Morning Coffee Monthly Archive

The Face of Voldemort?

Coffee is important

According to Turkish law, a woman who does not get her daily quota of coffee from her husband has grounds for divorce, instead.

Now they had their priorities straight.

Not Sorry Enough

i cannot believe the author of the article does not have to sign, and that nobody has yet been fired. Asian Media Watchdog has issued a response, as has the model, Peter Kim, who had no idea how they would use his image. (Hey, he is gorgeous. Oops, that was wrong.) i have not yet found a response from anyone in the GLBT community.

^‡ Here is the response that was sent to people who wrote letters of protest:

Continue reading "Not Sorry Enough"

La Parfumerie Prochaine

P.S. The word assassin is from the arabic for “hashish eater” so we slipped a little patchouli in as a little something for the weekend.

Thanks, Prospero

What the...

You have to have your audio on to have the full Melanie Griffith experience.

Dear Delphi,

Thank you.

Emma Watson

Kindly refrain from creepy comments for three more years. In the meantime, you have the Olsen twins (ew) to tide you over, but frankly i never want to hear those creepy comments.

Domesticity

Also born (almost) on this date

Crap, i missed Shakespeare's birthday on 4/23. That's OK, they do not seem to be too sure about that date anyway, and he was christened on the 26th, which makes this just about right.

Simpsons Season IV

Top five episodes:

Born on this date

Felix Klein, 1849, Dusseldorf He was born on 25/4/1849 and delighted in pointing out that each of the day (52), month (22), and year (432) was the square of a prime. What a geek :)

"Everyone knows what a curve is, until he has studied enough mathematics to become confused through the countless number of possible exceptions."

-- Klein, Quoted in C B Boyer, The Invention of Analytic Geometry, Scientific American 180 (1949)

Wolfgang Pauli, 1900, Vienna. Edwin Wilson, 1879, Hartford. Andrey Kolmogorov, 1903, Tambov Province (Russia)

After mentioning the highly significant paper Analytic methods in probability theory which Kolmogorov published in 1938 laying the foundations of the theory of Markov random processes, they continue to describe:

... his ideas in set-theoretic topology, approximation theory, the theory of turbulent flow, functional analysis, the foundations of geometry, and the history and methodology of mathematics. [His contributions to] each of these branches ... [is] a single whole, where a serious advance in one field leads to a substantial enrichment of the others.

Siméon-Denis Poisson, however, died on this date in 1840.

Geek Surfing

Just wait until she starts publishing her own trippy work.

It came from... PLANET EARTH

Deinococcus radiodurans

Don't these NASA types usually read science fiction? Or watch Star Trek? They should know better.

Super Size Me

While you are at the Coolidge events page, note that SUPER SIZE ME is showing May 18th, with discussion with the Boston Psychoanalytical Society (FWIW). i cannot WAIT to see it.

(It opens at the Coolidge on May 7th, and i believe continues until June 3d.)

John! Waters!

At the Coolidge midnight on May 1st, according to the marquee, and the website, but you have to scroll down the events page a bit.

It is a sordid little burg, isn't it?

Ian Brennan and the Independent Film Festival of Boston present John Waters live in-person to perform his hilarious one-man show detailing his groundbreaking career in a rapid-fire stand-up comedy format, and discuss his shocking new return-to-form "A Dirty Shame" (starring Johnny Knoxville and Chris Isaak. Plus he'll conduct an audience Q & A afterwards.

(i seem to spend every May 1st at the Coolidge, for some strange reason.)

Green Line Dining Guide

http://www.greenlinemenus.com/ This could be nice if it develops.

Baby's first PCR

i know, i know, it is just a little battery-operated electrophoresis kit, but still, how cute is this?

DNA Explorer Kit Sara Dyer (Action Girl/Space Ghost/Evan Dorkin's business and life partner/etc.) is promoting it on her blog. (Weird, i though i originally learned about it from her last year. Maybe it was /. Whatever, it is NEAT.)

Frankly, though, i would rather have the Forensics lab. Man, i wish i had one of those when i was a kid. What would i have done? Blood splatter patterns! Ballistics! You could use the DNA they send you to do Barbie's rape kit! (Note to self: never Google that again.)

Hey, Hey, Hey!

It's FAT ALBERT

NAGL, you sweetheart!

Despite the fact that i am not a model, i was apparently forgiven, for i received a gorgeous CD from Nagl when i came in to work today. It also came with a lovely postcard of the Glaswegian Science Centre:

It is just the thing to get me through finals week. The element of surprise made it that much sweeter. i shall listen to it immediately! (Don't worry Jon, i will not spoil your reputation of being a crochety old codger.)

Harry Potter Mania Redux

Let the next wave begin, starting with the Dr. Demento hit Sirius Black, to the tune of Sir Mix-a-Lot's Baby got Back.

Also, ABC's May 9th FOUR-HOUR broadcast of Sorcerer's Stone will be an extended version, also featuring, of course, all of the tie-ins for Azkaban including a 10-minute sneak peek trailer. Only losers would wait to see that on the internet, i suppose.

All this and other indispensible HP news to be found at HPANA, The Harry Potter Automatic News Aggregator.

In other news, i think something is going on in Iraq... i should take down my countdown to getting rid of Bush and replace it with the countdown to PoA. Where are my priorities?

Hale-Bopp

Oh, yes, i remember it well.

Today's Reading

My deck has a history of giving scary readings that are never what i want to hear and generally pretty on-the-nose.

Basic three-card hope-fear-opportunity layout:

Here, you tell ME what it means! Seriously, i am wide open for suggestions here.

Gawker?

Why are these people advertising on Gawker?

Is that really the target audience? If it is, then so many things have become more clear to me. That is just not really what i associate with Gawker at ALL.

Rice testimony

This series of articles (from the 12th until today) is one of the sites that i found while looking for anyone doing a decent job of fact-checking the Rice testimony. From The Daily Howler, via Billmon, via Tom Tomorrow, all very fine reading.

^‡Seriously - what did you expect me to say, Fox News? The online coverage from CNN has been pretty underwhelming. See, for example Reaction to Rice no match for Easter weekend, the alarmingly irony-free article about how nobody cares.

Diebold pt II: it gets better

i should feel worse about getting all of my news from The Daily Show and Sk8, but i really don't feel that bad at all. More things to give me Diebold nightmares i do not need.

(This guy Avi is a CompSci prof at Johns Hopkins, specializing in cryptography. He has a really scary story about being an election judge in a recent Balmer race. He also has a backup of that Daily Show clip. which actually plays much more smoothly than the version from the CC site.)

Speaking of Viagra

Apparently it is more difficult that you would think to get Viagra online, but this intrepid reporter persevered.
From Cruel Site of the Day.

Anyway, partway into the seventeenth or eighteenth time, I suddenly realized that my wife hadn't taken a drug. She was this way naturally. Do you see what I'm, ah, driving at here? Suddenly I was made aware of how little I had been doing all these years to satisfy my wife! Viagra SUCKS!

High-quality spam

http://www.hellomerry.com/sciencegrrl2/archives/001299.html

Of course i usually delete these things, but this one is so much more cultured and thought-provoking than anything anyone ever posts here that i do not have the heart.

Awww, then he has to go and undermine it with odd non-native english and excessive use of emoticons. *sigh*

Ms. Merry tells me that the next version of MT wil have new spam-blocking capabilites. How will i know where to purchase fake Viagra then?

Ravioli recipe

This recipe for Wild Mushroom Ravioli could be modified to get close to the appetizer we had today; you would need to add some sherry when sautéeing the mushrooms, and top it with a nice Béchamel sauce and some grated Parrano, and you would not be too far off. i would probably not go with the wonton wrappers to make them (as much as i adore that trick) since the pasta we had was far more delicate. Mmmmm.

Salem

Wow, that did me a world of good. And now i know where to get the best mushroom ravioli ever.

No! Way! You can stay at Castle Brattahlid (the Herreshoff Castle)!

Over-Baked Armpits Fueled Great Kitchen Migration

Is there anything better than a good mnemonics? i am so jealous that i had not thought of this contest for CH 101/102!

http://www.astro.sunysb.edu/fwalter/AST101/mnemonic.html

http://lheawww.gsfc.nasa.gov/users/allen/obafgkmrns.html

Everything is better with Muppets

Even horrifying things. Where is Supergrover when we need him? Current terror alert level:

Political porn

John Ashcroft's likeness made of little porn people and an image of Bush made of sphincters.

NWS, duh! Stolen from Tom Tomorrow

ETA : ouch, this one is a bit more sobering, an image of Rumsfeld made out of pictures of servicemen and women who have fallen in the Iraqi conflict.

Spacegirls

Ever since Mary Poppins i have adored the Pleiades, and now here they are with Venus. It is like a celestial pajama party. So pretty!

If you look in closely, you can make out features:

Still addicted

i was hoping i would be sick of it by now, but it is apparently not going to happen. Seriously, at $4 per, i need a second job to support my habit. i am getting really antsy to comparison shop, maybe find something more affordable. Damn you Joe, whoever you are.

Epiphany

Based on the recommendation of some very smart ladies i know, i got the Sonicare 4100 this week. Oh. My. God. It is like getting a dental cleaning every day. Honestly, how did i live without this device? Why did no one tell me sooner!?

Really, never.

Though it is cute. i do not think i could bear to eat it.

Oh, shit, NO PUN INTENDED! (Stolen from the fantastically talented and funny Charity.)

Neato!

Speaking of perfectly round balls... *ducks*

Scientists levitate ultra-pure glass

By Tariq Malik
SPACE.com Thursday, April 1, 2004

An experiment originally designed to fly on the International Space Station led a team of researchers to develop a completely new type of glass, a material formed while floating in mid-air in a NASA laboratory on Earth.

Using static electrical fields to levitate the material, scientists were able to construct a pure glass, free of any contamination typically associated with containers. It could serve as the centerpiece for new medical and industrial lasers, as well as have broadband Internet applications.

More in link

i will never understand the Japanese

Happy Kanamara Matsuri! ^__^ ...Other attractions include locals carving penises out of daikon (radish), children and young women sitting astride penis-shaped seesaws for good luck and fertility blessings, as well as a seated banquet in the compound of Kanamara Jinja (aka Wakamiya Hachiman-gu shrine) where the phallic radishes are auctioned...

Cassius

My friend Tina came over last night, and under my guidance she made her first lasagna ever. (Her first anything ever, really, it was a Big Deal.) She named him Cassius. We danced with joy and drank to his glory.

AND HE WAS DELICIOUS. He was even better as left-overs this morning.

She took pictures to show her mom; i will post them once they are developed (yes, i am the only person on earth who still uses film outside of a professional context, apparently).

Oh, wait

Nobody is going to jump out and shout "April Fools", are they. i was really hoping to hear that this was all a joke. Dammit.

Environmentalism, wow.

Well, i have returned to my crunchy roots. No, i was never a deadhead or a phishhead, bite your tongue. i am newly car-free and lov...

Well, i am car-free, anyway. i wish it were out of nobility rather than being a world-class fuck-up, but what're you gonna do? And just in time for Earth Day 2K4!