Ahoy, mates!

So, do tell:

Where’s the best place to live in Seattle? Which are the best schools (public or private (for the children under 18))? Is it really so very rainy or is that just an urban legend?

I have reason to believe this may be in my (relatively) distant future:

http://depts.washington.edu/bioe/programs/phd/phd.html

It’s looking like there’s a drug that might reverse the effects of liver disease.

Any of you who’ve seen me drink, will know how very, very important this is.

Kables introduced me awhile ago to a blog this girl does that is at the same time both intelligent and interesting. I was browsing it recently and found myself pulled into an entry that showed a UK ranking of drugs by how dangerous they are. From there I saw she had a really fun link to a lesson on how drugs chemically react with your brain. Check it out, it’s fun and educational!

That’s what the article is about.

I don’t know that I completely understand it, but it’s an interesting read.

Word is that scientists are working on making a drink that gets you drunk, but doesn’t have any negative consequences to it.

Which might sound like a good idea, but it’s not. Being hungover-hell the punishment of using anything that makes you feel good for too long-is not only part of being human, it’s the thing that keeps us from just drinking all the time. Hell, if I could have an overinflated sense of self-worth, giggle all the time, and love you so much, man, without any repercussions, why wouldn’t I just forgo water and drink all the damned time?

You’re an adult. Moderate. Is it really that hard? Quit trying to save us from ourselves, science, and let drugs do their Darwin appointed duty.

Multiple Emmy and Oscar-winning star of the big and small screen.

Trusted corporate spokesman.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author.

Rock and roll god.

Object of religious veneration the world over.

Truly, William Shatner is a towering intellectual and philosophical giant whose accomplishments will one day be ranked alongside (and probably dwarf) those of King, Gandhi, Da Vinci, Buddha, and the late J.H. Christ.

Thankfully, the world is finally beginning to take long-overdue notice. Last week, the History Channel began airing “How William Shatner Changed the World,” a loving and reverent tribute to the Great Man and his incalculable impact on world civilization. Overwhelming public demand will no doubt ensure that it is replayed many, many times. You will watch it. You will watch it repeatedly.

After all Shatner has given to you, it’s the least you owe him.

With hyperdistribution the ‘how’ of how we watch television is changing quickly. The broadcast networks need to change as the audience takes control of what they watch and when they watch it.

It makes me wonder what is going to happen to the entertainment industry as a whole. For example, how will the pantheon of celebrities change? It’s certainly going to become more and more difficult to narrow down our coveted laminated lists.

How Battlestar Galactica Killed Broadcast TV by Mark Pesce

Pt. 1 Hyperdistribution
Pt. 2 The New Laws of Television

60 inches of thump

Heard of it? I never had, until this year, when I began attending a math class. Converting to the metric system after 30 years of age, hell after 10 years of age, is hell. Hell.

There’s even a symbol for it. Wait, let me find it…yes, here it is: ‰

Is that showing up correctly? It looks like a percent sign, but with two zeros at the bottom.

Here it’s procent not percent which is of course parts per 100 (hundred). Promille is parts per 1000 (thousand). The symbol for parts per 10,000 is similar with three zeros at the bottom. There may or may not be a pro-’x’ concept.

Then there’s ppm, parts per million. See how confusioning that is? Promille vs. parts per million. It’s damned difficult to remember that mille is not million when they’re so similar. Thankfully, no symbol (that I know of) for ppm.

In my math exam today, in Swedish of course (which ended up not being nearly as difficult and pesky as I thought it would be) I was asked: “Other than blood alcohol level, what situations would one use promille?”

Honest to god, the only thing I could think of was drug related, like pharmaceuticals and whatnot.

So I wrote that, but then added: Egentligen har jag ingen aning! Jag använder inte metricsystemmet. (“But really, I have no idea! I don’t use the metric system.”)

Stuff like this still amazes me. We’ve got the entire world mapped out, and I can see it while sitting in my desk chair via google earth. But somehow there are places in the world where no one has gone and recorded scientific data. Amazing. I don’t like that they keep referring to it as a “Lost World” because that just implies mosquitoes making dinosaurs. But I really like some of the pictures of the new species.

Now if you put these animals in a zoo, I wouldn’t notice anything extremely peculiar about them. There are thousands and thousands of animals I am unfamiliar with. But the fact that we are still uncovering ground in terms of terrestrial animals fascinates me. Where else haven’t we been?