“Mr. Rogers Banana Hammock”

“Sander is enormous”

Thanks Shaun McQuaid!

“i reek of chalupa”

“cupcake blitzkrieg”

“Shamus of Power”

“Kurt of the big head”

Shaun McQuaid had an interesting idea. MikeDiDonato.com has a decent amount of google power. Occasionally I can put things on my website to specifically get into google searches. Now, let’s talk about GoogleWhacking.

Googlewhacking is the art of hunting down a specific duo of legitimate words that only leads to one result in Google.

At one point “spacefarer sesquipedalians” was one such GoogleWhack. GoogleSeeding is a word that I coined to describe putting unique combos of words on your website with the specific intention of being the only result found when someone searches for that combo of words.

Shaun McQuaid has sent me a bunch. So the next series of posts to appear in the quickthoughts will be word combos for GoogleSeeding.

Thanks Shaun!

it’s impossible
to write this all out then say
no haiku for you

Thanks Sizz!

New Lows of AWESOME.

Check this out.

Thanks Tim Baird!

Shamus sent me this game. It’s absurdly fun.

Try it out!

quixotic
(adj) : possessing or acting with the desire to do noble and romantic deeds, without thought of realism and practicality; Impulsive

The response from my professor was hilarious:

“Hot Stuff Mike.”

(more…)

IQP:
The Impact of Traffic on Ambient Air Quality in the Chelsea Creek Community.
The project was performed to assist the Urban Environmental Initiative of the US Environmental Protection Agency in assessing the air quality as related to traffic in the Chelsea and East Boston areas. The project team monitored air quality as well as conducted traffic counts, ultimately mapping the results using graphical analysis software and on GIS Layers. By analyzing all data collected, recommendations were formulated and offered to the EPA as well as community partners.

This project did not win me any money. Living in Boston with Ben, did win me large gaps in my memory for that time. Battleship and 30 Rack head are the root cause I think.

The next three hours are going to be slightly academic. First, here’s a look at Kurt’s MQP abstract. At our college (WPI) all students are required to do three projects a Sufficiency, IQP, and MQP. IQP stands for Interactive Qualifying Project and MQP stands for Major Qualifying Project. We’ll follow this with his IQP abstract (exciting!!) and then we’ll conclude with the paper that I wrote for my international business class. Theresa helped me edit that one and it’s actually pretty darn good.

Anyway, Heeeeere’s Kurt!

MQP:
Bioenergetics Modeiling of Juvenile Rainbow Trout Growth: Population Dynamics and Food Consumption Effects.

Using previous bioenergetics modelsfor fish species, we investigated the growth of juvenile rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss. Our experimentation had a few main objectives. (1)to determine the effects on growth caused by varying levels of food consumption and (2) to observe the effects on growth caused by the development of a dominance hierarchy while maintaining all other experimental variables. Previous modeling has showed that for adult rainbow trout as the weight of the fish increases, the amount of oxygen consumed decreases. In turn, to measure the effectsof food levels and population dynamicson our specimen we obtainedtheir weightsas well as their respiration rates at several points during our trial. From our analysis, we gathered that the young age of our fish varied the results from what we were expecting to obtain from previous models. However, although our data was not consistent with the model for adult rainbow trout, our results followed a similar trend regardless of food level or Dominance.

This project won me a cool 50 bucks, for placing third in the Project Presentation Day! I think I bought 2 cases of beer and a Meat Onslaught Sandwich from the Best Subway ever that day.

Jesse was sent this link to a strange use of homonyms.

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

The only thing I don’t understand, is that in explaining it… they use extra words like “whom.” How come you can skip those words and still be grammatically correct? Anyone?

I’m not 100% on where I got this, but it’s really really comfortable on account that it’s a very thin soft cotton. Some guy at The Middle East once asked me why the guy had an arrow through his head. And those are the two reasons I love this shirt.

It’s actually foreign (French): sac à dos. It means backpack, but when you say it, it kind of sounds like a swear.

FACT: Mike D once sent many people to chase me down as a lost brother of APO with an aluminum foil star I had to wear until I went to another meeting.

Thinking about the arts and cultural expression is cool, especially when you consider the backdrop, and the culture in which these arts have been developed. When it comes to cultural influences, the psychologist in me emerges and I like to think about cross-cultural differences. We generally think about differences between western and eastern world views, but I like to consider regional differences within the united states. Are you aware of the “Culture of Honor” that dominates the south of our country? The idea is that retaliation and aggressive responses to perceived insults are more common in the south. This possibly a lingering result of herding lifestyles that required fierce competition rather than farming lifestyles.

Miss Cinderella
Put Nair in sister’s shampoo
Who is laughing now

Irene, Amazed with all the adventure that is 720 posts asked if she could participate. Irene is one of my favorite people, so it’d be a travesty to not have her involved.

We’ll start with her Bio:

Hi! I’m Irene! I love exclamation points!!! I started talking to Mike D at the climbing gym because I thought he had clever t-shirts. Casual conversation lead to endless adventures in outside climbing and just general hanging out and new friendship formation. Besides climbing, I love science (nerd alert!), teaching, kung fu party tricks, music, pirates, red wine, and making lists.

You may remember Abby’s Haiku from January 2nd.

Tink’s new employment:
Fearful gamblers, broken limbs
Vegas debts now paid

I found this hilarious. and it inspired me. Here’s an MSPaint depicting Tink as she collects debts.

The FIRST program (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) pairs high schoolers with engineers and other school/community volunteers and has them design, build, and compete in large scale competitions. Provides for early introductions into the real-life world of science, technology, and robot building/competition that the youngsters would not have normally been exposed to.

Obscure cultural awesomeness, as selected by Alicia:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8Z24Z3o5gM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTK0kFXJjd0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVBZ-58_0mU

Wait a minute… these are neither obscure nor cultural (well, at least not in the “high culture” sense). Ok, here’s something a little more obscure:
www.feedthehead.net

And a little more cultural:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=183210995

Have fun.

Obscure cultural awesomeness: Placemats

The placemat (picture below) is a device used by Aristocracy instead of plates. Indeed, in the late 18th century, with the work of Wedgwood, plating had hit its cultural and material upper bound, much like High Modernism in the New York art scene of the mid 1950’s. Faced with the profound, and somewhat earth shattering realization that crockery technology could evolve no further, Louis XVI invented the Placed Mat as the next progression in platewear.

The placemat is set on a table directly in front of the dinner recipient, where a plate would normally be positioned. Much like a plate, food is placed upon the placemat, and eaten with flatware. A new placemat is used for the salad, soup, and entre courses. For dessert, a special placemat, called a “doily,” is often utilized in formal situations.

In addition to being Jes Saint’s birthday - HAPPY BIRTHDAY JES SAINT!

Today is a mix of entries. I had originally hoped that I’d be able to fill the day with unique cultural and artsy gems… but very few people responded to that challenge. Instead, it’s going to be a serious mix. We’ll start off with some culture stuff and a sweet MSPaint, then we’ll introduce a few more participants in this epic adventure, and we’ll end with a few fun video links and Shaun McQuaid’s Google Seeding.

Enjoy!