Magnetic fields
I scored a last-minute ticket to see the Magnetic Fields at Town Hall last night. It was a really subdued, acoustic show. There was a lot of conversation among the band members, and the whole thing felt like some sort of music-enhanced fireside chat.
I enjoyed the show, but I wanted them to rock out a lot more. It was so quiet that at one point I heard someone’s cell phone ring during the middle of a song. Drive On, Driver was my favorite song of the night, mostly because it was the one they attacked the hardest.
Drive On, Driver (via Recidivism)
Lunar eclipse
Last night there was a total lunar eclipse that was visible from North and South America. Friends of mine in Seattle saw it, I saw it in NYC, and my Dad even saw it in Baja, Mexico.
Next total lunar eclipse is in about two and half years, on December 21st, 2010.
This is a rather weak cameraphone picture, but you can still tell that it’s occluded, right?
Here’s a much better photo of last night’s eclipse.
Radiolab Premiere Party at Angelika Tonight
If you can memorize this number you can figure out what day of the week any date in 2008 falls on: 632641637527. I’ll explain how in a moment.
I’ve been thinking a lot about memory lately as a result of listening to the Radiolab show on Memory and Forgetting last week. If you’re even peripherally interested in science (and c’mon, everyone’s at last slightly interested), you absolutely must subscribe to their podcast. The show is really well edited, with densely layered audio and great pacing. They’re about an hour long, and usually I can’t get into podcasts that long because I don’t often have an uninterrupted hour to focus on them, but these are so engaging and accessible that I can jump in and out of listening to them on my way to and from work without missing anything. They make me look forward to a long subway ride, which is the ultimate compliment I could give any media.
Listen to that episode. In it they describe, among other things, that the memory-erasing technique from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is not a fiction, and is in fact in use today!
If you’re in New York, you can come listen in to the debut Radiolab episode for this season. It will be playing tonight (Thursday, Feb 21st) at 7pm at the Angelika Theater in Soho. There’s more information on the Radiolab site. Looks like the show is going to be about laughter.
Ok, here’s how you can use that number (632 641 637 527) to figure out any day of the week. Those numbers correspond to the first sunday of each month for 2008. For instance, January 6th is the first Sunday in January, and therefore the first digit in that number is 6. December 7th is the first Sunday in December, hence the last digit in that number is 7. Now, using that information and some simple math, you can figure out what day of the month any date falls on. For instance, let’s calculate July 21st, 2008. July is the 7th month, so we want to know the 7th digit above. It’s 6. Now, 21-6 is 15, so July 21st is 2 weeks and 1 day after the first Sunday in July. That means it will fall on a Monday.
Another cool thing is you can use that number to figure out how many Friday the 13ths there will be in 2008. There’s 1, in June, because June starts on a Sunday.
If you need help memorizing a 12-digit number, the peg system is pretty effective. If you’re serious about wanting to learn more about memory, the book “Your Memory” by Kenneth Higbee is required reading. It’s the only memory book I’ve ever read that actually improved the way I memorize. I wish I had had that book in college.
More about Radiolab:
Hacked
One of my web sites, corybantic.us, was hacked recently! Weird…
I restored the modified files but left the hacked page up as well.
Playing with Fire
I’m now 2 for 3 with viral youtube science experiments. Previously I fail to make Mountain Dew glow green and successfully created a spouting diet coke geyser.
Yesterday’s experiment, and my Thing for ThingADay, was to try to recreate the handheld fireball* on this youtube video.
The result? Success! Well, mostly. The fireball heats up and eventually gets hot enough to be very uncomfortable in your hands, but for the first 30 seconds or so you can definitely hold it in your hands. Or toss it between your hands like a hot potato.
See my pictures tagged fireball or watch this roughly-edited video:
HandHeld Fireball Take 2 from bantic on Vimeo.
I also put up an outtakes reel — the first time I did this I set the camera too high and you never actually see the fireball, just my goofball reactions to burning my hands. If you’re my friend and want to see it, I’ll send you the password.
* So now I’ve 1) gotten a tattoo and 2) made a hand-held fireball for ThingADay. Jenny’s comment: “that site is dangerous for you.”
Thing a Day overview
I haven’t been posting every day, but I’ve been doing things every day.
On Wednesday the “thing” I made was a tattoo. On Saturday I took a picture of my sweet electric guitar. Today I made a hand-held fireball (following along with this youtube video). Friday I “made” Manu Ginobili of the Spurs sign a Knicks t-shirt.
Photo of Ginobili forthcoming, and separate posts for the tattoo and fireball are also on their way.
Yes I realize I’m pushing the envelope of Thing A Day pretty heavily right now.
business card cube
Today’s thing: A cube I made out of my business cards.
Here’s Tuesday’s thing.
Wednesday’s thing is kind of a secret, but I’ll be putting pictures up soon.
outside.in switches to rails
I wrote a post for outside.in’s official blog a few weeks ago detailing some of the troubles and successes (mostly the latter) we encountered when switching over from PHP to Ruby on Rails last fall. It was kind of a herculean task for Christian and I, but has been well worth it so far. Looks like the post is getting a little traction in the railsy/nerdy community, showing up on 37 Signals’ blog and on Y Combinator Hacker News.
Neat fact: I have a picture of Jason Fried of 37signals holding up a cardboard sign saying “Go Chronic!” (That’s the nickname for the coding team of Christian and Cory.)
Chili fixings
The Thing I made on Sunday was Pork Chili. This is a picture of the garlic, onions and jalapeños. The recipe is called Tierra Verde Chili, and contains no beans, which I have been told is the authentic way to make chili although I can find no evidence of this in a cursory search online.
Here’s the Tierra Verde recipe in case you want to follow along yourself. It’s quite good, and goes really well over a baked potato with some cheese.
2lbs pork loin, thin 2 cups water 2 tbsp olive oil 2 large onions chopped 4 large garlic cloves minced 4 large jalapenos, stemmed seeded and diced 4 4-oz cans green chilis, diced 1 14.5-oz can stewed tomatoes, mexican style 1 tbsp oregano 2 tsp ground cumin pork in pan, cover with water, bring to boil, reduce heat, simmer until meat is thoroughly cooked through separate meat and broth, put meat on a plate, put broth into a 2-cup measuring cup skim fat from broth heat olive oil in a pot, saute onions, garlic and jalapeños (cook veggies with olive oil) add cubed pork, green chiles, broth, stewed tomates (w/ their liquid) + the seasonings, pepper to taste, bring to boil, simmer 2 to 3 hours for mixture to thicken
Today’s Thing is a picture of a Volcom tag. Volcom is my favorite brand.
orange balls (or: I’m doing thing a day)
Ok, I’m doing Thing A Day (http://www.thing-a-day.com/) this year!
I missed the official registration deadline, but that’s not going to stop me. I’m setting the bar rather low by just planning on taking >= 1 photo per day. Here’s a bowling shot I took last night. Click through for some more photos.
