silliness
drorzel | June 3, 2007Via Charles Kuffner, a story about new footage of the Loch Ness Monster. It's a dinosaur from the Bible...
I tried to watch the video with the CNN story, but their annoying player took forever to load and the kept glitching up. So I fired up YouTube, and found this Scottish news broadcast. On the bad side, it has a big watermark from the video editing program used by the person who posted it, but it features such fabulous "I swear she ain't usin' real words" accents, that I'll stick with that link.
This is also an excellent place to use this Bookslut link to a Tome Bissell's article about…
drorzel | May 29, 2007A commenter in the "Bunnies Made of Cheese" thread points out a graphic that's too good not to put on the front page (click for the original large image):
Nobody tell the dog, ok?
drorzel | May 25, 2007Via John Lynch, Fark brings us LOLPresidents:
There's some good stuff, along with the usual rubbish. I also liked this motivational poster:
I'm easily amused, and it's been a really long week.
drorzel | May 16, 2007I have a big stack of exams and lab reports to grade, so I need to go off someplace where I don't have Internet access and do that. In my absence, here's a Dorky Poll question inspired by recent news:
Which Nobel laureate (in any field) is the craziest?
There's no real shortage of scientists who have won the Nobel Prize for something or another, and then gone completely goofy. But which Nobel laureate is the most goofy?
In physics, it's hard to top Brian Josephson, who was recently cited as a noble defender of Rusi Taleyarkhan against the mean folks at Nature.
The problem is, he has a couple…
drorzel | May 16, 2007One of the fun things about EurekAlert is that it allows you to trace the full life cycle of the publicization of science in a way that used to be impossible for a regular person. For example, take the recent "Ring of Dark Matter" story.
First, there's a rumor of a result. This first stage lasts about a week, and if all goes well, it manages to generate a little buzz, and maybe even some divination.
The rumor, warmed by the buzz, will then hatch, giving rise to a press release. Dependning on the species, you may get two, and for highly collaborative research, you can generate even more.
In…
drorzel | May 10, 2007I'm sitting at the computer typing, when the dog bumps up against my legs. I look down, and she's sniffing the floor around my feet intently.
"What are you doing down there?"
"I'm looking for steak!" she says, wagging her tail hopefully.
"I'm pretty certain that there's no steak down there," I say. "I've never eaten steak at the computer, and I've certainly never dropped any on the floor."
"You did in some universe," she says, still sniffing.
I sigh. "I'm going to move the quantum physics books to a higher shelf, so you can't reach them."
"It won't matter. I've got Wikipedia."
"All right,…
drorzel | May 6, 2007Having gotten a fair number of visits via the search string "Jim Boeheim's Wife" (and once or twice "Jim Boeheim's Hot Wife," presumably by people who are looking for something more salacious than me griping about how inappropriate it is for Dick Vitale to talk about her attractiveness all the goddamn time), I would be remiss in my duties if I were to pass up commenting on the New York Times article headlined "Boeheim and Wife Lead Crusade Against Cancer". As you might guess, it's about their fundraising efforts for Coaches vs. Cancer, which have a personal basis:
For Boeheim, 62, the fight…
drorzel | May 3, 2007No, this has nothing to do with duck genitalia. Instead, it's about a basic principle of music: You've got to put down the duckie if you want to play the saxophone.
Via Scott. It's also a nice reminder of why Sesame Street was such a brilliant show (and may still be, for all I know...)-- not only does it have a great tune and silly squeaky noises to keep kids interested, it's got all those bizarre cameos to give parents something to look at.
drorzel | April 29, 2007"The Fossil-Maker's Blues", by Steven Brust. Inspired by a comment in this post about paleoarcheology.
It's calcium and marrow and mix 'em fine
I'm on the job from nine to nine
Oh lord won't someone set me free
From the Devil's Fossil Factory.
drorzel | April 24, 2007An important discovery in Arkansas:
You would think that members of Congress would have considered the warming effect that an extra hour of daylight would have on our climate. Or did they ?"
Via James.
drorzel | April 10, 2007I'm headed out to the West Coast at an ungodly hour tomorrow morning, as one of the faculty accompanying the students who are presenting at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research. I'm looking forward to the trip, other than the bit where I have to get up at 4am to go to the airport.
Prior to departure, I decided to check the current Security Theater status, and looked at the Official List of Things You Can't Take On Planes. The TSA helpfully provides a very long table of items that you might be thinking of bringing on the plane (lacrosse sticks, flare guns, cattle prods, nunchakus…
drorzel | April 9, 2007The Official Uncertain Principles Cosmic Jackpot Giveaway Contest was even more popular than I expected, with 122 comments (at the time of this writing) each trying to pick the "best" number.
As promised, the winner will be announced today, but this really comes down to deciding which number is the best. So, what's the best number?
The "best" number should obviously be something with intrinsic fundamental importance. Numbers like 7 and 37 and 206 (I liked that entry a lot) are interesting, but not all that fundamental. Constants of nature like h, c, or even the fine-structure constant alpha…
drorzel | April 8, 2007Bill Hicks on Easter.
"At least a goldfish with a Lincoln Log on its back crawling across your floor to your sock drawer has a miraculous connotation to it."
ksharpe | April 6, 2007It's Friday afternoon, and scores are in for the Erlenmeyer Flask vs. Fossil Fuels game at Chemical Arena.
Erlenmeyer Flask went into the first quarter hoping to contain Fossil Fuels. The team (sometimes known by its nickname, Conical Flask), clearly—and of necessity—adheres to the philosophy that the best offense is a good defense. As long as it could keep Fossil Fuels from getting out there and running amok on the court, Erlenmeyer Flask had a chance.
The strategy worked like a charm for Erlenmeyer Flask for the first three quarters of the game. Fans in the stands—including a dazzling array…
drorzel | April 1, 2007As we look at science in general, and physics in particular, a clear pattern emerges: the scientific endeavours most worthy of praise and acclaim are the most abstract and mathematical sciences. Physics is of greater worth than biology, theoretical physics is more worthy than experimental physics, and high-energy particle theory is the most fundamental and important field in the history of human though. Rather than deriding string theory as an excessively mathematical dead end, as many anti-science America-hating Bush-bashing politically correct feminist shrub-hugging liberal communist dupes…
drorzel | March 22, 2007Via Rachel Manija Brown, a Wikipedia page on misheard lyrics in Japan:
From Sean Paul's "Fire Links Intro":
Mayday! [...] Sean Paul! This one is hot!
ç®çã! [...] ã·ã£ã³ãã¼! ãªã³ã¹ã¯ç¡ãã!
Me itai! [...] Shanpū! Rinsu wa nai sa!
My eyes hurt! [...] Shampoo! There is no hair conditioner!
Global pop culture is Difficult. Still, this is probably fair payback for the word salad of the Hellsing theme music, which puts absolute gibberish over one of the coolest theme tunes around.
drorzel | March 21, 2007Some guys on a mailing list that I'm on were talking about a game they were playing during breaks in the NCAA tournamnent last weekend, trying to come up with appropriate alternate mascots for colleges and universities. The idea is to pick mascot names that fit with the school name to make an amusing phrase.
My favorites from the list discussion were:
The Creighton Barrel (Singular, like the Harvard Crimson or Stanford Cardinal).
The Seton Hall Monitors (A Komodo dragon that checks late passes).
The Iona Spheres (A team with real balls).
I'm sure ScienceBlogs readers can come up with some…
drorzel | March 21, 2007Obviously, it depends on the type of philosopher:
Empiricist: We can't know how to change a lightbulb, but we can make lists of how big it is, the wattage, the thickness of the glass, the composition of the filiment...
Skeptic: We can't know if we're changing the lightbulb. We can't know if changing the lightbulb is an improvement. In fact, we can't really know if it's dark. Especially with the lights out.
drorzel | March 16, 2007Muiscal intro, fancy CGI effects
Anchor 1 (voiceover): The Showdown begins! Four regions, eight games each, sixty-four top science concepts in a fight to the finish.
Anchor 2: In today's Orbit region action, two titans of Newtonian physics collide-- will Universal Gravitation maintain its orbit, or will the upstart Second Law change its momentum for the worse?
Anchor 1: Quaternions. Euler angles. Which is which, and what does their exciting clash mean for the future of physics? We'll find out what Dick Vitale thinks.
Anchor 2: And you won't believe the controversial finish of the match…