2 3 live&learn&rejoice: June 2011

June 30, 2011

zmot

is there anything in the universe that Google is not involved in? is it getting kind of creepy?

http://google-zmot.appspot.com/

June 29, 2011

zero negative groups

psychopaths, narcissistsborderlines (individuals cursed with impulsivity, an inability to control their anger and an extreme fear of abandonment)

zero negative because there is NOTHING positive to recommend them



June 27, 2011

face your fears

ophidiophobia
latrophobia
chionophobia
ecclesiaphobia
gephyrophobia
thaasophobia

June 24, 2011

How sclerotic.....

Sounds pretty racy, no?
Well, really, no.
Sclerotic = relating to sclerosis or to the sclera
Sclerosis = "a pathological hardening of tissue especially from overgrowth of fibrous tissue or increase in interstitial tissue" (thank you to Merriam Webster online dictionary - http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sclerosis)
Sclera (also known as sclerotica ...  yes, it's really true) = "the dense fibrous opaque white outer coat enclosing the eyeball except the part covered by the cornea" (Merriam Webster again - http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sclera)



what anaxagoras knew

mind (nous) is the motive force that initiated the primeval matter. Mind is completely separate from matter, the only exception to the universal criterion ‘everything in everything’. Matter under the control of Mind expands continually and indefinitely outwards from the original microdot which contained everything in the whole universe. Nous is described as ‘unlimited’, ‘self-controlling’, ‘unmixed’, ‘alone in itself and by itself’, ‘the finest’, ‘the purest’, ‘possessing complete knowledge’, ‘supreme in power’, ‘the controller of everything alive’.



ah, yes, okay maybe, but when did he know it?

June 23, 2011

top 5 tweets from a dachshund

5.   I wasn't barking, I was clearing my throat.

4.   Digging is therapuetic.

3.   Small children are the enemy.

2.   I'm famished.

1.   I didn't do it.

June 22, 2011

the green sea turtle

. . . is actually brown.

"The green sea turtle gets its name from the color of its fat. Its shell is mostly dark brown and may be covered with patches of green algae."

June 21, 2011

like red wine

these two girls just get better with age

June 20, 2011

Women, dogs, old age, obesity, people, and using the second to learn about the last

From David J. Waters, "Aging Research 2011: Exploring the Pet Dog Paradigm," 52 ILAR Journal 97 (2011).



"Female survival advantage is well documented in certain mammalian species, most notably humans ... where it translates into a greater likelihood that women will live to 100 years, outnumbering men by approximately 4:1."

"... dogs were twice as likely as males to achieve exceptional longevity. However, removal of ovaries during the first 4 years of life completely erased the female survival advantage."

"...the aging beagle provides a spectrum of cognition—from intact to selective losses in specific cognitive domains to a more global dysfunction that mimics the deficits seen in early Alzheimer’s disease in humans"

"Estimates indicate that 20-40% of the pet dog population is clinically obese."

just say no

. . . to artichoke tea.

you think, how bad can a tea be? and, voila, artichoke tea steps up to demonstrate the unimaginable.

June 18, 2011

Darkness.....and gravity

We know that gravity exists, and we know how it works.  But we don't know why it exists.

And, the universe is getting bigger and it's moving faster.  But no one knows why.  And, that seems to be the opposite of gravity.

But they're working on this puzzle in Texas, in the Davis Mountains, at the McDonald Observatory ... the Hobbly-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (to its friends, HETDEX).

"HETDEX is a project designed to understand the evolutionary history of dark energy."

What, you may ask, is dark energy?  "We know very little about it beyond its existence."  But it does make up 70% of all of the energy in the universe.

Einstein first came up with the ides of dark energy.  Apparently it is a force that counteracts gravity.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/us/19ttobservatory.html?ref=science

http://www.as.utexas.edu/hetdex/

regretful

There is a good principle which created order, light, and man, and an evil principle which created chaos, darkness, and woman.

-Pythagoras

. . . not very nice, do you think he was misquoted?

June 16, 2011

flash mob

for anyone who has tried to corral dinner guests to their tables, flash mob is a neat approach (for today, no doubt people see it enough they'll ignore it too right along with the little wind chimes to signal time) but a great original event idea, hats off to whoever came up with it


June 15, 2011

What's the oldest thing you've ever held in your hand?

Maybe a rock? Rock nearer to the surface is younger than that which is underneath. Same goes for dirt. If you dig deep, deep into the ground, you may find yourself steeped in the middle of dirt that is millions of years old. On the other hand, if you are handling topsoil, that's only a few thousand years old. And, dirt presumably comes from rock, so I guess if you're as old as dirt, then at least you're younger than rock.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/14/science/14qna.html?_r=1&ref=science

art in austin

wear silk

according to an article in Science in 2010, "Incidental Haptic Sensations Influence Social Judgments and Decisions" so wear silk, pet dogs with smooth fur, hold a soft teddy bear, sleep on 500-thread count Egyptian cotton sheets and watch your judgment improve.

June 14, 2011

http://www.nationalcrimewritingweek.co.uk/

in celebration of national crime writing week,
a plot proposal:
.............................................................................................

parents in this affluent dallas neighborhood insist on the best so they hire landscape artists to transform yards into gardens of delight; they drive only the most impressive of vehicles; and they operate a pta at the local high school that would make a psychopath squirm.

while this pta pays lip service to formal agendas, transparency, and collaboration, the primary goal is to ensure the community stays safe for their children. maintaining this idyllic haven may require breaking a few laws now and again, but in the tradition of a former Republic, this is not an insurmountable obstacle.

when the devotion to children crossed over into a passion for blackmail and murder is not noted in the minutes of the pta meetings. that is, after all, what closed sessions are for, is it not?

June 13, 2011

季語

  • firefly
  • watermelon
  • corn
  • mosquito
  • lemonade
  • vacation
  • humidity
  • lakes
  • sunburn
  • a/c

June 11, 2011

Don't move to Dallas

In terms of natural disasters, Dallas is one of the most dangerous places to live in the US.  In terms of metropolitan areas, it is first, followed by Jonesboro, Arkansas, Corpus Christi, Texas, Houston, Beaumont-Port Arthur (again, Texas), Shreveport, Louisiana, Austin (Texas!!), and Birmingham, Alabama.  As the NY Times* puts it, these locales have "lots of everything but quakes: twisters, hurricane remnants [(or hurricanes themselves)], hail, wind, drought, floods."

Looking for peace and tranquility?  Try Corvallis, Oregon, Mt Vernon-Anacortes, Washington, Bellingham, Washington, Wenatchee, Washington, Grand Junction, Colorado, Spokane, Washington, Salem, Oregon, and Seattle.

So, Texas/Louisiana vs. Washington/Oregon...... Risk/excitement/edge-of-your-seat living vs. boredom/placidity/stillness.....


Sunday, May 11, 2011

butterbean & her eyes

butterbean
butterbean's eyes

Maqbool Fida Husain

June 10, 2011

favorite lewis carroll bits

"he's murdering time. off with his head"
(the queen in aiw)

". . .no wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise"
(the mock turtle in aiw)

"look up, speak nicely, and don't twiddle your fingers all the time"
(the red queen in ttlg)

"speak in french when you can't think of the english for a thing--turn out your toes as you walk--and remember who you are"
(the red queen in ttlg)

"it's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards"
(the red queen in ttlg)

"the rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday--but never jam today"
(the red queen in ttlg)

"when i use a word," humpty dumpty said, "it means just what i choose it to mean--neither more nor less "
(ttlg)

June 9, 2011

fact or fiction?

ah, the good old days before fraud was monetized.

consider the case of a brit in the early 1700s who went on trail for claiming to give birth to rabbits, aka the "pretended rabbit breeder."

(perhaps she was inspired by a french woman at the time who claimed to give birth to toads?).

June 8, 2011

the enemy

the angelic dancing mosquito
 how can a pesky mosquito look so gorgeous?

(let that be a lesson about the vanity portraits we all hold so dear)

but this post is really to talk about an amazing website that showcases a wide range of high quality images -- over 160,000 in fact -- from the wellcome collection, http://library.wellcome.ac.uk/about.html

kudos to the librarians who made this incredible website possible.

June 7, 2011

just a sec

 
mashable reports this game gets one sign-up per second
*the hobbit was shot at 48 frames per second
*the speed of light is approximately 186,282 miles per second
*bits per second is a computer science term
*on average the eye blinks once every five seconds
*five centimeters per second is the name of a movie
*in the final moments of the super bowl this year, 4,064 tweets were sent in a single second
*the average respiratory rate is 14-20 breaths per minutes, or about 1 breath every 3-4 seconds

June 6, 2011

my first entrepreneurial idea ever

dachshunds have about 125 million scent receptors compared to the 5 million in humans . . . other breeds have even more scent receptors than weiner dogs . . .

so why doesn't some entrepreneur establish a "smelling stop," a store or event space for doting dog owners to bring their beloved pets and let the dogs have a major snifferama. can you imagine the possibilities?

it could be a dog extravaganza with vendors of all sorts, games, contests, and activities for the dogs and their shamelessly devoted owners, photo sessions (imagine a photo booth with all sorts of hats that both dog and owner could wear), and the snifferama where dogs get to indulge their sense of smell to their hearts' content.

i like it. tails would wag.

tojours gai

i will admit that some
of the insects do not lead
noble lives but is every
man s hand to be against them
yours for less justice
and more charity

June 5, 2011

watch out disneyland . . .

china is the happiest place on earth(!!) according to a new global happiness index released by North Korea's Chosun Central Television. China earned 100 out of 100 points, followed closely by North Korea (98 points), then Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela. Coming in at 203rd place is America (or rather "the American Empire", 美帝国), with only 3 happiness points. South Korea got a measly 18 points for 152nd place.

While their representative representatives might not show the vivacity on their faces (and a few slip ups might have been caught on video) I guess China's been right to gush about Pyongyang's future. Nothing says happy like government-issued proclamations of happiness.

(source: this text came from a website that i will not name since something caused my computer to crash and wipe out its hard drive this morning after blogging and in case that site was the cause of my misfortune, i'm not providing the source url here.

could it be a nefarious plot to make americans unhappy? maybe, in fact, chinese are the happiest because they have the fewest computers per capita, entirely possible.)

June 4, 2011

Mr. Dewey

When Melville / Melvil Dewey decided that a library school was needed to instill in future librarians his principles of organization, he inaugurated the first library school at Columbia University where he was head librarian.  He decided to admit women to his library school, even though women were not at the time eligible for admission to Columbia.  The trustees of the school objected and Dewey was reduced to finding classrooms outside of the university.  His first library school class consisted of 20 students, 17 of whom were women.

http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA148748.html

if . . .

  • you don't write about it on fb, did it happen?
  • you didn't take a picture of it with your smart phone, do you remember it?
  • you have to spend more than five minutes reading it, is it worthwhile?
  • you can see it in a movie, do you need to go there in person?
  • you can spell, does that mean you're an old fart?

June 3, 2011

the path you choose

psy·cho·path  noun  /ˈsīkəˌpaTH/ 
psychopaths, plural

1.A person suffering from chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behavior
2.An unstable and aggressive person
so·ci·o·path noun/ ˈsōsēōˌpaTH/ 

sociopaths, plural

1.A person with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience
So is Casey Anthony a psychopath? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy 

Do you start out as a sociopath and evolve into a pyschopath or are they separate paths from birth? And is this a nature vs nurture question? Are neurons misfiring at birth or does some childhood trauma disrupt the natural course of things to create the monster known as a psychopath? Is such a person capable of standing trial?

June 2, 2011

say it ain't so

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June 1, 2011

tips for power seekers

according to http://crystal-cure.com/orange.html:
orange is a power color. It is one of the healing colors. It is said to increase the craving for food. It also stimulates enthusiasm and creativity. Orange means vitality with endurance. People who like orange are usually thoughtful and sincere. Lady luck's color is orange. I have been told that if a change of any kind is need in life, just burn an orange candle for 7 nights.
so my questions are:
power food?
power hair?