by Grania
Jerry is going to Foujita exhibit today! He’s the Japanese cat artist in today’s Caturday felids.
There’s been a lot of wailing and rending of garments all over social media about TV shows that have been cancelled or not picked up including this one below. It’s annual purge day in Hollywood.
It’s kind of a shame, this one looks like it could have been fun.
On Fridays New Yorkers don’t go to work if they can help it..
The population of #Manhattan, hour-by-hour. #NYC #datavizhttps://t.co/KATB4uq9va pic.twitter.com/ov3xTQlVm0
— Randy Olson (@randal_olson) May 9, 2018
This must have been terrifying at the time. What a story to tell.
When a whale swam up to this woman and wouldn't leave her alone, she was freaked out — until she realized he was saving her life 🐳 (via @caters_news) pic.twitter.com/wz8aXtc4of
— The Dodo (@dodo) May 10, 2018
Lame joke of the day
https://twitter.com/clayroutledge/status/994570007995658246
A bit of weird science in action. (click the white arrow)
Mercury devouring gold sheets pic.twitter.com/xACTkZWl1v
— Chemical Reactions (@ChemistryReacts) May 11, 2018
A grid
grid pic.twitter.com/JDGZlDHC6G
— dave (@beesandbombs) May 11, 2018
Seeing as it’s the weekend, here’s a silly song collaboration between George Harrison and Eric Idle.
@EricIdle This is the first clip I’ve ever seen of Rutland Weekend TV. I’m sorry, but I’ll make up for it.
https://t.co/RL3NkMHSJo— Highland Mark 🎄 (@markrs75) May 11, 2018
Finally, on to Hili with a scientific question, but one that may be being overlooked by scientists.
Hili: Is the fragrance of lilies of the valley attractive to mice?
A: I don’t know, I’ve never seen serious research of the subject.
In Polish:
Hili: Czy zapach konwalii przyciąga myszy?
Ja: Nie wiem, nie widziałem nigdzie poważnych badań na ten temat.
Tremors was the best pole-vaulting movie ever made.
I love Tremors – I didn’t realise there’s around four sequels. I’m gonna rewatch [pizza & beer] & try Tremors 2: Aftershocks – see if it stands up.
I agree! Within the oeuvre of B-movies, the original Tremors was a lot of fun. No opinion about the sequels.
Good news. Tremors 7 is in the works.
http://www.horror-movies.ca/2018/04/michael-gross-says-tremors-7-works/
Did anyone buy a copy of Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell which was just released direct to video? The trailer is in the linked story.
I think I saw the original, or a few minutes of it, anyway. Decided it was terminally silly, worse even than killer spiders or flying piranhas, about as bad as The Core.
It seems most people disagree with me (Rotten Tomatoes certainly does). Maybe I just know too much about ground engineering and the power requirements of shifting dirt.
cr
Why mercury isn’t permitted in airplane luggage. An aluminium I-beam being attacked from within over two hours:
https://youtu.be/Z7Ilxsu-JlY
[though it needs a patch of unoxidised aluminium at the surface to start the reaction]
This was a long time ago – back when you could buy a $20 gold piece for $40 – but I remember my brother putting a drop of mercury on a gold coin and watching the gold “devourer” the mercury. And back in those days grownups let kids play with mercury, asbestos, gunpowder, etc. And yes, I still have all my fingers.
The days of hands-on experimental learning are pretty much over. I doubt we will ever see the likes of Oliver Sacks again. As his book, Uncle Tungsten described, his was a scientific childhood where his parents and family encouraged exploration of the world through chemistry experiments that would probably get a parent arrested for neglect and endangerment today. I’ll bet we are not too far from an almost literal helicopter parenting, with kids being surveilled by their own personal drones.
“…literal helicopter parenting…”
Just kill me now.
Here’s a lovely Youtube video of mercury causing aluminium whiskers to form in air (from the same guy who did the original gold-foil-mercury video on Youtube from which the Twitter post was copied):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrdYueB9pY4
And while I’m at it, here’s someone fooling around with Cesium:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytxx95g-kiA
Ain’t Youtube wonderful!
cr
Sorry, Hili, but I believe I recall a paper* on the lily of the valley scent being some sort of sperm attractant, but not mice…except maybe really randy male mice, perhaps?
*it was a German study in 2003. A later claim, in 2012, disagreed with the original paper.
Great to see a clip from Rutland Weekend Television! There were only a couple of series, in 1975-6, but it was good fun: a spoof of a minor UK regional TV company, made on a shoestring and deliberately looking like it. What really tied it together was Neil Innes’s affectionate musical parodies, with The Rutles (based on The Beatles) appearing most weeks. Happy days!
Blue Suede Schubert remains my most favorite Rutles song.
Known as the Pre-Fab Four; I wonder how many people remember the cheap, factory-made public housing known as “prefabs” that was erected in the wake of WWII bombing.
I’ve still got a Rutles LP in my attic – time to rip it into mp3.
On the other hand, I *think* that if you put a drop of mercury on a gold ingot, the gold would appear to absorb the mercury. It’s only because the gold is in the form of a super-thin sheet that it is pulled into the blob and hence gives the appearance of being ‘devoured’.
It’s forming an amalgam.
cr