Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

I just signed up for my own LiveJournal blog. I love the helpful spelling corrections it offers:

bloggers — LiveJournal thinks this is a misspelling and suggests

loggers, floggers, blockers, logger’s, blokes, flogger’s, baggers, blocker’s, buggers, luggers, blowers, bilges, bloke’s, bloaters, bloomers, bloopers, blotters, braggers, sluggers

blogs — Another spelling mistake! LiveJournal suggests

blocs, bloc’s, blocks, blokes, bogs, logs, bilges, biogs, blows, blobs, blots, clogs, flogs, slogs, Belg’s, bulges, belongs, bilks, Borgs, belugas, bog’s, bogus, bolos, log’s, loges, logos, bongs, balks, bolas, boles, bolls, bolus, bulks, bolds, bolts, Bliss, belows, blahs, bliss, blouse, bolo’s, befogs, blips, bloats, blob’s, block’s, bloke’s, bloods, blooms, bloops, blot’s, bowlegs, brigs, clog’s

Why did I sign up for one? You can’t comment on someone else’s LiveJournal blog if you don’t have your own.

Besides, we truly dedicated floggers can never really have too many belugas…

Porsche Boxster accelerates–based on art in Physics for Game Programmers

Action movie directors have a huge advantage over game designers on creating realistic wham, pow, boom, and splatter. That’s because Mother Nature pumps out free supplies of real physics all over the planet. You want earth’s gravity, blood’s viscosity, or Newton’s three laws? In the real world, you’ve got them!

But in a game world, no force pulls objects down toward the bottom of the screen unless somebody has programmed fake gravity in.

Even if you’re not a game designer there’s a lot of enjoyable physics in the free sample online chapter of
Physics for Game Programmers
(ISBN 1-59059-472-X)

• When two cars collide, what fraction of the collision is inelastic?
• How do you figure out a tire’s characteristics from the letters and numbers on its side?
• What’s the difference between tires rolling and skidding?
• How do you compute a car’s top speed from its “redline”?

Sadly, the top speed of the 2004 Porsche Boxster S is “only” 266 km/hr, almost 30 km/hr below its theoretical maximum, “because the car is also subject to the
decelerating forces of aerodynamic drag and rolling friction.” Ah well, real life is full of such disappointments.

If you have a physics maven on your gift list, Father’s Day is just around the corner….

I heard about this via Joey deVilla’s IndieGameDev. Mysteriously, this book is for sale online from its publisher at $44 and change but from Amazon for less than $30. I wonder what the heck the physics of that is?

..reminiscing about the days before we “all” had cellphones? (Or iPods
or SMS, if you’re even younger?)

Kottke’s
childhood memories of TV feature Doctor
Who, VCR tapes, and a tuna “hot dish” with lots of noodles
stewing in Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup.

That brings back memories–of the tuna hot dish, that is–my mom’s
recipe was identical.

But
my childhood TV memories don’t include VCRs or scifi doctors. In 1952
or thereabouts, my family’s very first TV arrived–also the first TV in
our neighborhood. My favorite show featured cowboy Gabby
Hayes
and Quaker cereals–“They’re shot from guns!” Gabby ended each show by
firing a cannon-full of puffed wheat at the camera. I was just about
six–and not only would I obey his warning to “Stand back away from your televisionary set”,
but we four Devine kids would hide behind couches and chairs as soon as
Gabby wheeled his cannon out.

A bit later in my TV-watching career, I was quite disappointed when Big
Brother Bob Emory announced that his show would be in color from now
on. My mom later explained that Big Brother Bob wasn’t lying, even
though his show still was still black and white. Only people who bought
a new kind of TV that showed color would see any change.

A TV set that showed color? “Who,” asked my mother, “would want to
waste money on that?”

So how did my family end up with a
color TV? Let’s just say that my dad would have loved an
iPod….

Ever wonder what inspiration a brilliant poet might draw from your blogpage? How about a random poetry generator? Here’s the freeverse rendition it offered for me–some expert alliteration shows up in line 4, plus of course loads of symbolism and mystery:

Jo wants to change
British pub etiquette
involved in
Motorcycling!!! Montauk Rider
International Taxman
There, After another Nobel
Prize: Imagine
my bongo playing
all Cambridge
is gray soup with
lilacs,
Hello
neighbors.
do you fill your choice
in my Back Pages
Sister Age
Betsy Devine in
their golden book
is outraged by
Betsy Devine

Thanks to PenElayne for finding this URL-to-poetry translator!

Kottke posted a funny parody how-to on different ways to order from restaurant menus. (To order a la Malcolm Gladwell, ” Glance quickly at the menu and order whatever catches your eye first. Spend no more than 2-3 seconds deciding or the quality of your choice (and your meal) will decline.”)

Here are a few of my own favorite how-tos from around the web, some of them very elaborate:

British pub etiquette

“There are strict rules of etiquette involved in attracting the attention of bar staff. The ritual procedure is best described as a sort of subtle pantomime – not the kind of children’s pantomime you see on stage at Christmas, more like an Ingmar Bergman film in which the twitch of an eyebrow speaks volumes.”

Tricks of a whole bunch of different trades

“If you have to change a light bulb where the glass is broken, you can press a potato into the metal base to unscrew the remains of the bulb from the fixture.”

How to get drunk with co-workers in Japan (multi-page with Flash movie)

“It is most important never to fill your own glass or cup. Pouring is a sign of respect or friendship…If you want to drink more but nobody pours for you, fill somebody else’s glass and he will notice.”

Enjoying other people’s pilgrimages–Stu Savory is blogging a slow post-boat ride up through a bunch of fjords in Norway, up over the Arctic Circle to midnight sun. Great photos too…

1. Hurtigruten – Day 1 : Getting to Bergen
2. Hurtigruten – Day 2 : Bergen City Foot Tour
3. Hurtigruten – Day 3 : Bergen-Geiranger-Molde
4. Hurtigruten Day 4 : Trondheim – Rorvik…

If you ever go to Madrid, eat at Casa Lucio–everyone else does, including the Spanish king.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez had eaten lunch there on May 10, so when Frank was dragooned to sign their “golden book” that night, his page is right after another Nobel laureate. All the staff made much of us–the owner and his daughter came over and got their photographs taken with Frank–it’s no wonder that celebrities like to go there!

After we finished our dinner (about half-past midnight) and were making our way to the door, with Frank being introduced to various patrons and shaking their hands, we met a second entourage of young jet-set types arriving for dinner.

Frank and young Mr. JetSet were urged to shake hands with each other, which they duly did, both smiling with baffled but friendly amiability. As the two entourages drew them apart in their different directions, one of our Spanish friends asked, “Do you know who that was? That was the goalkeeper for Madrid Real!”

Madrid Real is the local soccer team, and I have used Google to guess that the name right after Frank’s in the golden book is Iker Casillas. And I’m guessing his bafflement about being introduced to Frank was at least as great as Frank’s at being introduced to him.

Of course, food is the real reason to go to Casa Lucio –and the English menu dutifully and honestly translates its local specialties … “gills of hake” … “fat capon” …. “Gills of hake” is a kind of gray soup with fish gills floating in it–but since four out of the nine people at our table ordered it, it probably tastes better than it looks or sounds…