Creator of Thunderbirds dies

I do remember watching this show when I was very young. I strikes me now as it did then: strange.
The mouths of these puppets barely move, and their expressions rarely change - except to laugh.

Behold! The terror!

Before Philosophy

The most difficult form of bias to divorce yourself from is that unthinking tendency to make assumptions about other people based on your own subjective experience - a bias of perspective. We do this with people who are living among us, and in these cases one might not be so wide of the mark since we tend to share our lives with people of the same culture, education system, and history. But, when we try to understand the actions and beliefs of people who lived in the distant past we will fail miserably if we pay no mind to the gulf that divides us: the very way we think - our habits of thought - would be foreign to an Egyptian peasant living 5000 years ago, "before philosophy". 

That is the name of a book I bought for mere quarters at Afterwords, a second-hand bookstore located downtown St. John's, and I do believe I will write a book report of sorts on it (oh my, if my younger self could see me willingly using my free time to write book reports....) It is, as you can see from the subtitle, "a study of the primitive myths, beliefs, and speculations of Egypt and Mesopotamia".

some music from 2012

I have to admit that I no longer obsessively keep track of newly released music, but this year I have been trying. Here are a few that float my boat, in no particular order, except that Port of Morrow (The Shins) is probably my favourite:

What does a lab tech do? Part deux

So let's say you are due for a major surgery in a few days; one thing that physicians have to consider is the possibility of significant blood loss. In order to prepare for this scenario it is important to have a couple of units of blood on hand in case a transfusion is necessary. But it is not as simple as transfusing whatever blood is available, certain steps have to be taken to ensure that the blood given is safe.

Nature Docs

I've been right into nature documentaries lately. There is one line in particular, from an hour long show about lions, that made me see things in a way I hadn't really thought of before: it was noted that not all lions are the same to a herd of grazing animals. These animals spend their whole lives together on the same plains and savanna; a zebra comes to know one lion from another, a lion knows what elephant matriarch to steer well clear of, etc.

Anyway, here are a handful of my favourites from the past couple of weeks:

How to find an exoplanet

This is a cool little video describing the methods used to infer the presence of a planet outside of our solar system. These planets are called "exoplanets". The most interesting ones are those believed to orbit within the habitable zone, which is the area around the host star where conditions might sustain liquid water.

Favourite Sci-Fi Movies

 In no order other than the order I think of them:

Merry Chrimbus everyone!

Morality

This is another one of those areas of thought that I take great interest in. I don`t know to what end I ponder these things, other than that there seems to be a part of me that is not satisfied to let sleeping dogs lie - to accept a brute fact because not accepting it could mean mental exhaustion. And, admittedly, for questions involving meaning and morality, complete understanding may lie outside of the limits of the human mind. Yet, here is my take on the subject!

The Palace of Memory Pt. 2, or Will Ferrell jumping on a tiger

Also discussed in Joshua Foer's Moonwalking With Einstein was a technique used by memory athletes to memorize the order of a deck of cards. Here is a video from the USA Memory Championship finals:

 

Okay, not exactly riveting stuff, but it is interesting how they do it.