What feels better?

I love my mom.  In part because I already show great promise of growing up to be like her.  Even though she has a Droid and not an iPhone, autocorrect has been as cruel to her as it has been to me, though she's less adept at correcting bad autocorrect mistakes before sending out the final text.  That moment before you figure out that autocorrect is to blame for the very disturbing feeling that your mom just gave you is quite funny, but only after the fact.  I give you, yesterday's autocorrect slip up of the day:

In case you can't figure it out, I'm pretty sure that she meant, "Good...makes me feel better."  Once she realized the mistake she informed me that she actually did not type "nakedness feel better" and then promptly admitted that it was still true though.

My Street!

I know that most places have a "Cook Street" somewhere ... my hometown has one too.  But it still excites me to see a Cook Street in San Francisco!

We like to move it, move it ... on MUNI

The month of May has whizzed right by me, but not without a lot of fun-filled days and nights.  My family actually came out to visit me (Mom, Dad, Sister and her boyfriend) for Dad's 60th birthday bash!  It was outrageously fun- we toured all over San Francisco and a little outside the city too.

In the city we went to the Golden Gate Bridge, Fort Point, the Exploratorium and Palace of Fine Arts, Tartine, Dolores Park, the Castro, Duboce Park, Alamo square, Golden Gate Park, the DeYoung Art Museum, Ocean Beach, Chinatown, Ferry Plaza, Fisherman's Wharf, Ghirardelli Square, the marina, Alcatraz, and much more.  Outside the city we made it to Berkeley, the Marin Headlands, Sausalito, Muir Woods, and Sonoma.  All of this in just under one week!  We were pretty busy.

While the family was visiting, they became acquainted with our public transit system here called MUNI.  Before their visit, I prepared by getting enough electronic commute cards, called Clipper cards:

Once the family arrived, they each received a card to get around in the city.  It essentially costs $2 for two hours of riding on MUNI in the city, a pretty good deal if you strategize your trip well.  I also didn't want them to lose track of *their* Clipper card, so I labelled the back of each one with a biology word that would stand out to them and that they could associate with their card in particular:

If someone ever stole it, there would be an easily identifiable marking too - handy especially considering that my credit card account is linked to those cards!

Do you know what each of those words means?

STORM: By Tim Minchin

For everyone who knows me but has never understood how or why I feel the way I currently do about life, science, religion, politics, philosophy ... watch this.  This animated short is based on a performance by the talented comedian, musician, and skeptic Tim Minchin.  His poem is phenomenal and the illustrations are right on point.  Sit back, relax, and think for a change:

Now this might be something I could worship

In all his glory ... RAPTOR JESUS!

GPOYST

It's time for Gratuitous Picture Of Your Science Thursday. This is my Western blot result from earlier today. Unfortunately there are no bands except for a ladder. Next step: Repeat!

Episode 23

The atheism and science podcast that me and my friends work on together just released our 23rd episode!  Check it out - here's the summary from the Pascal's Bettors website:

• Matt starts us off with Spreading the Bad News regarding the misconceptions about the Crusades

• Joel reads off some news items about the ACLU defending Christians, rape being declared as "God's Will" and another attempt to teach the bible in a public school

• Liz inspires us with some Words of Lizdom via Richard Dawkins

• John discusses an uplifting Church In State segment where the UK prioritized secular morality over religious hatred.

• Liz discusses some Pope-pourri, specifically a lawsuit german lawyers are using to take on the Pope

• Nik discusses the ethics of the Supreme Court's ruling in the Snyder v. Phelps case for the latest Ethics Corner

• Finally, we wrap up with a religious trivia question about the Jewish Mezuzah from Matt

We love getting feedback to, so use the "contact us" form on the website to let us know what you think and if you have any question or subject you'd like us to cover.

Going out with a ... freeze

Discoblog over at DISCOVER learned me something new today:  "cremation, which uses the same amount of energy as driving almost 5,000 miles, releases mercury into the atmosphere."  


What a terrible thing to do to the environment!  I always thought that, aside from donating your body to science, cremation was the most cost-effective and ecologically friendly way to go (avoiding wood and metal coffins, large tracts of land, etc.).  Well apparently there's a more environmentally friendly way to depart this mortal coil.


In short, a company called Promessa will freeze your body with liquid nitrogen (using no nasty embalming fluids) to the point that your frozen self becomes incredibly brittle.  Then a sonicator is used to essentially vibrate the frozen stuff into a fine powder before evaporating the water in the dust and planting your remains back into the ground.  The biggest environmental benefits appear to be no embalming fluid contamination, no inorganic burying material, and less space taken up.  Here's a depiction from Promessa's website of the freezing process:

Let this be my living will: if I die and my body cannot be donated to science, I want to be frozen and shattered into billions of tiny dust particles just like in Terminator 2.  

The Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger

I think more nature videos should be narrated by this guy:

Yoga for Black People

Enjoy:



It's funny because Asians can make these jokes but white people can't (as indicated by one of the commenters).