fluff
khannula | May 28, 2009My climatological Scibling Stoat used "geologist" as an insult, I think:
hard rock geologists have done rather poorly in science, because they have become unfashionable
Hey! I resemble that remark!
(Point taken, at least career-wise. In the past 20 years, many departments have replaced retiring rock geeks with climate geeks. But some of us aren't bitter, and most of us accept that climate science has made huge advances in the past 20 years. In fact, I said something like that in a recent survey from... maybe AAAS?)
I blog because I think rocks are interesting. But perhaps blogging about the…
greengabbro | March 17, 2009A friend of mine IMed me this weekend, very excited about a minor earthquake. She used the word "temblor" and was very excited about that, too - how often do you get a chance to say "temblor"? She felt impressive and sciencey.
I have been hanging around with seismologists for some time now, and I don't think I have ever heard anyone use the word "temblor" in either ordinary or technical speech. I have only ever seen it in news reports, where it seems to fulfill a need to (a) limit the number of times a single word is repeated in a short space, and/or (b) use short words in headlines to…
greengabbro | March 14, 2009I don't have a lemon tree in the backyard, and springtime has only just reached the frigid northlands, but I do have a bit of Seattle summer tucked away in the back of my freezer.
Pick some slightly underripe blackberries for this one, so it's as tart as a good lemon meringue.
Ingredients
For the meringue:
4 egg whites
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1 Tbsp corn starch
For the filling:
1 c. blackberry juice from about 1/2 quart of frozen berries
6 egg yolks
1/4 c. lemon juice
1 Tbsp Regan's orange bitters
1/4 c. corn starch
1 c. sugar
generous pinch of salt
2 Tbsp butter
For the crust:
8…
greengabbro | March 14, 2009 I have had many terrible ideas for pie in my life - durian pie, anyone? And I expected this to be one of the worst. Then again, I've also had some Guinness ice cream that was absolutely fantastic; it should be possible to replicate that experience in a pie.
American food shies away from bitterness in any form, and especially in dessert form. Dark chocolate is starting to weaken that taboo, though. Once you have decided that nibbling on eleventypercent cacao is an acceptable after-dinner activity, there is really no reason not to open the floodgates to all manner of bittersweet delights.…
greengabbro | March 13, 2009This one's for Wilkins; it's a Pi Day / St. Patrick's Day twofer.
Ingredients
1 lb. stew lamb
1 onion
A few tbsp diced tomatoes (whatever was left in the can you used for pasta the other night)
1 clove garlic
6-8 ice cubes of broth - I make broth from whatever bones and scraps I have left over after other cooking, and freeze it in ice cube trays for easy use later. Fortuitously, my most recent batch was mostly lamb ribs and onion butts.
~1/2 pint Guinness
Salt, pepper, and MSG to taste
1 cup white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
8 tbps (1 stick) butter
2 1/2 tbsp vegetable shortening, and…
greengabbro | March 10, 2009As Lab Lemming pointed out, the graham cracker crust I made for my pie last weekend cannot be represented on the ternary phase diagram for traditional pie crust. But that doesn't mean it is somehow illegitimate or unsciencey! See, look at all this science:
In addition to being simpler to prepare, the graham cracker crust is delicious over a much larger range of compositions than a traditional pie crust.
I will have another pie posted later this week, but the rate-limiting ingredient is still equilibrating with ethelyene gas in a bag on my kitchen table.
greengabbro | March 10, 2009Flavor factor analyses of nutmeg distributions show systematic deviations from Poisson behavior despite homogeneous squash. We recorded spice-triggered covariance profiles from the filling layer at sites along inferior lateral and medial custard horizons (Rombauer areas 14 and 25). Each covariance matrix showed 6 to 8 significant eigenslices. To investigate this behavior, we solved the Child equations for flavor propagation in homogeneous layered meringue-custard spaces. By introducing slight fruitilinear perturbations to the model, we show that there exists a critical value of the…
greengabbro | March 8, 2009
The mojito is quite possibly a perfect cocktail. Fussing with it never seems to generate significant improvements, but driven by the need to seem unique and creative, bars keep offering variations with pomegranate, green tea, lychee, or whatever else the flavor of the month happens to be.
After impulse-purchasing some kiwis and throwing them into a mojito pie for the ScienceBlogs Pi Day contest, I can't say I'm any better than a bartender shilling $12 cocktails to jaded foodies. But the kiwi and lime blend seamlessly together in a refreshingly tart custard, and hey, they were on sale.
You'll…
greengabbro | February 19, 2009 Following the Royal Mail's release of some lovely new Darwin stamps, a few of us got to Twittering over lunch yesterday about the lack of geologists on this year's release of American scientist stamps.
(What's that? You have no idea what Twittering is? It's a stupid Web Eleventy-Point-Oh jibber-jabber service, pay no attention. If you are an Eleventy-Point-Oh sort of person, though, perhaps you should be following me.)
Googling around a bit for existing stamps that feature earth scientists, I found the pickings to be surprisingly slim. Alfred Wegener has been on stamps issued by both East…
greengabbro | January 8, 2009One of my New Year's blogolutions was to clear out my to-blog folder, and bring closure to my unfinished drafts by simply posting them as-is. This is one of those drafts. Disorganized paragraphs, unfinished sentences, and general incoherence enhance the natural character and beauty of a half-written blog post and should not be considered flaws or defects.
Draft date: October 22, 2008
I don't know what it is about Dinosaur Comics that inspires me to be a contrarian, but when I saw this, I immediately wanted to prove T-rex wrong.
Wear Gloves - Last night we gave in and ran the heater for the…
greengabbro | December 31, 2008Geotripper always comes up with the best memes [Oh, wait, looks like Brian at Clastic Detritus might have priority on this one - sorry Brian!] He's made some psychic predictions for 2009. But I think his crystal ball must have some inclusions that are scattering away his mind-energy vibrational tones, because this is what I saw in the melted cheese on my pizza last night:
Episodic tremor and slip on the Cascadia subduction zone occurring early this spring will trigger the long-dreaded subduction zone megathrust event. The magnitude ~9 earthquake, and ensuing tsunami, devastate the coastal…
greengabbro | December 24, 2008If the sun came out, all the trees would be twinkling with ice.
Seattle has the snow chaos. It's like one of those colds that never quite goes away, except that instead of snot, the city's nose is dripping slush and ice. My neighborhood is tucked in behind a couple of steep hills and apparently not top on the list for the city's 27 plows; bus service around here has been completely cancelled except for an occasional, limping #48. There's nothing to do but loll about, drinking mug after mug of hot cocoa and building snowpersons on the porch.
I went out yesterday for the first time since the…
greengabbro | December 15, 2008Hey, geobloggers: If you're going to AGU, will you tell us what you hear that is new and different? PLEEZ?
Emily Lackdawilla at the Planetary Society Blog can't make it to all the sessions she wants to see and is hoping to swap notes about Enceladus:
I desperately need help from someone who will be at the Enceladus sessions to jot down a few notes for me on anything that is new or changed from previous thoughts on the nature of that moon.
I just want to know what you think is interesting, exciting, or trendy this year, and why. Subjective "buzz" and plain ol' irresponsible speculation are…
greengabbro | October 31, 2008
I'm tempted to hand out rocks to the neighborhood children tonight... but I suppose caramels are just as bad for their teeth.
greengabbro | September 6, 2008You scour eBay looking for zircon engagement rings. Zircons are forever.
During the wedding portraits, you keep hearing the words "for scale"
Who knew REI had a bridal section?
Altar? I thought you said meet me at the outcrop!
She asks the musicians to slow down at any interesting unconformities exposed in the Canyon in D
Your gift registry has its own GSA or AGU session
Your vows include a promise not to take each other for granite
You suggest following that up with a promise not to be fault-finders with each other, and she nearly dumps you
She keeps asking if you've tried licking it
She…
greengabbro | August 8, 2008Final details ahoy! Not only will this be a fun time hanging out with your favorite Internet friends you've never met, Seed will buy the first round of booze (or not-booze, if you're into that sort of thing in the middle of the afternoon).
2-4 pm, Saturday, August 9
Social
795 8th Ave (close to 49th St.)
New York, NY 10019
...and as far as I know, I will be the only one there to defend the beer-drinkin' honor of my chosen profession. Eep!
greengabbro | July 18, 2008Gentle Reader, help me out here: Did I accidentally write Tuesday's post in crazy moon-language? The response to that coordinated swarm of movie reviews - from people who are affiliated with Sizzle, as well as people like Chris Mooney, who just plain liked it - appears to be that those of us who hated the movie are just powerpoint-obsessed scientists who don't understand. It makes me wonder if anyone actually read my review. The Sizzle team sent out an email:
The bottom line is that we see two groups of viewers. One group who are interested in the facts and accuracy, and they want to know…
greengabbro | May 20, 2008Hey, if it's good enough for Dr. Science, it's good enough for me.
Regular posting will resume shortly. First, I must complete some very important experiments on the rheology of dense particle suspensions in a water-alcohol-strawberry solution.
It's for Science.
greengabbro | May 4, 2008Brian posted tag clouds for two of his recent papers. Having no shame, Lab Lemming followed suit. Since I have even less shame, I'm just going to jump on while the bandwagon is rolling.
So here's the tag cloud for Davies et al., 2008, currently in review with EPSL:
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27th 28th al attenuation bit casing caused changes cm data depth distance drilling dynamic earthquake east eruption et fault fig figure fluid formation gas ground hydrological java loss lusi magnitude mazzini minutes mpa mud occurred pga pore ppg pressure relationships rock seismic stress string surface trigger volcano…