Ancora Imparo

Makin' Butter

2009-12-29T20:08:00.000-08:00

We wish you a geeky Christmas, and a happy New Year! About five years ago, my brother-in-law shared with us the tradition of making butter by hand to serve at Thanksgiving dinner. We each got our little jar of heavy cream with a bit of salt added, and sat shaking the darn things for 1-2 hours while we watched a movie. I like the final product well enough, but wanted to find a better way.

An Amazing Puzzle

2008-12-15T13:32:00.000-08:00

By far one of the niftiest things I've found on the Internet recently:Play AuditoriumHere's the level where I got stuck on my first attempt:

Art and Motorcycles, Part III

2008-08-13T10:40:00.000-07:00

See earlier installments:Motorcycles Part I: Making MotorcyclesMotorcycles Part II: Making Motorcycles Out of CutleryAnd now Motorcycles Part III: Dancing with MotorcyclesAs far as I can glean from Ye Olde Internet, this was a motorbike show performed by Italian policemen in 1953.

Goodbye, princess

2008-07-09T19:11:00.000-07:00

It is with deep sorrow that I share the news of the death of my cat, who has been a loving and sweet companion to me for thirteen years.

The Limerick Game, Part Two

2008-07-07T13:41:00.000-07:00

See here for our earlier installment.Some of the best lately:July 22 - July 29The princess of fairy tale loreSlept on peas ‘neath her bed, but no more.Since discovering them there,In her ears and her hair,"Henceforth, only futons!" she swore.21 Dec. 2007 – 15 Jan. 2008On the twelfth day of Christmas, she said,“Are there MORE days of Christmas ahead?All those pipers and ringsThat the holiday

Beep

2008-06-18T00:00:00.000-07:00

This stained glass piece took me five hours, from conception to completion. I am still practicing my soldering technique - some of the seams are practically perfect, but still some are lumpy. The clear glass was salvaged from an old ("antique") window frame. The design and title were inspired by one of the dot cartoons from Sesame Street, recently jogged in my memory after watching some old

2008-05-28T23:31:00.001-07:00

Science Geek Humor

2008-04-15T21:33:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of my Dad, my favorite engineer:Understanding Engineers - Part OneTwo engineering students were walking across a university campus when one said, "Where did you get such a great bike?" The second engineer replied, "Well, I was walking along yesterday, minding my own business, when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike, threw it to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, "Take

Breaking the Rule of Five

2008-04-08T08:08:00.000-07:00

There are several reasons why this piece is significant:* it is the first piece I made completely in my own studio* I assembled the first half of the piece while I was in labor* the blue glass is all leftovers from repairing the stained glass skylight in my house* some of the blue glass is new, and some is over one hundred years old! (It is a perfect match in color but not in texture.)Extra

Happy St. Patrick's Day

2008-03-17T10:20:00.000-07:00

I can't think of anyone who needs to memorize square root approximations anymore, except perhaps carpenters and math tutors, but here's a trick I learned from a student ten years ago - for those of you who like kickin' it old school!

The Giggle Game

2008-01-23T17:18:00.001-08:00

SAT prep for fun and rice

2008-01-17T09:49:00.000-08:00

Use your brains to help others:get started!

Yvie's smile

2008-01-14T12:14:00.000-08:00

Finally, after being thwarted for eight weeks, we manage to capture the mega-smile!

Merry Christmas from Yvie

2007-12-21T16:37:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night's sleep!

Baby Science Part 2: Lipase

2007-12-21T16:22:00.001-08:00

When Yvie was about a month old, I started pumping milk so I could build up a frozen supply. The books all say that breastmilk stays fresh for about 4-6 days in the fridge, but it seemed that mine went sour much faster, usually in less than 24 hours. By the time I made this discovery, two months of diligent pumping had gone by, and I ended up having to trash my whole frozen supply of milk, as

Inspiring Glass/Mixed Media Art

2007-10-26T14:30:00.001-07:00

Check out this cool project! This is the work of Crystal Schenk.Link to Schenk's work at Sculpture.orgAnyone know where I can get an antique shopping cart?

Baby Science Part 1: Jaundice

2007-10-01T21:57:00.000-07:00

Baby has jaundice, so I have learned a little more about it in the last few days. In the womb, babies need a really good oxygen supply so their blood is really thick with red blood cells. After birth, the blood needs to be thinner in order to flow into the smaller capillaries. (That's why newborns have bluish/cold feet and hands for the first few days of life.) As the red blood cells break

Project Mini-Me (Latest Construction Project)

2007-09-28T16:19:00.000-07:00

Look what we made! Yvie Rae was born Wednesday morning. (Pronounced "E.V.")My mother says all newborns fall into two categories: the ones that look like Abe Lincoln and the ones that look like George Washington. So, is Yvie an Abe or a George?

Nursery Mural

2007-08-13T13:44:00.000-07:00

Yikes, it's been a long long time. My life has been more about art than science, since chemistry class ended in May, so this is what I have to show for my absence of the last few months. I found a photo online of a quilt, which was based on a Tiffany stained glass design, which I modified (to fit the proportion of the wall and accommodate the crib) and freehanded. It took me about 20 hours, I

My Brush with Science Fame

2007-05-26T13:31:00.001-07:00

Every science geek's wet dream? Sighting Jamie Hyneman of Mythbusters in Trader Joe's this morning? I didn't speak to him. He tries not to make eye contact with people. On the show he comes across as intimidating, but maybe he's just shy....

Trivial Tidbit from Modern Marvels

2007-05-25T21:56:00.001-07:00

Ever wonder why sewer most manhole covers are round?For the last few months, I've been working on and off on restoring the circular skylight in our old Victorian house. It involves dragging the ladder up a flight of stairs, wiggling through the access panel in the bathroom ceiling, balancing my way across the ceiling rafters because there is no floor, and doing all the work on the skylight in

Latest Construction Project

2007-04-30T17:03:00.000-07:00

Many of you who know me in Real Life are aware that I have been building a baby since January. Though I have learned a lot of interesting sciency things about pregnancy, I've been Too Damn Tired to blog them properly. I do hope to post some pregnancy-related sciency blogs soon, as I have recently become my own favorite science experiment, but right now I am focusing on the last three weeks of

For Chemistry Geeks

2007-02-28T15:29:00.000-08:00

I finished a quiz early and got bored:There once was an element named CuWho was so fast that no one could stu.She ran all about'til her father came outYelling "If she ever slows down, then I'll pu!"My next one will be about Zn, I Thn.Also, an incredibly useful simulation for gas laws.

Finally Done!

2007-01-27T10:52:00.000-08:00

This is my first glass project using Tiffany method (copper-foil and solder). It took about 20 hours of work, and I finished it in class Thursday night.

Inventions/Inventors Quiz

2007-01-16T09:46:00.000-08:00

This took me a day longer than it should have to post - I was hung up on the idea that a quiz had to have ten questions. This one has only seven. Answers posted below - no peeking!1) The wheel/axle combination was invented in:a) Chinab) Mesopotamiac) Egyptd) Rome2) The first televised broadcast occurred in:a) 1862b) 1884c) 1923d) 1936e) 19483) Thomas Alva Edison's electric light bulb, patented

Inventions/Inventors Quiz Answers - don't peek!

2007-01-16T09:44:00.000-08:00

1) answer: (b)It is almost certain that the Mesopotamians were the first to use the wheel/axle combination in the 5th millennium BC, making pottery wheels and carts that could move crops easily. 2) answer: (a)In 1862, Abbe Giovanna Caselli, an Italian priest and physics professor, demonstrated that a still image can be transmitted over wire. Electromagnetic television was used by the German

Blogging Hiatus

2007-01-16T09:14:00.000-08:00

After almost a month off, I'm back in the swing of things. While I've been away, I've encountered and survived the following:* chemistry final exams* jetlag (eastbound and westbound varieties)* Christmas* food poisoning* a high-speed train trip from Belgium to Germany, with food poisoning* allergic reactions to curry~and~* that really bad cold-with-a-fever thing that seems to be going aroundNone

Ancora Imparo

2006-12-21T10:56:00.000-08:00

Anyone who's gone out to dinner with me in the last few months has probably encountered my new favorite question: what are three things you learned today? Here is a random assortment of things I've learned in the last few weeks, in no particular order.1) You do not know better than the cookie dough package how long the cookies should stay in the oven. Take the cookies out as instructed, even if

Curvacious Glass

2006-12-21T10:54:00.000-08:00

I've evolved in the past four months; I'm no longer feeling limited to projects that only use straight cuts!

Math and Love

2006-12-14T16:20:00.000-08:00

So glad I found this - I thought I was the only one who tried these analytic methods on everything.I just took a three hour chemistry final. When my brain unfries, I will post some entries with a little more substance than I have of late. I am relishing a whole month of doing calculations without having to think about sigfigs!

When Bunnies Go Bad

2006-12-07T09:05:00.000-08:00

(With apologies to Ranger Bunny and Nicole.)

More Cool Art

2006-12-05T08:45:00.000-08:00

For those of you who are ready to move on after making a few snowflakes, behold the amazing art of Peter Calleson! His works, including incredibly detailed papercuts like this one, can be found at his website here.

Utterly Addictive Timewasters

2006-12-03T17:19:00.000-08:00

Make a snowflake to increase contributions to Salvation Army.Play Lemonade Stand like you did in 4th grade.

Purple Doorknobs

2006-11-28T16:31:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I found a box of old doorknobs in the basement. Among them was a pair of purple glass doorknobs. "Those wacky Victorians," I thought, "making different colors of doorknobs just to dress the house up." I learned, however, that the doorknobs weren't supposed to be purple - they started out colorless. (Thanks to Dad and my friend Nicole the Museum Conservator for enlightening me.

More recycling on a large scale

2006-11-16T23:33:00.000-08:00

I absolutely love old buildings. We live in a Victorian house built in 1889, and I often spend my weekends removing decades of paint layers to restore things like escutcheons and broken window locks. ("Escutcheon" is a word I learned from Babble over a year ago, and now I can use it in a sentence without cracking up!)Given my love of historic architecture, you can imagine I was thrilled to

Reuse, Recycle, Recreate

2006-11-08T18:56:00.000-08:00

I grew up with a healthy appreciation for the possibilities of scrap - my dad's workshop in the basement always had the perfect piece of wood for a project, my mom's fabric bin had just the piece to inspire. I'm still at it, currently working to incorporate salvaged windows into my glass art, and making a clock out of miscellaneous cabinet and faucet knobs. I recently came across two funky

Revisiting September 11th

2006-11-03T14:36:00.000-08:00

I am slowly working my way through all the two-hour specials about 9/11 that I recorded a few months ago. I am carefully alternating them with TV shows that cheer me up, like Junk Brothers, and other healthy things like getting out of the house and eating leftover Halloween chocolate.I started my work as a psychiatric social worker on September 12th, 2001. I spent my first shift on an urban

Quilting in Glass

2006-10-26T21:58:00.000-07:00

These are Glass Projects #4 and #5, the first pieces I made at home in my very own kiln. They are blocks of a traditional quilt pattern called "Crazy Amish Star". They are translucent but unfortunately I have not yet figured out how to photograph this kind of work successfully...

59 Five-vowel words

2006-10-25T15:47:00.000-07:00

Here is a list of words that have all five vowels in them, compiled in the last year by my students and the good people at Babble:adventitiouslyaeronauticambidexterouslyarenicolousauctionedauctioneerauditionedaugmentationauthoritativeautoeroticbehaviourbougainvilleacauterizationcautiousnesscountermandingdialogueelectrometallurgiesequivocaleulogiaeunoia <--shortest with only 6

Colonial Gravestones

2006-10-23T23:04:00.000-07:00

Today J and I spent the day exploring Concord, Massachusetts with my parents. I was especially drawn to the old cemetery next to St. Bernard's church, where my grandmother and I used to go when we were early for Mass. Today the oldest grave we found marks a death in 1690. (Concord was settled in 1635.)The artwork is beautiful, and I wished I had done a little research ahead of time to see if

The Limerick Game

2006-10-17T01:51:00.000-07:00

My friend C24 invented a fun game in which we write limericks by passing them back and forth between us, writing only one line at a time. We've come up with some terrible ones, which I won't share - but here are some of my favorites.Written 19 January, 2006:A man with a gimpy-legged shufflewas killed by a poisonous truffle"Alas, I am smote!”were the last words he wrotewith a quill on the edge of

Lady Edisons

2006-10-09T11:49:00.000-07:00

This weekend's TV theme at our house is Inventors and Inventions, and I've loads to tell about female inventors and their roles in our daily lives.The US Patent Act of 1790 changed the rules and allowed women to hold patents if they were single or widowed. Since married women of the time were not allowed to own property in most states, and patents are intellectual property, most women could not

Matrimonial Pearl of Wisdom and Poems

2006-10-07T22:00:00.001-07:00

October is a month of many weddings for us, with three weekends in a row committed. Today's wedding gave us this pearl of wisdom, courtesy of Ogden Nash via cousin Molly:To keep your marriage brimmingWith love in the loving cup:Whenever you're wrong, admit it;Whenever you're right, shut up. One of my favorite wedding poems is another Ogden Nash, Tin Wedding Whistle. My favoritest favorite,

A Secret of Alcatraz

2006-10-05T00:45:00.000-07:00

Alcatraz Island is a popular destination for tourists and locals in the San Francisco Bay Area. The US military decided in the 1850's that Alcatraz (so named by a Spanish explorer in 1775, after the local pelicans - alcatraces) was well situated to be a fort, although it was never needed to defend the San Francisco Bay. Alcatraz housed prisoners from the Civil War onwards. In 1934 it was

Glass Class Project #1

2006-10-03T22:35:00.000-07:00

Today I got home from my second glass fusing class, and I am loving it! Here's the project I made last week.

Innovations in Pavement

2006-09-25T22:27:00.000-07:00

I must admit, I don't really pay a lot of attention to the surface beneath my feet unless I'm roller-skating (which I do rarely, and poorly). But I read about some nifty pavement-related inventions, and I have a new-found respect. The first idea that caught my attention is the use of titanium dioxide as a coating for pavement and roof tiles. Titanium dioxide is sensitive to light, and in the

Airplane Boarding Procedure

2006-09-22T06:48:00.000-07:00

How many times have you gotten stuck in the aisle or the jetway while waiting to board a plane, thinking "there must be a better way to do this"? Sometime in the last few years, I was traveling an airline that was participating in an experiment to test a boarding procedure called Wilma (boarding Window first, then Middle, then Aisle). I don't remember feeling that the boarding process went any

Motorcycle, Art and Illusion

2006-09-15T15:50:00.000-07:00

This work, Lunch With a Helmut On, was created in 1987 by the sculptor Shigeo Fukuda. It is made entirely from knives, forks and spoons welded together.

Crop Circles and Geometry Lessons

2006-09-11T22:19:00.000-07:00

So, it’s been done before, but I was going to write a bit about crop circles – I spent the weekend sick in bed and indulged in two television shows about them. When I started looking online, I got bogged down in all the theories; I’m not going to recount them here – there’s so many – but I found a website that really spins my top. Zef Damen has created a site with step-by-step recipes for

Dorm Life and Suicide

2006-09-06T08:23:00.000-07:00

I've worked as a psychiatric social worker and a counselor in a city whose culture is dominated by the local university. One of my most wrenching cases was that of a student who killed himself by jumping off a ninth floor balcony. Suicide is unfortunately common among college students; figures suggest that suicides occur at a rate of three per day on college campuses.I've been horrified to read

The Root of Root Beer

2006-09-02T09:13:00.000-07:00

Inspired by a recent trip to In-n-Out Burger, I started wondering: what roots are used to make root beer? My guess at the time was sarsaparilla, and in part I was right. A little research reveals that root beer has been made from a wide variety of plants, including (not just roots, but also berries and herbs from) sassafras, sarsaparilla, vanilla, juniper, wintergreen, cherry tree bark, birch

Book Report: The Design of Everyday Things

2006-08-23T07:03:00.000-07:00

This book is for anyone who has ever pushed the pull door. One of my favorite reads in recent years, Donald Norman's The Design of Everyday Things is an entertaining analysis of why and how we are conquered by our things - alarm clocks we can't turn off, for instance, and VCRs that blink 12:00. When you turn on the wrong burner on the stove, do you (like me) call yourself a blockhead, or do you

Frederick Mosteller: Statistician, Stylometrist, Red Sox fan

2006-08-16T17:00:00.000-07:00

The mathematician Frederick Mosteller died last month after a long and rich career. On the faculty at Harvard for forty years, he chaired four different departments and was one of the founders of the school's statistics department. And he put himself through college playing poker!One of the reasons Mosteller's work is near and dear to my heart is because he was a lifelong Red Sox fan. One of

Getting Creative With Motorcycles

2006-08-15T22:27:00.000-07:00

I just finished watching a documentary about motorcycles, and learned about some fascinating bikes out there. The Y2K, which uses a recycled helicopter turbine (Jay Leno owns one), the four-wheeled V-10 Dodge Tomahawk, and the Britten V1000, of which only ten were made, are just a few examples of advanced technology and design turning out something totally new.By far the most interesting to me

Turkeys Are Smarter Than We Think

2006-08-09T23:33:00.000-07:00

Over the last few years, I have been hearing more and more stories from my parents about the presence of wild turkeys in the suburbs of Boston. Recently, driving the interstate in Massachusetts, I sighted two wild turkeys standing in the breakdown lane, gobbling happily and confusing motorists.When I told my father about this, he told me the story of Tim Hoban, a local postal carrier who was

Lobsters!

2006-08-02T14:47:00.000-07:00

Lobster was always a big part of the rural Maine part of my upbringing. I don't eat 'em, but I used to enjoy playing with them on the porch before they met their steamy deaths in the big stockpot. I was tickled to learn something new today about lobsters: they come in all sorts of funky colors.This week, two fishermen caught yellow lobsters in different parts of Maine. Yellow lobsters are

Archeology Part II

2006-07-28T02:36:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I attended the Titanic exhibit at the San Francisco Metreon. (Highly recommended!) It included the "Big Piece", a 20' by 25' piece of the Titanic's hull. The piece was preserved by Conservation Solutions; their Titanic case file describes how the piece of hull was protected as it was brought to the surface.The steel piece was desalinized by soaking in a pool of solution with

Archeological Finds

2006-07-28T00:52:00.000-07:00

Just in the last few days, nifty things have been found in the ground.In Jamestowne, Virginia, excavation of a well has yielded artifacts believed to be among the oldest items of European origin found in North America. Settlers arrived in 1607; a halberd was found bearing the insignia of Lord Delaware, who arrived in Jamestowne in 1610.Associated Press Story More about the Jamestown findsAnd in

Popeye Soup

2006-07-28T00:38:00.000-07:00

I've had major blogging paralysis lately, but while I am pulling ideas together into something coherant, here's a pointer towards this wonderful recipe I've been obsessed with lately:Yummy yummy spinach soup(It is a fabulous shade of green!)

Etymology Part III: Drinking from the firehose

2006-07-18T22:40:00.000-07:00

J came home with this expression one day, and I immediately adopted it. Drinking from the firehose means you are overwhelmed in some way, involved in something intense in which it is hard to stay caught up.I was surprised that I could find examples of this phrase in use, but no explanation of where it came from. Even the Urban Dictionary, which usually provides me with something amusing if not

More About the Penny

2006-07-18T13:07:00.000-07:00

Hey look, my interest in the one-cent piece is timely: apparently there is a bill being introduced that would make the penny obsolete. I read it in today's headlines.I hadn't really thought about the fact that a nickel is actually mostly copper, and that particular states would benefit from eliminating the penny because of copper mining.US five-cent nickelcomposition: 75% copper, 25% nickelmass:

The Value of a Penny

2006-07-16T16:38:00.000-07:00

My big project this month is studying chemistry; because all the entry-level chem classes at City College are already closed, and I don't get to register until August, my best bet for getting into a chemistry class this fall is to learn enough material to pass a placement test into a middle-level course. This means learning AP Chemistry in a month. (I could have saved myself a lot of work if I

Time Perception

2006-07-16T00:00:00.000-07:00

J and I typically have trouble finding parking in North Beach: if it weren't for the fact that two of our best friends live there, I doubt I'd ever go. Tonight, J was doing the driving, and hence, the search for a parking spot. After about ten minutes of circling, looking at spots that were just barely too small for my Mini Cooper, and getting beaten to spots by other parking predators, I

Perfect Pitch

2006-07-01T22:58:00.000-07:00

Musicians, especially singers and string players, are trained to recognize and correct pitch in order to play within the Western 12-tone scale (when playing Western music, obviously). There are different types of pitch-training skills.Relative pitch is what most of musicians are working with: given a reference note (tuning fork, pitch pipe, other parts of a composition), we can identify pitches

Why I'm glad we don't have a monarchy

2006-06-24T15:38:00.000-07:00

Royal pet goat behaving badly.

Etymology Part II: Going Postal

2006-06-23T07:26:00.000-07:00

"Going postal" is an American expression referring to mental instability and violence, particularly workplace-related violence. "Going postal" is a verb, and "postal" is used as an adjective (e.g. I'm telling you, she's totally postal!)The first incident that spawned the image of the disgruntled murderous postal worker seems to be the case of Patrick Henry Sherrill, who shot 14 employees at a

Etymology Part I: Knackered

2006-06-23T00:43:00.000-07:00

I have some particular pet phrases, some of which I've been using for years without any indication that I'm using them correctly - time to find out! Being fond of K words, I'm starting with knackered."Knackered" is an expression (primarily British) meaning "tired" or "worn out". A knacker, I've learned, is a person who buys old horses that are too worn out to be used for work. A knackery is a

What is the point?

2006-06-20T21:48:00.000-07:00

After twelve years as a respectable member of the workforce, I am taking some time off to pursue all the interests that have built up over time. Having spent most of my life as a student, a teacher, and a tutor (and occasionally a baker and a psychiatric/medical social worker), I've been on both sides of a lot of learning throughout my life, and it's the most satisfying thing I can think to do