[via Adventures who plucked it from Bryce, who skinned it from Kottke]

Seems the direction you see her spinning determines whether you are left-brain or right-brain.

Right-brain here and I couldn’t for the life of me get her to reverse her spin direction until I looked away and in my peripheral vision, she reversed direction! Then I couldn’t get her to spin as I’d originally seen until … I looked away and in my peripheral vision …

from the original Herald Sun article:

“LEFT BRAIN FUNCTIONS
uses logic
detail oriented
facts rule
words and language
present and past
math and science
can comprehend
knowing
acknowledges
order/pattern perception
knows object name
reality based
forms strategies
practical
safe

RIGHT BRAIN FUNCTIONS
uses feeling
“big picture” oriented
imagination rules
symbols and images
present and future
philosophy & religion
can “get it” (i.e. meaning)
believes
appreciates
spatial perception
knows object function
fantasy based
presents possibilities
impetuous
risk taking”

Hmmm.

Parlor trick?

Eventually, as I was creating this post, I had all of her obscured except her feet and the shadow of her feet and she seemed to be reversing back and forth in a 180deg range.

I must be PERFECTLY BALANCED mind-wise.

Fun.

Pirolette = major coolness

$149.95 + S&H is pricey but what a conversation piece!

[via Sour Grapes @ tumblr]

Howsomever, I did spend some money on these.

Made With Molecules had a booth at AAAS this year.

I was the kid who read horse stories.

I was the kid who grew up to know who Russell Baze was and why I should care.

I was the kid who talked Dad, sweetheart that he was, into buying a certain brand of pipe tobacco so I could choose the best name for a Derby winner’s colt or filly and win it for my very own.

(and I promised him that should I win I’d somehow be able to feed the critter, exercise it, take care of it …)

He indulged me each year for a few months while the contest ran.

Sure, Sal. Maybe sure, you’ll win the pony. I’ll smoke whatever pipe tobacco I need to smoke to get the chits you need to enter the contest to get your Derby winner’s foal.

I learned they’d put Barbaro down while we were out on the road today, listening to the news in the car.

I didn’t burst into tears. Honest I didn’t. I’m grown up now, you know.

Damn.

I didn’t burst into tears until tonight when I saw Asha‘s clip.

Damn. OK?

Just damn. Just … damn.

New Haven weighs in.

Another paper weighs in.

DeStefano notes that New Haven has been a cradle of creativity, as the birthplace of the cotton gin, the first rubber tires, the corkscrew, the Frisbee, lollipops, Erector Sets and pizza.

Methinks it’s time to check those bonafides.

The Frisbee? Lollipops? Hard to believe.

(Someone invented the hamburger? That’s hard to believe too.)

Today, we slept in, shipped a huge box to Boston, visited me mum and went to a party at the Duke of Edinburgh (a pub where my stepdaughter once tended bar) to hang out with people we worked with twenty years ago when we worked at a company that no longer exists. The crowd was bigger than last year’s, but there were still plenty of no-shows. I saw people I was pleased no end to see, whom I hadn’t seen in far too long, and I saw people whom I’d seen New Year’s Eve. (I was pleased to see them too.)

A good time was had by all who attended. The Founding Father showed up to schmooze with former employees and to order a round of drinks for everyone. I ate greasy calamari and onion rings and drank Murphy’s stout, and wished I’d just stuck to the Murphy’s.

Now, I tuck in. Tomorrow, the tree.

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Most Noble and Honourable the Sardonic of Throcking by Hampton Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Allz I said was that my name was Sal and I was a grrrl, for petra’s sake. …

Thanks, um, Your Most Serene Highness Lord Don the Recumbent of Chalmondley St Peasoup

[ low bow ]