Friday Open Thread 02-27-15

Good morning 99percenters!

Ever think about your eyelashes and what they really do? It turns out they divert airflow to protect your eyes. Or in other words, they keep your eyes from drying out.

David Hu and colleageus at the Georgia Institute of Technology recently did an extensive study in his biomechanics lab. There's more below the fold.

They measured the lashes of different mammals, most of which have them. They made an artificial eye with lashes, put it in a wind tunnel and blew air at it. And they created mathematical models of airflow over lashes.

They found that across a wide variety of mammals, eyelashes are always about one-third as long as the eye is wide, which, it turns out, is the ideal length for diverting airflow around the eye and reducing evaporation.

Now you know.

This is an open thread so tell us what’s on your mind. The floor is yours.

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TGIF! Hope you are keeping warm. I am off this weekend to buy a laptop, printer, and probably a blue tooth speaker. Yeah!

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

NCTim's picture

Check places like Guitar Center. You can usually get small amplified studio monitors relatively cheaply ($75-$90). I am not sure how many come bluetooth. I love my Beats Pill, but that is more like $150. I use it in tandem with an iPod Nana as a new age ghetto box.

http://www.beatsbydre.com/speakers/beats-pill-2.0.html

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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -

I will check it out.

Had the Bose Soundlink III. Paid 300 for it. It had no bass. Brought it back and bought the bose wifi soundtouch III for $700. It sounded great, but I couldn't get it to connect to airplay. After a million hours on the phone with tech support at Bose, Apple and my cable internet, I finally found out my cable router wasn't compatible with airplay. Went out and bought a router. Dragged my SIL over to help me, and we spent an hour or so installing it and moving everything onto the new router. Got up in the morning and it was all undone because we forgot to direct connect the desk top to the router. Got pissed off and brought the Bose wifi speaker back. Have nothing right now and want to stay with blue tooth because any idiot can connect it and keep it connected. Technology is not my thing.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

Big Al's picture

particularly since the recent leak that Mossad hasn't/doesn't agree with his assessment that Iran is/has been trying to build
a nuclear bomb. So now people are coming down on him about that, saying that lied about it, etc.

But what country has been taking the lead in putting sanctions on Iran for trying to build a bomb, and what country's intelligence
agencies have also disagreed with that assessment, for a long time?

That right, US, We the people US.

It's all been a lie, just like Iraq, just like Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen.

But it's being obfuscated again by the focus on Netanyahoo.

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NCTim's picture

Just before the DHS brouhaha, there are terrorist busts in the US. Hmmm?

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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -

NCTim's picture

Eyelashes have built in reflexes to protect the eye. Touch an eyelash, cause a blink.

The reflex is similar for animal whiskers. They help animals navigate while protecting their face/vision.

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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -

Lady Libertine's picture

too cold to get as much work done around here as I would like but next week looks to be better weather so we'll see.

I am now apparently in full blown bubbleland, I completely missed #The Dress and even the #llama drama yesterday!!

via twitter, heres another book for me to add to my List...

http://boingboing.net/2014/03/03/free-download-of-danah-boyds.html

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Cordelia Lear's picture

but had to look up the dress. My vote is white with gold trim.

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"Never separate the life you live from the words you speak." --Paul Wellstone

Cordelia Lear's picture

here. It says the dress is black and blue. Beats me. I wonder how many times the picture has been touched up?

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"Never separate the life you live from the words you speak." --Paul Wellstone

Naming Names: Your Real Government
When dark deeds unfold, point the finger in this direction.

This is your real government; they transcend elected administrations, they permeate every political party, and they are responsible for nearly every aspect of the average American and European's way of life. When the "left" is carrying the torch for two "Neo-Con" wars, starting yet another based on the same lies, peddled by the same media outlets that told of Iraqi WMD's, the world has no choice, beyond profound cognitive dissonance, but to realize something is wrong.

What's wrong is a system completely controlled by a corporate-financier oligarchy with financial, media, and industrial empires that span the globe. If we do not change the fact that we are helplessly dependent on these corporations that regulate every aspect of our nation politically, and every aspect of our lives personally, nothing else will ever change.

The following list, however extensive, is by far not all-inclusive. However after these examples, a pattern should become self-evident with the same names and corporations being listed again and again. It should be self-evident to readers of how dangerously pervasive these corporations have become in our daily lives. Finally, it should be self-evident as to how necessary it is to excise these corporations from our lives, our communities, and ultimately our nations, with the utmost expediency.

This is a must read, folks, especially the conclusion at the end of the article.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

makes it suddenly clear to me why the oligarchs hate environmentalists and sustainability advocates so much.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

The Troll’s Guide to Internet Disruption
The 15 Rules of Web Disruption

David Martin’s Thirteen Rules for Truth Suppression, H. Michael Sweeney’s 25 Rules of Disinformation (and now Brandon Smith’s Disinformation: How It Works) are classic lessons on how to spot disruption and disinformation tactics.

We’ve seen a number of tactics come and go over the years. Here are the ones we see a lot of currently.

1. Start a partisan divide-and-conquer fight or otherwise push emotional buttons to sow discord and ensure that cooperation is thwarted. Get people fighting against each other instead of the corrupt powers-that-be. Use baseless caricatures to rile everyone up. For example, start a religious war whenever possible using stereotypes like “all Jews are selfish”, “all Christians are crazy” or “all Muslims are terrorists”. Accuse the author of being a gay, pro-abortion limp-wristed wimp or being a fundamentalist pro-war hick when the discussion has nothing to do with abortion, sexuality, religion, war or region. Appeal to people’s basest prejudices and biases. And – as Sweeney explains – push the author into a defensive posture:

Sidetrack opponents with name calling and ridicule … Associate opponents with unpopular titles such as “kooks”, “right-wing”, “liberal”, “left-wing”, “terrorists”, “conspiracy buffs”, “radicals”, “militia”, “racists”, “religious fanatics”, “sexual deviates”, and so forth. This makes others shrink from support out of fear of gaining the same label, and you avoid dealing with issues.

Read the whole article here.

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