The Lull in the Story’s Middle
In his mind’s nose, he could smell the burnt palm fronds from long-gone Lenten Masses.
I zipped my trousers and twisted around to be sure the rear flap was fastened securely — it would be too embarrassing to repeat the incident from last week.
“Never,” Olivier said, his mouth churning the mortar-like dough. “There’s no way I am finished with you yet, for sure. Your pastries are too delicious.”
Everything was going well, at least up to a certain point. I printed some $50 bills on my new HP DeskJet. They were perfect. Then I forgot to trim the eight-and-a-half by eleven paper.
favorite headline of the day
Donner Party Ate Family Dog, Maybe Not People
three things at once
A study suggests people are able to apply themselves efficiently to two tasks simultaneously, but no more.
Previous work has indicated that people like binary choices, or decisions between two things. They have difficultly when decisions involve more than two choices, Koechlin said. When faced with three or more choices, subjects don’t appear to evaluate them rationally; they simply start discarding choices until they get back to a binary choice.
Cherry Blossoms in Kelvingrove
As I was drawing a gentle breeze blew scattering the blossom petals.
It could have been a mini Hanami festival when a Japanese group settled down for a picnic.
Let’s get something straight
Putting a rabbit in a trance state does not make you a rabbit whisperer. It’s like saying that feeding a feral cat makes you a cat whisperer. Or rubbing the belly of a dog makes you a dog whisperer. Just because most folks don’t know a thing about rabbits does not make you some kind of a phenomenon.
Honda’s Electric Scooter
Initially for sale in Japan only.
photo out of context
(via marginal revolution)
The Great Atlantic Garbage Patch
The studies describe a soup of micro-particles similar to the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a phenomenon discovered a decade ago between Hawaii and California that researchers say is likely to exist in other places around the globe.
“We found the great Atlantic garbage patch,” said Anna Cummins, who collected plastic samples on a sailing voyage in February.
As the article describes it: a swirl of confetti-like plastic debris stretching over thousands of square miles.
Corgi with an iPad.
The iPad might be the new roomba. (via)
from the spam
Rubenesque for plumpness.
quote out of context
Those who think of themselves as great fans of progress, of technology’s inexorable march forward, will change their tune as soon as progress destroys something they care deeply about. “We love the things we love for what they are,” wrote Robert Frost. And when those things change we rage against the changes.
The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom
The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom looks incredible for its cheapness.
Something I just noticed…
On the the iPad’s virtual keyboard. You know how on a real keyboard, under the “f” and under the “j” keys, there is a little em-dash, embossed, raised for you to feel, to let you know you have your index fingers on the “home” keys? This virtual keyboard has them, too. You can see them. It’s hilarious! Has to be a joke, doesn’t it?
from the comments
Exactly. Grow a pair and eat your damned cheese.
To Deron
Amy came home yesterday with an autographed photo of Patrick Crayton. Which I thought was pretty cute considering she doesn’t know who Patrick Crayton is.
the library of congress will archive every public tweet
The U.S. Library of Congress, which archives many forms of media for their cultural and historical significance, has announced it will keep a digital archive of every public tweet that has been broadcast on Twitter since its inception in March 2006.
Chimes & Bells
As part of Temporary Copenhagen, a night of music in Copenhagen with a new Danish scene:
Chimes & Bells is a new band, fronted by cellist and singer Cæcilie Trier. Mostly know for her performances with Choir Of Young Believers, Jong Pang, Le fiasko and others, Chimes & Bells marks Triers solo debut. Her debut EP “Into Pieces of wood” was released in Denmark, by Tigerspring, in February 2009 and shortly after the band signed with UK record label Bella Union. Chimes & Bells are currently touring and recording material for the upcoming debut album, to be released in spring 2010.
I saw Chimes & Bells live in Paris and couldn’t believe the depth and soul of their sound.
If you don’t like the talking portion of this video, skip ahead to 1:25.
conditioned taste aversion
A cat-sized marsupial called a quoll has a habit of feasting on toxic cane toads. The noxious nibbling ends in more than a tummy ache — it actually kills the quoll. Now, scientists have trained the creatures to turn their noses up at the once tempting meals.
the last US sardines
For the past 135 years, sardine canneries have been as much a part of Maine’s small coastal villages as the thick Down East fog. It’s been estimated that more than 400 canneries have come and gone along the state’s long, jagged coast.
The lone survivor, the Stinson Seafood plant here in this eastern Maine shoreside town, shuts down this week after a century in operation. It is the last sardine cannery not just in Maine, but in the United States.
how flies fly
Fruit flies beat their wings about once every 4 milliseconds — much faster than their neurons can fire — and can turn 120 degrees in 18 wing beats. This made study co-author Itai Cohen of Cornell University wonder, “How much of the wing motion is being controlled by the insect, and how much is going along for the ride, being controlled by aerodynamics?”
quote out of context
If there’s any danger in buying this one, it’s that the book is better than you are.
Lincoln’s bodyguard
From a Smithsonian article about, generally, Presidential security, and specifically, the man assigned to Lincoln the night he was shot.
John Parker was an unlikely candidate to guard a president—or anyone for that matter. Born in Frederick County, Virginia, in 1830, Parker moved to Washington as a young man, originally earning his living as a carpenter. He became one of the capital’s first officers when the Metropolitan Police Force was organized in 1861. Parker’s record as a cop fell somewhere between pathetic and comical. He was hauled before the police board numerous times, facing a smorgasbord of charges that should have gotten him fired. But he received nothing more than an occasional reprimand. His infractions included conduct unbecoming an officer, using intemperate language and being drunk on duty. Charged with sleeping on a streetcar when he was supposed to be walking his beat, Parker declared that he’d heard ducks quacking on the tram and had climbed aboard to investigate. The charge was dismissed. When he was brought before the board for frequenting a whorehouse, Parker argued that the proprietress had sent for him.
Don’t trust those with bedbug-infested bedclothes
Flavor chemists have found that cilantro aroma is created by a half-dozen or so substances, and most of these are modified fragments of fat molecules called aldehydes. The same or similar aldehydes are also found in soaps and lotions and the bug family of insects.
Soaps are made by fragmenting fat molecules with strongly alkaline lye or its equivalent, and aldehydes are a byproduct of this process, as they are when oxygen in the air attacks the fats and oils in cosmetics. And many bugs make strong-smelling, aldehyde-rich body fluids to attract or repel other creatures.
Jennifer Knapp comes out.
If you know who this is, you’ll understand. If you don’t, then: she was a very, very popular singer/songwriter in the late 90′s and early 00′s who disappeared in 2002, only to resurface a few months ago. Also, she’s a Christian, and about to feel the weight of a wave of opinion from all sides.
Some argue that the feelings of homosexuality are not sinful, but only the act. What would you say?
Knapp: I’m not capable of fully debating that well. But I’ve always struggled as a Christian with various forms of external evidence that we are obligated to show that we are Christians. I’ve found no law that commands me in any way other than to love my neighbor as myself, and that love is the greatest commandment. At a certain point I find myself so handcuffed in my own faith by trying to get it right—to try and look like a Christian, to try to do the things that Christians should do, to be all of these things externally—to fake it until I get myself all handcuffed and tied up in knots as to what I was supposed to be doing there in the first place.
iGlasses
Get it?
Actually, an Apple patent for a wearable 3D movie device that incorporates an iPod or iPhone.
The application explained the form would allow the user to ‘relax while viewing image based content on the head-mounted device because he does not have to hold onto the portable electronic device.’
The gizmo would also be fitted with a camera to stream video from the outside world. Infrared sensors embedded in the frames would detect if anyone approached the wearer, and the real-time video would pop up on a screen inside the glasses.
