The twelve days of diet

On the twelfth day of diet, I got a treat for me,

Twelve quarter pounders
Eleven Hot fudge Sundaes
Ten hot and spicys
Nine Chicken Nuggets
Eight egg Mcmuffin
Seven Filet O Fish
Six Tender Crispies
Five onion rings
Four Cole Slaws
Three French fries
Two apple pies and
A small diet ice tea

NE aquarium

This weekend Viscoelastic visited the aquarium with Mao the Googler and Turtle Girl. The aquarium is a place where most systems are predominantly Newtonian. I spent some time studying the swimming of jellyfishes. First I estimated the Reynolds number. They are of the order 1000 to 10000.


We conclude that these systems are largely inertial, viscous effects are insignificant when considering a control volume roughly the size of the jellyfish. Next we tried to estimate the Strouhal number, most aquatic animals using jets to propel themselves pulse at frequencies corresponding a Strouhal number (St) of 0.2~0.3. We find the large jelly fish (video) does approach this value. While St for its smaller cousin (video) is significantly higher, obviously the little twerp has no respect for good fluid mechanics.


viscoelastic is pleased with the menu.

These studies consumed much brain power, and I moved onto a more interesting problem... How best to prepare these aquatic delicacies. The giant garoupa should be steamed in soy sauce, what you can't finish should be frozen as fillets and sauted. Jellyfish are cut into thin strips and served chilled with vinegar and sesame seed oil. Turtle shells can be made into Gwei Ling Go (A jello like delicacy), while the meat should be braised in soup. This beast here weighs 600 pds, and is approximately 1.5m in diameter.


click here for turtle video


Viscoelastic feeding on the sweet diamondback

Aside, if you want to promote conservation of diamondback turtles, one MUST not begin a description of the species by stating "Diamondback turtles are prized for their sweet meat", it certainly put me in a rather unconservationist mindset.


Turtle girl has yet to develop a taste for turtle soup. (photos courtesy of turtle girl, and mao's superb camera wielding skills)

Maps

Many of you might know that Viscoelastic has an obsession with maps. I love reading them, and my hoarding instincts drives me to own every map I come across. I have no clue how I came to be like this, even as I child, I saved my pocket money to purchase maps. My sister never understood my obsession and always felt that I was wasting my money, to the point that I usually had to hide these little purchases to avoid her scornful comments.

In a little brief case I keep my maps, ski maps, road maps, tourist maps... most of them are freebies picked up at rest stations or hotel lobbies. Some of the nicer ones are bought with my stipend. I have an affinity to historical maps. I like to imagine how undiscovered the world felt at that point. My most recent addition is a map of Europe at the turn of the century (ca 1897). It was before the first world war, when the world was ruled by Kings and Princes. It was the time of Queen Victoria's Jubilee. Sherlock Holmes has returned after the "final problem" encounter with Moriarty and Col Flashman's career was winding down. If you happen to be an upper-class englishman, you had it good, perhaps even a chance to see the world. While if you were a serf stuck in Romanov Russia on the right of the map, life might not be so comfortable. In the south were the eclectic Austro Hungarians and exotic Ottomans.

If you too have an obsession of maps, I will like to introduce you to a hidden gem at the "Institute". In the basement of the Hayden Science Library, at the far end behind the most god forsaken journals lies the Institute's map room! Inside the room are piles and piles of maps from all over the world drawn over the last hunderd years. My favourites are of course those of my hometowns: Hong Kong, Singapore and Cambridge. A strange excitement fills me when I see the ill fated gun emplacements in Pulau Blakan Mati or the empty spot on Mt Nicholson which is later to become my home! Cambridge (UK) being Cambridge has really not changed that much for the last 500 years. I was introduced to this treasure room together with the Rheologeewoldt through some obscure IAP tour and I encourage all of you to check it out!

With increasingly sophisticated technology, something like google earth is inevitable. Needless to say, I am a google earth whore, I can easily spend hours scrolling through the landscapes and I leave you with the KMZ file of my grand dad's house in Singapore (its the file named googleearth.kmz).

Flies

2 of my readers (representing 66% of my readership) have complained that I do not update my blog often enough. I will like to tell them that I have been too busy to do it, but the sad truth is that I am just too damn lazy... nothing much interesting has been happening anyway.

Other than a few equations of interest, the most exciting thing to have happened recently is the discovery of tiny little fruit flies in my room! Given the recent state of my apartment (some might say I live in squalor), you might be surprised that flies have not appeared sooner, but nevertheless, it has been quite traumatic for me. They seem to have been introduced to my residence through a box of sauces from a certain chinatown supermarket which my parents have left in my care. Without giving it much thought at the time, I left the box in the toilet and flew off to Vancouver. I was horrified to return in a week to find 4 annoying insects flying around my room. I have managed to "eliminate" 2 of them, but the other 2 has eluded me, and I fear that they might be breeding in some corner. They are especially irritating because the flies seem not so interested in food stuff, but instead share the same taste in alcohol as me. So rather than buzzing about the unfinished plate of curry, they like to hover by the wine glass or whiskey tumbler.

Being of selfish nature, I was of course unwilling to share my "precious" with these uninvited pests. So after consulting "Mao the googler" I quickly constructed some traps to ensnare the little fuckers.

Unfortunately the camera is out of battery, so I can't present pictures of this marvellous feat of engineering, but basically, flytrap 1 is made from a funnel and a pickle jar, while flytrap 2 is made from a poland springs bottle. They are both of the design below.


Instead of vinegar, I baited the trap with a particularly nasty Chardonnay from Napa valley.

I check my traps everyday, but so far it has yielded nothing. But amazingly, I have not seen the remaining two flies around for the last few days. Perhaps they ODed on the drinks.