Updates from November, 2011 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Emilily 1:44 pm on November 24, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Weird places… 

    These two pictures were taken from my car (obviously) while driving through some town in Pennsylvania. Previously, I did not know anything about Pennsylvania, except that 1) there are Dutch people there, and 2) it inspired one of my favorite shows, “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” Now I know a bit more, thanks to one of the people in my OCS class and a dinner in Steubenville. Steubenville is a small coal-mining town in Western Pennsylvania, whose economy clearly has not seen any new developments since dynamite and railroads were introduced to the coal mining industry. I try not to watch horror movies because they scare the living crap out of me, but I am pretty sure Steubenville could be the setting for many a crazed-ax-murder scene. After my mom and I had dinner in Steubenville, we were both so impressed by the weirdness that she sent me an article of some crazy news story that had recently happened in Steubenville. (I don’t remember what it was, but it was bizarre.)

    The other thing about Pennsylvania…my drill instructor always likes to insult people by guessing where they are from, and then implying that every negative stereotype of that place is a direct result of their existence. One of the guys in my class is from Western Pennsylvania, and his nickname is now “Western Penn,” said in a tone of voice that suggests this guy could only be the product of multiple generations of cousins marrying cousins.

    I didn’t start this post with the intention of just bashing on Pennsylvania. I guess my point was that, when I started the road trip, I thought Ohio was backwards and Pennsylvania was relatively urban. However, now I think Ohio is lovely, and the Appalachian region of Pennsylvania makes those little towns way out in the woods in Humboldt County look like thoroughly modern centers of civilization. Anytime my perceptions are changed, I feel like I have learned something, and that is always good. Sorry Pennsylvania.

    And, finally, unrelated but also new and weird – small hamburgers from the middle of the country.

     

     

  • Emilily 12:37 pm on November 24, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Old Stuff 

    So…it’s Thanksgiving, everything’s closed, and I’m sitting here with coffee and cookies and I figured I should catch up on my blog posts. I know you are also doing something creative today, on a far grander scale, and I wish I was there helping out! But for now, here are some pictures of where I am…

    …………………………………

    This is a picture of the back yard of the B&B my mom and I stayed in when we were in…the city before Indiana…I think it was Springfield, Missouri. It was very eclectic-Victorian, in a nice part of town, right across the street from a University. It was cute and comfortable, but I liked the place we stayed the next night, in Terre Haute Indiana, much better. It was called Sycamore Farms, although this barn (below left) was the only farm-ish thing I could find. Most notable – the breakfast was AMAZING.

    …………………………………….


    Next we have some leaves, in a park in somewhere…

    …………………………………….

    And at the bottom, a picture of the side of the road in Ohio. I should say something for Ohio here…it was, unexpectedly, one of the most beautiful parts of the entire road trip. Some of it was just flat cornfields, but once we entered the Eastern part of the state, it was all rolling hills and streams and fall leaves.

    …………………………………….

    There was this town, called Winterset, that looked like something out of a storybook. I thought that surely I would find a ton of great pictures of it online, but alas, this was all I could find – one image of a covered bridge. And we didn’t even see this bridge. I am seriously considering driving the 15 hours back to Ohio and taking some more pictures.

     

     

     

  • Emilily 5:11 pm on October 6, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Oklahoma 

    We didn’t stay in Oklahoma – we just drove through – but we stopped for lunch so it probably deserves a short post. Overall, not a bad impression of Oklahoma City, but I can still say the best thing about Oklahoma is that the speed limit is 10 mph faster than Texas, which was an annoyingly sluggish 65.

    We used Yelp to find a good place to eat, and ended up at Sage Marketplace Cafe. Sounds pretty good, right? Like they might have smoothies and salads and maybe a take-out deli, or something to that effect, that would have prompted them to call themselves a “marketplace.” Well, that was not the case; it was a smallish lunch place with a full bar and no market to speak of.  Maybe Marketplace was just Sage’s last name? Regardless, Mom and I both had the slider trio, and they were delicious. After lunch, we went to get cupcakes at this place recommended by one of the local “marketplace” patrons, called SaraSara Cupcakes. Yum!

     

     

  • Emilily 6:33 pm on October 4, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Texas again 

      And two more of Texas…since it is photogenic in the same way that those shots of grotesquely obese people shopping at Walmart in their camouflage skinny jeans and mullets make us look, and look again…

    This is a junkyard for old cars, and by old, I mean they were probably abandoned here when route 66 was the only way through town. I wanted to get closer to get a better shot, but I felt like this was prime junkyard-dog territory and I am just not that much of a car buff.

     

     

  • Emilily 6:22 pm on October 4, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Texas 

     So…this is Texas. I believe this shot captures the true essence of Texas, and there is really not much else to say.

    Except I should probably explain what is going on in this picture. I was experimenting with Hipstamatic lenses, and unfortunately, you cannot read the sign out front, on the left side of the shot, but it says “amusement. open.” I believe it is referring to this wooden shack with boarded up windows. Also difficult to see, but there is a giant iron hook of some sort, maybe a type of winch, hanging from some solid looking rope over the door. I think they must be using the word “amusement”rather loosely.

     

     

     

     

     

     

    In case you were skeptical…

     

  • Emilily 5:44 pm on October 4, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    New Mexico 

    This is a shot of the inside of a Día de los Muertos store that we went into in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We spent a few hours window shopping and sightseeing here before continuing on to Texas. There’s not much else to say about it…it is hot, and the speed limit is 75 mph.

    Since this post was about to be really short and boring, I looked up Day of the Dead for some more content…

    The Day of the Dead celebration takes place on November 1 and 2, which corresponds with the Catholic All Saints’ Day (November 1) and All Souls’ Day (November 2.) The holiday dates back to the Aztec culture and festivities to honor the “Lady of the Dead,” who has evolved into today’s Catrina doll.

    In the Guatemalan celebration of Día de los Muertos, they prepare fiambre. Fiambre started out from the tradition of taking to the cemeteries the favorite dishes of dead family members. As all different families brought food to the celebrations, they became mixed, eventually mixing them together to this all-encompassing salad. Ingredients usually include numerous sausages and cold cuts, pickled baby-corn and onion, beets, pacaya flower, different cheeses, olives, chicken, and sometimes even brussels sprouts or shrimp. Something about that is very intriguing, I think next time I have a kitchen, I will find some fiambre recipes.

     

  • Emilily 5:16 pm on October 4, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    More Arizona… 

    …………and more hipstamatic fun!

    The picture on the left was taken in Williams, after we left our hotel. As a follow up on the last post, we did follow the pig tracks to breakfast, then immediately declined that option, and went to the Greek-Italian cafe across the street. After eating, we stopped at a gas station to fill up (more later about the gas prices here!) and I took a picture of this train. The train is significant because, apparently, much of the middle portion of the country exists only to support the train tracks that move stuff from one side to the other. I also thought it was funny that there was a school bus parked in an empty lot…on a Monday morning. In Arizona, they don’t go to school on Mondays; once they removed science and biology from the curriculum, there really wasn’t a need for five whole days of education.

    The picture on the right is where the aliens landed. No, not really…it is a meteor crater, from a 80 ft wide meteor that landed outside Flagstaff about 20,000 to 50,000 years ago. (By the way, I am not impressed with this date range. I really thought we could carbon date stuff better than a 30,000 year window.) Anyhow…the aliens shot this asteroid at us, and it made a hole 4,000 ft in diameter and 570 ft deep. In the 60′s, NASA used it to train astronauts how to collect samples of moon rock…and hunt aliens.

     

     

     

  • Emilily 9:16 pm on October 1, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Arizona 

    So here is Day 1 on our way out to Rhode Island, otherwise known as gas station in The Middle of Nowhere, AZ. (This Hipstamatic is pretty cool, it really captured the heat and grittiness of this parking lot!)

     

    Right now we’re in Williams, Arizona, at a B&B called Canyon County Inn. There’s live country music across the street, and in the morning we follow the “pig tracks” to the place where they serve breakfast. Weird.

     

    Kinda tired now, going to bed. I’ll post again tomorrow, from Amarillo, Texas!


     

    • Carmen 12:39 pm on October 4, 2011 Permalink

      looks exactly how I pictured Arizona to look! Following pig tracks out to where you eat sounds a bit creepy, its like following the pig out to the slaughter house so you can have bacon for breakfast.

  • Emilily 11:13 am on January 4, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags:   

    la luna azul 

    So here is my post on the blue moon. Very appropriate that it follows your picture of the blue moon, since I have no actual picture of the last blue moon, only one I lifted from this Wikipedia article, of the December 2009 blue moon with a partial lunar eclipse, as was visible from certain parts of the world (I don’t know which parts, but not ours, obviously.) There is a lot of interesting information here, so I’d recommend reading the whole thing, but here are some of the highlights!

    • There are a number of different definitions of a blue moon, the most accepted being the 13th full moon in a year, occurring once every two to three years. The Farmers’ Almanac follows the rule of the extra (fourth) full moon in a season, and the definition of the blue moon as the second full moon in one month stems from a 1946 interpretation error, revealed in the May 2009 issue of Sky & Telescope. (In case you missed the May issue, here’s the article.)
    • The moon before the blue moon is called a betrayer moon, because it was seen as coming ahead of its appropriate time (the blue moon was one appearing at the right time, then?) and thus confusing the clergy when they were trying to determine the dates for Lent and Easter, which apparently were based on the dates of the full moon.
    • An interesting list of the traditional English names (e) for full moons, based on the Gregorian calendar, followed by the Native American (na) names, based on an older method of dating full moon according to seasons:

    January: old moon (e), wolf moon (na)
    February: wolf moon (e), snow moon (na)
    March: lenten moon (e), worm moon (na)
    April: egg moon (e), pink moon (na)
    May: milk moon (e), flower moon (na)
    June: flower moon (e), strawberry moon (na)
    July: hay moon (e), buck moon (na)
    August: grain moon (e), sturgeon moon (na)
    September: corn moon (e), harvest moon (na)
    October: harvest moon (e), hunter’s moon (na)
    November: hunter’s moon (e), beaver moon (na)
    December: oak moon (e), cold moon (na)

    • Finally, here is a handy equation you can use to calculate the dates of future full moons (all full moons, not just blue moons):

    d = 20.362955 + 29.530588861 \times N + 102.026 \times 10^{-12} \times N^2

    where d is the number of days since 1 January 2000 00:00:00 in the time scale known as Terrestial Time. For Universal Time (world clock time) add the following approximate correction to d:

    -0.000739 - (235 \times 10^{-12})\times N^2 days

    and where N is an integer number of full moons, starting with 0 for the first full moon of the year 2000. The true time of a full moon may differ from this approximation by up to about 14.5 hours as a result of the non-circularity of the moon’s orbit.

    The next time the blue moon will fall on New Year’s Eve is 2028, at which time there will also be a full lunar eclipse! Whoa! (I did not calculate this myself, although I feel like we should test this equation to make sure mathematician Jean Meeus is correct.)

     

  • Carmen 1:09 pm on January 1, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags:   

    Last night’s moon 

     

  • Carmen 1:07 pm on January 1, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

    Last skills acquired in 2009… 

    Right before the end of 2009 I learned how to saber a champagne bottle!  This is a useful skill to have especially if you happen to be riding a horse and someone hands you a bottle of champagne to toast your nobleness. Well obviously you would just bust out your trusty sword and slide the blade upwards with a smooth, swift motion hitting the top lip of the bottle at its weakest point and the top shears off. Of course the force of the bubbly keeps any glass from entering into the bottle but if you do it right there are no extra pieces of glass anywhere.  Brilliant!

     

    • Nurse Ratched 4:37 pm on January 1, 2010 Permalink

      Being a mom, maybe not your mom, but somebody’s mom, I instantly see danger in this practice. I see slices in esophageal tissue, a hasty trip to the ER, swollen membranes, difficulty breathing and the like. I understand the principle of the bubbly forcing the shards of glass up and away from the point of impact. However I think it must be said that principles are abstract rules that should never be confused with proven science. All in all I think it safe to say that saberizing a champagne bottle can be hazardous to your health. So was it tasty?

    • Carmen 6:23 pm on January 1, 2010 Permalink

      Yeah I’m wild!!!

    • Tuesday 5:22 pm on January 4, 2010 Permalink

      What up with that?!!

    • Emilily 7:09 pm on January 4, 2010 Permalink

      I am really impressed by this skill. I told my parents about it, and they had the same reaction as Nurse Ratched, namely, that you could potentially be sipping glass shards along with your bubbly. While I admit this seems like a valid concern, sometimes there is probably no way around it, like when you are swinging from the mast of your pirate ship, ready to celebrate your exploits, and all you have handy is your cutlass, your peg-leg, and a one-eyed monkey…

    • Carmen 7:16 pm on January 4, 2010 Permalink

      I have been coughing up blood lately, is that weird?

    • Emilily 7:24 pm on January 4, 2010 Permalink

      No, I am sure that is perfectly normal, especially for people who have been drinking glass shards. You should probably take some Advil or something for that.

  • Carmen 10:21 am on December 24, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    What a joke… 

    So, these are on sale today on Gilt and I’m just floored by the balls these people must have.  And I’m floored by the gullibility of the people who buy this.  I mean, somebody must be buying them or they wouldn’t be in business right?  Anyways, apparently if you put these on your face you won’t get pimples and it will reduce wrinkles, depending on which one you use. Officially:

    “Using superior technology developed by NASA, the Baby Quasar works by stimulating the natural production of collagen in the skin, thereby diminishing the appearance of fine lines, wrinkles and enlarged pores. Extremely effective in firming and toning the skin and increasing blood flow and circulation, the Baby Quasar uses 24 LED’s in four discrete wavelengths of red and infrared light.”

    This is pure bullshit.  And even if it wasn’t and by some miracle the light from LEDs did something beneficial for my skin I’m not going to pay $500 bucks for it!  I’ll just go rub my face in the christmas lights!  Cmon people, this isn’t the 1920′s!  Actually the 20′s were better, at least they were advertising for things that worked – Coke! Delicious and refreshing! (Yeah it was, cause it had cocaine in it), Stay slim with your very own tapeworm! (hey, you will actually lose some weight.  In fact, I’m gonna go get some tapeworms right now and start my new business!  “Lose weight by meeting my little friend!”)

     

    • Olga 3:23 am on December 25, 2009 Permalink

      Don’t forget the key phrases in your worm/diet business. You must use important sounding lines like “developed by a New York Cardiologist” it wouldn’t sound the same if you said “developed by a Mississippi Bariatric MD”. Don’t forget the all important timetable. You must keep it very specific, example “Lose 300 pounds in just 32 weeks! not 31 weeks, not “lose 300 pounds in about 7 months” 32 Weeks and I’m done! So when can I get my worms? Were they trained by NASA to eat fat fast? Are they discrete?

  • Emilily 9:35 am on December 23, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: amazon, kindle   

    a new toy 

    Hey, guess what! Mis padres are getting me a Kindle for Christmas! I’m getting the smaller one, that has international download capabilities. I know this doesn’t mean a whole lot for the blog, except that I will still be able to read all kinds of cool science articles. There’s even a Wired blog I can subscribe to. Although I will completely ignore any misgivings I might have about jumping on the e-reader bandwagon at the expense of real books and bookstores, both of which I love, I also feel like I am being suckered into an expensive yet cool gadget that will make me think “how could I have survived before I had this?” just like my iPod. Thank you technology, for ensuring my life is more entertained, informed, complicated and expensive.

    I was reading reviews before we purchased it, and found that there are lots of people who are really down on Amazon. I suspect it is just because they are scarily massive. Someday I might regret saying this, but I cannot help but root for them because they started small but through a combination of luck, good timing, and shrewd business strategy, have built an empire – it feels like good old fashioned American capitalism, which certainly won’t cure world hunger, but it’s nice to know it works every so often.

    Also, I bet someday we will look back at Jeff Bezos as one of the most notable entrepreneurs of our generation; in fact, there are probably already MBA courses analyzing his every move as we speak. In a recent shareholder meeting, he was quoted as saying, “Advertising is the price you pay for having an unremarkable product or service.” Probably not entirely true, but his arrogance is endearing.

    On an unrelated note, I was trying to find a funny review I read last night slamming Amazon for not releasing sales figures* and I came across a blog that you may already know about, but that had some cool stuff. It’s called Geeksugar, and it appears to be some sort of offshoot of Popsugar. They have a combination of geeky, techy gadgets and girly fashion stuff, including these cool little travel speakers.

    *The quote was something like: Amazon, on their self-proclaimed remarkable Kindle sales: “The good news is, we’ve sold every Kindle we made. The bad news is, we made 5.”

     

    • Carmen 10:22 am on December 24, 2009 Permalink

      awesome. i’m jealous.

  • Carmen 4:43 pm on December 18, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: dark matter,   

    Movie Review/Science Education 

    So I watched Angels and Demons last night and my official review is this:  SO Good!

    It was actually quite beautiful as it takes place in Rome and the characters are whisking themselves to all the gorgeous historical buildings with all of their statues and fountains.  Also, I’m sure it was factually accurate so all of the information that Dr. Langdon spouts regarding Catholic and architectural history is an education in itself!  Not only that, but they show the Vatican Archives! (I’m sure its real and not a replicated set)  Now, the best part of this movie is in the beginning when they show the Large Hadron Collider in all its glory.  I had no idea that this movie was going to be such a treat with all of my favorite things, including a great soundtrack.  So in the beginning they show all the scientists busy at their LHC computers in a crisis about how and when to “harvest” some stuff which turns out to be antimatter.  Antimatter looks pretty cool in the movie – all glowy and powerful – but what is it exactly?  I have no idea.  So  I’m doing a little research…

    Turns out CERN (home of the LHC) has an Antimatter Academy.  Their site has tons of information about it and I am still trying to understand it and its implications.  Antimatter is definitely the way of the future.

     

    • Dave 11:58 am on December 21, 2009 Permalink

      Carmen, how does antimatter relate to strange, degenerate, exotic or dark matter? Speaking of elusive dark matter, indicators of it’s existence have been felt in a mine in Minnesota: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/dec/17/dark-matter-detected

      Happy Winter Solstice to you both!

    • Carmen 2:57 pm on December 21, 2009 Permalink

      Good article! Very interesting. I had no idea there was a group called the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search, I’ll have to contact them and see if they’re looking for new members. There is one thing in that article that seems contradictory… They were saying that dark matter has a unique characteristic that allows it to move through matter as if it didn’t exist and yet the only way they can detect it is to wait for dark matter particles to bump into their high powered sensing machines. Maybe what they meant to say is that their machines can sense when dark matter particles are passing through them, not bumping into them. Anyways, if thats true dark matter is probably in here right now!
      Also, thanks for the pop quiz Dave! Lucky for me the answer to your question is simple = Theoretically.

    • Emilily 10:13 pm on December 22, 2009 Permalink

      I have not yet seen the movie, but I did read the book, and really enjoyed the parts about the LHC. I am not really crazy about Tom Hanks, I feel he is a little too old and soft-looking to play the dashing Dr. Langdon (who is, I like to think, more of an Indiana Jones type, but maybe that’s just me romanticizing it) especially opposite Catherine Zeta-Jones, but I will probably check it out nonetheless…my superficial view of what the characters are supposed to look like will not get in the way of my love of CERN!

    • Emilily 10:46 pm on December 22, 2009 Permalink

      That was a great article, Dave. That was the first I had heard of supersymmetry being one of the goals of the LHC, or that dark matter might explain why time only travels forward. Fascinating! Although, I did question why a dark matter detector was located at the bottom of a mine in Minnesota? I would have thought they would put them in space, but underground? Where else do they have dark matter detectors? How many are scattered around the world…like, enough that I could run into one someday? What does it looks like? More research is in order….

  • Carmen 9:07 am on December 12, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags:   

    A little LHC history… 

    In reading the New York Times this morning I came across an article that taught me alot about the history of supercolliders.  Did you know there was a miniature one built really close by, in Berkeley? Way back in 1932!  It was only a foot in diameter as opposed to the 17 mile loop of the LHC.  And speaking of big loops did you know there was one being built in Texas with a 54 mile loop?  Its true.  It was called the Superconducting Supercollider (an arrogant Texan obviously thought up that name).  But the SS program was shut down in 1993 because costs exceeded 11 Billion. Oh poor babies. 11 Billion? Oh yeah, thats way too much, especially because we have to spend 1.8 billion per week on our wars in the Middle East (according to msnbc).  So now because of that brilliant decision by Congress there will be no new discoveries concerning particle physics coming out of the U.S.  Which is probably a good thing, Europe will do a better job anyways.

     

    • Emilily 9:11 am on December 16, 2009 Permalink

      Well, you know I am as big a fan of cool science as you are, so I read the New York Times article too! I have to say, I did not know we had any supercolliders in this country, but props to the one in Illinois – even if it is a measly 3.9 miles around, Tevatron is an awesome name. Although we are about to get our physics butts kicked in a serious way.

  • Emilily 12:15 am on December 3, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    WordPress app test! 

    p_2048_1536_FC782EAB-553C-4D13-86F9-11681AB28F33.jpegOk, so here it is, I am posting from my phone! So far all I have figured out is how to type, not yet sure how to add (or view) pictures.

    Have you tried this yet?

    Well, I selected a photo from my camera, and there was no “add photo” sort of command but when I viewed the preview, it said there would be a picture attached, so I guess the final version is really best viewed online still.

     

    • Emilily 12:33 am on December 3, 2009 Permalink

      Well, there’s the picture alright, so it did work. Although now I’ve just established that I can’t leave replies via safari on my phone because it is asking me to sign in.

      Oh well, I go to bed now.

    • Carmen 10:42 am on December 3, 2009 Permalink

      Awesome! geez my nose kind of looks big in that picture but I think its just the angle. I think I have a normally proportioned nose. This is great though, I’ll do a post later from my phone to try it out.

    • Emilily 12:47 pm on December 3, 2009 Permalink

      You have a totally normally proportioned nose. All the plastic surgeons reading our blog should take note, that’s what a nose ought to look like. Evil villains take note, too – that eyebrow arch says “Take over the world? who, me?”

  • Emilily 12:22 pm on December 2, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags:   

    WordPress iPhone app 

    wordpress I’ve just downloaded the WordPress iPhone app! (In order to get it to work, I had to go into our writing settings an enable XML-RPC publishing protocols, so I hope this doesn’t screw anything up.)

    So far, it works okay – I can see posts and comments and view pages, but I can’t see any pictures, all I get is a jumble of code as a placeholder. Maybe I have to play around with it a bit. Overall, I think it will be really useful for reading posts and adding comments when we’re away from the computer!

     

    • Carmen 2:12 pm on December 2, 2009 Permalink

      Oh yeah, I downloaded that too but I hadn’t gotten around to adjusting our publishing protocols – so thanks for doing that! I’ll try to post this weekend via iPhone from the Christmas tree ranch where we are going to cut down our own 10 foot tree!

    • Emilily 6:04 pm on December 2, 2009 Permalink

      Nice! I am jealous you get a 10-foot tree, it is going to be lovely in your main room. I suggested to Dylan we get some decorations and he brought home like 10 boxes of super-power high-tech LED lights, so we’re going to hang them this weekend….it’ll be so bright you’ll probably be able to see the house from space.

    • Carmen 10:53 am on December 3, 2009 Permalink

      I’ve seen those LED lights, they kind of hurt my eyes. It looks like they are vibrating really fast and my eyes cant actually focus on them. Does that happen to you? We’re going to put lights on the firehouse too, it looks like it will be a dangerous task.

    • Emilily 12:44 pm on December 3, 2009 Permalink

      On the outside of the firehouse?! Sounds like an opportunity to wear your ninja gloves to me!

    • Carmen 3:26 pm on December 3, 2009 Permalink

      Oh yeah ninja gloves! There is always an opportunity for ninja gloves – I’m wearing them right now!

  • Carmen 6:00 pm on November 30, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    movie review, sort of… 

    So I tried to watch Bride Wars last night.  I only got half way through which could be attributed to the late hour but also because the movie hadn’t made me angry yet and I wanted to quit while I was ahead. (high five?)  You know what my forte is? What I reeeaaaally excel at? Overthinking.  Yeah.  Is this a bad thing? I’m not sure yet (I haven’t overthought my tendency to overthink yet (its on the list of things to do this weekend)).  So, I think a “normal” person could watch this movie and just enjoy the minimal amount of humor it has and be done with it.  But I have to analyze its quality and its impact on our society and wonder what kinds of messages is it really sending to all the women out there and is it harmful or not harmful, and then it just starts making me angry.  Like, who are these women??  I don’t know any women who have been saving and planning for their wedding since they were 16. Do you?  I know I haven’t been dreaming of a wedding for any length of time.  But I know they exist or else why would all these movies and tv shows about them exist? Is it an outdated idea thats left over from the 50′s?  Or is it a healthy characteristic that I was not taught about?  Am I weird? Or are they weird?  Honestly, it doesn’t really matter.  What concerns me is if young ladies (like teenagers) watch these millions of movies made about weddings and believe that that is the way to behave.  Because if that happens we’re all fucked and irrational bridezillas will take over the planet!  (Yeah, I’d watch that movie!)  Hopefully these teenagers will just appreciate it for the half-way comedy that it is and just forget about it.  Which is exactly what I am going to attempt to do tonight as I finish watching it.  I can do it!

    On a somewhat separate note, I already know exactly whats going to happen all the way through this movie. As I have said before, these writers have no imagination and the whole story follows a very narrow and predictable line of reasoning.  But I’ll let you know if they surprise me.

     

    • Emilily 6:55 pm on November 30, 2009 Permalink

      Well, I am not sure about all that. Probably because I need to improve my over-thinking skills.

      I have not spent any time planning for my wedding, aside form the random comment about how insanely expensive they are and that I am never going to be duped into spending $300 for a floral centerpiece or some nonsense. I do know a few girls who fall prey to the bridal fever, and I know of even more mothers who have spent considerable time and money in planning for this event. I think it is something left over from more traditional family roles, and yes, probably some 50′s values. I am willing to be that those silly women who came up with National Men Make Dinner Day had been picking out bridesmaid dresses since Junior High!

      Okay, now that I think about it, the wedding planning goes waaaay back. Have you ever heard of a hope chest? (Also called, disturbingly, a glory box.) It is for a woman’s family to save all kinds of valuable things in that she will be given when she weds. Like one big Christmas for matrimony. And what about a dowry? Parents had to plan the wedding ahead of time, how else would they land a suitable husband? No wonder a girl was encouraged to get excited about her big day – for her, it might have been the only silver lining in the whole sold-into-domestic-slavery transaction. Families have been planning how to unload their female offspring for ages, and I bet women have been plotting on how to escape watchful eyes of parents for just as long. Only today when marriage seems so impermanent, when women are free to leave the house and pursue their own desires, husband or no, when aspiring to be a housewife shows a lack of personal ambition rather than good wholesome values, does all the wedding planning become optional, superfluous. I don’t think we are weird to not sit around thinking about seating charts and color schemes, I think we are evolved, and the entertainment and media industries are simply lagging a few decades behind.

    • Atom Ant 5:37 am on December 1, 2009 Permalink

      It’s sick … really. I always wonder what kind of person would think movies like that are funny. Bride Wars, Runaway Bride, My best friends wedding, The Wedding Planner, the list goes on and on. Stupid, predictable, marginally funny at best. This is true with 98% of romantic comedies. So my conclusion is that these movies were made for 98% of the (female?) population. So, with a few simple calculations… 304,059,724 / 2 = 152,029,862 X 0.98 = a butt load of people out there who are just plain idiots. And to further my point, lets just ask Jerry Springer how much money he’s made off of this country’s toxic, brainwashed, obese by choice, drugged, alcoholic population?
      I’m sure that everybody reading this is in the 2% of the population who actually have a functional brain.
      Right?

  • Carmen 12:37 pm on November 23, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags:   

    LHC update… 

    I just wanted to update you on the progress of the Large Hadron Collider.  Apparently, thier website gives out bulletins keeping everyone up to speed.  Unfortunately, these updates make no sense at all and are only written in their super secret science language.  So, I’d like to take a stab at translating for everyone (i’m talking to you emily (and my mom) since you’re the only one reading this).  Here is their bulletin, and here is my translation:

    “We have been shooting beams of energy into these pipes since last week and they have gotten about half way around this big ass circle we built.  We’re using some really expensive and sensitive equipment to track the particles moving around in there and so far, nothing has broken.  Pretty soon we’re going to start shooting particles into another tube going the opposite direction and in about a week we should be able to see these particles getting into some head-on collisions.”

    So there is your update, not too exciting yet.  Even if I don’t understand the specifics of what they are talking about I love reading bulletins that talk about such things as: “beams dumped just upstream of  the experiment cavern.” and “particles produced by the impact of the protons on the tertiary collimators left their tracks in the calorimeters and the muon chambers of the experiment.”

    And here’s a bonus if you are interested in learning the facts about a baguette being the guilty party in the LHC’s emergency shut down.

     

    • Atom Ant 5:17 pm on November 23, 2009 Permalink

      I beg your pardon? Emily is the only one reading? Far from true my little lily pad. I am a religious reader.

    • Carmen 5:29 pm on November 23, 2009 Permalink

      Ay dios mio! my apologies! I didn’t mean to exclude any of our religious readers. Please allow me to edit that part out…

  • Carmen 5:40 pm on November 16, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: dreams   

    Lucid dreaming… 

    This last weekend we hosted a christening party for our friends who just had a baby (max is the godfather!). And I was chatting with an interesting woman who was telling me how lucid dreaming helped her friend overcome a traumatic event.  I had never heard of this method before but logically it made sense to me.  And then! after i went to sleep I proceeded to have multiple bad dreams! The dreams don’t sound that bad in the light of day:

    Playing with my niece Violet in the verdant landscape outside my dream house, its a beautiful sunny day.  Out of the corner of my eye I spot a Moose trotting towards us! I say “Holy shit, its a fucking moose!” (keep in mind, I don’t cuss like that in my waking life, only in my dreams).  Knowing what I do about moose I grab Violet and take off running, trying to be quiet and stealthy but I can see the moose tracking us so I tell Violet to be really quiet and we hide underneath some bushes.  But I can hear old moose creeping up with his heavy hooves and I know I’m about to get trampled to death. And then I wake up.

    After a couple other bad dreams I can’t seem to relax and I’m just laying there all tense and stressed out.  And then I remembered what I learned about lucid dreaming…  So I put myself back in the dream and imagine it happening all over again.  Except this time I yell at the moose “Hey Moose! You can’t terrorize me here! This is MY dream motherfucker!”

    And then I slept peacefully for the rest of the night.  If you ever have bad dreams you should try it out!

     

    • Emilily 5:56 pm on November 17, 2009 Permalink

      Well, I read that Wikipedia article, and it was quite interesting. I do this sometimes, although I didn’t know what it was called, its just that sometimes in the middle of the dream, I’m like “oh, this is just a dream” and sometimes I wake up, sometimes not (well, obviously I wake up eventually!)

      What do you think was going on with your dream? I wonder what your dream house looks like? I did some research on the symbology of moose, and here’s what I got:

      According to Native American totem mythology…“One of the most ancient and unique power animals, the Moose energy brings in the power of self-esteem through recognizing ones own strengths and place in society….” In Pagan mythology, moose energy…“symbolizes expressing joy of accomplishment, not in a boasting way or to seek recognition…”, and is at “her” peak during late autumn. Were you running away from your self-worth? Since I don’t put a lot of stock in mythology, I should point out that the moose is also the Abercrombie & Fitch logo.

      All kidding aside, though, Wikipedia says “In terms of raw numbers, they attack more people than bears and wolves combined…” So it’s probably good you ran.

  • Emilily 4:32 pm on November 12, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: genes   

    designer genes 

    This article on the speech gene is pretty interesting. I know it is a rather simplistic supposition, but what if we could somehow put the human speech gene into an animal with adequate brain capacity for complex communication, like dolphins! Or maybe elephants, who it has been suggested have tribal, not just individual, memories – could they tell us what it’s like? And here’s one where we could borrow a gene – the ability to regenerate body parts – from a fish!

    I just left a smart-ass (if slightly illogical) comment on the Daily Galaxy Image of the Day, a photo of the HGC 87 galaxy group. In addition to making myself laugh, this has the added benefit of putting a link to our blog on their comments section!

     

    • Carmen 12:12 pm on November 13, 2009 Permalink

      Oh I’m so excited for the future. See, by the time we’re like 70 we can stop spending our money on anti-wrinkle creams because we’ll just be able to regenerate our skin! All of these beauty companies should really be putting their money into gene research and then progress would grow in leaps and bounds. Its all based on how useful it will be to the public. Thats why DARPA’s discoveries always have a dual purpose – one for the military and one for the percentage of the public who have lots of disposable cash. Just look at how space travel has grown when the focus is moved to getting the public to spend their money on it. Suddenly we have a space hotel under construction. Whatever, I’m all preachy today. As much as I love progress i think capitalism makes me angry. After doing a little research I might have to take back what I said about DARPA, most of their projects are only for the military. Unless the public wants one of these!

    • Emilily 12:45 pm on November 13, 2009 Permalink

      Holy batship Robin, I want one of those!

    • Emilily 1:08 pm on November 13, 2009 Permalink

      I just thought of something…that thing would be way more stealth if it didn’t have its own Wikipedia article.

    • Emilily 1:10 pm on November 13, 2009 Permalink

      We’re totally on the same page, here, too – capitalism is good for the pocketbook, bad for the soul.

  • Carmen 7:07 pm on November 8, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags:   

    More tiltshift goodness… 

    From a roof on a beautiful day…

    IMG_0022IMG_0024

     

    • Emilily 3:53 pm on November 9, 2009 Permalink

      I agree, Tiltshift is awesome. I took this picture of my grandma over the weekend, and first it was a bit creepy with the candlelight and all, but then I applied a little tiltshift, and voila!

      mimi

      However, I think it works best on landscapes, or images that are brighter to start with.

  • Emilily 2:26 pm on November 5, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags:   

    everything is better with an app 

    photophoto(2) Here are two pictures of Dylan’s house – on the left, a picture of the real thing, and on the right, a miniature model of Dylan’s house.

    No, I’m just kidding, that’s the exact same photo edited by the TiltShiftGen app!

    I bet you knew that, didn’t you?

    xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

    xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

    xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

    xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

    xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxphoto(3)

    And here’s an adorable picture of my cat, edited with the ColorSplash app. ColorSplash allows you to de-saturate an image to black and white and then color back in just the areas you want.

    On that note, should we be concerned about how much time we spend playing with our phones? It’s not even really a phone anymore, it’s a hand-held computer that occasionally takes calls. And to be perfectly honest, I like mine better when it’s not taking calls at all so I can sit quietly and make Bloom and Trope music.

     

  • Carmen 1:24 pm on November 3, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    Laser fusion and stuff… 

    So, as I’m sure you know (!), the large hadron collider (LHC) is going to be starting up again in the next couple of weeks after that disappointing FAIL last year.  I feel like they are putting a whole lot of expectations on this thing.  I mean, they have spent SO much money to get this thing built, and its so huge (in terms of the space it takes up) and yet it is based on concepts and theories.  I admit that my knowledge of whats going on in the LHC is quite sparse so I’m going to assume that they had some very convincing data to get the kind of money they needed to build it in the beginning.  I mean, they don’t even know if the Higgs Boson exists but they plan on finding it!  I’m going to suspend my judgment and of course give them the benefit of the doubt because I truly want them to find everything they are looking for.    What I’m really hoping for is for a stargate to open up right the middle of that thing! That would be awesome!

    LHC

    I also came across this article while reading about the LHC which I find wholly incredible and exciting.  In case you don’t feel like reading the article, its about the very real possibility of creating unlimited energy for the world without the toxic waste that comes with electric and nuclear plants.  I feel like this should have been figured out a long time ago and it probably would have if greed did not exist.  I’m sure that technology in this area has been held back because people have been making way too much money on oil and energy in general.  Anyways, this new “National Ignition Facility”, which is in California (high five!) and starts up in 2010 and is also based on a theory (which they must have proven at some point to get the 3.5 billion start up cost).  The theory: “scientists will use the world’s most powerful laser to create 192 separate beams of light that will be directed at a bead of frozen hydrogen in a violent burst lasting five billionths of a second…the intense beams produce a powerful shockwave that crunches the fuel pellet at a million miles an hour, generating temperatures of around 100,000,000C. Under such extreme conditions, which are found only in the core of stars, the hydrogen atoms will fuse, producing helium and vast amounts of energy.”  Woah.

    NIC

     

    • Emilily 3:25 pm on November 10, 2009 Permalink

      Okay, this reply is long overdue, but I had to set aside enough time to read all those articles. It’s so important to keep up on the science!

      First, the one from The Guardian about the LHC. I think it is amazing they fixed the problem already, I mean, a machine of that scale, with such specific conditions required to work, it’s no wonder it had a few problems! Do you think it is really possible it could create a black hole that will swallow the earth? I also like these guys, they have taken skepticism to a whole new fascinating level: …another group of physicists [who] say the production of Higgs bosons may be so abhorrent to nature that their creation would ripple backwards through time to stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveller trying to halt his own birth. Wow! Seriously, if humanity is going to destroy itself, that would be way cooler than slowly poisoning ourselves with our own sewage and pollution.

      I followed the link to the Wikipedia article on the Higgs Boson particle, and I’d just like to say, way to go Wikipedia, every link in that article led to another article that made even less sense than the first, like one of those Russian nesting dolls of obscure physics theories. In order to understand the God Particle, I had to read about scalar physics, which is “distinguished by its invariance under a Lorentz transformation, hence the name “scalar,” in contrast to a vector or tensor field. The quanta of the quantized scalar field are spin-zero particles, and as such are bosons.” I cannot even remember what I was originally reading about, but I did learn a new word! Quanta-the minimum unit of any physical entity involved in an interaction, and an entity is quantized when it is reduced to this minimum. I can’t use it in a sentence, but I feel like at least I have prevented one small fraction of this information from flying right over my head.

      I am sure this article about the National Ignition Facility and a potential clean, unlimited energy source is fascinating, but the time-bending dark-matter-spawning particle accelerator is a tough act to follow. Although, you make a good point about why haven’t we figured this out already – maybe if everyone weren’t focused on fixing the 60 billion dollar short-circuit at CERN, or manufacturing cars that have 3 rows of seats and DVD players instead of electric engines, we would have made some more progress on this by now.

    • Carmen 3:51 pm on November 10, 2009 Permalink

      Well, I hate to inundate you with even more information but another article regarding this so-called Higgs and its abhorrent nature which makes people want to time travel came out in the NYTimes – Collider article
      This will clear things up a little about the time traveling bit.
      I don’t know what you said about scalar and quanta-thes but it sounds good to me! And about black holes – yes, apparently black holes are being formed all the time so need to worry about them swallowing the planet. And if that should happen it will be super exciting! Looking forward to it!

    • Emilily 4:50 pm on November 10, 2009 Permalink

      That was AWESOME!!! Forces from the future are coming back to thwart the LHR!?! I was semi-mocking the whole idea in my last reply, but I have to say, once I learned this Dr. Holger Bech Nielsen is one of the founders of String Theory and a widely respected physicist (although I think they used the term “deep thinker” rather than “physicist” but same difference)…well, I can only say, this feeling is similar to what a 9-yr-old might experience if they suddenly found out that Santa Claus really did exist, after all.

    • Carmen 5:35 pm on November 10, 2009 Permalink

      yeah, i can’t wait for Christmas (the collider to start up)!

  • Carmen 2:01 pm on October 30, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    Our universe… 

    You just blew my mind University of Utah.

     

    • Emilily 5:15 pm on October 30, 2009 Permalink

      Dude, this is awesome.

      How do you pronounce that thing: µ? According to microsoft office, it is called a Micro sign, but I think it is a Latin character…does it have a name?

  • Emilily 11:55 am on October 23, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: ,   

    chicks on spaceships 

    Ok, I was a little intimidated by the 317 hours of SG-1 and SG-Atlantis I was going to have to watch to catch up to the current season, so I skipped right to the pilot episodes of SG-U. (I did read that entire Wikipedia article you linked to in your post, so I do feel somewhat educated on the franchise.) Now, I know that because I have been watching BSG a little longer, my loyalty might cause me to be slightly biased, but I think we need to discuss the role of women in both of these shows.

    (More …)

     

    • Carmen 4:16 pm on October 23, 2009 Permalink

      I think Battlestar Galactica is, hands down, the best show ever (except for Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia). One reason BSG has been the best is the depth of the character development. Another reason is that its not a typical show. They do things on that show that you will never see on a major network (I hope Syfy doesn’t get all butthurt that I said they weren’t a major network). They kill off major characters, they talk about abortion and racism, not to mention the entire human race is in danger of going completely extinct. And they have kickass females. Ok, I know they made a woman president in 24 but she wasn’t that impressive (and i only watched the first episode). I always found BSG president (Laura Roslin) to be surprising – in a good way. Like she made the decisions that even the men couldn’t stomach, she could detach herself from the emotion and do the right thing for the benefit of the greatest amount of people. You know, I could go on and on about each one of these ladies but the big difference between them and the SGU ladies (or most any other show with chicks on it) is the predictability. Whoever writes for the shows and decides what is acceptable has a very narrow spectrum of choices for their female characters. I think this is because people are scared to push the boundaries of these roles. If its been working this long then don’t fuck with it – thats their motto. BSG pushes those boundaries and opens it up for greater movement and creativity for their characters. I’m so tired of the same ol predictable characters. I can’t even watch romantic comedies anymore because I know exactly whats going to happen at every moment.
      Speaking of a narrow spectrum of creativity – can you tell how SGU ripped off some ideas of BSG? I don’t care, I’ll still watch it. They suckered me in with the whole stargate/wormhole idea. You had me at wormhole! *tear*
      Speaking of wormholes, have you seen Fringe yet? That is another really good show that has a fantastic leading character (a woman) who is not the typical lady. I’m always surprised when she wears her FBI uniform of traditional oxford button down and its NOT buttoned down so her boobs are hanging out (like CSI Miami – that show is a joke, a bad joke). AND it has parallel universes! Thats a winning combination.

  • Carmen 12:15 pm on October 21, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags:   

    Speaking of apps… 

    I also downloaded the TiltShiftGen app which allows you to take a picture and then render it to look like you are looking at a miniature mock up of the real thing.  It works really well and the photos look super cute.  Go get it! You will like it!

    (i did not take this pic btw)

    tiltshift pic

     

    • Emilily 1:29 pm on October 22, 2009 Permalink

      These apps looks super cool. I am definitely going to buy this TiltShift Generator, and look into those Bloom and Trope (and Air?) apps.

      Hey – does this mean you have an iPhone now?!?!

    • Carmen 9:51 pm on October 22, 2009 Permalink

      I’m testing out Max’s old iphone but i’m still using my tmobile dash as my main phone. In December I’ll be making the switch!

    • Emilily 10:33 am on October 23, 2009 Permalink

      Awesome! There is an app that will let me track your phone with GPS, so we can always see where the other one is! That will be fun! Or is it creepy? Nah. Fun.

    • Carmen 11:20 am on October 23, 2009 Permalink

      it will only be creepy sometimes.

    • Olga 2:07 am on October 24, 2009 Permalink

      There is an app for that Emililyly! I just found it and downloaded it. It’s called “Loopt” I downloaded Trope and Bloom too. They give me something to do during meetings. ( on silence of course) Trope works for doodling.

  • Carmen 8:40 pm on October 20, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags:   

    Bloom and Trope 

    Well, maybe you already know about these beautiful apps but on the offchance that you don’t I think you should zip on over to itunes and buy them immediately!  They are created by Brian Eno and Peter Chilvers.  And its all flipping brilliant.  Thats all i’m going to say.

     

  • Carmen 9:39 am on October 17, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    My morning ride… 

    So, you know I’ve been riding my bike to work since May? I’m kind of impressed with myself because when I bought the bike I remember thinking to myself “gee, i hope i can keep this up.”  And the fact that its October and I still ride about 10 miles a day is surprising even to myself.  Especially because I grew up telling myself and anyone who would listen that I very much disliked riding bikes.  I think we can blame my sister for that though since she took every chance possible to force me into riding with her.  She once made me ride like 30 miles all the way to Ojai.  I was so mad.  Now I would gladly do that! How fun! Anyways, I have figured out that since May I have probably ridden around 880 miles total, and I’m still in love with it.  Here is a view that I pass by every morning at about 7:45 am.  Every morning its different but its always beautiful.

    sun

     

    • Emilily 2:57 pm on October 17, 2009 Permalink

      Wow, your morning ride is beautiful! On Monday, I will take a picture of my morning commute for you! I am impressed with your bike riding, and I think we have similar bike riding histories – I always thought I did not like riding bikes, until I got my bike, and now I ride it like 4-5 days a week…to the gym, to the grocery store, to the beach, or just around the block. I am pretty sure I haven’t ridden 880 miles though, that seems like a lot.

      Hey! The Sartorialist is going to be in San Francisco next week – maybe you should dress up really euro and ride your bike back and forth in front of the store where he is doing his book signing! He likes chicks with 1) cool hair and 2) on bikes…and if you wear something double-breasted or cuffed at the ankle, you might get lucky!!! That would be so awesome, you would be my hero, even more than you are now!

    • Emilily 8:12 pm on October 18, 2009 Permalink

      It just occurred to me that maybe not everyone reading our blog will know who The Sartorialist is, and that above comment could be misinterpreted. He is a fashion photographer who started a very popular street-style blog, so by “get lucky,” I meant, be photographed for the blog. That’s it.

    • Carmen 9:17 pm on October 19, 2009 Permalink

      I have quite a bit working against me if I wanted to get shot by the sartorialist. And when I say “shot” I mean by a camera, not a gun. First, I’m not a model, secondly, can you believe I don’t own anything double-breasted? And I can’t ride my bike without a helmet which is the opposite of fashionable… so….I don’t think its an option. But it was a good daydream while it lasted!

  • Carmen 4:54 pm on October 13, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    Hymenoepimecis argyraphaga 

    I bet you are thinking – wtf?  And I agree. Totally wtf.  I don’t know if you hate spiders as much as I do but I learned something today that really makes me thankful to be the dominant species on the planet (other than viruses).  First I learned about a spider that is vegetarian who has a symbiotic relationship with “fearsome wasp-like ants”!  Then, from that article, I learned about another spider/wasp relationship that is way more horrific.  A wasp called the Hymenoepicsekljfklsdjf whatever – the Hymeno-turn-you-into-a-zombie wasp! AHHHHH!  Listen to this!

    “The adult female wasp temporarily paralyzes the spider and lays an egg on its abdomen. The egg hatches into a larva which sucks the spider’s blood through small holes, while the spider goes on about its normal web building and insect catching behavior for the next one to two weeks. When the larva is ready to pupate, it injects a chemical into the spider, causing it to build a web whose design is completely different from any it has ever made, and then to sit motionless in the middle of this web. The wasp larva then molts, kills the spider with a poison and sucks its body dry before discarding it and building a cocoon that hangs from the middle of the web the spider has just built. The larva pupates inside the cocoon, then emerges to mate and begin the cycle over again.”

    OH MY God, I’m freaking out.  What if these wasps somehow figure out how to do that to humans one day?! Or worse what if the government figures out what kind of chemical the wasps are using and then uses it on us?!  Or what if we do deep space travel eventually and find a planet with giant insects and spiders as the dominant species but then we can’t leave because our spaceship is broken?!  I’m never leaving the house again.

     

    • olga 3:45 am on October 14, 2009 Permalink

      Don’t worry Carmen, humans have been trying for centuries to get silk to come out their behinds, never works. All we get is poop and it is really difficult to spin a web with that stuff.

    • Emilily 9:36 am on October 14, 2009 Permalink

      Oh no. You listened to the RadioLab podcast on parasites, didn’t you?!?! That wasp thing is soooo disgusting. I seriously worried about the same thing, what if those wasps evolve and can lay their eggs in us?!?! Or what if we someday discover some other insect that has a similar toxin that does have an affect on humans, there could be something like this living in the rainforests right now! And what about the one where the fly larva was growing in that guys scalp and he just left it there? I think they should sell purse-sized cans, just like pepper-spray, of nasty parasitical insect and alien repellent.

    • Emilily 10:54 am on October 16, 2009 Permalink

      That wasp-spider thing was so gross, I had to go find another.

      The female wasp of this species, the emerald cockroach wasp or jewel wasp (Ampulex compressa) stings a roach (specificially a Periplaneta americana, Periplaneta australasiae or Nauphoeta rhombifolia) twice, delivering venom into specific ganglia of the roach. She delivers an initial sting to a thoracic ganglion and injects venom to mildly and reversibly paralyze the front legs of the insect. This facilitates the second venomous sting at a carefully chosen spot in the roach’s head ganglia (brain), in the section that controls the escape reflex. As a result of this sting, the roach will first groom extensively, and then become sluggish and fail to show normal escape responses.

      The wasp proceeds to chew off half of each of the roach’s antennae. Researchers believe that the Wasp chews off the antenna to replenish fluids or possibly to regulate the amount of venom because too much could kill and too little would let the victim recover before the larva has grown. The wasp, which is too small to carry the roach, then leads the victim to the wasp’s burrow, by pulling one of the roach’s antennae in a manner similar to a leash. Once they reach the burrow, the wasp lays a white egg, about 2 mm long, on the roach’s abdomen.

      With its escape reflex disabled, the stung roach will simply rest in the burrow as the wasp’s egg hatches after about three days. The hatched larva feeds for 4–5 days on the exterior of the roach, then chews its way into its abdomen. Over a period of eight days, the wasp larva consumes the roach’s internal organs in an order which guarantees that the roach will stay alive, at least until the larva enters the pupal stage and forms a cocoon inside the roach’s body.

      I fully believe that there are people out there right now experimenting with toxins such as these. All we can hope is that they make us to do cool stuff like in Aeon Flux, like construct one of those giant utopian dome cities, or colonize other planets, and none of that gross waspy stuff.

    • Carmen 11:25 am on October 16, 2009 Permalink

      Holy Crap! That is just so wrong! Clearly these wasps need to take an ethics class.

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