Eeek! There are MACHINES inside me!

Galactica

.... i have a sinking feeling that maybe he was right about the Cylons... we shall see.

Wow

Via Neurophilosophy

Very interesting post on the always erudite Neurophilosophy Blog about the genetics of synaesthesia with research from Ali-G's 1st cousin. Notice the family resemblance?

Notice anything?

Neil Diamond: Cherry Cherry



The Romantics: What i Like About you



John Cougar Mellencamp

Red Beats Blue

"In a study on Olympic uniforms, anthropologists at Durham University in England found that evenly matched athletes in the 2004 Games who wore red in boxing, tae kwon do, Greco-Roman wrestling and freestyle wrestling defeated those wearing blue 60 percent of the time. The researchers suggested that red, for athletes as for animals, subconsciously symbolizes dominance."

also i think if you're a black dude- you're probably gonna beat the white guy 60% of the time.
(time passes)
later that same day: just had a thought- maybe red 'means' STOP as in "stop the-f@#ck punching me!"

Chess and the Expert Mind

"I see only one move ahead," Capablanca is said to have answered, "but it is always the correct one."

Great article from Scientific American on studies of the mental processes of chess players. Reminds me of Ford Prefect's advice to Arthur Dent on how to fly: just forget to hit the ground. With chess- just forget the bad moves!

p.s. great bauhaus chess board here.

Oldfangled is the New Newfangled

Is there a word for this sort of word? A word- like "NEWFANGLED" that seems to imply an ironic "OLD-FANGLEDNESS". (Seems the sort of word only uttered by 90 year edentulous old-timers between other phrases like : "Dagnabbit!"*, and "Darn Tootin'!").

*Urban Dictionary defines "Dagnabbit" as:

An expression of sheepishness, with a tinge of frustration.

e.g. "Dagnabbit, I knew I shouldn't have put my tongue in her arse on the first date. Now she thinks I'm a freak."

This is very funny.

Maira Kalman

Maira Kalman in the New York Times

Super Best Ever Websites for Little Kids 2009

Here's my updated list of great interweb things for 5 year olds:

1. Interactica: astounding, massive, mind-expanding, beautiful

.

2. Starfall: beautifully done- learn the alphabet, then learn to read.

3. Bembo's Zoo: cute animated alphabet.

4. Phun : not a website- you'll need to download it- 2-D "physics engine".. hours of phun.

5. Flowers : great little app from zefrank- let your kids scream at the computer and watch the 'flowers' grow. Mine were shouting "PINEAPPLE! PINEAPPLE! PINEAPPLE! PINEAPPLE! ". The neighbours think we are strange.


6. Frog: you talk- the frog talks! As close as you can get to playing with a puppet on a computer. Kids find this hysterically funny.




If you have any others- please leave a comment.

Almonds and Apricots

“It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.”

Love in the Time of Cholera: Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Did you know that almonds are just the 'stone' of a stone-fruit very closely related to apricots etc. Amazing. It's like finding out that eggs come from chickens! The original almond was lethal: it contained a large amounts of amygdalin- broken down by a gut enzyme into cyanide which buggers up the mitochondria.

Time Scales

fig 1: fish scales magnified a zillion times

Love that "Flaming Lips" song- depressing and uplifting at the same time. Was pop music made for such deep thoughts?

I keep thinking about our place in the universe- how insignificant we seem. One little blue planet orbiting a smallish star- one of 20 billion stars in our galaxy- one of 20 billion galaxies in the universe. Just hanging out here- killing each other, passing the time. Our perceptions moulded by the evolution of our chimpanzee brains. Up into the trees as squirrels we went, down from the trees and on to the plains as apes. It would be surprising if we could really grasp the universe with such a primitive instrument.

Glimpsing up at the sky at noon, the clouds seem fixed, but time-lapse photography shows them scuttling by. Glass seems solid. Look at the stars at night- though they seem fixed, all the constellations are in motion. If time is infinitely divisible- then there is literally an eternity in a nanosecond. Which scale is therefore better? Which is more real? More important?

I have a bad bad feeling i've written all this before- maybe that's it! No more new ideas ?

FAST

SLOW

Do You Realize That Everyone You Know Someday Will Die?

Do You Realize?

Do You Realize - that you have the most beautiful face
Do You Realize - we're floating in space -
Do You Realize - that happiness makes you cry
Do You Realize - that everyone you know someday will die

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes - let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It's hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn't go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

Do You Realize - Oh - Oh - Oh
Do You Realize - that everyone you know
Someday will die -

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes - let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It's hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn't go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

Do You Realize - that you have the most beautiful face
Do You Realize

Genghis etc

Just finished reading a bio of Genghis Khan- interesting- especially the recipe for Marmot (ground squirrel) cooked in a bag of it's own skin. (see also: In Our Time podcast on Genghis)
An illiterate orphan on the Mongolian Steppe becomes a genocidal megalomaniac and takes over the world- from the Pacific Ocean to Hungary. He fights hard, he plays hard, and he f%cks hard- thus explaining the 16 million descendants he has now (based on Y chromosome analysis).
The big question (unanswered in the book) is why? There is always a feeling of teleogism when thinking about these things: if it isn't a Genghis it'd probably have been some other Tom, Dick or Napoleon.
True- he was a 'master' tactician in battle- although he seems to have used the same tactic again and again - of feigning retreat before the surprise denouement.
Fast battle-front communications using a 'pony-express' helped. As did the extreme loyalty of his men - rewarded with fair distribution of the spoils of war. A little bit of brutality and butchery never went astray.

Once Genghis let the whole 'conquer-the-world' thing get out of the bag- it seemed to require ongoing expansion to pay off his ever-expanding army (reminiscent of a giant military Ponzi scheme.). Perhaps the lack of a monetised economy was the real problem. Parasitic nomadic Mongol raiders looked at heir city-dwelling prey with contempt. They looted their wealth and divided their lands yet never contributed to economic activity themselves.

There were, however, lighthearted moments- The Christian kingdoms of Europe heard rumors of an empire in the east battling the Muslims and assumed it was a mythical Christian savior from India. Unfortunately for them, it was Genghis and his henchmen! Eastern Europe didn't know what hit it- and didn't stand a chance- but the invasion was called off just as abruptly when Genghis became ill and the armies recalled to Mongolia (after a quick whip around the Caspian Sea).

In the end, Genghis' grandson Kublai inherited the kingdom (at least the eastern part of it)- eventually inviting Marco Polo to come for a play-date. Whilst rotting in a Genoan prison, Marco dictated his book that eventually inspired Columbus to find a sea route to China, and later inspired Samuel Taylor Coleridge to write a mysterious poem after an opium binge. The poem then became the basis for an ELO/ Olivia Newton John hit single "Xanadu" in the 80's which brings us up to the present day. Click play on both videos at the same time for surreal effect.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea...

A place where nobody dared to go
The love that we came to know
They call it Xanadu

And now
Open your eyes and see
What we have made is real
We are in Xanadu

A million lights are dancing
And there you are
A shooting star
An everlasting world
And you're here with me
Eternally

Xanadu, Xanadu,
(now we are here)
In Xanadu
Xanadu, Xanadu,
(now we are here)
In Xanadu

The love
The echoes of long ago
You needed the world to know
They are in Xanadu

The dream
That came through a million years
That lived on through all the tears
It came to Xanadu

Now that I'm here
Now that you're near in Xanadu
Now that I'm here
Now that you're near in Xanadu
Xanadu...

etc etc

Font Rage

There are a few things that really piss me off. One is companies that chose their name in the 90's, thinking that the year 2000 would sound futuristic: "M2000 Car Rentals" comes to mind. How dumb that sounds now- particularly when combined with fucking POOR FONT CHOICE! Would you trust a neurosurgeon with a Comic Sans* door-plate? Sure, he'd probably be a friendly fat sweaty guy- but that sweat could drip into your brain intra-operatively. The other thing i hate is companies that call themselves "Just Jeans" or "Just Vacuums" or "Just for Cats". After a while they realize that well- maybe they do actually sell stuff for dogs- then they have to add in a little sub-plot: "we're not just for cats!"- usually there's an exclamation point (don't ask me why but it adds a little saccharine cheeriness).

* There is now an "I Hate Comic Sans" web group of cranks that i've now joined. See how the internet can bring crazy people together? it's great.