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Tuesday, April 29, 2008
( 8:41 PM ) The Rat YOU FOOLS, YOU'LL KILL US ALL! (Squid cam here.) Don't miss the tags ...or the reader comments, e.g.: Oh great. First my email won't load correctly at the office, my colleague takes the last of the coffee and now my part of the country is going to be terrorised by a giant zombie squid. I fucking hate New Zealand. THIS IS JUST LIKE THAT PART IN TRANSFORMERS WHERE THEY UNFROZE MEGATRON AND HE WOKE UP SHOUTING, "I AM MEGATRON!" i wonder what this squid's name is! "All right. One of us is the squid. Doc, draw everyone's blood." # Posted by The Rat @ 8:41 PM Tuesday, April 22, 2008 ( 12:30 AM ) The Rat A SOON-TO-BE-LONDON-BOUND RATTY SAYS: Let's hear it for fellowship committees peopled by poor judges of character! Woot-woot! # Posted by The Rat @ 12:30 AM Thursday, April 17, 2008 ( 11:52 AM ) The Rat "That has made me forget how the time was going," said Rosamond, rising to reach her hat, which she had laid aside before singing, so that her flower-like head on its white stem was seen in perfection above her riding-habit. "Fred, we must really go." "Very good," said Fred, who had his own reasons for not being in the best spirits, and wanted to get away. "Miss Vincy is a musician?" said Lydgate, following her with his eyes. (Every nerve and muscle in Rosamond was adjusted to the consciousness that she was being looked at. She was by nature an actress of parts that entered into her physique: she even acted her own character, and so well, that she did not know it to be precisely her own.) "The best in Middlemarch, I'll be bound," said Mr. Featherstone, "let the next be who she will. Eh, Fred? Speak up for your sister." "I'm afraid I'm out of court, sir. My evidence would be good for nothing." "Middlemarch has not a very high standard, uncle," said Rosamond, with a pretty lightness, going towards her whip, which lay at a distance. Lydgate was quick in anticipating her. He reached the whip before she did, and turned to present it to her. She bowed and looked at him: he of course was looking at her, and their eyes met with that peculiar meeting which is never arrived at by effort, but seems like a sudden divine clearance of haze. I think Lydgate turned a little paler than usual, but Rosamond blushed deeply and felt a certain astonishment. After that, she was really anxious to go, and did not know what sort of stupidity her uncle was talking of when she went to shake hands with him. Yet this result, which she took to be a mutual impression, called falling in love, was just what Rosamond had contemplated beforehand. Ever since that important new arrival in Middlemarch she had woven a little future, of which something like this scene was the necessary beginning. Strangers, whether wrecked and clinging to a raft, or duly escorted and accompanied by portmanteaus, have always had a circumstantial fascination for the virgin mind, against which native merit has urged itself in vain. And a stranger was absolutely necessary to Rosamond's social romance, which had always turned on a lover and bridegroom who was not a Middlemarcher, and who had no connections at all like her own: of late, indeed, the construction seemed to demand that he should somehow be related to a baronet. Now that she and the stranger had met, reality proved much more moving than anticipation, and Rosamond could not doubt that this was the great epoch of her life. She judged of her own symptoms as those of awakening love, and she held it still more natural that Mr. Lydgate should have fallen in love at first sight of her. These things happened so often at balls, and why not by the morning light, when the complexion showed all the better for it? Rosamond, though no older than Mary, was rather used to being fallen in love with; but she, for her part, had remained indifferent and fastidiously critical towards both fresh sprig and faded bachelor. And here was Mr. Lydgate suddenly corresponding to her ideal, being altogether foreign to Middlemarch, carrying a certain air of distinction congruous with good family, and possessing connections which offered vistas of that middle-class heaven, rank; a man of talent, also, whom it would be especially delightful to enslave: in fact, a man who had touched her nature quite newly, and brought a vivid interest into her life which was better than any fancied "might-be" such as she was in the habit of opposing to the actual. —Middlemarch # Posted by The Rat @ 11:52 AM ( 11:33 AM ) The Rat THE MOST OVERRATED CAREERS. The section on "teacher," here, immediately made me think, "I didn't know Princeton was a public school!" In many public schools, classes are grouped at random, which means one class can include special ed students, gifted kids, and foreign-born children who speak little English. Trying to meet all their needs can be exhausting, if not impossible. Government rules often put pressure on instructors to teach all students high-level material, even if it's over their heads... # Posted by The Rat @ 11:33 AM ( 11:28 AM ) The Rat GOOD TO EAT MOUNTAIN, and other dishes. And now maybe you can have a guess at how silly Westerners sound trying to speak Chinese! (Ratty has only ever heard one Westerner speaking perfect Mandarin—a thirtyish black woman randomly overheard in D.C. As a rule though, among non-Asians, even academics don't speak it properly.) Incidentally, IMO "The Last Kiss" is not a bad name for a drink. # Posted by The Rat @ 11:28 AM Tuesday, April 15, 2008 ( 12:48 AM ) The Rat YOU COULDN'T MAKE THIS SHIT UP. From Publication 525 (2007), Taxable and Nontaxable Income: Bribes. If you receive a bribe, include it in your income. # Posted by The Rat @ 12:48 AM Monday, April 14, 2008 ( 5:12 AM ) The Rat Dorothea trembled while she read this letter; then she fell on her knees, buried her face, and sobbed. She could not pray: under the rush of solemn emotion in which thoughts became vague and images floated uncertainly, she could but cast herself, with a childlike sense of reclining, in the lap of a divine consciousness which sustained her own. She remained in that attitude till it was time to dress for dinner. How could it occur to her to examine the letter, to look at it critically as a profession of love? Her whole soul was possessed by the fact that a fuller life was opening before her: she was a neophyte about to enter on a higher grade of initiation. She was going to have room for the energies which stirred uneasily under the dimness and pressure of her own ignorance and the petty peremptoriness of the world's habits. Now she would be able to devote herself to large yet definite duties; now she would be allowed to live continually in the light of a mind that she could reverence. This hope was not unmixed with the glow of proud delight—the joyous maiden surprise that she was chosen by the man whom her admiration had chosen. All Dorothea's passion was transfused through a mind struggling towards an ideal life; the radiance of her transfigured girlhood fell on the first object that came within its level. The impetus with which inclination became resolution was heightened by those little events of the day which had roused her discontent with the actual conditions of her life. —Middlemarch # Posted by The Rat @ 5:12 AM Wednesday, April 09, 2008 ( 6:45 PM ) The Rat MEAD RELEASES NEW GRAD-SCHOOL-RULED NOTEBOOK. A recent Mead press release claimed that the streamlined 3.55-millimeter spaces between lines are perfect for contemplating Curry's Paradox, solving quantum chromodynamics formulas based on the Yang-Mills theory of color-charged fermions, or even just doing sophisticated grad-school doodles. The new notebook also features a helpful page on its inside back cover that includes not only the traditional metric-conversion charts and world time zone map, but also handy guides such as the periodic table of elements, the Hertzsprung-Russell star-luminosity diagram, steel wire tension strengths, a list of the lattice phenomena of crystalline solids, and the entirety of Willa Cather's 1918 novel My Ántonia... # Posted by The Rat @ 6:45 PM Tuesday, April 08, 2008 ( 10:01 PM ) The Rat 'MILK IS GOOD BUT BLOOD IS BETTER.' Awesome. Six Masai warriors have left their remote village in Tanzania and have come to London to run the Marathon. They are doing it to raise money for clean water in their village, in association with Greenforce. The plan is to raise enough money to pay for specialist engineers to drill bore holes to access possible subterranean water reservoirs. They will run wearing shoes made from car tires, carrying their sticks and shields, and chant Masai songs as they go around the 26-mile course on April 13. The warriors have been given a 4-page guide that is surprisingly accurate. "Even though some may look like they have a frown on their face, they are very friendly people—many of them just work in offices, jobs they don't enjoy, and so they do not smile as much as they should." And: "You will see many people who are wearing only small clothes and you will wonder why they are cold and may think they are being disrespectful. This is normal for England, especially when it is sunny or in the evening. However, it is illegal to show certain parts of the body and for this reason it is important that you wear underpants if you are wearing your blankets"... # Posted by The Rat @ 10:01 PM ( 5:52 PM ) The Rat ARCHITECTURAL STYLES OF CONTEMPORARY UNIVERSITIES. # Posted by The Rat @ 5:52 PM Saturday, April 05, 2008 ( 5:25 PM ) The Rat EASTERLIN PARADOX UNDER FIRE! Research by two Wharton economists suggests that richer countries are happier than poorer ones and that as countries get richer their inhabitants become happier. Their finding challenges the conventional wisdom of the past three decades, which held that higher national gross domestic product often did not translate into a greater overall sense of well-being. This established view, known as the Easterlin Paradox, because it is based on a 1974 paper by economist Richard Easterlin, has inspired some calls for governments to shift their focus away from increasing GDP, on the grounds that is not the best way to increase citizens' happiness... # Posted by The Rat @ 5:25 PM Friday, April 04, 2008 ( 10:44 PM ) The Rat DEAD ON. As are this and this. # Posted by The Rat @ 10:44 PM Tuesday, April 01, 2008 ( 11:40 PM ) The Rat RATTY'S TEACHING PERSONA, IN A NUTSHELL. # Posted by The Rat @ 11:40 PM |
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