http://www.maktaaq.com 100% Whale Blabber Sun, 07 Feb 2010 17:30:14 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Courtney Humphries writes it better than I can retell it:Thom Verhave, a psychologist working at a pharmaceutical company in the 1950s, tried to apply pigeons to an onerous aspect of commercial production: quality-control inspection. Touring the area where capsules were manufactured, he watched as about seventy women examined each ... http://www.maktaaq.com/2010/02/07/pigeon-quality-control/ As I continue reading Superdove, there are more great pigeon trivia tidbits I will be using to impress family members at Christmas dinner:Squab meat is low in fat and rich in iron. (Turns out I have a squab recipe I clipped out from a cooking magazine article called "The ... http://www.maktaaq.com/2009/12/23/more-pigeon-trivia/ "When something is everywhere, it paradoxically becomes invisible and its value diminishes in our minds," says Courtney Humphries in Superdove: How the Pigeon Took Manhattan...and the World http://www.maktaaq.com/2009/12/14/superdove-trivia/ I always complain that women in movies are boring. They never have any interest in their careers or they always complain about their jobs. Or they sit at home all day, magically well off. They never even seem to have hobbies. What dullards. I sure ... http://www.maktaaq.com/2009/11/29/a-movie-chick-with-hobbies-the-destruction-of-romania/ In Tintin comics, Captain Haddock's recovered castle is Marlinspike Hall. In real life, Marlinspike Hall is the Château de Cherverny in the Loire Valley. Even better than Tintin is this seventeenth century castle's dogs. It's la soupe des chiens, or the feeding of the dogs that happens ... http://www.maktaaq.com/2009/11/27/la-soupe-des-chiens/ I never knew why MSG was bad. Someone once told me that it caused cancer. I filed that away with the intriguing idea that deodorant gave women breast cancer, a tip from a shrewish high school fundamentalist christian acquaintance. One day, I figured, I would investigate the ... http://www.maktaaq.com/2009/11/17/msg/ Dutch animator Sjors Vervoort's cartoon has many cute monsters: (Via Drawn.ca, where the discussion is about whether this is true cardboard animation or not. Vervoort's own website, linked above, has nifty drawings, by the way.) http://www.maktaaq.com/2009/11/14/sjors-vervoort-cardboard-animation/ He's an illustrator for the Guardian and I like his stuff. Tom Gauld's comics are about literary stuff: Ha! I got through three chapters of Ulysses. One day, I will neglect my well being and die reading it. But he's not some book snob. He's also open to popular literature: For ... http://www.maktaaq.com/2009/11/10/tom-gauld/ Since I have still not submitted my article anywhere (since July), I needed drastic measures. I looked up motivational websites to see how I can spur myself into action. There was one about betting against yourself. You lost if you didn't achieve your goal. If you ... http://www.maktaaq.com/2009/11/10/do-it-already-dummy/ From Flanders: A Cultural History by Andre de Vries (page 96-97):One of the world's most unlikely episodes took place in Ghent: the filming of a version of Romeo and Juliet - acted entirely by cats. This 1970 oddity was the brainchild of Armando Acosta, a Spanish-American director and son ... http://www.maktaaq.com/2009/10/11/bet-you-didnt-watch-this-one-in-high-school/