Wednesday, December 15, 2004
I'm Never Playing in a Sandbox Again.
As described here (NY Times login required) and here, there is apparently such a thing as dry quicksand. What?
Yes, apparently scientists have managed to create piles of dry, otherwise normal sand into which weighted ping pong balls vanish, leaving only a jet of sand sprayed into the air behind them. The scientists tell us that this might explain why people have been known to vanish in the desert. I've always just attributed that to Sand People, but I guess dry quicksand could have done it too.
If you can find some way to get access to Nature Magazine online, you can check out the whole article on this experiment. I got access through U of M's library website because I'm a student. It's got a lot of equation mumbo jumbo that I'm majoring in history and poli sci in order to avoid. Unless you're into that stuff, the brief accounts of the experiment should be sufficient to make you go "Wha?".
In other news, I'd better get to studying for this guy's class. I've been blowing off the reading for the whole semester, and I have a long way to go, like identifying a list of 53, count 'em 53 people and things and whatnot. I'm not particularly looking forward to taking the test tomorrow, but I am looking forward to being one step closer to done with the semester. Then at least I will be able to only fret about my thesis for a while instead of my thesis and three classes.
Plus going home means carolling with the ORG. Fun!
Yes, apparently scientists have managed to create piles of dry, otherwise normal sand into which weighted ping pong balls vanish, leaving only a jet of sand sprayed into the air behind them. The scientists tell us that this might explain why people have been known to vanish in the desert. I've always just attributed that to Sand People, but I guess dry quicksand could have done it too.
If you can find some way to get access to Nature Magazine online, you can check out the whole article on this experiment. I got access through U of M's library website because I'm a student. It's got a lot of equation mumbo jumbo that I'm majoring in history and poli sci in order to avoid. Unless you're into that stuff, the brief accounts of the experiment should be sufficient to make you go "Wha?".
In other news, I'd better get to studying for this guy's class. I've been blowing off the reading for the whole semester, and I have a long way to go, like identifying a list of 53, count 'em 53 people and things and whatnot. I'm not particularly looking forward to taking the test tomorrow, but I am looking forward to being one step closer to done with the semester. Then at least I will be able to only fret about my thesis for a while instead of my thesis and three classes.
Plus going home means carolling with the ORG. Fun!
Blogs Rule!
I recently joined MetaFilter, an awesome "community weblog". It's basically a site that anyone reading this is pretty likely to know about, because if you know me and you're on MySpace, you've got to be totally hip to MetaFilter, right? Anyway, in case you weren't, you will be soon.
So on MetaFilter people post links to "the best of the web." All kinds of interesting stuff ends up on there. My recent favorite (and the thread to which I made my first-ever post [more on why that was a nerve-wracking experience to come]) was a link to this page on autological words and this page about language paradoxes. Both of them are terrorizing your MIND! The previous sentence, like this one, referred to the Upright Citizens Brigade. I could go on, but I'll move on to describing my first MetaFilter posting experience. By the way, you'll need to have checked out the links to understand both that last lame joke and the upcoming discussion of my post.
I registered at MetaFilter a few days ago. Cost me a $5 donation, but I figured I was helping a good cause, as it has wasted well over $5-worth of my time. After I registered, however, I realized I was too scared to post, rendering my new-fangled and oh-so-shiny call-sign, PhatLobley, basically useless. You have to understand. People on MetaFilter think they're not only posting the "best of the web", but that those of them who have been spending inordinate amounts of time per day on the site for an inordinate amount of time (as in years) are the best of the web. So they have all manner of rules about posting links and are extremely quick to ridicule and complain mercilessly when someone posts a link that is either uninteresting or has been posted to the site before. And by "before" they mean ever in the annals of recorded MetaFilter history. You're expected to search the site to see if your link has been posted before. Oh, and don't even get them started on self-linking! What I'm saying is that these people are incredibly pretensious. So I was pretty nervous about making a post, even if I didn't link. I was quite sure I would do something wrong and get ridiculed, kicked off the site, deleted, or meet some other terrible fate I've yet to imagine.
The above links so tickled me, however, that I couldn't resist. Plus, I thought that I had come up with an autological word that tied in nicely to a praiseful post for the person who had provided the delightful links. So I posted the following:
Fantastic.
Subjectively autoligical, but it certainly applies to this post. Thanks.
Pretty good, huh? HUH? I happen to think that fantastic is an autological word (Click the link if you haven't already! You're out of the loop! Here it is again!), but I realize that some might very legitimately disagree. So fantastic is subjectively autological. The post was fantastic too. It works on so many levels. So that's the story of my first MetaFilter post. Everything seems fine so far- no deletions, excommunications, immolations, etc.
MetaFilter has inspired me to try to make a blog of my own. However, since I'm not very computer literate, I've decided to use the "Blogging for retards" here at MySpace.com. Hope you enjoy.
Other blogs I enjoy and reccomend include Adam Kempa's fantastic blog and my roomie Will's eponymous and aspiringly fantastic blog. Will, as you probalby guessed from my reference to him as my "roomie" lives with me here in Michigan. Adam is in Will's band the Pop Project and has a knack for knowing a lot of stuff, researching interesting stuff, and just seeming to be an expert on stuff. His blog is not updated as often as I might like, but when it is, it tends to be good.
So. Blogs rule! Check back occasionally to see what delicious morsels I have left out on the mantle for the Santa Clause that is the readership of the worldwideweb.
So on MetaFilter people post links to "the best of the web." All kinds of interesting stuff ends up on there. My recent favorite (and the thread to which I made my first-ever post [more on why that was a nerve-wracking experience to come]) was a link to this page on autological words and this page about language paradoxes. Both of them are terrorizing your MIND! The previous sentence, like this one, referred to the Upright Citizens Brigade. I could go on, but I'll move on to describing my first MetaFilter posting experience. By the way, you'll need to have checked out the links to understand both that last lame joke and the upcoming discussion of my post.
I registered at MetaFilter a few days ago. Cost me a $5 donation, but I figured I was helping a good cause, as it has wasted well over $5-worth of my time. After I registered, however, I realized I was too scared to post, rendering my new-fangled and oh-so-shiny call-sign, PhatLobley, basically useless. You have to understand. People on MetaFilter think they're not only posting the "best of the web", but that those of them who have been spending inordinate amounts of time per day on the site for an inordinate amount of time (as in years) are the best of the web. So they have all manner of rules about posting links and are extremely quick to ridicule and complain mercilessly when someone posts a link that is either uninteresting or has been posted to the site before. And by "before" they mean ever in the annals of recorded MetaFilter history. You're expected to search the site to see if your link has been posted before. Oh, and don't even get them started on self-linking! What I'm saying is that these people are incredibly pretensious. So I was pretty nervous about making a post, even if I didn't link. I was quite sure I would do something wrong and get ridiculed, kicked off the site, deleted, or meet some other terrible fate I've yet to imagine.
The above links so tickled me, however, that I couldn't resist. Plus, I thought that I had come up with an autological word that tied in nicely to a praiseful post for the person who had provided the delightful links. So I posted the following:
Fantastic.
Subjectively autoligical, but it certainly applies to this post. Thanks.
Pretty good, huh? HUH? I happen to think that fantastic is an autological word (Click the link if you haven't already! You're out of the loop! Here it is again!), but I realize that some might very legitimately disagree. So fantastic is subjectively autological. The post was fantastic too. It works on so many levels. So that's the story of my first MetaFilter post. Everything seems fine so far- no deletions, excommunications, immolations, etc.
MetaFilter has inspired me to try to make a blog of my own. However, since I'm not very computer literate, I've decided to use the "Blogging for retards" here at MySpace.com. Hope you enjoy.
Other blogs I enjoy and reccomend include Adam Kempa's fantastic blog and my roomie Will's eponymous and aspiringly fantastic blog. Will, as you probalby guessed from my reference to him as my "roomie" lives with me here in Michigan. Adam is in Will's band the Pop Project and has a knack for knowing a lot of stuff, researching interesting stuff, and just seeming to be an expert on stuff. His blog is not updated as often as I might like, but when it is, it tends to be good.
So. Blogs rule! Check back occasionally to see what delicious morsels I have left out on the mantle for the Santa Clause that is the readership of the worldwideweb.
