February 2012
9 posts
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Langston Hughes and Sigmund Freud would SURELY...
I used to have a recurring fever dream about John McCain. Nothing scandalous, nor even political: I am inherently neither—we’d just chat at the gym. Pleasantries, weather, proper technique with moving heavy things around, and so on. Usually we’d get interrupted by a friend of mine who was a grad student at Princeton; I’d duck out after introducing them and get hit in...
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“Don’t be lathe.”
– —DEU
It is the right time on a Friday for this to be funny. In EST. If you’ve been discussing metal work for a couple hours. And are maybe a little silly.
There’s video out there, but I remain of the...
January 2012
30 posts
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It's pronounced the way it's spelled!
Samir: No one in this country can ever pronounce my name right. It's not that hard: Na-ghee-na-na-jar. Nagheenanajar.
Michael Bolton: Yeah, well, at least your name isn't Michael Bolton.
Samir: You know, there's nothing wrong with that name.
Michael Bolton: There *was* nothing wrong with it... until I was about twelve years old and that no-talent ass clown became famous and started winning Grammys.
Samir: Hmm... well, why don't you just go by Mike instead of Michael?
Michael Bolton: No way! Why should I change? He's the one who sucks.
“I can’t wait until I have a cheapskate grand-daughter who sends you *her*...”
– Tone is kind of tricky to read, but my parents probably really can’t wait. I doubt ALL scientist children give terribly lazy gifts to scientist parents. I just happen to have had articles come out in a particularly timely manner this last couple years.
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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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