And I’m not already anxious???

“Believing that we just reached the peak of our personal evolution makes us feel good,” Dr. Quoidbach said. “The ‘I wish that I knew then what I know now’ experience might give us a sense of satisfaction and meaning, whereas realizing how transient our preferences and values are might lead us to doubt every decision and generate anxiety.”

In other words, I am going to change just as much in the next ten years as I did transitioning from my 20s to my 30s.  So will my parents.  So will everybody else I know.

I don’t really feel like my preferences and values are transient though.

Thanks a pantload, science.

Anybody reading this who’s familiar with the concept of spoons… I have one left.  When I’m at the center working on things I feel all upbeat, and when I’m home, I’m not, so I guess I’m going out today.

 

Google Play

I know all you high tech folks will roll your eyes, but it blows my mind I can go to Google Play on my laptop, pick out apps to try, have it confirmed that they will work on my model of phone, and then they can push to my phone in seconds through the wifi.  And just as fast as I try the little suckers, they come off my phone, usually, but the drum rudiments app is proving useful, even as the music notation app is not.  For example, Angry Birds is off.  Each time the advertisements blocked my ability to destroy those verdammten schweine I died a little, and off it came – although now I know what all the fuss has been about.  So far I’ve been sticking with free apps, anybody got any tips for a good paid app? I’m looking for utilities, music apps, productivity apps and anything you’ve found useful.  I can recommend gStrings Free, it’s as good as any tuner I ever paid for and quite sensitive.

Forskolin

So I’m poking around my favourite joints on the internet, and run across a Eurekalert reference to erectile dysfunction research.  Everybody knows that nitric oxide is what triggers the onset of an erection, but nobody had nailed down – sorry for the choice of words – what sustains an erection, which is the other half of working on ED.  Turns out that you need a continuous cascade of nitric oxide to keep the jolly happening, some of which happens in the penis itself.  At the very end of the article, there’s an offhand comment about how forskolin assists to keep this nitric oxide cascade flowing.

I’m thinking, Darwin’s Beard, a compound that assists with ED that’s called Forskolin?  I mean, it’s like hiding a foreskin in plain sight.  So I look up forskolin on wikipedia, and it sounds like homeopathy, it’s been offered up as a treatment for so many conditions.  But no, science.  And the molecule looks like Oh Ho Ho with a boner at both ends.  But that’s just me, I can derive amusement from almost anything.

 

 

Miss Margot watches the screen

A couple of days ago Margot was sitting on her tuffet in the den while Jeff was copying files.  She watched intently as the files flew between the folders, and then for yuks Jeff started shifting the dialog box around, and she watched that too.  Eddie never watches TV although occasionally he responds to sounds from the speakers.

Margot needs a bath, she’s getting a bit pee-ie, and it’s Jeff that has to put up with her rank rear end.

I have a new phone, an HTC One S (I bought it on Thursday last but it was DOA so I replaced it).  I am very much liking it but I’m still getting used to the keyboard.

The war on vegans continues

Holy flaming balls of purulence.  I inherited John Caspell’s entire library of anarchist works – if I lived in the US I’d be subject to a Grand Jury indictment just because I lived close to some government building that was vandalized.  Here’s the link.  Or should I not be worried because I am not young?

Quote of the day

Social media has turned modern friendship into a pixellated bar that serves kittens, soundbites and RPGs. – A Sloman.

Tony Scott, noted director and producer and brother of Ridley, committed suicide by jumping off a bridge.  He left a note. He was 68.  Depression’s a hell of an illness, and my condolences to his family, friends and associates. …added later – he had inoperalbe brain cancer.

What the hell I don’t even.  Binge drinkers are happier.  Science sez.  I only post this because this was the first weekend I really really really wanted to buy beer, but I managed not to.  Most of the time I don’t even think about alcohol but I came piteously close to purchasing same when I came out of the Heather Dale concert, and no jokes about how she drove me to drink.

Should get a call back about work today.  Guess I need to run some laundry.

Saw the Helen Mirren version of the Tempest.  Loved it.

Margot breathes at 14 -16 breaths per minute, which is apparently low.  She’s very noisy right now… I’m assuming she’s asleep.  Eddie did a phantom barf yesterday morning.  Jeff and I both heard him and we looked everywhere and couldn’t find it.  Speaking of Eddie, he’s scratching at the door, so I’ll get up and let him in.

I find this article really disturbing and can’t articulate why.

 

Welshidoc and the three quarks From Jaxamicus, a commenter on io9


Welshidocs and the Three Quarks:

There was once a family of quarks who lived in a cozy cottage in the farthest reaches of space. There was a great big Papa Quark, a medium size Momma Quark, and a little tiny baby quark.

One morning Mama Quark cooked them some unaccounted-for mass for breakfast. As the mystery-breakfast was both hotter and moving faster than predicted, the three quarks decided to take a walk in the darkness while it cooled.

They had not been gone long when a physicist from Cardiff named Welshidocs came along. He had been picking Bosons and had wandered into the depths of infinity. When he saw the three quarks’ cottage, he smiled and clapped his hands. “How elegant!” he cried. “I wonder who lives there?” He stood on his toes and peaked into the Computer Model. There didn’t seem to be anyone home, so Welshidocs opened the door and went right inside!

The first thing he saw was the table set with three bowls of unaccounted-for mass; a great big bowl for Papa Quark, a medium size bowl for Momma Quark, and a tiny little bowl for baby quark. “Oh, that Nobel Prize in Physics smells so good!” Welshidocs said. Then, as he was feeling a little hungry, he picked up a spoon and tasted the mystery-breakfast in the Great Big Bowl.

“OUCH!” he cried, dropping the spoon. “That mass is MUCH too arbitrarily assumed to be spherically symmetric!”

He tasted the doctrine in the medium size bowl. But that chaos was MUCH too cold.

Then he tasted the ideas in the tiny little bowl. “Mmmmmm,” he said. “This set of assumptions is JUST right!” so he ate it all up!

Having eaten his fill, Welshidocs moved into the living room and climbed into the Great Big Superstring Theory that belonged to Papa Quark. “Oh, no!” he said. “That theory is MUCH too hard.”

Then he clambered into Mamma Quark’s Classical Mechanics Theory “Oh, no,” he said. “That theory is MUCH too soft!”

Next, he dropped himself down in Baby Quark’s Dark Energy Theory. “Ahhhh,” he said with a smile. “This theory is JUST right!”

Just then there was a loud CRAAACK! and Baby Quark’s theory broke right through!

Welshidocs stood up and dusted himself off. Then he climbed upstairs to the bedroom. There he saw three Gravitational Waves all in a row. “Oh,” he said, yawning, “I am feeling sleepy.”

So he pulled down the covers and climbed into Papa Quark’s Great Big Gravitational Wave. But he quickly jumped down. “That wave is MUCH too hard!” he said.

Then he tried Mamma Quarks’s Reasonably Observably Sized Gravitational Wave. But it was far too soft.

So he climbed into Baby Quark’s Curiously Perfect Gravitational Wave. It was JUST right. Soon Welshidocs was lulled fast asleep!

A little while later the Three Quarks returned from their walk. They were feeling very hungry and were looking forward to eating the nice bowls of tasty unaccounted-for mass.

Suddenly Papa cried out in his Great Big voice, “Someone has been eating my spherically symmetric mass!”

Then Mamma cried out in her medium size voice, “Someone has been eating MY chaos theory!”

And Baby Quark cried out in his Tiny Little Voice, “Some has been eating my wild hokum. And they’ve eaten it ALL UP!”

Then the Three Quarks saw their theories near the fireplace.

“Someone has been sitting in my hypothesis!” Papa Quark said in his Great Big Voice.

“Someone has been sitting in MY hypothesis!” Mamma Quark said in her medium size voice.

“Someone has been sitting in MY hypothesis,” Baby Quark cried in his tiny little voice. “And now it’s BROKEN!”

Then the Three Quarks went upstairs to the bedroom.

“Someone has been sleeping in my Wave, which I can observe although the wave itself is inconceivably large!” Papa Quark shouted in his Great Big Voice.

“And someone has been sleeping in MY Wave of reasonably observable size that I have no evidence of existing!” Mamma Quark exclaimed in her Medium Size Voice.

“Someone has been sleeping in MY Fermi Paradoxical wave,” Baby Quark squeaked in his Tiny Little Voice. “AND HERE HE IS!”

Just then Welshidocs woke up! When he saw the three quarks standing around him, he leaped off the Wave and ran down the stairs and out the door.

He didn’t stop until he was wee, wee, wee, all the way home.

And the Three Quarks never saw Welshidocs again!

roundup

Mohenjo Daro one of the (in my view) current wonders of the world, is dying, disappearing, thanks in part to the poverty and incompetence of the government in charge of it.

A great collection of reaction gifs, some not safe for work.

If you want to find out what an ultra-thin and flexible BRDF [bidirectional reflectance distribution function] is, follow this link.   safe for work

This is no way to greet the dawning future, except that it is true.  safe for work.

I spoke to Lois, Kaitlin’s mother, last night (thank you Keith for arranging that).  She is doing about as well as can be expected. I don’t have much more to say.  I mostly listened.  I am very thankful that she has the support of so many family members and friends right now.

 

Roundup

Anderson Cooper has finally come out as gay.  We can now go back to our normally scheduled, completely unwarranted and entirely jejune speculations about the sexuality of other people we don’t know.

South Vancouver Island has something called a (link removed for security) Permablitz.

Slap me on my ass and send me to Mars.

And there was a silence in the internet …. darned leap second.

Wow, a guide for moving back home.

Apes with Apps.

 

Lemming’s Twofer and News of the Sun

Why the hell is the surface of the sun hotter than the interior?  It’s a theory.

Step up folks you know you can’t go wrong
Got a back catalog about five miles long
if he gets bored he’ll write another song
step up step up Lemming’s twofer
A fas cinating miscellany of
all the subjects that he really hates and loves
And I’ll stand with him when push comes to shove
comes to his opinions I’ll be his minion

Step up folks and do not be perplexed
If you can’t guess which instrument he’s playing next
turn off the phone, he hates it when you text
step up step up Lemming’s twofer
Step up folks and get some bile on wry
While the gun-totin’ smokers get it in the eye
If he was wine, he would be very dry
step up step up Lemming’s twofer
Idio syncratic entertainment
delivered in eyepopping Hawaiian raiment
devoid of refinement or containment
Step up step up Lemming’s twofer
Brain abraded with a loofa
Step up step up Lemming’s twofer
Filker parodist and spoofer
Step up step up Lemming’s twofer now!