Zombie-Proof Houses Exist

No, really. They do.

In an unexpected turn of events, I actually feel much safer in my vulnerable not-zombie-proof house knowing that just around the corner could lie an impenetrable bastion against the undead hordes; that somewhere in this world, humanity could be preserved, even if civilisation falls.

On the other hand, I am, of course, now paranoid by the obvious deficiencies in my own home. My house isn't from Cybertron at all, and is therefore not wont to fold in on itself to protect against invasion. My windows are but glass, and I'm afraid that I don't have concrete blocks that are going to flip out in front of them to box them in. Is this a serious flaw in home design?

Is this a serious flaw in home design that has penetrated the deepest circles of architecture for centuries?

My answer is probably not, but maybe! We all know that Freemasonry has been up to something shady for about the same amount of time; maybe the mason symbolism was more than just symbolism, and they've been actively working to make us more vulnerable to zombie attack?

I mean, let's face it. The average home isn't particularly well equipped to deal with a zombie apocalypse. Out in the 'burbs, no one can hear you scream, except for your hundred or so nearest neighbours who have already been zombified.

Most houses -- okay, I don't actually know the statistics, but what seems like a LOT of houses have windows on the ground level through which a zombie could easily stumble, as opposed to a drawbridge on the second level being the only possible entry point. That's commitment on the part of the zombie-proof house designers, and also on the part of the people who live there and who have to go up and down all the bleeding time.

So, in conclusion, we're all pretty poorly equipped for a zombie outbreak, except for the specific few people who live in this verifiable fortress or a home styled off its design, and I guess I don't know much about Freemasonry beyond the insane whisperings of half-baked conspiracy theories.

Other things I've learnt today:

• Montpellier is in the south-east of France
• The fossa, a cat/mongoose creature, is endemic to the island of Madagascar
• It's entirely possibly to be literally standing a hundred metres from a phone tower in a CBD, with full signal and full credit, and still not be able to connect a call. Nice one, Telstra!

Pippa gets her own Coat of Arms

When pondering what wonderful new piece of information I would share with you all today, I decided to go for the most topical. Lest history should forget it, or Blogger mistake the date, let me note the historical significance of today, Friday the 29th of April, 2011; the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.

Rockin'!

Well, it's rockin' once you ignore the fact that they're twelfth cousins once removed, anyway, but fortunately for them, genetics is totally cool with that, and unless something else goes horribly, horribly awry, their babies won't have blue feet growing out of their foreheads or anything.

I guess it's interesting, really, that in England, where they do everything so properly and have such a history of making sure that things are done properly, that so many of their monarchs are inbred. Not any more, of course, and like I said, that's nothing wrong with twelfth cousins once removed -- that's a pretty distant relation -- but still. Interesting.

But because England does have this history of doing things properly, it meant, of course, that Kate Middleton had to have a coat of arms designed for her for the wedding.

That, to me, is incredibly awesome. Heraldry is designed to be forever. The entire Middleton family, for centuries to come, has just been defined by the Middleton family as it is right now, because Kate's marrying a prince. I really need to lift my game so that all my ancestors get to be defined by me. I think they'd appreciate that.

Backtracking a moment, I'd just like to emphasise that Kate had the coat of arms designed for her. That is, she has her own specific version of the coat of arms that's lozenge-shaped and with a blue ribbon that symbolises and means "Middleton spinster". Of course, Kate's getting married in... three hours, by my watch, and so she will no longer be a Middleton spinster, so the shape changes and this changes and that changes and all this special symbolic heraldic things which are cool and fascinating but too boring to go into detail here.

So what happens to this form of the coat of arms?

It now represents, solely, her younger sister Pippa.

In all honesty, I've got to say that I'm a little bit jealous of ol' Pip. She gets her own coat of arms now, and why? Because her sister is marrying a prince. It's not even the usual fuddy-duddy of inheriting it because some ancestor was a knight in the 16th century (which, by the way, he was) or whatever, but because her sister is getting married.

One day my sister will get married, too, and I fully expect our family to get its own coat of arms because of it.

Other interesting things I learnt today:

• Queen Juliana of the Netherlands spent a lot of time in Canada, and they loved her for it
• Glacial acetic acid smells simultaneously disgusting and delicious (think: the strongest vinegar in the world)
• The first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier was called the USS Enterprise

Also, for those who were wondering, the specific "spinster" version of the Middleton arms won't die out (necessarily) with Pippa, since Kate and Pippa also have a brother whose daughters would get it. More you know!

Not All Kookaburras are Kookaburras

So I've known for a while now that kookaburras are kingfishers. For some reason, this information caught me off guard, like I was expecting kookaburras to be part of their own special super-secret club, and no one else was allowed to join.

But no. That's not the case at all. The family Halcyonidae, kingfishers, is home to the genus Dacelo, which is the kookaburras. As a quick recap for those who have forgotten their biological classifications, just remember your amusingly bad English:

PLEASE COME OVER FOR GAME SOCCER

They taught us that on my very first day of university so that we could remember Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species, in that order, but the degree to which the phrase doesn't actually make sense (and the fact that it skips out Kingdom altogether) stuck it in my head, which actually makes it pretty useful as a mnemonic.

Kookaburras, then, are classed as:

K: Animalia

P: Chordata

C: Aves

O: Coraciiformes

F: Halcyonidae

G: Dacelo

We'll ignore, for the moment, that contemporary biological classification hasn't really quite caught up to birds being in the clade of theropods (my favourite sub-order, incidentally), and just accept the relevant piece of information here: kookaburras are in the genus Dacelo which is defined in a few (fairly sketchy) places as 'Australasian kingfishers'. That's

their 'thing'. That is the kookaburra hood, that is the kookaburra's turf, and that makes the family Halcyonidae a cosmopolite.

Unfortunately, that is not to be confused with a polite cosmonaut.

...though I agree, that would be more awesome.

A cosmopolite is a type of creature that can be found just about anywhere in the world (as opposed to being anywhere that is not the world, because they are polite cosmonauts and have no need for our terrestrial realm). For example, the class Insecta is cosmopolitan, as is the species Homo sapiens.

The inclusion of Dacelo in Halcyonidae is important for the kingfisher krew because they're now also in the Cool Cosmo Club. They're living it up where ever they want, including Australasia, because as you'll recall, Dacelo are the Australasian kingfishers.

Let's back up a moment.

"Australasia?" dudes are saying in confused voices. "Can we not just quickly define where, exactly, 'Australasia' is?"

Of course we can, dudes! All you need do is ask.

According to Wikipedia, which is not only conveniently bookmarked here but generally 'good enough' (technical term there) in terms of information quality, 'Australasia' consists of

Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea

and some other little islands of which no one else has really heard (sorry, the rest of Australasia).

So quick recap, Dacelo is:

• kookaburras
• Australasian kingfishers

and Australasia is:

• Australia
• New Zealand
• New Guinea
• et. al

So then, it stands to reason that if we grab a species of kookaburra, from, say, New Guinea, then it will be in the genus Dacelo.

It's time to introduce you to my friend, Clytoceyx rex.

Unfortunately, that is not to be confused with Tyrannosaurus rex.

...though I agree, that would be more awesome.

C. rex, known more commonly as the shovel-billed kookaburra, is a kookaburra from New Guinea. It is also the only non-Dacelo kookaburra, and is the sole representative of the genus Clytoceyx.

This, to me, to be honest with you, seems silly, and like the problem is primarily a linguistic one. I can't actually find any more definitive criteria for Dacelo beyond "Australasian kingfisher", and Clytoceyx is even less documented. The former was formally identified by William Leach in 1815, and the latter by Richard Sharpe in 1880. Maybe Sharpe just didn't know about Dacelo? How well was biological taxonomy centralised in the late 19th century? Or is there an actual, real, noticeable difference between Dacelo and Clytoceyx that I just can't identify by comparing pictures on Google Images?

Unfortunately, these are not to be confused with rhetorical questions. They are 100% genuine, my friends, and I'm not about to whip out some killer bio facts and put you all in awe of my genius.

...though I agree, that would be more awesome.

Other interesting things I learnt today:

• Carbon-13 has a natural abundance of only about 1%
• The world's largest cannon on wheels, the Jaivana, was cast in 1720
• Enough people still buy (and use!) Sony's products for the PS3 hack to be a big deal

Pascal's Triangle and Quantum Mechanics

Pascal's Triangle has got to be one of the most useful things in the history of useful things. To give some perspective on just how many applications it has, keep in mind: I was learning about Pascal's Triangle in my first year 7 maths lesson and my last HSC Extension 2 maths lesson. Triangles don't get any more diverse than Pascal's.

For those of you who either don't know or can't remember what Pascal's Triangle is, it's a pretty simple mathematical... toy, I guess you'd call it. Or maybe you wouldn't, but I would. Pascal's Triangle is a toy, and like all the best toys, it's easily constructed and useful for all your life, ever, forever, like Lego. Pascal's Triangle is created by starting with the number 1 at the top of the triangle. The next line is the sum of the two numbers directly above it. So 1 and 1. And then then next line will be 1, 2, and 1. And so on:

1

1 1

1 2 1

1 3 3 1

1 4 6 4 1

1 5 10 10 5 1

1 6 15 20 15 6 1

1 7 21 35 35 21 7 1

There are the first eight lines for you, just to get you started. You'll soon discover why I chose eight lines, but now it's time to do cool, improbable stuff with it!

For starters, look at the second (or second last) number on each line. You'll notice it has the pattern 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc. It just counts. Which is obvious, really, because you'll be adding 1 to it each time, but it still looks cool. You know what else looks cool?

Sierpinski's Triangle.

Sierpinski's Triangle is what happened when Nintendo realised what a goldmine they were sitting on with the Legend of Zelda series. Shigeru Miyamoto drew a Triforce. In each of those Triforces, he drew another Triforce. And then another. And another. And another, until he had such a cool looking pattern that you didn't even notice that I've already begun eight sentences with conjunctions this blog post.

So that's cool, now we have two funky looking triangles. But (nine) what's that all about? The cool thing is, if you colour in all the odd numbers in your Pascal's Triangle, guess what you end up with?

1

1 1

1 2 1

1 3 3 1

1 4 6 4 1

1 5 10 10 5 1

1 6 15 20 15 6 1

1 7 21 35 35 21 7 1

Sierpinski's Triangle, aka Pascal's Triforce. I just ended a sentence with a preposition and I don't even care. That's how exciting this is. I am throwing grammar to the winds and mathsing this right up now, because it only gets better.

Some of you probably now realise why I had eight lines. Eight lines is the perfect amount to demonstrate a Pascal's Triforce. Four would be perfect to show off just a normal triangle, since the fourth line is comprised entirely of odd numbers, like the eighth. Also like the first and second.

1, 2, 4, 8... check it out, you guys, the next time this happens will be line 16! Computer scientists and maths nerds will recognise this pattern immediately as being 2^0, 2^1, 2^2, 2^3, etc., and normal people will put it more succinctly as "it doubles each time". This is officially whacky!

"This is cool and all," I can hear you saying, "but that isn't quantum mechanics, and frankly, there's only so much of a maths lesson you can give me before you get really boring really quickly." Well, let me tell you: you're right! That isn't quantum mechanics. Also, you're wrong. You can never have too much of a maths lesson. But (ten) ignoring what is actually my favourite use of Pascal's Triangle (i.e. binomial expansion, exciting, right?), let's move on to what I actually learnt today.

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance! It's a lot of fun and useful for determining different things about different chemical structures, but that's not the point. The point is that if one faerie is near another faerie, it creates a unicorn not only for itself but one for its friend faerie, too. If there is a third faerie nearby, they will channel their magical power and there will be two normal unicorns, and one unicorn with a horn twice as long as the other unicorns. If there is a fourth faerie, then there will be two normal unicorns, and two unicorns with horns three times as long as a normal unicorn's!

Do you see where I'm going with this?

Obviously, this example is imperfect, since by 'faerie' I mean 'proton' and by 'unicorn horn' I mean 'spike in the NMR reading due to spin-spin couplings which are pretty much quantum entanglement', but I think most people probably understand this example a lot better. Maybe you don't? The beautiful thing is, you don't really have to understand what's going on there.

Today I learnt that Pascal's Triangle has applications in quantum mechanics, and spent the rest of my chemistry lecture fixated on that rather than on what they were.

Other interesting things I learnt today:

• River deltas are called deltas because they resemble an uppercase letter delta
• The velvet on an antler supplies the growing bone with blood and nutrients
• "It [chemically equivalent spin couplings] is like boy and girl fall in love. When you in love, you not have two horns on your head each." That's the only other thing I took out of that lecture.

The Mexican Standoff is Australian

They say you learn something new every day. I'm not sure who they are, and frankly, I think they're underestimating me a bit, but I've decided to set out to prove it and keep a record of the interesting little tidbits of information I learn each day. Each post won't be long, but just a short little explanation of some piece of trivia I've stumbled across that I found interesting enough to record.

First of all, today I learnt that the phrase 'Mexican standoff' has its origins in Australian slang. A Mexican standoff is, for those of you late to the Mexican standoff party, more or less an impasse; two (or more, if you're in to group standoffs) parties are threatening each other without wanting to resort to doing what they're threatening, as then the other party might also do what they're threatening, and that would be bad.

For example, let us consider the hypothetical situation of a hypothetical man named Gonzales. Gonzales has a moustache the size of a small European nation and enjoys long walks in the desert with his sombrero and twin pistols, as well as snacking on burritos and tacos. What Gonzales hates, however, is ethnic stereotyping, which is what his arch enemy Julio is all about. "Yo, Gonzales," Julio says each morning as Gonzales strums his guitar whilst leaning on a cactus, "I am all about ethnic stereotyping." Well, thinks Gonzales, that is just not on. Eventually, after many mornings of such taunting, Gonzales finally snaps and reaches for a pistol. Julio does the same. The two men are staring at each other intently, each with a hand on his pistol, and neither one willing to move an inch in case it prompts the other to shoot him dead.

This is an example of a Mexican standoff, even though Gonzales is Norwegian and Julio is Sudanese.

I think I find this interesting because 'Mexican standoff' doesn't really blend in with other Ocker phrases such as 'Ocker', 'crikey', 'g'day' or 'fuggya'. It just doesn't sound particularly Skippy. I'd always assumed that it was North American, since that's where most contemporary English phrases seem to originate, and it's referencing Mexicans. Americans love referencing Mexicans! If popular media is to be believed, it's their number one past time over in the States.

But no; the Cambridge Online Dictionary describes it as belonging to "[a] type of English used primarily in Australia and New Zealand". Struth! Okay so maybe that doesn't mean it's actually Australian; it could be New Zealish. I assume that since England produces English and Finland produces Finnish that New Zealand produces New Zealish; I think I've only ever heard the phrase 'New Zealander' but that doesn't seem to do justice for this context.

If the phrase is New Zealish, and not Australian, then I can't help but feel that perhaps the New Zealanders should spend more time developing useful self-descriptive words than cinematic tropes.

Other interesting things I learnt today:

• The average mosquito has forty seven teeth
• Somali isn't a safe tourist destination
• Chickens can swim... but not very well