When I was a kid my parents used to set me loose on the streets of Paris, with coin for admission to various museums, and a croissant and some hot chocolate. And I almost always wound up spending at least a day at Les Invalides, the military museum.
Ok, play nice, yall. Don’t dump the really obvious ones.
In a past thread, someone commented about topologists not knowing the difference between a donut and a coffee cup.
I forwarded that to a friend of mine who’s a recovering topologist, who said “of course we can tell the difference: coffee stays in a cup and leaves a donut.”
My dad says it’s something that happens naturally after you’ve worked in a field long enough: you start to feel like you’re looping back and forth on yourself. He used to say he’d find himself going to American Historical Association meetings as an “emeritus professor” that he had gone to as a newly-minted professor: some things had changed, some things hadn’t, so the changes and the gaps in the change were what really jumped out.
Someone is offering to teach me how to talk to cats.
“The Cat Language Bible” – sounds like future litterbox lining.
PZ just posted a piece “Who Knew Fjords Could be So Dangerous?” about the movie “The Wave” (which I also recommend)
The elevator in the hotel this morning, was scientifically designed by a cognitive psychologist gone horribly wrong, to torture people who have hangovers.
Warning: some “adult” and racist language
Back in the day, when voice recognition systems were first coming into us, we used to joke about getting on the public address system and saying “FORMAT C: /Y”
I got into Seattle late Dec 2, took a shared ride bus to my hotel, and then walked out for some food. The hotel I was staying in had a fancy bridal/formal store in the downstairs, with some big display windows and some lovely outfits.
… At the very thought of this horribly-named “Internet of Things” device. It’s not quite as bad as the fleshlight that doubles as a stick-blender,* but the name: