning "to give order for it to be made" ", as explained by wikipedia. Technically, the Barbell jeans would probably be more made-to-measure, indicating more of a alterations-made-to-a-standard-pattern process than true bespoke. Anyway.) i saw the huff post article via a friend's FB page; while there, FB referred me to this amusing article from Art of Manliness entitled "Chuck Norris Action Jeans", and i do strongly encourage you to check out the slogans submitted in the commentary.
(Jack and Leslie:) Coldplay has a new single out called Magic. It puts me in mind of Erin Morganstern's pretty book Night Circus, having to do with magic (and probably also as the music video features a circus).
i have been curious for a little while as to why black(ened/ bruised) eyes are called 'shiners' (and probably not in the firefly/western sense, nor in the delicious beer sense). There are a lot of explanations, most of which have negative/derogatory tones (that it was the punishment given to Irish workers by British officers for not keeping machinery shiny, and others) but i most favor the notion that it's because it draws attention to that person/injury, as do shiny objects.
And back to the topic of artisanal toast. This has certainly picked up some media momentum in the past weeks, particularly as the NYTimes is having a 'bread' issue. An article featured the preparation of toast, strangely coincident of another (more imaginative/less serious) NPR article investigating several methods of creative bread toasting. Another NYTimes article referenced making bread from a eatery well known for it called Tartines. i've come across tartines before, mentioned in passing regarding European breakfasts; wikipedia officially links them to 'Open Sandwiches'. That lead to my wikipedia linking to Gentleman's Relish, apparently a savory/anchovy-ie paste, along with Poacher's Relish, the salmon version. This linked to another dish that i never encountered before (thankfully?), Scotch Woodcock, wherein the aforementioned Gentleman's Paste spread on toast, then overlaid with soft-cooked eggs. These are apparently frequently featured as a savoury, a course in British dining after dessert and before port. Most of the dished listed have really interesting names, like Angels on Horseback (oysters, wrapped in bacon and grilled; true origin of name unknown) and Devils on Horseback (dried fruit like dates, likewise wrapped in bacon and grilled; name evolving from the Angels version).
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Monday, April 21, 2014
Batsh*t crazy, cardboard dino costume, Milk Carton Kids and 'ampersand', chilis and new world produce
My dear friend Lauren gchatted today with a non sequitur query:
i came across this cardboard dinosaur costume kit the other day. Super tempted.
i was just *thrilled* to see this taped concert of the incredibly talented Milk Carton Kids come up on NPR today; they're glorious with a bit of a dry wit in the on-stage patter. (i giggled the entire hour and 12 minutes.) Somewhere around minutes 42 through 46, Joey goes off about the title of their album, having used a '&', and how it's a ligature as well as a symbol, then branching off into the etymology of the word ampersand, as documented by wikipedia. While i strongly urge you to watch Joey's delivery of this, he pretty much paraphrases wikipedia, "The word ampersand is a corruption of the phrase "and (&) per se and", meaning "and (the symbol &) intrinsically (is the word) and".[2]Traditionally, when reciting the alphabet in English-speaking schools, any letter that could also be used as a word in itself ("A", "I", and, at one point, "O") was preceded by the Latin expression per se("by itself").[3][4][5] It was also common practice to add the "&" sign at the end of the alphabet as if it were the 27th letter, pronounced and. As a result, the recitation of the alphabet would end in "X, Y, Z,and per se and". This last phrase was routinely slurred to "ampersand" and the term had entered common English usage by 1837.[4][6][7] However, in contrast to the 26 letters, the ampersand does not represent a speech sound—although other characters that were dropped from the English alphabet, such as the Old English thorn, did." This random trivia tidbit made my morning.
I made the (rather intensely subjective and not entirely true) statement the other day that all the best foods come from the new world; tomatoes, potatoes, corn, beans, cocoa, vanilla, pecans, peanuts... My flatmate called me on it - and while i responded that tomatoes were probably from the Yucatan peninsula, they're actually from the Andes (like potatoes). And, turns out, researchers at UC Davis just confirmed that chili peppers originated in central eastern Mexico, " from southern Puebla and northern Oaxaca to southeastern Veracruz, that region is further south than was previously thought, the researchers found. It’s also very different than the origin of common bean and corn crops, which are believed to have been domesticated in Western Mexico. " So, that's pretty cool.
While looking up the place-of-origin for tomatoes, wikipedia has a rather interesting aside under cultural impact, " The town of Buñol, Spain, annually celebrates La Tomatina, a festival centered on an enormous tomato fight. Tomatoes are a popular "nonlethal" throwing weapon in mass protests, and there was a common tradition of throwing rotten tomatoes at bad performers on a stage during the 19th century; today this is usually referenced as a metaphor. Embracing it for this protest connotation, the Dutch Socialist party adopted the tomato as their logo. ".
Does guano make people crazy if they eat it?
I am contemplating 'bat shit crazy'
And this IS an interesting question. There are a lot of theories out there, turns out. Wiktionary offers the theories that it stems from slang, 'to have bats in one's belfry', and urban dictionary further expounds upon this, " A person who is batshit crazy is so nuts that not only is their belfry
full of bats, but so many bats have been there for so long that the
belfry is coated in batshit. Hence, the craziest of crazy people are
BATSHIT CRAZY". Wiktionary further goes on to include possibly influences by the term 'apeshit' (which itself may stem from the propensity of certain primates to throw feces when irritated). Another google hit came back with a highly creative blog post offering ties to fungi which grow on bat guano and harbor hallucinogenic properties, but this doesn't cite sources. Researching 'bat guano fungi' returns results for fungi which cause the lung disease histoplasmosis, but no hallucinogenic properties. Finally, this article documents early use of the word, and claims, " So, while batshit crazy certainly does seem to be influenced by the expression bats in the belfry as you suggest, its first meaning, in use by 1950, was simply a variant of bullshit.
This use continued and overlapped with the "crazy" meaning: further
citations are given for definition #1 from Dean Koontz's 1985 novel Door to December and from Seattle Weekly in 2002. Also, batshit as a standalone word meaning "crazy" appears to be older than the two-word phrase batshit crazy, at least as far as the written record shows. ".i came across this cardboard dinosaur costume kit the other day. Super tempted.
i was just *thrilled* to see this taped concert of the incredibly talented Milk Carton Kids come up on NPR today; they're glorious with a bit of a dry wit in the on-stage patter. (i giggled the entire hour and 12 minutes.) Somewhere around minutes 42 through 46, Joey goes off about the title of their album, having used a '&', and how it's a ligature as well as a symbol, then branching off into the etymology of the word ampersand, as documented by wikipedia. While i strongly urge you to watch Joey's delivery of this, he pretty much paraphrases wikipedia, "The word ampersand is a corruption of the phrase "and (&) per se and", meaning "and (the symbol &) intrinsically (is the word) and".[2]Traditionally, when reciting the alphabet in English-speaking schools, any letter that could also be used as a word in itself ("A", "I", and, at one point, "O") was preceded by the Latin expression per se("by itself").[3][4][5] It was also common practice to add the "&" sign at the end of the alphabet as if it were the 27th letter, pronounced and. As a result, the recitation of the alphabet would end in "X, Y, Z,and per se and". This last phrase was routinely slurred to "ampersand" and the term had entered common English usage by 1837.[4][6][7] However, in contrast to the 26 letters, the ampersand does not represent a speech sound—although other characters that were dropped from the English alphabet, such as the Old English thorn, did." This random trivia tidbit made my morning.
I made the (rather intensely subjective and not entirely true) statement the other day that all the best foods come from the new world; tomatoes, potatoes, corn, beans, cocoa, vanilla, pecans, peanuts... My flatmate called me on it - and while i responded that tomatoes were probably from the Yucatan peninsula, they're actually from the Andes (like potatoes). And, turns out, researchers at UC Davis just confirmed that chili peppers originated in central eastern Mexico, " from southern Puebla and northern Oaxaca to southeastern Veracruz, that region is further south than was previously thought, the researchers found. It’s also very different than the origin of common bean and corn crops, which are believed to have been domesticated in Western Mexico. " So, that's pretty cool.
While looking up the place-of-origin for tomatoes, wikipedia has a rather interesting aside under cultural impact, " The town of Buñol, Spain, annually celebrates La Tomatina, a festival centered on an enormous tomato fight. Tomatoes are a popular "nonlethal" throwing weapon in mass protests, and there was a common tradition of throwing rotten tomatoes at bad performers on a stage during the 19th century; today this is usually referenced as a metaphor. Embracing it for this protest connotation, the Dutch Socialist party adopted the tomato as their logo. ".
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
buck cocktail, maroon bluebonnets, venus cat, barr bodies, heterochromia, breeze blocks, women's confidence
Turns out, in the liquor lexicon, a 'buck' (or mule) refers to a cocktail made with ginger beer or ginger ale, citrus juice and any of a number of liquors. This is a great bit of information, given my and friends' affinity for ginger beer.
My father has a lot of faith in me; he called to ask if i knew anything about maroon bluebonnets recently 'found' growing around the bell tower at UT-Austin. (i didn't, of course, outside of knowing that the maroon bonnets existed since before i got to A&M).
Kelly AT was sent a picture of internet phenom Venus cat, showed it to me, and this immediately launched a discussion about photoshop possibilities and genetics. i looked further into it, and both Snopes and National Geographic report that it's not a photo-shopped image; the cat indeed exists.She's not a chimera, but instead probably has different 'x' chromosomes expressed in different parts of her body - Barr bodies refer to when where one of the two 'x' chromosomes must be silenced (by supercoiling, and the process is called lyonization), and this contributes to fur color in cats ( notably displayed in calico cats). The eye color is something else ('odd-eyed cat' has it's own wikipedia page, and some crazy pictures), and attributed to heterochromia iridum. In true synchronical tradition, a picture came up on Humans Of New York of a dog with this same genetic situation within 24 hours of the discussion. Heterochromia is a pretty common thing, and you can either have the full, two different colored eyes, or parts of the eye differently colored (for instance, a ring around the iris is central heterochromia).
Because of the excellent Alt-J song Breezeblocks, i learned that cinder blocks are called 'breeze blocks' in the UK and New Zealand, due to 'breeze' being what they call cinders (fly ash). Moreover, they're called 'besser blocks' in the Philippines.
This article in the Atlantic, titled "The Confidence Gap", addresses the disparity in confidence between men and women and how it affects their actions in the workplace. This is something i have observed and discussed with several peers; it's a well written and researched piece. Have confidence, female friends; we are all worthy.
i've been eating a lot of soup lately, and a favorite has become Trader Joe's tomato and roasted pepper, dressed with jalapeno sauce, lime and salt. i was heating some up the other day when Shelly West's song Jose Cuervo got stuck in my head, and i had to sing the chorus ("... did i dance on the bar/ did i start any fights?") to my baffled but indulgent flatmate. For a 31 year old song, it's held up pretty well.
And then this exchange with my labmate Ryan happened this morning via gchat:
ryan: http://www.boredpanda.com/
me: but, i want bats
My father has a lot of faith in me; he called to ask if i knew anything about maroon bluebonnets recently 'found' growing around the bell tower at UT-Austin. (i didn't, of course, outside of knowing that the maroon bonnets existed since before i got to A&M).
Kelly AT was sent a picture of internet phenom Venus cat, showed it to me, and this immediately launched a discussion about photoshop possibilities and genetics. i looked further into it, and both Snopes and National Geographic report that it's not a photo-shopped image; the cat indeed exists.She's not a chimera, but instead probably has different 'x' chromosomes expressed in different parts of her body - Barr bodies refer to when where one of the two 'x' chromosomes must be silenced (by supercoiling, and the process is called lyonization), and this contributes to fur color in cats ( notably displayed in calico cats). The eye color is something else ('odd-eyed cat' has it's own wikipedia page, and some crazy pictures), and attributed to heterochromia iridum. In true synchronical tradition, a picture came up on Humans Of New York of a dog with this same genetic situation within 24 hours of the discussion. Heterochromia is a pretty common thing, and you can either have the full, two different colored eyes, or parts of the eye differently colored (for instance, a ring around the iris is central heterochromia).
Because of the excellent Alt-J song Breezeblocks, i learned that cinder blocks are called 'breeze blocks' in the UK and New Zealand, due to 'breeze' being what they call cinders (fly ash). Moreover, they're called 'besser blocks' in the Philippines.
This article in the Atlantic, titled "The Confidence Gap", addresses the disparity in confidence between men and women and how it affects their actions in the workplace. This is something i have observed and discussed with several peers; it's a well written and researched piece. Have confidence, female friends; we are all worthy.
i've been eating a lot of soup lately, and a favorite has become Trader Joe's tomato and roasted pepper, dressed with jalapeno sauce, lime and salt. i was heating some up the other day when Shelly West's song Jose Cuervo got stuck in my head, and i had to sing the chorus ("... did i dance on the bar/ did i start any fights?") to my baffled but indulgent flatmate. For a 31 year old song, it's held up pretty well.
And then this exchange with my labmate Ryan happened this morning via gchat:
ryan: http://www.boredpanda.com/
me: but, i want bats
https://www.flickr.com/groups/
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
chupacabra, Dallas, pain response, pink rabbits, vaccination
Two rather curious Texas-themed entries popped up on FB recently. Potential chupcabra (addressed on this blog previously here) capture by a family in DeWitt County was one. The other is a song by Conan O'Brian written about Dallas, using the highly creditable wikipedia as the sole resource. It also slams Houston a little, but i'm not too sure that part can be credited to wikipedia.
i really enjoyed and highly identify with this blog post by and about pro cyclist Jens Voight's self-admitted " interesting relationship with pain ". (For the non-cyclists, Jens Voight might be most famous for the phrase 'Shut up, legs', as applied to pushing through exercise-related pain).
i have had the National's NPR Tiny Desk Concert on repeat all day (... okay, all week), and woke up this morning singing bits of Pink Rabbits to myself. This begs the question, exactly what is a 'pink rabbit'? Well, apparently, " MBE Associate Producer Collin Walzak later found out that “Pink Rabbits” is the name for a drink Matt made up. The recipe, dare you try it, is Tequila, Nestle Quick Strawberry Milk and Kahlua " as documented on the KCRW blog.
This Onion article, entitled The Pros and Cons of Vaccinating Children, is humorous. Another piece popped up on Huff Post, of all places, that seems to be very well organized and documented. It looks as though the vaccination 'debate' is going through another upswing in the media (it seems to come in cycles). Recently, this might be stimulated by outbreaks of viral infections which are usually prevented by vaccination; for instance, recent outbreaks of mumps in Ohio (and closer to home, on the campus of the university i attend), and public health issues following the measles infection of a Washington state woman who attended a rock concert while infectious, and a man who was traveling through the Seattle airport while infectious (with viral infections, you can be contagious before symptoms occur).
i've posted on this before; as a trained virologist, one who's given the vaccine lecture in virology classes to pre-med undergrads at Big 10 school, i have ardently made the case for vaccines multiple times, in multiple formats. i got called out on the US's state-directed stance on vaccination exemptions by European grad students at an international conference i attended in March. (They were like, "How is it legal to NOT get vaccinated?" Err, religious deferrals? i shouldn't have to defend that when i strongly believe in vaccination. Anyway, only 15 out of the 27 EU nations have mandatory vaccinations, though "However, many programmes in Europe are effective even though voluntary, just with recommendations. ") But this is a polarizing topic. Several of my close friends have infants, and i've brought up the vaccinations issue with them all. One of these very close, dear (and well educated, otherwise pro-science) friends has a younger brother with moderate autism. For the autism community, for whom there is little comfort and lots of questions, vaccination is a highly emotional issue. While there is no scientific evidence AT ALL that vaccines contribute to autism, the exact causes of austim are not clear and well established. For new parents who have prior experiences for life with autism, anything these parents can do to prevent their child from having autism is considered. This includes not getting their child vaccinated. (Again, this is a timing thing; the age at which children are vaccinated is the same age at which some of the symptoms of autism manifest, and some people claim that this is a cause.) So this friend and i discussed things, and i'm not sure if it was any help - while she might be perfectly fine with vaccinating her infant, how does she explain her decision to her non-scientific parents and the rest of the autistic community (who has supported her brother and family through the years)? God forbid, if the child is vaccinated and has autism, what will the response of that community be? Sometimes, it is super difficult to reconcile intellectual data and emotional responses. i've never claimed to have all the answers, but talking with this friend has made me more aware of the struggles of those who have siblings or other family members with autism, and have to deal with the response of that community.
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
Skeletor, human sinuses, fireflies/lightening bugs, artisanal toast
The most awesome thing i've seen online this week is actually
something i (somehow) forgot existed, but am super happy to stumble over
again, is this inspirational Skeletor flickr page.
Regarding my lack of posts, perhaps we can attribute them to not wanting to tire out you, dear readers, as reported in this recent article reporting that more frequent postings to instagram yield audience fatigue?
The term 'faceplant', which is the action of falling and landing on one's face, is a highly evocative phrase. i didn't realize it evolved from the skating term 'handplant'.
Turns out, the function of the human sinuses is not well understood. It's speculated that we use them to warm/humidify the air we inhale, but survey's still out. However, the system by which breaks to the sinuses are classified was developed by a French surgeon named Rene Le Fort in 1901, "To perform these experiments, Le Fort used intact cadaver heads, and delivered blunt forces of varying degrees of magnitude, as well as from different directions. From these tests, he determined that predictable patterns of fractures are the result of certain types of injuries, and concluded that there are three predominant types of mid-face fractures. ", from wikipedia. Medical and science history are pretty fascinating.
Oh, i've got a flatmate these days (and Welcome Back To Madison, KellyAT!). She made the prediction that the Wisconsin Badgers will play the Florida Gators in the final game of the NCAA tournament, due to interesting synchronicity (convergence?) of her Florida and Wisconsin ties, because she's 'the center of the universe', obviously. I'd be okay with that, but we discussed it a little more, and she jokingly hypothesized that fireflies are actually the center of the universe; i disagree, were they truly center of the universe, i doubt little kids would trap them to die by their beds in jars. Which lead to the question, exactly what is the lifespan of a fire fly? This question is not as straight-forward as initial glance; fireflies undergo several lifestages. Sum total, their lifespans are reported to be about a yearor 2 in some cases, depending on species, but this is mostly overwintering in the larval stage. They then pupate in the spring, emerging as adults after 1-2.5 weeks. Most adults only live long enough to mate and lay eggs. Interesting, while the larvae are carnivorous and subsist on snails, slugs, and other larvae, it's not known what the adults eat - possibly pollen, nectar, or nothing at all, and the adults of some species apparently lack mouths.
Somewhat related, do you call them fireflies or lightening bugs (or, perhaps, peenie wallies if you're from American Appalachia and other scattered small pockets, or glow worms if you're from Australia/the UK?)? This is an interesting regional dialect, and has been the subject of several surveys. A survey concluded by Harvard in 2003 gave mixed results; firefly is more predominant on the west coast and New England but it appears as though most folks in the US use those terms interchangeably (and depicted in pretty map form here). Dialect maps are pretty fascinating in general, have a look at the careful phrasing of these questions.
*updated; Kate B reminded me that the NYTimes posted an interactive dialect quiz online, and so i took it (i took it a few months ago but there was a glitch and i never saw the results). The quiz pegged San Antonio, Plano, and Irving (all Texas towns) as places where i might be from, which is impressive as San Antonio is the town closest to the rural area where i grew up. This was apparently mostly based on the question:
BATS! BATS BATS BATS!
And finally, i came across an article today on NPR wherein they deemed the best food-related April Fools Day joke this year as a class teaching How to Make Toast (go ahead and click on that last one; it's pun-derful). Somewhere within the body of that article is a link to the history of artisanal toast (which is apparently the next upcoming food trend? toast bars?). It's a sad but well-told story there. Also, i lived on toast and tea for a rather stressful portion of undergrad, so i suppose this strikes a bit of a chord.
Regarding my lack of posts, perhaps we can attribute them to not wanting to tire out you, dear readers, as reported in this recent article reporting that more frequent postings to instagram yield audience fatigue?
The term 'faceplant', which is the action of falling and landing on one's face, is a highly evocative phrase. i didn't realize it evolved from the skating term 'handplant'.
Turns out, the function of the human sinuses is not well understood. It's speculated that we use them to warm/humidify the air we inhale, but survey's still out. However, the system by which breaks to the sinuses are classified was developed by a French surgeon named Rene Le Fort in 1901, "To perform these experiments, Le Fort used intact cadaver heads, and delivered blunt forces of varying degrees of magnitude, as well as from different directions. From these tests, he determined that predictable patterns of fractures are the result of certain types of injuries, and concluded that there are three predominant types of mid-face fractures. ", from wikipedia. Medical and science history are pretty fascinating.
Oh, i've got a flatmate these days (and Welcome Back To Madison, KellyAT!). She made the prediction that the Wisconsin Badgers will play the Florida Gators in the final game of the NCAA tournament, due to interesting synchronicity (convergence?) of her Florida and Wisconsin ties, because she's 'the center of the universe', obviously. I'd be okay with that, but we discussed it a little more, and she jokingly hypothesized that fireflies are actually the center of the universe; i disagree, were they truly center of the universe, i doubt little kids would trap them to die by their beds in jars. Which lead to the question, exactly what is the lifespan of a fire fly? This question is not as straight-forward as initial glance; fireflies undergo several lifestages. Sum total, their lifespans are reported to be about a yearor 2 in some cases, depending on species, but this is mostly overwintering in the larval stage. They then pupate in the spring, emerging as adults after 1-2.5 weeks. Most adults only live long enough to mate and lay eggs. Interesting, while the larvae are carnivorous and subsist on snails, slugs, and other larvae, it's not known what the adults eat - possibly pollen, nectar, or nothing at all, and the adults of some species apparently lack mouths.
Somewhat related, do you call them fireflies or lightening bugs (or, perhaps, peenie wallies if you're from American Appalachia and other scattered small pockets, or glow worms if you're from Australia/the UK?)? This is an interesting regional dialect, and has been the subject of several surveys. A survey concluded by Harvard in 2003 gave mixed results; firefly is more predominant on the west coast and New England but it appears as though most folks in the US use those terms interchangeably (and depicted in pretty map form here). Dialect maps are pretty fascinating in general, have a look at the careful phrasing of these questions.
*updated; Kate B reminded me that the NYTimes posted an interactive dialect quiz online, and so i took it (i took it a few months ago but there was a glitch and i never saw the results). The quiz pegged San Antonio, Plano, and Irving (all Texas towns) as places where i might be from, which is impressive as San Antonio is the town closest to the rural area where i grew up. This was apparently mostly based on the question:
Q: What do you call the small road parallel to the highway?
A: access road
Also, my dialect is least like that of folks in New York and Boston. BATS! BATS BATS BATS!
And finally, i came across an article today on NPR wherein they deemed the best food-related April Fools Day joke this year as a class teaching How to Make Toast (go ahead and click on that last one; it's pun-derful). Somewhere within the body of that article is a link to the history of artisanal toast (which is apparently the next upcoming food trend? toast bars?). It's a sad but well-told story there. Also, i lived on toast and tea for a rather stressful portion of undergrad, so i suppose this strikes a bit of a chord.
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