The Blog I Don't Have

11:41 am - TED

Technology, Entertainment, Design

Very well-done and interesting talks, limited to 18 minutes on TED.

People should watch this one by Michael Shermer of the Skeptics Society as it has a really neat play-it-backwards-and-hear-satanic-messages example.

10:26 pm - Yet Another Terminator

I guess another Terminator movie is being made—due out next year. I am shocked—shocked!—that they didn't cast another talking vagina for the role of John Connor. This time they've cast Christian Bale. The trailer looks like it will be a very watchable movie.

11:34 pm - High gas prices and now this!

With gas prices at nearly $4 per gallon and now, apparently, I can't barter for gas:

12:25 am

Why can't I find a Markov chain-based recipe generator? Takes what you have in the kitchen and, perhaps, recipes that you like, builds new recipes or food combinations to try. I think ketiya would be a fan of that based on her latest post.

Why have to think about what to have for dinner when you have the computer put together something that is both do-able and probably (provably probably) tasty.

This would work on both the recipe and meal level. Although I've never seen "Iron Chef," I'd imagine it would be something like that. You have this can of chicken breast and you want to use it up. What might go good with that that isn't necessarily a recipe. I suppose it would be mostly "salads" and "stir-fries" in a technical sense as they can be most any food.

P.S. Mint, lime, sugar, and rum go well together.

02:27 pm - Free Rice

XKCD → A Softer World → Free Rice

That is the path I used to find Free Rice, a vocabulary game that (ostensibly) takes some of its advertising revenue to donate rice through the UN. Ten grains per correct answer. A fun game, though. It's multiple-choice and the incorrect answers are apparently chosen at random, so it make it a bit easier than it might otherwise be.

I also notice that since most of the answers are short (one word), if there is a long (multi-word) option, then it is almost always the correct answer.

This game seems like a good resource for anyone needing practice with vocabulary, but almost more-so anyone needing practice in multiple-choice tests.

From this game, tympanum = middle ear—think: tympanic membrane, which is the eardrum. I very specifically remember tympanic membrane from dissecting a frog in high school and learning that a frog's tympanic membranes are exposed and not protected by an ear canal—presumably for better underwater hearing with no air bubbles.

middle ear
This also seemed ripe, to me, for some pun about a Map of Middle Ear and something to do with Lord of the Rings. I'll leave it to someone else to put it all together.

Anyway, it's interesting to see that some words are familiar, while other words have to be decomposed, and still another class of words I know the answer to seemingly by instinct—no memory of knowing the word or its use, no obvious decomposition, but "knowing" the answer.

Quite odd, memory is.

01:57 pm - Withholding Calculator

Wonder what your withholding should be/would be? I found this calculator that does an excellent job. Compared to my current withholding it calculated to within a couple dollars (assuming a 2080 hour work year). Messing around with the numbers is interesting without having to resort to federal and state tables.

http://www.yourmoneypage.com/withhold/fedwh1.cgi

05:02 pm

I had a pre-packaged microwave curry for lunch. It is marked:

• Vegan
  
• No Gluten
  
• No MSG Added
  
• No Preservatives
  
• Kosher

04:43 pm - I'm convinced.

Peanut butter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZFG5PKw504

Bananas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z-OLG0KyR4

01:11 pm - Appliance Repair

For any of you who own a home (and anyone else interested), check out www.applianceaid.com. It is the absolute best appliance repair website I've found. It's not the best example of web design (you may suffer retinal burns and almost all the internal links pop), but they have good descriptions (and pictures!) of a wide variety of appliances.

10:54 am - Too tempting to ignore...

Your results:
You are Data

Data 81% Jean-Luc Picard 65% Spock 57% Geordi LaForge 55% Will Riker 50% An Expendable Character (Redshirt) 40% Leonard McCoy (Bones) 40% Deanna Troi 35% Chekov 35% Mr. Scott 35% James T. Kirk (Captain) 35% Beverly Crusher 30% Worf 15% Uhura 10% Mr. Sulu 0%

Even though you are a genius you are always striving to be better.