The Unnumbered Sparks
March 15, 2013 (Ides of March)

I am as constant as the Northern Star,
Of whose true-fixed and resting quality;
There is not fellow in the firmament.
The skies are painted with unnumbered sparks;
They are all fire, and every one doth shine;
But there’s but one in all doth hold his place.

So in the world; it is furnished well with men,
And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive;
Yet in the number I do know but one
That unassailable holds on his rank,
Unshaked of motion: and that I am he,
Let me a little show it, even in this;
That I was constant Cimber should be banish'd,
And constant do remain to keep him so.

(Oh Caesar...)

Hence! wilt thou lift up Olympus?

(Great Caesar...)

Doth not Brutus bootless kneel?

(Speak, hands for me!)

Et tu, Brute! Then fall, Caesar.

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What yonder Music Associations doth besmirch mine post?  
     AC/DC - Hail Caesar & Gerry Rafferty - Right Down The Line "You've been as constant as the Northern Star"
And what Movie Association doth appear in its appropriateness?
     Roman Holiday








Is It Pi Day?
Is the Pope Argentinian?!?
March 14, 2013 (3.14)*


Yes.

Ask me something else.

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Music Association: David Bowie - Modern Love  
"Gets me to the church on time."

* Technically Pi Day was in 1592 (or with rounding 1593).
This was also Albert Einstein's birthday.








Dr. Science Goes Shopping
March 13, 2013 (3-13-13)

Dr. Science pulled the science experiment shopping list off the science refrigerator, jarring the formerly-neatly stacked petri dishes inside. Dr. Science hated shopping. Funny looks was never an item on the list, but he usually came away with more funny looks than items from the list.

For example, many stores sell ping pong balls. Often they are sold in convenient six packs. However Dr. Science needed 1500 ping pong balls. He would've settled for 1499 or 1498, but six packs were not convenient. He did not want to open 250 packages. He didn't even want to make the grad students do it.

Store after store, he asked a sales clerk who would call the Head Sales Clerk who would come out of the Sales Clerk Room just to see who it was that wanted to buy 1500 ping pong balls.

Then the question.

What are you going to do with 1500 ping pong balls?

Implied in that question is the Paranoid Early-21st-Century American issue of whether a call in to Houseland Security is required or warranted. Not that anyone could blow anything up with ping pong balls.

Dr. Science then explained that he would be taking liquid nitrogen and adding warm water and 1500 ping pong balls. The explosion would send ping pong balls shooting out all over the place.

That's when the Head Sales Clerk would call Houseland Security.

And Houseland Security asked for his name and asked to speak with him and they would say, "Hello again, Dr. Science, still no luck?"

All in the name of science.

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Music Association: Oingo Boingo - Weird Science
















Stay Sharp
March 7, 2013


Dance • Laugh • Sing • Look around

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Music Associations: Todd Rundgren - Bang On The Drum & Josh Tobin - Fish Sticks










Tadpoles Stressed By Michigan Researchers
March 6, 2013

Labcoat-wearing researchers at the University of Michigan have been stressing out tanks of tadpoles.

The tadpoles have been forced to watch news of climate change, Syria's civil war, the stock market, and the Congressional sequestration.

The "research" has revealed that stressed out tadpoles grow longer tails.

Future Michigan experiments:

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Music Association: Martha and the Vandellas - Nowhere To Run







Advanced Snow Shoveling 4031
Different Snows, Different Methods
March 5, 2013

As we learned in The Introduction to Winter 1001, Minnesota has a flurry of words for snow and frozen water. Half of them are curse words. Cleaner words were on the course syllabus and listed here:
Apply the knowledge of the introductory coursework to the shoveling dilemma. What are you trying to shovel? Snowmen? Snowbanks? Thunder snow?

Today's snow is several inches deep. In other parts of the country, a common solution to snow is to wait for it to melt. That's not a March solution in Minnesota. The snow has to be moved. 

It is a good snow for a snowblower. (Snowblower rule number one: never clear clogs with your hands; use a broom handle.) But while a snowblower could help, I've never seen a snowblower that works on stairs or gravel or gravelly stairs. It's shoveling time.

Almost. Discuss snow shoveling with your physician before heading out. Ask your doctor if your heart and lungs and back and knees can take the strain of shoveling. Don't shovel with open wounds. Don't shovel with serious medical conditions. Don't shovel with impaired vision because you have to take regular breaks to look around... resting your arms on the handle of the shovel, like crossing a T. At the first signs of fatigue or strain or thoughts of hot chocolate, stop shoveling and head inside.

Yesterday's snow was just a dusting. It could have been shoveled with a broom. That's not shoveling. That's sweeping.

Today's snow is about six inches, give or take a few. It's not yesterday's powdery snow, nor is it a thick, wet snow. It's snow snow.

One of the tricks of this shoveling is to figure out where to put the shi snow.  Snow accumulation was already at least a foot or two. Stack it. Pile it up. But keep your footing stable; watch out for icy spots hidden underneath all the snow.

This is a snow that's appropriate for a flatter shovel, but not the flattest shovel. This is not a pushing snow. This is a lifting and tossing snow. Test question -- the color of the shovel does not help or hinder the snow shoveling unless the shovel is white.  A research study was already done. I think they got a big grant for the study.

For tomorrow's class, read the chapter in Hopes and Dreams where the narrator dies in a blizzard. And bring in your posters or dioramas of the different types of snow shovels and when to use them.

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Music Association: Lenny Kravitz - Dig In  (No relation to Mrs. Gladys Kravitz)











March Forth
HIV Miracle
March 4, 2013

A doctor cured a child who was born with HIV.

Doctors believe the key was hitting the 30-hour-old baby (very early) with heavy doses of three HIV-fighting drugs - zidovudine (AZT), lamivudine, and nevirapine. The 18-month regimen was administered by Dr. Hannah Gay, a pediatric HIV specialist, at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, Mississippi in July 2010. The findings were announced yesterday at a conference in Atlanta.

This is the first cured HIV child and only the second cured HIV patient.

The first cured HIV patient was Timothy Brown, whose 2007 cure involved the destruction of his immune system and a stem cell transplant from a donor with a rare genetic mutation that resists HIV infection. That cure was not very repeatable.

The test is whether this miracle can be repeated.

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Music Association: Jefferson Starship - Miracles











Sequester Arrives - So?
March 1, 2013

The total federal budget deficit is $16 trillion, which is also the annual value of the United States economy. The defense budget is $1.03 trillion (more than the top ten other nations combined). The total federal budget is $3.6 trillion. And the sequester might cut $85 billion.

Will anyone notice?

Will the sequester make cuts where cuts need to be made? Probably not.

Will the cut eliminate one side of the Pentagon, making it a... four sided open figure?

This was the only way defense cuts could happen. Ever.




Here's the Sequester (2-22-2013) by cartoonist Nate Beeler of the Columbus Dispatch.

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Music Association: Chicago - Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is






Truck Rental
February 28, 2013

The guy ahead of me in line at the truck rental store was as agitated as a washing machine. He kept spinning around to see how many people were behind him in line and then twisting to see how many people were ahead of him. His black knit cap sat high on his head, keeping some of the air above him warm. He spun around like a top until it was his turn.

Just as the customer in front of him was served, the clerk announced that there were no more clean trucks.

With a sigh and a lurch, the young man asked, "Does a truck need to be cleaned? What if I'm not going to use the ... uh... cargo section."

The puzzled clerk asked, "Do you want a truck or a van?"

The guy rented a truck.

I think this was him.

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Music Association: Simon And Garfunkel - Slip Sliding Away

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