Date with Grace: Reverse facestalking

I wonder if Grace knows about this?

Sydney facebookers can try to woo blondeshell Grace Carter by petitioning the event page. If she likes your “vibe” and your offer on the RSVP, she’ll go out with you. Could be more authentic than Kate’s Party.

I stumbled across this through a sponsored ad, so I don’t know if this venture is actually cheaper than more conventional internet hook up websites (unless it was free trial advertising).

Would be suitors, might be wise to check Grace Carter’s personal profile, she has a tattoo (not that there’s anything wrong with that*), has a gambling problem (likes “Winning at Life”), and perhaps has a thing for 2 girls: 1 cup^ (likes “Heaps of Shit” & “Authentic Shit”). If that appeals and you’re African (likes “Kenya” and “Oxfam”) who likes taking your gurl “to da movies” and random yet public internet hookups, go for it tiger!

*plus, at least it’s not a tramp stamp

^if you don’t know, you don’t want to know

Surf safe strategy #8

moar funny pictures

Original picture: mine from flickr. Taken at Bondi Beach, Sydney.

Linkdump and run

So tomorrow, having had recovered from the last few days of furious drinking, running and cleaning, I’ll be making the almost 1000km drive up the Pacific Highway back to Brisbane (in an awesome big red shiny car*).

So here is a quick linkdump to keep you amused – until I get housing, employment and classes fixed posting may become even more irregular than usual. Bear with me, on the positive side, I should be able to amp up the quality of my posts as I will now be (A) student with nothing better to do, (B) be in a better mood than recent months.

• I think this experiment explains why I think physics is insane and will cause your head to explode (you have been warned)
• With biology you get to have fun without creating a paradox that causes your brain to explode. Check out the TimeTree of Life. It’s always difficult frustrating to trawl through various papers that ultimately disagree on at least some level as to when certain clades diverged. This neat tool pretty much indexes all the relevant papers and can pop out divergence times at the click of the button, complete with reference. Protip: check that the name you are using refers to what you think it does (I had trouble when I used Echidna to represent Monotremata)
• Need to buy something in private?
• The future is NOW… in a bookstore near you
• I wonder if I would get in trouble for printing this out and taping it to a classroom wall?
• Are you a scoftic? You know who you are Mr Nobody-Needs-Vitamins
• via The Scientist’s forums – awesome stem cell micrograph flickr gallery
• Some of you may have seen this awesome optical illusion – but check out the examples of it in action by commentor Grand Dizzy – here, here, here, here and here

*FACT: Red ones go faster

Image credit: explodingdog

Insert Psyschedelic Tortoise Fantasy Sequence … here

Was afraid of going over my internet cap this week, so played around with GIMP to distract myself (okay, maybe I could have turned off the computer…)

This is a mash of several photos I’ve taken this year.

It’s Alive in Sydney: Goanna

Big Fat Goanna 002, originally uploaded by zayzayem.

This big fat fella was found in Lane Cove National Park, the same weekend as the waterdragon I posted a while ago.

It’s Alive in Sydney: My own private taxonomy fail

Just so that we are clear I’m not afraid of kickin’ my own moronic ass sometimes.

I thought I was all clever adding this picture to an Agamid group in Flickr as a bearded dragon:

Turns out it is Physignathus lesueurii lesueuri, an Eastern Waterdragon. If I’d paid any attention, I should have noticed the complete absence of beard.

I saw this little fella, and a few more (and a massive goanna, coming up) along Lane Cove River, in the Lane Cove National Park in North Ryde/Macquarie Park.

Thank you Jen 64 for pointing out my error. More on identifying subspecies of waterdragon over at Australian National Botanic Gardens website – note the face stripe goes eye-to-ear in this critter, distinguishing it from the Gippsland sub-species, you can also see some of the red underbelly if you look hard  (plus it was taken in Sydney, not Gippsland)

It’s Alive in Sydney: Mystery Bug

A crawly bug I spotted on a sign in the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney.

It was so white, I wasn’t sure if it had been accidentally covered in paint (under the outer plates still looked dark).

Pope’s likeness too scary for Sydney streets (or not)

Where it all started.

At last years World Youth Day a fake popemobile was used at a  No To Pope Coalition rally. More details on that and other activities can be found at WorldTruthDay.org

Ian is returning to court this week to combat the charges of “having a roof ornament likely to distract motorists”.

He’s being defended by the NSW Council for Civil Liberties.

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UPDATE: All charges dropped.

You can still visit WorldTruthDay.org or SydneyAtheists to get more information and discuss freethought activities in Sydney .

It’s Alive in Sydney: Sexy legs, sees

A millipede on a rock – in Badangi Reserve on the Lower North Shore of Sydney.

Taking this photo with a flash prompted me to ask Alex Wild (currently featured at SciBorg’s Photo Synthesis) if flash photography can harm or distress insects and other invertebrates. His answer – not that he knows*.

This critter did not curl up and die afterwards, at least not that I saw, so my conscience feels fine.

More millipede shots below the fold as I tested my camera out in the field.

It’s Alive in Sydney: Skink

I can’t remember if I mentioned my new camera purchase.

A Fujifilm FinePix S2000HD. It was a little more than what I was planning on purchasing, but I got a good deal on a ex-display stock.

Now, I have a flickr account to go along with it. And thanks to my dad, it’s now an unlimited pro account, which is good seeing as though it took 48 hours to fill up the complementary storage.

Here’s the first in a series of critters taken around a Sydney.

Tiffany Day – two weeks late

Tiffany Day was January 6.

I’m sure she’ll be relieved to know (Although, St Tiffany was a guy, and his feast day was November 24)

Tiffany totally forgot to mention any of this when she was interviewed last Thursday’s Eve. Disappointed…

In her interview Tiffany confesses her thirst for blood, blames her father and wonders why anyone is interested in her at all.

To predict your next question – Tiffany is an astronomy student, Macquarie skeptic and contributor to the popular The Skeptic Zone podcast (and also a judo Olympian from Queensland. aha! Google has betrayed your secrets to me). She’s even available on a T-shirt. And hopefully she doesn’t find this blog post in any way disturbing.

Fun fact: Tiffany can either mean “manifestation of God”  from Greek, or “thin veil” or “gauze” in Old Middle English. Thanks, internets.

Aussie uni students live up to stereotypes

Arts majors are easy sluts.
Science students mostly virgins.

Can you guess which headline The Australian went with?

These two conclusions are based on repsonses from 185 students from the University of Sydney .

The study also found that those more sexually active students were less knowledgable about risks, namely chlamydia, associated with their behaviour. Perhaps those knowedgeable about chlamydia were less likely to have sex. Bliss in ignorance? Well, maybe in the short run.

Non-religion gets organised

Sydney Atheists now has a website.

It has yet to include any good recipes containing babies or kittens – though that could be because of the amount vegetarians in their midst.

A brief sketch of recent activities by the Sydney Atheists group from World Youth Day to the Newtown Festival can be found at Critical Mass.

Mo-tivation

Forget Novel-writing. NMovember is about growing moustaches for charity.

Click here to Sponsor my Moustache: Funds will be dispersed by the Movember Foundation of Australia to assist with men’s health campaigns by Beyond Blue and the Prostate Cancer Society of Australia.

From Strange World Goats:

Moustache Fighting was invented by the Sandinistas in 1967. Guerilla cells would often be isolated in the jungle for months at a time with no way to communicate with Liberation Front leaders. Moustache Fighting was the natural way to resolve disputes amongst soldiers and establish leadership hierarchies.

The Revolucion needs funding.

Multi-purpose microwave

I love that the microwave in my new place doubles as a grill/oven. I swear it’s almost like I moved back to Japan.

I will be able to make enchildas! and nachos! and potato bake! yum!

On the topic of microwaves with multiple purposes:

The internet does not fail simultaneously amuse and disturb .