short takes

[cellio]

And now for something completely different...

The husband of a member of the Debatable Choir posted video from our Pennsic performance.

I didn't know enough chemistry to fully parse this geeky comic by ohiblather, but I still laughed out loud when I saw it.

xiphias reports research that seems to be begging for an IgNobel award. As he points out, it's worthy because first it makes you laugh and then it makes you think. I mean, what publishable conclusion would you expect from researchers doing an MRI on a dead salmon?

I feel fortunate that "talk like a pirate day" fell on Rosh Hashana, meaning I was shielded from most of the antics. But I enjoyed top ten halachic problems for a Jewish pirate, forwarded by dglenn. Should I be worried that I have defensible answers for several of them?

Fun website mash-ups from metahacker and others. From one of the comments: "OKAmazon: People who had sex with this person also liked..."

Signal boost: kyleri makes hand creams, lip balms, soaps, and similar items, and she is currently having a sale. I bought some of her creams at Pennsic and am happy with the results.

I haven't turned off the spelling checker in Firefox on this machine yet because I do sometimes make typos that it catches, but this post almost made me do so. :-)

Comments

[geekosaur]

Wouldn't the fact that it has a hook automatically make it the weaker arm for the purpose of halakhah? Also, "write with" would include "sign with" (writing was not a common skill), and in any case I'm pretty sure the whole handedness thing is modern; back then, using the left hand was an insult (an attitude you still see in some Orthodox communities; the left hand was the one you, er, cleaned yourself with.).

[cellio]

I was assuming the questions were being asked about pirates who were alive to talk on Saturday, so I accepted a modern interpretation on this. I doubt this is talmudic, when, as you say, norms were different. (I didn't know that left-handedness was an issue today in Jewish communities.)