Science marches on

University of Leicester: Per megabye, text messaging more expensive than Hubble Telescope telemetry 

I wonder if NASA has a family plan.

(via NYT Blogs)

Oh come on!

From the Consumerist:

Banks using $700 billion to buy other banks, not make more loans 

It's hard to say if a bailout was the best way to fix the economy, but it's starting to look like the bailout as implemented definitely wasn't.

Your Tax Dollars at Work

U.S. Army raises possibility of terrorists using Twitter to coordinate attacks 

This just in: Communication services used to communicate.

Woe the thirsty fisherman

Alas, he is no more

For what he thought was H₂O

Was H₂SO₄

Bored

I'm currently at the IC reference desk. I generally avoid blogging while at work, but the IC is as dead as Julius Caesar. I've had maybe three questions in the last two hours, and none of them were reference questions. I am, simply put, bored. My usual bag of tricks has failed me; nobody is on gchat, there's nothing of interest on Facebook, I've read scanned Wikipedia's list of unusual articles for anything I've missed. All nothing. I even tried doing homework, but it turns out we need a book that's on reserve to do it. Not only can I not do the work when I have time, I get to look forward to vying with 20 other people for it. Oh, SLIS. How you mock my time.

 

Oh well. I might be bored, but you don't have to be. Enjoy Wikipedia's article on Burma-shave, a defunct shaving cream brand with an advertising campaign that still leaves ripples in modern culture.

Wikipedia’s list of unusual articles

Available here. You can easily kill a few hours on this page.

It's Wednesday, which is my mid-week weekend: I have no classes today, I eat lunch with friends, and my only responsibility is work at 4PM. I'm pleasantly out of sorts today because I got up early and I'm unused to a whole day's worth of free time. Some of it will end up devoted to homework, but I'm thinking of starting C.S. Lewis's The Four Loves and blogging through that. It's a bit out of season for me–I normally save Four Loves for Valentine's Day reading–but it's been a while since I've read through any of my favorites and I feel the need to remedy that.

Plan 9 from Outer Space

Outstandingly, majestically, sublimely terrible. Watch the whole thing:

Patron Saints listed by topic

Here. 

It makes for interesting reading. A few highlights:

• Verbal and physical spousal abuse have separate patron saints dedicated against them.
• There was a patron saint against explosions, St. Barbara , who was also, reasonably enough, the patron saint against death by artillery. She pulled triple duty in being the patron saint of bomb technicians, a profession I'm surprised to see has only a single patron saint. (Technically it has none now, at least for Roman Catholics: devotion to her was officially suppressed in 1969. However, bomb technicians belonging to the Orthodox tradition will be relieved to note that she retains her status in that branch of the church.)
• Spanish and Italian architects have different patron saints, as do the Bolivian and Chilean navies.
• There are at least four patron saints for disappointing children. I wonder how they pulled that assignment. Well, out of all the people who have to deal with disappointing children, why not saints?
• Polycarp , one of the Apostolic Fathers, is one of the patron saints against dysentery. 
• One of the many things St. Francis of Assissi is the patron saint of is not dying alone.
• There is a patron saint of sick horses, St. Eligius. According to legend, he once removed a horse's leg in order to shoe it more easily. One assumes (and hopes!) he reattached it as well.

The site is admirably sourced, so it's educational, too!

Exactly what it says on the tin

Exploding banana mask