Archive for July, 2015

I Voted!

Friday, July 31st, 2015

The exclamation point is a little much, I’ll admit, but I submitted my ballot for this year’s Hugo awards tonight. I didn’t vote in all categories, because I wasn’t familiar with all of the nominees. As an example, the only nominee in the category “Long Form Dramatic Presentation” that I saw was Guardians of the Galaxy. Then again, that’s not unusual for me.

I won’t vote in a category where I haven’t seen/read all the nominees. As a result, I voted in eight categories, and didn’t vote in ten. I’ll be interested in learning the results when they’re announced next month.

SCIENCE!

Tuesday, July 28th, 2015

Got a few interesting science-related links.

A new study has determined that about 60% of differences in academic performance are due to genetics.

It’s been known for some time that there’s a positive correlation between intelligence and lifespan. Now, they’ve determined that link is also genetic.

I’d like to have seen links to the original data sources documenting this climate change fraud, but I’ve been reading this website off-and-on for a few years, and it seems pretty reliable. There is a link in the comments to this graph at NOAA.

The EM Drive has now been independently verified to produce thrust, although nobody can explain how yet. If this is real, this is big – I’ve seen claims of 4 hours to the moon, 70 days to Mars, and a year-and-a-half to Pluto.

Happy 75th, Bugs!

Monday, July 27th, 2015

Bugs Bunny first uttered his famous, “What’s up, doc?” on July 27th, 1940.

Running late

Monday, July 6th, 2015

Last Tuesday, as a late Father’s Day/early birthday present, my daughter took me to a class in making and cooking with bacon. We had a lovely meal, which we had helped prepare, I learned a few new things about cooking (especially with respect to running dough through a pasta machine), and we each took home some raw pork belly that was marinating.

Mine is still marinating in the fridge. Technically, I should have roasted it for pork belly or smoked it for bacon on Friday or Saturday, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet – I was under the weather over the weekend. Oh, well. I’ll get to it tomorrow or the next day. I just have to decide how I’m going to prepare it, and what I’m going to pair it with.