October 2009
36 posts
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If I ever locate an MPD [multiple personality disorder] patient with just two...
– V.S. Ramachandran, Phantoms in the Brain.
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Definitions
After running into the phrase “caplet-shaped tablets,” I thought I’d better have my definitions straight.
tablet: n, A small flat pellet of medication to be taken orally.
caplet: n, A smooth, coated, oval-shaped medicine tablet intended to be tamper-resistant.
pellet: n, A small, solid or densely packed ball or mass, as of food, wax, or medicine.
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Maurice Sendak interview with Bill Moyers
Watch it here. This was from 2004.
And these people didn’t speak English. And they were unkempt. Their teeth were horrifying. Nose… unraveling out of their hair, unraveling out of their noses. And they’d pick you up and hug you and kiss you, “Aggghh. Oh, we could eat you up.” And we know they would eat anything, anything. And so, they’re the wild things. And...
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Name that element
The TierneyLab blog on nytimes.com has a post about the periodic table of elements. Ace a quick quiz on the elements, then write a one-paragraph essay, and you can score a new book by Theodore Gray called The Elements.
My favorite answer is by sbh, and it goes with the topic of “The most misunderstood element is silicon.” Here is an excerpt:
Silicon is the element and semiconductor....
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House Industries presents Alexander Girard →
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Hello, I am not looking for a big project. I am looking for a signup forum for...
– An email I received. Don’t you love the clarity and the perfect grammar?
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We ought, then, to stop kidding ourselves that painstakingly developed artistic...
– Has Conceptual Art Jumped the Shark Tank? by Denis Dutton
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Hooray for adding links to tags!
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Why forest lakes have a short lifespan
From the time a lake is created, it begins to fill with dead plants, eroded soil material and other sediment. As dead plants break down, they reduce oxygen levels in the lake. This, in turn, slows down decay causing more vegetation to build up on the bottom and the lake gets shallower. Water-loving plants around the shore gradually extend to the middle of the lake to form a swamp. Eventually,...
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Good Reads →
Having a way to track the books you read is kind of neat. But someone give this site a re-design please. Why does it feel like I’m shopping on the Barnes & Noble website?
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Years ago you told me about a nun of the middle centuries who confused her...
– James Thurber, cartoonist, writing to his ophthalmologist about his visual hallucinations.
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(Thanks, Bonnie!)
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Recipe here.
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Claiming a prize six decades in the making, Donald L. Unger of Thousand Oaks,...
– Gas-Mask Bra, Tequila Diamonds Among 2009 Ig Nobels
Of all the stuff I’ve read about the Ig Nobel Prizes (which isn’t a lot), this is the first time I’ve read that the award honors science ”that first makes people laugh, and then makes them think.”
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Come on, Epson!
I’m finding that Epson is being extremely sloppy and unhelpful with their printer drivers for Snow Leopard. I went to the page for the Photo Stylus 1280 (a printer that is no longer in production, but still works perfectly), and accessed the link for the latest OS 10.6 drivers. Subsequently, I was directed to a page for a something called EasyPrint, the new printing software from Epson made...