- MCZ Type Database! Well, no, of course you aren’t supposed to know what it means. The MCZ is for Museum of Comparative Zoology (at Harvard), and the database is of insects. This might not warrant mention, if not for the fact that a fair portion of the entries have accompanying photographs. Be sure to check out the greatest hits.
- Playing with knives. The reasonably titled “How to cut” provides instructions for what you might expect (as long as you’re expecting fruits and vegetables), with right-handed and left-handed instructions, fully illustrated.
- LexisNexis AlaCarte. $3 a pop.
Various online resources
Posted by Ben on February 17, 2005
https://www.swordbilled.com/various-online-resources/
From space
I’m personally not that intrigued by The Gates, but it is interesting to see them from space.
(via The Morning News [February 15, 2005])
Posted by Ben on February 15, 2005
https://www.swordbilled.com/from-space/
Look Right
I’d like to draw your attention to the right-hand column of detritus, where, under the heading of blogs, there are two proud additions:
- WFMU’s Beware of the Blog
- Lifehacker
I’m less excited by Lifehacker than I am by the fact that WFMU (radio station, wacky, Jersey City) has a blog, but both are interesting, and you should know they’re there. The WFMU blog is a group effort by a bunch of the DJs, and it appears to cover all things musical and eclectic. The Lifehacker blog offers hints and tidbits on navigating both the electronic and the non-electronic world; kinda like Cool Tools, but more corporate (Lifehacker’s sponsored by Sony) and less physical (seems like most of the tips have to do with software and what-have-you).
Posted by Ben on February 15, 2005
https://www.swordbilled.com/look-right/
random crap
- More lies. The BoGlo has a quick & fluffy piece on the relevance of lie detection to modern-day struggles. On the verge of making an interesting statement, the article spends too much time bringing the presumably ignorant reader up to speed on the state of modern lie psychology (or whatever you want to call it). For more on lies, check out an earlier nmb post, Lies, All Lies. (BoGlo: “Liar, Liar,” by Christopher Shea [January 30, 2005])
- Are you the lucky 1? According to a recent Pew survey on search engine users, 92% of those who use search engines are confident about their searching abilities, yet only 38% are aware of the distinctions between paid and unpaid results. (via H20boro blog; Pew/Internet: Online Activities and Pursuits – Search Engine Users)
- The enigmatic dust mite.
Research suggests that while an unmade bed may look scruffy it is also unappealing to house dust mites thought to cause asthma and other allergies.
(BBC News: “Untidy beds may keep us healthy” [January 28, 2005])
- 2004 was Hot. The 4th warmest in recorded history, actually. Want to know what the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd warmest years were? 1998, 2002, and 2003. In unrelated news, Exxon Mobil posted the highest profits in its history, $25 billion. (NYT: “2004 Was Fourth-Warmest Year Ever Recorded,” by Andrew C. Revkin [February 10, 2005]; Guardian: “Exxon makes $25bn profit,” by David Teather [February 1, 2005])
Posted by Ben on February 13, 2005
https://www.swordbilled.com/random-crap/
If you like what you see, tell a friend
Ed Emberly has a website, which is fantastic by its own right. But what’s more, you can get instructions on making a valentine’s day mask…
A valentine’s day monster mask.
Posted by Ben on February 12, 2005
https://www.swordbilled.com/if-you-like-what-you-see-tell-a-friend/
Did you know?
- More than one billion birds crash into buildings in the US every year. Mirrored office blocks are a particular hazard.
- Having breaking news alerts delivered to your mobile phone may seem cutting edge, but the Daily Express pioneered the service back in 1914, offering personal war updates via telegram for a shilling each.
- When people are in love, weird things happen. Men get more female hormones, and women get more male. Scientist Donatella Marazziti says it’s as if nature wants to eliminate what can be different in men and women, perhaps to help the mating process.
- A cruise ship can put more than 130,000 litres of sewage into the sea each day.
- Matt Groening’s father – the inspiration for Homer Simpson – has only complained once about his alter-ego’s actions. It was an episode in which Homer badgered Marge into walking some considerable distance on a hot day to fetch him something.
BBC News has these and other tantalizing factoids, some with additional details, in a list of “100 things we didn’t know this time last year.”
Posted by Ben on January 31, 2005
https://www.swordbilled.com/did-you-know/
General disorder
- Nalgene, forever! Or not. Over at Grist, Umbra makes a case against Nalgene bottles. (Although the column is actually a clarification of an earlier column, so if you’re new to the Nalgene question, you may want to do a little reading.)
- How about Orangene? A research team at Cornell has apparently discovered a way to make plastics from citrus fruit. (via BoingBoing)
- It’s all just numbers. Via Alas (and on the tails of the “Summers controversy” ), here’s a mighty interesting graphic, which shows the percentage of women on physics faculty by country:
(I don’t know much about the context or source of this graphic, so it’s of limited usefulness. But assuming it’s not an outright falsehood–for whatever time period–it at least goes toward debunking some of the arguments being tossed around re: women’s cognitive predispositions, etc. etc. etc.) - Sleep thin. A new study on sleep (yes, another one) seems to indicate that body mass index increases as sleep time decreases. In other words, the thinner sleep longer. As with virtually any sleep study, no one’s sure if there’s actually a cause-effect relationship. But hey, there might be!
- Things left behind.
An estimated 11,300 laptop computers, 31,400 handheld computers and 200,000 mobile telephones were left in taxis around the world during the past six months, a survey found Monday.
Taxi drivers in nine cities also said they had found a range of other items left by passengers, including a harp, 37 milk bottles, dentures and artificial limbs. One driver said he even found a baby in his taxi.
- No more secrets. Exxonsecrets.org is “the first chapter of a larger Greenpeace project provide a research database of information on the corporate funded anti-environmental movement.” An interactive flash-based tool with lots of information. (via MeFi)
- 35.
Minimum number of countries with a greater capacity to produce nuclear weapons than Iraq at the time of the U.S. invasion.
(via Harper’s)
- Snow.
Posted by Ben on January 26, 2005
https://www.swordbilled.com/general-disorder/
The_future
Due to the fact of being “on the road”, posting will undoubtedly be sporadic.
(More than it has been, that is.)
Also–and this is related –I’m gonna have to apologize for the deranged mumbo-jumbo in the post titles.
Sorry.
Posted by Ben on January 13, 2005
https://www.swordbilled.com/the_future/
And the cynicism mounts
Well, apparently the alleged “crystal skulls of doom”1 are no more than fakes.
Which is somewhat unfortunate, because it’s (they’re) actually kind of neat. (And which begs the question: are there genuine skulls of doom out there?)
(via Guardian Unlimited news blog: “The ancient and wholly rubbish prophecy of the crystal skull”)
Note:
1 See The Unexplained, by Karl P.N. Shuker, and probably 20 or 30 other books as well.
Posted by Ben on January 10, 2005
https://www.swordbilled.com/and-the-cynicism-mounts/
Quick: who’s the ‘Alstrom-Olson Syndrome’ named for?
Give up? Of course you do. Then check out Who Named It?, a would-be haven for medical eponyms. This biographical dictionary of sorts contains 7079 eponyms, and has plans to eventually describe a total of 15,000.
(FYI, the aforementioned syndrome is “autosomal recessive cone-rod dystrophy of the retina,” named for/by Carl-Henry Alström and Olof Olson)
(via h20boro lib blog)
Posted by Ben on January 8, 2005
https://www.swordbilled.com/quick-whos-the-alstrom-olson-syndrome-named-for/