Giraffes in Space May 30, 2012
Posted by stuffilikenet in Awesome, Uncategorizable.add a comment
“I found Google Images quite helpful. It is possibly the best resource for pictures of giraffes in space that humankind has ever created.”–Mark Eichenlaub, graduate student in physics, answering a question about friction in space on Quora.com.
Still the Most Beautiful City in the World May 29, 2012
Posted by stuffilikenet in Awesome, Video.add a comment
If Sunspots Were Blue May 23, 2012
Posted by stuffilikenet in Awesome, Science, Video.add a comment
GIGO May 23, 2012
Posted by stuffilikenet in Brilliant words, Uncategorizable.add a comment
From the List Which Cannot Be Named:
Why not make it easier for people to take courses after college? In
fact, why not decouple learning from degrees a little more?
<color_me_cynical>Money. The Industrial Education Complex is a vast machine that demands to be fed with brains wrapped in dollar bills. Its output is brains with the dollar bills removed.</color_me_cynical>
My Ever-growing Army of the Undead May 23, 2012
Posted by stuffilikenet in Awesome, Toys, Uncategorizable.add a comment
The Ragtime Castaway Band at Maker Faire 2012 May 23, 2012
Posted by stuffilikenet in Awesome, Science, Toys, Video.add a comment
Como va?
Diasporus citrinobapheus, the Yellow Dyer Frog May 23, 2012
Posted by stuffilikenet in Science.add a comment
Andreas Hertz of Senckenberg Forschungsinstitut und Naturmuseum and Johann Wolfgang Goethe University found this little beauty in the mountains of western Panama. It’s called the Yellow Dyer because your fingers turn yellow from handling it (possibly leaching a substance through your skin which will cause you hallucinations, liver poisoning and Yog-Shogoth possession—or maybe not).
There’s a very complete journal paper on this fella here.
Finally, Imaging Alzheimer’s Plaques May 23, 2012
Posted by stuffilikenet in Awesome, Brain, Science.add a comment
That’s right folks, Eli Lily has managed to produce a mildly-radioactive dye for PET imaging that will show amyloid plaques of the kind found in Alzheimer’s patients. This will allow doctors to test whether these amyloid plaques are a cause of or a result of Alzheimer’s disease, something that is still unclear. That knowledge may (if it is true) lead to treatments and prevention. If untrue, it may lead to better hypotheses. Either way, this is real progress.
Top: Normal. Bottom, lit up like Xmas: Alzheimer’s patient.
John Dies at the End, by David Wong May 22, 2012
Posted by stuffilikenet in Awesome, Books, Brilliant words, Uncategorized.add a comment
A hilarious audiobook by David Wong, John Dies at the End
It completely cracked me up.
Listening to a guy calmly explaining the end of his sanity as the result of losing an argument with a dog pretty much did it for me, and that was just in the second chapter (well, .mp3, but you understand, right?). John and David are two slackers taken by the drug Soy Sauce (note who took whom), which gives them both inter-dimensional vision1 which sounds disconcerting and painful…and it is. It also leads them to soul-sucking lunacy as monsters from other dimensions make themselves known.
Bah, I don’t care about the horror part2 but I like the twisted view of horror that David has. P.G.Wodehouse might have approved of the descriptions of the horrors they face and their reactions thereto. I especially liked the reader’s matter-of-fact recounting of the events. Sorry I can’t tell you who the actor is. Amazon’s price is actually reasonable for this Audible audiobook
Exciting update: A sequel is upcoming.
1What the soy sauce really does is give them access to that other dimension, puts them in touch with astral projections, demons, mind controlling insects, and a sentient organic computer named Korrok that wishes to access our world. That, and the ability to count the change in your pocket, describe the dream you had last night–and all of it is mostly side effects.
2Hey, I’m a scientist, not a primitive or other sort of fundamentalist.
Better Photo From Different Vantage Point May 21, 2012
Posted by stuffilikenet in Awesome, Photography, Science.add a comment
To think, I could only see it from the beach.
Exciting update:
It’s ‘shopped.
(1) The sun is in western Sagittarius in mid-December.
(2) The sun is about 0.5 degrees in apparent diameter from near
earth orbit, whereas the galactic bulge is about 15 degrees.
(3) The sun is about -26th magnitude, so in a 94% annular eclipse
like Sunday’s, it is about -23rd magnitude. Since the Milky
way is showing limiting magnitudes around 8 or 9 in this
photo, the camera has a dynamic range of more than 10^13.
Nice photo, though.
—JWB, from The List Which Cannot Be Named
Turns out it’s from deviantart, though I’m not sure who.
The Earth Eaten by a Fire Demon May 21, 2012
Posted by stuffilikenet in Awesome, Photography, Science.add a comment
Ben Brockert of Armadillo Aerospace took this. I can use the “Awesome” category without irony or exaggeration for this.
Synchronize Individual Folders With SugarSync May 10, 2012
Posted by stuffilikenet in Awesome, Geek Stuff.add a comment
As an actual geek (as opposed to a poser geek, which is what I usually am) I need to sync my Projects folder within Visual Studio 2008 and 2010 with my company desktop, company laptop and my home computer You would not believe how convoluted this is between the various (free) file services this is, involving setting up some special folder that I have to remember to dump the synced files to, to retrieve later and remember where on the next computer to put them. Yuck. I made batch files to do this for me, but there should be I better way….
There is. SugarSync lets me specify which folder gets backed up, and to what computer’s folder. I can upload file by mail. I can files share through public links like this one, my Spanish Flashcards for WinCE 5.0. It provides an app for your Windows Mobile devices, including my ancient phone.
And its Five Gigs of Storage for free (so far). That includes the dictionary files for my next two projects, and probably the third project as well. One of the creepy things they do, though, is ask to be given access to your Gmail, Yahoo! Hotmail or AOL(?) mail accounts to solicit your friends to become users also…this is optional, but they don’t offer you a way to do this on a person-by-person basis, which I would do.
Springtime Commute May 10, 2012
Posted by stuffilikenet in Awesome, Photography, Uncategorizable.add a comment
This is the median on the Richmond Parkway.
Giraffe Birth at Memphis Zoo May 7, 2012
Posted by stuffilikenet in Awesome, Science.add a comment
Memphis, Tennessee, that is. This clip from 2008 shows Marilyn dropping her little one seven feet to the ground in a rather telling preview of the hell that is life. From Grrl Scientist.
Given My Obsession With Japanese Culture and Language May 3, 2012
Posted by stuffilikenet in Japan, Toys.add a comment
what did you expect?
Exciting update:
Circuit Simulator May 3, 2012
Posted by stuffilikenet in Geek Stuff, Science, Toys.add a comment
| Simulate! |
Too Much Information–Head Throbbing May 3, 2012
Posted by stuffilikenet in Awesome, Uncategorizable.add a comment
This is a pair of statues on the Meenakshi Temple in Madurai, India (Tamil Nadu, to be more specific).
Neat, huh? I will not bore you with the nearly-incomprehensible description of the deities involved, but the temple itself is damn near made of statues: 33,000 of them. I am not making this up:
It gets better: this is part of a temple complex of fourteen towers of this kind.
Spend a little time with Google Image Search. It will amaze you.
Heat Mist on San Francisco Bay May 2, 2012
Posted by stuffilikenet in Awesome, Photography, Science, Uncategorizable.add a comment
It apparently inspired other commuters to stop and snap a picture.
See? It’s not just me.
Stuffilike.net 