Author Archive for Aaron

Forget Red vs. Blue, it’s Smart vs. Dumb

Published
by
Aaron
on November 12, 2008
in Politics/Society
. 0 Comments
The Princeton Review analyzed the transcripts of the Gore-Bush debates, the Clinton-Bush-Perot debates of 1992, the Kennedy-Nixon debates of 1960 and the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. It reviewed these transcripts using a standard vocabulary test that indicates the minimum educational standard needed for a reader to grasp the text. During the 2000 debates George W. Bush spoke at a sixth-grade level (6.7) and Al Gore at a seventh-grade level (7.6). In the 1992 debates Bill Clinton spoke at a seventh-grade level (7.6), while George H.W. Bush spoke at a sixth-grade level (6.8), as did H. Ross Perot (6.3). In the debates between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon the candidates spoke in language used by 10th-graders. In the debates of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas the scores were respectively 11.2 and 12.0. In short, today’s political rhetoric is designed to be comprehensible to a 10-year-old child or an adult with a sixth-grade reading level. It is fitted to this level of comprehension because most Americans speak, think and are entertained at this level. This is why serious film and theater and other serious artistic expression, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins of American society. Voltaire was the most famous man of the 18th century. Today the most famous “person” is Mickey Mouse.

—From Alter.net

Dexter: See-Through

Published
by
Aaron
on September 1, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

“I’m good with parents. The key is to simply think of them as aliens from a distant universe.” —Dexter Morgan

Essential CSS Hacks

Published
by
Aaron
on August 7, 2008
in How To
. 0 Comments

You ever have a project where something just won’t render correctly in IE 6 or IE 7, but looks fine in other versions of IE, Firefox, Safari, and so on? Or a situation where your layout looks great in Firefox, but quirks in IE, and quirks in a completely different way in Safari? Yeah, story of my life.

Then I discovered Essential CSS Hacks. This is by far the simplest reference I’ve come across for the various ways you can cause only one particular browser to see a CSS definition. Sure, it would be great if hacks like these weren’t necessary, but because there are no reference implementations for any of the W3C standards, how can anyone truly be taken to task?

That is all. I now return you to your regularly scheduled nerding.

Parabens

Published
by
Aaron
on March 7, 2008
in Things I've Learned
. 1 Comment

I know it’s been a while… I was on vacation! Not from learning, though, only from work.

Today I learned…

  • Body care products are often made with parabens (e.g. methylparaben, propylparaben, butylparaben, etc.), which are used for their antimicrobial, preservative, bacteriocidal, and fungicidal properties. Though studies have not confirmed any of the actual health risks some people have proposed related to the use of parabens (cancer, hormone effects, etc.), it is true that parabens tend to block moisture, which prolongs the negative effects some such products were designed to alleviate. In other words, Chapstick provides a temporary salve for dry, chapped lips, but in blocking new moisture from being absorbed, it fails to solve the problem.

Corpus Callosum

Published
by
Aaron
on February 22, 2008
in Things I've Learned
. 0 Comments

Today I learned…

  • The corpus callosum is the fissure that connects the left and right hemispheres of the mammalian (e.g. human) brain. Although many, many studies have been performed describing (as well as refuting) morphological differences in size between the corpus callosums (is that how you pluralize it?) of males and females, the jury is still out on whether sex plays any role, and whether there are any personality or psychological effects.
  • Although dealerships and manufacturers mislead people with their descriptions of 4WD and AWD vehicles, there are pretty distinct differences between them. While 4WD vehicles can be much more effective in times of need, they really don’t work well on dry pavement, which is why you can turn the feature off. AWD vehicles, on the other hand, use (typically) three differentials so that you can drive them on dry pavement as well as in tough conditions, making them more versatile, though also more prone to malfunction, and you can’t turn them off at all.

Friction, Erwin Wurm

Published
by
Aaron
on February 22, 2008
in Things I've Learned
. 0 Comments

Today I learned…

  • There is a whole field of study regarding the principles of friction, lubrication, and wear, and it is called tribology. The name derives from the Greek “tribo” meaning “to rub” and “logos” meaning “principle or logic.” How cool is that?
  • The music video for the Red Hot Chili Peppers song “Can’t Stop” was said to have been inspired by the “one-minute sculptures” of Austrian artist Erwin Wurm. Apparently he just grabbed things (and people) and made sculptures in the moment. That was his vision.

St. Elmo, Cassiopeia

Published
by
Aaron
on February 20, 2008
in Things I've Learned
. 0 Comments

Today I learned…

  • Despite what Billy says in the classic 1985 film “St. Elmo’s Fire,” the phenomenon referred to by that name is an actual documented meteorological event. Moreover, St. Elmo was indeed a real person. Which leads to…
  • St. Elmo’s fire is a “coronal discharge,” or glow, at the tip of a pointed object connected to ground in an atmospheric electric field, typically during a thunderstorm, e.g. a mast or flagpole. More casually, it’s a plasma, or ionized gas.
  • Saint Erasmus of Formiae, venerated as the patron saint of sailors, is also known as St. Elmo. He died ca. 303.
  • Cassiopeia, a constellation visible in the northern sky, is representative of Queen Casseiopeia, whose frequent boasts of unrivaled beauty caused Poseidon to throw her into the sky in such a position that she is upside down for half of the year. What a jerk.

Soda, Glycerides, etc.!

Published
by
Aaron
on February 19, 2008
in Things I've Learned
. 0 Comments

Today I learned…

  • A study ended recently declaring a connection between drinking soda every day and metabolic syndrome, which cements my personal view of soda as a very devilish thing, but also…
  • One of the components of so-called metabolic syndrome is elevated triglycerides, and…
  • A triglyceride is a glyceride in which the glycerol has been “esterified” with three fatty acids. Don’t expect me to explain that, though. It has something to do with perfume.
  • Ethnomethodology is a sociological discipline which examines the ways in which people make sense of their world, display this understanding to others, and produce the mutually shared social order in which they live. The term was initially coined by Harold Garfinkel in the 1960s.
  • Correlation coefficients, which are mathematical representations of the relationship between “random variables,” e.g. between frequency of lying and nose length (the “Pinocchio effect”), are typically measured on a scale from 1.00 (completely coincident) to -1.00 (completely independent). Thus, there would be a 1.00 correlation coefficient between a person’s height in feet and the number of inches from their feet to their head.

Yes, there’s more…

  • The difference between plasmapheresis and dialysis is that in plasmapheresis, the plasma is separated from the blood cells in a centrifuge before being filtered by a dialyzer, while the blood cells themselves are returned to the body. In dialysis, the complete blood stream is run through the dialyzer, though the dialyzer itself may contain semiporous membranes with different pore sizes (referred to as “low-flux” or “high-flux” membranes for small and large pore sizes, respectively), or have other differing characteristics, who knows.

Barometric Pressure, Photoshop, Zorba!

Published
by
Aaron
on February 19, 2008
in Things I've Learned
. 0 Comments

Today I learned…

  • There is a distinct possibility that cows have a tendency to lay down before it rains because of barometric pressure. Which is probably also why ol’ farmer Ted says his knees “act up” before a storm. Though none of this has been proven.
  • A couple of new things about Photoshop CS3 that I didn’t know before… Which I already wrote about.
  • The largest dog on record (according to Guinness of course) was an English Mastiff named Zorba who weighed in at something like 315 pounds.

Ravishing

Published
by
Aaron
on February 17, 2008
in Things I've Learned
. 0 Comments

Today I learned…

  • The word “ravish” can be used to mean “rape,” as in he tried to ravish her. Not very common!