Schiggy

Whoa super blog redesign. Just switched over to the newer "layout" style for Blogger...something which I apparently neglected for a really long time. I actually tried to go back to see an older post and noticed there was no such link available to see previous posts. That's when I realized that I really should have tried to update the layout a long time ago. There's also way more room in the actual blog body now so I don't need to shrink/crop images so much just to post them here. Overall I'm pretty happy with this layout. It's a bit spartan, but at least it's easier to work with than before.

It's a bit sad to see that I have basically made the same number of posts in this blog over my undergrad stint as I did in grade 12 alone, but it seemed that I didn't really have too much motivation to post in the blog. In any case, I'll consider that finally revamping the blog makes up for some of that apathy. I think the fact that I even update at all is a testament to how I'm really using it as a sort of "public diary bank" to store random memories of mine in case I feel like perusing them again the future. In a silly recent happening, it seems I was getting quite a few hits to the blog via a post I made a while back due to the post title (now changed). I only noticed when the Photobucket-hosted images I placed in that post were gaining an unnaturally high number of views. Oh internet... you never cease to amaze me.

Finished with biomedical toxicology undergraduate...four years in the bank, with another possible four more years to come...? Probably the thing I enjoyed most about the university years were the times I was able to stay in residence downtown. Being able to walk around the city and to class without needing to bother with a 4 hour daily commute is rather refreshing. Being able to walk to the local store or fast food place without driving is nice too. Over those years I started to dabble more in cooking and baking (still not proficient though), extended my creative proclivities from iSketch into sites like Sporcle and BPT, and have expanded my anime repertoire. Wow that sounds geeky, but in any case, I think these are the main things that I actually bothered to make some blog posts about during these years.

Lastly, after discovering the Pages gadget thingy I decided to go ahead and make a page for the quizzes I create in Sporcle so I don't need to stuff the end of my blog posts with tons of links as I was doing before. Go ahead and check them out, if you please :) Don't mind the tons of Pokémon quizzes since I kind of got into a frenzy due to playing Pokémon Soul Silver again, but I assure you if you try them that I've tried to make them as refined and enjoyable as possible. >_>

I'm very surprised and flattered that I somehow have three quizzes voted as Editor's Choice. Of course, that's nothing compared to the seasoned Sporcle quiz creators, but it's good enough for me~ I was especially lucky with the latest quiz, Name the Theme - Symbols. I took some time over two days to gather the images and arrange them together, and then posted it shortly after completion. In an unfortunate stroke of timing, just as the quiz was getting its first plays, someone decided to enlist the aid of a second duplicate account and post about 10 quizzes in a row in the same category as my quiz, and thus effectively shoving it out of the Newly Created Quizzes list. (You're normally only allowed to post 7 quizzes/month, to be fair to others.) In a sudden turn, the new editor for the category decided to post my quiz as an Editor's Choice, awarding it with great visibility, (and the credit of being approved by an editor) and so more people were able to try it.

From my observations, the initial phase in the Newly Created Quizzes is really the only way your quiz can garner any notice and possibly become well-played. Normally once your quiz is off the list, it'll only ever be seen if someone happens to search for it or some key terms related to it. If you managed to attract enough plays, it might remain on the Most Played or Highly Rated lists for a while. There's also the Editor's Choice list which has very high visibility, but how long it stays depends on how often the editor posts quizzes up. Usually when Sporcle editors or well-known quiz creators post a new quiz, their quizzes stay visible for a long time. Essentially it's like a positive feedback loop - if you get a lot of plays, your quiz will likely continue to get a lot of plays and thus stay even longer in high visiblity. If your quiz doesn't get enough attention early on, it'll take some luck to get it back on the radar. And that's along the lines of what happened to me. I wish they'd really extend the Newly Created Quizzes list (a scroll bar would be an easy fix) since with so many quizzes being created, it's very easy for quizzes to be overlooked and buried for a long time.

EDIT: Haha wow, just after I made this rant, I go onto Sporcle and find they went and added a way to see a much longer version of all the lists, including Recent Additions. Kudos, Sporcle.

On another note, finally got that terrible desktop computer fixed up with a new hard drive. Some combination of the hard drive being really old and a bunch of other things led the computer into the most ultimate start-up infinite loop ever, where it would continually loop upon start-up, not even letting me into Safe Mode. Let's just hope it manages to run more like a normal computer now, although I'm not keeping my hopes up too high.

Future plans - a trip to Florida with friends in June, for some serious theme park action. Looking forward to it very much~

And yes, check out this webcomic if you haven't already - hilarity is sure to ensue.
Axe Cop

D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-duel

I received the deck of Hanafuda cards from Club Nintendo, which are a type of Japanese playing cards. The cards we're used to has numbered and face cards (13 total) divided via four suits. The hanafuda cards are instead separated via the twelve months instead of numbers and face cards, with each month represented by a certain type of plant, and also containing four cards.

However, the four cards of each month aren't just separated into one of four suits, but into a more complicated configuration. Some of the months are unique from the others. Each month has at least one Special card, which features another element like an animal. The Nintendo deck slightly redesigned most of the Special cards to feature Nintendo characters. Pretty nifty. :)

The Special cards from the hanafuda deck. Some months have more than one Special card so there are more than 12 in total.

There are also Ribbon cards which have a ribbon shown in the picture. Of these there are red, purple, and poetry ribbons. The poetry ribbons look like red ribbons but have writing on it. (see the Jan-Mar cards) The remaining cards are considered Normal cards.

The full deck of Club Nintendo's hanafuda deck. The left column from top to bottom is Jan-Jun, the right column is Jul-Dec.
January: Pine [Matsu (松)]
February: Plum Blossom [Ume (梅)]
March: Cherry Blossom [Sakura (桜)]
April: Wisteria [Fuji (藤)]
May: Iris [Ayame (菖蒲)]
June: Peony [Botan (牡丹)]
July: Bush Clover [Hagi (萩)]
August: Chinese silver grass [Susuki (薄)] (Nintendo has it as Pampas grass)
September: Chrysanthemum [Kiku (菊)]
October: Maple [Momiji (紅葉)]
November: Willow [Yanagi (柳)]
December: Paulownia [Kiri (桐)]



Case the hanafuda cards came in.

They do look much nicer than regular playing cards, and it requires you to familiarize with the deck to remember which cards belong to which month. I'm still trying to learn the rules of the game Koi-Koi so I might be able to get someone to play these cards with. :D

HyperText Mark-Up Language

I dug up this really old book in my bookshelf called "You Can Surf the Net!" by Marc Gascoigne. It's from way back in 1995, and I don't remember how I got this book, and I'm not sure how much of it I read. I have a feeling it was from one of those bookorders from primary school.

There's a section called "It's the TLAs" which descibes the TLAs - "Three Letter Acronyms". Basically they're acronyms used while chatting, supposedly, although I'm not sure why they used to be called TLAs since most of them are not three letters (the author mentions this too). It may just seem funny because the list was published so long ago and just seems silly today. Some of them seem too contrived to ever really work. It's believable that the more complex acronyms could have been used occasionally but were simply done away with due to their rarity and length. Most likely, the list is just the author's suggestions of possible acronyms that could be used on the internet (in 1995).

AFAICT --------- As far as I can tell
AFK ------------ Away from my keyboard
B4 ------------- Before
BAK ------------ Back at my keyboard
BCNU ----------- Be seeing you
BFN ------------ Bye for now
BRB ------------ Be right back
BSF ------------ But seriously, folks...
BTDT ----------- Been there done that
BTW ------------ By the way
CUL8R ---------- See you later
DYJHIW --------- Don't you just hate it when...
EOF ------------ End of file
FAQ ------------ Frequently asked questions
FOAF ----------- Friend of a friend
FOC ------------ Free of charge
FWIW ----------- For what it's worth
FYI ------------ For your information
GAL ------------ Get a life
GIGO ----------- Garbage in, garbage out
HHOJ ----------- Ha ha, only joking
HHOS ----------- Ha ha, only being serious
IAE ------------ In any event
IMHO ----------- In my humble opinion
IMNSHO --------- In my not so humble opinion
IMO ------------ In my opinion
IOW ------------ In other words
IRL ------------ In real life
ISTM ----------- It seems to me
ISTR ----------- I seem to remember...
ITRW ----------- In the real world
IYSWIM --------- If you see what I mean
JAM ------------ Just a minute
L8R ------------ Later
LMHO ----------- Laughed my head off
LOL ------------ Laughs out loud
MUG ------------ Multi-user game
NALOPKT -------- Not a lot of people know that
NBD ------------ No big deal
NRN ------------ No reply necessary
OIC ------------ Oh, I see
OMG ------------ Oh my god!
OTOH ----------- On the other hand
OTL ------------ Out to lunch
OTT ------------ Over the top
RFC ------------ Request for comments
ROFL ----------- Rolls on the floor laughing
RSN ------------ Real soon now
RTFAQ ---------- Read the FAQ file
RTFM ----------- Read the manual (it seems a word is missing... :P)
SITD ----------- Still in the dark
SYL ------------ See you later
TCB ------------ The trouble came back!
TDM ------------ Too darn many
TIA ------------ Thanks in advance
TTFN ----------- Ta-ta for now
TTYL ----------- Talk to you later
TVM ------------ Thank you very much
VR ------------- Virtual reality
WRT ------------ With regard to
WYSIWYG -------- What you see is what you get
YCT ------------ Your comment to
YHM ------------ You have mail
YMBJ ----------- You must be joking
YMMV ----------- Your mileage may vary

For even more acronym goodness, try these Sporcle quizzes:
Common Chat Acronyms
Obscure Chat Acronyms (A-D)
Computer Acronyms

Early

Last year I made this post where I commented on finding a bird's nest in my front yard. Well this year it turns out that the nest became occupied (or a new nest was made in the same place) by a family of robins. Unfortunately we were too late to catch seeing the eggs, but we were able to observe the robin mother as she was brooding until the eggs eventually hatched, the babies developed into fledglings, and then left the nest. When I read up about the nesting habits of robins online, it matched rather well with what I observed happening with the robin in our front yard. Since they decided to reside in the lilac bush right beside our window, we were able to spy on the nest frequently, probably to the chagrin of the birds as they often stared at us when they noticed our presence.

Initially, we mostly saw the robin mother sitting in the nest, so we suspected that she had eggs in the nest. She sat there for most of the day, always awake with eyes open. I admired her ability to do that without getting insanely bored. During this time I never really saw the robin father come to the nest. The mother is shown in the hidden nest here:

Soon after the eggs hatched to yield three babies, and the mother began to make occasional trips to find food. The babies were still really small and most of the time were covered by the tall sides of the nest. Only when the mother returned would they immediately pop up from the nest, straining their necks to get at the food. This is a shot of the baby birds shortly after they hatched.

Eventually the babies began developing some plumage. Their characteristic red bellies began to show too. At this point the mother was still brooding during the day and especially during bad rainy weather. However, the birds eventually grew larger, to the point where it was almost comical since the chicks were all barely wedged into the nest. By then I rarely saw the mother near the nest again, except at night. However both the mother and father showed up at various points in the day to feed the fledglings.

The mother sitting on the fledglings:

Fledglings when mother was absent:

After about 2-3 weeks fom hatching the babies will have developed enough to be able to start learning to fly. Eventually they will leave the nest out into the world, mildly assisted by the parents as they try get independent at flying around and finding food. This matched with what I saw on the day when the fledglings finally left the nest. It was then when I was able to actually get a good look at their feathers.

Fledgling perched beside nest, ready to leave:

Fledgling on the front porch as it was leaving:

I was a little saddened when the robins were gone, and hoped that they would be ok. The survival rate of robins in the wild is understandably low. I was glad that all three chicks survived long enough to be able to leave the nest, at the very least. I managed to get some shaky camera footage of one of the fledglings that was perched beside the nest on the day they left the nest. Two of the fledglings left the nest around noon, but this one in the video stuck around until 6pm. Not sure why it did that, but I hope the parents didn't forget about it.

Apparently robins may nest twice in a single year during the summer, but at two different nesting sites. I found the robins in our front yard in mid-July, so this was probably the second time in the summer, if it had nested before. I'm glad I was able to observe something like this so closely, and it reminds me of the duck family that also lived in our front yard a few years ago. I guess there is just something about the front yard that birds really like? The website I read states that robins mainly determine their nesting site by judging the ability of the spot to support the nest from below, which is why they often nest at the base of places where branches fork out. It also explains why the robin I saw last year at Wonderland would nest immediately below the tracks of The Bat. There sure is a lot of structual integrity there, but I would still think sitting under a roller coaster all day would be detrimental to the robin...

Most info I read about was from this site: http://www.learner.org/jnorth/robin/

Early to bed, early to rise
The future is for those who get up early
He who arrives first, stays better
Morning time has gold in its mouth
He who sleeps doesn't catch any fish
The early bird catcheth the worm

Gastroenteritis

The book Mistakes That Worked outlines the stories behind well-known inventions that were created or named by accident, such as with Coca-Cola and penicillin. It has a section on Silly Putty, which is way more versatile than I thought:

It stretches. It bounces. When whacked with a hammer, it shatters. If it is pressed against newspaper comics, it will pick up the imprint. Silly Putty is truly amazing. It is now over forty years old, and was one of the first "fad" toys in America.

It has been used by athletes to strengthen their hand and forearm muscles. It can level the leg of a wiggly table or clean typewriter keys. It removes lint from clothes and animal hair from furniture.

The astronauts on the Apollo 8 spacecraft played with Silly Putty when they got bored, and they used it to keep tools from floating around after they left the Earth's gravity.

It was used by the Columbus Zoo in Ohio in 1981 to take hand and foot prints of gorillas.
- Mistakes That Worked

On another note, I can't believe I was incorrectly saying it as "just desserts" up to now.

Coulomb Explosion

Admittedly the content from both biology courses so far seem to interest me the most out of all my courses. I can better understand the experiments outlined in scientific articles and such. We just finished off a term in which talked about experimental methods such as using reporter genes, and surprisingly the ones we learned about are actually used in real life! This is especially exciting since we're used to being taught "dumbed down" or "incorrect" versions of the facts in school. (This probably still happening to a certain degree regardless.) We mentioned Craig Venter as well, which I guess goes under the category of "hot topics in recent news".

From Discover:

Biologists Perform Genome Transplant

In June, biologists at the J. Craig Venter institute announced that they had successfully transplanted the genome of one species of bacteria into another bacterial species. "This was the ultimate in identity theft," says Venter, a biologist well known for his private-sector contribution to the sequencing of the human genome. "The chromosome [genome] took over the cell completely, and any characteristics of the original species were lost."

The transplant team took several steps to be sure the transfer was complete. First, they added two genes to the donor species' chromosome: one that made the cells resistant to the antibiotic tetracycline and one that made them turn blue. By dosing all the post-transplant bacteria with tetracycline and looking for blue colonies, the scientists could identify which cells had the donor DNA. Next, they tested all the blue, tetracycline-resistant bacteria for any traces of the recipient species' genome. When they found none, they knew the bacteria must contain only the donor species' genome. Finally, they found that all the proteins manufactured by the new bacteria were characteristic of the donor species.

This is a critical advance in Venter's quest - which he has been pursuing for a decade - to create a fully synthetic life-form. Now, he says, it could be just a matter of months before a living cell stocked with a synthetic genome becomes a reality.

- Jocelyn Rice

The Discover magazine website also has weekly podcasts of Vital Signs articles. Vital Signs is usually my favourite part of the magazine. The articles are all written by doctors who relate one of the previous patient cases they worked on, which often involve unusual or uncommon disorders and diseases. They then outline their thought process on confirming the condition and how to treat it. For example, the most recent Vital Signs article published in the Jan. 2008 issue talks about narcolepsy and cataplexy.

Immunoprecipitation

In lieu of the impending snowstorm today I went into the Wii Weather Channel and saw a weather icon I hadn't seen before. It turns out that Rankin Inlet is experiencing diamond dust. Wow, that sounds pretty intense. Are there sharp crystallic fragments of ice blowing around outside? What did they do to upset Shiva?

As it turns out, diamond dust is kind of like fog, but instead of being a cloud of water droplets, it is composed of a cloud of ice crystals.

Diamond dust is similar to fog in that it is a cloud based at the surface; it differs from fog in two main ways. Generally fog refers to a cloud composed of liquid water (the term ice fog usually refers to a fog that formed as liquid water and then froze, and frequently seems to occur in polluted valleys such as Fairbanks, Alaska, while diamond dust forms directly as ice). Also, fog is a dense enough cloud to significantly reduce visibility, while diamond dust is usually very thin and may not have any effect on visibility (there are far fewer crystals in a volume of air than there are droplets in the same volume with fog). However, diamond dust can often reduce the visibility, in some cases to under a mile (1600 m).

Source

The sunlight reflecting off all of the tiny ice crystals into your eye causing glittering flashes of light results in the term "diamond dust".

On a related note, it turns out that Rankin Inlet was competing with Iqaluit to become the official capital of the territory of Nunavut, but we all know how that turned out : (

Myriad

This year's edition, Guiness World Records 2008, had this to say about the font used in the book:

This year's edition is set in Myriad Pro, a beautifully proportioned and highly readable humanist sans serif typeface designed in the early 1990s by Robert Slimbach and Carol Twombly (both USA). Humanist fonts are those that embody the cleaness and purity of a modern, "grotesque" typeface with the natural, organic feel of hand-drawn letters; sans serif refers to the lack of serifs or flourishes - such as the small feet on a serified n or i - common to the "roman" typefaces.

That was...s-so beautiful. *sheds a tear*

Although admittedly I didn't know that bit about the sans serif.

I searched for "Myriad Pro" and it turns out that for $35 each you can choose from a whole myriad of styles of Myriad Pro, such as: Regular, Condensed, SemiCondensed, and SemiExtended, not including all the Bold, Black, Italic, Light, and SemiBold variations.

The website also adds:

Myriad also has subtle geometric shaping and monotone color, balanced by varying letter widths and open counter shapes. A readable and friendly face, Myriad works well for both text and display typography. A headline font and the playful "sketch" and "tilt" versions add versatility.

This is clearly the BEST FONT EVER.

I think I haven't had enough exposure to the world of "professional font-making".

This post is the bom

Excerpt obtained from Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss about Shaw's recommendation to remove the second 'b' in 'bomb':

I can scribble the word "bomb" barely legibly 18 times in one minute and "bom" 24 times, saving 25 per cent per minute by dropping the superfluous b. In the British Commonwealth, on which the sun never sets, and in the United States of North America, there are always millions of people continually writing, writing, writing... Those who are writing are losing time at the rate of 131,400 X x per annum...
George Bernard Shaw on Language, 1965

And this was in 1965. Can you even imagine how much time has been lost since then? (Apparently 131,400 X x...) Although, it does seem to take less time to type 'b' than to write it, so maybe our losses have been alleviated...

Edit: Changed the "About" section slightly.

Northern Lights

Had sushi at Maison du Japon, which I found was actually pretty good. The restaurant was larger than I expected, and the meal includes drinks. Then saw Children of Men, which was a pretty intense movie.

I got a book called Human and it is rather complete about everything human. Goes from origins of modern humans, to the human body, human mind, life cycles, cultures, economy and power, society, religion and language, all the different peoples on Earth, and addressing future issues.

They even have a section of Communication. Now I know to never expose the soles of my feet to anyone in Thailand.

Historical Insults
Certain insults have ancient origins. One is the Greek 'moutza', in which an open hand is thrust in someone's face. This gesture dates from Byzantine times, when people used to push excrement into criminals' faces. Another is the British V-sign, thought to come from the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. French soldiers would cut off the first two fingers of the English bowmen; archers who still had their fingers would wave them in defiance.

Example: My existence is exciting.

I found my book called The Pocket Dictionary of Signing. Learning sign language seems fun, but probably less so if you're forced to learn it as a primary means of communication.

Mr. BS Pilot

As I was reading The Science Book, I quickly realized that I've lost all memory of what we've learned the previous school year...again. Familiar names and terms kept flashing by...but I could never exactly remember what it was about. I guess it's good to be reminded of them so that the start of university will have less of a negative punch to it, with the new experience of lectures and whatnot. Orientation might help lessen the tension too.

"The Aristotelian name of the tomato, for instance, had expanded into Solanum caule inerme herbaceo, foliis pinnatis incisis, racemis simplicibus (Solanum with smooth herbaceous stem, incised pinnate leaves and simple inflorescence). This name is less convenient than the Linnaean name Solanum lycopersicum." - Naming life

"What's more, electrons, previously regarded as particles, sometimes behave like waves. We seem to need both models. As Sir William Bragg quipped in the 1920s, 'On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays light behaves like waves, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays like particles, and like nothing at all on Sundays.'" - Wave nature of light

"There were three obvious clues. First of all, Uranus had until 1822 been accelerating, but had then become retarded." - Discovery of Neptune

The Dutchess

The comics here are just soooo good. My schedule for the next hour has just been booked full. (Click for actual comic.)





A few comics have mild nudity and other such content. They're not too distasteful or anything, but if you're worried, just a head's up. Ignore those and focus on the other comics >_>

As well, Improv Everywhere

Seriously, I'm just getting all of these stuff from JohnQ Blog*. That place is pretty much the closest thing to heaven you can get. It's updated often, and with so much intriguing content, all of which are paired with some intelligent and comprehensible commentary and opinions. It's becoming part of my daily routine.

* It's linked to the "Stuff From the Internet" category. You can find the other categories in the bar on the left.

Electroplankton

Summer is the best time to go bug hunting and fishing in AC:WW. The range of varieties available is extensive. Fishing becomes most exciting because you can catch things like seahorses, blue marlins, clownfish, and even:



Sharks! :o It's cool because when you see their silhouette under the water you actually see their dorsal fins.

On an even cooler note, tonight I just saw another one of these dorsal fins sticking out and caught it expecting another shark, perhaps a hammerhead. But instead this thing came out:



The huge thing at the top left, bigger than the coelacanth beside it. It's an ocean sunfish, and according to Wiki, they do often get mistaken for sharks because they often swim close to the surface, so the game got it right to that aspect.

Apparently the sunfish also occationally breach from the water, and sometimes the float sideways near the surface so that birds can come down and pick food off it. The breaching is probably a method of expelling more parasites from its body. :S

Reunion

> I beat Lv. 139 of Canada.
> The end guy is hard.

It's nice to be free from being totally governed by Britain, those silly Alaska-yielding fiends. I mean friends. The Americans didn't even appreciate getting Alaska. They just wanted it for the heck of it.

The news of the British North America Act, 1867, was nervously received in Washington, DC. It would create, on July 1, 1867, "one dominion under the name of Canada," and this led to expressions of "grave misgivings on the establishment of a monarchial state to the north" in what Canadians then called "the republic to the south." (See McNaughton's Short History of Canada.) U.S. Secretary of State William Seward thus urged, and the United States Senate thus approved, the treaty authorizing the purchase of Alaska from Imperial Russia for US$7,200,000 on April 9, 1867. The United States took possession and the American flag was raised over Alaska on October 18, which is commemorated as Alaska Day.

The purchase was unpopular in the United States, where it became known as "Seward's Folly" or "Seward's Icebox." Alaska celebrates the purchase each year on the last Monday of March, calling it Seward's Day.

$Sold$

Mathematical Induction and Physical Conduction

School. Lots. Sucks. Busy.

How To Cage A Lion

According to the Schrodinger Method, I might not be in the actual school during my physics exam. Or something.

She Sells Seychelles by the Seashore

Summer was all, "Oops, it's my turn," and so now it's all hot and sunny. Yarr.

In the World Desk Reference (2004) I have, you get the hard facts on the state of some countries of the world. And it's usually depressing.
I mean, just economy-wise:

Afghanistan
Strengths: Very few, apart from illicit opium trade. Revalued currency issued in 2002. Overseas assets unfrozen from 2002.
Weaknesses: Decades of fighting: infrastructure, agriculture, and industry in ruins. Communication links damaged by earthquakes and devastated by bombing. Aid slow to materialize.

Somalia
Strengths: Very few. Export of livestock to Arabian peninsula resumed in the north. Inflow of money from Somalis abroad. Growing market in stolen food aid.
Weaknesses: Every commodity, except arms, in extremely short supply. Little economic potential in the south. Livestock destroyed by drought. Banditry, extortion, and kidnapping hamper aid agencies.

And the like. Meanwhile, back in Canada:

Weaknesses: Problems of competitiveness: higher taxes, more regulations, low productivity relative to NAFTA; other threats from globalization. Vulnerable to price fluctuations for raw material exports. Brain drain of professionals heading south.

Eeps, we are losing our brains to the U.S., and that's pretty sad. :(

On another note, from India's economic weaknesses:

The prestige of Bollywood has been damaged by allegations of underworld connections.

I had to look up the definition of "underworld". =\

!Xú

The Longest Word in...

Dutch - kindercarnavalsoptochtvoorbereidingswerkzaamheden (49) - meaning 'preparation activities for a children's carnival procession'

Danish - speciallægepraksisplanlægningsstabiliseringsperiode (51) - meaning 'the stabilization period of the planning of medical specialists' practices'

Finnish - lentokonesuihkuturbiinimoottoriapumekaanikkoaliupseerioppilas (61) - meaning 'apprentice corporal, working as assistant mechanic in charge of airplane turbine engines'

Swedish - nordöstersjökustartilleriflygspaningssimulatoranläggningsmateriel-underhållsuppföljningssystemdiskussionsinläggsförberedelse-arbeten (130) - meaning 'preparatory work on the contribution to the discussion on the maintaining system of support of the material of the aviation survey device within the northeast part of the coast artillery of the Baltic'

Way to go you crazy Scandinavian languages, for creating the most contrived and useless words ever. If it was only to get into the record books, you win. Based on their definitions, I don't know if these "words" should even deserve to be called "words". >_>

Thought for Food Ingestion

Serendipity Golden Opulence Sundae - Lots of real gold ingested.

Kopi Luwak Coffee - Coffee that tastes like crap. Good crap, I guess.

Zillion Dollar Lobster Frittata - Doesn't actually cost a zillion dollars.

Worth more than its weight in gold

Article and images from Discover magazine April '06 issue.


Nemo Goes To College
Dean Pomerleau's pet goldfish, Albert Einstein, knows how to play fetch, a feat the Pittsburgh-area engineer hopes will earn his calico fantail a listing in Guinness World Records as the world's smartest fish. Albert the goldfish has also learned to nudge a soccer ball into a goal and to do the limbo.

"I spend half my life telling people fish aren't stupid," says Culum Brown, a zoologist at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand who puts fish through mazes to study cognition. Brown says salmon can learn to feed themselves by pushing a lever, and some carp are trained to come when called so that workers using them to clean up algae can transport the fish from one lake to another. He has also observed that rainbow fish recall the location of an escape hole in a fishing net a year later.

Fish brains have a structure very different from those of other vertebrates: They develop inside out. Although these brains don't have the same parts, they seem to do the same things. "Unfortunately, there are only about three labs in the world that work on fish brains, so it's taking a long time to catch up," Brown says.

In nature, memory equals survival. Fish learn from one another which to mate with and which not to fight with, where to eat and how not to get eaten. Brown enjoys picking up a fishing rod and engaging in a battle of wits: "There's something to be said for outsmarting them!"

- Jessica Ruvinsky