And continuing with the “cheap” shots…
Today at work
Today at work I met a post-op male-to-female transsexual. This makes the first post-op that I’ve ever met. She’s a good boy.
spam name
Janelle Root.
The spy who swayed me
Possibly treasonous, but I believe I have a better understanding of what might persuade me to provide information.
A memory is only as real as the last time you remembered it
Although our memories always feel true, they’re extremely vulnerable to errant suggestions, clever manipulations and the old fashioned needs of storytelling. (The mind, it turns out, cares more about crafting a good narrative than staying close to the truth.)
. . .
[W]e like to think of our memories as being immutable impressions, somehow separate from the act of remembering them. But they aren’t. A memory is only as real as the last time you remembered it. The more you remember something, the less accurate the memory becomes.
—”Memory Is Fiction,” Jonah Lehrer, The Frontal Cortex, June 4, 2010
Via @jorunn
Green Forms
These were growing all over the place on the clusterflockstock2 mountain. I originally identified them as skunk cabbage, but found this gymnastic bit of taxonomy at swcoloradowildflowers.com:
There are often arguments over Veratrum tenuipetalum’s common name: Some people call it “Skunk Cabbage”. But it is not related to the Skunk Cabbage of the East. It is even more often called “False Hellebore” because it resembles European Hellebores. But it is not a Hellebore. It is commonly called “Corn Lily” because it is hard to look at without thinking “Corn”. But it is not related to Corn, and some botanists do not even classify it as a Lily. Common names often produce problems.
Whatever it is, I love the unfolding process.
Sustainable
What does this word mean to you?
“What it is hanging is not a dumbbell, but loneliness.”
In the end, that french fry was able to hold firm, and I was moved by the french fry’s unwavering determination, so I did not continue tormenting it, so it can live out its old age…
A Chinese netizen set out to test the claim that an unwrapped McDonald’s Happy Meal does not rot, even after being left out for a year. Conclusion: bullshit.
Does McDonald’s rot or not? Photos refute American dietitian’s fallacy
(Via @fugueur)
A horrifying thing I just learned about
Tonsil stones.
Tonsil stones.
Uuuurrrrggggk.
(Via Twitter, but I’m not linking to anything, because I don’t want to be held responsible for anybody’s passing out from grossness, and you all know how to Google, anyway.)
Just act natural!
Joseph’s post got me digging around on the Internets to find this again:
On June 13, 2009, Robert Sapolsky, world renowned professor of neurology, neurological sciences, neurosurgery and biological sciences gave the class day lecture in association with commencement weekend 2009. Having been selected to talk by the Stanford University graduating class, Sapolsky spoke about the uniqueness of humans in relation to the rest of the animal world. A few of the topics he spoke on include aggression, theory of mind, the golden rule and pleasure.
First part’s just intro. The actual talk starts around the five-minute mark.
and on the 8th day
Researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), a not-for-profit genomic research organization, published results today describing the successful construction of the first self-replicating, synthetic bacterial cell. The team synthesized the 1.08 million base pair chromosome of a modified Mycoplasma mycoides genome. The synthetic cell is called Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0 and is the proof of principle that genomes can be designed in the computer, chemically made in the laboratory and transplanted into a recipient cell to produce a new self-replicating cell controlled only by the synthetic genome.
(via marginal revolution)
Snakes and Our Other Animal Friends
The Empathic Civilization
A fantastic video about how our biology encourages us to be empathetic and peaceful. It is as interesting as it is profoundly wrong. (via)
Y’all
It’s three weeks from today.
quote out of context
As mistakes go, punching out a guy with no legs is a lulu.
Dear Clusterflock
The mom reach
update: Apparently the term is not part of the general consciousness. Coming to a sudden stop or going around a turn, a mother will reach over to hold whoever is in the passenger seat. This is the mom reach.
Swiss Chard
If I were a real photographer like Deron or Phil or Barry–I would take many pictures of Swiss Chard growing tall and back-lit by afternoon sun. I saw this batch at a local nursery and went home to get my point-and-shoot camera. That red! That green! The glow coming through made me imagine other worlds, and the way the sun looks from behind closed eyelids.
Read more
Our Corrupted Blog-Language
Anal grammarians are taking bloggers to task. Take this email sent to Ezra Klein at the Washington Post as an example:
We at Masked Grammarian (a loosely-knit small group of grammar snobs) send corrections to sites on the web when we notice something that bugs us. Almost always, we do this only when it seems worthwhile — a site that we like with a significant error.
In this case, you used the word “impacted” to mean “affected”. Until just a few years ago, “impacted” was used only in a medical sense: unless otherwise stated, it was assumed to refer to fecal impaction. Of course, it could also refer to wisdom teeth, etc.
Due to the rise of MBA-speak, many nouns have become verbified, and we’ve all slipped into using words, such as “impacted”, which were formerly the domain of people who talk of synergy, best practices, 10,000-foot views, and the like.
We just wanted to point out your incorrect (albeit unfortunately well-accepted) use of “impacted” in your 1:08 PM post today. We also hope that we will not be impacted, in the traditional sense, by your light posting schedule, though it will negatively affect our day.
Consider it noted.
Work
During my ninth hour of being on my feet today I thought, “My dogs are killing me,” but they weren’t. They were peeing on the slide.
quote out of context
I have tried to show that, just as sex made biological evolution cumulative, so exchange made cultural evolution cumulative and intelligence collective, and that there is therefore an inexorable tide in the affairs of men discernible beneath the chaos of their actions.
