December 2009
62 posts
air + air = water
Any school kid can rattle off the chemical formula for water these days, but can you imagine being the first to realize that water is actually made of two elements that exist independently as gases? How on earth could someone who believed the phlogiston theory come to that conclusion?
This is an astonishing fact rendered banal in our modern times.
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Passion Pit - Sleepyhead (Piano Acoustic)
Really...
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Growing up with the Fellowship
In junior high, when The Fellowship of the Ring was first released, all the girls were gaga for Legolas. Even though I still sorta thought boys I had cooties, I came out of the movie and couldn’t deny the hormonal response that Legolas was really, really hot. Like really.
Rewatching The Return of the King over break, I had a revelation. Legolas has some nice bone structure and all, but the...
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Things I Don't Understand
Why were there so many military recruitment ads before Avatar?
There were three or four — one of them even in 3D.
What type of person would come out of Avatar wanting to join the military?
I mean, the soldiers were the bad guys, right?
All right, I guess there’s the fantasy of being Jake Sully, but I don’t think military wants Jake-Sully-wannabes either.
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DNA hybrization with Bailey's
Just another reason to keep a bottle of Bailey’s around. The method from Yamamoto et al 1993:
Hybridization was carried out overnight at 65°C in a solution containing 6 × SSC, 5% Irish cream liqueur (Original Irish Cream, R & A Bailey’s), 20 mM Na2HPO4, 20 μg/ml heat-denatured salmon sperm DNA, and 2 μCi/ml of the 32P-labelled probe.
(via Mad Prime)
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“Facebook holds out a utopian possibility: What once was lost will now be found....”
– Faux Friendship - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education
Filed under: yes, your metaphors are pretty and you sound smart with your wide-ranging allusions, but damn I still disagree with you.
I know, I know, our parents are all on Facebook now and there’s no point in ruing...
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This little figgy went to the market
Extravagance is measured relatively so when you are young and poor, indulgences need only be small things. My idea of indulgence is going to Trader Joe’s and buying something I’ve never tried before. Usually, it falls into one of two categories: something familiar presented in novel form (dried white peaches, snap pea chips) or something quasi-exotic with a multisyllabic name. The...
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“At first glance, this idea, which I’ll call the orchid hypothesis, may seem a...”
– The Atlantic: The Science of Success by David Dobbs
A very good article about a possibly paradigm-shifting idea in psychology. (h/t MD)
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Null Hypotheses
2n+1
How much is the feeling of being the third wheel (or fifth wheel or any 2n+1 wheel) simple self-consciousness and how much of it emanates from the 2n’s themselves? Doesn’t PDA weird you out even if the couple engaging in it doesn’t care?
n—>∞
I’m willing to bet that the self-consciousness component increases as a function of n. This is why formals are most...
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“If it is vulgar to judge high art by its effectiveness at reproducing...”
– Relationshipism | The New Republic
WatchFanfarlo & First Aid Kit - This Is The Way (Devendra Banhart)
So utterly charming!
I’m at my wits end because a mp3 of this does not exist on the Internet. How in today’s world is this possible?
Two to Too
Sometimes, I think there are two types of friends: those of physical proximity and those of emotional proximity.
The friends of physical proximity are the ones with whom I attend classes or eat dinner in the dining hall. The rhythms of our lives are in sync, and we’re aware of each other’s mundane details. Like how many pages there are left to write for a paper.
The friends of...
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Stereotyping People by Their Favorite Indie Bands →
According to my Facebook profile, these are some of my favorite bands, and according to this list, these are types of people that like them.
Passion Pit Bros vaguely interested in listening to music and very interested in having sex with their girlfriend.
Spoon Bros who drink shitty beer without ironic intentions.
Vampire Weekend Bros who try to make out with girls at concerts by relating to...
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“What I do want to say is this. One interesting new fact of popular culture is...”
– a grammar: a book that is popular on the internet
As someone whose cultural tastes are informed almost exclusively by the Internet, I can’t emphasize how insanely true I find this idea. I’ve been inculcated with a specific set of ideas about coolness, and it’s weirdly frustrating...
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"Many people consider the desire for happiness to...
Reading a book about happiness right now and feeling kind of crummy. It’s a psychology book about happiness rather than a self-help book, so instead of telling me how to be happy, it’s telling me how my brain works and all the cognitive tricks it plays and how ohmygod I’m probably doomed forever as a result of my neurochemistry.
And this crummy feeling — it’s not...
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The Aughts: The Anthropology of Anthropologie
I tried to pick out a few choice passages to tease you with but decided the whole thing was too damned good to butcher up. As good writing should, the essay articulates thoughts that are generally felt not consciously understood. It is common to ascribe certain attitudes to race or gender but class is so often glossed over.
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By Ariana Stern
(Marylouise Pels and Vanessa Giovacchini in...
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Holiday Party Idea: Ironnukah
And we’d listen to Sufjan Stevens’ Christmas albums.
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Belle & Sebastian - “If She Wants...
“We’re quickly approaching a point where the limitations aren’t in bandwidth or...”
– Jack Cheng’s Notes to Self
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“This is my favorite reaction. It’s the backside attack!”
– My very obviously gay chemistry TF on SN2 reactions. Puns about HOMO* also abounded. I will definitely remember this for the final, possibly for the rest of my life.
*legitimate chemistry term
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zoom zoom zoom
Perhaps our schooldays are the best years of our lives because they are the least static. Dissatisfactions can be dispelled and corrected with the renewal that comes each September — change is practically institutionalized as you’re forced into new classes, new activities, new opportunities. Personal velocity slows upon graduation, as we settle into the career tracks that lead into the...
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There were two types of girls in middle school gym...
Those who brought their gym clothes in plastic bags from the shopping mall (Aeropostale, American Eagle, mostly Abercrombie) and those who brought their gym clothes in plastic bags from the grocery store.
Guess which type I was.
Catalog of Frustration
HarvardFML is a most perfect distillation of frustrations. Here are a few insights into undergraduate life at this hallowed university:
I wanted to join a peer counseling group to help other students and feel like part of a tight-knit community. They rejected me. F@&$ you Harvard, with every stupid extracurricular position being a competitive event. FML
She said she cared about me. I thought...
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The Hot Guy →
I was at a party when this super-hot guy came up to me. He was like seven feet tall with retardedly huge muscles and super-tight clothes. Inwardly, I was like “Oh my god!” but outwardly I was cool.
“Excuse me, miss,” he said, smiling. “Can I buy you a drink?”
“Totally!” I said. “What kind of drink can I get?”
“Uh, whatever you want,” he said.
“I’ll have four whiskeys in one glass,” I said to...
The Top Ten Years of the Decade →
1. 2005 — This year demonstrated its commitment to the decade’s center. It was clear by March that it was no longer 2004. Audiences became aware that they were now living in a decade that was no longer the 1990s, and there was something special and poignant about that. Critics have been discussing this overlooked year for the past four, and with good reason. Few recent years seemed as driven by...
"He seems like a conscientious young man"
A chimera of various aphorisms I’ve picked up: The qualities we like in others are the ones we aspire to, and the the qualities we dislike in others are the ones we find detestable in ourselves.
I’ve noticed, recently, how the mildly irritating presence of someone can so thoroughly infect the mood of a dinner table or party. Not the mood, per se, but certainly my perception of it. In...
“A very acid soil would crackle like those sour candies that kids eat, and it had...”
– Sweet and Sour Soils
From Edible Geography, sister site of BLDGBLOG so you know it’s gotta be good.
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What Newton Said
There is a specific type of inertia that results from spending an entire day in sweatpants and indoors. It induces drowsiness even after eight hours of sleep, a propensity to snack even after lunch, and an inability to generate independent thoughts.
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Vacuum cleaner, good lighting is the mainstream... →
That last post went to a translation party and morphed into the above. What a svelte, oblique phrase. It was such an awkward sentence before: “It doesn’t even have to be the mainstream culture, but good writing cannot come from a vacuum.”
Party on!
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The 100% Compatibility Index
He would prefer:
chicken drumettes
pie filling
bread crust
Lucky Charms cereal
So I get to eat:
chicken wings
pie crust
loaf centers
Lucky Charms marshmallows
Inspired by wnmnc, whose taste in food and possibly also men seems so similar to my own. Better believe it! Complementarity in consumption is of supreme importance.
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Gather up yer unruly thoughts
True or false: the number one criterion for a good writer is having one’s finger on the cultural pulse.
It doesn’t even have to be the mainstream culture, but good writing cannot come from a cultural vacuum.
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“When I am asked why I do not find Joan Didion appealing, I am tempted to answer...”
– Barbara Grizzutti Harrison (via yvonne georgina puig)
A sentence that is amazingly strenuous despite the delicacy of its words: lavender, orchids, porcelain, and pleated. Yes, it is good to be critical of our writerly heroes, and no, I have not actually read The White Album.
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In Which We Take Our Cues From The... →
Meredith Chamberblain finds literary dresses for your holiday parties. I’m not going to pretend to have read these books or that I have the slim hips to pull off these dresses, but there are some things that play extraordinarily well in the realm of fantasy.