So Doctor Who is not a complete loss. But then there are some shows that go completely beyond the pale of enjoyability, until they become nothing more than overwritten collections of tropes impossible to watch without groaning.I think the worst offender here is the History Channel and all their programs on the so-called “World War II”.Lets start with the bad guys. Battalions of stormtroopers dressed in all black, check. Secret police, check. Determination to brutally kill everyone who doesnt look like them, check. Leader with a tiny villain mustache and a tendency to go into apopleptic rage when he doesnt get his way, check. All this from a country that was ordinary, believable, and dare I say it sometimes even sympathetic in previous seasons.

via squid314: Stuff.

Oh!  I haven’t belly-laughed like this in weeks.

Go to this link and read his whole article.  Then read the collecting comments below it…they are just as funny.  There’s even a classic riff by a “not getting the joke” German–as though it were planned!

Lately I’ve been immersing myself in the study of telegraphy, so I’ve already got half my brain in the 1940′s…this was perfect synchronicity.

UC Berkeley Webcasts | Video and Podcasts.

Gary Taubes is a science journalist who has been published in the Atlantic Monthly, Discover, Esquire, GQ, Science, and many others. He has won the National Association of Science Writers Science in Society Award three times.

His 2001 article, “The Soft Science of Dietary Fat,” published in Science, was followed by “What if It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie?” which saw print in 2002 in the New York Times Magazine. His book, Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control, and Disease, has just been released.

But scientists are hunting nutritional compounds that might help tweak metabolic processes in specific ways. For example, Muoio discovered the muscles of diabetic animals lack enough of a metabolite named carnitine, and that feeding them more improved their control of blood sugar.

via Health | Study: 10 minutes of exercise, hour-long effects | Seattle Times Newspaper.

I think my ambition here is to try to collect these “tweaks” for a while.  In reading this, I suspect that Molly Wu could have used more carnitine in her diet.  For a while, its lack was a scandal of sorts in pet-food circles.  It was corrected, of course–but my other studies about diets have taught me to accept that some folks are not “average” and they do better with more or less of some things.  So… Although the mantra remains “diet and exercise” the specifics remain ever-new.

Imaging studies further show hyperactivity not only in auditory pathways of the cortex and thalamus but also in the non-auditory, limbic brain structures that regulate a number of functions including emotion. This limbic activation has been interpreted to reflect the emotional reaction of tinnitus patients to phantom sound, but research has now shown the limbic region normally blocks sound sensations sent from the auditory region that are not real. It does this by feeding sensations of sound that are not real back to a brain area in the thalamus the thalamic reticular nucleus that exerts inhibition on the sensory signals and can thus subtract the errant noise.

via Imaging reveals how brain fails to tune out phantom sounds of tinnitus.

In this unique time-lapse video created from thousands of individual frames, photographers Scott Andrews, Stan Jirman and Philip Scott Andrews condense six weeks of painstaking work into three minutes, 52 seconds

via Go For Launch! | Airspacemag.com.

Astronomers this summer will take a close look at a rare cosmic cradle for the universe’s largest stars, baby bruisers that grow up to have 50 times the sun’s mass.

via Astronomers plan second look at mega star birthing grounds.

Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter — Object List.

Here’s a list of many (not all) of the wonderful goodies I got to see last night, through the 24 inch telescope.  Our tour guide was Adam Block.  It was cold and remarkably windy, even for the top of a mountain.  They also issued 7×50 binoculars to each of us so that we could look at “other stuff” while we were in line to view the objects in the scope.

We stood outside during sunset and Adam explained why shadows are blue, and how to see “the green rim” that in some places is called “the green flash” of the setting sun.  A woman on our tour said she had been to the ocean and had the good fortune to see the green flash.

Slow Food Tucson.

Farmers’ Markets
Monday Marana Farm Market – 12375 N Heritage Prk Dr. 4-7pm May – Sep; 3-6pm Mar – Apr & Oct – Nov. 622-0525 x 242
Tuesday Community Food Bank Farmers’ Market, 3003 S Country Club. 8am-noon. 622-0525 x 242.
Wednesday Downtown Farmers’ Market Arts and Crafts Mercado – South lawn Main Library, 101 N. Stone Ave. 9am-2pm. 326-7810.
Green Valley Village Farmers’ Market - Esperanza and I-19, 10am-2pm Oct – Apr; 8:30am -12:30pm May – Sep. 490-3315
Thursday Santa Cruz River Farmers’ Market - Speedway & N Riverview Blvd. 3-6 Oct – Apr, 4-7 May – Sep. 622-0525
Tubac Farmers’ Market – Tubac Plaza, Exit 34 & I-19. 10am-2 pm. Oct – Apr. 884-7178.
Sahuarita Summer Nights Farmers’ Market – Sahuarita Town Hall (Sahuarita Rd) 5-8pm May 7 – Sep. 490-3315
Friday Broadway Village Farmers’ Market – Broadway and Country Club. 9am-2pm Oct – Apr; 8am-1pm Jun 5 – Sep. 603-8116
El Presidio Mercado – El Presidio Park, Church & Alameda. 9am-2pm. 326-7810.
Saturday Oro Valley Farmers’ Market – Oro Valley Town Hall, 11000 N La Cañada Dr. 9am-1pm winter, 8am-12pm summer. 918-9811.
Plaza Palomino Food Faire – 2970 N Swan. 10am-2pm winter, 8am-12pm summer.
Rincon Valley Farmers’ & Artisans’ Market -12500 E Old Spanish Trail, 9am-2pm winter, 8am-1pm summer. 591-2276.
Sonoita Growers’ Market – Diamond JK Nursery, Hwy 83. 9am-noon May – Sep. 455-9262
St Philip’s Plaza Saturday Farmers’ Market – Campbell & River. 9am-2pm Oct – Apr, 8am-1pm May – Sep. 603-8116.
Sunday Civano Artisans’ and Farmers’ Market – Civano Nursery, 5301 S Houghton Rd. 10am-2pm 248-9218.
Tucson Farmers’ Market at St Philip’s Plaza - 4380 N Campbell. 9am-1pm winter, 8am-12pm summer. 918-9811.

Instructables has skill guides I want.  This is a nice one that I don’t have time to practice right now.

How to tie various knots

Knots, as a way of joining rope without special equipment, are useful in many situations. On a sailboat, knots are essential both for daily use and for emergency repairs. This instructable describes several different common knots:, e.g.

Sheet Bend – to tie two lines together

Bowline – to make a loop

Reef Knot – to fasten a bundle of material

Fishermans Bend – to secure a line to a post or ring

via How to tie various knots.

Meat-free, but flavor-packed

via 12 Mouthwatering Meatless Meals – Health.com.

They all look tasty and sane.

I don’t want to lose these.

A while back… a long, long while back, I read this book:

Persephone’s Quest: Entheogens and the Origins of Religion

~ R. Gordon Wasson (Author), Stella Kramrisch (Author), Dr. Carl Ruck (Author), Jonathan Ott (Author).

I remember clearly that there was a section on the way mushrooms grow, and the mythology surrounding that.  One mushroom was called something like “thunderfoot” because it was held that the lightning and thunder made it grow.  Dr. Wasson made no judgements about that–reported it without discussing whether that was fact or quaint superstition.  It stuck in my mind because it seemed so unlikely and yet–just the sort of magic you’d expect of this world.

I am writing this entry here mostly so I don’t lose this book again.   I keep needing to remember who wrote it when ever I find articles that relate to it, and yet my head for authors and titles is becoming less reliable.

In the news the other day I found this:
Lightning really does make mushrooms multiply

So it looks as though Persephone’s Quest taught me something very cool, and everything old is new again.

http://www.ejbjs.org/cgi/reprint/14/1/118.pdf

Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery

The use of Auscultatory Percussion for the Examination of Fractures

Robert K. Lippmann

JBJS AM 1932;14:118-126

As a PDF file for download.

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