sidheag's Journal

Username:	Password:
Forgot your password?	Remember Me

Pathos

It seems quite likely that the species we call Australopithecus afarensis - Lucy's species - included our ancestors of three million years ago. Other fossils have been placed in different species of the same genus, and it is virtually certain that our ancestors were members of that genus. The first Australopithecine to be discovered, and the type specimen of the genus, was the so-called Taung Child. At the age of three and a half the Taung Child was eaten by an eagle. The evidence is that damage to the eye sockets of the fossil are identical to marks made by modern eagles on modern monkeys as they rip out their eyes. Poor Taung Child, shrieking on the wind as you were borne aloft by the aquiline fury, you would have found no comfort in your destined fame, two and a half million years on, as the type specimen of Australopithecus africanus. Poor Taung mother, weeping in the Pliocene.

(p189, The Greatest Show on Earth, which I'm enjoying immensely (although it's probably a good thing that most of it is much drier than this!) I've read quite a few books lately that I've meant to write about, but this will have to do for now.

Pandemic: what will happen next?
This (the powerpoint towards the bottom of this page, but the rest of the site is worth a look too) is a nice, reputable summary presentation from the ECDC. I do recommend looking at the notes as well as the slides. Even if the executive summary is "who knows?"!
http://ecdc.europa.eu/en/Health_topics/Pandemic_Influenza/

PSA
Freerice still exists, and now it has lots of other subjects as well as just vocabulary.

FAO Cambridge folks
Free Darwin birthday event on the evolution of influenza - how could you miss it?
http://www.cambridgenetwork.co.uk/news/article/default.aspx?objid=55881

Home cinema projectors?
Has anyone, by any chance, any experience with using or better still choosing a projector for use with a DVD player? Currently we only have a portable DVD player with a tiny screen. We don't want to have a television, because that would make us liable to pay the licence fee every year, and because it'd be too hard to put away. But a projector seems like a better idea, especially given that we have white walls! Prices have fallen dramatically over the last few years so that there seems to be a lot of choice in the 300-500 pound range which is where I'd like to be, unless there's a really good argument for going higher.

( Too much choice, in fact... )
Anyone have any opinions or experience?

The web: by geeks, for geeks
DH comes in with a weird vegetable from the organic box, saying "What is this?!".
I take one look and say "It's a fractal, obviously."
DH agrees.
I google fractal vegetables...
... and get 93,500 hits, a good proportion of which are about exactly this vegetable.
It's Romanesque broccoli.

Current Mood: amused

Meme: share a poem that means something to you
Instructions: Reproduce a poem that means something to you. Please, try to make it a poem which is out of copyright! If you really must violate copyright, at least buy the book and include a link to Amazon or similar, so that others can too. If you like, do this every day for a month.

My French teacher introduced us to this when I was 13 or so (good choice for a class of adolescent girls!); it's been important to me ever since. Imagine every third line indented - I can't quickly work out how to do that. I don't guarantee to post every day for a month, but I might post a few more.

Chanson d'automne

Les sanglots longs
Des violons
De l'automne
Blessent mon coeur
D'une langueur
Monotone.

Tout suffocant
Et blême, quand
Sonne l'heure,
Je me souviens
Des jours anciens
Et je pleure,

Et je m'en vais
Au vent mauvais
Qui m'emporte
Deçà, delà
Pareil à la
Feuille morte.

Paul Verlaine, Poèmes saturniens (1866)

A company to avoid like the plague
Out Door Toy
Just tried and failed to do business with them. Details on request.

Language meme, from everyone
Age: 41

Where did you grow up: Southern England

WHAT DO YOU CALL:
( Read more... )
Well, what do YOU say?

Who he?
80% Dennis Kucinich
79% Chris Dodd
78% John Edwards
77% Mike Gravel
77% Barack Obama
76% Hillary Clinton
73% Bill Richardson
72% Joe Biden
35% Rudy Giuliani
25% Tom Tancredo
23% John McCain
23% Ron Paul
21% Mitt Romney
21% Mike Huckabee
10% Fred Thompson

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Description of a chocolate
... topped with a whole single-origin coffee bean.
How many origins can one coffee bean have?

book meme
These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users. Bold what you have read, ~~italicize those you started but couldn't finish~~ half-strike through those you started but couldn't finish, and strike through what you couldn't stand. Add an asterisk to those you've read more than once. Underline those on your to-read list.
( I've read 47, but this makes me feel old )

My top spots
Can you tell I said I like cities? Curious that it didn't give me Philadelphia (anywhere in the list), the only place I know well enough to have an opinion on (and I could live there, I think).

Boston, Massachusetts
Providence, Rhode Island
New Haven, Connecticut
Worcester, Massachusetts
Hartfoot, Connecticut
San Francisco, California
San Jose, California
Baltimore, Maryland
Washington, District of Columbia
Albuquerque, New Mexico (ah, one I've been to at last. No, couldn't live there.)
Portland, Oregon
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
etc. etc.

http://www.findyourspot.com

happy birthday to you
happy birthday to you
happy birthday dear Sidheag
happy birthday to you

ETA: typed by Colin at his insistence. It isn't my birthday!

Sob
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6940585.stm

Some 80% of pupils reached the expected standard in English, 77% in maths and 88% in science.

- good, about 4/5 of children pass each subject, well done schools!

But they also showed that four out of 10 children failed to achieve the expected level in at least one subject.
- terrible, sack all the teachers, something must be done!

Hint: 4/5 * 4/5 * 4/5 = 64/125, or approximately 1/2...

Formuspermula
I don't know who wrote this, or I'd credit them. Since it seems not to be out there any more (either under the name I misremembered or in the real one), in the public interest I give you ( Formuspermula )

For anyone who hasn't seen this before
On another planet, a young man was preparing for his first sexual encounter...

http://www.nursingmother.com/lighter_side/lighter_side_stories_thing.html

Maybe I'm just in a silly mood, but right now this seems to be even funnier than Spermuformula - which everyone has seen, right?

Current Mood: amused

Bunk beds: thoughts/advice?
I'm ill in bed today and not very coherent so I'll ( cut for wittering )

Current Mood: crappy