May 24, 2008
Jane Goodall Autographs a Busted Fender?
Today in the parking lot at the Ikea in College Park, MD, we spotted a car that appeared to be autographed by Jane Goodall just above a busted fender. The signature includes the line "I did not do this!!"
At first I thought it was a joke, but then when I got home I found a couple of Jane Goodall autographs online, and the letters J and G are eerily similar to the signature on the car:
What do you think? Real or fake? -andy
Tags: autographs | bizarre | cars | fenders | Jane Goodall | signatures
Posted by acarvin at 4:21 PM
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January 27, 2008
The Living Goddess Retires
For those of you who followed the trials and tribulations of Sajani Shakya, the kumari of Bhaktapur last year, you might be interested to know she has just retired from her status as a living goddess. I got an email a few days ago from Marc Hawker, co-producer of Living Goddess, the documentary that featured Sajani, who wanted to pass along news of this milestone.
"Sajani this week performed a ritual to become a 'teenager' and to retire from being a goddess," Marc told me while on a shoot in Bhutan. "She is really happy and we are working with her family to get her into a good school in Nepal."
I'm glad to hear Sajani has graduated to goddess emeritus, if you will, and can begin the process of returning to a normal teenage life. As you may recall, Sajani briefly lost her status as a living goddess after local religious leaders were furious about her visit to the United States, which they felt impurified her. Eventually she was restored as kumari following a re-purification ritual, and because of this, she gets to retire with a modest kumari pension that will help support her family and education.
There was no word, however, on whether she received a grandfather clock as a retirement gift, or whether the other local kumaris got together for a roast at the Kathmandu Kiwanis Club. Either way, congratulations, Sajani! -andy
Tags: Bhaktapur | Kumari | living goddess | Nepal | pension plans | religion | retirement | Sajani Shakya
Posted by acarvin at 5:42 PM
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November 27, 2007
Steve Jobs and Salman Rushdie: Separated at Birth?
Are Apple CEO Steve Jobs and "Satanic Verses" author Salman Rushdie long lost brothers? You tell me.
Very strange indeed. -andy
Tags: brothers | coincidences | Salman Rushdie | Steve Jobs | twins
Posted by acarvin at 3:27 PM
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November 9, 2007
The Mouse That Knows No Fear
"These mice are very happy with cats. They play with cats. But before taking the picture, we had to feed the cat."
So says Hiroshi Sakano of Japan's Sakano Labs, an an interview with Reuters. Sakano's team genetically modified a family of mice to suppress a particular olfactory receptor, which normally converts the mice's sense of smell into messages sent to the brain. They discovered that when the modified mice couldn't pick up certain smells, they lost their fear instinct. Normally, a mouse would run like hell when confronted with a cat, but these mice just want to hang out instead. Hope they have plenty of kibble for the cat, or that mouse is in deep trouble. -andy
Tags: brain | cats | fear | food | genetics | Japan | lunch | mice | receptors | research | safety | Sakano Labs | smell
Posted by acarvin at 3:15 PM
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November 7, 2007
The Best Swedish Song Featuring a Cat on Horseback Ever
This video speaks for itself. -ac
Hat tip: Robin @ All Songs
Posted by acarvin at 3:37 PM
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June 16, 2007
Meeting a Living Goddess: The Bhaktapur Kumari of Nepal
Who would have guessed I'd meet a living goddess this weekend.
Yesterday evening, we were walking past the Discovery Channel building in Silver Spring, heading to a restaurant for dinner, when an adorable little South Asian girl walked by in an ornate golden outfit and an extravagant tika painted on her head. I guessed she and her family were headed to some form of Hindu festival in the area.
"You won't lose her in a crowd," a man remarked as we crossed the street.
"She looks like a Kumari," Susanne said, in reference to the young girls of Nepal who are worshiped as living goddesses.
She did look like a Kumari, but Kumaris never travel. They barely leave their compounds, or so I thought. Susanne and I saw the royal Kumari of Kathmandu when we visited Nepal in 1996. She was cloistered in a special building that serves as her residence during her tenure, and we had to pay a small fee for the privilege of having her stick her head out the window and glare at us for a moment, clearly preferring to be elsewhere.
Selected as toddlers, always from a Buddhist family of the Shakya caste, Kumaris are picked based on 32 personal traits in a process that's sometimes compared to the rigorous process taken to select the Dalai Lama. Once selected, she's revered by the local Hindu population until she reaches puberty, when a new Kumari must be selected. And it's almost unheard of for them to travel.
As it turns out, she was a Kumari - the Kumari of Bhaktapur, the former royal capital of Nepal, and one of the three most important of the dozen or so Kumaris in Nepal. She was in the US for a world premiere of a documentary about Kumaris at the Silverdocs festival here in Silver Spring, and it was the first time a Kumari had ever visited the US. We were both pretty amazed that we'd gotten the chance to see her. Too bad it was just a fleeting glance crossing Georgia Avenue, though.
Today, we returned to downtown Silver Spring for lunch. A large stage had been set up for some kind of performance, and there were signs posted from the local Nepali American association. We stuck around for a while, and sure enough, the Kumari reappeared.
Once again dressed in an ornate costume, she was surrounded by a crowd of photographers and well-wishers. Given my previous experience with a Kumari, I assumed she'd be somewhat aloof, but she was quite the opposite. She smiled and shook hands with visitors, even giving a man a big hug at one point. She was also carrying around an enormous digital SLR camera, snapping pictures of her entourage when she wasn't posing for pictures with others.
Eventually, she settled onto a small chair that had been placed in front of the stage. Local Nepalis waited their turn to kiss her feet, then pose for a picture with her. An elderly woman cried tears of joy when she got to meet her. On stage, a troupe of dancers performed, while the Kumari snacked on a plate of crunchy chaat and spicy chana, posing for more pictures and playing with yet another camera - this time a digital camcorder.
I was amazed at how social she was. It turns out, though, as Kumari of Bhaktapur, she's not subjected to the same restrictions that her counterpart in Kathamandu faces. She goes to school and lives with her parents, though she still participates in daily religious rituals. When you ask her what her name is, she says "Sajani" with a smile. And when Susanne and I each put our palms together and bowed to offer her a traditional greeting of "Namaste," she stopped what she was doing for just a moment so she could do the same back to each of us.
I've posted a photo gallery on Flickr. And here's a brief video clip I shot of the Kumari on my mobile phone, in which several Nepalis pay their respects to her:
I'm still smiling from the experience. Nepal is a very special place for us, and I am so happy to have met the Bhaktapur Kumari today. Welcome to America, Sajani. -andy
Tags: Bhaktapur | digital cameras | gadgets | goddess | Hinduism | Kathmandu | Kumari | religion | Sajani Shakya | Silver Spring | Silverdocs
Posted by acarvin at 8:16 PM
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May 31, 2007
Bad Kid, Bad Karma
The next time your child acts up in public, take heart - chances are, their behavior isn't as bad as destroying a sand mandala created painstakenly over a period of days by Buddhist monks. The monks weren't present when the young scofflaw climbed under the rope barrier protecting their artwork and performed a tapdance on top of it; otherwise they might have blown a gasket. I hope this kid got a serious time out. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 1:41 PM
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April 26, 2007
Captain America Assaults Woman With Burrito
What is it with my home town?
Raymond Adamcik, a doctor from Indialantic, Florida, where I grew up, got arrested this week. He and his buddies were at a local bar, all dressed up as Captain America as part of some superhero-themed pub crawl. He allegedly groped a woman, wielding a burrito he pulled from his pants, then got into a scuffle with the woman's significant other. The police arrived, and they made all the Captain Americas go outside for a line-up so the woman could identify the not-so-super superhero.
"There were a lot of people in costumes," said Jill Frederiksen, Melbourne Police spokeswoman. "They had to ask all dressed as Captain America to step outside, so she could identify him."
This photo was taken by the security camera at the police station. Say it ain't so, captain! -andy
Tags: burritos | Captain America | crime | doctors | Florida | Indialantic | Melbourne
Posted by acarvin at 9:56 AM
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April 25, 2007
Horsing Around at the Village ATM
Here's something you don't see every day: a horse hanging out in an ATM vestibule. Apparently, a German man went out on his horse for a few drinks and was too blotto to make it home, so he decided to crash at the local bank. And since the bank didn't have a hitching post outside, he brought the horse inside with him. Everything was fine until a customer came by sometime after 4am and interrupted the sleepover.
Local police released this photo from the bank's security camera. Neither the man nor his horse are facing charges, though the guy may have to pay for cleaning up the deposit the horse reportedly left at the bank. -andy
Tags: banks | Germans | horses
Posted by acarvin at 5:06 PM
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January 18, 2007
The Autocomplete Personality Test
Steve Garfield recently posted the results of what he called his Autocomplete Personality Test. It's a simple idea: you go to your Web browser and work your way through the alphabet, typing each letter to see what URL pops up. Assuming your browser is set to autocomplete the URL, it'll give you a sense of some of the sites you visit (or at least those sites you've visited since you cleared your browser cache).
Here are the results of my test.
- http://andycarvin.com/
- http://bocaguy.blogspot.com/
- http://citmedia.org/
- http://digitaldivide.net/
- http://engadgetmobile.com/
- http://flickr.com/photos/andycarvin/
- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wwwedu/
- http://haaretz.com/
- http://ifocos.org/2006/09/01/we-media-program/
- http://jott.com/
- http://knowprose.com/
- http://laptop.org
- http://media.mit.edu/
- http://www.npr.org/
- http://omidyar.net/whatsnew
- http://pressthink.org
- http://rocketboom.com/vlog/
- http://spinvox.com/
- http://techcrunch.com/
- http://www.uwec.edu/newsreleases/06/dec/1204MySpaceresearch.htm
- http://video.google.com/
- http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/opinions/index.html
- http://yahoo.com/
- http://zadidiaz.com
Read into it what you will. -andy
UPDATE: I thought it would be interesting to compare my office computer (above) with my computer at home. Here are the home results:
- http://www.andycarvin.com/
- http://bottomunion.com/vid/thepan/weagel_marshall.mov
- http://cnn.com
- http://dresdendolls.com/
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
- http://flickr.com/photos/andycarvin/
- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wwwedu/
- http://www.haaretz.com/
- http://www.ibiblio.org/
- http://www.jpost.com
- http://livingwithgeeks.wordpress.com/
- http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/community/2006102609502421/
- http://news.yahoo.com/i/578
- http://offonatangent.blogspot.com/
- http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/learning.now/
- http://revlog.blogspot.com/
- http://sxsw.com/
- http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/dcmediamakers/
- http://www.ummah.net/astronomy/saltime/
- http://www.videoegg.com/
- http://www.wired.com/
- http://www.yahoo.com/
- http://www.zefrank.com/theshow
Posted by acarvin at 4:26 PM
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December 29, 2006
Wicked Awesome Evidence of Being Bostonian
Gotta love this list of 101 ways to know you're from Boston. I managed to get 67 of them - not bad given I've lived most of my life elsewhere.
Some of my favorites:
1. The Red Sox World Series win was, and will always be, one of the greatest moments in your life.7. Your social security number starts with a 0.
9. You know what a "regular" coffee is.
20. You order iced coffee in January
30. You intentionally give wrong directions to tourists, feel bad when they drive off, but then say to yourself, "Ah, screw 'em."
32. You're sick of the Kennedy's, but you vote for them anyway.
52. You know who Whitey Bulger is.
67. 4:15pm and pitch black out means there's just 3 more shopping days until Christmas
71. You can't look at the zip code 02134 without singing it.
84. No, you don't trust the Gorton's Fisherman.
90. You were very sad when saying goodbye to the Boston Garden.
100. You remember Jordan Marsh, Grants, Bradlees, Caldor, Zayres, or Ann & Hope.
101. You actually get these jokes and can think of even more.
One I would have thrown in for the Worcester crowd: "You know to bring your own bags to Spag's." That, and "You used to go to the Ground Round to throw peanut shells on the floor while watching Three Stooges flicks." -andy
Hat tip: Garfield
Posted by acarvin at 8:44 PM
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December 20, 2006
Primate-Friendly Satellite Dishes
Great quote from a post today to the Global Voices discussion group for the summit they just hosted in India last weekend. Kiran Jonnalagadda was talking about the rural information kiosks he runs in India's Karnataka state, which struggle with electricity and affordable Internet access. Apparently, that's not the only problem they face, as Kiran tells it:
Among the complaints received by our helpdesk: "Sir, there's a monkey swinging from the dish."
Perhaps the VSAT dish providers have a potential ad campaign on their hands, kinda like that US luggage commercial where the gorilla beats the crap out of a suitcase without destroying it: Our dishes can handle a troupe of macaques better than any other brand. Now that'd be good television. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 11:00 AM
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November 29, 2006
Chanukah vs. Hanukkah Death Match: The Great Spelling Shift
The NPR website recently launched a 2006 holiday guide that includes some of its greatest hits from previous holiday seasons, along with lots of new material. One of them is a great story from All Things Considered last December about the proper way to spell Hanukkah. Robert Siegel interviewed a rabbi about the various spellings, including Hanukkah, Chanukah, Chanukkah, etc. and the source of the problem, which is due to the fact that there are certain Hebrew letters that simply don't exist in English.
One part of the piece that interested me was when Siegel referred to the popularity of different spellings according to Google. At the time he recorded the story last year, he noted that there were 2.8 million hits for the spelling Chanukah versus 650,000 hits for the spelling Hanukkah. Siegel therefore suggested that Chanukah was the most popular spelling, and that certainly jives with what I remember while growing up. (I was such a snob about it, too, always accentuating the "ch" sound when speaking to my gentile classmates.)
I was curious, though, how much variation there might be over the course of a year, so I decided to search Google again. As it turns out, a great shift has taken place. The number of hits for Chanukah had increased to 3,070,000, while the number of hits for Hanukkah had surged to a whopping 10,200,000 - more than three times the other spelling.
Meanwhile, the blogosphere suggests a similar trend. According to Technorati, there were 23,274 results for Chanukah and 41,667 results for Hanukkah - almost a two-to-one margin. Google's blog search produces similar results, with 21,336 hits for Chanukah versus 42,960 for Hanukkah.
For those of you visual learners, here's the horserace according to Blogpulse:
Once again, Hanukkah beats Chanukah, and rather soundly as of late. What's going on here? Could it be that this year's popularity of sites like YouTube and MySpace is somehow causing Hanukkah to spread virally across the Net and slap down its rival Chanukah into submission? That may have been the case for the election, but not here. According to YouTube, there are a paltry 64 videos for Chanukah and 85 videos Hanukkah. Contrast that with 26,736 videos for Christmas. Amazingly, there were actually 74 videos for Yom Kippur. Aren't we supposed to be fasting rather than shooting video that day?
As for MySpace, those millions of naughty teenieboppers clearly aren't in a Macabee frame of mind. How many results did I get for the two spellings? Zero. bupkus.
Maybe Wikipedia has something to do with it. If you look up Chanukah, it automatically redirects you to the spelling Hanukkah. There's a long discussion about the proper spelling, and the last word seems to be that while Chanukah conveys the original intention of the Hebrew pronunciation, Hanukkah has become de rigeur among lexicographers, because it's easier to pronounce by native English speakers. And since Wikipedia seems to double its audience every three days, perhaps that might account for the shift since last year.
Of course, Hanukkah/Chanukah is still more than two weeks away, so perhaps it's too early to pass judgment on the state of the Internet in this regard. Nonetheless, it would appear that a great spelling shift is afoot - a relief to all of those gentiles who squirm every time they try to pronounce the "ch" sound correctly.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 5:33 PM
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November 2, 2006
Tootsie Rolls and the Wisdom of Crowds
There's a large ice tub sitting in the NPR lobby that's been used as a dumping ground of leftover Halloween candy this week. At its peak yesterday, the tub overflowed with a fine array of sweets, including ample amounts of miniature Reeses cups, assorted Hersheys chocolates, individually wrapped Twizzlers, etc.
By the time I left work today, though, the tub had been stripped bare - except for the Tootsie Rolls. I don't believe it had to do with there being too many Tootsie Rolls in the tub, given the enormous amount of other candies initially present. Instead, it simply boils down to people favoring every other candy over Tootsie Rolls. They dugg their favorite candy quite literally by digging them out of the tub and eating them, leaving these sad Tootsie Rolls in a state of lonely, pathetic unduggness.
Sad, sad, Tootsie Rolls. But the people of NPR have spoken, and you can't argue with the wisdom of crowds, right? -andy
Tags: candy
Posted by acarvin at 8:29 PM
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October 31, 2006
Chick or Treat
So I'm sitting at my desk this morning catching up on email and the building-wide PA system here at NPR suddenly announces, "The Chicken Man is in the house. The Chicken Man is IN DA HOUSE!!!" I didn't make much of it at the time because, well, this is NPR.
Then a few minutes later the Chicken Man showed up on our floor. He (or is it a she in there?) came by my desk and silently dumped a handful of candy on a stack of paperwork. (Two Reeses peanut butter cups and a few other tasty treats.) Before he/she/it vanished to the next desk, I managed to snap this picture on my phone as proof of the encounter.
And to think that you, too, can work in my office. If you're lucky, maybe you'll get to meet the Chicken Man as well.
Posted by acarvin at 9:54 AM
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October 24, 2006
Family Pet Becomes Addicted to Hallucinogenic Toads
Funny story from NPR today about Lady, a cocker spaniel who got into the habit of licking toads from the local pond to trip on the hallucinogenic compounds excreted by their skin. Now the family is working tirelessly to help Lady get the monkey (or toad) off her back.
Just say no, Lady. Think of the puppies. And the toads, for crying out loud.... -andy
read more | digg story
Posted by acarvin at 5:09 PM
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September 1, 2006
I ♥ Beirut, I ♥ Israel
Fascinating photo taken yesterday in Manhattan, by way of my WSIS buddy Rik Panganiban. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 4:12 PM
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August 29, 2006
Andy's Apartment Layout Meme
Here's the layout of our new apartment. Wanna help us figure out where to put stuff? Upload a new copy of this picture to Flickr, tag it apartmentmeme so we can all follow along, and add some notes to the picture to identify where everything should go. Consider it a Web 2.0 experiment in Open Interior Decorating!
Among the key items:
- Desk (5'x3')
- TV and entertainment center (4'x3')
- Coffee table (5'x2')
- Couch (6'x3')
- Cat Condo (2' square)
- Small dining room table (4'x4')
- Treadmill (7'x3)
- Cats (1' square and 1.5' square)
- Kayleigh's crib (4'x2')
Feel free to add some new items we may not already own if you think we should. Have fun! -andy
Posted by acarvin at 10:06 PM
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July 22, 2006
I'm On A Mexican.... Gamelan?
In my never-ending quest to find more gamelan degung music for my growing collection of music from Indonesia, I stumbled upon perhaps the funniest recording I've heard in ages. It's a gamelan version of the Wall of Voodoo song, "Mexican Radio."
I'm serious.
 | + |  | =  |
A bizarre twist on one of the great songs of the 1980s, this version, by a gamelan band called Monkey C, sounds as if Tom Waits had quit Los Angeles and high-tailed it to Bali. Perhaps you have to be a fan of both Wall of Voodoo and gamelan music, but I sure got a kick out of it. It's an instrumental, probably because they couldn't replace the line, "I wish I was in Tijuana/Eating barbequed iguana" with an appropriate Indonesian city to rhyme with "gecko."
Anyway, Check it out. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 10:10 PM
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April 14, 2006
Andy's Yummy Highlands Charoset
Going to two, three or even four Passover Seders this week and running out of gift ideas? Have I got a charoset recipe for you, then.
Charoset is a crunchy, somewhat alcoholic, apple mush, served with matzah and horseradish on Passover. I've added a new ingredient to the mix: Drambuie. Drambuie is a Scottish liqueur of whiskey, honey, and lots of mysterious spices. I first made this recipe while at the University of Edinburgh in 1991, and the several Scottish Jews who tried it gave it a big thumbs up.
Traditionally, charoset is supposed to represent the mortar that was used by the Israelites in Egypt to make the bricks for pharoah. Fortunately for us, charoset is much tastier than brick, though I wouldn't recommend it for drywalling...
Highlands Charoset Ingredients:
Five medium red apples
One medium yellow apple
3/4 cup walnuts or pecan pieces
cinnamon
sugar
kosher red wine
Drambuie
Begin by chopping or grating the apples in a large bowl. Some folks prefer to peel the apples, but I like them unpeeled (adds color to the final product). Incorporate the chopped nuts and half a cup of the red wine. Then mix in a teaspoon of cinnamon and a couple of teaspoons of sugar, to taste. Feel free to add more red wine. For that added bonus, toss in a shot of Drambuie. Then, add more red wine. You get the picture.
You can leave out the Drambuie, but then it's no longer Highlands Charoset...
Best when refrigerated and served the next day. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 5:03 PM
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February 27, 2006
Finding Myself on Pete Townshend's Blog
Like many bloggers, I try to keep track on what others are saying about my blog, so I subscribe to a couple of RSS feeds from Technorati.com that track references to my name and my URL. Usually the RSS feeds send me links to various blogs related to the digital divide, video blogging, education technology, citizen journalism and the like, but yesterday, I received a notification that caught me off-guard.
One of my musical heroes had mentioned me on their blog.
To be more specific, Pete Townshend of The Who. Along with being the creative force behind one of the greatest bands of all time, Townshend is an avid writer, experimenting with online creative writing on his blog, The Boy Who Heard Music. Over the last six months, Townshend published a novella, one chapter at a time. When one of the chapters was posted, bloggers from all over the Internet would post comments and critiques of the work, which Townshend would review and take into account as he posted future chapters. The result is a 23-chapter story that evolved due to direct interaction between Townshend and the blogosphere.
So why did Pete Townshend mention me on his blog? In the book's epilogue, he offers up a homeric list of all the bloggers who submitted input at one point or another. That list includes me - and around 500 other bloggers. So it's not like Townshend dedicated the work to me personally or anything like that. Instead, he's paying tribute to all the bloggers who offered their support to the telling of the story. Townshend also notes in a "provocation" he posted that these bloggers will all be invited to participate in his next online project - an interactive music composition tool called The METHOD. A partnership between Townshend, programmer Dave Snowdon and composer Lawrence Ball, The METHOD will perform musical works generated by a computer based on interactions with a real person, referred to by Townshend as a "sitter." Initially the website will feature works generated by The METHOD through interactions with Lawrence Ball and others, but Townshend plans to invite bloggers to "sit" with The METHOD and generate music of their own. At least that's the way I understand it from his description on his blog. From what I've heard of Lawrence Ball's work, his music is reminsicent of Erik Satie and Arvo Part. Adding Pete Townshend to the mix, along with a community of 500 bloggers, will hopefully lead to some exciting, unusual results.
Personally, I can't wait for The METHOD to go public. Nearly 15 years ago, I got to interview French composer Pierre Boulez, who was one of the early experimentalists in computer composition. I've been fascinated with the concept ever since, and am very excited just pondering the opportunity of getting to try it myself some day.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 4:59 PM
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February 24, 2006
Ring My Bell - Generous Benefits Package Included
On the plus side of getting laid off recently is the opportunity to immerse myself in jobs-related RSS feeds. Hitting employment websites on a daily basis can be a downright depressing task, particularly when you're not finding many job descriptions with the term "digital divide" anywhere in its text. Thankfully, I can turn to a variety of websites that generate RSS feeds for particular job searches. Since RSS feeds get updated automatically when a website adds a relevant job listing to its database, your RSS aggregator gets notified promptly. I use Thunderbird for both my email and RSS needs, so a variety of potential job openings arrive in my in-box in a most expeditious fashion.
Sometimes, the job announcements sent to me are quite useful. I particularly like the listings available through the Chronicle of Philanthropy. Sometimes, though, the job postings I get are, well, a little off the mark. For example, this morning I discovered that the American Guild of English Handbell Ringers - AGEHR - is searching for a new executive director.
Established in 1954, the American Guild of English Handbell Ringers (AGEHR) is a not-for-profit organization headquartered in Dayton, Ohio, with members in all fifty states and several countries. AGEHR is dedicated to advancing the art of handbell/handchime ringing through education, community and communication. AGEHR strives for musical excellence through events, publications, the exchange of ideas related to techniques and composing, and conducting. National AGEHR events bring together ringers and directors from all over the world as a primary source for new ideas, thereby "uniting people through a musical art."
They're searching for a new leader with a strong background in nonprofit management, not to mention someone interested in "Igniting a passion for handbells and handchimes." They'll pay $80,000 a year plus benefits - and you don't even have to know how to play handbells!
Maybe I'll apply. Then again, it doesn't exactly match my resume. Hmm. The search may just have to continue a little while longer.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 2:00 PM
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February 8, 2006
Something to Put On My Business Card
I was just perusing the Social Software Blog and noticed that Marshall Kirkpatrick described me as a "world traveling social justice multi media activist."
World traveling social justice multi media activist. I like that. Wonder if it'll fit on my business card.
Thanks, Marshall. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 3:58 PM
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February 1, 2006
Tamarins, Marmosets and Me: Tackling a Weighty Problem
I'm scared to get on the scale.
I'm absolutely convinced I've put on some pounds in the last few months. It's not just all the bad things I ate over the holidays; there's something else going on, and I don't like it. But at least I have a scapegoat for my woes: pregnancy.
No, silly, I'm not pregnant. But Susanne is. We've known about the pregnancy since November, and in the last few weeks, she's really began to show, belly-wise. Meanwhile, I've been feeling like I've been putting on the pudge over the same period of time. Was the problem that I was eating the extra calories in tandem with Susanne? Sometimes, perhaps, but certainly not always. When she has a craving for a root beer float, for example, I support her by drinking a diet root beer while she enjoys the real thing with some Ben & Jerry's floating on top. (Usually, at least. I'm trying.) So her change in diet might account for some of this sympathetic weight gain, but not the whole kit and kaboodle.
Of course, it's often said that men put on weight while their wives/partners are pregnant, but it's not well documented scientifically. Today's online edition of New Scientist, though, sheds some light on why I'm having a hell of a time shedding off those extra pounds.
According to the article, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison National Primate Research Center have discovered that the males of certain primate species gain weight while their mates are pregnant. The scientists studied pairs of common marmosets and cotton top tamarins, measuring their weight during the females' gestation period. The males gained weight, even though they weren't given access to additional food.
Tamarins, Marmosets & Me: Destined for sympathetic weight gain?
Photos of tamarin and marmoset courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Photo of me courtesy of me.
What's causing all this weight gain? The scientists suspect the hormone known as prolactin. In females, increased prolactin leads to breast milk production, among other changes. For males, prolactin output causes weight gain.
"Our earlier studies showed that prolactin levels increase in males halfway through pregnancy, when the females experience a hike in corticosterone - a hormone involved in sending and receiving pheromones," she added. "We know that prolactin promotes paternal care from studies in birds, where higher levels of the hormone cause the fathers to feed the chicks more often, but we don't know what other roles it has in primates or humans."
"But marmoset and tamarind males are excellent fathers and remain monogamous for life, so it could help explain what biological changes are necessary in humans to produce a good dad," Zeigler concluded.
So maybe these extra pounds are Mother Nature's way of forecasting that I'm going to be an excellent father. Then again, maybe she's just annoyed that our cat Winston spends more time sleeping on our treadmill than I spend running on it.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 1:50 PM
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January 18, 2006
Fun With Vending Machines
It never ceases to amaze me how creative people can get when it comes to dispensing things from vending machines. Sure, we see vending machines selling soda, snacks and gum all the time, but why stop there?
Here are some of the more interesting vending machines that have come into my email/rss in-box in recent months:
Open Source Software. Here's a sweet machine I saw at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis. It's like a regular old vending machine, except it burns open source programs for you. Called the Freedom Toaster, the vending machine is strictly BYOCD: Bring Your Own CD-Rom. You plug in your blank CD, select which open source tools you want, and it burns them to your disk. Almost a dozen Freedom Toasters have been deployed around South Africa. I imagine it won't be long before commercially-minded vendors start doing the same thing with proprietary software; wouldn't it be nice to run down the street and grab a Coke and the latest version of Mac OSX on your way to work?
iPods. Playlist has an interesting article about an iPod vending machine at the San Francisco Argent Hotel. Technically, it's not a vending machine - it's a Zoom Shop, according to the company that designed it. But it's basically a cross between an ATM machine and a vending machine. You swipe you credit card, peruse the available items, and make your purchase. In this particular case, you can select from various iPod models and accessories, including noise-reduction head phones. A nice idea; I wonder if the machine takes coins.
Eggs. Yes, I know it's not exactly high-tech, but why not? PhotoMann has been keeping track of funky Japanese vending machines for some time, but my favorite is still the egg vending machine. Considering there are vending machines that dispense hot food, I wonder if it could whip up an omelette for you? Just don't rattle and shove the machine in case your eggs get stuck. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 1:51 PM
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January 14, 2006
Welcome Back, Stardust
For those of you nightowls located in the northwest US, I hope you get a chance to poke your heads outside around 1:50am Pacific time. That's when the NASA comet probe Stardust is expected to make its return entry through the atmosphere before landing in the Nevada desert. If all goes well, it'll be the brightest object in the sky, and should be visible for around 10 minutes. The only catch is that you'll need to be in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Nevada or northern California to spot it. Given the crappy weather that's been plaguing the northwest as of late, it may take a fair share of luck for the cloud cover to clear; nevertheless, it's a great opportunity for astronomy geeks. Too bad that northeasterners are out of luck for this one.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 2:29 PM
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January 13, 2006
Here's Your Chance to Conceive the 300 Millionth American!
According to a New York Times story today, U.S. census experts believe that the 300 millionth American will be born some time in October.
More specifically, the article says that census researchers believe the US population to be at just below 297,900,000 as of yesterday. Given the fact that a baby is born in the US every eight seconds, someone dies every 12 seconds and someone immigrates every 31 seconds, that puts us on track to surpass the 300 million population mark sometime in October, just over nine months from today. This means now's your chance to conceive that baby and make demographic history. Better get cracking, people. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 12:21 PM
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September 8, 2005
No RSS=Kiss of Death?
"If you don't have an RSS feed, you're already dead to me."
- Mal Watlington, during drinks last night with Brian Russell of AudioActivism.org, Susan Kaup and the crew from Podcast.com
Posted by acarvin at 3:14 PM | Comments (1)
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July 26, 2005
Mandatory Web Filtering to Fight Temptation?
Each day driving into downtown Accra I pass the Fighting Temptations Internet Cafe. I wish I had time to visit; would love to find out if they filter Internet access as a way to be true to their name. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 11:39 AM
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June 20, 2005
Apparently I'm More Like Liam Neeson Than I Realized
Susanne just sent me a link from one of my favorite blogs, Dienekes' Anthropology Blog, which I must have missed in my recent travels. It's the Star Wars Personality Test, a hilarious spoof on online personality tests. As the Star Wars theme plays in the background, you're asked questions like "If you had to kill a Star Trek fan, what method would you use?" "What is your relationship with your father?" and "How hairy are you?"
As it turns out, both Susanne and I had the same results (a bit puzzling in one aspect, as I am hairy and she is not). Both of us were associated with Qui-Gon Jinn, Liam Neeson's Jedi character. While I thoroughly approved of the description of this personality type, it's admittedly a buzz kill to realize that you're being compared to a character that only appeared in The Phantom Menace. So it goes, I guess... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 2:25 PM
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April 25, 2005
Grandpa's Matzah Brei Recipe
Now that Passover is in its full swing, I thought I'd share Grandpa's Matzah Brei recipe.
Maztah Brei is essentially french toast made with matzah. My grandfather had two recipes, one for a drier, flakier brei, the other a more hardy, omelette-like brei. Both are wonderful for any meal.
Matzah Brie Ingredients:
Two squares plain matzah
two eggs or egg substitute
cooking spray
Maple syrup (or whatever else you as a condiment)
salt and pepper
If you prefer to make the heavier, omelette-like matzah brie, begin by taking the matzah and soaking them in a bowl of warm water for two minutes, then drain. If you prefer the flakier matzah brie, skip the soaking process.
Crush the matzah into small pieces, but not too small. (How's that for specific?) Think no smaller than one inch square, or three centimeters square if you prefer the metric system. In other words, break it up but don't pulverize it.
Whip up the eggs in a small bowl, then incorporate them with the matzah. Let it sit for a few minutes so the matzah will absorb the egg. Add a dash of salt and pepper; you can also throw in a bit of cinammon.
Coat a large pan with cooking spray and then bring it to high heat. When the pan is hot, add matzah mixture and turn heat down to medium. If you've soaked your matzah, allow it to cook as a large omelette and turn when it begins to brown, cooking it as desired. If you've used dry matzah, stir fry the mixture as you would with scrambled eggs, and serve when brown. Goes well with maple syrup. Enjoy! -andy
Posted by acarvin at 10:50 AM
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February 18, 2005
Tsunami Reveals Pieces of Mahabalipuram's Past
Last December following the tsunami I posted a blog entry about the town of Mahabalipuram in southern India, which I had visited in 1996 to marvel at its famous Shore Temple. It turns out that the tsunami did more than claim lives in Mahabalipuram, though; according to an AP wire story today, the tsunami uncovered remnants of the civilization that thrived in the area 1,300 years ago. The giant waves washed away centuries of sand and dirt, revealing a number of structures covered in animal carvings, very similar to the bas-relief carvings that can be found further inland in Mahabalipuram. British travelers who visited Mahabalipuram hundreds of years ago reported seeing seven ancient pagodas along the shore; it appears that the remains of some of these pagodas may have emerged from their long, sandy sleep. -ac
Posted by acarvin at 9:41 AM
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February 16, 2005
A Humanitarian Diet?
Quote of the day:
"Here's something that's been puzzling me. If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?"- Fred Kanter, in the The New York Times
Thanks to Andrea Taylor for sharing.... -ac
Posted by acarvin at 12:32 PM
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December 20, 2004
Redefining the French Horn
For those of you who doubt the important role that French musicians have played in the history of classical music, I offer you this retort, courtesy of the Icelandic website hugi.is. The French horn is forever transformed.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 10:21 PM
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October 28, 2004
Red Sox Win!!!!!!
They did it! The curse is reversed, the ghost of Ruth nailed back in his coffin -- the Red Sox have won their first World Series in 86 years. I am truly overwhelmed.
It's just after 1am, and my neighborhood is rumbling: half a dozen helicopters hovering overhead, thousands of people carrying brooms and signs marching towards Kenmore Square.
Once again, Susanne and I watched the game at An Tua Nua, an Irish bar just a few blocks from Fenway Park. The bar was packed with probably 500 people, most of them college students covered in Soxware. For four hours, we parked ourselves in front of a giant projection screen, cheering and yelling and screaming and hooting with the mob. Up until the sixth or seventh inning, I tried to keep my reserve and not get my hopes up, even though everything seemed to be going our way. But as soon as several guys brought out their brooms and started to sweep the floor in unison, we all knew this would indeed be the night. A sweep to end all sweeps, a win to end nine decades of frustration and despair.
The crowd erupted with increasing enthusiasm with each successive out. When the game finally finished, the bar exploded: 500 people simultaneously jumping for joy, awash in beer and tears and hugs and cellphones. I have never seen so many frat boys sob with joy.
We stormed out of the bar and hit the streets. Hundreds of people were already outside the bar, streaming east towards Kenmore Square. We joined the throngs of ecstatic fans, following one tall redhead carrying a broom with pride. Reaching the square, we found ourselves with a bagpiper, playing Scottish jigs and Queen songs as the crowd cheered him on.
The hundreds turned to thousands; the thousands became tens of thousands. Susanne and I soon got split up in the crowd. Within moments there were 20,000 people between the two of us; there was no point in trying to find each other.
I looked up in the sky and was blinded by three, four, five, eight floodlights pouring down from the helicopters. People were climbing the fences along the overpass, yelling into their cell phones, high-fiving everyone who passed by. A young woman thrusts a cigar in my face; I take a puff and smile as it was yanked from me, vanishing into the crowd. Three guys jump from a lamp post on top of us, surfing the crowd until a cop gave one of them a polite warning jab in the thigh.
Cops were everywhere, lining the streets, blocking Yawkey Way and Brookline Ave. I was in a bottleneck, squeezed amongst thousands of cheering people. It was exhilarating, scary, thrilling, the most magical moment. I was in the center of the universe.
Knowing I couldn't go any further down Brookline Ave, I turned around and joined a chain of college students, locked arm in arm like an elephant parade, allowing the momentum of the mob suck them through the crowd. Everywhere else was deadlock, gridlock, a crush of humanity, but somehow I slid through the mass, ducking as a tall man fell from a signpost, having been swatted by another cop. To the left, I heard someone yell "Pepper spray!" and people lurched forward, trying to get out of the way. A young man fell to the ground, clutching his eyes.
Taking advantage of the sudden momentum, I moved towards the Uno's restaurant, which was boarded up with plywood. A group of cops in riot gear guarded the entrance, gingerly pushing the crowd whenever it lurched towards them.
"Thank you for doing your job," a group of students said to them; another group chanted, "Please don't shoot us! Please don't shoot us!"
There might have been 100,000 people in the square by 12:30am; thousands more continued to stream from Brookline. I'd been separated from Susanne for at least 30 minutes, and decided I better rendezvous at home, as had been our plan.
I made my way through the crowd in fits and starts; eventually the crowd thinned, and I was able to walk the three blocks back to our apartment.
Feeding the cats two hours past their dinner time, I watched in amazement as Fox Sports replayed the last moments of the game while showing a small-screen image of the crowds at Kenmore. The helicopters continue to hover overhead, Jimmy Fallon is having an ecstatic breakdown on live TV; Susanne has made her way home.
I can't believe I've been able to type this; my hands are still shaking with excitement. The Red Sox won the World Series. Hell has frozen over, and life is so, so sweet.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 1:38 AM
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October 20, 2004
More Robots!
A new report from the UN suggests that the number of robots will increase sevenfold by 2007. I better start saving up for six more Roombas, then... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 9:41 AM
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October 17, 2004
Tissa Hami and the Ramadan Song
The BBC website has an article about a group of Muslim stand-up comics who recently staged a show in South Carolina. The trio of comics brought the house down with their unique humor, a combination of religious inside jokes ("So there was this guy praying next to me at the Mosque...") and witty critiques of the post-September 11 landscape.
The most interesting comic of the bunch is an Iranian-American woman named Tissa Hami, who hits the stage sporting a full-length black hijab (though she breaks the ice with the audience by saying she sometimes sports a slightly shorter hijab when she's feeling kind of "slutty"). Hami has even penned a take-off of Adam Sandler's "Hanukkah Song," appropriately titled "The Ramadan Song." Here's a taste of it:
When you feel like the only kid in town without a menorah or treeHere’s a list of people who are Muslim just like you and me
Mohammad Ali prays toward Mecca
So does Aladdin, and my sister’s best friend Becca
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar gives praise to Allah
So does much of Africa but not Nelson Mandela
When you’re down on your knees, tired of praying on the floor
Remember you were once joined by Tupac Shakur
Who needs the Dreidel Song or Winter Wonderland?
When you can sing along with the American Taliban (he converted)
Put your turban on, it’s time for Ramadan
Jerry Lewis has a telethon, it’s time to celebrate Ramadan
Martha Stewart, not a Muslim
If she wore a burka, it would really really puzzle’em...
It turns out that Tissa Hami is based here in Boston, and is about to start a stint as the comic-in-residence at The Comedy Studio in Cambridge. I may have to check her out while she's performing there; it's not often you get to see a new cultural thread get woven into the fabric of American comedy.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 9:45 AM
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September 28, 2004
New DNA Study Suggests Men Got Around
A new DNA study by population geneticist Michael Hammer suggests that half as many men as women have contributed to the world's gene pool since the dawn of humanity.
Hammer and his research partners examined the DNA of three geographically separated groups -- the Khoisan of southern Africa, the Khalks of Mongolia and the highlanders of Papua New Guinea. More specifically, they looked at each group's Y chromosome DNA, inherited from father to son, and their mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), inherited from mother to child. The test results showed that over the millennia, a very small group of men contributed their DNA to these populations, compared with a much larger group of women. In other words, there was more genetic diversity amongst the mtDNA inherited from their mothers than the Y chromosomes they inherited from their fathers.
This would suggest, with each passing generation, a small group of men managed to impregnate multiple women. Additionally, the reseachers found that male DNA traveled over greater distances than the female DNA, conjuring images of randy sailors on shore leave, or mysterious jet-setting men with attractive foreign accents making the rounds. More likely, they suggest, it means that women have similar criteria for what they find as suitable mates, and only a subset of men in any given generation managed to fit this criteria, so these guys took advantage of it.
I find the results fascinating, not only because it'll provide great fodder for late-night TV comics, but because the research results contrast to what was found in a similar study on Jewish populations. In that study, researchers found a rather different effect: that far fewer women have contributed their DNA to the modern Jewish population than ancient non-Jewish women did for modern non-Jewish populations. According to that research, published two years ago in the American Journal of Human Genetics, there is strikingly less mtDNA genetic diversity amongst Jewish populations than there is compared with the mtDNA found in surrounding non-Jewish communities. In fact, the study even suggests that as few as eight different sources of particular mtDNA mutations -- ie, eight different women if you go back far enough -- contributed mtDNA to these modern Jewish populations. This wouldn't mean that those eight women had a lot of children with different fathers and their female children did the same, but it suggests that at some point in Jewish history, there was a population bottleneck, and survivors with these eight mtDNA patterns managed to survive the bottleneck more successfully than others. Perhaps more men survived the bottleneck than women, as well.
This probably won't mean much to most of you, but I'm totally fascinated by this stuff. Four years ago I was one of the first guys able to get access to commercial DNA testing to participate in Professor Hammer's research, particularly in the area of Jewish males inheriting what's known in the popular press as the Cohen gene. Hammer discovered that a majority of Jewish males brought up to believe an oral tradition that their ancestors were heriditary high priests (Cohens) at the Temple of Solomon shared a common Y chromosome pattern dating from the biblical period. Meanwhile, Jewish males who were raised to believe they descended from other patrilineal lines were far less likely to carry this gene. The Torah says that the children of Aaron, Moses' brother, became the high priests of the temple, and passed it down to their sons, and Hammer's research was the first to suggest that there may be some truth to this. I was raised to believe my family came from the high priests, and indeed, my DNA test confirmed I carry the Cohen gene.
Meanwhile, my mtDNA, which I inherited from my mother, carries a pattern found less commonly in Jewish populations, and even rarer in European populations (For those of you keeping score, my mtDNA pattern, abbreviated as 126c 362c, is part of a family of mtDNA patterns called the Pre-HV1 Haplotype, in case someone asks you.) Interestingly, this mtDNA pattern of mine pops up with high frequency amongst Bedouin Arabs, Yemenis, Ethiopians and even Nubians. The only part of Europe that finds this mtDNA in any significant number is southern Spain, which of course was once dominated by an Arab population. Does this mean one of my ancestor's on my mother's side was really a Bedouin or an Ethiopian and married into a Jewish family? Maybe, but not necessarily. It's more likely that the pattern first appeared in a female ancestor of mine thousands of years before Jews or Israelites became a specific ethnic group, perhaps somewhere in the Arabian peninsula around 20,000 years ago, and eventually their descendents formed one of the tribes that became the first clans of Israelites. Unfortunately, there's no paper trail, so there's no way we'll ever really know. Makes for great cocktail conversation, though.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 10:33 AM
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December 10, 1994
Grandma's Chicken Soup and Kneidlach Recipe
Here is my 81-year-old grandmother's recipe for chicken soup and kneidlach, aka matzah balls, which research has already proven to cure everything from colds to gout to high gas prices. I'm substituting vegetable oil for shmaltz, but otherwise it's the same recipe. It's still really simple and really good - comfort food at its finest.
Soup Ingredients:
One large chicken
2 lbs. carrots, chopped
1 lb. celery, chopped
salt and pepper
extra chicken stock
Preparing the soup:
Fill large pot w/ about two gallons of water. Bring to a boil, add chicken and about half of the carrots and all of the celery to the pot. Lower heat to a simmer, let cook for about 45 minutes. Carefully remove chicken and place on cutting board, let cool for a few minutes.
Meanwhile, scoop up enough boiled carrots and celery and place them into a blender. Fill blender about two-thirds of the way up. Puree vegetables, then return the blend to the pot.
Debone chicken and chop up large chunks of meat. Return chicken and large bones to pot, discard smaller bones. Add remaining carrots. Simmer for another hour, adding extra stock as water level drops. Salt and pepper to taste.
Kneidlach Ingredients
one cup matzah meal
one tablespoon light oil
four eggs, separated
salt and pepper
Preparing the kneidlach:
Whip up the whites of the four eggs until they become frothy (the more you whip, the fluffier your kneidlach will be). Add oil and egg yolks, whip some more. Incorporate matzah meal and one teaspoon of salt and pepper each. If you like firm kneidlach, place the batter in a refrigerator for about 20-30 minutes. If you like them really light (floaters), skip the fridge and go to the next step.
Scoop a small sample of mixture (less than a teaspoon) and drop into boiling water or soup. After several minutes, remove the test kneidlach and taste. Add more salt and pepper to the entire mixture, if desired. Or, if you trust my recipe, skip the test and move on.
To make the kneidlach, wet your hands with water to keep your fingers from sticking. Then, make matzah balls about one inch in diameter by rolling a scoops of mixture in your hands. Drop balls into liquid, then cook for at least 30 minutes. The kneidlach should double in size if all goes well.
Tags: chicken soup | grandma | kneidl | kneidlach | matzah balls | recipe
Posted by acarvin at 11:41 AM
