retrospectacle | March 24, 2007Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream has been known for both delicious treats (Cherry Garcia....mmmmm) as well political activism. They have a fun application on their site which allows you to slice up the budget as YOU see fit. What are your priorities?
Whats even more fun (well, kinda) is that you get to compare your ideal budget with the real federal budget in all its *cough* glory. My results are below (not to say this is exactly what I would end up with but.......)
retrospectacle | March 23, 2007After gazing at the cute owlet all day, I was thinking, "Wouldn't it be fun to have a pet owl, like a pet parrot?" Now deep down I figured that was a horrible idea on a LOT of levels (and turns out, yeah, its a BAD idea). But I'm sure that with the huge popularity of the Harry Potter movies, quite a few people think that having a pet owl might be fun.
Think again!
Karla Kinstler, who lives with a Great Horned Owl as a "education owl" lists numerous and, frankly, quite disgusting reasons that no one should ever contemplate wanting a pet owl.
Like this:
Mating season involves a lot of all-…
retrospectacle | March 23, 2007 I'm going to take a bit of a departure for parrot-related news this week to focus on owls, which are solitary, nocturnal birds of prey. Recently a very rare species of owl, the long-whiskered owlet, was observed in the wild in Peru by an American ornithological team. The owlet, first discovered in 1976, is tiny, no bigger than a fist. The amber-eyed owl's facial feathers extend out past its head, making it appear to have wispy whiskers. It is also conjectured that the owl is nearly flightless
The American Bird Conservancy said the sighting "is considered a holy grail of South American…
retrospectacle | March 23, 2007 Sooooo, turns out that pop/soda/Coke *does* rot your teeth. Um, now they listen? Where was this press release during the 1989 school year when a burgeoning nerdlet conducted (not so) scientific examinations into THIS VERY FACT?? Its a conspiracy I tell you!
Interestingly, the high-falutin' eggheads found that root beer products don't corrode teeth as they don't contain the acidic effervescence in carbonated sodas. And while sugared varieties are worse, the diet versions are quite bad for your teeth too.
I wish I had a picture of my old 3-fold cardboard display with my 'Abstract' and '…
retrospectacle | March 22, 2007I've probably had dozens of sinus infections. This is partially related to my genes; I got some good ones, but sinus problems and severe allergies run in my family. I ended up with both, with the result being a cycle of allergies triggering infections. In fact, I've got one now (receding thanks to Zithromax), which got me to thinking about what they were and what caused them.
First, its important to understand the anatomy of human sinus cavities. The term "sinus" is a general one meaning "pocket" or "cavity," but in this case refers to a number of air-filled spaces in the skull (shown in the…
retrospectacle | March 21, 2007
He's got cunning and perseverance. And look how proud he is at the end!
retrospectacle | March 21, 2007Sparkles and bunny ears are fun.
(More pictures below the fold.....)
A tiny beer mug, yet still so functional.
Green beer only tastes good on St. Paddys.
Jello shots, anyone?
My friends are weird.
I'm not very good at quarters.
retrospectacle | March 20, 2007Sorry for the lack of blogging or comment response, but me and my sinuses have not been the best of friends lately. I think it *may* have had something to do with St. Paddy's Day (so my doc says) but I think thats just utter nonsense. Obviously.
Anyway, its been me, Zithromax, Gaterade, and lots of horrible daytime TV.
Hopefully tomorrow my Superman pills will kick in, but if you want to leave me a fun link to cheer me up, well, we behind piles of Kleenexes salute you.
retrospectacle | March 19, 2007Which are you? Which am I??!?
My PC, a 2 year old bottom-of-the-line Averatec is on life support. As in, I gotta start planning its funeral quite soon. I can't say that our life together has been blissful, or that I'm even sad to see it go. And if you wanna know the truth (shhhh), I may have even had a hand in its demise. I'm quite abusive to my technological partner, and I don't mind saying so. I'm ready to drop it like its hot (which sometimes the sub-par fan lets it get VERY hot).
About six months ago, one of the Function keys stopped working. As in it is always depressed (ie, ON. I'm the…
retrospectacle | March 19, 2007 So, I'm trying to learn Mandarin right now, in order to be able to communicate when I go visit my parents in China. I'm learning from a student here at UM, for a modest per hour wage. However apparently some people think that all those tones and characters will just jump into your brain if you throw enough money at them.
In Australia, the former Federal Government's Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone's obsession with learning Chinese Mandarin has been revealed to the public. The public that is footing the bill estimated to be worth AUD$70,000 (RMB430,000 or USD$55,000).
Yikes. But at…
retrospectacle | March 18, 2007 A few days ago I was tagged by Perfectly Reasonable Deviations as a "Thinking Blogger" which apparently comes with a nifty picture and the responsibility to tag five more bloggers for the award. The tough part is *just* nominating five blogs, I think I could easily rattle off 25 which deserve the title of Thinking Blogger. But, as I hope this meme makes its way around the net, eventually all those other blogs will get tagged too.
So here's my five to get the ball rolling:
1. Not much is known about the author of The Neurocritic blog, but he's funny, snarky, and blogs neuro-stuff awesomely.…
retrospectacle | March 18, 2007The podcast I did with Nick (Neurocontrarian) is up now, here. Just a warning, its silly, but check it out anyway. Thanks Nick!
retrospectacle | March 16, 2007It is not uncommon for a small population of exotic parrot species to flourish in a new niche in the United States. My old home in Sarasota, Florida had a large population of lories and Amazons which lived wild, making their homes in holes in palm trees in my neighborhood. Legend was that an tourist attraction aviary burned down in the 1960s, and the owner released all the parrots rather than see them killed. They stayed in the area, mated, and their numbers grew. A similar phenomenon happened in San Francisco in the area of Telegraph Hill, a neighborhood close to North Beach. A large…
retrospectacle | March 16, 2007 I've never really talked about religion on this blog before, at least not directly. But there's trouble a-brewin' at ScienceBlogs which has worked more than a few of our ranks into tizzies of knotted panties and carpal tunnel blogging. I figure this is as good a time as any to tackle the topic, since I've been pussy-footing around it, well, my whole blog-life (the immense span of 1.5 years!). The issue came up a few days ago when new SciBling Rob Knop wrote a post espousing his position that science and Christianity were not exclusive, what the purpose of religion was, and why he is…
retrospectacle | March 15, 2007Emotions have been running high on this thread, and the comments piling up and becoming unmanageable. So, if you'd like to continue the discussion, please do it here.
retrospectacle | March 15, 2007I have weird music tastes, which sometimes makes it hard to find new artists that really knock my socks off. I've often wondered why no one creates a musical "family tree" of related bands and music, and I've found some passable attempts, but none so useful as Pandora.
The point of the website is to find more bands and music that you'll like, using music you already like, and create a radio station for you. Pandora was created by the Music Genome Project, a group of musical sorts who wanted to create a way to analyze music on a basic level, as if musical attributes were "genes."
We ended up…
retrospectacle | March 15, 2007 Would you rather have a completely happy life, or a meaningful life? And are the two mutually exclusive? The topics, as well as recent neuroscience research, is addressed in a fascinating podcast over at Governomics. The podcast is here, with the transcript here.
As mentioned in the podcast, Aristotle had certain ideas of what ideal happiness was:
[He]...thought that eudaimonia was the ultimate goal of all purposeful striving. Greek for "happiness," the word eudaimonia comes from"eu" (meaning "good" or "well being") and "daimon" (meaning "spirit"). For Aristotle, "well being," or "happiness…
retrospectacle | March 14, 2007It could be a LOT worse.
You'll die from a Heart Attack during Sex.
Your a lover not a fighter but sadly, in the act of making love your heart will stop. But what a way to go.
'How will you die?' at QuizGalaxy.com
As seen on Sorting Out Science.
retrospectacle | March 14, 2007 Like most nerdlets, the concept of pi has always fascinated me: a number, yet undefinable, infinite. Of course, there was also the supurb movie Pi by Aronofsky, which only furthered its cult status. So rejoice pi-lovers, for today is Pi Approximation Day. This day is also Einstein's birthday and according to Wikipedia, is the day MIT mails out acceptance letters. Wow, and I thought I was nerdy. If you'd like to know how to properly celebrate Pi Day, why just go here.
Well, I do have one other confession to make. Which is, I always wanted a tattoo of the symbol pi, but I always chickened out…
retrospectacle | March 13, 2007So Mike over at The Questionable Authority posted an excellent critique/synthesis/etc of the comment thread going on in the Obama vs. pedophile case, which I thought deserved its own post. Check it out.