head-smashed-in

Thursday Tea

2009-11-11T16:24:00.003-05:00

Thursday's Tea has been expropriated by CP and Algea.

CP will be bringing goumet pizza - in fulfillment of a gambling debt, while Algea has donated some delectable Danny DeVito Limoncello, currently on display as today's product placement.

See you tomorrow at 4:00!

Introducing The Weezer Snuggie

2009-11-11T06:45:00.002-05:00

New York Times: No single piece of clothing says “neutered invertebrate” or “cult member” quite like the Snuggie (“the blanket with sleeves!”). For more than a year, these large, shapeless swaths of cheap fleece designed for lying on the couch and working the remote have inexplicably remained fixed in the kitsch cultural firmament. There are fan tribute sites, YouTube homages and pub crawls; Oprah, Ellen and Al Roker have worn them on camera. Most incredible of all, more than five million have been sold.

TV Ad at the link!

Pigs (ergo, men) are smart!

2009-11-10T23:15:00.002-05:00

Or at least, so Natalie Angier reports in the New York Times:

We’ve all heard the story of the third Little Pig, who foiled the hyperventilating wolf by building his house out of bricks, rather than with straw or sticks as his brothers had done. Less commonly known is that the pig later improved his home’s safety profile by installing convex security mirrors at key points along the driveway.

Well, why not? In the current issue of Animal Behaviour, researchers present evidence that domestic pigs can quickly learn how mirrors work and will use their understanding of reflected images to scope out their surroundings and find their food...

[...]

The finding is just one in a series of recent discoveries from the nascent study of pig cognition. Other researchers have found that pigs are brilliant at remembering where food stores are cached and how big each stash is relative to the rest. They’ve shown that Pig A can almost instantly learn to follow Pig B when the second pig shows signs of knowing where good food is stored, and that Pig B will try to deceive the pursuing pig and throw it off the trail so that Pig B can hog its food in peace.

They’ve found that pigs are among the quickest of animals to learn a new routine, and pigs can do a circus’s worth of tricks: jump hoops, bow and stand, spin and make wordlike sounds on command, roll out rugs, herd sheep, close and open cages, play videogames with joysticks, and more. For better or worse, pigs are also slow to forget. “They can learn something on the first try, but then it’s difficult for them to unlearn it,” said Suzanne Held of the University of Bristol. “They may get scared once and then have trouble getting over it.”

[...]

...Even on a cursory glance, “the pig genome compares favorably with the human genome,” said Lawrence Schook of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, one of the team leaders.

“Very large sections are maintained in complete pieces,” he said, barely changed in the 100-million-plus years since the ancestors of hogs and humans diverged.

Dr. Schook is particularly eager to see if the many physiological and behavioral parallels between humans and pigs are reflected in our respective genomes. Pig hearts are like our hearts, he said, pigs metabolize drugs as we do, their teeth resemble our teeth, and their habits can, too. “I look at the pig as a great animal model for human lifestyle diseases,” he said. “Pigs like to lie around, they like to drink if given the chance, they’ll smoke and watch TV.”

AZ Update

2009-11-10T16:36:00.002-05:00

AZ has checked in from her outpost in the old world. She and RV are off to get their driver's licenses, and a visa for RV.

RV has been writing a book, and we presume might be interested in reviewers. If you're interested in Fantasy, perhaps drop him a line.

AZ says to tell everyone that she misses them.

WPI, about.

2009-11-10T13:24:00.006-05:00

From their website:

Founded in Worcester, Mass., in 1865, WPI was one of the nation's earliest [private] technological universities. From our founding days, we've taken a unique approach to science and technology education.

WPI is ranked No. 62 among all national, doctoral universities by U.S. News & World Report; No. 1 for student/faculty interaction in the National Survey of Student Engagement; and No. 9 by The Princeton Review for "best career prospects" for graduates of our MBA program. And that's just the beginning of the recognition we've received from a large number of institutions and individuals for our high quality and unique approach to education.

There's more here...

...Also, maybe kinda quirky:

Woo-hoo! Aerosmith may be no more!

2009-11-09T08:05:00.003-05:00

Rumors have it that Steven Tyler has left the building!

CBC has the dirt...

Tyler has 'quit' Aerosmith, bandmate says, November 8

Rock band Aerosmith could be on the verge of a split, with a report by at least one newspaper that guitarist Joe Perry believes frontman Steven Tyler has left the band.

"Steven quit, as far as I can tell," Perry told the Las Vegas Sun on Friday.

"I don't know any more than you do about it. I got off the plane two nights ago. I saw online that Steven said that he was going to leave the band."

Another Wall Street First!

2009-11-05T13:49:00.003-05:00

Wall Street Banks Getting Swine Flu Vaccine Before Many High-Risk Groups (VIDEO)

While thousands of at-risk Americans wait, some big Wall Street banks have already secured the hard-to-find H1N1 vaccine for their employees.

Building on a story that BusinessWeek broke, NBC reports that employees at the New York Stock Exchange, bankers at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, and employees at the Federal Reserve have all received swine flu vaccine doses to administer to their employees.

Tea!

2009-11-05T11:46:00.002-05:00

Today's Tea will have a guest contribution from RD. He considers it to be a mere trifle, but it will add to the merriment of the occasion.

See you at 4:00.

Cat catches swine flu

2009-11-04T16:28:00.003-05:00

Does the swine flu pandemic pose a threat to your pet? Yes, according to a report out today from the American Veterinary Medical Association.

A cat in Iowa has tested positive for the H1N1 virus, state officials confirmed this morning, "marking the first time a cat has been diagnosed with this strain of influenza," the association said in a statement.

[...]

Before this kitty was diagnosed with the swine flu, the virus had been found in humans, pigs, birds and ferrets, the association said.

Profit `Not Satanic,’ Barclays Says, After Goldman Invokes Jesus

2009-11-04T14:30:00.002-05:00

From Bloomberg

By Simon Clark and Caroline Binham, November 4

Barclays Plc Chief Executive Officer John Varley stood at the wooden lectern in St. Martin-in-the-Fields on London’s Trafalgar Square last night and told the packed pews of the church that “profit is not satanic.”

The 53-year-old head of Britain’s second-biggest bank said banks are the “backbone” of the economy. Rewarding high- performing bankers with more pay doesn’t conflict with Christian values, he said. Varley was paid 1.08 million pounds ($1.77 million) and no bonus in 2008.

“Talent is highly mobile,” Varley, a Catholic, said. “If we fail to pay or are constrained from paying competitive rates then that talent will move to another employer.”

“Is Christianity and banking compatible? Yes,” he said in an interview after the speech in the 283-year-old church. “And is Christianity and fair reward compatible? Yes.”

Varley joins Goldman Sachs International adviser Brian Griffiths and Lazard International Chairman Ken Costa as London bankers who’ve gone into London churches in recent weeks and invoked Christianity to defend a banking system that critics say has created wealth and inequality in the U.K.

“The injunction of Jesus to love others as ourselves is an endorsement of self-interest,” Goldman’s Griffiths said Oct. 20, his voice echoing around the gold-mosaic walls of St. Paul’s Cathedral, whose 365-feet-high dome towers over the City, London’s financial district. “We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieving greater prosperity and opportunity for all.”

Maine Couple Embarassed Nationwide!

2009-11-03T20:38:00.004-05:00

KISS AND CAST: Priscilla Stevenson waits to be served a ballot by clerk Tom Lane as Jack Mahoney kisses clerk Nancy Mullen before getting his ballot this morning at the polls in Wayne. Poll workers said the turnout was heavy.(Staff photo by Andy Molloy)

Mainers do it on Election Day...

Vital Research

2009-11-03T14:44:00.001-05:00

Linux Kernel Swear Counts

OncoMed Pharmaceutical Services of Massachusetts

2009-11-03T14:01:00.004-05:00

OncoMed Pharmaceutical Services of Massachusetts
Domestic Profit Corporation, ID: 001011992
Organized in Massachusetts: 9/16/2009
President, Treasurer, Director: Kaveh Askari, of Great Neck, NY
CEO, Secretary, Director: Burt Zweigenhaft, of New York, NY

Website. Management.

Not to be confused with OncoMed Pharmaceuticals

They like us! They really, really like us!

2009-11-01T12:28:00.002-05:00

Via AFP, we have this juicy nugget:

Run on Iceland McDonald's as chain flips last burgers

AFP, October 31

REYKJAVIK — Noisy crowds, long queues, and traffic jams plunged McDonald's restaurants in Iceland into a state of siege Saturday, as the chain served its final burgers on the island.

Icelanders flooded the three branches of the US fast-food restaurant in Reykjavik several hours before the outlets shut for the last time, forced to close after the island's economic collapse caused running costs to soar.

Extra staff were deployed to reinforce the outlets, whose disappearance after 16 years means Iceland will be one of the few Western countries without a presence of the ubiquitous eatery.

Customers in one branch faced a 20-minute wait to be served and snaking lines of cars caused traffic jams at the drive-in.

[...]

"We are here to say goodbye," said Orri Hreinsson, who was sitting with two friends at a table covered with 12 cheeseburgers.

Que Es Mas Macho?

2009-10-31T11:00:00.004-04:00

P!nk: Please, Please Don't Leave Me

or Jacques Brel: Ne Me Quitte Pas (with English subtitles)

Apologies for not embedding - it's disabled.

Cell Size and Scale

2009-10-31T10:48:00.003-04:00

Interesting Graphic...

Bear cubs purr?

2009-10-28T11:39:00.001-04:00

AZ details...

2009-10-27T14:53:00.001-04:00

AZ has been hired - she starts work on November 2.

She will have 30 days vacation per year, plus two weeks off at Christmastime, plus 4 days at Easter, and various other Christian holidays, too.

She says Hi to everyone, she misses us.

She plans to journey to Hyderabad, Delhi, and Kerala in September 2010. We'll have to call her Indie, at least for that month.

Also, don't you think employment suits her?

Hired!

2009-10-26T23:24:00.001-04:00

AZ reports that she's in the process of being hired! Hip Hip! Hurray!

Also, did you know? There's a church tax in Germany?

Thank God for the 1st Amendment!

Veg - Non Veg

2009-10-26T13:06:00.002-04:00

VS has some company in her outlook on life.

Does it rain more frequently on the weekend?

2009-10-23T11:18:00.002-04:00

Yes! (Along the US East Coast, at least).

Back when chaos theory was in fashion, aficionados used to talk about butterflies flapping their wings over Peking and causing cyclones in Fiji. The study of apparently innocuous events and their effect on the weather has one again come to the fore with researchers from Arizona State University (ASU) finding some interesting correlation between pollution and rainfall.

The study, published in Nature, suggests that rain is most likely to occur along the US Atlantic coast on the weekend and the weather is most likely to be better on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. The most obvious culprit is the "natural" cloud-seeding effect created by the massive drift of East Coast pollution, which also follows a well defined weekly cycle. Even Atlantic hurricanes may feel the punch of the workweek, according to the study.

Benford's Law

2009-10-23T10:51:00.003-04:00

Today we visit another of those counter-intuitive laws of mathematics, Benford's Law.

Wouldn't you think that the initial digit in in a large set of numbers would follow a random distribution? That's to say, wouldn't 1 as initial digit occur as frequently as 5 or 9?

Turns out, in practice, not to be so. (Although some sets of numbers - like lottery ticket numbers - don't follow the law).

The frequency of a digit n turns out to be f = LOG((n+1)/n), which looks like this:

Details are available at the link above.

AZ News!

2009-10-22T18:47:00.002-04:00

AZ has written from her far away locale to say that she's got two interviews this week. One of them she really likes, and they seem to like her pretty well, too.

Also, she misses us.

Bonne chance (er, viel Glueck), AZ!

Boston Terrorist Apprehended

2009-10-21T15:05:00.003-04:00

Mass. Man Arrested in Terrorism Case

Da New Yawk Times, By Abby Goodnough & Liz Robbins, October 21

BOSTON — A man living in suburban Boston was arrested on Wednesday on federal terrorism charges of conspiring to attack people at a shopping mall in the United States and two members of the executive branch of the federal government.

The man, Tarek Mehanna, 27, was charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. The conspiracy occurred from 2001 to 2008, said the acting United States attorney, Michael K. Loucks, at a news conference here Wednesday.

Mr. Loucks said Mr. Mehanna had conspired with others — including Ahmad Abousamra, who has fled to Syria — and had “multiple conversations” to carry out attacks in and outside of the United States.

[...]

In May 2008, Mr. Mehanna graduated from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, where his father is a professor of medicinal chemistry. Mr. Mehanna has been living with his parents in the affluent Boston suburb of Sudbury, Mass. He was out on bail from an earlier arrest, in November 2008, at Logan airport, when he was charged with lying to federal investigators in a 2006 interview about a friend and suspected terrorist, Daniel Maldonado.

[...]

Mr. Mehanna is the fifth person living in the United States to be arrested on terrorism charges in the past five months, although investigators said that his failed conspiracy was not on the same scale as the two most recent cases.

Sudbury neighbors shocked by terrorism suspect's arrest

Da Bawstin Globe, By John R. Ellement, October 21

SUDBURY – Neighbors said today that terrorism suspect Tarek Mehanna never struck them as someone who had violence in his heart – or in his future.

Cafic Maalouf, 47, who lives down the street from the Mehanna family, said he spoke with Mehanna within the past few weeks as the 27-year-old was cutting the lawn on his family’s home on Fairhaven Circle.

Sometimes, the neighbor said, when you meet people, their eyes provide insight into the type of person they are. Some people, he said, “have this devilish, evilish look in their eyes. He’s not like that,’’ said Maalouf, who is Lebanese-American. “You could see the kindness in his eyes.’’

Paul McManus, who lives directly across Fairhaven circle from the Mehanna family, said he was shocked and stunned to learn of the allegations, especially that Mehanna is being accused of plotting to use automatic weapons on civilians.

“He was everyday normal,’’ McManus said. ”When he was out walking, he was friendly, neighborly.’’

[...]

Mehanna lives with his parents on Fairhaven Circle, a cul-de-sac off Hudson road. According to neighbors, his mother is a housewife and his father a professor at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy. Tarek Mehanna was a graduate of that school.

According to another woman who lives on the street, Tarek Mehanna did an internship in the pharmacy at the Walgreen’s drug store in Marlborough within the past few years.

Do we know anyone who wanted to go to Pharmacy school?

Happy Diwali

2009-10-16T16:06:00.007-04:00

VS sends along a few paragraphs on Diwali, taken from iloveindia.com

Diwali is one of the Indian festivals celebrated all over India, with equal enthusiasm and zeal. The word 'Diwali' is the abbreviation of the Sanskrit word 'Deepavali', which means 'rows of lights'. One of the major Hindu festivals, it is celebrated to commemorate the victory of good over the evil, when Lord Rama defeated Ravana and rescued his wife Sita from his custody. It is predominantly a five-day festival, with a number of customs and rituals followed during each day. People prepare themselves for the festival weeks ahead, by cleaning and decorating their premises.

The main festival day falls on the no-moon day of the dark half of Kartik, according to the Hindu lunar calendar. Celebrated with vigor and gaiety by people of every religion, the magical effect of Diwali creates an atmosphere of joy and festivity. Innumerable lamps are lit on the roofs and windowsills of the houses, thus, giving a divine look to the whole scenario. It is said that Lakshmi, Goddess of Wealth, roams the earth on this day and enters the house that is pure, clean and brightly illuminated. Therefore, people, before exchanging gifts and bursting crackers, offer prayers to the deity.

Young and old, men and women, all dress up in new clothes on this day to illuminate their home with diyas. The deities of Goddess Lakshmi and Lord Ganesha are worshipped on Diwali, after which, the people share sweets and gifts with their relatives and friends. Fireworks, which attract the kids the most, form the highlight of the festival. The festive mood extends to the couple of days following the main day of the festival. Deepawali symbolizes the victory of righteousness and the lifting of spiritual darkness. It is the celebration of victory of good over evil - and the glory of light.

Diwali 2009

Diwali falls on a new moon day in the month of October or November. Since the precise moment of the new moon falls on different dates depending on geographical location, the date of Diwali also depends on one's location. In 2009, Diwali will be celebrated on 17th October.

For the first time, even the President of the US is marking the occasion. As the Washington Post's On Faith blog reports:

Obama Lights White House Diwali Lamp

The Dow Jones reached a significant milestone yesterday, and news outlets were abuzz with excitement. Olympia Snowe's vote for the Baucus bill was plenty fodder for the 24-hour news cycles. But, for Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists in the United States, an epochal event transpired at the White House afternoon that should not slip notice.

Lead me from Untruth to Truth.Lead me from darkness to light.Lead me from death to immortality.(from the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad -- I.iii.28)
As the ethereal sounds of a Hindu priest's chanting of this Sanskrit prayer from ancient Hindu scripture filled the East Room, President Obama lit the ceremonial White House diya --and he used this Sanskrit word for lamp--with dozens of Asian, Indian and Hindu Americans in attendance. Never before had a sitting U.S. President personally celebrated the Diwali holiday, and with that one gesture, two million Hindu Americans felt a bit more like they belonged--one more reason to feel at home. Maybe that cliche' that all of our diversity adds unique patches to the American quilt is not as tired as we thought.

Diwali is among the most widely celebrated festivals in India and spans all of the Dharmic religious traditions. Rows of diyas, or earthen lamps, line the homes of celebrants as prayers are offered, and for many, a New Year on Hindu calendars is marked. For the seeker, the spiritual significance is clear: the lamps symbolize the quest for knowledge and goodness that mimics the inner Divine and eradicates the darkness of ignorance and false values. As the President said in his address, of course, one does not forget the joyous merriment Diwali celebrations entail: fireworks light up the dark skies of a new moon night, gifts are exchanged and sweets savored.