Thursday, November 4, 2010

Life: NaNoWriMo

November. It's a good month, happens to be the one I was born in, and of course there's Thanksgiving.

It's also NaNoWriMo.

NaNoWriMo, that's National Novel Writing Month.  The goal is to write a terrible, sloppy, but complete draft of a 50,000 word novel in one month.

I'm going to give it a shot. Not sure how likely it is that I'll actually hit the goal. I'm in the middle of school, got a research project and several classes and those are of course priorities, but that won't stop me from trying.

Will you join me?

Friday, October 29, 2010

What I Learned... On NPR: Breathe Deep and... Taste?

You have bitter taste receptors... in your lungs. Today on NPR's "Science Friday" show I learned that researchers from the University of Maryland had discovered taste receptors identical to those found in the mouth that are responsible for bitter taste.

What's awesome is that when stimulated these cause the bronchial tubes to loosen (more so than any known drug): in other words, this could lead to a very good treatment for asthma. Brilliant!

You can listen to the podcast of the NPR interview here.

Monday, October 25, 2010

TV Review: Stephen Moffat's Time Travelling Detective

Okay, so he's not really time travelling, Stephen Moffat's Sherlock Holmes has simply been set in modern London. There's more than one reason I've called him a time traveler though. Moffat's brilliant, eccentric, obnoxious "high functioning sociopath" Sherlock Holmes is more than a little reminiscent of the latest incarnation of the time travelling Doctor from Doctor Who. That's fine by me, Moffat's a brilliant writer and I'm all for getting to see another eccentric genius written by him. And actually, Sherlock isn't entirely like Matt Smith's Doctor, he's more like him turned up to eleven (pardon the pun). He's got all the genius and condescension without the sympathy. I suppose it could annoy some (even wore a bit on me at times) but on the whole I'd say it's brilliant.

Watson is also good, though I understand quite changed from his original, and the rest of the supporting cast do their jobs quite nicely. The dialogue between the character's is fantastically witty (plenty of laughs to be had) and there's plenty of clever references to Sherlock canon.

The plot is fun too, and it even seems to be setting up for a pretty interesting arc involving the slow revealing of an archnemesis and the question of just how sane our hero really is.

If had any complaint so far, it would be that the actor playing Sherlock Holmes is a bit of a mumbler, and when he gets to talking a mile a minute it can be hard to understand him. Oh well.

Keep up the good work Moffat.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

What I learned... on NPR: Nutritious Nukes

As angry as I may be at NPR, I still greatly enjoy the show, and I learn quite a bit from it - sometimes what I learn are important issues, sometimes it's just fun information. So my first "What I learned..." is going to be about something I learned on NPR.

What I learned...

Surprisingly, and quite the opposite of what you'd expect, if you're going to cook veggies and you want to maintain their nutritional value, the best option is not boiling or even steaming, but... cooking them in the microwave.

Yes, the microwave is the best way to cook something.

Who knew?

What I learned...: A New Blog Series

I'm starting up a new series on this blog called "What I learned..." In it, I'm going to discuss various interesting bits of trivia I pick up that I'd like to share, be they from school, books, the radio or others. These will be quick snappy posts that I hope you'll enjoy.

Life: Blog, Blog, Blog

While I'm on about plugging blogs.

Diversity of Lions

Here's the blog of my friend Fernando Rojas, another brilliant fellow (also with a great sense of humor).

Check it out.

Life: Another Blog Lives!

Fresh of the blag-o-press comes a new blog. It's a baby right now, so there's not much, but when there is I can promise it will be good. The blog is owned by my friend Brett Stroud, who is, seriously, one of the smartest people I know. Highly recommend you check it out, especially as he gets it rolling.

Brett A. Stroud Blog

Cheers.