I am haplessly sinking into the grad school muck, awash in ship scheduling and fellowships and my opposite-of-133t R programming skills. So instead of anything relevant, please enjoy Joan Rivers interviewing my favorite ludicrous metal band, Gwar in full costume. (though without the giant foam dinosaur).
Thanks, Scott!
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Posted by Miriam Goldstein
I hope your New Year is as exciting as this 80s video about baking bread! Really, I do! (Yes, this is a thinly veiled excuse to post a totally non-science-related video. Watch it now. It will make you happy.)
So very, very many thanks to Scott!
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Posted by Miriam Goldstein
If I could design an octopus-based flash drive, it would have a detachable arm that would deliver little packets of sperm data to my computer. I would call it the Hectocotylus Sexy Octopus flash drive and it would make 1 billion dollars because everyone loves accuracy in their cephalopod love! (OK, not everyone. Link NSFW!)
Actual red-hot octopus sex. The hectocotyl (sperm-delivery arm of the male) is the pink thing being inserted under the female's mantle.
But what actually exists in the realm of octopus-based flash drives is the Kissing Octopus.
The kissing octopodes.
Its pastel pink and blue is too self-conciously cute and irritatingly gender-coded for my taste – but as a consumer of lolcats I don’t really occupy much moral high ground. And hey, cephalopod-based technology is always good. From the Engadget writeup:
Just announced as a winner of an iF Design Award, this 8-legged drive comes in light pink and sky blue hues, and 2 / 4 / 8GB varieties. The two-piece contraption consists of the octopus body as well as the USB / nose part, which has a magnetic end which can be used to make a pair of octopuses a couple (or be used to stick love notes to metal surfaces as pictured above).
Thanks, Martini-Corona!
1 Comment | Garter Gear, Getting it right, Sex, Silliness | Permalink
Posted by Miriam Goldstein
Since December 22nd is Cephalopodmas, the day in which we honor all cephalopods, I give you these delightful tidbits.
Octopus can recognize food and threats on TV, yet (like most creatures who consume too much pop culture) they lack distinctive personalities.
Her [the researcher's] unsettling news for Christmas revellers preparing to tuck into seafood platters is that octopuses can watch television and understand at least some of what they see. Discriminating viewers, however, they enjoy only high-definition programs.
If octopus can be lured into complacency with reruns of “Blue Planet” and “SeaQuest DSV,” our plan for world domination with trained attack-cuttlefish may not be as successful as the pilot study suggested. Curse you, fickle cephalopods!
Thanks to Martini-Corona and dad of Martini-Corona for the tv-addicted octopus. And thanks to Anna and Greg for the violent cuttlefish.
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Posted by Miriam Goldstein
WARNING: THIRD SEASON BATTLESTAR GALACTICA SPOILER BELOW
Dear Santa,
Normally, we Cylons don’t believe in polytheistic entities such as yourself, but I’m making an exception this time. Here’s the deal: Ever since I was first programmed, I’ve always known that we “have a plan.” It’s hardwired in us that everything we’ve done, from destroying most of the human race in a nuclear apocalypse to chasing a ragtag band of survivors through space, is part of the plan. But recent events have badly shaken my faith in this so-called plan. To wit, we spent years following the Battlestar Galactica through space, and then it turned out that some of those humans were actually Cylons in disguise! And they held important command positions on the Galactica! What the hell kind of plan is that? How about instead of having us run around on some wild goose chase, we use our Cylon sleeper cells to reveal the humans’ location so we can blow them out of space?
So, Santa, here’s what I want for Christmas: Tell me the plan. I bet I can make some serious, time-saving improvements.
Thanks,
Number 6
Originally published in San Diego CityBeat, image also from CityBeat
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Posted by Eric Wolff
Repo! The Genetic Opera is a kind of wannabe Rocky Horror Picture Show for the 21st century. They might be trying too hard, but I can’t resist a futuristic Goth musical starring Anthony Stewart Head! (And Sarah Brightman? Ulp.) I’ll be first in line at the next midnight showing decked out in my finest Goth-mad-scientist wear.
What can I say? The man can WEAR those fishnets.
4 Comments | Film, Geek, In the future we'll have..., Silliness | Permalink
Posted by Miriam Goldstein
Yes, that certainly is a walrus playing a saxophone.
(I swear, at some point we will have actual science content again. But it’s almost finals!)
3 Comments | Our furry friends, Silliness | Permalink
Posted by Miriam Goldstein
After gorging on whitefish and lox at Barney Greengrass (the shifting baselines of Ashkenazic Jewish food is a post for another time…) and loading up with babka and rugelach and rye bread at Zabar’s, we ambled across the park and down Fifth Avenue to see the holiday windows, expecting the usual shiny baubles and incomprehensible fashions.
What I did NOT expect was Bergdorf Goodman’s bizarre combination of expensive menswear and stuffed polar animals. I couldn’t tell if they were real taxidermy or not – I’m used to my taxidermy being, erm, less well dressed. Was it a clever commentary on the fashion for caring about global warming? (Broadway IS trying to go green, after all.) A tone-deaf use of endangered species? Strange homage to the ancient Egyptian gods? I have no idea, but I tend to feel nothing but confusion about fashionable things anyway. What do you think?
Hollister Hovey has more photos here, along with a dead coral bonus from the women’s store across the street.
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Posted by Miriam Goldstein
This squid hat has mitten-tentacles! (Via Chaos Theory)
2 Comments | Garter Gear, Silliness | Permalink
Posted by Miriam Goldstein
Sooth the savage election worries with Muppets meeping “Stars and Stripes Forever.” Guaranteed to reduce teeth-gnashing and fingernail-gnawing and leave you with a warm fuzzy feeling.
Via Eric’s work blog
1 Comment | Silliness | Permalink
Posted by Miriam Goldstein
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