If you're using Chrome, the right column of this blog isn't displaying correctly. Switch to Firefox. If you're using the iPad, you're a tool. If you're using IE, go kill yourself.
(This person is kinda upset that I dissed their favorite browser. I actually use Chrome and I like it, but for some reason the layout here is different than on Firefox. And of course, the iPad and IE just plain suck. You tool.)

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Koi pond

A koi pond is another name for a water garden with lilies and fish and shit like that in it. The koi are a colorful variety of carp, developed in Japan.

Friday, October 30, 2009

Holland Codes

Holland Codes are a series of letters that help suggest the type of career one should choose, which can be found out by taking a test. It was developed by American psychologist John L. Holland, who argued that "the choice of a vocation is an expression of personality." There are six letters in the test representing six different types. They are as follows:

Realistic (R) - practical, physical, hands-on, tool-oriented
Investigative (I) - analytical, intellectual, scientific, explorative
Artistic (A) - creative, original, independent, chaotic
Social (S) - cooperative, supporting, helping, healing/nurturing
Enterprising (E) - competitive environments, leadership, persuading
Conventional (C) - detail-oriented, organizing, clerical

These letters are then organized by the highest number you score on each one. So if you get I = 21, C = 11, S = 10, E = 6, A = 4, and R = 1 (as I did today in school), your Holland Codes would be ICSEAR. Since this is cumbersome and not too many people would care about your lowest scored letters, only the first three or so are used.

The types can also be represented on a hexagon. The shorter the distance between their corners, the more closely they're related. That's why it would be hard to find someone who's both artistic/creative (A) and conventional/organized (C).



You can take this version of the test now, although it's kind of a rough and ready sketch compared to the one I took at school.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Lester Pearson

Lester Pearson is considered the father of the modern concept of peacekeeping.

On this day in 1956, Britain, France, and Israel carried out a military attack on Egypt after President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, which was run by French and British interests. This was known as the Suez Crisis. The nationalization was a response to the two countries pulling out funds for the Aswan Dam. And that was a response to Egypt's recognition of the Communist People's Republic of China, among other things. The United States opposed the attack, and Nasser went to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev for help. Khrushchev threatened to nuke the West if the Brits and French didn't pull out. The world held its collective breath.

That left room for Pearson, a Canadian who went to the UN and proposed creating a United Nations Emergency Force to "keep the borders at peace while a political settlement is being worked out." This was a neutral force not involving the major alliances. Britain and France hated the idea but all 57 countries at the UN eventually signed the agreement.

Pearson was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 for his accomplishments and earned Canada an independent position on the world stage as far as peacekeeping. In 1963 he was elected as Canada's Prime Minister.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Lamarckism

Lamarckism, proposed by French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, is a dismissed theory that states that the characteristics which an organism acquires during its lifetime will be passed on to its offspring. Later, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and Gregor Mendel's studies of plant genetics discredited this notion.

Two examples of Lamarckism would include:

Giraffes stretching their necks to reach leaves high in trees (especially Acacias), strengthen and gradually lengthen their necks. These giraffes have offspring with slightly longer necks.
A blacksmith, through his work, strengthens the muscles in his arms. His sons will have similar muscular development when they mature.

Although it's been widely abandoned, this theory has gained at least some amount of momentum in the field of epigenetics, where a number of studies seem to support Lamarckian evolution.

But Lamarckism may be accurately related to cultural evolution, where societal ideas (such as catchphrases and political philosphies) are passed from one generation to the next.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Feng shui

Feng shui is a complex body of knowledge that reveals how to balance the energies of any given space to assure the health and good fortune for people inhabiting it. It was developed in China about 3,000 years ago, and used today in the West for interior decorating.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Harry Harlow and the mother-child bond

I had known about the surrogate mother experiments, the experiments in which American psychologist Harry Harlow separated young rhesus monkeys from their mothers in order to demonstrate the importance of caregiving in cognitive development. But I didn't know the exact importance of his work.

Harlow took rhesus infants away from their mothers and replaced the mothers with two fake ones: one made of wire (hard) and the other made of terrycloth (soft). Anyone would reasonably assume that the monkeys would cling to the terrycloth mother because of their softness. So for balance, Harlow put food near the hard mother and didn't put anything near the soft mother. This way, one would really find out if the monkeys cared more about food or comfort. (He also switched the roles of the mothers in another experiment.)

The results weren't even close: the rhesus monkeys spent an overwhelming amount of time with the soft mother, regardless of whether she had food or not. And whenever there was a frightening sound nearby, the monkeys automatically clung to the soft mother.

So what does this prove (and disprove)? Up until that time, the behaviorist view was that feeding was the most important factor of the mother-child relationship. But as clearly shown, close body contact strengthened this bond. In addition, it was thought that holding a child too much would spoil him, which is also not true.



A lot of people vehemently criticize Harlow for his unethical work, because he separated the animals at such an early age. But he did help advance psychological studies away from behaviorism. Besides, the Little Albert experiment (conducted by John B. Watson, the leader of the behaviorist movement) involved a human child and that one was much worse, even though it was kinda funny.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Gimcrack

Gimcrack means "a cheap, showy object of little or no use."

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Turnip jack-o’-lanterns

In Ireland, jack-o’-lanterns were once carved from turnips.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Unwritten constitution

A country with an unwritten constitution is a country in which no formal constitution exists. Instead, the government and the courts cite the laws that have evolved over time. Examples of countries with unwritten constitutions are the UK, New Zealand, and Israel.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Necker Cube

The Necker Cube is an optical illusion that most people would perceive as two objects. Look at this cube. You'll probably see it as facing one direction, most likely to your left. But if you stare at it for 30 seconds, the orientation of the cube will change, and will be facing to your right.



I almost jumped from my chair the first time the orientation changed.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Propitious

Propitious means "favorable; gracious."

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Octopush

For more information on the sport otherwise known as underwater hockey.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Ankh

The ankh was the the Egyptian hieroglyphic character that read "eternal life." Egyptian gods are often portrayed carrying it by its loop. Its origins still remain a mystery.

The Copts, the Christian sect in Egypt, preserved it to represent their Christian cross.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Finland first to make broadband a public right

Finland will become the first country to make broadband a public right. In July everyone will have the legal right to at least a 1 MB per second Internet connection; the government is eyeing the prospects of upping it to 100 mbps in 2015. This is not compulsory on the Finnish people, however. Whoever wants a faster Internet connection can buy it at a fairly low price (a public option!).

I'm so glad the Finns have nothing better to do than to increase the speed of their Internet connections, while we here still have to struggle for decent health care.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Earthquake alarm

The earthquake alarm is a device that can detect when an earthquake will occur 15 seconds beforehand. Among other things, it can potentially stop elevators so people on top floors can safely evacuate, and slow down public transit trains to decrease the chances of derailment. This machine is considered the Holy Grail of seismology. It will be tested in California's Bay area, but even so, the systems that will be used there lag behind ones already being used in Japan, Mexico, Turkey and Taipei.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Jeffrey Dahmer

Jeffrey Dahmer was a serial killer of the 1980s and early '90s, who at one point was murdering one person each week. His crimes involved homosexual rape, torture, dismemberment, necrophilia and cannibalism, and his victims were mostly black or Asian. In 1994 he was beaten to death in prison by a Jesus freak who ruptured his head with a bar from a weight machine.

Dahmer's story is really amazing. There's a much longer and more detailed story at the truTV website.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Toothpicks are made of real wood

Most of the toothpick manufacturers are in Maine, who make them out of birch logs.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Why do we sound different on tape?

I thought I might have been the only person in the world who hears his own voice differently than what it actually is on tape. Today I got one less thing to worry about (kinda like this).

Inside your ears there is an organ called a cochlea, a special neurological structure that converts the vibrations of sounds in the air into electrical signals that the brain can understand. It gets stimulated by the pressure waves caused by sounds in the air, but at the same time can pick up the vibration of the bones in your skull. When you are listening to sounds in the environment, the chief source of those sounds is coming through the air, very little comes through the bone. When you’re speaking, however, your whole head resonates; it vibrates. This means that your cochlea gets stimulated by your skull vibrating, as well as the sound coming out of your mouth and going through the air to your ears.

The body does two things; it gets a different version of those vibrations (through the bone and the ear), but it also has a protective mechanism to cut down the amount of sound which is going into the cochlea. It reduces sensitivity of your ear a little when you’re speaking, so you get a slightly different rendition of what your voice sounds like.

That’s why, when you hear yourself recorded and played back, you sound totally different, because all you hear back from the tape recorder is sound coming through the air, minus the skull vibration and bone conduction.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Darwinopterus and modular evolution

Darwinopterus is the name of a new fossil that scientists have discovered in northeastern China. It's of a flying reptile that lived over 160 million years ago. This fossil is significant because it provides the first clear evidence of a "controversial" (I don't really see why it's controversial) type of evolution called modular evolution. This is "where natural selection forces a whole series of traits to change rapidly rather than just one."

Up until now, researchers knew there existed the more ancient, long-tailed pterosaurs and the newer, short-tailed ones, but those two species were separated by a wide gap in the fossil record. The discovery of this recent fossil and about 20 others like it, however, could prove to be the missing link. Darwinopterus had a head and neck like the advanced pterosaurs but a body like the more primitive types.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Rube Goldberg

Rube Goldberg was a cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer and inventor. He's best known for his cartoons that depicted a quirky professor named Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts, who created complex devices to accomplish simple tasks.

In 1931 Merriam-Webster dictionary added the adjective Rube Goldberg, defined as "accomplishing by complex means what seemingly could be done simply."



I think I might have seen this picture being played out in a Charlie Chaplin film.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Greenland

Greenland is part of the North American continent. I always thought it belonged to the European continent, but it has been politically associated with Denmark for about three centuries.

That's one for us!

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Of Pandas and People

Of Pandas and People is the name of the textbook written in the late 1980s that creationists wanted to push down the throats of schoolchildren in biology class. It supported intelligent design.

Watch the two-hour long NOVA episode entitled "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial," which tells the story of the case in Dover, PA on the battle of whether to teach intelligent design in biology class.

Friday, October 9, 2009

Nobel Peace Prize money

You get $1.4 million nowadays for winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Yosemite and the Ahwahneechee

About 3,500 years ago Native American tribes began permanently settling in what is now the area of Yosemite National Park. They called the valley Ahwahnhee, which means "valley that looks like a gaping mouth," and themselves Ahwahneechee, "dwellers in Ahwahnee." Now the Ahwahnee Hotel, a destination hotel in Yosemite, is named after the tribe and the original name they gave the park.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Parthenogenesis

Parthenogenesis is a rare (in animals, but many plants exhibit this behavior), asexual form of reproduction in which the females of a species give birth without copulating with males. Instead, because the eggs are already diploid, only the physical actions of sex need to be employed for the female to give birth. This, however, is done by another female, one who is not ovulating. So the non-ovulating female dry humps the other female, and the offspring is an exact genetic copy of the mother.

Maybe the most popular example is a few species of the whiptail lizard. Unlike other parthenogenetic animal populations, these species are composed entirely of females.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Mechanism and vitalism

Mechanism is the philosophical theory that all natural phenomena can be explained by laws of nature.

Vitalism states that the processes of life are not explicable by the laws of physics and chemistry alone and that life is in some part self-determining. This view employs "vital forces" to explain away things that haven't yet been explained by science.

Monday, October 5, 2009

Conserevative Bible Project

The Bible is too liberal, is what some far-right nutbags are saying. And what's the solution? Edit it on a Wikipedia-style site! Those dumbasses at Conservapedia are editing the Bible on their site, deleting what they deem to be liberal passages. Here are their ten rules for a "conservative" Bible:

1. Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias

2. Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, "gender inclusive" language, and other modern emasculation of Christianity

3. Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level

4. Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms as they develop; defective translations use the word "comrade" three times as often as "volunteer"; similarly, updating words which have a change in meaning, such as "word", "peace", and "miracle"

5. Combat Harmful Addiction: combating addiction by using modern terms for it, such as "gamble" rather than "cast lots"; using modern political terms, such as "register" rather than "enroll" for the census

6. Accept the Logic of Hell: applying logic with its full force and effect, as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil.

7. Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning

8. Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story

9. Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: crediting open-mindedness, often found in youngsters like the eyewitnesses Mark and John, the authors of two of the Gospels

10. Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities

So if the Bible is the word of God, and the Bible is liberal, then that means God must be liberal! Oh no, we've been duped for 2,000 years! That Jesus guy was an impostor! The only real god now is RUSH LIMBAUGH!!!!

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Denny's Beer Barrel Belly Buster

Skip to 2:50.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Frogmarch

Frogmarch means "to force (a person) to march with the arms pinioned firmly behind the back."

Friday, October 2, 2009

Teardrop tattoo

The teardrop is typically a prison tattoo that is placed underneath the eye. It means that the wearer has committed a murder -- the number of tears represents the number of people dead. It has evolved, though, to also mean that you lost a loved one. New York Knicks player Larry Hughes has two teardrops to signify the death of his brother.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Will drop pants for food

Well, today brought the huge news about Ardi, the oldest human skeleton discovered. The journal Science (read their online post and watch their excellent video here) will release a special edition tomorrow that details Ardi in 11 papers.



As you can tell from the picture, Ardi had really divergent big toes. This is used for grasping, of course, but the animal walked bipedally on the ground when it wasn't living in the trees. So why would it choose to walk upright when its habitat was wooded forests?

Owen Lovejoy, an anatomist at Kent State, proposed the Sex for Food hypothesis. I now begin my (gross and perhaps criminal) oversimplification. Normally, a male ape has long canine teeth for fighting other males to get the ladies. But Ardipithecus, Ardi's genus, had smaller and stubbier teeth. Why? Lovejoy says that earlier males, especially the smaller ones who couldn't compete against their alpha counterparts, elected to bring food to their targeted females. The females, upon seeing this, would thank the males for the unexpected gift, then reward them with sex. (These males remind me of the high school nerds who beat out the jocks by helping out the hot chicks with their homework. If you're a hulking alpha male with so much testosterone you don't know what to do with it, you'd hate that little scrawny dweeb but you'd have to adjust because the girls are starting to like him.)

So how would the males bring the food to the females if they move around on all fours? Exactly, they would have to walk on their hind legs and use their arms to gather the food. This is how bipedalism began, under this hypothesis.

But couldn't the female just collect the food given by the nerd, while copulating with the jock, thereby getting the best of both worlds? Lovejoy states that his hypothesis depends on ovulation that is kept secret from not only the males, but more importantly to the female. (This is not found in the fossil record.) This is what started monogamous relationships, because females would prefer the hard-working and steady provider over the in-your-face guy who humps whatever girl he can get.

I just want this hypothesis to be true so all the scrawny and awkward people like me can finally win in something other than landing a good job.