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May 09, 2007

The Sun is a mass of incandescent gas

As some one who grew up knowing every word to her father's Kingston Trio album and who's first cassette tape she ever bought with her own money was They Might Be Giant's "Flood". I simply had to link to this compilation of Folky Children's Science Songs. One of which is done by TMBG, "Why does the Sun Shine?". via Cosmic Variance.

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May 02, 2007

Curse words and power tools

Every week or so Cog Daily surveys their readers on one topic or another and then analyses the results. A couple weeks ago they did a study that I actually participated in. It was their most popular survey to date. They took about 10 curse words and asked people to rate them on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being neutral and 10 being extremely offensive. So far they've written two results posts with the possibility of more to come:
(Warning: they use the bad words in the results analyses. So don't link through if you don't want to read them.)
Results post 1
Results post 2
Some of the more interesting results are the inter generational reactions to certain words as well as the gender specific reactions to gender specific bad words.

The other neat thing on Cog daily was this post with a link to this youtube video which has guys in a workshop playing some song from Carmen on table saws, hand saws and power drills. What sets this video apart from other videos of guys in a workshop playing some classic song on table saws, hand saws and power drills, is that at one point they set up several different types of wood with different densities (therefore different pitches when cut) in a row and play a part of the melody that way. I, like the guy from Cog Daily, thought it was pretty neat.

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May 01, 2007

Too much sun and no cable

Another full and pretty weekend. I took off Friday, our two year, and Brian and I did a few errands, I made a pie and we played some Wii. We went to a very nice sushi restaurant in Vienna which re-energized our discussion of how we really need a nice little sake set, there's nothing like hot sake, to take the chill off a nice night out.

Saturday, we got up early and went to the National Arboretum with Ev, the other Julie and the Zimmermans. I was very impressed. They have the largest Bonsai Garden I've ever seen, if I ever get my pictures off of my camera I'll put some up. The azaleas were also in full bloom and the Arboretum had a whole big hill covered in them. Unfortunately for us, this giant pink and white hill took some finding and Eric had captured the navigator seat in the car, terrible idea.

The Arboretum has a phone number set up to hear pre-recorded lectures on what you are looking at in whichever garden you're in. Upon leaving the Herb Garden, Brian and I overheard one woman after she saw the sign, say "Oh, maybe if we go to the Visitor's Center we can get one of these cell phone thingys and listen to the tour" I kid you not.

Brian asked Zimm if Martha, who is an excellent potter, potterer, pottist?, would like to make us a sake set. Later that evening I was on the phone with her giving a very vague description of what sort of sake set we wanted. It's very exciting to think that we'll have our own handmade set!

Sunday, I dragged my parents out for a long hard day of scrubbing the sail boat. We were dismayed to see the boat covered in a dark film and a large red puddle in the galley were the rain water had overflowed the bilge during the winter. But much to our surprise and relief, we found that our new slip neighbors, Sue and Ron, not only own a power washer but were more than willing to let us borrow it for most of the day. Dad and I took turns experiencing the joy of actually cleaning with every wave of the nozzle. The boat is cleaner that it's been in 27 years! I'd be very surprised if my parents didn't own their own power washer within the month. My mom was probably imagining all the things that needed power washing around the house the entire ride home.

The boat of course is where I got horribly burned. I brought sunscreen with me in my purse but hadn't put any on by the time the power washer came out, and then I completely forgot. Now, I'm attempting to stave off a bad peeling experience with aloe lotion. Does it actually help?

After the boat was dinner at Brian's with his and my parents and gardening until 10pm. That's right, we gardened until 10pm. It was dark.

We also managed to cut the cable line into the house, oops! But really who buries a cable line only about 2 inches deep in the middle of a back yard? They told Brian last night that they'd come out today for an investigative look but probably won't be able to fix it for 2 weeks. Luckily, we can steal wifi from a neighbor but I'm afraid it's only movies at Brian's until it's fixed.

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