I... Don't... Understand!

Trawling through internet videos (the good kind) (sort of), I suddenly realized I had fallen into watching material that I had no hope of understanding. Twicely so.

the highlights:

"The Secret Life of Plants"

"Gastrulation"

and the kicker,

"real arabic ghost"

on the upside, tonight I finally found the answer to a question which has bugged me for 15 years (but not the thumb and the flappy thing one, or the embryo gone rogue question) - what's on the other side of my belly button? more to come.

Houston, We Have A., Um, Problem

Incontrovertible proof that Richard Gere has been in space:

Twenty [sexual] positions were tested by computer simulation to obtain the best 10... "Two guinea pigs then tested them in real zero-gravity conditions. The results were videotaped but are considered so sensitive that even Nasa was only given a censored version."

Now if we only could get our hands on the original tape. Where to look? Hmmmm...

p.s. -Sly Stallone says that Richard Gere thinks Hhe's responsible for the rumor. I did not know this.

Boy Do I Love Animated GIFs

So Wait - Sara Vowell Runs the Trilateral Commission?

I heard that there was this online clip of Ira Glass in a cartoon called Mr. Sprinkles, which is right here.

I tried to find it on youtube, and when I searched Sprinkles and Glass, I got this: "Masons, Satanism, Child's Sacrifices & Reptilians". Not quite in the same catergory. And now my brain is leaking out of my nose.

guh!

p.s. - over to the right, in the description, where you click 'more', they really mean more. Okay. I will push my brain back up my nose.

Later.

Would You Put a Chocoteck in Your Mouth?

Hell, no!

That's why they changed the name to 'Pocky'.

Pocky comes in many flavors. There is chocolate pocky, almond pocky - even grape pocky.

And there is mousse pocky, and fortune pocky, and pudding pocky - and inside-out pocky (with strawberry frosting on the inside!)!

I must not sleep until I've eaten all this Pocky!


And I am Milk Pocky, by the way.

***You Are Milk Pocky***

Your attitude: caring and charming
Smooth and silkly... invigorating and natural.
You are like comfort food for the soul.


What Flavor Pocky Are You?

You Say Mate-Guarding, I Say Marathon Love-Making

Antechinus is a small, carnivorous marsupial.

[I]n order to ensure breeding success, male Antechinuses strip their body of vital proteins and also suppress the immune system so as to free up additional metabolic energy. In this way an individual male trades away long term survival in return for short term breeding success, and following the breeding season there is a complete die-off of physiologically exhausted males... Males produce large amounts of testosterone and mate-guarding occurs in the form of protracted copulation (up to twelve hours in some species).

The females can store sperm for up to three days in specialized sperm-storage crypts in the ovary and do not ovulate until the end of the breeding season. Many litters have multiple-paternity (i.e. several fathers contribute to a single litter). Females can live for 2-3 years, however this is unusual, and most females die following the weaning of their first litter. Litters size depends on the number of teats in the pouch. There are as few as 4 teats, usually 8, and in some populations up to 10 can occur. It is currently unknown why teat number varies, however it is likely that in food-poor environments selection has tended towards fewer teats so that there is a greater parental investment per offspring.

An Antechinus baby can weigh as little as 4 grams and are some of the smallest Australian native animal babies.

Don't Eat Your Shoes, and Seriously - Watch Out for Bears!

from wikihow:

How to Survive in the Woods

Caves can be great [shelter], but be sure the cave is not already occupied by bears, large cats, snakes or other unfriendly animals; they know caves are good too, and they've been looking for good shelter for longer than you have. Also make sure it's not going to collapse on you- this reduces your chances of survival considerably.

Bear dens are excellent shelters as they provide protection from the elements, but many times you'll find that a bear will not welcome you into its home; unless it is eating you.

Shoe/Boot laces make good rope in an emergency situation, but remember once they're removed, walking will become more difficult.

Chewing leather is bad advice for most modern, chemical-tanned leathers, (great way to poison yourself with chromium and other toxic chemicals)! Besides, do you really want to trade your only real foot protection for a couple of calories? Protect your shoes so you can take a hike to look for nutrition!

Etymolgy and Entomolgy*, Part 2

The word 'teeny' - anything to do with 'teen'? According to my exhaustive research (I am goddamn exhausted), not in the least.

So 'teen' comes (I think) from 'ten' - via Germanic or Norse languages. Like, in German, 'thirteen' is dreizehn (literally, 'three ten'). And I assumed that 'teeny' and/or 'teensy' derived from '-teen'.

Not so!

Teeny comes from an alteration of 'tiny' (duh!), modified to resemble the long-e of 'wee'. And teensy is a further modification of 'teeny'.

Now, back to teen. Fascinatingly enough, according to the Online Etymological Dictionary, "teenager is from 1941 (the earlier word for this was teener, attested in Anmer.Eng. from 1894). Teen-aged (adj.) is from 1952; shortened form teen is from 1951 (though this had been used as a noun to mean "teen-aged person" in 1818)."

Lastly, to address the asterisk in this post's title. In the course of researching this post, I came across the following web page - Teeny Nymph. This is the winner of my annual "Not A Porn Site, Although by All Accounts It Should Be" Award.

What type of fly-fishing lure is this? Well, "Teeny Nymphs are simple shrimp-like flies that are constructed entirely of cock Ring Neck Pheasant tail fibers." That's right. Made out of cock ring.

Huzzah.

Etymolgy and Entomolgy, Part 1

So I'm thinking about termites, and a thought hits me - wow. "What if termite comes from French Terre meaning earth, plus the word 'mite'?" Like an earth mite - a little bug that lives in the ground?

No go. At all, apparently. According to all the dictionaries around, the name comes from termes, which is Latin for 'termite', and which itself derives from the older Latin tarmes, 'wood-eating worm'. Okay. I can deal with that.

And worse, though, turns out mites aren't even insects. They're arachnids. So I am not only wrong, but on very shaky ground.

But it's okay, because now I am wiser.

Also, I learned that termite queens, when egg-filled, increase their size by about a hundredfold, and so can't really move around on their own. So the queen's got to be pushed from place to place by workers. Afterwards, she will shoot a rewarding juice out of her ass for them.

And, termites have soldiers, which can squirt noxious liquids or toxic glue (!!) from their heads. Wow.

Wow.

How Do You Solve a Problem Like MacGyver?

Here are some of MacGyver's ideas (schemes?) from the first season. I remember only like about half of these.

The Heist (1x05)

In order to create a distraction to swap the dice at a craps table, using some string and a paper clip, MacGyver fastens the string to the paper clip then attaches it to the dress of a woman who is walking nearby and steps on the string, pulling down her dress thereby creating a distraction and allowing him to swap the dice.

Target MacGyver (1x10)

MacGyver uses several pinecones to act as ad hoc grenades / land mines. (Pine Sap has some latent explosive properties).

Macgyver gets Harry to fill his vest with sticks and twigs to act as a diversion.

The Enemy Within (1x15)

MacGyver uses a dubious ultrasonic device to crack the eyeglasses of a would-be assailant.

Ugly Duckling (1x18)

The secondary character (the episode title's namesake) attempts to break out of a shed with barred windows using an impromptu arc welder using battery terminals and a small metal object. (MacGyver pulls the same trick in the episode "Trumbo's World"), but is unable to get out because the bars are too hot. MacGyver cools the bars off using a spray can which "contains hydrocarbons".

A Prisoner of Conscience (1x21)

MacGyver plugs a sink in a small janitor's closet with a cloth, puts caulk around the rim of a bucket then pours a hardening agent onto the caulked rim claiming "caulking compound mixed with the proper hardening agent makes a unique version of Russian Crazy Glue"... [A] guard inspects the device and when he picks it up has his hands glued to the bucket.

The Human Factor (2x01)

As laser-wielding robots home in on his body heat, MacGyver creates a fake heat signature by using magnets wrapped in burning paper.

And I leave you with a cliffhanger, the first episode of the second season. I'll bet you weren't expecting that. Will the second season continue? Who knows! Maybe.
.

Fancy Gitmo Underpants

Re: The Issue of Underwear (“Discovery of ‘Contraband Clothing’ in the Cases of Shaker Aamer (ISN 239) and Mohammed el-Gharani (ISN 269)”

So a Navy Commander at Gitmo has accused a lawyer of surreptitiously supplying underpants (and a Speedo!) to 2 detainees. Here is part of the response. For the original letter (and the full response), follow the link (above).

[edited a lot - no elipses, though, but you should go to the link to read the whole thing]

I will confess that I have never received such an extraordinary letter in my entire career. I take accusations that I may have committed a criminal act very seriously.

[Your] records prove that nobody associated with my office has seen Mr. Aamer for a full year. Thus, it is physically impossible for us to have delivered anything to him that recently surfaced on his person. Surely you do not suggest that in your maximum security prison, where Mr. Aamer has been held in solitary confinement almost continuously since September 24, 2005, and where he has been more closely monitored than virtually any prisoner on the Base, your staff have missed the fact that he has been wearing both Speedos and ‘Under Armor’ for 12 months?

Without bringing this up with me, it was therefore patently clear that my office had nothing to do with this question of lingerie. However, I am unwilling to allow the issue of underwear to drop there. Getting to the bottom of this would help. I have done a little research to help you in your investigations.

I had never heard of ‘Under Armor briefs’ until you mentioned them, and my internet research has advanced my knowledge in two ways – first, Under Armour apparently sports a ‘U’ in its name, which is significant only because it helps with the research.

There must be other clues as to the provenance of these underpants. Perhaps you might check the label to see whether these are ‘tactical’ underwear, as this is apparently something Under Armour has created specially for the military.

[T]he Tactical section of the Under Armour Web site features military models, not athletes. In one image, a soldier poised on one knee wears a LooseGear shirt, looking as if he’d just as soon take a hill as take off on a run. His muscular arms protrude from the tight, olive-colored fabric. He’s a picture of soldierliness. And he’s totally dry.

I understand that other people use Under Armour. One group I noticed on the web were the amateur weight lifters, who seem confused as to whether Under Armour gave them a competitive advantage.

On the issue of the Speedo swimming trunks, my research really does not help very much.

I should say that your letter brought to mind a sign in the changing room of a local swimming pool, which showed someone diving into a lavatory, with the caption, “We don’t swim in your toilet, so please don’t pee in our pool”.

Some Thing is Lost in the Translated

This is Dschinghis Khan's Moskau


This might be where I actually picked up "Huzzah" from, years ago. Watch it til at least Joel and the Bots sing.


Spare Me My Life!


Mother!

Part Twelve of 24

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# Daft Punk

1) cHARLESTON sTYLE

2) dAFT hANDS

3) wHERE dAFT pUNK gOT tHEIR sAMPLES fROM

Why Are Kids Shows Always So Evil?

At least, the British ones about old man scarecrows are.


I present to you Worzel Gummidge.

Thank god that I'm not British and of the right age, because this would have scared the bejabbers out of me. Already, I feel retraumatized.

MacGyver as Robinsonade

Apparently, MacGyver comes from a long literary tradition of people improvising solutions out of the crap around them.

This tradition's named the Robinsonade, after Dafoe's Robinson Crusoe.

Who knew?

Hiya!

Plant Nemesis; or, Searching for Why My Tomatoes Aren't Doing So Well

Along with those black, scabby tomatoes you sent me, you have done an excellent job describing the plant nemesis called Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus...Infected tomato plants have many small, dark, circular spots on younger leaves. Leaves may have a bronzed appearance and later turn dark brown and withered. Flushes of new growth are yellowish and distorted. Fruit has many spots about one-half inch in diameter with concentric, circular markings.

On ripe fruit these markings are alternate bands of red and yellow.

Pepper fruits may have dead spots as well.

Insects named thrips are the culprits that spreads the virus. Insects feed on a plant with virus and transmit it to another plant. Not all insects spread virus.

Thrips! Aaugh!

from http://plantanswers.tamu.edu/vegetables/tomato.html

Which Race is Older?

And what language would a feral child speak?

A method to test, per Herodotus, (the Father of "History") -

actually, via Herodotus, per the ancient Egyptians.

Now the Egyptians, before the reign of their king Psammetichus, believed themselves to be the most ancient of mankind. Since Psammetichus, however, made an attempt to discover who were actually the primitive race, they have been of opinion that while they surpass all other nations, the Phrygians surpass them in antiquity. This king, finding it impossible to make out by dint of inquiry what men were the most ancient, contrived the following method of discovery:-

He took two children of the common sort, and gave them over to a herdsman to bring up at his folds, strictly charging him to let no one utter a word in their presence, but to keep them in a sequestered cottage, and from time to time introduce goats to their apartment, see that they got their fill of milk, and in all other respects look after them.

So after two years, the herdsman opens the door, and one of the kids goes "Becos!", which apparently sounds a lot like the Phrygian word for bread (this connection was made by pharaoh Psammetichus himself).

So the Phrygians are older, is what they figured.

Great page, by the way.

This Is Not 24 Either!

hell no.