pointdexter

Learned @ random.

In my wide ranging reading this weekend, I learned a few things.

"While [Albert] Einstein lived in Bern, working as a patent office clerk, he did his research work in a small study away from his home. In this study, he kept a large number of cats, of which he was very fond. However, the cats at times could be rather burdensom, scratching persistently at closed dorrs, demanding to roam freely throughout the house. He could not leave all the doors open, so he decided to cut holes in the bottom of the doors, producing cute little cat doors.

In that year, he had roughly equal numbers of large and small cats. Therefore, quite logically, he cut two holes in each door: a large one for the large cats, and a small one for the small cats."

[Faster Than The Speed Of Light, Joao Magueijo, p.71.]

Thorazine, Prozac, and Zelmid (taken off the market) are the product of drugs that began as antihistamines.

[Better Than Prozac: Creating the Next Generation of Psychiatric Drugs, Samuel H. Barondes, various.]

A gentleman named Ben Fry is doing genomic cartography at MIT, and it is very very very cool. [Thank you, leuschke.org. You're my new web crush.]

The Secret to US Theogeography

I think I have finally begun to understand the way the US lines up in terms of political parties and/or presidential voting, religious belief/fervor, and how this all maps out geographically.

It's the weather.

MyTypepad.com

I would like to take this opportunity, as the last eve of the beta testing approaches, to thank Six Apart for the chance to participate in the TypePad testing.

I would like to say to anyone reading this that TypePad is an excellent way to create, manage and thrive in blogging. The user interface is friendly, well designed and cleanly "intuitive," meaning I knew where everything was within a few uses.

Things I Cannot Mention

The following are things I am no longer mention or any way make reference to in public. Most of these are unique and specific to a single person, or group of persons. This list is cumulative -- i.e., these were not imposed all at once, rather they are a gradual accumulation of cease and desist orders which I have received, been made aware of and/or have been served with.

• A certain relation's pronounciation of words in any of the following languages:
  • English (note: speaker's primary language)
  • French
  • Spanish
  • German
  • Swedish
• A certain person's misconception that a "tackadactyl" was a prehistoric bird used in The Flintstones for air transportation.
• That my parents moved from NYC in order to escape my siblings who would not leave home because the apartment was rent-stabilised and enormous.
• That a certain person was taken in by the brazen lie that the Godzilla films were the first performance art conceived by the Fluxus Group, and that Yoko Ono (a member of the collective) acted in 3 of them.
• That same person's being taken in by the lie that the reason so many bars are named O'Reilly's is because it means "son of a bartender" in Gaelic.
• A certain person's willingness to believe that I was working my way through school on a wrestling scholarship.

Almost makes me reconsider my career choice...

American Gallery of Psychiatric Art -- [ via Philo ]

I wonder if in 2025 the 1990s ads will look as terrifying as the 1960s ads do now.

Parent becomes the Child.

Today is the Lakewood Library Book Sale. Last week, I had planned to take my father, as my mother cannot bear being with us in bookstores. My father is a browser -- handling books, reading inside jackets, introductions, pondering the purchase, and ultimately returning home with nothing, but happy nonetheless. (He can't see parting with the amount of money a full-price book costs. He's really bad at spending money.)

We used to go to the Strand in NY when I was 5 or 6, and spend the whole day browsing -- he would buy me a book or two, and he'd pick up something cheap on European history or mathematics, and we'd sit next to one another on the subway (remember, this is the 70s in NYC, it's as squalid as you think, if not more so) and read happily until we got home, where he would take my hand and we walked wordlessly to our apartment. It was our time, without my siblings who had little interest in sitting in a musty basement room poring over books, and while we didn't say much to one another, we shared something that to this day connects us.

Friendster Parodies

Introvertster: The new way to get rid of people.

Brought to you by Airbag [ via Joi Ito Bot Blog ]

STD-ster: Figure out where that awful rash came from. [ via MetaFilter ]

Maneki Neko to you, bub.

Excellent.

Everything you always wanted to know about Maneki Neko.

[ Perhaps you know them as Sushi Cats. ]

Towards Better Tools (part 1)

Since I haven't posted on the Typelists yet which our kind hosts have provided for us with the sweat of their brow and their butts firmly applied to their Ikea chairs, I will say that the book and music lists are schweeet. Cannot recommend that highly enough.

Now, as I've been beta testing, I've been thinking a lot about what I would want in a nextgen tool. This has been forcing me to sit down and write while I'm writing, i.e., metawriting, which is probably what the rest of this post is going to be, so if you're not into all this, go catch some zzz and catch me tomorrow.

Word.

MC Frontalot

nerdcore hiphop. missed my calling. (via meyerweb)