January 2012
28 posts
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This guy was the bioengineer who lived in my...
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“This is just conversation, I am not wanting you to solve my problem.”
– Perhaps the finest verbal tic I have ever induced in someone else.
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Athwart the Grammariam and Philologist (or,...
P: I've got a preposition for you.
G: Okay, shoot.
P: 'Notwithstanding.'
G: Ooh, NICE! That can also be a postposition.
P: Let me tell you--have I got a postposition for you.
G: Under? Atop? Between? Inside? Or, more accurately, outside?
P: Hoho, good effort, but some of those you'd have to be a little bit acrobatic to make POSTpositions.
G: And these are the sort of shenanigans up with which you will not put?
P: Mmm. [Much longer than usual pause] Mmm.
G: The Latin for the prepositional 'with'?
P: That's still one of the few words you're uncomfortable with, eh?
G: Oddly, I can totally say it if it is immediately followed with "-dumpster" or "-catcher", but otherwise it still kind of gets my hackles up.
P: You're such a weird and terrible bitch.
G: Hackles aren't exclusive to dogs.
P: Because clearly that was the implication?
G: Touché.
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In full, it is very good, but sometimes one needs...
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From "A Mathematician’s Apology" by G. H. Hardy
A man who sets out to justify his existence and his activities has to distinguish two different questions. The first is whether the work which he does is worth doing; and the second is why he does it, whatever its value may be. The first question is often very difficult, and the answer very discouraging, but most people will find the second easy enough even then. Their answers, if they are honest,...
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The spec cover art for this album was probably...
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Analogy for a Resolving Agent
Suppose you are blindfolded and asked to sort a pile of one hundred gloves into separate piles of right- and left-handed gloves. (Never mind how you got into this predicament!) The gloves are identical except that fifty are right-handed, and fifty are left-handed. The mixture of gloves is a “racemate.” How would you separate them? You can’t do it by weight, by smell, or by...
WatchIn Japan, you can just stumble across trained monkey acts. At a mall. He probably understands more Japanese than I did. It was humbling.
[CMC, not only have I not broken my face, I can now do that forwards AND backwards AND I can navigate around obstacles. I could only go backwards at the ‘view because I *was* maybe a little afraid of a doing a header into our crappy wood floors. I...
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“I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads...”
– —Eliot Frost
There’s a nearly 2 year old note on my whiteboard that says “Prufork.”
I wish I didn’t turn so many things into acronyms because there is precious little clear clearly-related context to go on in terms of to what it could have been in reference. I...
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MUSICAL HISTORY OF THE ALDOL CONDENSATION
Discovery of the aldol condensation is usually attributed solely to Charles Adolphe Wurtz, a French chemist who trained Friedel and Crafts. However, the reaction was first investigated during the period 1864-1873 by Aleksandr Borodin, a Russian chemist who was also a self-taught and proficient composer of music. (Borodin’s musical themes were used as the basis of songs in the musical...
December 2011
44 posts
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Wikipedia Banner A-Z Testing Data Portal →
Swedish Wikipedia does not approve of the Outlaw Jimmy Wales.
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“In English they say “Try to take over the world”, but in German it...”
– The German’s dissection of interlingual variations of “Pinky and the Brain”. I can’t quite write out the lilt of the accent—it is possible, but I am no Henry Higgins (Nor Henry Huggins)—but if you imagine this coming out of the mouth of Heidi Klum, you may be...
“GOLDMINEFIELD!”
– 201112271424: A new favorite metaphor has been established.
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The 12 Days Of Christmas - A Lesson In How A... →
“We do not wish to ruin the fun of the holidays. But, if you want to appraise something, you need to do it right.”
There is a clear voice in this analysis and it kills me a little that there is no byline because I am terribly curious how the author would misspell “Van Hœt”.
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New Local Monkey Friends? →
“Our current family consists of 5 monkeys. They have been donated for various reasons, ranging from retired organ grinder monkeys, unsuccessful pets, and some have even been retired from laboratories. Each of them came with their special personalities, which have been shaped by past life experiences, both good and bad.”
I imagine the monkey who was Robert Oppenheimer in a past...
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Watch I wish I could say that Curious Giorgio and the Infinite Discoteca was a result of a cold medicine or some such, but the fact of the matter is it was an idea that was soberly conceived in an airplane bathroom (the mile-high clubhouse!) last week and birthed at my desk while waiting for a crane to cease its looming over my laboratory causing safety to lock us out of the whole corridor. LOOMING!
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"Dave Catermanis was born in a litter of 7... →
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“There’s nothing you could say that would make me love you less, but right...”
– In all likelihood, ME by this point in the extended gathering timeline.
Queued Dispatch From South of the Border
ALL OF THE COKES ARE MEXICAN COKES STOP MY GENETIC PREDISPOSITIONS ARE KICKING IN STOP SO ELIPSES SLEEPY STOP BEING MEXICAN IS LIKE EMPHASIS WEARING A POPPY FIELD END EMPHASIS STOP YOU ARE VERY GREAT STOP 1000 PESOS NO DO NOT MAKE THE 3 AMIGOS TELEGRAPH JOKE STOP HMM
STOP
OPEN PAREN JUST JOKING ABOUT THE FIELD OF POPPIES THING STOP ADD IN AN APPROPRIATELY PLACED QUOTE SOMETIMES UNQUOTE TO...
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