1972 Soviet postage stamp commemorating the Mars 2 probe

worth a read

Mars For The Rest of Us — a weekly-or-more deep dive on the technical side of Mars exploration: rocket propulsion, microbiology, mission architecture, and everything in between. Written by Maciej Ceglowski.

Read it on Substack →

Dead Programmer's Cafe

Tag: Biology

  • Did I Mention that Purple is the Official Brooklyn College Color?

    I wrote about Monk parakeets before.

    Well, it looks like the Brooklyn College Environmental Education Science Masters Program. members are involved in some cutting edge research:

    “On the athletic field we saw 5 birds perched on the lamp post on the right side. They were flying back and forth. While we watched their flight we viewed one of the birds relieving themselves. We approached the ramp and examined the droppings. We counted 11 droppings and saw a distinct color change in its appearance. This change was not the same as what we had previously viewed, it was purple in color.”

    “On East 23 and Avenue J we saw three birds eating acorns and making a lot of noise. “

    This reminded me:

  • Obesity is a Serious Problem for Snowpeople in America


    I snapped this on the way to work. He sits right near Times Square. Looks like either cops or transit workers came up with yet another creative way of using traffic cones.

  • Porgie and Bass

    Went fishing on Pastime Princess. This time, besides a single skate and a few cunners I caught no throwback fish. I did catch three fat porgies and half a dozen sea bass. The one tog that I caught was short (under 14 inches) :(

    What sucked, was that the captain had trouble positioning the ship over shipwrecks (that’s where all the fish are) all morning. Finally, in the very last hour he anchored the ship correctly and people were catching “double headers” (two fish at a time) , but then it was time to go.

    And now it’s time for a game show! Let’s play “What the heck is this fish?”

  • Untitled

    Guess which birds live in this ugly nest at Brooklyn College stadium?

    Fricking Monk parrots.
    organaut‘s parents have one as a pet. The little green bastard talks a little, but has a very nasty attitude.

  • Backwash

    This morning I remembered a funny idiom that an Australian friend taught me – “backwash”. It the remainder of a soft drink left in a bottle or a can, presumably mixed with original drinker’s saliva. Used in a sentence: “I don’t want the rest of your soda, that’s just backwash.” There is no idiom like that in Russian, probably because sodas were not commonly sold in cans or individual sized bottles in USSR.

    So, I decided to take a look on the web and see if that was a strictly Australian expression or not. What I found instead was “Backwash Magazine“. And there I found a link to a very cool book – “Found on Ebay“. Schweet.

    I always wondered if Ebay preserves all the logs for their auctions. I wish they gave them all to Google – it would be a catalogue for everything. From a shuttle to raccoon penis bones.

    By the way, I’ve read somewhere that Ebay used to be an abbreviation for “Echo Bay” (now it’s explained as “Electronic Bay”).

1972 Soviet postage stamp commemorating the Mars 2 probe

worth a read

Mars For The Rest of Us — a weekly-or-more deep dive on the technical side of Mars exploration: rocket propulsion, microbiology, mission architecture, and everything in between. Written by Maciej Ceglowski.

Read it on Substack →