Lizette Greco creates cool plush toys based on her children’s drawings. She’s got a neat photo collection of her work on flickr.
She also makes custom softies with illustrations sent to her by clients.
BP and Dupont Developing New BioFuel
The next big thing in alternative fuels might be biofuel grown in farmers fields instead of taken from ancient oil reserves. Wired News writes about Biobutonal: The Next Alt Fuel.
BP and Dupont today announced that they will begin selling Biobutanol in the United Kingdom next year. The companies co-developed a fuel that can be combined with gasoline and ethanol. Biobutanol is superior to ethanol because it has a higher energy value and is less water soluble and evaporative than ethanol, so it is safe to transport via existing gasoline pipelines.
The other day I went kayaking with a masters student that works out at the research station near my house in Lethbridge. He works with a gene gun doing experiments on more efficient means to create genetically modified foods.
We were talking about the possibilities for biofuels to take over as the leading alternative fuel source, and, he added, there is a strong possibility that once it’s in use, researchers could genetically modify corn so that it yields higher and higher amounts of usable energy. Genetically engineering crops for food consumption entails a lot of government restrictions to make sure that new plants are safe to eat but given that these fuel based crops won’t be showing up on our dinner tables ever, the time it takes to produce such plants would be greatly reduced.
On the topic of genetically modified foods, he talked about how scientists have come along way in understanding how genes can be turned on and off under certain conditions. He also told me that there are certain genes that when a chemical is added to the plants can react with the plant creating interesting results. One idea was a kind of corn that when it needs watering, will activates a glow gene—the same gene we see in fireflies—so that a farmer could theoretically look out at his field at night and if it shines, he knows he needs to water.
I think it’s safe to say, nothing would turn people off genetically modified foods more than this particular modification. Still it’s a pretty neat idea.
Halloween 2005
Halloween 2005 Originally uploaded by bcompetent.
First iPod Ad
It’s not as memorable as their 1984 ad, but it’s still interesting—First iPod Television Ad:
Victory declared in Clog Wars
I don’t know why it is, but some people just hate Crocks, those strange looking sandals with the holes in them. I don’t have a pair myself so I don’t really have an opinion, however, my sister and her husband both love them (though she agrees they are not the most attractive shoes in the world).
Heather Armstrong (aka Dooce) and her husband, Jon, each have strong opinions on the subject. Things began to escalate until it looked as though Jon may never see his shoes again. In a stunning turn of events, final victory has been declared in the Clog Wars.
Prescription Drug Costs and other Linkity Goodness
From the best of my feeds:
Malcolm Gladwell calls the New York Times on their misleading story about the costs of prescription drugs.
Jason Kottke explains how brands that are so recognized actually run the risk of losing their trademarks due to people’s everyday usage of the words (did you know Escalator was a brand?)
Brad Bird’s classic The Family Dog on YouTube. Brad Bird directed Pixar’s “The Incredibles”. I remember watching the Family Dog as a kid on Stephen Spielberg’s Amazing Stories.
25 years in the making The Thief and the Cobbler (youtube playlist) is a collection an unofficial clips from a fan restoration of the world’s most ambitious animation project. Directed by Richard Williams (of Roger Rabbit fame), play all for an enchanting peek at what might have been.
Update: Cartoon Brew just posted a great interview with Garrett Gilchrist the person responsible for The Thief and the Cobbler Recobbled.
Even with the broken links, I’ve decide to leave this page up for posterity.
Summer Solstice
It’s the summer solstice today, the first day of summer, and the longest day of the year (for those of us living in Earth’s Northern Hemisphere). The actual solstice is the moment the Earth’s tilt faces directly toward or away from the Sun.
I used to really dig the idea that the druids, or whoever it was that built Stonehenge, did it in such a way that certain shadows hit certain places on specific times of the year. I also liked books that used the changing of the seasons as magical days where mysteries were revealed or secret doors could be opened.
I once went into a church on top of Mt. Taber in Israel that when the solstice sun’s light hit the stained glass, it would paint a gorgeous image of Jesus’s transfiguration across the chapel floor matching up with the mosaic tiling. Of course I wasn’t there to actually see it, but the stain glass itself was nice and it sounded interesting all the same.
There are a lot of superstitions around the solstice, but maybe if you feel something special in the air tonight, perhaps it’s the cosmos trying to communicate with you, perhaps there is some mysterious force that you are on the verge of channeling, or perhaps you’ve just gotten too much sun.
Yay for summer! It’s all down hill from here.
Michael Mills Famous Backmasking Mp3
Back in 1981 a man by the name of Michael Mills created a radio show comprised of many backmasking clips purporting to show that rock music was influenced by satanic forces.
Thanks to the January 12th entry of the 365 days project you can listen to Michael Mills – Hidden & Satanic Messages In Rock Music (9MB mp3).
This 1981 Christian radio show (with host Michael Mills) exposes the threat of secret messages in your Rock and Roll! During the 45 minute radio show he covers a ton of artists… I’m playing 4 of my favourite segments on… Led Zeppelin, Kiss, The Beatles and Queen.
While I did find it interesting to listen to, I hope that you, the astute listener, will pick up on his lack of respect for the scientific process and see his motivation is fuelled by a preconceived hatred for rock music.
For example, not only is Mills sure to tell the listener what they are about to hear, before they have a chance to listen objectively themselves he also plays the backwards clips in such an order as to create a satanic message of his own arranging.
Near the end of the mp3 he shares the story of a young girl that complained that her room turned “an eerie and almost deathly cold” and claims that after she destroyed her KISS albums, the chills went away and we are left to assume the girl lived happily ever after. With his rearranging of backwards clips, his anecdotal evidence and his priming of the audience we know that what he presented is not scientific; clearly his agenda is that of closed minded fanatic.
Having said that, it is of course very entertaining — so enjoy, and be sure to get a permit before destroying your old records in a good old fashioned, satanic cleansing, barrel fire.
Update: Michael Mills and Beatles Forever.
Laughing Wild – by Christopher Durang
A monologue from Laughing Wild by Christopher Durang (sometimes called, “The Tunafish Monologue”):
Woman: I want to talk to you about life. It’s just too difficult to be alive, isn’t it, and try to function? There are all these people to deal with. I tried to buy a can of tuna fish in the supermarket, and there was this person standing right in front of where I wanted to reach out to get the tuna fish, and I waited a while, to see if they’d move, and they didn’t—they were looking at tuna fish too, but they were taking a real long time on it, reading the ingredients on each can like they were a book, a pretty boring book if you ask me, but nobody has; so I waited a long while, and they didn’t move, and I couldn’t get to the tuna fish cans; and I thought about asking them to move, but then they seemed so stupid not to have sensed that I needed to get by them that I had this awful fear that it would do no good, no good at all, to ask them, they’d probably say something like, “We’ll move when we’re goddam ready you nagging bitch” and then what would I do? And so then I started to cry out of frustration, quietly, so as not to disturb anyone, and still, even though I was softly sobbing, this stupid person didn’t grasp that I needed to get by them, and so I reached over with my fist, and I brought it down real hard on his head and screamed: “Would you kindly move asshole!!!”
And the person fell to the ground, and looked totally startled, and some child nearby started to cry, and I was still crying, and I couldn’t imagine making use of the tuna fish now anyway, and so I shouted at the child to stop crying — I mean, it was drawing too much attention to me — and I ran out of the supermarket, and I thought, I’ll take a taxi to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I need to be surrounded with culture right now, not tuna fish.
But you know how hard it is to hail a taxi. I waved my hand, and then this terrible man who came to the street after I was there waved his hand, and the taxi stopped for him because he saw him first, and the injustice of it made my eyes start to well with tears again. So I lost that taxi. So I raised my hand again, and the next three taxis were already full, although one of them still had his “free” light on which made me angry, because if he had had it off, I probably wouldn’t have raised my arm, which was getting tired now, I think hitting the man with the tuna fish used some muscles I wasn’t used to using. And then this other taxi started to get near, and this woman with groceries came out, and she started to hail it and I went right over to her and shouted smack into her ear: “If you take this taxi from me, I will kill you!” And she looked really started, and then the taxi stopped, and I got in, and I said, I want to go crosstown to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I might have culture, and quiet, and things of value around me, I have had a terrible time in the supermarket. And then the taxi driver, who was Greek or Muslim or Armenian or something, said to me, I have to go downtown now, I’m about to get off work.
Well, I thought my head would explode. I mean, was his taxi available, or wasn’t it? And wasn’t it law that they can’t refuse you, even if you want to go to Staten Island? But I just couldn’t bear the thought of pressing charges against this man — it would take days and days of phone calls, and meetings, and letters, and all because he wouldn’t bring me to the goddam Metropolitan. So I sat in his taxi and I wouldn’t move. I thought for a while about going back and following through on my initial impulse to buy a can of tuna fish — tuna fish, mixed with mayonnaise, is one of the few things I can make in the kitchen — but then I realized that probably whoever was at the cash register would give me difficulties, probably because I was a woman, or because she was a woman, or maybe it was a man who hated women, or wished he was a woman — anyway it all started to seem far too complicated; so I thought, I’ll just stay in this taxi cab, and I’ll be damned if I get out. And he kept saying, “Lady, please, I have to get home to my family.” And I said “Where? In Staten Island?”
Here’s another Laughing Wild monologue for a male part.
The Perfect Week
I ended my week on such a high note I can hardly believe it. To keep this interesting to the casual reader, I’ll try and keep this short.
Spending some time with my kid sister and her two kids was fantastic. I really can’t get enough of her kids. Her 18 month toddler is just so much fun, and I’ve never had so much time to spend with a newborn—yes I even changed diapers and it wasn’t nearly as bad as I was led to believe. Of course, I never had to change any seriously smelly ones. Oh man that kid does drop the occasional bomb in which hazmat suits would be ideal.
Then yesterday I had a good time hanging with one of my best friends in Lethbridge and her mom—which was totally nice if uneventful. However today was even more excellent than any day of the previous week.
It started out as one of those bland Saturday’s where even though the weather is nice, the lawn needed to be mowed, the laundry to be done, repairs made on the damage that my psycho roommate inflicted upon the house while I was gone (that’s one I’ll save for a different post), and it didn’t look like I had much on my plate that I was interested in actually doing.
But then, by the glorious miracle of the Internet, I found a group of guys that had blogged about going kayaking in less than an hour; all I had to do was show up with a boat on my Jeep.
We hit the lower St. Mary’s river which I had never been down before. Pictured below is a one of the guys that went with us and a bunch of Calgary folks’ vehicles and boats—we were all getting ready to hit the water.
The thing is, there has been a lot of rain in the last week. Apparently it rained pretty much everyday while I was gone to visit my sister. Well with lots of rain comes a high river and let me just say, wow that river was flowing! I was getting pretty confident going down it though and noticed that the other guys were all pulling off to the side, but thought, oh well I’ll just go down a bit further and pull off after a few of these big waves.
Well HELLO, the waves kept coming bigger and bigger, until I noticed that the whole river was raging around me. I found out later this was probably in the area of class four rapids. The best thing to do in a time like that is just go for it—which I did; which was awesome! I got right through them without even flipping and then parked in the eddie like a pro. The other guys were mighty impressed. Two of them followed my path and the other two opted to walk around these particular rapids.
Later one of the guys lost his boat—which looking at it now is kind of funny but I was quite worried at the time. The two more experienced boaters wanted these other two guys to come over to the shore with us so we could check out the hole around the next bend. Well I think they might have scared him slightly because while crossing he was a little unstable and then dumped. Well knowing he was in trouble he quickly bailed and didn’t even hang onto his boat. I went after him—again charging into the great unknown but at least the other guys told me to keep left. I went down this even bigger set of rapids, but this time a little less gracefully (I did it upside down)—depending on how you think about it perhaps I should get extra points for style. Luckily I flipped myself back up (after several tries) and we found his boat circling in a nearby eddie.
So to treat myself for my hard work today I made myself what I consider a perfect supper fit for a king and watched the Oilers shut-out the Hurricanes 4 to nothing, sending them to game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals and giving me the perfect ending to a perfect week.
I think I’ll start out next week with more kayaking; I’m going again tomorrow.