Biomes Blog

Entry #2877: Send Warm Things

If you live near NYC, Occupy Wall Street is asking for winter clothing donations. There’s also an address you can mail stuff to. I plan on shipping a couple of pairs of gloves this week.

There’s a new show on ABC called Once Upon A Time that looks interesting. It premiered on my birthday, and they put together a very cool YouTube video to promote it (watch what goes on around the trailer as it plays). If anyone knows how they did this, I’m planning a promotional series of animal videos, and how cool would this be for them?

Albino Monday: Otter. This is one of only two known photos of the U.K. animal.

Entry #2876: The Human Camera

Meet the human camera. After viewing the city of Rome once by helicopter, this guy spends three days drawing the entire city from memory, right down to the number of windows in each of the thousands of buildings he saw.

Entry #2875: Protecting the Axon

The International Institute for Species Exploration has come out with its top ten new species of 2011 list. It includes the pancake batfish from the Gulf of Mexico.

Stamps of Distinction has the fascinating story about the mail sorters on board the R.M.S. Titanic.

Although I have absolutely no medical training, and only a very cursory knowledge of neurobiology, I managed to get seven out of ten on this quiz on our nervous system.

Entry #2874: Beyond Thundercat

Pet Corner: Meet Smokey, the cat with the world’s loudest purr. Listen to it here.

According to the Economist’s Democracy index, the U.S. doesn’t even rank in the top 15.

One of the best animated gif's I've seen is called "evolution". I tried to embed it, but it slowed things way down, but you can watch it here.

iPod Shuffle:

1. Carried Away (Crosby, Stills and Nash)
2. Ridin' the Storm Out (REO Speedwagon)
3. Bright Side of the Road (Van Morrison)
4. No Difference (Everything but the Girl)
5. We'll Be Together (Sting)

Entry #2873: Brown Dwarf

Sebastian Thrun gives an amazing TED Talks presentation about his self-driving cars.

CFBDSIR 1458 10b is the coldest known star. It’s surface is no hotter than a fresh cup of coffee.

Bonus Albino: The odds of three out of four raccoons in a litter being albino is one in ten million.

Entry #2872: Crossing Muddy Waters

Thirteen books nobody’s read but says they have.

Hump day musical interlude:

Entry #2871: You Smell Like Bacon to Us

Not sure how I ended up here, but I was fascinated reading this biography of Doc Holliday.

Tuesday coonhound cat blogging: Today's slide show is about a window showdown between a young cougar and Zeus the Maine coon cat.

A philosophy of the 1%.

Entry #2870: What a Whopper

Albino Monday: At 194 pounds, this is the largest albino catfish ever found.

Geek stuff: Star Trek TNG: The 47 conspiracy.

Entry #2869: Forty-Seven, Said Deep Thought

In avian psychology news, abused baby boobies grow up to abuse other chicks.

General J. C. Christian reviews the King James version of the Holy Bible on Amazon.

And another year goes by...

Entry #2868: Quality Truck Lettering

Early eBook pioneer, and the founder of Project Gutenberg, Michael Hart has died at 64. I always feel bad when a death is the only thing that gets me to become aware of men and women of great deeds. The project was started back in 1971 when Michael started typing the Declaration of Independence into a computer network to share it with other users. Project Gutenberg now has over 36,000 books in its online library.

We’re #1, via faithful reader Cat in the Bag.

I saw a sign just like this, but on a sign shop building window, this week in Pawtucket  (known as "The Bucket" to residents there), RI. I didn't have my camera. (Click to embiggen.)

Entry #2867: Help the Bombardier

Morris Dickstein has a nice article on the book “Catch-22”. I discovered Joseph Heller in college after devouring all of Vonnegut’s books, and then searched for an equal. I only found them in Heller and Tom Robbins. The movie version, with Alan Arkin and Jon Voight, is good too. Here are some quotes from Capt. Yossarian. And watch a clip explaining the catch. Ebert didn’t like it.

iPod Shuffle:

1. Run Eyed Blues (Ben Harper)
2. Caroline (Harry Nilsson)
3. Train of Glory (Jonathan Edwards)
4. Love Will Keep Us Alive (The Eagles)
5. Back Home Again (John Denver)

Entry #2866: Some Eyes

Animal of the week: Meet the cyclops shark. The pup was found inside a mother dusky shark, and the single eye is made up of functional optical tissue.

Ron Paul wears an eyebrow toupee.

Hey, my eyes are down here!

Entry #2865: Trick the Bridesmaid

A little sit-in on Wall Street over a month ago by a few dozen protesters has blossomed into an Occupy movement that now covers over 900 cities around the world.

If, like me, you love the comic xkcd, but also, like me, don’t get half of them without doing a google search, there’s a niche blog that explains each episode.

Hump day musical interlude: Bad lip-reading Obama.

Entry #2864: Nein, nein, nein

Everybody seems to be making fun of this video of crazy GOP candidate Herman Cain doing a version of John Lennon’s “Imagine”, but it’s about pizza (Cain was the CEO of Godfather Pizza). But I find it has given me a little bit of respect for the guy. It’s pretty funny and shows he’s got a bit of humor and self-deprecation in him. He’s still crazy, though. Nein, nein, nein.

Entry #2863: Taking the Floride Out

Albino Monday: Wallaroo in Australia.

The unfortunate truth about Saint Ronnie.

Pet Corner: Naki’o the bionic dog was found in the icy cellar of an abandoned home. After loosing all four paws to frostbite, a vet provided him with prosthetic limbs.

I've decided that the new octopus' name is "Coral".