Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Ramen deserves more respect


My favorite Ramen recipe varies by the day, but the basis is some chopped onion, some chopped garlic, sesame oil, rooster sauce, soy sauce, a handful of mixed frozen veges (shelled Edamame, peas, carrots, broccoli, snap peas, cabbage, kale, etc) just add it to the "regular" Ramen right before serving (give it a min under the heat if they're still actually frozen)...Go!

If you can find some frozen wontons at the grocery store, add them too.

Here's one I made the other day.

The infographic below has some more great recipes, but I'm going on record saying tomato sauce with Ramen noodles is weird.

We Love Ramen Infographic
Created by: Hack College

Source -> http://digg.com/newsbar/offbeat/infographic_we_love_ramen

Earlier link -> http://www.dannyfinnegan.com/2011/07/this-history-of-ramen-noodles.html & http://www.dannyfinnegan.com/2012/01/one-of-my-favorite-cheap-meals-soba.html

Not the Kevin Costner movie

Recently the Hubble Space Telescope discovered a new class of planet, a "Waterworld" if you will. The new (dense) planet is larger than Earth, but smaller than Uranus.




From Hubble's office website:
Observations by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have come up with a new class of planet, a waterworld enshrouded by a thick, steamy atmosphere. It's smaller than Uranus but larger than Earth.
Zachory Berta of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) and colleagues made the observations of the planet GJ1214b. "GJ1214b is like no planet we know of," Berta said. "A huge fraction of its mass is made up of water." The ground-based MEarth Project, led by CfA's David Charbonneau, discovered GJ1214b in 2009. This super-Earth is about 2.7 times Earth's diameter and weighs almost seven times as much. It orbits a red-dwarf star every 38 hours at a distance of 1.3 million miles, giving it an estimated temperature of 450 degrees Fahrenheit.

"The Hubble measurements really tip the balance in favor of a steamy atmosphere," Berta said.

It looks like they're still working out the atmospheric pressure present on GJ1214b (which from now on I'm referring to as "Geoff"*). But 450°F is healthily in the steam side of water, using Earth's atmospheric pressure as a basis. Even without the water being in liquid state, this is a pretty huge discovery. Geoff could be a good place to start pointing SETI radio telescopes at and could be a good basis for modifying the current model for what can support life. Scientists believe it did exist in the commonly accepted habitable zone at some point in its history, how long or when is still to be determined.


Source -> http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2012/13/full/ via http://gizmodo.com/5887003/hubble-discovers-a-new-type-of-world-made-of-water

*If you get that joke, I'm impressed 

Monday, February 27, 2012

"Socks are socks, don't waste your money"

Thank god there is another award show. What would these people do without 3 months of arbitrary praise for their peers and opportunities to pose in slow mo on a red carpet?!

I digress.

Despite that sentiment, I'm a big fan of one of those "peers"...

Sacha Baron Cohen has a new movie coming out about as a fictional biopic of the supreme ruler of a fictional North African nation... Because of how SBC usually goes all-in with regards to being in character, promoting his movies and really not giving a sh*t what anybody else thinks, he was promptly banned from attending the Oscars.

Admiral Aladeen had this to say about that development:

Clickable link -> http://youtu.be/mcZmXQxSiVE

Can you guess what happened next?


Clickable link -> http://youtu.be/mhAg0COnqds

Sources: http://www.accelerated-ideas.com/news/sacha-baron-cohen-and-ryan-seacrest--oscars-video-prank.aspx & http://news.moviefone.com/2012/02/26/sacha-baron-cohens-dictator-oscars_n_1302730.html

Related links: http://www.republicofwadiya.com/ & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dictator_%282012_film%29 & https://www.facebook.com/RepublicOfWadiya

Earlier post -> http://www.dannyfinnegan.com/2011/12/dictator.html

That a LOT of Dolphins!


Clickable link: http://youtu.be/ZEXwlilZqnM


From Dana Point Whalewatch:
A huge dolphin pod ‘stampede’ was captured on camera on Thursday as amazed onlookers in a passing boat caught a glimpse of the phenomenon. The shots of the massive cluster of surfacing dolphins was filmed from the Dana Pride, a boat for whale and dolphin watching, operated by Dana Point Whale Watch in southern California. The mega-pod of dolphins is thought to number close to 2,000, far greater than the average pod of around 12 dolphins

Source -> http://storyful.com/stories/1000022941

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Faster than light Neutrinos? Bologna.

Get it? Bologna? Because it was measured in Italy? Isn't it awesome when I have to explain a joke for it to be funny?

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Recently Neutrinos running through the Opera detector at CERN were measured (on the Italian side of their accelerator) by arriving 60 nanoseconds earlier than expected if traveling at light speed. Turns out, it was just a loose cable, no really. Read below. Stupid brilliant Physicists!

From the Science Insider:
Physicists had detected neutrinos traveling from the CERN laboratory in Geneva to the Gran Sasso laboratory near L'Aquila that appeared to make the trip in about 60 nanoseconds less than light speed. Many other physicists suspected that the result was due to some kind of error, given that it seems at odds with Einstein's special theory of relativity, which says nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. That theory has been vindicated by many experiments over the decades.
According to sources familiar with the experiment, the 60 nanoseconds discrepancy appears to come from a bad connection between a fiber optic cable that connects to the GPS receiver used to correct the timing of the neutrinos' flight and an electronic card in a computer. After tightening the connection and then measuring the time it takes data to travel the length of the fiber, researchers found that the data arrive 60 nanoseconds earlier than assumed. Since this time is subtracted from the overall time of flight, it appears to explain the early arrival of the neutrinos. New data, however, will be needed to confirm this hypothesis. 

Image source -> Wired.com
 Sources: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/02/neutrinos-faulty-cable/
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/02/faster_than_light_neutrinos_ex.php
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/02/breaking-news-error-undoes-faster.html
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-02/bummer-faster-light-neutrinos-werent-and-it-was-cable-guys-fault?cmpid=tw
http://gizmodo.com/5887398/a-loose-cable-caused-the-faster+than+light-particles-test

More on Neutrinos! -> http://www.dannyfinnegan.com/2011/12/vampires-of-physics-not-twlight-kind.html

Earlier (related) links -> http://www.dannyfinnegan.com/2011/07/god-particle-close-to-being-discovered.html & http://www.dannyfinnegan.com/2012/01/this-guy-might-not-be-100-right.html & http://www.dannyfinnegan.com/2011/12/mit-builds-camera-fast-enough-to.html & http://www.dannyfinnegan.com/2012/01/biggest-solar-radiation-storm-in-years.html & http://www.dannyfinnegan.com/2012/02/really-old-ice_16.html & http://www.dannyfinnegan.com/2012/02/they-reached-ice.html

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

COMMUNITY IS BACK!

ALISON BRIE THURSDAYS HAVE RETURNED!



From Hollywood reporter:
NBC has announced the premiere dates of three new series and the anticipated return of Community. The network has slated the return of Community in familiar territory, taking over from 30 Rock on Thursday, March 15 at 8 p.m. Community's return pushes 30 Rock to the 8:30 p.m. home, currently held by Parks & Recreation.
 
Source -> http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/nbc-announces-return-date-community-293198

Earlier links:
http://www.dannyfinnegan.com/2012/01/annies-boobs-might-be-on-their-way-out.html
http://www.dannyfinnegan.com/2011/11/save-community.html
http://www.dannyfinnegan.com/2011/12/save-community-continued.html
http://www.dannyfinnegan.com/2011/12/at-least-it-existed-at-all.html
http://www.dannyfinnegan.com/2012/01/troy-and-abed-in-morning.html

Friday, February 17, 2012

Pythons wiping out native species in Florida

I assume this is happening everywhere else where idiots, who don't do research as to what size their snake will reach and what level of effort they actually require, reside. Here's an idea, how about not releasing non-native species into foreign (for them) environments?

From the Washington Post:
But in the southernmost part of the Florida Everglades, things have taken a really wild turn. Pythons and anacondas are eating everything. The most common animals in Everglades National Park — rabbits, raccoons, opossums and bobcats — are almost gone, according to a study released Monday.


“There aren’t many native mammals that pythons can’t choke down,” said Robert N. Reed, a research wildlife biologist at the U.S. Geologial Survey’s Fort Collins Science Center and a co-author of the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Officials can’t stop invasive pythons and anacondas from marauding in the Everglades, Reed said; they can only hope to contain them. “We’re trying to prevent spread to the Florida Keys and elsewhere north.” The snakes were released by pet owners into the Everglades, where they started to breed. A female python can lay 100 eggs, though 54 is considered the norm. The study was described as the first to show pythons are causing the decline of native mammals in the Everglades.

"I don't belong here"


Source -> Washington Post photo gallery (click here for full link)
Sources -> http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/environment/story/2012-01-04/invasive-giant-pythons-florida/52383352/1 & http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/in-florida-everglades-pythons-and-anacondas-dominate-food-chain/2012/01/30/gIQAULTVdQ_story.html

Non-native species related link: http://www.dannyfinnegan.com/2011/04/sharks-being-taught-to-eat-non-native.html

Counterpoint on a specific example: http://www.dannyfinnegan.com/2011/06/non-native-species-beneficial.html