OIH

Another post for the annals of Obvious In Hindsight.

Having recently (last weekend) upgraded from my first ever smartphone to my second ever smartphone, I discovered that the old model (which they let me keep, to my vague surprise-- I guess I assumed they'd claim it as part of the trade-in) is still completely functional in every way except for its ability to make phone calls (arguably one of the least important of its functions as far as I was concerned).  So I can still use it as a music player, or game device, or Facebook check-in-er, or video watcher, or TV remote, or whatever just so long as I'm in range of the WiFi.  Which is good news!

The bad news is that it is also just as good an alarm clock as it ever was.  Which meant an unexpected blaring noise at 5:45 this morning coming from the other room because it never occurred to me to turn off the alarm when I switched the phones.

Mole rubbing

Mole fur has no nap.  This means that it does not lie in any preferred direction against the skin.  Presumably, this is useful if the mole has to reverse direction within a narrow tunnel, an act which would otherwise lead to a very bad hair day indeed.  Moles have proverbially poor eyesight, so at least they wouldn't laugh at each other.  It still wouldn't be very comfortable, though.

Fortunately, due to the naplessness, the above scenario never takes place-- moles are immune to this particular social embarrassment, and secure in the fact that it is, as the source article puts it, "...literally impossible for a mole to be rubbed the wrong way."

Source : Discover Magazine; http://discovermagazine.com/2013/september/15-the-urban-bestiary#.Uk7BUNJzHVo

The Wendy Dear

Today I learned that it is possible, although very difficult, to couple an iPhone camera to a telescope free-hand. 

The following is about a mile off-shore, and took me about five minutes to get a shot that wasn't off-center by 0.03 mm and therefore completely useless. 

Sandals

My beloved Tevas finally gave up the ghost after 16 years of yeoman service.  In the course of purchasing a replacement pair (which will prove inferior in every possible way, no doubt.  Sniff.), I learned that I had been pronouncing their name incorrectly for that entire time.  They are not Teeevas.  They are Tehvas.  At least according to the promotional video that the Zappos app had.

News of Eyes

What I learned this morning at the optometrist:

1. Introduction: My left eye is slightly more astigmatic than my right, which is a thing that can't quite be corrected for by current contact lens technology.  Not a big deal, I'm still 20/20 with the lenses, and my actual glasses are even better if I really care.
2. Opening: Cataract surgery has gotten really good in the last few years.  It's often quick, relatively straightforward, minimal recovery time (as in hours instead of days), and in many cases includes as a side benefit the equivalent of LASIK correction.  Getting a cataract removed can actually improve your vision significantly.
3. Development: Cataracts are also being detected much earlier than they used to be, which contributes to the ease of treatment-- the less developed they are, the easier they are to remove.
4. Embellishment:  Cataracts can be caused (sort of) by "trauma to the front of the face."  It doesn't exactly cause them per se, but an impact force on the eyeball can sort of prime it, making cataracts slightly more likely to form later on down the line.  All of which leads to:
5. Climax: I have the tiniest infinitesimalest beginnings of a cataract in my right eye, and even tinier such in my left. Possibly caused (as it were) by the air bag in the car accident I was in in '98, or even the soccer ball I took to the face back in...'87?  Maybe?  Somewhere around junior high.  Although I think that hit more on the left, if I remember correctly-- I seem to remember suffering a cut over my left eye from the beveled edge of my glasses.
6. Denouement: It's basically of no more than academic interest.  My previous OD (since decamped for another office) noted it in my file and didn't even bother mentioning it to me.  The current OD saw it on the file, peered into my massively dilated eyes, and said, "Wow, he was really picky."  Basically, I can easily ignore it for the next a decade if not two.

And now back to work, as my eyes slowly regain their previous pupillite proportions.

Pop rocks

The retro candy confection known as Pop Rocks are made by bubbling carbon dioxide through a solution of molten sugar (mixed with some color and flavorings), which traps the gas as the sugar hardens. It was invented in 1956 as a potential mix-in for Kool-Aid, but didn't work very well and so sat on the metaphorical shelf until the 1970s, when someone had the unprecedented idea of just shoving the damn things in your mouth.  And the rest is history.

The Artist

The musical artist formerly known as The Artist Formerly Known as Prince (who I believe has returned to simply calling himself Prince) is actually named Prince.  His father, one John L. Nelson, was a jazz pianist who went by the stage name of "Prince Rogers" (leader of the Prince Rogers Trio), and gave that name to his son as some sort of blah blah "he will surpass me" blah¹.  Prince, despite the built-in nickname, apparently went by "Skippy" during his childhood².

Sources :

• ¹Hahn, Alex (2004). Possessed: The Rise And Fall Of Prince. (supposedly)
• ²Gulla, Bob (2008). Icons of R&B and Soul: An Encyclopedia of the Artists who Revolutionized Rhythm. (also supposedly.  Both sources are quoted online, but I haven't seen them myself).

Bear with me, there's a milkshake at the end.

Long time no read!

So, stuff.  First, administrivia.  I've been kinda busy lately, what with dog and work and life and broken refrigerators and, well, stuff.  This blog isn't dead-- I have several partial posts backed up.  But they may come rather sporadically for a few more weeks.

Next-- Exercise!  Penn Jillette, on his podcast (Penn's Sunday School), was talking a couple weeks ago about the "7 minute workout" that's the latest fad.  And he was saying how, you know, he's always felt that he'd exercise if he somehow could only do it in less than 10 minutes.  And so he tried it, because he said he would, after all, and then gave up in horror because it was Teh Hard.

But he's a big fat guy, right, and I'm at least vaguely in shape.  Maybe I can do it!  I downloaded one of the free apps to help you through it, and tried it on Sunday.  And here's a useful tip--

When they say 7 minutes?  That's true-- you're only exercising for about that long, depending on variations.  But that doesn't include setup (minimal, actually), or stretching, or convincing the dog to leave me alone for 7 goddam minutes, or the hour or so I spent after my first session sitting on the floor waiting to die.  Seriously, this is a ROUGH routine.  At least at first.  Allot a bit of extra time.

I've done it a few mornings, now, before my shower.  My legs are killing me, but I'm mostly still making it through (tomorrow may or may not happen, because ow).  We'll see 1) if I can keep it up, and 2) if it actually does me any good.

Oh, and I promised you milkshakes!  So-- boil sugar in white wine to make a syrup.  Add a cup of chopped fresh basil.  Steep, strain, cool-- you now have basil syrup.  Cut the kernels off of 2 ears of fresh corn.  Simmer gently in a little water (or, if you're more like me, accidentally burn) for about 5 minutes.  Combine corn, 6 Tbsp syrup, and 8 scoops of good vanilla ice cream in blender, scraping sides as needed.  Voila-- sweet corn and basil milkshake.  Quite good, really.

ETA: Oh, and milkshake recipe is courtesy of Adam Ried's Thoroughly Modern Milkshakes.

Flying Pringles

Most people realize that Pringles brand potato crisps (not chips) are fairly artificial.  After all, it's hard to find potatoes that grow in such a regular shape.  Although imagine if they did-- they'd look like jelly beans. Huge, potato-y jelly beans.

And now I want jelly beans.  Sigh.

Anyway, it turns out that the shape is not just a marketing decision, to make them look like duck lips when you eat them in pairs.  Proctor and Gamble (former owners of the Pringles brand) studied the shape very carefully, even going so far as to run the chips (sorry, crisps) through a wind tunnel-- at least virtually.  The digital models of the airflow allowed the company to redesign their production line to move the crisps through even faster, while keeping them from achieving full lift and taking off like little airfoils, something that would undoubtedly interfere with the manufacturing process.

Source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=high-powered-computing-heralds-digital-industrial-revolution

Berbere

In other news, one teaspoon (possibly less if it's fresh) of the Ethiopian spice blend berbere added to a box of brownie mix is a very Good Thing.  Like many spice mixes, the exact contents and proportions can vary, but the one I used was (according to the label), "cayenne red pepper, garlic, ginger, fenugreek, cardamom, cumin, black pepper, allspice, turmeric, cloves, Ceylon cinnamon and coriander."  In that order.

Ticked off

The thing that I sort of already knew but learned again just now is that the "bad" ticks, the deer ticks that can carry Lyme disease, are really quite tiny, which means that the slightly larger one I just discovered on my ankle is a wood tick, and even if I didn't get all of it out (I'm pretty sure I did but it's hard to tell), it's probably just icky and not medically dangerous.

More malt

Banana malt vanilla milkshake...

Did not work.  Do not attempt unless you are a trained professional.

Honestly, I'm not quite sure what went wrong.  Despite reducing the amount of milk I added, it came out kind of watery, and the malt and the banana just did not work well together.  Alas.

Don't ask

Turns out, SPITBOL programs actually look a little bit like Perl scripts. Not enough to be really useful, but enough that I can recognize some of the bits.

Don't ask me why we're using SPITBOL.  I won't like the answer.

Death to the Wild Parsnip!

Everyone knows that you should stay away from poison ivy.  Many people even know what it looks like.

Hint:  (image from http://www.wikihow.com/Identify-Poison-Ivy).

Many people have also heard of poison oak and poison sumac, and know to stay away from them as well.  But are you aware of the danger that the wild parsnip can pose?

The stem and leaves of the wild parsnip (essentially the same plant as the cultivated parsnip that we eat) contain chemicals called furocoumarins.  These chemicals are not strictly speaking dangerous on their own, but when they are absorbed into the skin, through contact with a broken plant, they can react to ultraviolet light (from the sun, presumably) and damage the nearby cells, essentially acting as a sunburn accelerant.  The problem is complicated by the fact that the damage typically takes a day or two to show up, so often a victim will just sort of spontaneously develop a burn and have no idea why.

The good news, such as it is, is that the burns aren't even as bad as poison ivy, most of the time.  If it does happen to you, keep it clean and loosely covered.  The blisters will fade pretty quickly.  And of course, if you do manage to recognize the plant, washing yourself off promptly will help a great deal.

Source: http://dnr.wi.gov/wnrmag/html/stories/1999/jun99/parsnip.htm

How to shrink a skyscraper surreptitiously

In Japan, especially in the major metropolitan areas, the laws and regulations regarding construction are EXTREMELY strict.  The amount of noise, disturbance, and physical detritus that can be generated all seem to be much more rigidly controlled than they are here in the States.

And yet-- sometimes, that large building does have to come down!  It might be old, and not up to code anymore, or perhaps the owners can no longer afford the taxes and no one will buy it, or it simply might need to be removed in order to make way for a new bypass.  Over here, it'd be roped off, and depending on how close it was to other buildings, (carefully) knocked down or (carefully) blown up.  More often the former, naturally, since this isn't the movies, but still.

In Tokyo?  They install humongous jacks and a set of screening scaffolding.  The jacks hold up the building while behind the screening (that keeps the noise, dust, and construction unsightliness to a minimum) workers will carefully dismantle the bottom two floors of the building, trucking the bits away for recycling.  The building will be slowly lowered to the ground, the jacks will be reset, and another two floors will be taken away, and so on, until the whole thing quietly disappears.  Sometimes they'll do it from the top down instead, just for a change.


Source, including a time-lapse video of one such demolition:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/18/science/tricky-ways-to-pull-down-a-skyscraper.html?_r=3&

Fun to play with, not to eat.

Play-Doh Brand Modelling Compound began life in 1927¹ as a substance for getting soot off of wallpaper. For some time, housewives had been rubbing a homemade goop against the walls to clean them.  I guess the soot had a tendency to stick to it more than to the walls?  Naturally, companies began selling premade mixes of the stuff.  Sadly for the manufacturers, though, the increased use of electric appliances was doing an even better job of removing the soot from the walls of homeowners.  By the mid 1950s, the manufacturers were practically broke.

But in an unexpected reversal of their reversal of fortunes, some of their compound fell into the hands of some Cincinnati schoolchildren. After the shrieking died down, the adults realized that if they removed all of the horrible poisonous cleansing chemicals (boric acid, mostly) from the stuff, and add some friendly dyes, they could market it all over again as a plaything!  You still shouldn't eat it, though, even if it does have a "subtle almond scent."¹

¹http://books.google.com/books?id=jftapGDTmYUC&pg=PA115#v=onepage&q&f=false

Frank's 2000 inch computer monitor

This is the sort of discovery that will make anyone in the audience under the age of 24 go, "Well, duh."

I was moving some papers around the other night, and uncovered the manual that came with the "new" flat-screen TV.  It's a very rudimentary manual-- most of the relevant info is online, things being what they are these days-- but it does have all of the "How to Hook Various Things Up To Your New TV" information.  And one of those "things" was "Your PC."

I am old enough, and our previous TV was old enough, that I have to admit the possibility simply never occurred to me.  The old TV just had a coax and some component video inputs, after all.  Piping a computer into that would clearly have been more trouble than it was worth.  But the new TV has HDMI inputs, and... "Dear?  Can I borrow your laptop for a moment?"

Roughly 10 seconds later, we have a 40+" high-def computer monitor.  I have to admit, I am now sorely tempted to pick up a wireless keyboard/mouse combo, haul the tower downstairs, and see what it's like to play Borderlands 2 on the Big Screen...

Date night

I return from an unexpected hiatus with a completely banal food post!  Oh well.

So my wife came home the other day with a traditional Spanish cookbook (that is, a cookbook of traditional Spanish recipes, not a cookbook written in traditional Spanish).  Most of the recipes were either not especially surprising (patatas bravas, paellas, etc) or impractical for the typical American cook (jugged hare, partridge pâté).  However, one recipe caught my eye, and I just had to try it out.  The name was Tortilla de Dátiles-- Date Omelet.  It gets weirder than that, though.

Basically-- 2 eggs, a couple of chopped dates, a bit of chopped ham, and 4 medium shrimp, sauteed(!).  Lots of butter.  Mix ingredients in the egg and then dump everything into the pan, cook, fold and plate (or plate and fold if that's easier).  Top with a spoonful of tomato sauce.

Definitely peculiar, but oddly compelling, too.  I may actually make it again, although I may try the alternate "cook the eggs by themselves and then fill" technique.  It was also extremely full, so I might try 3 eggs for a slightly larger portion but with better balance.

Milkshake recipe

By weight (use a scale!):

One (1) part malted milk powder.

Three (3) parts milk.

Six (6) parts ice cream.

This makes a nice, medium thick, strongly malty shake.  From here you can adjust as per your own individual tastes.  The actual measurements I ended up with were 33 g malted milk, 100 g milk, and 200 g ice cream, because that was about the minimum for the stick blender to handle effectively.  It was a little on the large side, though.  I ended up splitting it with the wife.

Aircraft Navigation in Five Letters

According to FAA guidelines, a pilot of an aircraft approaching or leaving an airport must use a five-letter heading that designates a particular waypoint.  These designations are assigned more or less at random, but there's nothing that prevents the appropriate official from choosing a particular as-yet-unclaimed set for a particular approach.  For example, pilots flying into or out from the Charles M. Schulz Airport in Sonoma County may do so on SNUPY, LUSEE, PIGPN, or WDSTC.  The list for Portsmouth, NH includes ITAWT, ITAWA, PUDYE, and TTATT.  And those for Kansas City, naturally, include SPICY, BARBQ, SMOKE, and RIBBS.

They can only count to 8.

A vague train of thought, inspired by Joshua Holden's comment on the last post, has led me to the knowledge that ticks do not have fingers.  Thanks a lot, Josh.

Instead, their jointed legs end in a segment called the tarsus.  Most insects have multiple claws on the end of the tarsus (or pretarsus in some cases) called ungues (singular unguis)-- the typical ant could probably count to twelve, if it could count--  but the tick (not an insect) apparently lacks these.

In compensation, it does have something called the Haller's Organ, which is a sort of combination nose/thermometer/CO₂ detector that helps it find suitable... targets, shall we say.

Still blecch.

Spoon!

According to Drs. Foster and Smith, notable purveyors of quality merchandise for pets and probably veterinarians, the proper technique for tick removal is as follows:  Take a fine pair of tweezers, and gently but firmly grasp the tick just where the mouth parts enter the skin.  Pull slowly and gently away from the skin.  It may take some time, but the tick will eventually release.  Dunk the tick into alcohol (preferably rubbing, although I'd guess that vodka would work equally well), unless you need to send the tick away for identification or analysis.  I'm not sure what you do in that case, probably just seal it in a jar or something, because we didn't really care.  Especially after the third or fourth tick we pulled off of the dog.  Blecch.

Buddhist Hopscotch

According to the Brahmajala Sutta, a part of the Buddhist canonical writings that may go back as far as 500 BCE, the monasteries had some problems with the behavior of their monks.  Amidst the usual sort of prescriptions about proper monkish behavior is a list¹ of games that should not be played, including but not limited to chess (or the local equivalent), mental chess, dice, twenty questions, Pictionary (or the local equivalent), and hopscotch.  It's a very precise list¹, which rather makes you wonder what was going on that such a proscription was deemed necessary.  I'm including links to a fairly typical loose translation² (I've seen more or less the same text in a couple of places), as well as a more literal translation³ with minor exegesis that explains that "hopscotch" is actually "parihārapatha," wherein a diagram is drawn on the ground and one has to jump in the allowable spaces avoiding the lines.  Not that different, is it?

¹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddha_games_list

²http://tipitaka.wikia.com/wiki/Brahmajala_Sutta

³http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.01.0.bodh.html

Oyster? I hardly know 'er!

Oyster crackers.  They're fairly ubiquitous, especially in New England.  I've been eating them for years, especially in chowders and the like.  Eventually, it occurred to me to wonder why they're called oyster crackers-- they're certainly not made from oysters, after all, the way oyster sauce is.

It turns out that the etymology of the name is actually somewhat opaque, lost in the mists of time.  But the general consensus seems to be that they are not named so because they look like closed oysters (they don't, really), but simply that they were originally very popular in oyster stew¹.

¹http://books.google.com/books?id=6N8XAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA346#v=onepage&q&f=false

(Shell)Fish Monday

I tried stir-frying scallops for the first time last night.  Bay scallops, the little ones, not the big real ones.  I don't think those would stir-fry very well.  But the little ones work really nicely in a stir-fry.  Some pea pods, some mushrooms, a little teriyaki sauce, and Bob's your dinner.  Definitely something to consider again if there's a good deal on them (not that they're terribly expensive, just that they're not always that fresh in our local market).

Dogs and Cats Living Together

Cheetahs are apparently kind of finicky when it comes to breeding.  Not breeding as in pedigree, but as in the actual act of mating.  They're very skittish, and especially when they've been raised in captivity, they don't socialize very well with other cheetahs.

They do, on the other hand, get along pretty well with dogs.  So much so that some zoos are giving the cheetahs pet dogs (or possibly the other way around).  The dogs reassure the cheetahs, reducing their stress levels, and help them feel more confident when introduced to potential breeding partners.

The one drawback to the process is that the dogs (despite sometimes being outweighed by a factor of 4 to 1) almost inevitably become the dominant part of the relationship.  They spend a lot of time with the cats, but they also have to spend a lot of time socializing with other people and dogs.  Feeding time especially-- as Janet Rose-Hinostroza, animal training supervisor at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park is quoted in the source article as saying, "If they ate together there would be one really fat dog and a really skinny cheetah."

Primary source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/12/companion-dogs-cheetahs-friendship-zoos_n_2667033.html

Executive mail

As a schoolchild, I learned (along with all of my peers) that the government was divided into three branches, to wit:  the Judicial Branch (the courts), the Legislative Branch (the House/Senate), and the Executive Branch (the President).

But of course, the government consists of a great many other groups and organizations-- the FBI, the Army, the EPA, the FDA, and so on.  I never really thought about it (which is why this is a perfect subject for this blog), but if I did I guess I would have assumed that they weren't really part of the tripartite structure.  Maybe the Armed Forces and the Feds were part of the Executive Branch?  That would make sense, since the President is also the Commander in Chief.  But the rest?  Who knows!

It turns out that pretty much all of the random government agencies are also part of the Executive Branch, which technically encompasses the President at the top, the Vice President below him, and then the Cabinet. And through the Cabinet, the 15 Executive Departments-- the Dept. of Defense, for example (Armed Forces), or the Dept. of Agriculture (U.S. Forest Service), etc.

Interestingly, the Postal Service (information about which started this line of thought), while technically a part of the Executive Branch, has a separate life.  The Postmaster General was in fact a member of Cabinet until 1971, at which point the US Postal Service was designated an independent agency of the executive branch.  This also removed the Postmaster from the line of succession.  He and his deputy now serve as part of a Board of Governors, who are otherwise appointed by the President.  They just sort of hang out on the side, doing their own thing, probably wishing they could peek into the Cabinet meetings.

I am very mad at iTunes

I just discovered that none of the music that I purchased through the iTunes store before about 2009 will play on my iPhone.  I have gotten no satisfactory answer about why this has happened.  Additionally, I have been informed that if I want to try to re-download the music, I will have to re-purchase it.  I have also not yet received a satisfactory answer as to why this is the case.

This has made me exceedingly grumpy, as you can imagine.

Combat Juggling Rules

Yes it does, and here they are.

Combat juggling is a sport featuring one or more jugglers on a team (depending on the variant).  At the starting whistle, everyone will begin juggling, typically with three clubs each.  The goal is to be the last juggler who is still juggling a full set of clubs (not necessarily the same three that you started with).

In between these two points, the idea is to "interfere" with the opposing jugglers.  This can take several forms, although the most common involve visual distractions, interposing part of your body into their personal space (backing into them can work well), or tossing one of your clubs high enough to give you time to outright steal or knock away one of an opponent's clubs before catching your own again and continuing.

There are, as previously mentioned, a number of variants on this basic theme.  The Major League Combat YouTube channel describes, in addition to the basic three-on-three team event, the following:

360s, a one-on-one timed event where the players score points for successfully completing 360 spins while juggling.  Players have to balance between completing their own spins and interfering with their opponent's.

Sumo, a sort of tag-team one-on-one version where players have to stay within a small circle while juggling.  A point is scored for each opponent who loses their clubs or leaves the ring, and losers are replaced by a teammate as the winner continues to juggle.

Zombie, a three-on-three event where instead of leaving the arena when you are eliminated, you can stay around as a "zombie" as long as you still have at least one of your clubs.  A zombie with one club can't do much but get in the way, but if a teammate passes them a club, they become a slightly more mobile version and can actively interfere with opponents.  And if they can acquire a third club, they can come back to full life and move around again.

Real Horosho

Jamie Hyneman, of Mythbusters fame, has a degree in Russian Linguistics (from Indiana University).

[blink blink]

I... did not expect that.

Corn Tortillas

This was a completely accidental discovery-- no research or intent beforehand.

Dinner tonight was a simplified fish taco, which called for the traditional small corn tortillas.  The package had two sets of instructions for heating, to wit:  1) toast on a hot griddle for 20-30 seconds per side, or 2) microwave in a damp towel.  Being lazy (and the cast iron pan being unavailable), we nuked 'em¹.

When we bit into the tacos, the corn tortillas promptly split apart and started creating a largish mess.  This was a source of some surprise and no small disappointment, but we ate them anyway, for we were hungry.

After, I was not quite full, and there were plenty of leftovers, so I figured I'd try a little experiment.  I cleaned the cast iron pan, and heated another tortilla according to the other method.  And boy howdy, did it make a difference.  The tortilla was warm and soft, but not vaguely damp like the microwaved one was, and held its structural integrity with a great deal more ease.

So take it from me-- not all heating instructions are created equal.  If you don't have a flat hot surface, a toaster oven probably would work.  But whatever you do, don't microwave the tortillas².

¹It was the only way to be sure.
²Unknown whether this rule holds for flour tortillas as well.

Salsa Candy

1) This is not a food post.  2) The title will make sense by the end.

In the musical genre of salsa, there is a basic rhythmic device known as the clave.  There are two versions of it, neither one of which I can easily relate in a text-based format.  However, the "son clave" has proven to be sufficiently pervasive that it has appeared in many other genres, from jazz to funk to R&B to straight up pop. In fact, in some circles the same basic rhythm was known as the "Bo Diddley beat."

For example-- in the song I Want Candy, (which can be seen at http://youtu.be/MiiD8KeAFew as performed by The Strangeloves), the percussion is a son clave.  Three even beats, followed by two quicker ones.

The bass line of Born to Hand Jive (as seen in the movie Grease) is almost a son clave.

There's also a rumba clave, which is very similar except that the third beat is delayed by a half.  I have no other way of describing it in words, but if you search for it on YouTube you'll find plenty of examples.

Many outrageous accents

A point of information:

The French Foreign Legion is not a legion of French soldiers that serve or are stationed outside of France.  Instead, it is a legion of foreign nationals that wish to fight on behalf of France (they are in fact headquartered in Algiers, but that's beside the point).  They are technically part of the French Army, and they apparently have a reputation of being guys you really do not want to mess with.

Their marching song is "Le Boudin"-- the blood sausage.

Pizza...esque

Last night I learned that if you make a double batch of pizza dough but then forget and leave the second half in the bottom of the meat drawer for a few days, it is absolutely still "usable."  However, the extremely long rise/fermentation will do a couple of things-- it will make the dough smell disconcertingly beery, and it will super-upsize the gluten production.  It was REALLY hard to stretch out, and ended up being more of a pizza-flavored foccacia than an actual pizza.  Still tasty, though.

Dewey? Or Do We Not?

The Dewey Decimal system, though widely known of (if not actually widely known itself-- quick, anyone know the code for theodicy?  Didn't think so*) is far from the only classification system used by libraries.

Melvil Dewey himself was not an absolutist about his system, and in fact helped encourage a contemporary, one Charles Cutter, to develop an alternative called (somewhat unimaginatively) the Cutter Expansive Classification System.

At the time, Cutter was serving as a librarian for the Boston Athenaeum, a rather well-regarded institution as such things go.  It was specifically designed as a response to those who found earlier systems (some of Cutter's included) a little bit too complicated and unwieldy.  Rather than create an elaborate scheme that would include all possible subjects (a noble although clearly flawed endeavor-- after all, where did Dewey expect to classify all of the books on quantum computing?  Or, for that matter, urban fantasy featuring tough but sensitive women who like to pose with their backs to the audience holding a weapon in an outfit that does not quite reveal a tattoo?), Cutter created an "expandable" system, that could be adjusted based on the requirements of the library.

For example, a small local library might only need use the First Classification, which just groups books into A) Reference works and Other; B) Philosophy and Religion; E) Biography; F) History and Geography;
H) Social sciences; L) Natural sciences and Arts; Y) Language and Literature; and YF) Fiction.  Some of the libraries near me clearly still use this system as I have just realized while typing this paragraph, as it reveals that some of the books I had been somewhat surprised to find labeled "Youth Fiction" actually weren't.  Oops.  As the library size increases, other categories can be added as needed-- such as C) for Judeo-Christian matter.  Eventually, all of the letters are used.

Following the major classification codes, it gets a bit more complicated.  But basically, after that first class mark letter, you might see one or more secondary characters indicating a subclass.  Then you'll see a punctuation mark that indicates the size of the book.  Then there'll be another set of characters that are usually derived from the name of the author and the title of the book, although these are often converted to something called Cutter Numbers which I don't even but basically just serve to help fit all this information onto a book spine.

For example-- QA 76.76 H94 M88 breaks down as follows:  Before the punctuation, we have the category codes.  The first Q indicates science.  QA 76 is a subcategory; computer science.  The period indicates a normal sized book.  76 H94 indicate further subspecialties (Automation, HTML), and the final group indicates the author's name (Musciano).

So as you can see, at the top level, there's just as much possibility for complexity as the Dewey system.  But only if you need it-- otherwise, you might just see "YF.But StFr" (Jim Butcher's Storm Front).


*Knowing my friends, one of you will probably chime in with the correct number just to be a wiseacre.  That's ok, I don't mind.

Bond. Chemical Bond.

Might as well ride this puppy all the way to the end (of the week).

In chemistry, there are several ways that atoms can connect with each other to form molecules.

If two atoms each have one electron available (one that is not tightly bound to the nucleus) and one space empty which an electron can fill, a covalent bond can be formed.  In this bond, the atoms share their available electrons, so that each atom can be considered filled.  A simple example is the H₂ molecule. Each hydrogen atom has one electron, and can be filled when it reaches two (if you don't know why, don't ask; it gets complicated quickly). So by sharing electrons, each atom becomes stabler.

If, on the other hand, you have one atom with one more electron than it needs for a full set (say, for example, sodium) and one atom that is one electron short of a full set* (e.g. chlorine), the first atom can actually "give" the electron to the second, forming an ionic bond.

In a more complicated system, you might (for example) have a large number of atoms of a metal, many of which tend to be short one or more electrons.  When those atoms arrange themselves into a large structure (a block of metal as opposed to a single atom), the electrons have a tendency to un-attach themselves from their original atom and go wandering around, re-attaching themselves sporadically to other atoms.  Imagine a big parking garage, with cars pulling into and out of different parking spots but never actually leaving.  The forces that keep pulling the electrons temporarily down into different nuclei are what hold the whole megillah together.  This is called a metallic bond.

There are more bonds, of course, but they get progressively more complicated and obscure.  These are the ones you're most likely to encounter in Chem 101.

*"He's one electron short of a full orbital" is a favored insult in a certain circle of especially geeky chemists†.

†That circle being the one that exists in my head.

Bond. Gold Bond.

This has nothing to do with the Bond films, but I was on a roll and figured I'd go with it.

A gold bond is a bond that is backed specifically by gold-- that is, it is repayable only by gold, and only by gold of a specified quality.  This is contrasted with a currency bond, which is repayable in any form of legal tender.  A bond itself is basically a contract that represents a loan, from the bondholder to the bond issuer.  So issuer of a gold bond takes in some money, gives out a piece of paper, and agrees to repay the loan (usually with interest) with gold.

The specification of gold rather than any other currency meant that it was typically offered only by companies that had access to a reliable source of gold, for example mining corporations.  It's somewhat akin to investing in gold (essentially trading money for a promise of gold), so when the price of gold is relatively stable compared to the currency at large (as during a recession), it can become a very attractive proposition.

This impression of reliability and value helps explain why it was chosen in 1882 as the name of a popular concoction of menthol, zinc oxide, and various binders and fillers, often applied to people's sensitive bits.

Bond. Litigious Bond

Yesterday, I talked about how George Lazenby got his lucky break and a chance to be James Bond.  But there's also an interesting story that I didn't know about Sean Connery, or more importantly, why Connery came back in 1983 to do Never Say Never Again.

You see, Dear Reader, back in the beginning, Ian Fleming had a friend by the name of Kevin McClory.  McClory and Fleming (and a few others) would all kick around story ideas, and write screenplay treatments for Fleming's new sensational literary hero.  One of these became the script for Thunderball.

However, both Fleming and McClory ultimately claimed rights to the screenplay, and it was promptly embroiled in a long series of legal rights battles (it was originally going to be the first film).  The courts eventually decided in McClory's favor, and he was all set to use it to launch a competing Bond franchise (can you imagine?), so the producers at Eon (Broccoli et al.) cut a deal-- McClory would get sole producer credit (and presumably gobs of money) for Thunderball if they could make it as part of the main franchise with Connery and the gang.

McClory continued to have dreams of parlaying Thunderball's success (it remains the best earning Bond film after adjustment for inflation) into his own Bond Empire, but he was unable to acquire the rights to any of the other properties from Fleming, leaving him with just the one film.  So what was he to do?  Why, make it again, of course!

So almost 20 years later he set out to remake it bigger and better.  Roger Moore was Bond now, though, and probably had little interest in the Non-Eon production, and frankly was a different kind of Bond anyway and would have been a poor fit for the script.  Fortunately, Connery was still around.  And if you'll recall, he parted company with Eon on somewhat acrimonious grounds.  When McClory approached him with the idea of revisiting his glory days (and presumably gobs of money), he was naturally receptive.  And thus we got Thunderball 2: Electric Boogaloo-- Never Say Never Again.

Bond. Brazen Bond

Back from vacation!  During which, I watched a documentary about the history of the Bond films, from which I learned some things.

I've always had a bit of a soft spot for George Lazenby.  Part of it is just perversity, due to his one-off status, but I really did think that On Her Majesty's Secret Service was a pretty good film.  But there was a lot more going on behind the scenes than I ever realized.

For starters, the role of Bond was only available because Connery had walked out on a multi-movie deal with one left to go.  Connery's relationship with the producers had always been a little complicated-- on the one hand, they recruited him from more or less nowhere, and had to really fight the studio to let him play the part instead of some more established actor.  So they were his champion in one regard.  On the other hand, as a newcomer, he didn't have the leverage that an established actor would have had, so they didn't have to pay him as much, and he rapidly began to chafe under circumstances that he saw as exploitative.  Eventually, after You Only Live Twice (screenplay by Roald Dahl), he'd had enough and walked out.  So there was this movie that needed to get made, and no Bond.

According to the documentary, Lazenby had been waiting for just this opportunity.  According to him, he dressed himself up as Bond in a fancy suit and watch, and more or less forced his way into an interview, lying outrageously in order to convince the producers that he could do the job.  Basically, because (in his mind), playing Bond would mean that he'd get all the chicks.  Seriously, that's what he said in the documentary!  That was, he claimed, basically the whole point of the exercise.  The Wikipedia article about him suggests that this is a slight exaggeration-- while he didn't have much acting experience, he was a professional model, and had had some success in TV commercials, one of which may have landed him an actual interview.

And then, by the time the movie was wrapped and ready for release, he had turned into a hippie, decided that the violence of the character was inappropriate, and that the franchise was destined to be forgotten.  Oh, well.  Everyone makes mistakes.

Surfing wax

I always assumed that surfing wax (as in the infamous Mr. Zog's Sex Wax) was like wax for skis-- it's there to make the bottom of the board slicker and reduce friction.

Instead, it's actually the exact opposite.  You apply the wax to the top of the surfboard, and the waxed surface has better grip and traction for your feet.  Apparently the material that modern surfboards are made of is well and sufficiently slick on its own in the water.

Weekend random

This weekend I learned two things--

First, that if you see the abbreviation "geth." in a German music score, it's an abbreviation for "getheilt" and means "divided."

Second, Cotswold makes a damned fine grilled cheese sandwich.

It's been an odd weekend.

Mayocicle

This morning I learned not only that it is a bad idea to accidentally freeze your jar of mayonnaise, I learned why it is a bad idea.

Upon thawing, it will separate (or "break", in foodie jargon).  Bleah.

To boldly go with our full support

In 1962, the Apollo space program was looking for a manufacturer for spacesuits for their budding astronaut program. These suits would need to be strong, flexible, and supportive, with a combination of fabric and metal. Several companies put in bids, but NASA naturally turned to a company that already had experience manufacturing products with just those characteristics-- the industrial division of Playtex.

Source : Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo http://books.google.com/books?id=IT-chpAkCZ0C&pg=PA121

Vernor Vinge

Today I learned that sci-fi author Vernor Vinge's last name is pronounced /'vɪndʒi/, or "VIN-jee".  It rhymes with "stingy," not with "hinge."

This is something that I've honestly wondered about for quite some time.  Based on what I've seen and heard, I am far from the only one who's wondered about this.


Source :
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/08/a-chat-with-vernor-vinge

Pool film

Film is(was) made on Celluloid, as everyone knows.  But why?

When the film industry began, the very first films were recorded on a thin film made of paper.  This was clearly sub-optimal, because while the thin paper was appropriately transparent, it was also exceedingly fragile.  So they went looking for a synthetic alternative.

At that point, Celluloid (basically a mix of cellulose nitrate and camphor) was one of the primary commercially available plastics.

It had become commercially successful because the billiard industry at that time was running short of ivory for the making of billiard balls (conservation hadn't really taken a bite out of it yet, but they were honestly having trouble getting enough elephants to keep up with demand inspired by a billiard craze). The Brunswick Billiard company ^{1, 2} (probably?) ran a contest to find a synthetic replacement for billiard balls, and the Hyatt Celluloid Billiard Ball (or a variant thereof) was the winner in roughly 1868 ⁴.  I say probably, because apparently Hyatt never got the prize money ⁴, and the Brunswick company website ³ has does not mention the celluloid balls.  Possibly because although it was a much cheaper and easily acquired material than ivory, the balls themselves didn't perform as well.  Stories of the cellulose exploding are probably apocryphal, though.

Anyway, when the photography and then later the film industry went looking for their alternative, this material was no doubt an obvious choice, and the billiard ball factories were more than happy to supply it to a brand new market.

Sources:
¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billiard_ball#History
² http://youtu.be/7I0rX7t1J0Q (Adam Savage)
³ http://www.brunswickbilliards.com/our_rich_history/important_events/index.html
⁴ http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_2947

History of Shaving

The whole history is actually rather lengthy.  There is archaeological evidence that mankind has been removing unwanted hairs for much longer than recorded history-- according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Prehistoric cave drawings show that clam shells, shark’s teeth, and sharpened flints were used as shaving implements..."  Razors made of gold and copper have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs (about 6000 years old).  But the one fact that stuck in my head, much to my dismay, is the idea that the more plebeian Egyptians, the ones who couldn't afford the fancy razors, removed their problematic hair via pumice stones.  I have to admit, I'm having trouble finding a really authoritative source for this story, but it seems pretty persistent-- I've seen it on quite a number of non-authoritative sites.  Also, ow.

Sources:
http://www.moderngent.com/history_of_shaving/history_of_shaving.php
http://www.ehow.com/facts_5340337_history-behind-women-shaving-legs.html

Google Books search for "shaving with pumice stone Egyptians":
The Encyclopedia of Hair: A Cultural History (One reviewer suggested that the bibliography is "sparse".)
Cory's Ancient Fragments of the Phoenician, Carthaginian, Babylonian, Egyptian and other authors is a bit better, although a touch random.  At least it feels a little more authentic.

Chicken McShapes

The four canonical shapes for Chicken McNuggets are the Boot (an angle), the Ball (round), the Bone (rectangle), and the Bell (a kind of oval shape). All McNuggets should be one of those four basic configurations, having been formed into those shapes during the manufacturing process.

http://m.flickr.com/photos/jakeisbadman/3721610125/lightbox/
For a picture of the McNugget Extruder and the four shapes.

Cookies

Quick tip for chocolate chip cookies-- try browning some or all of the butter. That is, cook out the water and let the milk solids brown a bit. It adds a nice sort of deep caramel-y flavor to the cookies.

Bordetella

I always (somewhat foolishly, in retrospect) assumed that bordetella, also known as kennel cough, was named that because that's the environment where dogs tend to contract it.  When they're boarded, right?

Yeah, I know.  It's actually named after Jules Bordet, a Belgian microbiologist.  And strictly speaking, it's not even the name of the disease-- it's actually the genus of bacteria containing one of the culprits that cause kennel cough.  So I was wrong in all sorts of clever ways.  Huzzah!

Mouth-peeing

Bear with me, this is actually science.  

Chinese softshell turtles (Pelodiscus sinensis) spend a certain amount of their life in extremely brackish waters.  So much so, in fact, that their kidneys can't handle all of the salt that would accumulate if they processed the water in the usual biological method (peeing uses up water, so they'd have to drink more salty water to rehydrate, and all of a sudden you die from kidney failure).  So to compensate, they have an alternative.  Instead of passing the ammoniac urea out their hind end, they dunk their heads into a nearby pool, and gargle.  They're not drinking, you see-- they're using the water to rinse out the concentrated urea that they're secreting into their mouths.

Scientists are very excited about possible medical implications for people with kidney problems.  People with kidney problems are telling the scientists not to bother.  Ew.

Primary Source : http://jeb.biologists.org/content/215/21/ii.full

To sleep, perchance to zzxxxnnnn...

A week or so ago, I switched out my alarm clock for my phone.  Yes, I'm becoming one of Those people.  For one thing, it lets me easily set different times for my alarm for the days where my morning schedule is different.  For another, instead of having to try tune the clock to an empty band to get static for white noise (something that's getting more and more difficult), I can now use an actual white noise app, that will generate (among other things) wave sounds, rainstorm sounds, fan noise, or my personal favorite, Airplane Cabin.  No, seriously.

And that leads in turn to the Thing I Learned.  You see, I've always felt like I had trouble falling asleep.  I turn off the light, lay down, and proceed to thrash and flop around for a while until I finally go out.  But now I have verifiable evidence!  The white noise app has a timer on it, and I can now say, much to my surprise, that a fair number of nights I have absolutely no recollection of the app shutting itself off after about 15 minutes.  So I'm falling asleep much faster than I thought.

Unexpected gender dimorphism

Male mice do not have nipples.  Neither do stallions.  Pretty much every other male mammal does, because... well, they just do.  No one really seems to have a really solid answer for why, distinct from the simple apparent fact of their existence, and that translates to a lack of good explanation for why not in the case of the rare exceptions.  All babies (in most mammalian animals) are born with them, and in typical males they just develop differently.  Note that it's not fair to say that they don't develop at all-- there's still a bunch of nerves and blood vessels and stuff back there.  It's just not expressed the same way or to the same degree.  As far as an explanation for the mice/rats/horses/possibly platypi goes, the Straight Dope (for example) simply says that nipple development is suppressed in mice by the male hormones.  Which, ok?  I guess?  But a little unsatisfying.

Word for the Day -- Izzat

"Izzat" is a Hindi term, taken ultimately from Arabic, meaning (variously) "honor" or "dignity," or in some cases "prestige."

As Kipling says, in William the Conquerer,
'Scott spoke forcefully to Faiz Ullah and the two policemen, and bade them capture goats where they could find them.  This they most joyfully did, for it was a recreation, and many ownerless goats were driven in.  Once fed, the poor brutes were willing enough to follow the carts, and a few days' good food- food such as human beings died for lack of- set them in milk again.
'But I am no goatherd,' said Faiz Ullah. 'It is against my izzat.'
'When we cross the Bias River again we will talk of izzat,' Scott replied. 'Till that day thou and the policemen shall be sweepers to the camp, if I give the order.'"

So there you go.  And next time someone asks you, "What izzat?", you'll know!

Mew

Kitten heels supposedly got their name because the small thin heel resembles a kitten's claw.

Supposedly.

Also, I appear to be on a shoe kick right now.  So to speak.

Heels

It appears that my shoes, having more or less "a heel extending from the back of the shoe to the front of the shank and a tread formed by an extension of the sole," are technically wedges, despite being basically bog standard men's shoes.  I feel like either I or the dictionary definition are missing something, but there you go.

I'm a wedge wearer.