Buen intento, Señor Tepes

¡Feliz día del mol a todos!

Este cartel tiene 6,022 × 10²³ aplicaciones, por lo menos.

Cnut & Boudicca

Cnut (or Canute), King of the North Sea Empire, is famous for trying to stop the waves, a story representing the futility of "turning back the tide" of an inexorable event. Illustrating his humility, one day he tried to make a point to his courtiers: he had no control over the waves, as a comment about God’s power. He sat on his throne on the shore of the sea and commanded the tide to stop. Obviously, it didn't.

Boudicca (or Boadicea) was a warrior and leader of the Iceni Celtic tribe on the east coast of Britain. When the Romans screwed her over when her husband died, she revolted with an army of 100,000 people, wreaking relentless violence and death.
“Let us show them that they are hares and foxes trying to rule over dogs and wolves," she cried.

Sternschnuppen

Carl Sagan discussing stars and constellations.

¿Qué tienen en común el polen y la Estrella de la Muerte?

Esto explica muchas cosas...

Tycho, eso estuvo fuera de lugar

No puedo explicar por qué me hace tantísima gracia esta tira cómica de Hark! A vagrant con Tycho Brahe y Johannes Kepler debatiendo sobre heliocentrismo y geocentrismo...

- Kepler, ¡el Sol orbita alrededor de la Tierra!
- ¿Y si la Tierra orbita alrededor del Sol?
- ¿Y si tu mujer orbita alrededor de mi *****? Solo digo, que llevo razón.

Backpfeifengesicht and other untranslatable words from German

This is just a little compilation of untranslatable words from the German language or words that are hard to define, with their literal translation in brackets. Andere Wörter nur Spaß klang.

• Alleinvertretungsanspruch (only claim of representation) - Representation demanding.
• Backpfeifengesicht (jaw whistle face) - A face that really needs to be slapped.
• Drachenfutter (dragon food) - A gift given to placate someone, who is angry at the giver.
• Gemütlichkeit (unhurriedness) - The feeling of coziness, social acceptance and hospitality at the same time.
• Gesichtsbremse (fracebrake) - An ugly person who stops you from interacting with them.
• Fremdschämen (foreign shame) - Embarrassment one feels watching someone else's own embarrassment.
• Habseligkeiten (total possesions of small value) - (Worthless) Stuff a poor person carries with him.
• Heimweh/Fernweh (homesickness/distant sore = Wanderlust) - Feeling homesick/longing to travel.
• Kummerspeck (grief bacon) - Excess weight gained from emotional overeating.
• Leitmotif (guiding subject) - Recurring theme.
• Luftmensch (air person) - Dreamer, person who has his mind somewhere else.
• Mutterseelenallein (alone, even without your mother's soul) - To be completely alone.
• Packesel (pack ass) - A person who carries everyone's bags on a trip.
• Sehnsucht (yearning, desiring, craving or looking) - Addiction to yearning for someone/something.
• Schadenfreude (harm joy) - The pleasure you gain from some one else's misfortune.
• Schilderwald (forest of signs) - A street full of traffic signs.
• Schnapsidee (brandy idea) - Such a crazy idea that it must have been done by a drunk person. 
• Torschlußpanik (fright of closed doors) - The fear of diminishing opportunities as one ages.
• Treppenwitz (ladder wit) - Coming up with a witty comeback to an argument too late.
• Waldeinsamkeit (woods loneliness) - The feeling of being alone in the woods.
• Weltanschauung (world view) - Perception of the wide world.
• Zeitgeist (spirit of time) - Feeling of living in a particular time.

Some idioms from the German language can not be translated as well, for example:

• "Die Katze im Sack kaufen" (to buy a cat in a sack) - To buy something without inspecting it first.
• "Nur Bahnhof verstehen" (to understand only "train station") - Not to understand a single thing somebody is saying.
• "Tomaten auf den Augen haben" (to have tomatoes on your eyes) - Missing or not seeing something everybody else does.

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Esta es sólo una pequeña recopilación de palabras intraducibles del idioma alemán, o palabras que son tan dificiles de definir, con su traducción literal entre paréntesis. Andere Wörter nur Spaß klang.

• Alleinvertretungsanspruch (única declaración de representación) - Pedir representación.
• Backpfeifengesicht (cara con mandíbula de silbar) - Una cara que necesita desesperadamente una bofetada.
• Drachenfutter (comida de dragón) - Un regalo para "amansar a la fiera", para calmar a alguien enfadado.
• Gemütlichkeit (sin tener prisa) - El sentimiento de intimidad, aceptación social y hospitalidad al mismo tiempo.
• Gesichtsbremse (freno de cara) -  Una persona difícil de ver, que te desmotiva a interactuar con ella.
• Fremdschämen (vergüenza ajena) - En castellano tenemos traducción, pero en otros idiomas no existe.
• Habseligkeiten (posesiones totales de pequeño valor) - Cosas (inútiles) que una persona pobre lleva consigo.
• Heimweh/Fernweh (añoranza/ganas de distancia o Wanderlust) - Sentimientos opuestos de añoranza del hogar o de tener ganas de viajar
• Kummerspeck (beicon de dolor) - Sobrepeso que se gana por comida emocional.
• Leitmotif (tema guía) - Tema o melodía recurrente.
• Luftmensch (persona de aire) - Soñador, persona que tiene su cabeza en otro sitio.
• Mutterseelenallein (estar solo incluso sin el alma de tu madre) - Estar más solo que la una.
• Packesel (tonto de paquete) - Persona que lleva los bultos o maletas en un viaje.
• Sehnsucht (anhelo, deseo, ansia o búsqueda) - Adicción a anhelar algo o alguien.
• Schadenfreude (alegría por dolor) - Placer creado por el sufrimiento o infortunio de otra persona.
• Schilderwald (bosque de señales) - Calle llena de señales de tráfico.
• Schnapsidee (idea de licor) - Idea tan loca que solamente se le pudo ocurrir a un borracho.
• Torschlußpanik (miedo a puertas cerradas) - Miedo a perder oportunidades al envejecer.
• Treppenwitz (ingenio de escalera) - Cuando se te ocurre una respuesta inteligente a una conversación, pero demasiado tarde.
• Waldeinsamkeit (soledad de bosque) - Sentimiento de estar solo en la naturaleza
• Weltanschauung (vista mundial - Percepción del vasto mundo.
• Zeitgeist (espíritu del tiempo) - Sentimiento de vivir en un momento concreto del tiempo.

Algunas frases hechas en alemán tampoco pueden traducirse, por ejemplo:

• "Die Katze im Sack kaufen" (Comprar la gata en un saco) - Comprar algo a ciegas, sin mirarlo antes.
• "Nur Bahnhof verstehen" (Entender sólo "estación de trenes") - No entender nada de lo que una persona dice.
• "Tomaten auf den Augen haben" (Tener tomates en los ojos) - Perderse algo obvio que todo el mundo ve.

Evolutionism Vs. creationism: A debate

Bill Nye (aka The Science Guy), famous science educator and evolutionist debates Ken Ham, Young Earth creationist and Christian apologist. I highly recommend it in spite of its length, it's worth watching it!

Thanks to this interesting debate I learned about the Young Earth Creationism, which mantains Earth is around 6,000 years old, and the Creation Museum in Kentucky, founded by this "Answers in Genesis" (AiG) Christian ministry. It has so many gems like these displays I quote from Wikipedia:

"After leaving a corridor [with existentialist questions such as "Am I alone?", and "Why do I suffer?", paired with illustrations of human conflict and suffering.], visitors enter a room designed to resemble a decaying urban alley full of graffiti and littered with newspaper clippings about the legalization of abortion, same-sex marriage, and euthanasia. An accompanying placard concludes: "Scripture abandoned in the culture leads to... relative morality, hopelessness and meaninglessness."
In the final room (...), video screens depict the purported results of abandoning a literal interpretation of the Bible. In one, a teenage girl is on the phone with an abortion clinic. In another, a teenage boy rolls a marijuana joint while looking at pornography on a computer screen. In the center of the room, a wrecking ball labeled "Millions of Years" damages the foundation of a church. Nearby sits a wheelbarrow full of bricks meant to symbolize the reparative work of AiG."

Also, at this museum there are several representations of dinosaurs and a display showing an ancient human coexisting peacefully with vegetarian Tyrannosaurus.

To-ma ya.

Local anesthetics

Esters and amides like you've never seen them before!

Local anesthetics (LA) are a group of pharmacologically active compounds used for the aim of having a reversible local analgesic effect. Their mechanism of action consists in reversibly decreasing the rate of depolarization and repolarization of excitable membranes. They are used in several techniques such as topical anesthesia, infiltrations and epidural blocks, among others.

They are divided in amino esters and amino amides, and their structure bears a resemblance to neurotransmiters, with the major importance of the presence of a protonable tertiary amine group in their structure, which will determine, depending on the value of physiological pH, wether it'll go past the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and have central nervous effects, or not.

• Amino esters' structure share a lipophilic part, an intermediate aliphatic chain and a hydrophilic (amine) part. Cocaine, procaine (Novocaine^®), tetracaine (Pontocaine^®) and benzocaine are included in this group.

Cocaine, procaine, tetracaine.

• Amino amides' chemical structure share some similarities with the esters, but their functional group is an amide with a secondary amine next to a carbonyl group. This category includes bupivacaine, levobupivacaine, lidocaine, prilocaine, ropivacaine and mepivacaine.

Lidocaine, mepivacaine, prilocaine, bupivacaine, etidocaine.
(Wonder why prilocaine seems so sad...)

p-aminobenzoic acid (PABA) is a toxic metabolic product of the catabolism or degradation of the ester local anesthetics, and to a lesser degree, amides too. It an cause an allergic reaction in the form of local urticaria, and is later excreted in urine.

Although prilocaine has a low systemic toxicity, its metabolite o-toluidine can cause methemoglobinemia, a condition that reduces the amount of hemoglobin available for oxygen transport. It's use is not recommended in children or labor pains.

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¡Ésteres y amidas como nunca las había visto!

Los anestésicos locales son un grupo de compuestos farmacológicamente activos usados con el objetivo de producir un efecto analgésico local reversible. Su mecanismo de acción consiste en disminuir el índice de despolarización y repolarización de las membranas excitables. Se emplean en anestesia tópica, infiltraciones y anestesia epidural, entre otros.

Se dividen en dos categorías: amino ésteres y amino amidas, y su estructura química guarda similitud con neurotransmisores, de la que cabe destacar la relevancia de la presencia de una amina terciaria protonable que determinará, según el pH fisiológico, si la molécula atravesará la barrera hematoencefátilca (BHE) y producirá un efecto a nivel del SNC, o no.

• La estructura de los amino ésteres comparte una parte lipófila, una cadena intermedia alifática y una parte hidrofílica amina. Dentro de este grupo se encuentran la cocaína, la procaína, la tetracaína y la benzocaína.
  
• La estructura química de las amino amidas guarda similitud con los anteriores, pero su grupo funcional cambia a una amida formada por una amina secundaria adyacente a un grupo carbonilo. En esta categoría pueden enmarcarse la bupivacaína, levobupivacaína, lidocaína, prilocaína, ropivacaína y mepivacaína.

El PABA o ácido p-aminobenzoico es un metabolito tóxico producto del catabolismo o degradación de los anestésicos locales tipo éster, y en menor medida, también de los tipo amida. Puede causar una reacción alérgica que se manifiesta en forma de urticaria local, y se excreta posteriormente en la orina.

Aunque la prilocaína (amino amida) tiene una toxicidad sistémica relativamente baja, su metabolito o-toluidina puede causar metahemoglobinemia, que reduce la cantidad disponible de hemoglobina para transporte de oxígeno en la sangre. Por esto, no se recomienda su uso en niños ni durante el parto.

Owain Glyndŵr

Owain Glyndŵr or Owen Glendower [ˈoʊain ɡlɨ̞nˈduːr], born c. 1349-1359 and d. 1412, was the Prince of Wales and Lord of Glyndyfrdwy and of Cynllaith Owain. In 1400, he proclaimed himself Prince of Powys, and subsequently revolted unsuccessfuly against the English. He is commonly referred as the father of Welsh nationalism.

Circa 1383, he married Margaret Hanmer, the daughter of his Law professor. After his disappearance and death in 1412, having never captured nor betrayed, his son Maredudd ab Owain Glyndŵr continued to rally opposition in North Wales with a force of Scots.

Fun fact: he came 23rd in BBC's 100 Greatest Britons 2002 poll and was the highest Welsh entry of the list.

For more info about this figure, visit the Wikipedia article about him here.

El principio de Hanlon

Hanlon's razor is an eponymous adage that allows the elimination of unlikely explanations for a phenomenon. It reads:

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

El Principio de Hanlon, literalmente "la navaja de Hanlon", es un principio que coge prestado su nombre de la famosa Navaja de Ockham u Occam, o lex parsimoniae ("en igualdad de condiciones, la explicación más sencilla suele ser la correcta"). Hanlon dice:

"No atribuyas nunca a la maldad aquello que puede ser adecuadamente explicado por la estupidez".

Se atribuye la autoría de este principio a Robert J. Hanlon, de Pennsylvania (EEUU), que acuñó la frase en 1980 con intención de publicarla en un libro de bromas relacionadas con la Ley de Murphy, "Murphy's Law Book Two: More Reasons Why Things Go Wrong!".

Fuentes:

Wikipedia: Murphy's Law
Wikipedia: Hanlon's razor

A little compilation of scientific jokes

"Helium walks into a bar and orders a drink.

The bartender says "sorry, we don't serve noble gases here".

He doesn't react."

"Entropy isn't what it used to be".

Un trozo de hielo se enamoró de un mechero Bunsen.
"¡Bunsen, mi ardiente amor! Me derrito cada vez que te veo!", dijo el hielo.
El mechero Bunsen respondió: "Es solo una fasa por la que estás pasando".
Moraleja: la Química es una p****.

"El Señor es mi Pasteur, nada me infectará"

Ha-ha-ha. A-ssaulted peanut!

Social media or: how I learned to stop living and share all my experiences

Not long ago, I read an article about how social media have changed our socializing habits. Interactions have been reduced to something as simple as clicking on a "Like" button or link, but the most remarkable fact to me is the effect it has when the person that publication was meant for or, what's worse, nobody, clicks on that button.

Everyday I see people showing off on Facebook, telling everybody that they are going this place or that they are doing that thing. On that very exact moment, somehow decreasing the pleasure of living those experiences, looking for approval from the people they look up to. Plus, how can you enjoy a life-changing experience, while you are connected to some app glancing over other people's lives, and "liking" their feeds?

Quite often on Instagram's Popular page I see models, TV presenters, American blonde cheerleaders and little boys mimicking Justin Bieber, being worshiped just for being beautiful. Little children comment things like "OMG, you're perfect!!" "I wish I had your life"... And it shocks me that there's people out there being brought up in the wrong values, believing that if you're not thin and blonde, you are nothing because everyone who does not fit in the western beauty standards must be frowned upon.

Also, comparisons are inevitable: "They are happier and having better lives than I am"... The distortion on the perception is fascinating. Envy, trying to make everyone else envious, and posting status traps just in order to get people to ask you about them... I don't understand why people who are out with friends check their Twitter updates all the time. Why do they look down at real life?

I know people may want to share some things with their acquaintances and friends, but I don't get the point on posting about all the positive things that happen in your daylife, above all when it's been cleverly filtered to make your life seem more adventurous and exciting.


Extra: a note about "Facebook depression" taken from fragments on Wikipedia.

Tijuana bibles

Tijuana bibles (aka bluesies, eight-pagers, gray-backs, etc.) were satirical pornographic comic books produced in the United States from the 1920s to the early 1960s. Their popularity peaked during the Great Depression era, and they circulated around the same time when sexologist Alfred Kinsey collected data for his famous report "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male".

"Silk Spectre and the Adventures of the Acme brushman",

artwork used in the film "Watchmen". 
Source.

The typical "bible" is in black print on cheap white paper and running eight pages in length. In most cases the artists, writers, and publishers of these are unknown. The quality of the artwork varied widely, and the subjects are explicit sexual escapades usually featuring well known cartoon characters, political figures, or movie stars, invariably used without permission.

They have been depicted in several films, like "The Green Mile" (Frank Darabont, 1999), where sadist death row block guard Percy Wetmore is caught reading a Tijuana bible featuring a fictional character named "Miss Lotta Leadpipe".

Also, in "Watchmen" (Zack Snyder, 2009), as well as the graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, In one scene, Sally Jupiter (Silk Spectre) shows her daughter Laurie a Tijuana bible comic featuring herself. Laurie reacts with disgust at the grotesquely sexual images saying that it is gross, but Sally snatches the comic back and tells Laurie that she "thinks it’s kind of flattering."

Post originally published on August 12, 2011 in another blog.

If you are interested, you can also read this post in Castillian Spanish here.

Source:

Wikipedia: Tijuana Bibles