Biomes Blog

Entry#3212: Everybody Knows Your Name

On the 30th anniversary of the premier of “Cheers” GQ interviews nearly all of the surviving cast and crew.

Sight and Sound has just released the new “Ten Greatest Films of All Time” list, which they put out every ten years, and which Ebert calls the only such list that matters. Here are the winners, with Vertigo taking the top slot.

 

 

Entry #3211: Croc With a Croc

WaPo has a fascinating article on the quirks built into our brains that can cause the devastating loss that occurs when a child is forgotten in the back seat of a car on a hot day. It happens 15 - 25 times every year, and I can’t imagine the guilt that results.

Croc with a croc.

Entry #3210: The Agony of Defeat

For some reason I was curious about the ski jumper in the 1970‘s era ABC’s Wide World of Sports intro who’s featured as the words “agony of defeat” plays. He’s a Slovenian named Vinko Bogataj. Years after his ski-jumping mishap he was invited for an interview with the network and was in a minor car accident on the way to the studio. I love his response: "Every time I'm on ABC I crash."

Everything I need to know about politics I learned in sixth grade.

Penn and Teller demonstrate the seven basic principles of magic: Palm, ditch, steal, load, simulation, misdirection, switch. Wired Magazine has a dissection of this trick in their article on the neuroscience of illusion.

Entry #3209: Water Wigs

Tim Tadder found a bunch of bald men, hurled water balloons at their heads and photographed the results.

Inappropriate soundtrack for “The Fugitive”.

Even after attacks on humans, sharks should be protected.

Entry #3208: Thanks

Thanks to everyone here who has pledged to the commercial fisheries kickstarter proposal. We're 11% funded with 20 days to go, so it's looking fairly good.

Kthug: Sympathy for the Doofus.

According to this survey, my diet is moderately healthy. Check your results here.

Hump day musical interlude: This was my high school senior prom song, but I didn’t vote for it. Never liked The Who.

Entry #3207: Kickstarter Part III

I'm way behind in my Kickstarter proposal to create a series of exhibits on commercial fisheries in New England. If everyone reading this kicks in just $10 I'll reach my goal. It's all or nothing. If I don't reach my goal then I get nothing and the exhibits don't get produced. Huge thanks to Joel for jumping in early.

Wisdom is not conventional for Republicans anymore. Charles Pierce: Nobody does it better.

Ten famous men who just vanished.

Entry #3206: How to Fold Fitted Sheets

Stuff you should know: How to fold a fitted sheet. I’ll try this, since I’ve always avoided folding these insufferable things by only owning one, throwing each one away when I buy a new set. You could also try the Doghouse Diaries method.

One out of 255 women, and one out of 12 men have some kind of color vision deficiency. Take the color challenge to see if you’re one of them. Zero is a perfect score, and I got a four, with a little trouble in the blue-green part of the spectrum. 

Entry #3205: Circles

This is a mysterious underwater crop circle discovered in Japan. Turns out they are created by pufferfish.

Timewaster of the week: Circles.

Pet corner: Meet Baxter, at nearly 20-years-old, the world’s oldest therapy dog.

Entry #3204: Good vs Evil

Rolling Stone reviews “Tempest”, Dylans 35th album.

Good vs. Evil isn’t really much of a theme. Whether you love comic superheroes (I tend to like the movies and couldn’t care less about the books) or not, this essay is worth a read. Whether he’s talking about comic books, movies or real life events like Islamic terrorism and Naziism, the dividing up of the world as a battle between pure good and pure evil is part of the very definition of evil itself.

There seems to be a fairly strong correlation between how good a president was and whether or not he played chess.

Entry #3203: It's a Hollow Feeling

Would you like to read the single stupidest article ever written on the entire internets? You would? Great, here you go: Why the Republican Party is a better fit for African Americans.

According to some reports, Earth could soon have two suns, at least temporarily looking like Tatooine. The star named Betelgeuse may go super-nova, and for a short time would be nearly as bright as our sun. However, this wiki article states that it could happen anytime in the next million years, so don’t hold your breath.

iPod Shuffle: 

1. Win, Lose or Draw (Allman Brothers Band)
2. Walkin' After Midnight (Cowboy Junkies)
3. I Shall Be Released (Bob Dylan)
4. Tequila Sunrise (The Eagles)
5. If God Made You (Five for Fighting)

Entry #3202: Wolverines

David Axe says the remake of Red Dawn is the dumbest movie ever made, which replaces the invading Soviet Union’s army with North Korea’s.

Animal of the week: The Lord Howe Island stick insect is the largest flightless insect in the world. Nearly extinct, they live on Islands off New Zealand. Watch one hatch from its egg:

Entry #3201: Kickstarter Part II

Here's the video. Please spread the word. If I don't reach my goal I get nada. If I reach my goal the project continues to thirty days. It's to allow me to build a set of exhibits that highlights commercial fishing in New England.

Entry#3200: My Kickstarter Proposal

As many of you know, I'm setting up a new hugely expanded Biomes Marine Biology Center. Part of this is a proposed commercial fisheries exhibit. And I'm funding this through Kickstarter. What I'm asking here is that everyone reading this link to my project from your blog, facebook and any other social media outlet you have access to. I have to reach my goal in thirty days or I get nothing.

Here's the link. The Boy filmed and edited the film that goes with it.

Entry #3199: Believe What You Want to Believe

Albino Monday: Loggerhead turtle hatchling.

In 1978 Microsoft shot a famous company photo, and here’s where they all are now.

Why working-class people vote for conservatives even though it is against their own self-interest.

Entry #3898: The Golden Ointment

Today’s long read is a presidential profile called Obama’s Way, by Vanity Fair writer Michael Lewis.

Morford: God the insufferable jerk.

Now we’re cookin’: I never thought I’d be this fascinated by an essay on mayonnaise. This is how you write food pron.

“Aïoli, the “golden ointment”, most famously accompanies the great Provençal salt-cod platter known as “le grand aïoli”, garnished with regional vegetables, boiled eggs and, occasionally, snails. A couple of spoonfuls are also used as a thickener when making bourride: it’s quickly whisked into a hot, saffron-scented fish broth in which a fillet of fish has just been poached. To make aïoli, garlic—three to four cloves should be sufficient—needs to be brutally crushed, then worked to a paste with sea-salt flakes, using the back of a heavy knife or a pestle and mortar. The paste is mixed with egg yolks before following the basic mayonnaise recipe below, though omitting the mustard. When made with juicy, new-season garlic in early summer, the result will be particularly pungent.”