A Rant that Rather Resembles Romance

I want to be able to know his hands. Really fucking know them. The fingers, the skin, the muscle and the bone. The pressure they would exert. How he moves them. And his feet. God I don't have a fetish I swear but I wanna know. Always wears those shoes and socks. mmm mmm mmm Hands and feet are so hard to draw, the hardest of the body probably. I remember hearing that in art, and god knows I've had problems of my own. Perspective is so easy to be thown off. The shadows the shading, the illusion of depth. It all has to be just right or you end up with a circus freak. They are so individual though. You could give someone an image of a leg without color or clothing and they may not be able to tell who it is depending perhaps on how well they know a person, but hands and feet...well mostly hands on the account of shoes and stuff...they are so fucking personal. I wonder if he is ticklish. I wonder if he has freckles, maybe all over his back? An array of stars, a thousand new constallations all waiting to be found like some free for all connect the dots game. Moles and freckles and birthmarks all induvidual to each person. A mark that burns itself in your memeory like the sun makes spots on your vision. A patch of skin you would recongnize anywhere. The recongnition itself is half of the
glory and the wonder. As if the recognition triggers something inside that tells you "this is him". People are usually recognized by the face. But I want to know them by their eyes, by the way they move, by the shadows they cast and the sounds they make. Everyone moves differently. Did you know that? I like to watch them. Their legs and their hands. Back and forth back and forth back and forth. Some are a bit self conscious. He is.
I wonder sometimes how I move. I wonder if I could ever really know. Maybe it is something like how you sound. I think the way I sound to myself when talking it lower, much lower than it really is. It is usually that way
isn't it? Something about the way sounds moves to your ears through your skull. I guess I could always be video taped and get a somewhat accurate potrayl of the person who claims to be me I guess. But honestly recorders seem to miss a piece of people. They capture light, they capture sound but they lack the personallity that people have.
The existence they seem to share.
*sigh*

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Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: Heirloom Havoc!

Spring is upon us! For those of us who are avid gardeners this is the time to start thinking about what to grow this year. I for one have absolutely fallen in love with heirloom tomatoes so I thought I would share some links to sites that provide tons of seeds for interesting strains that are not usually found in your supermarket gardening section.

Heirloom tomatoes are very very cool. They show such a large variety of genetic diversity that it makes me shiver. You should know that commercial tomato production often emphasizes traits in tomatoes that suit their production needs...sometimes at the loss of traits that would be desirable to consumers. So growing tomatoes not only provides them cheaper, but can also provide a greater quality produce than you may find in supermarkets. Plus you can save the seeds for next year and not have to buy one kind again if you keep it up. For those of you with a lot of time and patience and a slight understanding of biology you may even be able to over time select for certain tomato traits (Yes, Gregor Mendel is my hero). Of course there is a trade off since heirlooms are not as disease or pest resistant as some hybrids. And, don't just stop at tomatoes a lot of heirloom vegetables are available such as melons, cucumbers, beets, and peppers come in a lot of interesting varieties!
Some sites that sell seeds:

• Heirloom Tomato Seeds Directory- Has a number of sites.
• Tomato Fest- A site whose commercial look made me initially wary. Has good descriptions for the different varieties.
• Tomato Bob's Heirloom Tomatoes- Has some good variety packages.
  
• Heirloom Seeds- Has no pictures and some terrible html (at least there is no marquee banners...) Has some variety. Points for having a picture of vegetables that was obviously made by paint.
• Heirloom Tomato Seed List- Pictures!
• Burpee- Search for "Heirloom".
  

Here is some information on how to save tomato seeds for next year:

• About.com: Saving Tomato Seeds
• How to save tomato seed.

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Time and Relative Dimensons in Space: Tardigrade Takeover!

Have you heard of the water bears? Tardigrades are practically indestructible and overwhelmingly cute. But don't take my word for it, check it out for yourself:

Note: This tardigrade is being viewed from the bottom (look at it's little feet!) and is very very cute.
What is especially interesting is that they apparently shot these little suckers into space, exposed them to the vacuum of space and to the solar radiation, and now have brought them back in what is known as the Tardigrades in Space project. This is of course shortened to "TARDIS". The sheer coolness of that name earns the tardigrades a +5 in cool. They are due to release their information soon (yes I know the last post is from Nov. 2007, these things take time), and I am impatiently looking forward to it.

Also, get your own tardigrades!



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Getting My Goat and then Making it Suffer

A list of pet peeves and minor annoyances. Needless to say this day has been a long one...

1. People who don't wash their hands. You would think being in a public place, say a restaurant restroom, would force people to wash their hands due to social pressures...it doesn't (not enough times at least), which irks me. At least they are honest I guess.
2. People who use too much cologne/perfume. Sure your hygiene is terrible leading you to smell like old socks and dead hobos, this is not an excuse to cover yourself with something that smells like rubbing alcohol and other chemicals. Just bathe! A bar of Irish Spring smells better and is much cheaper that whatever crap you decide to drown in each morning.
3. Feminists who support Hilary Clinton just because she is a women. Way to miss the point.
4. People who walk around in the winter wearing inefficient clothing and then complain about how slippery/wet/cold it is. If you are walking to class wearing three inch heels or sandals despite the couple of inches of ice and slush then I believe that is your problem, and complaining about it only makes you look stupid(er).
   
5. People who always are carrying portable music players but then wear the earphones around their neck so that everyone in the vicinity can hear. This probably wouldn't be so bad except that these people seem to only listen to crap.
6. People who misuse statistics for your own means, as well as the people who believe whatever statistics they see without asking "how was this data obtained?", "how large was the sample, and how representative was it of the population?"...ect...ect...ect (And honestly I've never even taken a statistics class).



Image from http://xkcd.com and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.


People who like to tell you that you shouldn't eat meat, dairy, McDonald's, caffeine, sweets...while you are eating them. I know most of you have good intentions but if I just shelled out some cash for dinner then I'm going to eat it come hell or high water.

Creationists who use "organic matter" in fossils as proof that they aren't old...despite the fact that when asked to explain what exactly was found, what fossilization is, what this organic matter was...ect they don't have any more of a clue than someone who learned calculus solely from the back of a serial box.


While on that topic here is an article that explicitly says


Young-earth creationists also see Schweitzer’s work as revolutionary, but in an entirely different way. They first seized upon Schweitzer’s work after she wrote an article for the popular science magazine Earth in 1997 about possible red blood cells in her dinosaur specimens. Creation magazine claimed that Schweitzer’s research was “powerful testimony against the whole idea of dinosaurs living millions of years ago. It speaks volumes for the Bible’s account of a recent creation.”

This drives Schweitzer crazy. Geologists have established that the Hell Creek Formation, where B. rex was found, is 68 million years old, and so are the bones buried in it. She’s horrified that some Christians accuse her of hiding the true meaning of her data. “They treat you really bad,” she says. “They twist your words and they manipulate your data.”



And here is the YEC sympathetic (if not completely creationist) Conservapedia that cites this exact same article as a "reference".

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Random Internet Quiz: What Book are you?

Honestly this just makes me feel guilty since I've been wanting to read this one for a long time. Maybe I'll get around to it now.

You're Pale Fire!

by Vladimir Nabokov

You're really into poetry and the interpretation thereof. Along the
road of life, you have had several identity crises which make it very unclear who you
are, let alone how to interpret poetry. You probably came from a foreign country, but
then again you seem foreign to everyone in ways unrelated to immigration. Most people
think you're quite funny, but maybe you're just sick. Talking to you ends up being much
like playing a round of the popular board game Clue.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Heh, went through it again and I got this.

You're Watership Down!

by Richard Adams

Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you're
actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their
assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they
build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You'd
be recognized as such if you weren't always talking about talking rabbits.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

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Changes in the Religious: The U.S. Relilgious Landscape Survey

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has released the results of the Religious Landscape Survey large study that interviewed over 35,000 U.S. residents on their religion. Of course they lump together "Atheists", "Agnostics", "Secular unaffiliated" and "Religious Unaffiliated" into the large group "Unaffiliated" which seems a bit odd since religious unaffiliated is quite different to the other three. You can download the full report on the site or just look at the summarized data, and the site includes many pie graphs maps and charts for all of the curious out there. This would make a key resource to anyone writing up a paper on religions.

Some interesting findings:

• Protestant Christianity is declining and is close to louses it's lead at most common religion in the U.S.
• 20% of men are claim no religious affiliation, only 13% of all women do.
• 37% of all married people are married to someone of a different religious affiliation.
• Those with no religious affiliation are on average younger than those that do.
• More than half of Buddhists are white, and the majority of these were converts.

In Other News:

Florida Schools Will Teach Evolution, but with 'Theory' Caveat

Yea, so pretty much they are fighting over words again. A few people are angry about adding "the scientific theory of" in front of evolution since they think they are doing it in order to discredit it. It is a theory (and fact if you want to get technical) so I'm not sure if their outrage against this is well founded. The article itself seems to be a bit biased (probably trying to make a story out of something minor) by adding things like "an argument often cited by creationist proponents". Honestly, kudos to Florida for finally including something that could be important for education in their curriculum (I wonder what college life was/is like for biologist-bound students with no evolutionary education?) Hopefully, if this goes well then it will help the general public understand the scientific definition of a theory better.
Strangely enough this article cites previous data obtained by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
It's a small world.




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Flash Game Design Competition #4

A competition for casual games? Anyway, they are fun and free so you should check it out. I've been playing osmosis and ballistic wars myself.







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