larrythelabrat

Cross post from facebook

2009-10-13T15:51:17Z

This is cross posted from my facebook account, where I've endeavored to make it public. There are lots of really good comments there, but I'm only going to put the original post here for added visibility (I'm not sure how to make a facebook post visible to folks without facebook, if you'd like to see the discussion there and can't see the facebook post, drop me a friend request)

Peter, Mary, and I recently called an evening of contra dancing for an almost entirely new crowd (maybe 5 experienced dancers out of 40). This was a last minute substitution as the original caller came down sick with food poisoning. As such, I couldn't obsess for a week straight about the exact program for the evening, and the event was fine and fun without meticulous planning. I'm aware of the lesson there.

What I was struck by was that inexperienced dancers seem to get more joy out of a contra dance than experienced dancers. Maybe it's just that they're more emotive during the experience; but there was more laughing, more whole-face grinning, and more sense of silly abandonment than I see at a weekly dance mostly full of regulars, or even a weekend festival of hard-core dancers.

I'm not super excited about quantifying relative happiness levels during a dance; it seems a bit oranges and grapefruit. I think there are some fundamentally different things that new dancers and experienced dancers get out of an evening of dancing. I think one of the great strengths of contra dancing is that brand new dancers can join in and participate in a way that's difficult in tango, swing, etc.

My observation also immediately begs the question "if they did have such a great time, why do so many folks only go to one dance?" Is there something about doing it for the first time without a sense of commitment to it that makes it more enjoyable? Is someone's first skydiving experience (which is a blast) more enjoyable than their hundredth for it's novelty, freshness, and uniqueness of the experience? Can we say the same about group dances? I still enjoy contra dancing, and I feel like I've become a better dancer over the years. I can relax into the dance, do more, and am not frantically trying to figure out where I need to be. And yet I must have enjoyed that frantic rush, because I kept coming back even when it confused me. The follow-up question to why people only come once, is why do people stop doing it after years of enjoyment?

Lying in bed thinking about contra programing (which I do more than I probably should), I was reminded of the experienced dancers that seem to have the most fun dancing. Ted C., Carol O., and Phil S. all came to mind as still maintaining the exuberance of new dancers when they're dancing on the floor, and they're all (in my opinion) goof-offs and pranksters (there are many more fabulous dancers I know who have a lot of fun and are silly, but I'll use just three as an example). It's an intrinsically skewed observation, because I have to rely on people's outward displays of happiness. Possibly the folks who most enjoy goofing around inside the framework of a dance are the ones who also show their glee outwardly most clearly to me. But to me, silly dancers seem to get an additional rush out of trying to figure out where they need to be, who they can swap gender or partners with, and causing enough chaos in a set to change things around while still allowing everything to work out. They don't give an equal priority to all those parts, but I think it's all there. I do some of it myself, although as I get more involved in calling I find myself focusing more on keeping the set together and the dance working (possibly because I'm spending more time with more inexperienced dancers).

As a caller, if I have an experienced group of dancers, should I occasionally explicitly encourage silly behavior? I'm curious what dancers would think of a caller who made a point of promoting it? Should it be something that happens once an evening? The following scenario came to mind: During the walk through of the first dance after the break, say that the second dance is going to be a mixer. Teach a standard and very simple contra dance as the second dance, and point out all the opportunities for hijinks; changing how far a circle or allemande goes to swap partners, gents swapping outside their minor set while ladies allemande, etc. I'd emphasize the importance of being safe and courteous, but encourage dancers to mess around with things. Would it cause a total meltdown? Would folks refuse to dance? Would folks dance but ignore it? Would more people have fun with it? Would it make doing those things less fun for the folks that already do them, because it's no longer unique? Would it build dance community as folks take ownership of a dance and make it their own, or would it fracture it as folks got frustrated, confused, or left out? Is this a special dedicated event at a dance festival kind of thing, or a once in a long while at your home dance where you really know the crowd kind of thing, or an outside caller could try this at a dance after talking with the organizers and reading the floor?

I'd really like to hear folks thoughts, opinions, observations, and experiences on the joy of dancing. How it's different and the same for new or experienced dancers, and if organized silliness would help or hurt the dance community have more fun?

Cross post from facebook

2009-10-13T06:31:14Z

The Ig Nobels came out a little while ago (http://improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig2009), and while I flagged them, I actually got distracted by the actual Nobels and forgot to talk about them further. But there's one that's I think warrants explicit mention.

The Ig Nobel in Biology this year went to "Fumiaki Taguchi, Song Guofu, and Zhang Guanglei of Kitasato University Graduate School of Medical Sciences in Sagamihara, Japan, for demonstrating that kitchen refuse can be reduced more than 90% in mass by using bacteria extracted from the feces of giant pandas." (Reference http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1389-1723(01)80326-1)

That means there was some unlucky student (and you know it was a student), who had to go out to the giant panda enclosures, collect fecal matter, log it, analyze it, purify it, and culture it. He will now have to defend a dissertation about bacteria grown from Panda droppings.

In short, his thecal matter is poogurt.

I don't miss academia.

1959 vs 2009

2009-10-07T15:34:01Z

I'm cross posting this from fb to make sure rbus sees it, since I think he'll get a kick out of it:

Insurance Institute for Highway Safety ran a test crash of 1959 and 2009 Chevys. Read more at
http://www.iihs.org/50th/default.html
Which includes a video :-)

Mousetrap Cascade

2009-08-28T18:46:48Z

Hi Folks,

Back in June, I set up a mousetrap/ping pong ball cascade at the Ithaca Sciencenter with over a thousand ping pong balls.

The videos from the mousetrap cascade are now available on YouTube. The highlight reel is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHitaEy-Xtg

In the near future there will hopefully be a webpage at the Sciecenter site talking about the whole thing and giving some more information and such. For now, I'm encouraging folks to watch and share the videos. We're still uploading the 3+ GB video of the whole 16 minute presentation. For now, you're welcome to direct any questions to me. Some quick info: We used ~1200 ping pong balls and ~600 mousetraps. It took 24 man-hours to set up (team of 6 working for 4 hours, plus a dinner break). About 120 people were in the room when it exploded. We set it up the day before the demo, and I was worried all night it would randomly go off with no one watching. I still have the mousetraps and ping pong balls, and when I forget what a production it was to do this, I might do it again.

Hope you enjoy them, and sorry for those who got this cross-posted.

An episode that annoys me:

2009-07-30T15:39:41Z

Sophia and I needed food because an appointment took much longer than anticipated. We decided to hit McDonalds because we could walk there and it would be fast. Split a shake and some fries, no big deal. Sophia decides she wants a bit of chicken and to sit down. I'm on it.

I look at the menu, chicken McNuggets: 6 piece for $2.67, 10 piece for $3.45, 20 piece for $5.42, alright, options. I keep looking. Hey, dollar menu, 4 McNuggets, $1.

I thought about that for a second.

The dollar menu mcnuggets are cheaper per piece than any other option. That by itself annoys me, because I'm a firm advocate of buy big and save, use less packaging, etc. That's not so bad. I'm further annoyed that they didn't take the other items off the menu, or at least make them cost competitive (say, a buck fifty, two fifty, and five dollars). But what gets me really annoyed is that when I ask the cashier about it, she gives me this deer in headlights look that I expect her to do arithmatic.
"Why would anyone buy nuggets not in blocks of 4?"
     "Our dollar menu is a special"
"Why even bother having the other items on the menu right now, they're a waste of money?"
     "..."
"I'll take 3 orders of 4 mcnuggets please"
     "Okay"
I didn't have the heart to ask for it in on box to save packaging.

For those in the Ithaca Area

2009-06-21T17:38:43Z

For my friends in the Ithaca area:

This upcoming Saturday (the 27th), I'll be doing a demonstration at the Ithaca ScienCenter at 2 pm. I'll be setting off a chain reaction of several hundred mousetraps and a thousand ping pong balls. I'll also be talking briefly about exponential growth, chain reactions, etc, but the real draw here is the big explosion.

If the ScienCenter has been on your list of things to get to (or back to) for a while, I encourage you to come out this Saturday (the first Saturday of summer and summer vacation).

For those of you not in the Ithaca area, my hope is to have a video of the event up afterwards.

http://www.sciencenter.org/whatsnew/eventscalendar.asp

What's going to mess you up?

2009-05-07T21:10:13Z

Just finished "All Tomorrow's Parties" by William Gibson. Solid Gibson, with a richly detailed universe that isn't quite believeable to me.

He talked at one point about bohemian enclaves being the unconscious R&D of society, and that they were commercialized too quickly to have an effect. I thought it was an interesting idea with some debatable points and interesting observations. It made me wonder if the google-campus type complex is an effort to recreate a similar phenomenon.

The thing that I'm curious at the moment though is he has a throw away line about hunting with a sling(shot?) and wet clay. Something about damp clay being an effective projectile. It seemed odd that you'd want something still malleable instead of hard. Anyone have experience with non-hard sling or slingshot projectiles? It got me wondering about momentum versus energy transfer. If I throw something hard at you and it bounces off, I can transfer twice the initial momentum but no energy to you (in the limit of a perfect elastic collision). Compare that to the limit of a perfectly inelastic collision where I transfer all the energy and the initial momentum to you.

Is it more damaging to adsorb 2P or P+E? I'm thinking here just of things that stop at your external surface, not talking about bullets getting inside of you and messing you up.

When taking a fall in judo (and to my knowledge other martial arts) you slap "to dissipate the energy". Which I always thought of just moving the energy to more expendable parts of your body (i.e. your arms instead of your head). I know it hurts less when you bounce off the mat when you stick to the mat, but that might be a function of you tend to not bounce when the person throwing you comes down on top of you.

Thoughts/experience with how the human body takes damage?

Theaters vs Home Entertainment Systems

2009-04-13T16:46:26Z

I recently saw Monsters vs Aliens in 3D at a local theater. The new 3D tech was impressive and not obtrusive. The glasses felt like sunglasses (I regularly wear glasses, and these fit over them just fine. The friend I went with doesn't usually wear glasses, and also wasn't bothered by them). The most distracting them about them was playing with them to look at the polarization and how two sets of glasses interact (I'm a physicist, it's what we do).

The movie was entertaining. It's a silly kids movie. Has some reasonable messages about self-empowerment. It also has a lot of references for adults (throw away in-jokes to things like Simeon Says, Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind, and probably more that I'm missing).

The movie in no way requires 3D. There were a couple of shots where I had a "okay, that was a cool trick" that worked better in 3D, but nothing major. It's been a long time since I last saw a 3D film, but I was struck that this one usually seemed to add depth to the screen, rather than have things come out of the screen. Made it feel more like a window into another world rather than an immersive experience, although it was a more immersive experience than a flat screen.

As for the subject of this post, this is something theaters can do that (for now) home entertainment systems can't. To my knowledge, there aren't any flat screens that are accepting polarization information for their images. I like there are places that can sink the capital into creating an experience that I can't get at home, that makes theaters special. If I were a theater owner/manager, I'd be all over this and clamoring for more films that gave a unique experience outside the home.

As a theater patron (and granted, I'm an infrequent one, my last in theater film was Iron Man), I want the cost of two tickets to a weekday 2:30 showing to be less than $20 (I think this clocked in at $23, and that's without any food or drink purchased). Drop the prices a bit, and you'll see me in the theater for something like this a lot more than you have. And it looks like theaters could really use the business, as my friend and I were the only ones at the show.

ALL done

2009-02-20T17:39:37Z

Heyo all,

I hadn't realized I hadn't put up the final update. But the paperwork and everything is done. I've completed all requirements for a PhD in Physics from Cornell. I have an official letter that says I'm done (watermark and seal and everything).

The last paperwork stuff wasn't too big of a problem, and saying it was completed got left behind as things were really busy (Dance Flurry, flying across country, etc).

But I'm completely done now.

Done!

2009-02-05T19:25:30Z

Heyo all, passed my B exam thesis defense today. All that's left is paperwork.

I feel...odd...

2009-01-30T23:28:00Z

Hello all,

I've submitted my thesis to my committee. The version I submit to them (which won't be the final version, but is very hopefully pretty close) is available here.
(For a historical prospective, here's my undergraduate thesis).

I'm scheduled to defend on Thursday, February 5 at 10:30 am in Clark 309. The defense is open to the public.

I'm not out of the cave yet, but I can see a light. *hugs* to you all.

Some excellent news for January 20

2009-01-21T16:01:20Z

So, I'm sure a lot of my friends spent some chunk of yesterday watching the inauguration. I didn't. I briefly checked the news mid-afternoon to make sure nothing untoward had happened, but I spent almost all of yesterday editing my thesis.

The upshot being that last night I e-mailed my adviser a complete draft of my entire thesis.

There will of course be much re-writing with associated gnashing of teeth, but it's nice to have sent that off.

Goodnight

2008-11-05T03:51:49Z

Goodnight world, I'm going to bed with the firm belief Obama will be our next president.

That's a good feeling. It's not perfect. Obama isn't perfect. There are various things around the country that didn't go the way I wanted (unless some things swing back overnight). But Obama is in, and that's really nice.

From Jessecoombs

2008-11-04T15:20:34Z

Tribute to John Williams

wasting brain cycles

2008-10-17T16:23:40Z

I'm trying to write my thesis, but I've got a bit of a song stuck in my head, and I can't figure out what song it is or who sings it. I've got it somewhere in my music collection, but can't find it.

The line I've got, part of the chorus, sung by a girl, somewhat poppy tune: "I'm the kind of lover who won't blow your cover, what kind of lover am I?" which then repeats.

Help?

Rolling Stones on McCain

2008-10-07T15:30:35Z

Make-Believe Maverick

A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty

AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer Richard Trumka

2008-10-07T00:37:17Z

The labor union secretary treasurer on the upcoming election

Guy's got heart

Gah

2008-10-05T02:44:15Z

I have started writing my thesis.

I've been nervous, afraid, and annoyed at the prospect for years now.

I can't say that I'm enjoying writing it, but it does feel a little nice to finally have started a (slowly) growing file of words

My brother suggested that if you're having a real tough time getting started, you use the FUCK method of writing a thesis. You open up a document, and you type FUCK over and over again until you're so bored with typing FUCK that you type anything else, and then from there you're typing and can bring it around to your thesis. You can't edit a blank page after all (a saying of my fathers).

For me, when I have a distasteful project, I tend to try to distract myself. That being said, I'm going to make a point of not being that active on livejournal or e-mail or such (not that I do that much anyway). I won't disappear completely, but expect to see even less of me until probably the new year.

See you on the other side.

Stuck in lab memeage

2008-09-28T23:26:04Z

[01] Do you have the guts to answer these questions and re-post as The Controversial Survey?
There are lots of things that take guts, this takes boredom

[02] Would you do meth if it was legalized?
Nope, but I don't even drink. I do think the current tactics in the "war on drugs" have some problems, but don't have a clean better way of doing it

[03] Abortion: for or against it?
I'd hope that it would never be needed. I think it would be nice to have a system where conception requires the active pre-consent of both participants (while allowing sexual intercourse). Ideally some reversible sterilization (all genders) implemented at/before puberty. That's currently not technically/economically feasible, and odds are if we got there it would be implemented in such a way as to oppress some minority, as well as probably offending a lot of folks. So given the world I currently live in; yes, I think abortion should be an option in the first trimester or where life of mother is at stake.

[04] Do you think the world would fail with a female president?
No. I think some people's brains might fail, but I'd argue it's only cutting the last few percent at that point anyway. Given what the world has not failed in the face of, a female president wouldn't even be a blip, nor should it be.

[05] Do you support the death penalty? [changed from "believe in" to "support"]
I did for a long time. I'm a lot more conflicted about it these days. I feel it can be a deterrent, and protecting the innocent is important. The flip side is the mistake where an innocent is executed. I've heard financial arguments that it actually costs more to execute someone than it does to incarcerate them for life. I don't know what else to do with a prisoner who murders prisoners and/or guards beside execute them. As with the war on drugs, I feel that the prison system has more problems than I'm cognizant of, but don't have an answer for improvement. Short answer, no, I don't support the death penalty.

[06] Do you wish marijuana would be legalized already?
Marijuana is like abortion, I support choice for both, but an ideal world wouldn't require either.

[07] Are you for or against premarital sex?
A good friend astutely observed "You test drive a car, and you keep that for 5 years." Libido, attitudes about, compatibility, etc. these are things I think it's good ot have worked out how you mesh ahead of time. There are of course compromises in a relationship, but it makes sense to me to have a base of knowledge to draw from about yourself and the relationship before entering into a marriage. I was well into my 20s before I had sex, and really, I wasn't ready until well into my 20s. That's me. I'm still not ready (by a longish shot) to get married. So while I think premarital sex is a good idea, I'm fine with the age of consent being 18. There's a lot of stuff that gets wrapped up in it that I think shouldn't be tossed at someone till they've had a chance to work through some things in a way that just takes time.

I'll toss out there that post-marital sex is also a good idea, and for some people in some relationships, it doesn't require just being with their spouse. I support that, but believe that it isn't possible for everyone and requires honest and communication, just like main stream relationships.

[08] Do you believe in God?
This one has oscillated over the years. Christian god? No. Something with higher cognizance, intelligence, and awareness than humans? Probably, it's a big universe. Something benevolent with a guiding plan and good will that will make everything okay in the end? Only occasionally, and less and less as I age. I firmly believe that if there was something like a christian god (the mythos I'm most familiar with), there's no way humanity would have enough on the ball to write a definitive guidebook to it. A god that creates a race with free will, and then makes sure it gets the exact message it's trying to send? Not gonna happen.

[09] Do you think same sex marriage should be legalized?
In the world we have currently, yes.

If I could throw a switch to do it my way, I'd completely remove marriage as a term that has any legal significance. I'd give it to public and let folks define when they were married and how they chose to use the term. Two kids in 2nd grade want to say they're married, they have as much claim to it as folks together for 60 years, and the word would mean as much as what 2nd graders say.

I'd create a list of all the rights that are associated with marriage, and allow people to legally enter into as many of those as they wish with as many people as they wish. Where conflicts would be created, a hiearchy or priority list would be needed. Businesses and health insurance companies would be allowed to specify what benifits they were willing to extend to the people you were connected to, how many people would qualify, and how legally connected to people you'd have to be for them to qualify as tied to you. Taxes and government regulations would also dial-in depending on legal connection.

I wonder what percentage of people who are currently married would immediately sign up for all of the legal rights and ties of marriage if they were asked today to select them piecemeal?

As an aside, I think the health insurance thing should be a moot point because we should all have health care. If we're going to keep people incarcerated in prison for their entire life, we should be taking care of the health of citizens who haven't broken the law.

[10] Do you think it's wrong that so many Hispanics are illegally moving to the USA?
No. I think it's a choice they make, with consequences they're aware of. They're taking jobs that people want to give them because other people don't want them. If they're breaking laws besides not being a citizen while being here, then there needs to be a way to punish that. If they're hear to work and are willing to pay taxes, we should have a way for them to become citizens.

[11] A twelve year old girl has a baby, should she keep it?
I have never met a 12 year old who is ready to be a parent. I don't know that anyone is ever ready to be a parent until they are a parent, but with the training society gives us currently, I don't think a 12 year old would be ready or should keep a baby. I feel that any 12 year old that had a child is probably particularly lacking in being prepared by their own parents, so it'd be best to cut that vicious cycle short. I'd support the 12 year old being involved in the kids life, but not being the legal guardian (and in all likelyhood, the grandparents shouldn't be either).

[12] Should the alcohol age be lowered to eighteen?
I think we have a cultural problem with alcohol that isn't going to be solved by lowering the age to 18. I think it's stupid you can join the army and vote at 18 (and be responsible for your country) if you can't be trusted with smoking or drinking (taking care of yourself). I think with education and a culture shift, 18 would be a reasonable drinking age. In terms of getting there, I'm not sure which is the cart, and which is the horse.

[13] Should the war in Iraq be called off?
What, take our ball and go home because we don't like how the game went? "called off" no. It happened, we went in and started something. We do have responsibility to not have made things worse, and that won't happen in the short term if we got everyone on a plane tomorrow. Long term, I think we should be out of there as soon as possible, because if they think we're there indefinitely, whatever they come up with be contingent on us being there. They need to know we're leaving, and that should happen as quickly as doesn't plunge them into chaos and anarchy. If we can't leave without that happening, we apologize profusely, and offer to bring anyone who can't live safely there here where they will be given a chance to live their life. This would probably mean we'd bring people who want to harm the USA into the country. They'd be innocent until proved guilty. Although there would probably be a huge resentment towards them from segments of the population, I think we owe it to them to offer, and protect them while they're here. They'd have to work here, but would need help getting started.

[14] Assisted suicide is illegal: should it be?
No. I think it should require an extensive psychological and medical evaluation beforehand, but that it's an option that should exist. Something I would hope no one would ever need, but I think we'd get less suicide if people thought "the way to kill yourself is go to this facility and have them do it painlessly" and then those people talk to you and talk you down. I think a lot of suicide is impulse and research shows if you remove the availability of impulsive methods, you reduce the amount of suicide (the classic case is when England stopped using syn-gas to cook and people stopped killing themselves by sticking their head in the oven). Unfortunately, impulsive methods of suicide (bridge jumping, etc) often have higher success rates than planned out, building over time methods (cutting, pills). I think non-assisted suicide should be illegal, and culturally if it became the norm to turn to a staffed facility when suicide was treated, but was the last possible option, suicide would decrease and more people would be helped.

[15] Do you believe in spanking your children?
It happened to me, and while I won't claim to be just fine, I think the issues I have stem from things other than spanking. I don't know that it helped though. This is one that I was okay with for a long time, and am beginning to believe there is more research I have to do before it's something I should decide on. I don't think "wait till your father gets home" is a reasonable way to go about it. It should be immediate feedback if it happens. It'd be nice if it didn't have to happen, and I think that niceness is possible.

[16] Would you burn an American flag for a million dollars?
Yes. I could do a lot of good for a lot of people with a million dollars. I appreciate that the flag is important to people, and do not like seeing it treated with disrespect, but I'm more interested in accomplishing things than I am in maintaining symbols. I do not support a constitutional amendment banning flag burning, despite having been honorably discharged from the military (ROTC scholarship I had for half a year of college, I'm only a vetran through legal triviality). I appreciate the sacrifice and courage of the members of our armed forces and civil service. I don't think they fought/died "for the flag." They did what they did for their country (at best), which is much bigger than the flag. The flag can serve to represent things, but it not those things. Some people want to communicate a set of ideals, values, and attitudes, and use an american flag to do so. Other people want to communicate displeasure, frustration, and anger, and use burning the same flag to do so. In both cases, the flag is a tool for communication. Now, I don't support someones right to yell and scream and hurl insults and vulgarities in someone's face. There's a difference between communication and intimidation. I don't think people have a right to intimidate other people, but flag burning can be done as communication not intimidation.

On the flip side, I admit to laughing at the guy who set himself on fire trying to burn an american flag (ytmnd link here, with obnoxious music)

[17] Who do you think would make a better president? McCain or Obama?
Obama

[18] Are you afraid others will judge you from reading some of your answers?
No. I'm more afraid of a society where polite discourse is avoided for fear of offending

linkage

2008-09-26T14:57:20Z

I didn't know that Muhammad Ali fought, and beat, Superman

I'm not a huge comic fan, but that entertains me. It sounds like they really did a good job of being as realistic as the premise would permit, and being appropriately heroic on all sides.

And in the 'truth stranger than fiction' category: Jet Man has crossed the English Channel
In some ways, it's not that impressive. It's just a really stripped down airplane, and he didn't take off himself, he jumped out of a launch plane. Still, the geek part of me thinks that strapping a wing with engines to your back and flying is pretty darn spiffy.

Golden Dragon Chinese Acrobats

2008-09-14T21:05:03Z

Yesterday, I went and saw the Golden Dragon Chinese Acrobats.

They were incredible. Very much worth going to see. Good showmanship and good stunts.
One of my favorite balance acts

Golden Dragon Chinese Acrobats video

I saw maybe 70% of the acts they show in the video (plus many more not shown). The video gave it more of a Cirque Du Soleil feel than the show I saw (at least, I think so, I've only seen Cirque Du Soleil on TV, never live).

Anyway, highly enjoyed, strongly recommended for anyone who enjoys displays of balance, coordination, flexibility, strength, daring, and physical displays of trust.

September 11

2008-09-11T18:20:25Z

Today is September 11, also known to some as Patriot's Day.

Today, I've donated blood, helped someone with bus fair (when they were getting on the bus), and donated to Run for a Cure.

I want to honor the members of our armed and civil service, but I feel folks should have their own definition of patriot.

lifeskills for the apocolipse

2008-09-08T17:20:09Z

So, this weekend I went out and helped a friend cull some roosters from his flock. That's turn them from birds running around the yard, to food in the freezer.

His description of the process is much more complete than mine would be.

I will add that plucked chickens look remarkably like rubber chickens. The rubber chicken guys do a pretty good job (although we chopped the heads off before plucking, and the rubber ones usually have heads).

My housemates were betting I'd come back a hunter or a vegetarian. No big changes in my life. Processing chickens is not something I enjoy doing. I'm okay with having it done efficiently by people/machines other than me. I do feel glad that it's something I know how to do, and have faced doing. It's part of what I want to acknowledge as a meat eater.

So, thanks to my friend for the opportunity and the instruction. He does this occasionally, so if this is something you'd also like to have done, drop me a line.

Weekend linkage

2008-09-06T15:48:50Z

Cloth Simulator it's like a virtual cat toy

Tribute to Don LaFontaine

LJ iconification?

2008-09-05T14:20:10Z

So, I don't know how to make lj icons, but if I did, I would totally take the second to last frame of today's Punch and Pie for a lj icon. Possibly flashing it to the last panel.

Just thought I'd point that out to folks who might be more icon inclined than I.

Edited to thank a_triath for his awesomeness!

Now I just need to think through something to justify it...