BibliOdyssey: Eclectic BookArt

Here's a link to an interesting looking blog about "Eclectic Bookart": Bibliodyssey. I plan to look into it more when I'm not supposed to be working. Here's a smattering from the recent posts:

art in science at caltech

ART OF SCIENCE COMPETITION

Ones and Zeros Yin and Yang Drum and Bass Ice and Fire Closed and Bounded Sun and Moon Sweat and Tears Gin and Tonic Cause and Effect Pepper and Salt Acid and Base Heaven and Hell Pen and Ink Art and Science Trial and Error Pain and Pleasure Bread and Butter Boy and Girl You and I Rhythm and Blues Always and Never Fish and Chips Copy and Paste Cream and Sugar Self and Other Left and Right

Is your research beautiful?
Is your art scientific?

enos' chimp sauce

Trying to find the mistake in my Wednesday 4/30/08 NYT crossword, I googled "enos chimp space" to determine if, in fact, "Enos" was the "1961 spacechimp" (it was). Capt Bringdown with the eagle eyes thought I was looking for some "enos chimp sauce". Whether Enos' Chimp Sauce is made for chimps, by a chimp (named Enos), out of chimps, or to be served on chimps, I'm sure it is a tasty tasty treat your whole family will enjoy. Capt Bringdown says I "got crazy with the cheese whiz" making a mock up of the product, but I think the market will prove him wrong. Patent pending!

latex for blogger

Here is a link to directions for setting up Blogger so that it can interpret Latex equations:
Latex for Blogger by Technorati

Works great! Watch:
Result of p(X | Y) = \frac{ p(Y | X) p(X) }{p(Y)}:



Result of e^{i\pi} + 1 = 0:



Result of \lim_{n \rightarrow \infty} P\left( \frac{ \frac{1}{n} \sum_{i=1}^n X_n - \mu }{\sigma / \sqrt{n} } \leq z \right) = \Phi(z)

hipster doofus

hip·ster doo·fus [hip-ster doo-fuhs]

1. Someone who has taken being hip and unique to an extreme and therefore worn the "cool" out of the hip.
2. What Jerry called Kramer on the show Seinfeld.

Example Usage:
1. He is such a hipster doofus, and has not changed at all since college. Do you think he knows he is a hipster doofus?
2. Wow, check out all the hipster doofuses and their mesh-backed trucker hats.
3. I hope by putting a definition of hipster doofus on my blog, I don't appear to be a hipster doofus myself. Hamburgers, I think hoping that I don't appear to be a hipster doofus makes me a hipster doofus.

Related:
Amazon Guide: So you'd like to... Become an Intellectual Hipster Doofus?

GI Joe, Hipster Doofus:

art in science

Bird-plant symbiosis. The Metrosideros, or ohi'a in the Hawaiian language, is one of the dominant plants in Hawaii. It has a symbiotic relationship with many of the Hawaiian birds including the apapene. The apapane pollinates the flower as it feeds on nectar. Although it was once thought a relative newcomer to Hawaii, research by scientists at the National Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian's National Zoo show that the plant flowered on Hawaii soon after the islands appeared out of the ocean.

Photo: Jack Jeffrey

Save me. More than 2,300 species including the giant leaf-tailed gecko, 7 to 10 inches long, are found in the wild on the island of Madagascar, off the east coast of Africa, and nowhere else in the world. In a new conservation plan introduced in the journal Science, conservation biologists map out the locations for thousands of animal and plant species on Madagascar, to find the most important habitats to preserve. That contrasts with the usual efforts, which focus on a few high-profile and popular animals.

Photo: Piotr Naskrecki

A deep dissection of the side of the head shows the many blood vessels (red arteries, blue veins) and nerves (graying white) in the facial region. The hole is the external ear canal. The temporal muscle, used for chewing, is the prominent fan shaped muscle on the side of skull, behind the mouth and above the jaw.

Photo: William B. Gruber

After the removal of an outer layer of bones around the jaw, the dissection shows blood vessels and sensory nerves to the lower teeth and chin. The process was slow, in part because the Kodachrome film had to be sent to Kodak in Rochester, N.Y., to be developed. Mr. Gruber had to check that the photos came out satisfactorily before Dr. Basset could proceed with his dissection.

Photo: William B. Gruber

Individually Marked Ants
Stephen Pratt
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

THIRD PRIZE WINNER

Ant colonies show remarkably coordinated behavior, despite lacking any direction from a well-informed central controller. Each worker instead applies simple decision rules to limited knowledge, and exchanges information with her neighbors using rudimentary cues and signals. From this process emerge the construction of complex nests, collective decisions among food sources, the adaptive allocation of labor across tasks, and many other group accomplishments. To identify the underlying decision rules requires a detailed description of the behavior of individually identifiable ants. The ant species Temnothorax curvispinosus is especially useful for this kind of study, because they form small colonies of only a few hundred workers, and they thrive in thin, glass-walled laboratory nests, facilitating detailed video records of their behavior. Most importantly, as shown in these images, workers can be individually marked with tiny drops of paint. Ants are first immobilized with carbon dioxide, and then marked with a distinctive pattern of four drops. They soon emerge unharmed from narcosis, and retain their marks for several months to years. This approach has been particularly useful in showing how emigrating colonies can choose the best among several new homes, even when few individual workers are aware of all the options under consideration.

Dynamic Asset Allocation in Freight Transportation
Warren B. Powell and Belgacem Bouzaiene-Ayari
Department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering

This graphic comes from a dynamic asset allocation problem in railroads. The system, which is now in production at Norfolk Southern railroad, is the first production implementation of a stochastic, dynamic programming model in freight transportation. The model is based on the Ph.D. dissertation of Huseyin Topaloglu (now a professor at Cornell University) for stochastic, integer multicommodity flow problems. The original research was modified to handle multidimensional attribute problems, with millions of asset types.

Driven
Anton Darhuber, Benjamin Fischer and Sandra Troian
Microfluidic Research and Engineering Laboratory, Department of Chemical Engineering

SECOND PRIZE WINNER

This image illustrates evolving dynamical patterns formed during the spreading of a surface-active substance (surfactant) over a thin liquid film on a silicon wafer. After spin-coating of glycerol, small droplets of oleic acid were deposited. The usually slow spreading process was highly accelerated by the surface tension imbalance that triggered a cascade of hydrodynamic instabilities. Such surface-tension driven flow phenomena are believed to be important for the self-cleaning mechanism of the lung as well as pulmonary drug delivery.

Strange Crystal
Darsh Ranjan '05
Department of Mathematics

This crystal grows on its black substrate from a pentagonal seed by reflecting it across its 5 vertices and rescaling the new pentagons by a factor of 0.61803..., the “golden mean,” back towards the point of reflection, and repeating this for all the new pentagons, ad infinitum. Each seed can have its own rule to determine its color and the colors of its descendants. The growth of a single seed has finite area but infinite detail (possessing a fractal dimension of 2). This crystal is strange because crystals in nature do not possess 5-fold symmetry on any large scale, while this one can fill the entire plane very nicely with appropriately placed seeds. In understanding this shape, the arithmetic of the integers extended by the fifth roots of unity proves very helpful.

Wake of a Pitching Plate
James Buchholz GS and Alexander Smits
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

These images contain top and side views of the wake produced by a rigid plate pitching about its leading edge in a uniform flow (flowing left to right). The leading edge of the plate is hinged to the trailing edge of a stationary symmetric airfoil. The wake is visualized using fluorescent dyes that are introduced through a series of holes on each side of the airfoil support. Twice in each flapping cycle, a horseshoe-shaped vortex is shed from the top, bottom, and trailing edges. The vortices become entangled to form the chain-like structure shown here. Studying such wakes is believed to be important for understanding the mechanisms of thrust production in fish-like swimming.

Seahorse Anatomy
Elina Mer
Spouse of a Graduate Student

This image was created in Photoshop to illustrate the vertebral column of the genus Hippocampus. While most fish have scales, seahorses have bony plates over which a thin layer of skin is stretched. Seahorses are vertebrates and thus have a vertebral column that runs through the center of their body and the center of their prehensile tail.

Five-Horned Eggshell
Nir Yakoby and Maria Pia Rossi
Department of Chemical Engineering

This image is a scanning electron micrograph of the anterior portion of a Drosophila virilis eggshell. At this high resolution, its microscopic features can be seen in striking detail. The most obvious structures are the four respiratory appendages (green) that help the fly developing inside the eggshell to breathe. The fifth, shorter “horn” is the micropyle, which is a small tube used for sperm entry. Also of interest, the complex web-like pattern of white proteinaceous material indicates the outline of the individual cells that secreted the eggshell.

there, there, or a make-shift squirrel hospital in your apartment

In my opinion, the awesomest Radiohead music video of all time.

Related: Newsweek article "Of Subways and Squirrels":

In the mass-media age, news captivates us briefly, then vanishes. We revisit those stories to bring you the next chapter.

Starting Point
On Dec. 22, 1984, Manhattan electrical engineer Bernie Goetz opens fire on four black teens who hassle him for $5 on a city subway. All four are wounded, and one is left paralyzed.

Fever Pitch
Goetz is hailed as a hero "subway vigilante" by New Yorkers fed up with raging crime. He's acquitted of attempted murder and spends eight months in jail.

Present Day
In 1996, Goetz is found guilty in civil court of acting recklessly, and the teen he paralyzed is awarded $43 million—forcing Goetz into bankruptcy. In 2001, he runs unsuccessfully for mayor, then in 2005 for the city's public-advocate office. (He lost.) Now 60, Goetz is a vegetarian activist and operates a makeshift squirrel hospital out of his apartment. (Squirrels, he tells NEWSWEEK, are "sociable, playful, affectionate and loving.") As for the past, Goetz—and New York—have moved on. "It's inconceivable New York City crime would go back to the way it was," he says.

dogs in slow motion to techno music. with lasers!

Saw it in the article Inventory: 9 Music Videos Featuring Animals In Prominent Roles

15 Things Kurt Vonnegut Said Better than Anyone Else Ever Has or Will

Here's an article about Vonnegut's legacy published shortly after his death:
15 Things Kurt Vonnegut Said Better than Anyone Else Ever Has or Will
Put Vonnegut at the top of my list of cool people I have never met but am so so sad are dead. I avoid reading Vonnegut books that I have not read yet because I know there are only so many and I don't want to run out. In the meantime, I've read Breakfast of Champions and Slaughterhouse Five three times each.

Here are some quotes picked out in this article:

• "I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.'"
  I know this one is obvious and sappy, but it is like the point of me writing this blog -- directly and actively thinking about the little things in my day that have made me giggle[snort], or say "in't that peerrty", or type "heehee" [p.s. I just typed "heehee" to choseamanouille because he typed the word "poopoo" to me. "poopoo" is funny.], and definitely anything that the smart part of my brain says, hmm, I hope I remember that later on. Anyways, there's "hard" scientific evidence that doing this will increase my happiness by at least 25% :).
  

• "She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is doing."

  A couple of pages into Cat's Cradle, protagonist Jonah/John recalls being hired to design and build a doghouse for a lady in Newport, R.I., who "claimed to understand God and His Ways of Working perfectly." With such knowledge, "she could not understand why anyone should be puzzled about what had been or about what was going to be." When Jonah shows her the doghouse's blueprint, she says she can't read it. He suggests taking it to her minister to pass along to God, who, when he finds a minute, will explain it "in a way that even you can understand." She fires him. Jonah recalls her with a bemused fondness, ending the anecdote with this Bokonon quote. It's a typical Vonnegut zinger that perfectly summarizes the inherent flaw of religious fundamentalism: No one really knows God's ways.

  Vonnegut was one of the best atheists evah. He gets the "you buuurrrn" zinger in there without all the holier-than-thou vitriol (and just plain dumbdumbness) of a Christopher Hitchens. Hey, do you think it is coincidence that Vonnegut and Mark Twain are similar looking?
  
  
  
  Maybe that is just in my own lesion-induced universe in which all people with poofy white hair and mustaches look the same.
  
• "Many people need desperately to receive this message: 'I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.'"
  Ditto what I said in the first bullet. I whole-heartedly agree with this. This is the reason that this blog is publicly readable. Maybe someday somebody will agree with what I am saying and send a little affirmation my way :).
• "Why don't you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut? Why don't you take a flying fuck at the mooooooooooooon?"
  Just an excellent, excellent thing to say. I only copied and pasted it here cuz I wanted it to be part of something I made, too.
• "I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled 'science fiction' ever since, and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal."
  Again, just funny, funny stuff :).

Someday, when I am feeling sad, I will have to go find my own Vonnegut quotes to add.

i love you weng weng

Catchy song + cool video: Weng Weng Rap

yyaalm yyaalm thhhp (drool)

Article in NYT about chocolate pudding & custard. I like chocolate. Ooh, and pictures of chocolate.

toad-in-the-hole

I award the label of most appealing name for a dish of English origin to "toad-in-the-hole". From Wikipedia:

Toad in the hole is a traditional British dish comprising sausages in Yorkshire pudding batter, usually served with vegetables and gravy.

The origin of the name 'Toad-in-the-Hole' is vague. Most suggestions are that the dish's resemblance to a toad sticking its little head out of a hole provide the dish with its somewhat unusual name. [1] An 1861 recipe by Charles Elme Francatelli does not mention sausages, instead including as an ingredient "6d. or 1s. worth of bits and pieces of any kind of meat, which are to be had cheapest at night when the day's sale is over."

Jammin' on the One: A Plea for Help

Ja-ja-ja-jammin' on the one. I don't know what to say.

One of the greatest -- well, let's go with most memorable -- Cosby Shows of all time is the one in which Stevie Wonder and one of the Huxtable kids get in a car crash. When making a recording, Stevie asks Theo, "What do you say at a party?" to which Theo replies, "Jammin' on the one". Do any of my many :) readers know the origin of this phrase? Amazingly, Google does not tell me the answer. Here is the definition from the Urban Dictionary:

jammin' on the one

1-What you say at a party.
2-What Theo Huxtable says at a party.

Just jammin' on the one fo' shizzle.

Was this a real phrase, outside of the Cosby Universe? Perhaps, the world may never know.

Update, January 22, 2009. The problem has been solved!

From Brent S.:

The lingo changes so quickly and apart from in the show (which I ALSO vividly recall as I thought it was pretty cool) I've never heard it specifically. Rock'n'roll was traditionally based on the backbeat, on the 2 and 4; one - TWO - three - FOUR. Maybe it simply refers to emphasizing the downbeat; ONE - two - three - four, etc.

And from Matt S.:

Brent is right. Watch this video of Bootsy Collins. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHE6hZU72A4&feature=related

Here is the video mentioned:

[[Embedded video Bootsy's Basic Funk Formula]]

Two Classics on Hulu

Hulu is coolu (I should be in advertisement :)). Here are two classic movies you can stream:


Hercules in New York

This is (supposably) Arnold's first movie. Plot: Hercules (Arnold) is bored of Mt. Olympus, and goes to New York, against the wishes of his father Zeus. There, he shows the mortals how strong he is. Conflict ensues when Hera takes away his divinity, right before his televised weight lifting competition (gosh darn it).

This was really hard to watch til the end (boring), but I made it through! My favorite parts:

• Pretzy is named "Pretzy" cuz he sells pretzels down by the docks (of course!).
• Arnold wrestling with the "bear" that escaped from the zoo (man in bear suit).
  
• The radio message from Arnold to Pretzy at the end of the movie:
  

  [A sullen Pretzy turns on the radio]
  Hercules, as a disembodied voice on the radio: Don't grieve, my friend. In the memory that leaves us, separation may have a quiet happiness all its own.
  Pretzy: Herc?
  Hercules: We are friends, you and I, and nothing can take that from us.
  Pretzy: Herc! Where are ya Herc? What are you doin' in my radio? Herc, it's me! It's Pretzy! Why'd you take a powder like that? Why'd you just leave? Huh? I didn't say anything out of line, did I, or do nothin'?
  Hercules: I enjoyed knowing you, my little friend.
  Pretzy: Herc, ain't I never gonna see you again, Herc? Ain't you never comin' back, even for a visit? Cuz if you ain't it's sure gonna be lonesome for me again. Herc, we really did all them things, didn't we? I didn't just imagine all them things, did I? It wasn't what the head shrinkers call "wishful thinking" was it?
  [Flashbacks to Hercules' antics, Hercules flexing his muscles]
  Hercules: Anytime you wish me to be with you, all you need do is think of me, and there I shall be, in your mind, and in your heart, for as long as you want me to be, as long as you need me.
  Pretzy: Herc? Herc? [to himself]"Anytime you need me, anytime you want me, just think of me, and I'll be there, for as long as you want me to be." Yeah! I think I'll eat an apple.
  

• Zeus's lightning rod.
• There is no sound during any of the "action" scenes.
• Arnold is our governor. His signature is on my PhD. At least I don't have Larry Summers on my Bachelor's.

Memorable quotes, according to IMDB:

• Hercules: Hercules hides from no man!
• Hercules: Hercules has no need of money!
• Hercules: Bucks? Doe? What is all this zoological talk about male and female animals?
• Hercules: [throwing an attacking robber aside] How dare you touch Hercules!
• Hercules: [Grabs forklift truck, stopping it dead] A fine chariot... but where are your horses?


• Helen Camden: [noticing a poster for a "Hercules" stage show] Oh look, you're famous.
  Hercules: That is not Hercules! And who is that monster who looks as if he has come straight from the kingdom of the underworld?
  Helen Camden: Oh no, this is a motion picture, a play! Really, you mustn't take yourself so seriously.
  Hercules: He doesn't even look like me! Look...
  [takes his sweater off]
  Helen Camden: What... what are you doing?
  [noticing his impressive muscles]
  Helen Camden: Oh wow!
  Hercules: [flexing] Does he? Hahahah. Does he?
  

Tsui Hark's Vampire Hunters

Plot: There's a vampire on the loose near the Jiang house! The band of vampire-hunting heroes go undercover at the estate and accept jobs as servants. The Jiang family are famous for their piles of gold and for their unique manor of preserving their dead. As a ruse to lure Jiang away from his gold, the bad guys animate the well-preserved dead Jiangs, who proceed to hop around in unison like cute little robot bunnies. The heroes have to keep the zombie Jiangs from becoming an army of vampires (or something like that ...).

Overall, this movie definitely falls in the "watchable" category. I appreciated its uniqueness. I didn't totally follow the plot, but maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention.

My favorite parts:

• The way the vampire sucks the blood of its victims! So cool! It sucks people's blood from a distance out of their facial orifices (see screencap above).
  
• One of the dubbed voices (the movie is originally in Chinese) for what can only be described as a bandit has a bad Mexican accent. That's PC.
  
• The bunny-hopping army of the undead, of course.
  

Barb in Chicago Writes...

I don't know why, but this anecdote is laugh-out-loud amusing to me. It is a comment on Rex Parker's Blog from Barb in Chicago:

At this very moment a hand is appearing under the 6-foot fence surrounding my yard, and some sort of yummy treats are being slipped to my chocolate lab by my odd next door neighbor. It makes me feel sort of Addams-family-ish uncomfortable, but the dog is deliriously happy.

Queen: See a Supercool Ghost Band via YouTube

Sometimes I worry that all the cool people are dead. If I could see one concert by a long-gone band, I would like to see a Queen con Freddie concert. Lucky for me, some of his performances and supercool unitards have been immortalized on YouTube. Here are some awesome Queen videos on YouTube:

Live:

• Wembley, 1986:
• Part 1 Fried Chicken!
  
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6
• Part 7
• Part 8
• Part 9
• Part 10
• Part 11
• Part 12
  
• Live Aid, 1985: Voted "world's greatest rock gig"
• Part 1
  
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Rio, 1985:
• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6
• Part 7
  
• Houston, 1977:
• Millionaire Waltz
• Death on Two Legs
• Year of '39
• 1978:
• Don't Stop Me Now
• Rainbow Theatre, 1974
  
• Procession, Now I'm Here
• It's time for Ogre Battle
• White Queen
  
• In the Lap of the Gods Revisited
  
• Killer Queen, March of the Black Queen, Bring Back Leroy Brown
  
• Son and Daughter
  
• Drum Solo, Keep Yourself Alive, Liar
  
• Stone Cold Crazy
  
• Jailhouse Rock, God Save the Queen
  

Making of A Night at the Opera:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
  

Music Videos:

• Keep Yourself Alive
• Somebody to Love
• Seaside Rendezvous
  
• I'm Going Slightly Mad
• Under Pressure
• I Want to Break Free
• Innuendo
• Crazy Little Thing Called Love
• Bicycle Race
• Radio Ga Ga
• Bohemian Rhapsody
• Bohemian Rhapsody, Wayne's World Version
• Who Wants to Live Forever?
• Fat Bottom Girls
• Another One Bites the Dust
• Barcelona
• Love of My Life
• We are the Champions
• Killer Queen
• March of the Black Queen
• Fairy Feller's Master Stroke