From Greek allos meaning "other" and agora meaning gathering place (especially the marketplace). In times past, it was common to do one's chatting at the marketplace. Some of the topics discussed were clandestine in nature and when people spoke about them, for fear of being punished, they would speak indirectly. That is to say, they would speak about one thing in such a way as to intimate the actual information to the listener. Thus, the persons discussing clandestine matters were said to be speaking of "other things" in the marketplace. Eventually the words joined and became associated with the act of speaking about one thing while meaning another.
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Friday, February 27, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
Mammoth skeleton found nearly intact in Los Angeles(...the la brea tar pits..the the tar tar pits.)
Ok, so this is most likely only one of many finds... but the article contains something that all articles on the topic seem to contain....
Ok... La Brea = The Tar in spanish... and the article (and all others like it...) always say The La brea Tar Pits ....something something something...
so are they TRYING to say... the The tar Tar pits???
or is it just ignorance? I ignore... you decide ;)
http://uk.reuters.com/article/scienceNewsMolt/idUKTRE51H7R220090218
I should mention that i love fossils... so i will one day come back to 1) this story...and 2) more stuff about fossils/tar pits/ and animals.
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Ok... La Brea = The Tar in spanish... and the article (and all others like it...) always say The La brea Tar Pits ....something something something...
so are they TRYING to say... the The tar Tar pits???
or is it just ignorance? I ignore... you decide ;)
http://uk.reuters.com/article/scienceNewsMolt/idUKTRE51H7R220090218
I should mention that i love fossils... so i will one day come back to 1) this story...and 2) more stuff about fossils/tar pits/ and animals.
Bird imitating camera shutter, car alarm and chain saws...
Pigs still earthbound...
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The Uncanny Cephalopods
Cephalopod or "head foot"... not only do i really love these creatures... they have like a million cool facts about them...
here's one introduction to them....
This little page i found also has a page on "deepsea" life... pretty cool!
also... if you ever thought sex was cool... these weird deepsea creatures will fix you.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Think an ellipsis is when the moon moves in front of the sun?
Celebrate National Punctuation Day®
September 24
Personally.. i love punctuation snobs..
and so should you
I am going to have to put a link up to the "mis-applied" "quotes" "site" that i "found" one "day". ("soon".... i "promise")
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September 24
Personally.. i love punctuation snobs..
and so should you
I am going to have to put a link up to the "mis-applied" "quotes" "site" that i "found" one "day". ("soon".... i "promise")
Ancient Virus Gave Wasps Their Sting
Visit Here for the summary of the article...
adn here for the Abstract of the new paper...Genome Sequence of a Polydnavirus: Insights into Symbiotic Virus Evolution
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adn here for the Abstract of the new paper...Genome Sequence of a Polydnavirus: Insights into Symbiotic Virus Evolution
Monday, February 16, 2009
this is pretty... but i kinda disagree with it... but at the same time it is true...
true?
Maybe... but certainly not always.
35 beautiful examples of animal photography...
(animals IN pictures... not taking them)
I know, i know, i could have infinitely increased my viewreadership by claiming that it was the latter rather than the former... :)
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I know, i know, i could have infinitely increased my viewreadership by claiming that it was the latter rather than the former... :)
Modern Human Variation: Distribution of Blood Types
"These patterns of ABO and Diego blood type distributions are not similar to those for skin color or other so-called "racial" traits. The implication is that the specific causes responsible for the distribution of human blood types have been different than those for other traits that have been commonly employed to categorize people into "races." Since it would be possible to divide up humanity into radically different groupings using blood typing instead of other genetically inherited traits such as skin color, we have more conclusive evidence that the commonly used typological model for understanding human variation is scientifically unsound."
If anyone BOUGHT this "book"... I am curious to hear if its true.
NOOOOOO one can fold a paper more than 7 or 8 times.... or so the story was... turns out this girl can do it...
The worlds still turning.
And why no one really cares about Mathsmaticians...
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The worlds still turning.
And why no one really cares about Mathsmaticians...
A quick witted cricket critic.
I saw Esau sitting on a seesaw. I saw Esau; he saw me.
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I, for 1 welcome our new Optomatic Overlords...
what do you think: why do we have the decimal system
in our western world? because of our 10 fingers? why
do we have 7 days a week? why are 60 seconds 1 minute
and 60 minutes 1 hour? why do we have 24 hours a day?
and 31 or 30 days a month? do you think thats a really
good solution? well, here is another one:
...welcome to octomatics !
Don't know what we had BEFORE? never fear...
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in our western world? because of our 10 fingers? why
do we have 7 days a week? why are 60 seconds 1 minute
and 60 minutes 1 hour? why do we have 24 hours a day?
and 31 or 30 days a month? do you think thats a really
good solution? well, here is another one:
...welcome to octomatics !
Don't know what we had BEFORE? never fear...
Friday, February 13, 2009
Gotta’ split; the time for action is coming soon.- January 29th 2008
Gotta’ split; the time for action is coming soon.- January 29th 2008
What is the banana plant? Surely a vegetable? It must be a fruit... It is, by strange point of fact a grass!! In many countries the banana is a staple of the local diet, as is for example the case in Uganda, just one example of many where a visitor will find people eating bananas in a delectable multitude of methods of preparation... from barbecued to mashed and used in a stew.
How important are bananas to the GLOBAL food supply? Well, the humble banana is actually the fourth most relied upon food crop, only trailing such heavy weights in human edible consumables category as maize, wheat, and rice. The banana we know today is very different from the banana that was available just several generations ago; this is not surprising when you know that there are thousands of varieties of bananas in existence. The “normal” type that we are used to seeing in our groceries and markets selling for an average of about thirty eight cents per pound is known as the Cavendish. This species replaced the Gros Michel, which was a susceptible to Panama Wilt disease, which was a fungal blight causing widespread destruction of banana crops, and eventually leading to unacceptable losses, forcing banana growers to move to growing the less flavourful Cavendish.
Bananas are a Colonious species. Much like the Europeans and their pseudo-successors the Americans, bananas spread their influence in a very similar manner.
The reproduction of bananas is a clonal process, they do not “reproduce” in the patriarchal euro-centric manner of Sexual reproduction, but instead by spreading runners, which will then asexually form into fully separate (but genetically identical) individuals. This throwback reproduction method and the case study of the banana should give us a lesson from Allah; a WARNING from the evolution of life, to the educated of today, about the prescient, and tragically under elucidated dangers of today’s “Green revolution”... a world where all of our foods are of one genotype... a world where as soon as there is any type of calamity, any blight, we are delivered to doom... In an empty breadbasket?
What about today? If bananas are so vital to so many of the World’s most at risk peoples, what are the dangers that face the people of today, who need to find a meal to eat tonight? Thanks in large part to such unjust, corrupt, and ethically corrupt corporations as United Fruit creating massive industrial farms where diseases are able to mutate, and evolve, becoming able to spread with the greatest of ease even to the non commercial varieties, there is very little hope for the banana being able to remain the staple food it currently is. The question to ask is not how much is that banana in the window, but what will we replace it with? I speak not for the affluent and over privileged west, for whom I am all but certain Monsanto will genetically engineer a super-banana with built in GMO pesticide (now with EXTRA cancer causing goodness) and all for a low, low cost... perhaps similar to sending men to the moon.
Who speaks for the poorest people in the world, those who subsist on the banana, and without which will fall into starvation extremely rapidly. For in today’s media saturated world, there is a Monsanto plug, or united fruit plug, an Arthur Anderson plug, a Chiquita plug (etc ad infinitum) played for us virtually daily. The reason we as humans are deficient today is because we allow ourselves to be bombarded by bombastic advertising, all convincing us that our over consumption and wastefulness is nothing but natural... all while we see perhaps one clip a month of an exotic locales, and 99 percent of the time in the context of “how violent, backwards, idiotic, or idiosyncratic” the culture in question “really” is.
When Hurricane Mitch blew through Honduras, in its wake was a trail of destruction, unemployment and eventually violence as a stunning 100 percent of the countries banana crops were wiped out. Further to this seventy five bridges out in total, making access by police and military all but impossible. This unemployment, in collaboration with the breakdown in civil services, led to a resurgence of “banditry”, perhaps one of the earliest boons for La Mara Salvatruca’s first ventures from El Salvador into Honduras.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
TED.
Amateur Professionals... Tomorrow's Creators, Tomorrow's Leaders.
In this deceptively casual talk, Charles Leadbeater weaves a tight argument that innovation isn't just for professionals anymore. Passionate amateurs, using new tools, are creating products and paradigms that companies can't. He describes the rising role of serious amateurs ("Pro-Ams," as he calls them) through the story of the mountain bike.
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In this deceptively casual talk, Charles Leadbeater weaves a tight argument that innovation isn't just for professionals anymore. Passionate amateurs, using new tools, are creating products and paradigms that companies can't. He describes the rising role of serious amateurs ("Pro-Ams," as he calls them) through the story of the mountain bike.
TED.
Clifford Stoll could talk about the atmosphere of Jupiter. Or hunting KGB hackers. Or Klein bottles, computers in classrooms, the future. But he's not going to. Which is fine, because it would be criminal to confine a man with interests as multifarious as Stoll's to give a talk on any one topic. Instead, he simply captivates his audience with a wildly energetic sprinkling of anecdotes, observations, asides -- and even a science experiment. After all, by his own definition, he's a scientist: "Once I do something, I want to do something else."
Keep these cop's under control please..
New regulations on tazer use in Canada by RCMP'S, The new guidelines come after several controversial incidents involving the stun guns.
Currently, a public inquiry in B.C. is probing the death of Robert Dziekanski, a Polish man who became disorientated at Vancouver's airport.
Dziekanski, who could not speak English, became agitated after spending several hours wandering through the airport.
Dziekanski died after he was subdued by the RCMP and shocked with a Taser, which was captured during several minutes of disturbing video footage.
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Currently, a public inquiry in B.C. is probing the death of Robert Dziekanski, a Polish man who became disorientated at Vancouver's airport.
Dziekanski, who could not speak English, became agitated after spending several hours wandering through the airport.
Dziekanski died after he was subdued by the RCMP and shocked with a Taser, which was captured during several minutes of disturbing video footage.
Pick a Colour, any Colour...
choose some (up to 10) colours from the "palate" and watch as sets of FLICKR photo's MATCHING your colour choices come up
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
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ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
Lessons to learn; beware the grip of the iron fist, thinly veiled by the velvet glove.
Lessons to learn; beware the grip of the iron fist, thinly veiled by the velvet glove.
January 8 2008
Heritage, while it often constitutes and defines positive aspects of culture, is a malleable body of historical text; subject to interpretation and easily twisted into myth. Worse still; simply wafted away, like a smoke dragon, made to be no more corporeal than the twisting shapes of the smoke from burning incense.
David Lowenthal says that “history is a foreign country”. Just what does he mean when he says this? Perhaps he refers to how facts are not always Facts, or maybe he simply referred to how history is all in the interpretation. Without historians visiting the texts of our history... would they not soon come to mean literally nothing to us? The study of history is an evolving art, it is undergoing constant tectonic scale shifts, the incredible efforts in the late 20th and early 21st centuries to create Independent Media sources... places people can get quality information, and with a format, style and texture that everyman can absorb. What was just twenty years ago a pipe dream, and the workspace of the radical, are today’s blogs, or you-tube’s, which has given the pundits chair to more and more people, with countries such as India experiencing a 90% increase in cell phone users between 2000 and 2005; most new cell phones bear integrated digital camera’s which capture video. This spreading of technology could allow the voices of the currently voiceless to disseminate the truth’s of globalized organizations and corporations, and their laws; the weight of globalization which is unequally carried by the third world. India “has” ¼ of the world’s poor. What nations make up the 'Third world'? What role will motion picture play in this battle to spread awareness?
The “colonies” of old are the 'third world' of today. Film has evolved immensely, where it used to be centralized; massive studios owned the rights to virtually all films from concept statement to writing, through production, distribution and release! This is no longer the case, rather than getting only a very few options in opinion, paradigms, story pacing and patterns... today we can get opinions, stories and culture, instantly, from across the globe. On with the reverse conquest.
Through the 16th, 17th 18th, 19th and the early 20th centuries, why has the west dominated with such impunity and the ability to constantly claim moral superiority, often amidst bloodshed of their own design. The answer lies in a strange fact that as oppressed cultures become more exposed to their oppressor’s culture, a certain affinity begins to be experienced and a certain connection to this outsider culture develops. This leads to the adoption of idiosyncrasies by the colonized peoples. This has given the Euro-centric mind ample hay with which to fashion their image of self superiority. When one’s own culture is derided, shunned, oppressed, and considered less than human, it is perhaps “easier” for the oppressed psyche to try to adopt the tendencies of the oppressor, if only to be able to blend in a tiny bit more.
Within this desire to blend in, and not be noticed is a strong inclination to conform to the values, attitudes, and beliefs of the dominant group, which may include the dominant group's discriminatory attitudes and practices. Often this begins as a simple fascination with the foreign culture, or merely an adaptive necessity, eventually oppressed cultures begin to identify themselves with their oppressors, to the detriment of their own traditions. More specifically they identify the culture which has managed to place a hold on them as indicative of having achieved a higher level of development, when in actuality this scenario is more like a self fulfilling prophecy... The very act of “bowing down”, of inviting the oppressor into your culture, the human desire to belong to the strongest group is in fact one of the greatest tools in an imperialist’s arsenal.
Bokeh
Bokeh (derived from Japanese, a noun boke 暈け, meaning "blurred or fuzzy") is a photographic term referring to the appearance of out-of-focus areas in an image produced by a camera lens using a shallow depth of field.[1] Different lens bokeh produces different aesthetic qualities in out-of-focus backgrounds, which are often used to reduce distractions and emphasize the primary subject.
HOW TO {It's an AMAZING (and simple) technique!} *scroll thru the comments there, as there's a tonne of useful tips/hints, and also great examples.
The geekyness of WHY it happens
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HOW TO {It's an AMAZING (and simple) technique!} *scroll thru the comments there, as there's a tonne of useful tips/hints, and also great examples.
The geekyness of WHY it happens
Tekapo, NZ is STAYING Dark.
The purpose: to bring out the stars.
Where other places greet the night by lighting up their streets and tourist attractions, this one goes the other way — low-energy sodium lamps are shielded from above, and household lights must face down, not up.
The purpose: to bring out the stars.
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Where other places greet the night by lighting up their streets and tourist attractions, this one goes the other way — low-energy sodium lamps are shielded from above, and household lights must face down, not up.
The purpose: to bring out the stars.
Highspeedphotography...
35 examples of highspeed photography...
& a fliker set HERE
and a HOW TO
and a list of the TOOLS needed
ANNNNNND... no blog on highspeedphotography is complete without an MIT.EDU page about HAROLD E. "DOC" EDGERTON (1903-1990) who brought the world High-speed stroboscopic photography
OH, AND also SOME VIDEO'S in highspeed
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& a fliker set HERE
and a HOW TO
and a list of the TOOLS needed
ANNNNNND... no blog on highspeedphotography is complete without an MIT.EDU page about HAROLD E. "DOC" EDGERTON (1903-1990) who brought the world High-speed stroboscopic photography
OH, AND also SOME VIDEO'S in highspeed
CHANGE the way you THINK...
how many times a day do you 'get a cup of coffee'?
http://www.worldwildlife.org/ted/latteflash.html
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http://www.worldwildlife.org/ted/latteflash.html
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