The Beatles, finally available on iTunes. Meh.
I’m kind of tired of hearing how important the Beatles were to music every time I turn around. Yes, they were big. Yes, they were significant. Yes, they were talented. But seriously, Boomers. Get over it. There’s been a lot of great music since then.
The Best of College A Capella. Personally, I’d call it “the best of overdone reverb”. It would have been nice to hear clearer audio, but it’s still cool. If the execrable Glee has done anything, it’s reinvigorated a certain age groups’ interest in choral singing. Rihanna and Beyonce are the gateway drugs to Bruckner and Poulenc, so I’m all for it.
*Update* I just finished listening to all of them, and I have to say, some of them are pretty terrible. If this is the “best”, then we’re in trouble. I hate you, Simon Cowell.
Now this is what I’m talking about (no idea why the costume).
You’ve never heard of me, but there’s a good chance that you’ve read some of my work. I’m a hired gun, a doctor of everything, an academic mercenary. My customers are your students. I promise you that. Somebody in your classroom uses a service that you can’t detect, that you can’t defend against, that you may not even know exists.
I work at an online company that generates tens of thousands of dollars a month by creating original essays based on specific instructions provided by cheating students. I’ve worked there full time since 2004. On any day of the academic year, I am working on upward of 20 assignments.
In the midst of this great recession, business is booming. At busy times, during midterms and finals, my company’s staff of roughly 50 writers is not large enough to satisfy the demands of students who will pay for our work and claim it as their own.
Finding the Universe’s 500 Million Light Year Yardstick – Technology Review: “”
Using Baryonic Acoustic Oscillations. Awesome. The previous way of measuring distances larger than several parsecs was via Cepheid variable stars (if you know how bright a certain star is, you can measure its distance by measuring its relative brightness). This is a much more accurate way. Plus, it sounds cool.
And don’t miss pics of the incredible Barcelona Supercomputing Center. Inspired!
Google had a beautiful graphic up yesterday commemorating the 160th birthday of Robert Louis Stevenson. In case you missed it, here it is:
NPR’s Sci Fri special on emerging Hacker Spaces.
Skip the first few minutes, though. It’s mostly old iPhone news.
The decline of classical filmmaking, coupled with cinema’s increased reliance on computer-generated or computer-burnished imagery, has pretty much destroyed the specialness — the magic — of movie stunts. You can’t appreciate what you can’t see. And it’s harder to appreciate the unusual nature of a physical achievement when the entire movie strives to make every moment seem thrilling, astonishing and intense.
Interesting article.
“So what if the best of our wages be,
An empty sleeve, a stiff bent knee,
A crutch for the rest of life, who cares?
As long as the old flag waves and dares.”
lest we forget. Thank you to American Veterans.
Late last night while driving home I hit and killed a beautiful adult snowy white owl that was in the middle of the road. There was nothing I could do about it since it was dark and I had no time to avoid him. Still, I’ve felt just terrible about it ever since. A friend pointed me to this wonderful poem this morning and felt like posting it.
If the Owl Calls Again
at dusk
from the island in the river,
and it’s not too cold,I’ll wait for the moon
to rise,
then take wing and glide
to meet him.We will not speak,
but hooded against the frost
soar above
the alder flats, searching
with tawny eyes.And then we’ll sit
in the shadowy spruce
and pick the bones
of careless mice,while the long moon drifts
toward Asia
and the river mutters
in its icy bed.And when the morning climbs
the limbs
we’ll part without a sound,fulfilled, floating
homeward as
the cold world awakens.John Haines
The Rise of the ‘Edupunk’ – Inside Higher Ed: “”
The future of learning. Lesson: “we’ll learn in spite of the higher education establishment!”
Reading all about the recent election results I keep coming across the term “shellacking”. President Obama said Democrats nationwide had received a “shellacking” and I’ve seen it repeated over and over in the press. Which makes me wonder: why this specific word? I use shellac in my woodworking projects all the time. Believe it or not, it’s the excrement of the lac bug mixed with denatured alcohol. It’s a totally non-toxic and natural substance and modern chemistry has had a tough time coming up with something better than this humble goo. You know that stuff that makes your veggies shiny and oily feeling in the supermarket? Lac poo. Yup, shellac has tons of uses. It’s great stuff.
So why is it when someone is beaten soundly we say they were “shellacked”?
UPDATE- Friend Daniel writes in with a link to this definition:
shellac:
1713, from shell + lac (see lacquer). Translates Fr. laque en écailles “lac in thin plates.” The verb is 1876, from the noun. The slang sense of “beat soundly” is 1920s, perhaps from the notion of shellac as a “finish.” Shellacked “drunk” is from 1922 (cf. plastered).
Not a totally satisfactory answer in my opinion, though. One note: contrary to what some may have thought, I was posting about it for etymological reasons, not partisan ones. I just think word origins are cool.
What’s more hardcore than building a full set of HALO armor? How about a three year project build seven full sets? Amazing.
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