Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Commonroom Recap 11-17 to 11-23

Buckle in, this is a long recap because we talked a *lot*!

There are way more ways to lace shoes than you realized. 
A healthier (and still tasty-looking) recipe for green bean casserole, in advance of Thanksgiving!
PorcupineSunggles got the job! 
I know I tend to fixate on how hard Cat's life is, but here's another update. 
Quantitative measures of qualitative data, aka, GG is AWESOME in her LOTR analysis. 
A discussion of Advent Calendars on this and preceding pages, including highlighting the NightFamily advent calendar. 
Here and continuing, a discussion of what House one's family members belong in.
An important question, and, tooting my own horn, the best possible answer. 
All the names of days in every language, living or dead, you could ever possibly need to know 
The strict fast, for Orthodox Christians and then a bit of the history of Orthodoxy in the US. There and following is a lovely and interesting comparative discussion of Christian denominations in the US.
Some gratuitous pictures of Tom Hiddleston.
Can you tell real paper titles from nonsense? I can't 
We had a batch of NQFYs passing through and asking questions, starting here (and on the next page, a discussion of impersonating invertebrates)
A podcast recommendation coming from someone other than me 
Starting roughly here and continuing, a discussion of Doctor Who 
Unsurprisingly, many cat/kitten pictures show up in replies to this post.
Startinghereish, a discussion on test-taking 
You've heard of photographic memories, here's a metaphorical memory.
Chickens! At an author talk! 
A beautiful shawl and suggestions for blocking, following. 
A question on titles (ma'am, particularly) starting here and really picking up after here. 
Hooray for Locks of Love, and hooray a beautiful haircut! 
How to turn kids into engineers (girls, specifically, but children generally)
Here and following, a referendum on sizing for clothes that go on females 
A beautiful phoenix. Congrats, Jess!

Monday, November 18, 2013

Commonroom Recap November 11-9 to 11-16

An adorable Jack Skellington.
Excellent sermon feedback indeed. 
A lovely collection of Ravenclaw-esque places to curl up with a book. 
The Weasel of Wrath Wrocks! 
As greenegirl said, cats are a liquid. 
An inventive use of washers (and remember, follow the Fiber Factor to support our own DovieJay!) 
Another podcast recommendation. 
This post touched off a long and convoluted discussion of what it means to "beg the question." It all boils down to this brief style guide for what to say instead of "begs the question," and here is what it means, as a name for a kind of logical fallacy. 
A poll and ensuing discussion of what it means to be "easy" in sock knitting. 
The start of a lengthy discussion about some classic Christmas movies. 
Jessdhill has a new family (rav)name. 
A brief treatise on knitting chart conventions.
KnittingLinguist had an awesome date and we're all super excited. 
DonaQuixote's epic house renovation has come to an end!
Super awesome felted bag! 
This post touched off a discussion of new cool things libraries are doing 
An interesting rule of thumb for what "processed food" means, and another. 
Ravenbaby! Ravenblanket! Ravenmom! 

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Geek of the Week: Bobak Ferdowsi

Here we honor Muggle geeks who embody Ravenclaw spirit...when they succeed, they soar, and when they fail, they fail spectacularly!

Bobak Ferdowsi (b. 1979)

"If I can help motivate even a couple kids to get into science and engineering ... that would be wonderful."

Happy birthday -- it's tomorrow -- to Bobak Ferdowsi AKA the flight-directing breakout star of the Curiosity Mars rover 2012 landing!  When he's not sciencing for NASA (his educational background is in aerospace engineering, natch), "Mohawk Guy" listens to Thrilling Adventure Hour and infects his friends with the Magic: the Gathering bug.  Also: Ferdowsi changes his hair up for all major Mars mission events.  Also also: he has played board games with Wil Wheaton... probably should have mentioned that first.

Find out more about Bobak Ferdowsi on Wikipedia.
Watch Bobak play Magic: the Gathering with Sean Day[9] Plott on Youtube.