Now that's a freight train. Not that I encounter many freight trains, but that's the first time I've seen "mid-train helper" engines. I guess it makes sense to put a few engines in the middle rather than having them all at the front, for going around curves. (Or is there some other reason?)

I also liked the contrast between the feeling of wide-open emptiness that a huge freight train evokes and the very urban graffiti on the boxcars.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 7:29 AM on June 30, 2008

pjern, thank you for your helpful and interesting explanation. #2 and #3 explain why the helpers are in the middle, but for #1, wouldn't it have been easier to put the helpers at the front instead of shunting cars around to stick the helpers in the middle? Or put them at the rear where they could push? Seems like stopping the train and shuffling cars around would cost a lot of time.

I'm not a train nerd but I love the big beasts. I ride Caltrain to work... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 9:59 AM on June 30, 2008

anthill and pjern, that's some great footage! It's neat that some railroads are sentimental enough to keep a few steam engines running, even neater that the engines occasionally do some real work in addition to carrying tourists around.

Since that thread is closed (and I missed it first time around, drat!) can we continue the discussion of a steam revival here? Especially since oil prices have gone even higher in the meantime ...

The energy... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 2:00 PM on June 30, 2008

Compared to the Union Pacific monsters, that Swiss engine is a tea kettle. It belongs on Cute Overload!

The comments in this thread are really neat - trains, especially steam trains, seem to bring out the poetry in everyone. In particular I loved bonaldi's lonesome whistle, sonascope's mechanical thunder and bitslayer's secret symphony. It's often the sound of trains that's so evocative; once in a blue moon I hear a train's horn at night, far away,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 10:18 PM on June 30, 2008

Very nice. Bookmarked. Thanks, netbros!
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 1:16 PM on June 29, 2008

I'm proud to say I did the best gookie of any girl in my elementary school. Haven't done it in about 40 years, but I just threw a gookie in the bathroom mirror and I must say the half-frame reading glasses actually enhance it. Yeah, I still got the touch.

*smirks, then throws another gookie for good measure*
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 7:11 PM on June 28, 2008

ZachsMind: one sees two gookies, for twice the awesome.
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 10:30 AM on June 29, 2008

Glad to see the exhibits at SFO are getting some serious approval. Every one I've seen has been interesting, attractive, and far better than it needs to be, given that people waiting around for flights would be grateful to look at just about anything. It's definitely one of the more pleasant airports to kill time in, thanks to these exhibits.
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 6:28 PM on June 12, 2008

Thanks, flapjax! Your posts on music and history are always enjoyable and informative. I didn't know there was a hobo legend that the Wabash Cannonball got going so fast it eventually shot off into outer space - maybe NASA should keep an eye out for it.

Hey, do you take requests? Could you do something like this for "House of the Rising Sun"? That's a great old song with some interesting history, especially the male/female versions.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 2:02 PM on June 7, 2008

Delightful! The illusion of a floating bubble is just beautiful!

I was wondering what the ball is made of, since he makes it look weightless, but leibniz says it's heavy acrylic. Even more impressive.
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 7:16 AM on June 6, 2008

Metafilter: Ten tons of industrial-grade fake.
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 7:17 AM on May 28, 2008

*cautiously hopeful*
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 12:08 PM on May 15, 2008

Hi rtha, I'm heterosexually married and if anybody wrecks my marriage, it will probably be me. Or Hubby. So I'm not really feeling that Gay Power of yours (sorry to burst your bubble there), but maybe if you go back to City Hall and get re-married... ;)

Anyway, I hope we get to keep this step forward. And congratulations in advance to our future gay newlyweds!
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 1:34 PM on May 15, 2008

Hmm, that "experiment for straight couples" is pretty much how I live my life anyway. No photos (or personal tchotchkes of any sort) in my cubicle, never bought a wedding ring because stuff on my hands annoys me, Hubby lives in a different city so there's rarely any need for "we" in my conversation, never got any joint bank accounts to begin with, don't hold hands or go for any other PDAs because we're both of a rather cool and reserved temperament ... It's a little hard... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 9:04 PM on May 6, 2008

Is "sweetie" too corny? That's how Hubby and I referred to each other before we got married. As in "I'd like to introduce my sweetie ..." It was partly tongue in cheek, partly serious, and it got the point across. I'd think it would be a pretty good one-size-fits-all term, so feel free to use it with my compliments and best wishes!

DNAB's username was even hotter when it was DN Bagel Boy. That was before I got new... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 6:34 PM on May 8, 2008

Aww, sweet post. Tales of the City was my introduction to San Francisco when I moved here in 1988. A fellow postdoc loaned me the first book on my first day in the lab, with stern instructions to read it ASAP. Neither of us are gay, but he said it was essential reading for anyone who wanted to understand SF and I was instantly hooked. It captured the engaging open-mindedness and tolerance I noticed (having just moved here from Baltimore, which had a strong redneck streak)... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 9:55 AM on May 4, 2008

Neat! I've seen glow worms in a cave, paddled a becalmed catamaran through sparkling dinoflagellates, and of course admired fireflies on hot summer nights, but I had no idea there were luminescent mushrooms. That is downright trippy. Thanks for the cool post!
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 7:59 PM on April 28, 2008

I'd love to see pictures of the insides of these places. Some, like the Cactus House, are probably fairly conventional, but those tilted cubes must make for some interesting living spaces. I hope they come with built-in furniture, because most furniture assumes straight walls perpendicular to the floor. Weird curves and angles would make for a lot of wasted space. Nonetheless, I bet it would be fun to live in one (except for those dangling treehouses, which would make me seasick treesick... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 8:43 AM on April 27, 2008

My favorite memory of Kai Tak was coming in around 9 pm and looking out the airplane window into some dude's apartment and seeing what he was watching on TV. He didn't even look away from the tube.
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 7:19 AM on April 24, 2008

The mosquitos don't stand a chance against the awesome dudes in the second link! I had the good fortune to see a special performance of Samoan dancing at Aggie Grey's Hotel in 1988; the hotel offers a weekly dance show for guests but that evening a TV crew was filming so the dancers went all out for the cameras. (Apparently the dancers are all hotel employees and seem to really enjoy this part of their job.) The show is held in the hotel's poolside fale, a traditional... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 12:23 PM on April 20, 2008

Phooey! You couldn't have waited till I sent Zimmer a picture of mine? I was planning to do that this weekend and now you've gone and sp- sp- spoiled everything!

*sobs*

But seriously, these are great and it's nice to see I'm in good company (lump me in with the chemists - mine's a molecular structure). Clearly, though, paleontologists have an unfair advantage here. And that wetland ecologist's design is gorgeous, even unfinished.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 7:32 AM on April 8, 2008

Well, if anybody's still reading this thread, mine's now up on Zimmer's blog.

*glares at Blazecock Pileon but would be placated by addition of "biochemistry" tag*
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 8:30 PM on April 14, 2008

Aww ...

*blows kisses at BP*
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 5:24 PM on April 18, 2008

Interesting comment, bonehead. How about an FPP on this? This whole area is fascinating (thanks for the post, caddis!) and biofuels + hydrogen fuel cells = exponential awesomeness.
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 12:32 PM on April 18, 2008

.
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 7:11 PM on April 14, 2008

What grubi said. Farewell to a courageous lady.
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 7:15 AM on April 10, 2008

Hmm, hadjiboy, is this post an indication that you're reading up for your trip to the USA to study diner culture?
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 11:57 AM on April 9, 2008

I came for the link, which was bad enough, and stayed for the comments, which had tears of laughter rolling down my face. Thanks, jonson et al, for some delightfully awful ink.

Hello Jesus Kitty? How do people even come up with stuff like that?
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 8:32 PM on April 8, 2008

Great post, hadjiboy! As a former East Coaster I remember diners fondly. Jersey diners may rule but I have to stick up for a few joints in New York City. The best lemonade I ever had was at a Greek diner in Manhattan where they threw big chunks of lemon into a milkshake blender that beat the chunks around without actually puréeing them, so the intensely flavored oils from the skin were released into the liquid. It was turbo-lemon bliss on a hot humid day.

So,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 11:44 AM on March 29, 2008

Well, hadjiboy, you need to start planning your trip to the USA to check out some classic diners. Unfortunately that means you'll be stuck in New Jersey a lot *ducks and cheerfully flips the bird right back at MeFi's Jersey contingent* but at least you'll be well fed. And when you can actually start to hear your arteries clogging, head on out to SF, where we don't have decent diners, for a nice healthy salad.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 8:54 PM on March 30, 2008

Wonderful!
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 8:40 AM on March 30, 2008

Thanks for this post! There are some great resources for DoReMeFi, the unofficial MetaFilter Glee Club (next rehearsal is this Tuesday in Redwood City, CA, if you're interested in joining us). I've been looking around for scores we could sing and there's lots of stuff in the post and comments that I hadn't found yet. Keep 'em coming!

Huh, now I see you've linked to the MeTa post announcing our formation. Aw, shucks!

*blushes, sticks hands... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 6:52 AM on March 28, 2008

How long do shock diamonds persist in the sky? I think I saw some a few seconds after hearing a sonic boom (at least, that's what I thought I heard) and of course the aircraft was no longer in sight.

In 1989 I was on Nikumaroro, an uninhabited island in the central Pacific that didn't seem to be under any normal flight paths. There wasn't anything else around that would have made such a bang, but it didn't sound like the sonic booms I remembered from the late 1960s... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 8:20 PM on March 21, 2008

One of my friends is a diver and amateur paleontologist and he finds lots of cool fossils off Venice Beach. He gave me a C. megalodon tooth which is the size of my palm. It's so wickedly big and evil-looking, it even impresses adolescent boys. That, my friends, is the definition of bad-ass the greatest predator.
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 9:07 AM on March 9, 2008

Awesome! When I was in graduate school, my department had a tradition of putting on a skit at the annual Xmas party, in which students and postdocs roasted the faculty mercilessly (it was our only opportunity to even the score, you see). The 2 years I was in it, the skit was a fairly elaborate musical with satirical lyrics and a few dance numbers. I have to say, the music was a lot better than the dancing, but I got a few comments on the Rockettes-style kick line (maybe because I was wearing... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 8:50 AM on March 9, 2008

I love posts that make me feel dumb. wait, that didn't come out quite right ... Anyway, the probability that I'd ever use any of this is effectively 0, but it's neat to know that mathematicians have come up with all this cool stuff. Some of it, like Fourier transforms, lurks inside the software that drives some of our lab instruments, especially spectrometers of various types, but we don't actually deal with the math.

Other than that, I love... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 7:32 AM on March 5, 2008

Paging LobsterMitten to aisle 69,147 ...

Can somebody help me understand why the first 2 links are funny? Some of Chalmer's stuff made me laugh and I loved the Monty Python sketch, but the other stuff is way too rarified for an empiricist like me. Help?

aw, nevermind - if you have to explain, it just isn't funny anymore
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 7:33 PM on February 16, 2008

I want to be an astronaut too, except I'd never stop barfing. Sigh...
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 2:06 PM on February 10, 2008

That statistic about men crying 1.4x/month, women 5.3x/month seems really high - I wonder where it came from? (The linked article from the San Mateo newspaper wasn't too specific.) Nobody I know cries that much, at least that they'll admit to. And the different styles for men and women (men tear up in silence, women sob noisily) also sounds kinda bogus - it depends on the reason why the person is crying. For a superficial reason (for lack of a better term) like a sad movie or song, a few... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 5:50 PM on February 9, 2008

That octopus is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen! Thanks for posting this!
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 7:17 PM on January 30, 2008

Anybody up for traipsing around San Francisco with me some weekend in February to help out with Project Budburst? MeFiMail me!

*biochemist gets giddy at thought of doing real biology*
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 4:05 PM on January 27, 2008

Can someone explain the physics of why the board follows the skater up into the air? I see how stepping on the tail behind the wheels would make it pivot, but why does it leave the ground? It's almost like it sticks to the skater's shoes when he springs up.
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 9:59 AM on January 27, 2008

Thanks, danb and generalist. I've seen plenty of skaters practicing ollies (now I know what to call them!) and never could figure out what magic they were doing. It's amazing that you could get enough rebound from that tail-stomp to lift the whole board into the air, even though skateboards are pretty springy.

I love watching skaters, in a peeking-through-my-fingers-ow-that's-gonna-hurt-if-he-flubs-it kind of way. This was a fun video - too bad the skaters in my... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 11:06 AM on January 27, 2008

Thanks, Bookhouse - I love this song (I'm a sucker for weepy ballads) and your post prompted me to venture onto YouTube, where I found this lovely version from the Grateful Dead in 1994. Chimps on a burro are one thing, but I prefer to watch Jerry Garcia - such beautiful economy of motion! His fingers barely seem to move, yet the music ripples out lavishly.

I'm off to check out madamjjj's links for more great ballads.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 10:56 AM on January 20, 2008

That blog post was neat - thanks! I love science posts that make me feel a little bit dumb. Builds character, I say.
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 7:15 PM on January 16, 2008

Guys like Fran are great! I love people who hack together crazy stuff just for the joy of it. I wonder if he knows Flip Baber, here on the other side of the bay, who played the "Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy" on bicycle parts. (Although Baber was commissioned by an ad agency, it's still wonderful stuff.)
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 10:34 AM on January 12, 2008

Well, if it's not a gag it smells fishy to me: the site says NodorO is effective against Tinea corporis, which is the red itchy rash known as ringworm. The site only talks about smell, not itchiness. If I had a package o' junk full of ringworm, the itch would be way more crazymaking than a whiff of funk.

I can't believe I climbed this far into the boyzone. Help? Somebody gimme a hand out?... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 9:20 PM on January 10, 2008

Hey folks, this could be the thread that lures quonsar back to MetaFilter. Because of the fish. In his pants.

Now he doesn't have to be all shy about his itchy smelly pantsfish.
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 9:49 PM on January 10, 2008

*cries*
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 7:03 PM on January 4, 2008

Nice find, teleskiving.
posted to MetaFilter by Quietgal at 6:50 PM on January 1, 2008