Please Don't Be That Guy » Science (Not Scientology)

The Nutty Professor

Andy — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:12:47 +0000

Listen, Teach, I know what it’s like: your research grant request about the velocity of a unladen swallow was rejected, you were denied tenure and now you have to spend your days teaching bratty, uninterested nineteen year-olds who deign to treat your lecture hall like it’s a LAN party. I get it – being a mid-level associate professor-type at a state college can be a chore sometimes. Still, do you really want to be known as the asshole prof on campus who pulls batshit crazy stunts like this just to make procedural points of order?

Or maybe you just wanted to become an internet celebrity. If so, then congratulations – I’m sure your love-child with Tila Tequila will be adorable.

The Look Of Love

Andy — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 06:24:49 +0000

I consider myself pretty lucky to know little-to-nothing about the world of online dating. From what I can tell, using internet-based matchmaking services is just as icky as cruising bars, only without as much ready access to alcohol and darts. Be that as it may, I found OK Cupid’s statistical debunking of myths about dating profile photos to be a fascinating read. My favorite phrase from the analysis:

“We then lopped the most and least attractive members of the pool, fearing that they would skew our results.”

More than anything, it strikes me as funny (and a little sad) that one can be too pretty or too ugly for the standard deviation. In any case, it’s an interesting read, and now I know to be sure to use a unsmiling, gratuitous cleavage shot from my camera phone if I ever decide to dip my toe in that terrifying pool.

The Japanese Are Awesome: Chapter One Billion

Andy — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:48:38 +0000

I know I sound like a bit of a broken record here, but god freaking bless the Japanese. Here in the states, our zoos prepare for the unlikely situation wherein a captive rhinoceros escapes its enclosure and runs amok by writing up documentation on what to do and putting it in a binder (probably one labeled “PANIC!”). Our friends from the land of the rising sun, though, don’t just rely on what some pencil-necked paper-pushing bureaucrat says they should do. Rather, they make themselves a fake rhino and play such an incident out to make sure all bases are covered:

Well, that settles it: if I’ve got to be stuck in a zoo while a two-ton horned animal is rampaging about, I want to make damned certain it’s a Japanese zoo. Although, I have to say, I’m not completely confident in their abilities: after all, some of those security personnel look awfully familiar.

[Via Weird Asia News]

You Don’t Have To Say A Word

Andy — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:51:43 +0000

Depending on who you ask, non-verbal communication is either humanity’s secret weapon or our basest instinct. I tend to think that the things we don’t say often tell us more about ourselves than the things we actually do, and that certainly extends to our inter-verbular (look it up) mannerisms. Since I am prone to verbal diarrhea, when I need to vamp between words I just throw in, well, more words. Others, though, have more intricate non-verbal patterns, with lots of utterances, gestures and facial expressions which pretty much tell us what they’re saying even if we’re not listening to what they’re saying. To wit, it’s interesting to check out Basemotion’s video experiments along these lines:

Despite the fact that I know how to say only one phrase in Spanish, I found it illuminating that I had no trouble picking out what these test subjects were saying. But maybe that’s just me – I can read people like a book, which is how I can tell you want to give me thousands of dollars. Don’t worry: it’ll be our little secret.

Face Time

Andy — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:21:48 +0000

There have been a lot of times in my life when I’ve been bored. You know, those rainy Sunday afternoons when nothing good is on the tube or an occasional (or frequent?) lonely Friday night. However, I can unequivocally say it has never occurred to me to strap a bunch of electrodes to my face, hook them up to a shock device and synch my facial contortions to music.

Oh well, I guess I’m just not that imaginative.

Stuck Up

Andy — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 18:06:29 +0000

In a perfect world, I would do nothing all day except sit around and cook up crazy, hair-brained experiments to perform and then post them to the web. Sadly, since I’m neither creative nor debt-free enough to make such a career change, I’ll have to rely on Eepybird – the outfit that cooked up the legendary Diet Coke + Mentos fandango – to do my experimentin’ for me. To wit, just take a look at what they can do with a few (hundred thousand) Post-It notes:

This is pretty freaking cool. And you have to hand it to them, this time they chose a project that offered a substantially less messy cleanup than their last one.

No Junk From These Trunks

Andy — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 13:03:14 +0000

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that my kids have always secretly wished they were raised by elephants. Now, here’s video evidence that they’re actually better than I am at a key parenting skill. Namely, painting pictures of elephants:

If those things figure out how to make strawberry smoothies and read Bark George, I am totally out of a job.

Wing Man

Andy — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 04:16:27 +0000

I’ll admit it: I’m a bit of a candy ass. I’m terrified of heights and I’m pretty scared of the thought of rocks, mountains and ground rushing toward my face at high speeds. That said, I totally want to try this sometime.

Of course, I’m sure I’d have to be so sedated that I wouldn’t remember anything, but at least I could say I tried it.

Transcendentalism Without The Trans-Fat

Andy — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 21:55:26 +0000

Praise bajesus! Finally, some mad genius has distilled my own spiritual sensibilities down into a single, photographic image. Although in truth I would only use actual butter. Maybe that means that there needs to be a fourth option: “dogma”?