Wedding season is upon us, children. Congratulations to my dear friend Karla and her new husband Karl, and to the fantastic couple Rup and Patricia!
Semi-related, it turns out that Target has started carrying a line of wedding dresses (and bridesmaids ones, too), online, ranging in price from $99-$129. Also of interest is a recent wedding picture of the bridal party being ambushed by a t-rex. Kelly AT and i are doing the photography for Rup and Patricia's wedding; i am strongly considering photoshopping a sea monster into Lake Monona in the backdrop of theirs. Hmm. i'll see how Patricia takes it. i'm also open to suggestions for sea monster pictures.
Dictionary.com reports charm as the power of pleasing or attracting, apparently for the middle English from Old French from Latin for carminen, for 'magical song'. There was a recent post on NPR's Monkey See blog regarding the charming-ness (and apparent lack-thereoff) for modern men, particularly actors as featured in a recent Atlantic article. The Monkey See article references a princess phone ("Why, if I had a nickel for every time I called up one of my girlfriends on my Princess phone and said, "There I was, alluding to a perfectly good quotidian absurdity, and he wasn't lubricating our exchange at all!" Well, if I did, I would have enough nickels for another Princess phone, that's what."). My dear friend LZ and i thought it was a made-up thing, a very frilly, girly appliance. Turns out, it was a best-selling, very popular model of phone for AT&T, sleek instead of frilly, and discontinued as late as 1994. Huh.
Something else i had to look up today, definition-wise, was the term 'nebby', used as a descriptor. Urban dictionary did not disappoint, and it is a Pittsburgh word for nosy/snoopy/inquisitive/annoying. LZ referenced it, and she is from Pittsburgh. Okay.
Regarding the Pope Emeritus' current footwear (no more red shoes, remember?), looks like he's sporting a handmade pair from Mexico.
My current university in the NYTimes today, "“Your mother or father doesn’t come up and tuck you in at night and read you equations,” said Geoffrey Borman, a professor at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at the University of Wisconsin. "
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
various forms of cats, bagelheads, deja vu
It turns out, Grumpy Cat is actually a cat with feline dwarfism, giving it a permanently unhappy face and slightly odd back legs. It's also a favorite of my cousin Nadine, and thus my FB wall has seen quite a bit of grumpy cat.
Along those lines, Sushi cats. It's a thing whereby live, full-sized cats are somehow convinced to sit on a rice pillow thing, and wrapped with a strip of what appears to be nori and other items. "Do they EAT THEM?!" - My labmate walked into the conversation halfway through and was adorably confused. Official website, in Japanese but Google Chrome'll translate that for you.
Also a very different Japanese trend, bagelheads (also called donut heads); whereby people inject saline into their foreheads creating a circular shape with a depression in the center as a form of body modification. Apparently it only lasts about 16 hours? Reports vary.
i have learned/googled some stuff today, yeah.
Booked for Murder, a oddly named local mystery bookstore changing hands. i've always had theories that this place was a cover for other businesses, but looks like it's just a bookstore after all.
Deja vu isn't uncommon. Apparently, it's particularly common in 15-25 year olds, and "has been firmly associated with temporal-lobe epilepsy. Reportedly, déjà vu can occur just prior to a temporal-lobe seizure. People suffering a seizure of this kind can experience déjà vu during the actual seizure activity or in the moments between convulsions." i personally have them a lot, and that kind of freaks me out. And according to the Matrix, "A déjà vu is usually a glitch in the Matrix. It happens when they change something. ".
The pros and cons of coffee drinking, nothing new but all laid out in a single graphic here.
Along those lines, Sushi cats. It's a thing whereby live, full-sized cats are somehow convinced to sit on a rice pillow thing, and wrapped with a strip of what appears to be nori and other items. "Do they EAT THEM?!" - My labmate walked into the conversation halfway through and was adorably confused. Official website, in Japanese but Google Chrome'll translate that for you.
Also a very different Japanese trend, bagelheads (also called donut heads); whereby people inject saline into their foreheads creating a circular shape with a depression in the center as a form of body modification. Apparently it only lasts about 16 hours? Reports vary.
i have learned/googled some stuff today, yeah.
Booked for Murder, a oddly named local mystery bookstore changing hands. i've always had theories that this place was a cover for other businesses, but looks like it's just a bookstore after all.
Deja vu isn't uncommon. Apparently, it's particularly common in 15-25 year olds, and "has been firmly associated with temporal-lobe epilepsy. Reportedly, déjà vu can occur just prior to a temporal-lobe seizure. People suffering a seizure of this kind can experience déjà vu during the actual seizure activity or in the moments between convulsions." i personally have them a lot, and that kind of freaks me out. And according to the Matrix, "A déjà vu is usually a glitch in the Matrix. It happens when they change something. ".
The pros and cons of coffee drinking, nothing new but all laid out in a single graphic here.
Friday, May 10, 2013
GOT opening sequence, free fallin', etc.
The only television show i watch with any frequency is Game Of Thrones, mostly because Holly and Tyler know how much i love(d) the books, and so have me, Jack and Leslie over to watch it every week. The opening sequence is stunning; it features a mechanized map of Westeros, each city-to-be-featured in that particular episode sort of unfurling in order of appearance. Of course, i was curious as to how the map is done. A company called Elastic designed the sequence (for which it won a very-deserved Emmy); it's based roughly on clockwork, semi-inspired by Leonardo Davinci's work. A good article regarding this can be found here; notably: " When a town is lost or won, Wall’s team updates the map with the
appropriate markings. If the battle razed the city, Wall’s team will
construct a totally new model to depict the destruction. Attentive
viewers will find locations intact in Season 1’s credits completely
destroyed by Season 3’s."
Today, Tom Petty's Free Fallin' was playing over the radio in lab, and my labbie Ryan turned and paraphrased it at me, 'He's free.... free fallin' '. And i speculated that it's a pretty long song; how far must the fall be? This immediately required googling to determine the length of time Felix Baumgartner was in the air during his 19 mile sub-orbit freefall (4 minutes, 19 sec) versus the length of the song (4 minutes, 4 seconds). We were slightly amazed that the times were so close.
Tripped over this during lunch today; re-captioned safety tips/signs.
LZ linked these crazy posts regarding moths (yeah, the insects) driving little cars and mechanical animals. WHOA. She also linked this paper where they used cell acoustics to look at structures. The names and scopes of scientific journals is something i always find striking.
Finally,
"And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should."
Today, Tom Petty's Free Fallin' was playing over the radio in lab, and my labbie Ryan turned and paraphrased it at me, 'He's free.... free fallin' '. And i speculated that it's a pretty long song; how far must the fall be? This immediately required googling to determine the length of time Felix Baumgartner was in the air during his 19 mile sub-orbit freefall (4 minutes, 19 sec) versus the length of the song (4 minutes, 4 seconds). We were slightly amazed that the times were so close.
Tripped over this during lunch today; re-captioned safety tips/signs.
LZ linked these crazy posts regarding moths (yeah, the insects) driving little cars and mechanical animals. WHOA. She also linked this paper where they used cell acoustics to look at structures. The names and scopes of scientific journals is something i always find striking.
Finally,
"And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should."
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
speedvacs, pretty movie?!, fancy paperclips, guy-on-a-buffalo
The question today, posed to me by one of the grad students upstairs as i was commenting on the efficacy of their speedvac (basically, a centrifuge over which is drawn a vacuum, basically dehydrating samples as they're being spun) 'Is dehydration the same as lyophilization?' Short answer, it's freeze-drying.
There's been a lot of hype about the current movie re-make of The Great Gatsby. The producer is Baz Luhrman, who also did Moulin Rouge and the (okay, our) dorm room staple Romeo + Juliet (which, to this day, is quite possibly the only chick flick through which i will gladly sit. And quote. The. Entire. Thing.) Anyway, i HATED having to read Gatsby in high school. Gosh. But it's going to be gorgeous.
This previous weekend, the Greek Orthodox Church celebrated Easter. There was some question during dinner the other night as to why the Roman Catholic Church and Greek Orthodox do not celebrate these at the same time; the churches follow different calendars. This is actually super complicated. Roman Catholicism follows the Gregorian calendar (a year being 365 days with one intercalary day every 4 years), with the date of Easter (computus paschalis) being the first Sunday following the first full moon after the Spring Equinox (between March 21-23), as set forth by the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. The Greek Orthodox Church relies on the Julian calendar, which holds the Spring Equinox to be around April 3rd. Some years, these dates align. Some years, not so much.
Another interesting thing i learned last week was the difference between a binder clip and something called a bulldog clip; the bulldog clip has little plates between the metal 'spring' and papers. The names are apparently used interchangeably in the UK. i was looking up protein gel protocols online, and tripped over the term.
Finally, the Kentucky Derby was last weekend. It was my friend Bryan's birthday, and as he's Kentuckian, he invited us all over for the Derby, pie, and some fantastic fried chicken. At the end of this night, we were all sitting around watching youtube movies, and Bryan suggested a series of clips in which a guy riding a buffalo (clipped from a longer movie), has adventures, narrated by a bluegrass-esque band. These are pretty fantastic. No, seriously.
...and then there's seapunk?!
There's been a lot of hype about the current movie re-make of The Great Gatsby. The producer is Baz Luhrman, who also did Moulin Rouge and the (okay, our) dorm room staple Romeo + Juliet (which, to this day, is quite possibly the only chick flick through which i will gladly sit. And quote. The. Entire. Thing.) Anyway, i HATED having to read Gatsby in high school. Gosh. But it's going to be gorgeous.
This previous weekend, the Greek Orthodox Church celebrated Easter. There was some question during dinner the other night as to why the Roman Catholic Church and Greek Orthodox do not celebrate these at the same time; the churches follow different calendars. This is actually super complicated. Roman Catholicism follows the Gregorian calendar (a year being 365 days with one intercalary day every 4 years), with the date of Easter (computus paschalis) being the first Sunday following the first full moon after the Spring Equinox (between March 21-23), as set forth by the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. The Greek Orthodox Church relies on the Julian calendar, which holds the Spring Equinox to be around April 3rd. Some years, these dates align. Some years, not so much.
Another interesting thing i learned last week was the difference between a binder clip and something called a bulldog clip; the bulldog clip has little plates between the metal 'spring' and papers. The names are apparently used interchangeably in the UK. i was looking up protein gel protocols online, and tripped over the term.
Finally, the Kentucky Derby was last weekend. It was my friend Bryan's birthday, and as he's Kentuckian, he invited us all over for the Derby, pie, and some fantastic fried chicken. At the end of this night, we were all sitting around watching youtube movies, and Bryan suggested a series of clips in which a guy riding a buffalo (clipped from a longer movie), has adventures, narrated by a bluegrass-esque band. These are pretty fantastic. No, seriously.
...and then there's seapunk?!
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