So it's like DCC for airwaves? Theatres have been using special electronics for at least two decades that allow you to plug two light fixtures into a single electrical connection, and then control each fixture independently. The model train hobby has also been using a similar system to allow independent control of…

There was a cop a couple months ago who actually rode his patrol car up an anchor line on a telephone pole because he was distracted. The reason? He'd dropped a pen in the footwell while heading home from his shift, and was trying to retrieve it.

Most people are capable of having a private conversation over the phone in a public place. Others are the type who will hold their phone six inches from their head, with the speaker turned up full blast, and share both sides of their conversation with everyone in the vicinity. Still others are the type who will get…

The graph paper may make it easy to prove that the pieces didn't change shape, but it also makes it easy to pick out that the two big triangles aren't triangles, and where the missing square went.

Mongooses are more a cobra thing, since they have a partial immunity to the poison. They wouldn't have any such advantage against a rattlesnake, nor are they likely to encounter them in the wild. Cobras also aren't exactly afraid of mongooses. They just stand a decent chance of losing a fight between the two. And…

Snake's cold-blooded. It shouldn't be putting out much heat at all, and if it is it's only whatever latent heat it managed to soak up before moving to a colder area. In other words, a lot less than a warm-blooded animal, and even less than a superheated tail that's warmer than the meaty part.

Seems perfectly simple to me. Prey animals often stop moving if they think a predator is checking them out. Snakes can sense infrared as a bypass to that reaction, but you can get some false readings on heat alone, and it might just be a toasty rock. But, if something is warm _and_ moving, it's very likely to be…

I'd say it falls into the same range of "getting high" as huffing and auto-erotic asphyxiation.

That was a particularly messed up episode. I had a coworker whose teenage son wanted to start watching the series, and they were _just_ about to give in and let him. Then that episode aired, and I never heard talk of that again. As I recall, that's the one that had Hodor's junk, the kid suckling at the Eyrie,…

I saw that. I just didn't want any random passers-by to confuse Shirley with someone who can't.

Actually, the food spheres kinda resemble Robins Eggs, a harmless, and tasty, Easter candy. It's that thing that looks like a hunk of bleeding liver in a pool of bile that makes me feel that the caption in the photo should have been "gon appetit."

"This better be the last time you slap me, or el..."

Knowledge also isn't power if you reveal all your cards to the person sitting across the table from you. Not saying he didn't screw up, but Cersei goaded him into goading her back. That tidbit was harmless in itself, but does throw Cersei the possibility that Littlefinger actually has proof beyond the missive that…

No, that was his second most important order of business. His first was celebrating his nameday, with executions by booze, and constant reaffirmations of the fact that He Is King, and it's not just a claim to the throne.

So I'm actually kinda digging Joffrey right now. Not in a "I think he's cool and deserves to win" sort of way, but more that it's going to be real fun to watch him totally bork things and lose control of the situation, eventually resulting in a very satisfying death. I assume. I haven't read the books, but he just…

That sounds like Ned Stark talking. Not that I'm saying you're wrong, but, in this setting, that and a fancy pin on your tunic will get you the front row seat a beheading.

Just don't try using it when I'm in the room. I can affect reception of TV and radio signals by my proximity to the antenna, and in college I discovered something even weirder. In the chem labs, they had a scale that could measure down to one thousandth of a gram, and which had a glass enclosure so air currents…

Turns out that with six episodes to go when I posted that first comment, I was one episode short of the one where Anders starts explaining everything. So if I'd waited three more days to post that, I wouldn't have.

Survival of the fittest. On a micro scale, it means you get to pass your genes on to the next generation. On a macro scale, it means your species _has_ a next generation. The most fit species prosper and reproduce. The least fit species die off. Everything between has to figure out a way to get by without…

I'm not really fond of flip-mobiles either. Lower COG means you can corner faster. We also have this weird phenomenon where people buy SUVs because they think they're safer to drive, and then proceed to drive like maniacs because "the car will protect them". I was driving back from a show during a nasty blizzard…