Girl voice from about four feet off the floor:
Mommy, this opened itself by accident.
Archive for the ‘DNA’ Category
Overheared at Office Depot
Wednesday, July 28th, 2010Blind
Sunday, July 25th, 2010So, my sister wants new blinds hung in her bedroom. Going by the Big Orange Box instructions, I measure top and bottom width (to check parallelism), diagonals (to check squareness), and height in the middle.
The openings are neither parallel nor square, although they’re not out by much; I’ve seen much worse.
I set about trying to find the widest blind that will fit in each opening. I can’t find an on-line calculator, and when I try to figure out an algorithm myself (while trying to chip the rust off my Python skills), it turns out to be surprisingly difficult. Any given case is straightforward, using Pythagoras, but there seems to be no general solution. And that’s assuming that the top and bottom are parallel and level.
I mention this at the dinner table.
“Why not just measure the old blinds?”
Good question, Mom. Good question.
I’m still piddling about with writing a calculator, just as an exercise. And I’d like to find an online calculator.
Note: the math might be a bit easier if you measure width of the opening top and bottom, length of both sides, true plumb height at both sides, and both diagonals. But I think you can do it with the usual top and bottom width, overall height (assume level), and the diags, and given that those are the measurements most window blinds sites ask for, that would be best.
Inputs and results to the nearest eighth of an inch, please. If you round, round down — a blind that is too large by the height of the drywall texturing, a sixteenth of an inch or less, will not work. Piss off with your sissy millimeters.
A command line calculator is fine by me, but it must work under Windows as well as Unix.
Dealing With the Crazy
Monday, July 19th, 2010Mark Bennett, Defense Attorney, has apparently been dealing with a lot of “borderline personalities” lately.
His rules for survival:
- If you don’t have to deal with a crazy person, don’t.
- You can’t outsmart crazy. (You could outcrazy it, but that makes you crazy too.)
- When you get in a contest of wills with a crazy person, you’ve already lost.
- The crazy person doesn’t have as much to lose as you.
- Your desired outcome is to get away from the crazy person.
- You have no idea what the crazy person’s desired outcome is.
- The crazy person sees anything you have done as justification for what she’s about to do.
- Anything nice you do for the crazy person, she will use as ammunition later.
- The crazy person sees any outcome as vindication.
- When you start caring what the crazy person thinks, you’re joining her in her craziness.
Two observations:
Bennett consistently uses “she”. Hmmm….
The crazy always wins.
Biter
Friday, July 9th, 2010I collected this magnificent Chelydra serpentina specimen strolling down the left hand lane of a busy four-lane road a block from my sister’s house.
She was being guarded from traffic by an older woman, and watched by a young Mom and her two little girls, all fascinated and fearful she would be run over, but quite reasonably more than a little scared to pick her up.
OK, OK, I’m a stupid male show-off and a soft touch. I pulled off the main road, went over and picked her up to rescue her. I knew she would thrash, and try to bite and claw, and thus was not surprised into letting go of her.
I’ll note that my grip is not ideal; it would have been safer to hold her further back. But she didn’t get me, and given her size, this was probably the most secure grip.
Mom and Dad were with me, and the woman said she knew of a near-by pond, so I had Dad follow her. We all trooped over to the edge of the pond (a “catch and release” stocked fishing pond in a neighborhood park). I had my fellow rescuer snap a couple of cell-phone pictures for the record, and set the turtle down at the edge of the pond. She sat there for a moment or two — wondering what the catch was, I expect — and then Zoom! right into the water.
You’ll notice I keep calling the turtle “her”. Look closely at the base of the tail in the picture above, and you’ll see a pinkish triangular structure sticking out. It was quite prominent in person, and I assumed it was an penis, erect from aggression.
Wrong. I’ve checked around, and most likely, that was an ovipositor. (I’m trying to get confirmation on this.) Ms. Snappy-snap was probably looking for a place to lay her eggs, or had recently laid them.
For lots of cool info on snappers, check out Chelydra.org.
Raw Deal
Sunday, June 27th, 2010Hecate on feeding your carnivorous pets:
It’s no different than pet food companies pouring money into vet schools so that vets will tell their clients to feed their pets kibble instead of fresh raw diets. The low state of health created by commercial foods is then considered “normal.” I feed my dogs a raw, natural diet, and when I sent my mortality figures in to a worldwide Greyhound age and cause of death survey, I skewed the figures: “One of the replies was from a lady who had had greyhounds for more than ten years, and her reply mentioned more than twenty dogs. When these figures were entered, the average age of death went up by a year!” When I brought my morbidity and mortality stats to a national Greyhound adoption conference and showed them to Greyhound vets from all over the country, they agreed my dogs had less than a third of the cancer they saw in the overall pet population and less than a fourth of what they saw in retired racing Greyhounds.
“Doggy breath” and “doggy odor” are not normal. They are indications of preventable disease. My raw fed dogs smell pleasant, and their breath smells fresh and clean. Their teeth stay free of tartar, they have no gum disease. I have a 14 year old dog right now who still runs around like a puppy, and she’s been fed raw nearly all her life.
That sounds eminently reasonable to me. I’m going to have to look into this for my cat.
Bird Attack
Thursday, June 17th, 2010Best video of the week, at least:
What’s happening is that birds see R/C craft as raptors. I used to fly gliders, which look suspicious to birds, since raptors also silently glide around in thermals. I’ve seen them get mobbed by sparrows.
The other cool thing here is the quality of the video. I love it that that level of tech is available off the shelf.
Borrowed Souls
Tuesday, June 15th, 2010Of all the things I see on blogs, some of the best are the stories people tell when their pets die.
First, get this going:
then open Instapunk in another tab and read:
When new children came to visit, he was always there with a wagging tail and that big friendly nose. What few people saw were those ancient eyes, buried in the Scottish way, under brows that had seen absolutely everything ever. It looks like kindness when you’re a child. When you’re an adult, you know it’s the wisdom of the ages: I’ve seen every kind of slaughter, murder, and torture a human can commit, and I’ve come back this time only because I don’t have to participate. That’s how I fell in love with the breed. From a picture of a deerhound. It was my wife who made the dream come true. You get to borrow such souls for a time, and when they are withdrawn you feel as if you have been tossed farther from the seat of God.
Homeland
Saturday, June 12th, 2010In a screed at American Thinker against Rosie O’Donnell, Eileen F. Toplansky lays out the facts concerning Jews “returning” to their “homelands” in Germany, Poland, and elsewhere.
The Jewish homeland is, in fact, Israel, and has been “since time immemorial”:
There are archaeological remains that attest to this fact. The holy books of the Jews and the Arabs also confirm this. So Jews don’t have to go back home ~ they are already home. The Jews in Europe, Asia, and America are in the Diaspora because they were summarily expelled from countries throughout the ages. The term “wandering Jew” comes from the historical facts that Jews were expelled from England in 1290; from France in 1393; from Berne, Switzerland in 1427; and from Spain in 1492, to name only a few places.
In her book From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine, author Joan Peters, proves with historical data and other archival information that Jews did not displace Arabs in Palestine-just the reverse: Arabs displaced Jews. In fact, the blurb of this 1984 book relates that:
A hidden but major Arab migration and immigration took place into areas settled by Jews in pre-Israel Palestine; that a substantial number of the Arab refugees called Palestinians in reality had foreign roots; that for every Arab refugee who left Israel in 1948; there was a Jewish refugee who fled or was expelled from his Arab birthplace at the same time. . . .
Recently, filmmaker Pierre Rehov created the film entitled “The Silent Exodus” about these Jews who were kicked out of their Middle Eastern homes. Between 1946 and 1974, there were a million of forgotten Jewish fugitives expelled from the Arab world. These Jews had been living in Arab lands for thousands of years but their homes were stolen from them; they literally had nothing but the clothes on their backs when they fled. They were received in Israel. They did not remain refugees; they had no special United Nations agency to assist them. Israel welcomed them and they rebuilt their lives.
Related, and linked here for reference, “Genetic Evidence Shows Common Origins of Jews“, by David Bernstein at the Volkh Conspiracy. From The New York Times:
Jewish communities in Europe and the Middle East share many genes inherited from the ancestral Jewish population that lived in the Middle East some 3,000 years ago, even though each community also carries genes from other sources — usually the country in which it lives.
But note this comment by Bernstein:
I don’t think that Zionism, etc., depends on whether Jews really have common genetic origins or not, anymore than Palestinian identity is any more or less real depending on whether, as some claim, a large percentage of “Palestinian Arabs” had immigrated rather recently from other countries in the Middle East. But I do think that manipulating history for ideological purposes is bad…
Wolf In The Garden
Friday, June 4th, 2010Awhile back I posted a snap of this little guy:
Well, “little”. Actually he’s about 4 inches long.
I sent the pictures to Max Anton, aka the Mollusk Man, who has a great website about mollusks in the Houston area. He identifies this ferocious beast as a Euglandina rosea, the Rosy Wolfsnail:
This is indeed a Euglandina rosea, though it appears to be slightly elongated, thus resembling an E. singleyana. It is a native species and poses no threat to vegetation. Because it eats harmful pest snails, it should be treated carefully and not be harmed. If you wish, you can place one in a jar and watch it feed on pest snails. It’s a pretty creepy thing to see.
As you have already noticed, RWS’s are audacious creatures, quick to ignore handling procedures and external stimuli. Few other species possess so bold a nature, allowing this snail to be a most excellent species to display for educational purposes.
I turned him loose next to the garden fountain and have not seen him since, but I presume he’s still there, guarding the flora against his fellow mollusks.
Thanks, Max, for the confirmation.
Memorial Day
Monday, May 31st, 2010Thank you.
I had an uncle, my mother’s brother, Emmett, who probably had some great stories — fought in Europe, POW, escaped, re-captured — but I never heard any of them. Mom didn’t, either. That almost certainly means that he was an extraordinary hero by our milquetoast civilian standards, because the stories of such men aren’t fit for the ears of folks who don’t have their own such stories to tell.
That’s the real price. We all die, sooner or later, in greater or lesser pain. But some few of us have done the awful, terrible things that must be done to preserve our liberty.
A people too timid to even countenance such acts is too timid to be free.
I hope we are stronger than that.
Yesterday I saw a movie about a superhero. Mom asked how I liked it. Well enough, I said, but I am tired of heroes. I want the stories of ordinary people rising up and defending their liberty, their way of life. She replied that they’re usually too busy doing the ordinary everyday things that need to be done.
I was distracted, and had no response.
But today I do. Your brother didn’t do the ordinary things, Mom. Your husband, my Dad, didn’t, although the war was over by the time he got to Italy. You have a grandson-in-law who isn’t doing those ordinary things right this minute.
The day may be coming when we all will find our ordinary lives crumbling around us, when we will find that heroic acts are as ordinary as driving to the store for eggs, milk, and lettuce is now, and fresh produce, other than what we grow ourselves, a luxury beyond price.
And if so, it will be because some of us have become too pure, too civilized, too intellectual, to honor those who gave their ordinary lives for our liberty. Because some of us feel entitled to sneer at those who have forsaken their ordinary lives, entitled to call the ceremonies of the day “dog and pony shows”.
One such is now our Commander in Chief, and nothing — nothing — shows his unfitness for office as his dismissal of those he commands, his disregard for why they fight, his evident shame for the nation they love. He stains the day they have made pure, not only by their blood, but by the blood they shed; not only by their agony, but the agony they inflicted. To the extent we are civilized, they made it so by taking, for awhile, the barbarian aspect.
And I thank them. All of them, alive and dead.
And I pray I will never be called upon to share their glory in any tiniest way.
Amen.