The Evil Eyebrow

  • Anatomical Inquisatory Acquisition

    I recently responded to a post on Live Journal, explaining that I had ceased running for a month because I had tweaked my erector spinae and paraspinal muscles. Then I thought to myself, “Self, is it really those muscles, or some other set and you just made that crap up?”

    Off to the web! We need an anatomy resource!

    • http://www.bartleby.com/107/ Gray’s Anatomy. The Authority. But difficult to read on this website.
    • http://www.innerbody.com/htm/body.html This site superficializes. For example, You can’t look at the erector spinae or other deep muscles! Damn them!
    • http://www.msjensen.gen.umn.edu/webanatomy/ This site just weirded me out. I clicked on the page and the first things I read were: “Test Your Knowlege: Self Tests” and “Play Against Others: Multiplayer Games.”

      Mulitplayer anatomy games? Sounds like FUN! Let’s click through…

      Well, it’s a Jeopardy-ish type game, but I didn’t see the multiplayer aspect. Oh well. I elected to be tested in my cardiovascular knowledge and learned that I don’t know much.

      This site is “A collection of study aids for entry-level anatomy and physiology students,” a quote taken directly from the page. Mostly a collection of quizzes. I did not think it was going to help.

    • All right, WARNING! If you click through to this link http://ect.downstate.edu/courseware/haonline/index.htm, you will be able to drill down and see images of a dissected human cadaver. If this would disturb you, do not do it! The link I’ve posted here will only take you to the home page, but it’s on your own head if you keep going. I didn’t think I was going to find what I was looking for here either, and I want to enjoy breakfast this morning (I thought about trying for med school when I was in college—early college—but I didn’t think I could cope with cutting people up for a living).

      • I could go on, but none of these links was really satisfactory. Thankfully, I have a copy of The Anatomy Coloring Book and Gray’s Anatomy (not to be confused with the TV show).

      The lesson here is, the web can’t do everything, yet. There are still plenty of things where you need to sit down and pore over a reference book.

      Back to my coffee now. And I still haven’t answered my own question.

  • Google Sketchup

    No, Google is not making ketchup. They’ve “recently” released a 3D modeling package for free download (with a licensed option for commerical use). It is an easy, intutitive modeler that allows you to quickly build three dimensional models of buildings and rooms. At least, that’s as far as I’ve gotten with it. It is not a true 3D modeler in the sense of ProEngineer or Unigraphics, but it will let you build a house or an apartment room or a building to scale. To see some examples, go to the 3D Warehouse.

    This seems like the perfect thing to use to design our downstairs renovation. At least, to get an idea for it. I don’t think it will drill down to the depth of placing fixtures and plumbing and electrical lines. But, I won’t have to do all the work on paper, or with Microstation CAD software at work!

    I believe that this software was mentioned to me previously by fraudirector and mdsteele47. Yay them!

  • Interactive Urbanization History

    The BBC has published an interactive online map to demonstrate urbanization trends of the past 50 years. Rolling their cursor back and forth to watch the asian urbanized centers pop up and grow, then shrink back to nothing, is curiously fascinating. The feature shows N.America as (2005 numbers) 80% Urban population. That makes me wonder what qualifies as “urban.” A quick look around the website and some BBC stories did not net me that information.

    As any good engineer knows, the true understanding of a topic comes at that topic’s edges, i.e., at the boundary of what is considered Urban or Rural (is there a suburban category? I do not know). This philosophy applies everywhere in my life, and it probably applies to people other than engineers, but I can not attest to that very thoroughly. An example of this is the problems regarding gravity and quantum physics. Or, from my field, at the boundaries between where a roadway is operating at an acceptable level, and where it is not (a surprisingly narrow window of travel demand). But I digress…

    This comes from a weekly email I get from about.com featuring geographist (is that a word?) Matt Rosenberg. His missives contain geography tests that I rarely get entirely correct, and I’m usually guessing on half the answers. For example, I only got a 60% on this one. I need to read National Geographic more thoroughly.

    Of course, my opinion regarding “geographic knowledge” is already a matter of public record.

  • Improv in Best Buy

    What happens when an improv group named Improv Everywhere invades a Best Buy? Madness and Merriment!

    Imagine a large group of people entering Best Buy in khakis and blue polo shirts and milling around.

    My favorite quote from their report on the invasion:

    A little while later, an older woman with a handful of products walked past me at one point muttering to herself, “Everyone in this goddamned store is wearing a blue shirt and nobody knows a thing!”

    This brought to my attention through the offices of Schierer Space.

  • Dross & Nuggets

    This image is clear proof that if you take enough shots with your 2Mpx camera, eventually something will come out that is worthy of being blown up to 8×10.
    Our cat, Pysche, sitting in the sunlight of our bedroom. Click through for a larger image.
    This is our lovely, freaky, hairy cat named Psyche (seye’-kee). She is named for the Greek Goddess of the mind, continuing our tradition of adorning pets with Greek Mythological names. Unfortunately, she has taken the name and applied it directly to its derived word, “psychotic.” She is, without a doubt, a freak.

    Also, she is very hairy and loves to share that hair with us, and the carpet, and the couch, and regularly condenses it into a nice tidy bundle and then vomits it back onto some flat surface in the house. I’ll never have a long-haired cat again.

    Don’t get me wrong, I love our cat. But she’s a freak.

  • Touch his belly!

    I’m strangely fascinated by the concept of this blog. I think that this is something that would have been a good idea in college, at least to break the ice.

    This reminds me of the guy who showered with a hundred women.

  • Shameless Mercantilism II

    Look! Better Amazon links over there on the sidebar. Now things are not nearly as mercenary as before.

  • The Gospel

    In case you have not being paying attention to the most important religous revolution of our times, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has released their canonical Gospels.

    Looks like something to add to the Amazon wish list.

  • Shameless Mercantilism? Or Laziness?

    The astute among you (or the not-so-blind) will notice the Amazon Links on the sidebar of the blog.

    Don’t get all huffy! I don’t expect to make any money with this thing. I’ve let my book list die over the last year or so, and have recently decided it needs to make some sort of comeback. I’ve seen on www.sfsignal.com a nice sidebar that lists what people are currently reading and thought “gee, that looks cool. I should do that!”

    Voila! Although I’m not currenlty satisfied. I do not like how blatantly commercial it all looks (although I used the option to not show prices, as you can see. I don’t really care if anybody clicks through and buys these books on my account. I don’t really care if I get any checks from amazon for sending people their way. I just want a low maintenance, non hassling way to get book titles and images up on my blog.

    Come back later and see if it has changed. I’ll tweak it as time goes by.

  • Summer Solstice

    Tomorrow is the summer solstice, known as the first day of summer to Americans. Why do we call this the first day of summer? Weather-wise, it’s more like the end of the first third of summer. Oh well…

    I trolled for some Solstice Superstitions. Most of them hark to druidish type things, and were too boring for this blog. Here’s one I like: (from http://www.geocities.com/traditions_uk/midsummer.html)

    If on Midsummer’s Eve, you approach a fern leaf backwards, without looking, and – without touching the leaf – collect the seed (spores), they have to power to make you invisible.

    So, I’ll be gathering myself some fern spores tomorrow. Right after I balance eggs on end.

    For note, tomorrow we enter the blissful days of summer at 1223 Universal Time, which is 0723 EST which is 8:23 Eastern Daylight Time for us American east coasters. What will you be doing? I’ll be getting my teeth cleaned.

The Evil Eyebrow

There is no knowing the Evil Eyebrow

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