Today is National Ammo Day, our favorite buycott.
November 2004 Archives
This just in from my distant friend James Bennett: his announcement today of the website supporting his new book "The Anglosphere Challenge." This seems like a very enticing book, and I plan to read it during winter school break.
The enemy was repelled. But victory was not won. The war dragged on for a year and there was no decision. Gold grew scarce, and again the Government was in despair.
"I easily relieved them. 'Write,' I said, 'promises on paper to be repaid in gold.' They did as I advised, paying me (at my request) a trifle of half a million for the advice. I handled the affair on a merely nominal profit. I punctually met for another year every note that was paid in. But too many were presented, for the war seemed unending and entered a third year."
"Then did I conceive yet another stupendous thing. 'Bid them,' said I to the Sultan, 'take the notes as money. Cease to repay. Write, not 'I will on delivery of this paper pay a piece of gold,' but, 'this is a piece of gold.'"
"He did as I told him. The next day the Vizier came to me with the story of an insolent fellow to whom fifty such notes had been offered as payment for a camel for the war and who had sent back, not a camel, but another piece of paper on which was written 'This is a camel.'"
"'Cut off his head!' said I."
"It was done, and the warning sufficed. The paper was taken and the war proceeded."
Hilaire Belloc
The Mercy of Allah, 1922
To those of you with cats: have you ever noticed how they immediately establish themselves atop piles of freshly laundered clothing?
A college student challenged a senior citizen, saying it was impossible for their generation to understand his. "You grew up in a different world," the student said. "Today we have television, jet planes, space travel, nuclear energy, computers..." Taking advantage of a pause in the student's litany, the geezer said, "You're right. We didn't have those things when we were young. So we invented them."
Unattributed, sent to me by email from Terry Egan
Here richly, with ridiculous display,
The Politician's corpse was laid away.
While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged
I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged.
Hilaire Belloc
"Epitaph on the Politician"
These things escalate because everyone always tends to focus on the differences in ideology rather than working on the more abundant commonalities. My homeland has of course taken this to the extreme. Only in Northern Ireland can two people have been brought up in the same street, go to the same school, have the same colour skin, and the same religion (christianity) and still have their marriage considered 'mixed' (i.e. protestant & catholic).
Stephen Ewart
Most of us are familiar with the events marking the Ansari X Prize winning flights of SpaceDev's SpaceShip One recently. Far fewer, however, know of the story of the American Rocket Company (AMROC), the pioneering company whose intellectual property lives on in that prize-winning ship: the revolutionary hybrid rocket engine that sent it to the edge of space, twice. Read on...
In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.' I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.
Stephen Jay Gould
Here's a term I'd not expected to hear: "cosmetic neurology" (via John Venlet).
Mark Quon added an extensive set of recommendations to my post about "The Incredibles" yesterday; I'll be renting a few of those titles through Netflix myself.
Computer, compute to the last digit the value of pi.
Spock
TOS, Wolf in the Fold
We finally started into dissections in biology lab tonight. My own specimen was this rather stout, well-endowed female Ascaris lumbricoides, an intestinal parasite of humans:
I'd suspected that although our college's brand-new science center was state of the art in facilities, our gear would be knackered, so I brought my own gear (probes, pins, scalpels, various forceps, etc.) just in case. I was correct in my assessment: all the school-supplied gear was thrashed. One other guy in the lab, an Air Force PJ (USAF Pararescue) who's med-school bound, brought his own gear too; it was interesting to compare kits.
Since this specimen was pseudocoelomate in its body plan, there was no mesentary tissue to complicate the incision process. I was able to do really well with a #15T surgical blade: small enough, with a fine tip for starting an incision, but a sufficiently curved blade belly to continue incisions without nicking the viscera.
One gets the impression after laying this open and spreading its innards with a blunt probe that it is all uterus, wrapped in oviduct... two strands of Top Ramen cloaked in angel hair pasta. This thing is even more dedicated to reproduction than it is to feeding. Brrrrrr.
The New York Times is pushing hard on campus to pick up new student subscriptions for the paper edition: for the last few weeks, they've been giving away free copies, many of which end up as seat blotters on rainy benches. I picked up a copy last Thursday, and glanced through a fascinating and typically snide review of the Disney/Pixar flick "The Incredibles" which opened this last weekend. One of the reviewer's complaints was that the film apparently expressed, under the veil of comedy, an unrepentent disdain for mediocrity. The reviewer speculated that Ayn Rand was a likely influence on the filmmakers. Intruiging!
This morning, the first thing my o-chem professor asked me in lab was, "Have you seen 'The Incredibles'?" He was raving about it. I guess I should check this film out. Anyone seen it yet?
Anton Sherwood has moved his musings to a blogging system with a commenting facility and much friendlier navigation. No trivial feat, given that he's been blogging (in one place) since February 2002... this meant converting over 1400 postings! Take a look.
I bought a used speargun and scuba regulator assembly at a very good bargain price from a really cool Korean guy who's an incredibly experienced freediver and spear fisherman. Here's a nifty little device he cooked up for managing gear, "diver down" flag, and temporary stowage of fish (as well as for paddling out to kelp forest, of course):
As you can see, he cut three sets of holes through the board, passing bungee cords through those pairs and establishing permanent loops in the cord. Some of those loops are available for temporarily hanging bagged fish. The bungee on the other side of the board is unlooped and used for stowing fins while the rig is carried backpack-style in the intertidal zone. There's also a hole near the bow of the board for a diver-down flag:
I seemed to have been the only person this morning other than my instructor to have paid attention to the warning on the bottle of crotyl chloride, "Danger: lacrymating agent!"
It was also amazing to see the number of people dispensing silver nitrate without gloves... low toxicity risk, but high chance of Rorschach tattoos on one's hands (hint: silver nitrate is photosensitive.)
A scientist can discover a new star, but he cannot make one. He would have to ask an engineer to do that.
Gordon L. Glegg
American Engineer, 1969.
This Giant African Millipede, or "Scaphiostreptus parilis acuticonus," is one of my biology instructor's personal pets:
A pleasant little animal, and utterly harmless to humans.
On Friday, yet another old friend called me, somewhat worried that I'd not blogged in such a long time. OK, I'm back! I've been very, very busy, and the thing that was keeping me from blogging - besides work and school - was that I simply didn't want to post more on the blog until I'd fixed the bug which prevented people from commenting on blog posts. I've fixed that problem (an erroneously null entry in a database table) so readers are free to comment.
Thanks Mark, Franklin, Monica and James for your concern.
