April 1, 2014

At the Perfect Café...



... why hold out for perfect? Is it really that good?

21 comments:

chickelit said...

By coincidence, I was just writing some notes on the subject of naming acids and inorganic compounds, for example, perchloric, perbromic, permanganate, etc. They share the same prefix as perfect, which means "completely." Most words beginning with "per" are etymologically unrelated - perjury, per diem, permeate, etc. There are other examples in chemistry, but what others there in English?

FleetUSA said...

Professor, The new picture is a bit better. Maybe need a slightly more serious look rather than a foxy grin.

Anonymous said...

Perfect is the Enemy of the Ambitious.

Bartlett's awaits.

chickelit said...

betamax3000 said...
Perfect is the Enemy of the Ambitious.

The noble gases are lazy and boring in their perfection.

sakredkow said...

That's exactly what I said to St. Anselm.

Michael K said...

Patton Boggs seems to be heading for Niagara Falls in a very thin barrel. Whoring has gotten old and tired.

chickelit said...

Pernicious is one example; pervert is not.

Bob Boyd said...

Nice.
I can see why they don't want to take a chance on its being stolen.

madAsHell said...

Nice picture.

We have some commonality; fair skin, mainly Germanic heritage. I am a few years younger than you, but your appearance is much more youthful.

What's your secret???!!!

chickelit said...

What's your secret???!!!

Are you asking about Althouse's moisturizer?

Carnifex said...

"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of the perfect plan"--Carl von Clausewitz

*note to self...read more von Clausewitz*

mccullough said...

Cinderblock. As close to perfect as duct tape.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Why cancer?

Why not open-heart surgery?


Yeah.


Why not plumbing?

Why not run a lube rack

for all the surgeons know about...


Homo sapiens sapiens?


No way.


Cancer's the only thing I ever wanted.

No, really, cancer is...

Awesome?


Yeah.


It is awesome. How does it do it?

The intercellular regulatory mechanisms...

especially for proliferation

and differentiation.

- The malignant neoplasia just don't get it.


- Neoplasia, cancer cells.


Yes, that's right.


You grow normal cells

in a tissue culture in a lab...

and they replicate enough

to form a confluent monolayer...

and then divide or times,

but eventually they conk out.


You grow cancer cells

and they never stop.


No contact inhibition whatsoever,

they just pile up.

They keep replicating forever.


It's got a great name.

Know what it's called?


- No, what?


- Immortality in culture.


That sounds like a symposium.


It's an error in judgment,

in a molecular way.



But why?



Even on a protistic level

the normal cell-cell interactions...

are so subtle,

they take your breath away.

It's incredible, it's perfect.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Wit (2001) with Emma Thomson.

David said...

So Lem, do you have cancer? Hope not.

tim in vermont said...

Thank God that lefties have been born onto our planet to root out all of humanities imperfections. One day they will succeed and we will all be perfect.

SJ said...

I look at that picture, and I don't think that the support structure is even "good".

Unless it's not a staircase.

The corner under the right-hand end of the word "perfect" is unsupported. Even if the other three corners are nailed firmly to something, that thing is unstable.

tim in vermont said...

It won't be that long before every American requires a graduate degree just to know how to act.

Robert Cook said...

Was that picture taken in DUMBO? I've seen rickety structures like that in various parts of NYC, but all the places where one would see such things are now gentrified and replete with luxury co-op buildings.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Looks like a makeshift workbench. The tumble-down sheds and barns of the West are littered with those.

southcentralpa said...

They're letting their desire to use the word "perfect" on that pallet be the enemy of the good carpentry