The Life Experience ~ Spring '14

[bloodyrosemccoy]

What I've Learned Since The Spring Equinox

• In an early script for The Little Mermaid Ursula was supposed to be Triton's sister. It kinda shines through.


• Lily Tomlin played Miss Frizzle in the Magic School Bus show.


• Annie Jump Cannon, who developed stellar classification, was ridiculously super-focused. She would spend each day painstakingly going through stars and categorizing them with spectroscopy. As someone who enjoys that sort of tedious infosifting, I am always glad when someone else who likes doing that gets recognized.


• The modern white greasepaint clown look was invented by Joseph Grimaldi in the late 18th Century. I'd curse his name, but without him we wouldn't have the greatest comic book villain ever, so I salute you, you creepy clown!


• Literary agents like to play musical agencies, so you're never sure which agency you've queried and which agent.


• It turns out the "Augie's Great Municipal Band" song from The Phantom Menace was NOT intended to be a bouncy upbeat foreshadowing version of the Emperor's theme. I find this extremely disappointing. Here I was all "That's BRILLIANT!" and it was just a coincidence. The few points I give to the prequels must be deducted again.


• Io's crazy volcanic activity is all due to the gravitational free-for-all between Jupiter and Jupiter's other big moons.


• The latest theory about why lunar maria are only on the near side of the moon is that the moon was quickly tide-locked to Earth after they split, and the still-molten Earth kept the rock vaporized and blew things like aluminum to the far side of the moon and thus made the crust thicker. So it was a lot easier for the near side's crust to crack and bleed out the lava that hardened into those basaltic plains.


• Handwriting is part of the Utah core curriculum--because of the neurological and developmental benefits. This is apparently unusual.


• The great battle between British and French food hinges entirely on the quality of ingredients. The better your ingredients, the less need you have to complicate them with sauces and so forth. Rich People Food used to be blank chunks of meat. The Garbage Parts Of The Food only got popular as Rich People Food after everyone figured out how to make them good.


• Antarctica's elevation is pretty high, bro.


• Chainmaille weaving is hard on your back muscles.


• The night sky on a planet inside a globular cluster would be pretty dang bright.


• One of the most fun things to do with liquid nitrogen is to dump it out when you're done demonstrating its uses. POOF!


• Balloons do not scare me if they are only partially blown up.


• A lot of Catullus's poems were basically old-timey versions of hip-hop grudges.


• The original difference between ginger beer and ginger ale is that ginger beer is brewed, with yeast and so forth, and ale is ginger syrup in carbonated water. That's the original difference. Nobody cares anymore, though.


• The hipster soda section of the supermarket is terribly fun.


• I can make an awesome rose ginger lemon soda, but it must be drunk within a week or two or it will turn beery.


• There is such a thing as conductive thread. So you can sew LEDs into your clothing!


• Astronomy dome theaters have great models of the skies of all sorts of other planets. You can watch Jupiter's phases from Europa, for crying out loud!


• Unsurprisingly, nerds who work on the slides for spherical screens are more than willing to abuse their power. Science On A Death Star!


• Sometimes you can take a chance with a new job and it turns out TOTALLY AWESOME.

Comments

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

That's actually where I heard about it! (Though she does say "When I lived in the palace" at one point, too, which gives a hint.)

Nice icon.