Waffle | flakes of nuisance

Don Justino de Neve

no idea about the connection but the web throws up this

How to tie a scarf

Useful little leaflet (PDF) from Hermès.

Permalink

(CLICK HERE FOR MORE »» india knight’s posterous How to tie a scarf: .)

The Stolen Scream

The Stolen Scream: A Story About Noam Galai from FStoppers on Vimeo.

December 25 – Trypanosoma lewisi

On December 25, 1643, Captain William Mynors and his crew aboard the ship the Royal Mary, sailed past a small island in the Malaysian archipelago and dubbed it “Christmas Island.” More than 300 kilometers away from the nearest other piece of dry land and uninhabitated by humans or their animals until the 1890′s, many of the animals and plants found here were unique to this island. These species included two endemic species of rats, Rattus macleari and Rattus nativitatis. Despite the fact that the first settlers found them to be abundant, within a very short time, i.e. by 1908, [

continue reading December 25 – Trypanosoma lewisi

]

Robert Service

“Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things. It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out – it’s the grain of sand in your shoe.”

(CLICK HERE FOR MORE »» Motivational Quotes of the Day Robert Service: .)

Carousel

The appearance of impropriety

Marketing is actually what other people are saying about you.

Like it or not, true or not, what other people say is what the public tends to believe. Hence an imperative to be intentional about how we’re seen.

It may be true that the effluent from your factory is organic, biodegradable and not harmful to the river. But if it is brown and smelly and coming out of an open pipe, your neighbors might draw their own conclusions.

I know you washed your hands [

continue reading The appearance of impropriety

]

good advice

Hedgerow Dating - (I love stuff like this)

Dating hedges from subjective evidence

Certain “indicator” plants can provide clues to the origin of a hedge, e.g. Bluebell (Hyacinthoides nonscriptus) , dogs mercury (Mecurialis perennis) and primrose (Primula vulgaris) are all species occurring in or at the edge of woodland. There existence in hedges strongly suggests a woodland origin that possibly dates back to the assarts of the 12th – 14th century.

On the other hand we need to not overlook the possibility of secondary colonisation at a later date, especially in the case of bluebells that are sometimes escapees from gardens and waste piles.

(CLICK HERE [

continue reading Hedgerow Dating – (I love stuff like this)

]

Parasite of the day. November 9 – Meloe franciscanus

Today’s parasite is the larval stage of the blister beetle Meloe franciscanus. The beetle larvae are brood parasites that feed on eggs and the young of the solitary bee Habropoda pallida. The problem is, how do they get into the nest of a female bee on the first place? Well they do it by imitating the real thing. They gather into a swarm and climb to the tip of a grass stem. Once there, they clump together to form a small brown blob. While it might not look like much to you, but beetles give off a smell and [

continue reading Parasite of the day. November 9 – Meloe franciscanus

]

1.0 Is the Loneliest Number — Matt Mullenweg

Many entrepreneurs idolize Steve Jobs. He’s such a perfectionist, they say. Nothing leaves the doors of 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino without a polish and finish that makes geeks everywhere drool. No compromise!

I like Apple for the opposite reason: they’re not afraid of getting a rudimentary 1.0 out into the world.

(CLICK HERE FOR MORE »» 1.0 Is the Loneliest Number — Matt Mullenweg: .)

put this on a tin

Reflections on England

It seems to me that British people are on average rather more interested in cars than is good for them. In one sense this is understandable. On hearing that I normally drive rather infrequently, more than one person responded by saying that they “couldn’t manage without a car”. It’s easy to see why people believe this, given the way the country’s transport infrastructure is arranged. For many people it is genuinely difficult to imagine living without a car in the UK. Given the ubiquity of the car as the only way of getting about, it’s perhaps also not surprising [

continue reading Reflections on England

]

knowledge is a journey

wisdom is only one possible destination.

“Brainless” warning line “an insult to cyclists” (well anyone actually)

The battle lines have been drawn in Kent over, well, a line, the Herne Bay Times reports.

The offending yellow stripe runs for miles along the promenade in Herne Bay, apparently in order to stop cyclists who use this section Oyster Bay Trail cycle route from riding off the edge of the prom and onto the beach.

In what’s looks like a classic “health and safety gone mad” versus “never underestimate the public’s stupidity” style disagreement, objectors are equating the painted line to an act of vandalism while council bosses insist it is a legitimate safety measure.

Herne Bay [

continue reading “Brainless” warning line “an insult to cyclists” (well anyone actually)

]

Hipsters? they are getting on some people's nerves, or so it seems

Hipster-hate blogs are multiplying online. But who are these much-maligned trendies – and why do people find them so irritating? Perhaps we should learn to love our skinny-jeaned friends instead

There was a party going on in London E5; a house party in one of the Victorian terraces that line the streets in this modest area of east London. There had been parties on the street before, only on this particular Friday evening two months ago, guests wore Ray-Bans, deep-cut v-neck T-shirts and skinny jeans. They were also, according to one partisan report, in possession of “a sound system [

continue reading Hipsters? they are getting on some people’s nerves, or so it seems

]

imago

imago \ih-MAH-goh\, noun:

1. An idealized concept of a loved one, formed in childhood and retained unaltered in adult life. 2. Entomology. An adult insect.

Does Your Passion Show Through?

Now, twenty three years later, I have awakened from what I consider a long slow nightmare. Not so much different from the dreams in which we realize we went to class in our underwear. Those years were spent attempting (sometimes desperately) to succeed in our complex little capitalistic culture. I love capitalism and the freedom we have to choose our careers. We are blessed to be able to start a business from scratch if that is what we desire. You can be a bus driver, a doctor, or the owner of a tattoo parlor. Go for it!

(CLICK [

continue reading Does Your Passion Show Through?

]

button-up

The Power of Personal Influence

To make our influence felt we must live our faith, we must practice what we believe. A magnet does not attract iron, as iron. It must first convert the iron into another magnet before it can attract it. It is useless for a parent to try to teach gentleness to her children when she herself is cross and irritable. The child who is told to be truthful and who hears a parent lie cleverly to escape some little social unpleasantness is not going to cling very zealously to truth. The parent’s words say “don’t lie,” the influence of the [

continue reading The Power of Personal Influence

]

polite distance for doors

Dicrocoelium dendriticum - parasite of the day

Dicrocoelium dendriticum, better known as the lancet fluke, is a species of fluke that lives in the liver of grazing mammals such as sheep. Like most flukes, it has a 3 host life-cycle, the adult worm living inside the sheep, lay eggs which are shed into the environment with the sheep’s faeces. The first intermediate host for this parasite are terrestrial snails which become infected by accidentally ingesting the parasite’s eggs. The parasite undergoes clonal replication inside the snail, producing hundreds of infective larvae which are then packaged into slime balls and extruded into the environment. For some [

continue reading Dicrocoelium dendriticum – #parasite of the day

]

The Shirky Principle; 'Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution'.

“Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.” — Clay Shirky

I think this observation is brilliant. It reminds me of the clarity of the Peter Principle, which says that a person in an organization will be promoted to the level of their incompetence. At which point their past achievements will prevent them from being fired, but their incompetence at this new level will prevent them from being promoted again, so they stagnate in their incompetence.

The Shirky Principle declares that complex solutions (like a company, or an industry) can become so [

continue reading The Shirky Principle; ‘Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution’.

]

roving eye

Look What Happens When You Dress As Smart As You Are

Tony’s post on how to change your style reminded me of a great magazine article I found awhile back ago in a 1954 issue of True Magazine for Men that I bought at an estate sale in Vermont. Entitled ”Look What Happens When You Dress As Smart as You Are,” the article highlights the style transformation of Columbia University student, Don Wardlaw.

(CLICK HERE FOR MORE »» The Art of Manliness Look What Happens When You Dress As Smart As You Are: Vintage Images From True Magazine: .)

[

continue reading Look What Happens When You Dress As Smart As You Are

]

The squares marked A and B are the same shade of gray

Wrote Kathryn Schulz in her very entertaining book, “Being Wrong: Adventures in The Margin of Error“:

••••••••••••••••••••••••

This is one of my favorite optical illusions, not because it is particularly dazzling but because it is particularly maddening…. If you think of this image as a checkerboard, then all the “white” squares that fall within the shadow of the cylinder (like B) are the same color as all the “black” squares that fall outside the shadow (like A).

(CLICK HERE FOR MORE »» bookofjoe The squares marked A and B are the same shade of gray: .)

[

continue reading The squares marked A and B are the same shade of gray

]