Friday Unrelated Information
Friday Unrelated Information
1. If being creative makes me distrustful, as yesterday’s science news said, what can I blame on this study of personality changes and the single-celled parasite–found in cat poop!–that causes toxoplasmosis? “How Your Cat is Making You Crazy“
2. My nephew has discovered the piano. If you listen carefully to the video my brother posted, you can hear Skyler tell the piano “hi” before he plays it.
3. This llama has something to tell you:
More delightful drawings here.
Friday Unrelated Information
1. This has been making the rounds lately, but I like it. Sadly, that last one isn’t currently true. (Click for larger.)
2. It would have been the 57th birthday of Steve Jobs today. Here he is on creativity:
Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people…The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.
(from Wired, February 1996)
Friday Unrelated Information
1. For cat lovers and font lovers: 20 Cats as Fonts. Including:
2. Comic Sans Cat looks like I feel after this week.
3. I continue to cope with hippie songs. Any song where you can sing “Om” is a good one:
Friday Unrelated Information2.
1. Have you seen Better Book Titles yet? It redesigns book covers “to give you the meat of the story in one condensed image”–one hilarious condensed image, that is:
So many more here.
2. Happy birthday to Marxist/alienist playwright/composer Bertolt Brecht today. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to be singing “Show me the way to the next whisky bar” when this week is finally over tonight.
Friday Unrelated Information
1. If you ever wanted to branch out from “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog,” here’s a list of pangrams–even some in other languages!
2. This was on kottke.org this week, but I find it hilarious: Fake pronunciation guides. They’re eight seconds of pure awesome.
Celebrate the weekend with a glass of chimpoopisto!
Friday Unrelated Information
1. Let’s just say, hypothetically, that you are going on a date for the first time in 4.5 years. What do you do? How do you act? Fortunately, Mystery Science Theater 3000 has found us this educational film, “What to Do On a Date.”
“How about a weenie roast?” “Nick, NO!”
2. Related but not as funny, this essay about a first dance could have been written by me, down to the dress I was so convinced I had to have and the inevitable disappointment:
I cried because I’d believed with all my being that once I put on eyeshadow and a turquoise dress, I’d turn into a heroine of any of the slumber-party movies I’d watched. […] I cried because at that moment, in a gymnasium decorated with crepe paper so that the gifted kids could feel not just smart but glamorous, I began to understand that not everything would come easy to me, and that some forms of failure could be intangible, inexpressible, and nonetheless undeniable. I cried because I wanted to be seen, and because nobody was ready or willing to see me.
3. And unrelated: Happy birthday to our friend W.A. Mozart.
Friday Unrelated Information
1. A dear friend suffered a terrible loss this week, so putting up funny links or MST3K quotes doesn’t feel right today. Instead, I will tell you to travel safely and hug your loved ones and try to make your part of the world more full of light.
2. I’ll also give you a space picture, since that’s how I cope:
(Click the image to see it bigger–every speck of light you see is a galaxy.)
This was the last image featured on The Atlantic’s space Advent calendar. As the caption there said:
This Hubble image is one of several, including the Ultra Deep Field, which peer into seemingly empty space, leaving the camera shutter open for hours, and reveal that billions of galaxies made up of billions of stars fill our skies in every direction as far as we can possibly see, separated by almost unimaginable distance and time, yet still reachable, visible as an image of their long-ago selves.
Friday Unrelated Information
1. The latest issue of O Magazine is all about poetry, and it includes an interview with Mary Oliver (our favorite). It’s a big deal because she doesn’t give interviews and is in her 80s. It’s also a delight. Some quotes:
There were times over the years when life was not easy, but if you’re working a few hours a day and you’ve got a good book to read, and you can go outside to the beach and dig for clams, you’re okay.
and:
It’s hard to meet a stranger—you give of yourself—and if I did that, I’d want to do it well.
(I’m stealing that one as an excuse not to meet people or go to social events.)
2. My inner hippie wants to use Khalil Gibran as a career planner. Let’s talk her out of that, shall we?
Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
Friday Unrelated Information
1. Stephen Hawking is turning 70 soon and so is giving interviews. In one with the New Scientist, he was asked, “What do you think most about during the day?” and answered, “Women. They are a complete mystery.”
I know it’s just a soundbite, and I know we’re supposed to think he’s being a charming old man, but I have to think of Carl Sagan making the argument to include women in The Explorers Club:
But we presumably are adults, with a special responsibility for interacting with all humans on this planet.
Maybe we can think of each other as human adults first, and then genders second? You’ve done way more complicated things, Dr. Hawking.
2. I bet you were just thinking, “How come there isn’t a Tumblr for Mystery Science Theater ephemera?” Well, there is. And it’s called F** Yeah MST3K. And it’s full of gems like this: