The universal translator merely burbles quietly

My favorite animal chronicler, Sy Montgomery, has written a great article on the octopus and the bewildering nature of octopus intelligence. Read the article and imagine yourself in the distant future, aboard a galactic ship crewed by beings from across the universe. You’ve got a new roomie, one from your home planet. Oh, boy! Another […]

Antique radiation

After the excitement over the Fukushima nuclear plant, people in Japan are (understandably) a little jumpy about radiation. This seems to have led to the discovery of a bunch of antique radiation sources. A recent radiological survey of the Puget Sound area was done to establish what the normal baseline radiation level is (because the […]

The Delightful Brad MacNeil

As mentioned in Stop Podcasting Yourself, the delightful Brad MacNeil performs at Senators games in exchange for tickets. Here are a few I found at the Sens YouTube account: “Stronger” “Dancing in the Dark” “Eye of the Tiger” “You Give Love a Bad Name” “Friday”

Goliath Review

Goliath, Westerfeld. Yes. Follows Leviathan and Behemoth. If you’ve read them, you know whether you want to read this; if not, I recommend you start with them. I noted no mechanical difficulties, most likely because the story was holding me captive.

I’m willing to believe there are 99, and it’s definitely photography; I’ll give them that

It has, again, been a while since we’ve had any good FP examples here, so I was initially thrilled to see this link to 99 self-declared “Excellent Examples of Forced Perspective Photography.” When I followed the link, though, I was disappointed to find that while several of the photographs are excellent, very few of them […]

The Lighter Side… of Horrible Flooding

Some thoughts on the (astounding, as always) collection of pictures from Alan Taylor’s photo feature on the flooding in Thailand. #2: Important! Does the “hang loose” gesture mean the same thing in Thailand? #4: I’d like to imagine this as a sitcom about two slackers who live in a perpetually flooded apartment. #7: I was […]

Upshot: communites were made safer

Rare on the internet, added context to an amusing video clip. In this case, on the importance of blowing on a hot New Zealand pie. I was surprised at the assertion that some viewers didn’t know the comment was in jest, but perhaps these would also be people taken in by the story about buying […]