07/19/10 @ 10:06AM EST
posted by will

It's been a while since my last ridiculous food challenge. Too long. After last year's week of rations, it was proposed to me to eat nothing but carrots to see if I turn orange. This sounds like my kind of thing, but I refused to pay for the carrots myself, just like I wouldn't have paid for emergency rations.

More than a year later, people have agreed to sponsor me. For one month, I will eat at least 50% (by weight) carrots. Hopefully I will turn orange. The initial goal was 75%, but after yesterday, I realized it was nearly impossible to maintain a reasonable caloric intake, since a carrot only has about 30 calories.

Having been supplied with a balanced, I massed out each carrot in a 5 pound bag, and came out with an average of 100 +/- 20g. I will mass all of my food, and be sure that I eat at least that much in carrots.

Additional rules:
Every 12 fl. oz. of light colored liquid requires 1 carrot, or 6 fl. oz. of darker liquid. (Obviously excluding water.)
Carrot containing materials (carrot juice, carrot cake, etc.) are neutral and do not count towards food or carrots.
Final balance must be over 50% by the end of the day (when I sleep) and excess does not roll over.

The best way to do this would be to take a biopsy beforehand, and take a UV-Vis in DMSO, but apparently biopsies leave scars, so I'll have to settle for the less scientific method of comparing my upper leg (which never sees the sun) to a carrot over the course of the experiment.

[Photo: Flickr]

Why do I do this?
Will be so sick of carrots
Cheaper than burgers

Godspeed.

[Comments: 0][Tags: food, food challenges]

07/02/10 @ 1:13AM EST
posted by will

Despite the fact I don't have a jetpack yet, recent developments give me hope.

1) Lightsabers

The only downside to this is that every Star Wars nerd (myself proudly included) will buy one of these, and the geek:normal person ratio will drop rapidly as we all accidentally kill ourselves.

Read more...

[Comments: 1][Tags: technology]

06/29/10 @ 11:03PM EST
posted by will

Not being able to smell bad things (amines, thiols) is superficially awesome. Sadly, I don't know when brain cells are dying, so I need to keep canaries (undergrads) around.

I'd write up the stories here, but they're just not as fun without flailing hand gestures, ask me in person if you haven't been enlightened yet. (Hint: wafting is good.)

[Photo: Surviving the World]

"What the hell is that?"
"Hmm?" "Something some smells damn putrid!"
"Oh oops, right. Smelling."

Godspeed.

[Comments: 0][Tags: science]

06/28/10 @ 12:45AM EST
posted by will

Finally, after more than year, I managed to rate every song in my iTunes library. That's almost 10,000 songs. Why would do I do this?

Because I have so much music. Having it all rated allows me to sort it all better, and even more importantly, to give me a way to filter it all out. I got the idea of doing this from this post. As I was going through and rating it, it let me realize what music I had was crap, so I knew what to get rid of.

Most of my music I know fairly well, but there's stuff that I've downloaded (legally, of course) upon someone's recommendation, or after reading a record review. Stuff like that I probably haven't listened to as much, (or sometimes even at all...) so I won't always remember how I like it.

Read more...

[Comments: 2][Tags: music]

06/26/10 @ 11:09AM EST
posted by will

Earlier this week, I went to a Baja Fresh. I was doing SQUID over at GWU, (yay acronyms!) so I was going to be there a while. It was 11:30am or so, and decided to just eat half my burrito then, and save the rest for later, since there's unlimited chips and salsa. This way I'd save money by not having to buy dinner.

With the title of this post, and me waiting until dinner, I'm sure you can put together the rest of this story, but I'll keep going. 4:30pm rolls around, and I'm hungry, since I had a light, early lunch.

"Mmm... delicious burrito."

(about an hour later...)

"Oww... what is this?!"

Read more...

[Comments: 0][Tags: lessons]

06/25/10 @ 9:19AM EST
posted by will

I only got around to watching this last night. 3 months, 23 days later. I paid roughly $36 to watch this movie. And it was by myself, so I can't even split that in half.

This is of course being dramatic and ignoring the watch instant feature, which I use much more often. Here are some graphs generated from FeedFliks:

Perhaps I should get back in the habit of copying and returning movies then watching them when I get around to it. Just kidding, I would never break copyright law.

So convenient
Just need to watch and mail out
Yet I'm so lazy

Godspeed.

[Comments: 2][Tags: movies]

06/22/10 @ 8:47PM EST
posted by will

I'm doing my part, are you?

[Comic: Sinfest]

Vegan world order?!
We must smite granola girl.
Bacon explosion!

Godspeed.

[Comments: 0][Tags: food]

06/21/10 @ 3:46PM EST
posted by will

How do drugs work? Well, they scare away diseases of course!
Targeting Isoprenoid Biosynthesis for Drug Discovery: Bench to Bedside

This one's just pretty; the graph in the ocean is a nice touch.
Iron-Catalyzed Hydrogen Production from Formic Acid

[Image: ACS]
[Image: ACS]

Both of my abstracts
Have been boring so far
Next must be awesome

Godspeed.

[Comments: 0][Tags: abstract of the day, art, science]

05/19/10 @ 6:04PM EST
posted by will

It's just a coincidence. This doesn't make any sense to me. Two related incidences are unrelated, then why are they coincidences???

From OED:

And Dictionary.com:

Co-ed(ucation): Education of the two sexes together in school or college.
Co-inhabit: To dwell together.
Co-operate: to work or act together or jointly for a common purpose or benefit.
Co-worker: One who works with another; a fellow worker.

Anyone have an explanation for this nonsense?

I shot then he died
Now that's a coincidence
It's cause and effect

Godspeed.

[Comments: 0][Tags: ranting]

05/15/10 @ 9:16AM EST
posted by will

The thrilling conclusion to my Five Guys Challenge!

Here it is, a picture of me eating a 13 patty cheeseburger. This was took about 40 minutes to finish, the last 15 minutes being the last 3 bites. That's how I knew that it was the maximum. I'm not going to buy 14 to confirm this, as I don't want to pay $30 to validate my failure. It was a good run. (But probably not for my body.) (Just kidding, I'm immortal.)

Everything was going as planned, increasing by one patty per week, when the Five Guys people said the best they could find confirmed was someone ordering a 12 patty burger. My wallet was beginning to get annoyed with this challenge, so I decided to go for the gusto, and just jump from 9 to 13.

Read more...

[Comments: 0][Tags: food]