carp, amateurs, and black holes.

Random stuff on my desktop today...

Sandwich Monday's Asian Carp Sandwich review. Backstory being that Asian carp are an invasive species in Illinois, and the DNR decided to serve sandwiches made of them at the recent Taste of Chicago to help change public perception. It made me laugh, i'm sorry; i think it's kind of inventive.

A friend posted a Smithsonian article today regarding Jim Thorpe, an American Olympian in 1912. Dude's records are stunning (he was even accomplished in ballroom dancing!), but unfortunately he had been paid for playing minor league baseball within 2 years of the Olympics, so the Olympic Committee stripped him of his metals due to his priorly unknown non-amateur status ("In 1913, strict rules regarding amateurism were in effect for athletes participating in the Olympics. Athletes who received money prizes for competitions, were sports teachers or had competed previously against professionals, were not considered amateurs and were barred from competition" from wikipedia). Complicated. Anyway, best line? "I played with the heart of an amateur—for the pure hell of it."

Amateurism is an interesting concept; i had no idea that before 1970s, all Olympic athletes were required to be amateurs.

Word of the day? Paraphernalia.

Thing #3, random Black holes. Not to worry, though, "Quantum theory says black holes are two-way streets: all processes are reversible in time, so whatever falls in has to be able to get back out in some form or other." 

lunch link arc

From FB today, a friend posted a link to a response regarding the Oatmeal's How To Suck At Your Religion. That response linked to another i liked better, here.

The Oatmeal link lead to a lot of others, notably one regarding Tesla, that included a shout out to a rather interesting twitter feed here.

And that's all i got for now. Too much, all the time.

Several things. Why humans wear pants, apparently, is all due to riding horses. Reasonable. Part 1, part two.

Jack shared a bit of raver-culture today, having posted a picture on the FB of her adorable niece dressed in lots of colorful beads. Turns out, it's something called kandi. Thanks, Jack!

An article from the MonkeySee blog on two fellows singing along to Gotye's Someone I Used to Know in a highly entertaining though over-the-top fashion.

And finally, from the NYTimes, an article regarding traveling via airports, including why some people chose to carry a starter pistol (on the second page). Most of it's pretty much common sense.

A good article regarding the darkness of Robert Frost's poetry, as a book review for a recently released Frost poetry anthology.


This song has been in my head all the live-long day, by my beloved Avetts. i was recounting to Jack that it might contain my Avett lyrics, "Stop your parents' car/ i just saw a shooting star/ we can wish upon it, we won't share the wish we made/ but i can keep no secrets, i wish you would always stay". The song itself seems to be a collection of recollections though a relationship ("i am a breathing time machine/ i'll take you all for a ride").  Anyway, they've got an album coming out on September 11th. Mumford and Sons' sophomore album is due out Sept. 24th. Fantastic.


Update, NPR's Monkeysee blog explains that Garfield's Spiderman is not so much a nerd as he is a modern geek. She also comments on one of my fave parts of the movie, "Garfield and Stone play a scene together on a roof where he says almost nothing but stammers with such precision that you can tell at every moment what it is he's almost saying."

craigslist, swimming, and Spiderman.

Yet another awesome craigslist post here, this time for a bass player in a Texas country band.  "Some of you have asked if you would actually be required to play notes on said bass. The answer is, no. We've experimented with this in the past, and it created a number of problems. We recognize that having a five piece country rock band with no bass is a bit suboptimal, but we're realistic enough to know you don't always get exactly what you want."

For all the swimmers in my life, something about the perfect swimming stroke on the NYTimes.

Related by NPR; apparently all of the fireworks for an 18-minute fireworks show in San Diego went off in a glorious 30-second burst. i was telling a classmate that this is sort of what i imagine a very small scale nuclear incident would look like if you could see radiation.

Finally, let's address the new Spiderman movie. It IS amazing. i may be biased, though, the protagonist is a photography/science nerd with limited social skills. i wanna be Spiderman when i grow up?

Forget all that hubbub about the Higgs boson and LHC this week; the REAL news here is that No evidence of aquatic humans has ever been found.

(Some further explanation regarding the mermaid announcement, a notice from the BBC.)

An update about Bronies, the dudes who are massive My Little Pony fans - there is apparently a conference called BroNYCon. The 4th one just wrapped up in New Jersey.

An incredibly interesting article on obituaries from the New Yorker, mostly centering around that of Count Robert de la Rochefoucauld. (Props to the Browns for the heads-up on the Count).

Several articles regarding runner Lolo Jones, hrm. Just a note, she's the one in the scandalous Outside magazine cover from earlier this year that got discussed over a Mickies breakfast a while back.