The Life Experience ~ Summer '12

[bloodyrosemccoy]

What I Learned Since The Summer Solstice

• Neil Armstrong was, in fact, mortal.
• Whorf was half-right on his hypothesis that language affects perception. It seems that once you have a word for a color, you can recognize it faster because the left hemisphere of your brain takes over the perception duties.
• Leafminers are gross little bugs whose larvae like to live in bubbles on spinach, chard, and beet leaves. Bastards.
• Nail polish is good if you want to make your arts'n'crafts project look shiny and enameled. And if you can stand the smell.
• Malaria is believed to be responsible for the death of HALF OF ALL HUMANS since the Stone Age. NOT ME, THOUGH, SUCKA!
• The name "Starbuck," which I have always liked for the sound, is an English surname most likely deriving from a Norse phrase for "from the great river."
• Sometimes the supposed Great Unwashed Masses can be persuaded with actual facts and math!
• Those swinging orange things on Yoshi's sprite in Super Mario World, which I always thought were stirrups or decorations for his saddle, are his ARMS. I can't unsee them now.
• Those SOS buttons for old or at-risk people living alone are only useful if they actually HAVE them when they fall and can't get up.
• Tress MacNeille did the voice of Chip in Chip an' Dale: Rescue Rangers. I always thought he was done by Russi Taylor.
• Radish seeds come in nifty little pods!
• According to a statement released by the Mormon Church, Mormons are TOTALLY allowed to drink caffeinated products like Coke and Mountain Dew. The real ban is against "hot drinks" like tea and coffee, but not hot cocoa, which is totally cool for some reason. Thanks for clearing that up, church!
• Tiny laptops are extraordinarily useful to be able to carry around.
• Ron Perlman continues to forge new frontiers in awesome.
• The best way to fix Doctors! is to pretty much rewrite it.
• Jeans shopping is still my enemy.
• Statistics show that group projects lower productivity pretty much across the board, even with those extroverts who seem to like them so much.
• Jumpsuits are not that difficult to sew, though practice is called for to get particularly good.
• When hooking up a new plastic toilet pump, it is perfectly okay to use one of the previous metal nuts to secure it, as long as you make sure there is no leakage.
• Apparently I've been growing feverfew in my garden and had no idea.
• Honor Harrington is THE SHIT.
• I still have a chestburster. Bring me more purple stuff!

Comments

[dinogrrl.livejournal.com]

Statistics show that group projects lower productivity pretty much across the board, even with those extroverts who seem to like them so much.

iiiinteresting *strokes chin thoughtfully*

[gethenian.livejournal.com]

Nail polish is good if you want to make your arts'n'crafts project look shiny and enameled. And if you can stand the smell.

You get used to it. The results are worth it. ;)

[childthursday.livejournal.com]

The one about group projects makes me more likely to assign them, actually. It's not the product but the process!

[dinogrrl.livejournal.com]

The process is the worst part :{.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

'Fraid I'm going to have to disagree with you on that one. Cooperation is one thing, but all I ever learned from Group Projects is that everyone is useless.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

I can remember two particular group projects that finally convinced me that yes, I was learning something useful from this. The first was senior year of college, microbiology lab, where I sat with two of my friends who were also going to grad school. We had a list of tests to check, and while every other group spent time saying, "Okay, here's the litmus milk. I think that's pink. Do you think it's pink? Agreed? Okay, on to the next one," we blazed through with, "I'm doing number six," and pooled our data at the end because we knew and trusted each other so strongly.
The second was in grad school, working with a combination of grad students and undergrads, when I realized that a) the first person to speak in the first meeting is the group leader, b) personality quizzes are useful, but only if the leaders are willing to lead, and c) for the love of all that is holy JUST GIVE ME THE WRITING. You can do all the other work, I don't even care, except I really do, but I WILL DO THE WRITING. Because I was one of the few competent people in the group and the other wasn't committing to anything.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Ah, but the key in the first one is that you already trusted and understood each other, and it was a natural thing. The groups in Group Projects usually don't have that bond (I even had teachers who would forcibly remove any bond by telling us we couldn't work with the same group we'd worked with last time), and it's impossible to fake it.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's basically what I took away: group projects that give me a random group aren't going to work unless I am very clear about my role in the group, which had better be last-touch writing. I will do the rest as well, but if I don't trust my group, I am not going to work well with them.

[robintheshrew.livejournal.com]

Those swinging orange things on Yoshi's sprite in Super Mario World, which I always thought were stirrups or decorations for his saddle, are his ARMS. I can't unsee them now.

Mind=blown

[mister-valiant.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I had to look this one up because I didn't believe it either. But apparently, yeah - the game sprite is miscolored.

/always assumed those were Mario's shoes
//every other piece of art I've seen has them correctly colored green

[westrider.livejournal.com]

The words "leakage" and "toilet" occurring in the same sentence causes an involuntary shudder ;)

I seem to remember some study about gender balance within the group having an unexpected effect on the results of group projects, but I can't actually remember what the effect was. Brain like a steel sponge, y'know.

How far are you in Honor Harrington?

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

The words "leakage" and "toilet" occurring in the same sentence causes an involuntary shudder ;)

Man, TELL me about it. Fortunately it was the clean water end of things I was working with. But few things are as terrifying as a broke-ass toilet.

I'm not very far with HH--just got through the second one. But man, it's extremely fun. I'm going to be plowing through them fairly quickly. I actually read A Beautiful Friendship as my first Honorverse book, and it's pretty awesome, too. I can't quite escape comparing it to Fuzzy Nation since I read them at the same time, but I really enjoyed it for its own merits, too.

[westrider.livejournal.com]

Cool. You've still got some seriously awesome stuff coming up. The first 7 or 8 or so are awesome. Then it kind of runs off the rails for a few, and finally completely jumps the shark around book 11 or 12 or so.

It's unfortunate, because before his Escalation of Epic gets out of control*, it's a great series.

*His writing kind of gets out of control later on, too. Going back though them again, I could probably find the book where he became a successful enough writer that he was able to start blowing off his editor's suggestions without repercussion.

[van.livejournal.com]

So, with regards to Mormonism, what about iced coffee? What about if, for some reason, someone heated up a Coke? Stupid stupid stupid, ugh.


I am afraid to Google Yoshi for fear of having my mine blown, too. HE HAS NO ARMS WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

DAMMIT, after nearly two centuries of arguing, LET US UTAHNS HAVE A MOMENT OF CLARITY.

I have no idea with iced coffee. Although The Church was careful to point out that it does not actually ENDORSE caffeine anyway. It's something that every Mormon must decide for themselves. Very serious business.

You can even see nubby little fingers on Yoshi's orange arms if you're paying attention. IT IS SO WRONG.

[shadesofmauve]

Yes, this stuff is important!

I mean, after reading that I'm even more baffled than before at the mormon church, and that takes some doing!

[sofish-sasha.livejournal.com]

The name "Starbuck," which I have always liked for the sound, is an English surname most likely deriving from a Norse phrase for "from the great river."

That name always makes me picture a roe deer buck prancing through space, which is a nice image. Anyway, I did some googlings, and it turns out that there are people here in Sweden whose surname is "Storbäck", which translates as "big creek". Don't know if that name shares the same Norse roots as Starbuck, but it sounds close enough, no?

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I don't even picture that--I just think the sounds evoke, I dunno, something adventurous and wild.

I suspect it is a similar name! The older versions of Starbuck have pretty much every possible spelling, too. They are at least cousins.

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

Whorf was half-right on his hypothesis that language affects perception. It seems that once you have a word for a color, you can recognize it faster because the left hemisphere of your brain takes over the perception duties.

But after presenting his hypothesis, he was beaten up by the monster of the week.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

The Worf Hypothesis: If people conceptualize Worf as the toughest guy in the room, then their conceptualization of you is affected by whether you immediately punch him out.