Nisiablog - Bold Already

GERRY VISCO: So, Eddie, you’re going to so many locations on your world tour.

EDDIE IZZARD: It’s about 32 cities in America, but I’m planning on going to all 50 states. This is the 24th country on the world tour. 

VISCO: You like to do things in big way.

IZZARD: Well, yes. If you’re trying to get a bit of attention, you can smash up your hotel room or spend all your time going to openings or doing the gossip column thing. I just decided to do gigs in French, German, Spanish, and in America. 

VISCO: Did you do the whole Berlin show in German?

IZZARD: Yes. Alles auf Deutsch. That’s what I was just learning. 

VISCO: Is it true you’re dyslexic?

IZZARD: Yes.

VISCO: You seem like such a linguist.

IZZARD: Linguistics has nothing to do with reading.

[….]

IZZARD: My heels were high, but how high do they have to be? I wear whatever I want whenever I want. I don’t call it drag; I don’t even call it cross-dressing. It’s just wearing a dress.

VISCO: Do you call it transvestitism? 

IZZARD: No, I just call it wearing makeup. No woman would say of another woman, “Oh, she’s wearing pants, what’s up with that?” Drag for me is costume, and what I’m trying to do is, sometimes I’ll go around and wear makeup in the streets, turn up to the gig, take the makeup off, do the show, and then put the makeup back on. It’s the inverse of drag. It’s not about artifice. It’s about me just expressing myself. So when I’m campaigning in London for politics, I campaign with makeup on and the nails. It’s just what I have on, like any woman.

[….]

IZZARD: I have a lot of boy stuff going on in me, and then I have the girly thing, so I’m trying to express that in the most honest way I can. 

VISCO: Do you consider it a fetish, something sexual?

IZZARD: No, it’s a genetic gift that people have been given. Everyone gets cards at the beginning of life. I don’t believe in a god, so we just seem to get given these cards, and then some people will hide from them in the LGBT area. I am transgender, I decided to be honest and tell everyone about it, and that’s it.

VISCO: Did you get any feedback about it from the LGBT scene? 

IZZARD: People I encounter have been very positive. You’re being yourself, standing your ground.

VISCO: Do you go to gay bars?

IZZARD: No, I just go to bars. I don’t seek out anything. I will just go places. I think when LGBT gets really boring then we’ve made it, because it shouldn’t be, “You’re gay? Oh my god! You’re transgender? Oh my god!” It should just be, “You’re LGBT? Fine. Are you any good at what you do—accounting, photography, playing the banjo? How are you at that?” Our sexuality should be a thing that’s there, but not the front signpost.

(source)

As dangerous as explosions are in air, they are even more destructive in water. Because air is a compressible fluid, some part of an explosion’s energy is directed into air compression. Water, on the other hand, is incompressible, which makes it an excellent conductor of shock waves. In the video above we see some simple underwater explosions using water bottles filled with dry ice or liquid nitrogen. The explosions pulsate after detonation due to the interplay between the expanding gases and the surrounding water. When the gases expand too quickly, the water pressure is able to compress the gases back down. When the water pushes too far, the gases re-expand and the cycle repeats until the explosion’s energy is expended. This pulsating change in pressure is part of what makes underwater explosions so dangerous, especially to humans. Note in the video how the balloons ripple and distort due to the changing pressure. Those same changes in pressure can cause major internal damage to people. (Video credit: The Backyard Scientist; submitted by logicalamaze)

wow and ow

Holderisms [Part 5]

Greatest minds in physics playing poker

- Nichelle Nichols

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eXB1Yj05Fw)