http://arstechnica.com/journals/science.ars/2008/01/10/new-alzheimers-treatment-works-in-minutes

also...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080109091102.htm

gorgeous. i had an idea a few weeks ago while looking at some glass figurines in a window (clowns, mice with GIGANTIC breasts, etc) and thought about how nice it would be to make a big glass bowl with really thick sides with HORDES of tiny glass octopodes stirred into the mix. but then i remembered i dont blow glass and the classes are more expensive than this guy...sigh. (at about a foot across, tho, this is kinda worth it, and its 'motion' is beautiful) ...ape lad's ebay suggestion is rad...that one with the gold fingernails is in-sane!

on my last day in japan, and at the only hotel i stayed at without communal baths, only showers, and those, strangely enough, just by the lobby, i had the very interesting experience of taking a shower in an earthquake. what do you do, right? do you ride it out, possibly die? or do you run naked into the street and embarrass the hell out of yourself? the thought popped into my mind to pretend it was some kind of ride, so i put my arms over my head, went 'wooo!', and then it was over.

all right, i surrender! sorry to trash everyones favorite new toy. if it does in fact inspire an interest in astronomy in yer young 'uns, then awesome, for real. hooray! and yes, if i'm expecting to get something like that awesome, laser-etched, 4-foot across, ridiculously accurate, with enhanced relief, cast bronze moon model at the rose center for earth and space at the american museum of natural history for FIVE BUCKS, then well, i guess i need to have my head examined...though that would be SWEET.

here, i'll make it up to you: the first HD footage of the moon from KAGUYA, the new japanese lunar orbiter, released yesterday ...enjoy!

is there ANY possibility that spores are suviving in the coal itself (and subsequent burning) from way back in the day when it used to be a germ-riddled peat bog? that'd be wild... have any organisms been cultured from coal before? (i ask only because there are bacteria that can survive in nuclear cores...hardy little buggers)

Sorry again for the flameout, it's just really hard to keep my voice down anymore. In this case, because it's HERE, on BB, where i found out about all the illegal spying this company is doing...and all the things that can be done about it. Cory was Director of European Affairs for the EFF, fergadsakes. To see this ad for them lauded as some clever piece of work here (which it ain't) just makes me sick. Does no one in this world stick to their guns anymore? Is everyones ethics for sale to the highest bidder? I know it's been awhile since the American Revolution, but still, every dollar you guys accept from AT&T is covered in blood. I realize that most likely your ads come from some ad-feed, but if you can't edit them in any way, you need to find another service.
I realize that I'm flogging a dead horse here, but I honestly think you guys are underestimating the power you hold. Boing Boing (while still mostly 'for fun') is a legitimate news outlet for what, like 2 million people a day now? To give even the slightest glimmer of a notion that anything about a company that is so blatently fucking the constitution up the ass is A-OK is a dangerous, dangerous thing.
(though to be honest, i haven't seen an AT&T banner in over a week now...i certainly hope you guys pulled the plug on them. if you did, then thanks. honestly.)

that car actually looks pleasantly insertable...

of course the open-source solution would be to scrape that program data from a variety of other sources...theres only a million or so online...

these are also good for capturing UFOs

more videos here...

i bought one at the thrift store for 5 bucks...it is crap.

the 'phase' aspect is totally fubared...its not a full hemisphere only a flattened dome of semi-opaque plastic with a very vague, unlabeled moon map (far from 'detailed') printed on it (so theres no room for a shutter to rotate). under this is a series of 5 angled vanes separating 6 white LEDs that are all along the equator. (the light from them doesnt quite make it to the poles) the lighting is far too uneven to give any impression of 'phase'

but hey, for 5 bucks i got 6 white leds, a plastic moon, and various other components (mostly in the remote...including an IR led and detector and three tiny and desolderable button switches), but i certainly wouldnt pay a cent more...

p.s. why are most science toys so very disappointing?

i remember 2 years ago scientists were proclaiming that there would be no ice covering the north pole in the summer within 40 years...
last year they were saying that it would happen within 20 years...
i read a few weeks ago that it looks like next year...

vote however you like.

maybe it's TOO LATE.
~^

does this work with second life? (i.e. can you import 3d items from sketchup to sl?) that'd be cool...

@#2...sorry fror the flaming...but i'm fucking furious. the more people accept the inevitabilty of their rights being stripped from them...the more inevitable it becomes. and guess what, i'm unwilling to let your (or anyone else's) complacency affect MY rights. as soon as i found out i cancelled my service. as soon as anyone smugly whips out an iphone in my presence i tell 'em the whole deal, and clue them in about unlocking options...and guess what...six of my friends have done it already...and are telling more.
it just takes one person to change the world for the better, right? you.

as far as not patronizing businesses that use at&t...hmm good question...most stores dont advertise who provides their phone service. the only place i shop is the grocery store, anyway...i don't really NEED much else...(i'm pretty anti-consumerist and working on getting my carbon footprint as close to zero as possible...it's fun once you get into it!)

and i don't appreciate being called a hypocrite, thanks, but when it comes to having my privacy sold to the highest bidder...damn right i'm an intolerant idealist, and proud of it. it's the ideals that really need our help nowadays.

there is an alternative...in australia at least...check out their senator on-line project...its kind of badass...link

and meanwhile, on bb gadgets...a post on how insanely cool the new at&t ads are...

like seriously, what. the. fuck?

it is still amazing to me that, even with an almost total monopoly on the home videogame market, they still managed to go bankrupt...

why are you posting anything about THESE ABSOLUTE FUCKING DIRTBAGS???!!! seriously?! THEY ARE SPYING ON YOU!!!! THIS IS ILLEGAL!!!! BIG BROTHER IS FUCKING HERE!!!! WAKE THE FUCKK UPP!!!! sure their ads are great, they've got more money than god, and nobody in this country has a shred of ethics anymore. they don't need YOUR help. Please...PLEASE pull this post. Please stop helping AT&T in any way.

3 mirrors set up like a prism+motor+laser=laser line

3 mirrors set up like a prism+slower motor+laser line=scanning laser line

+glow-in-the-dark sheeting=cool radar effect

(also...is that pointed at the SKY?? if its that strong, you could make an adaptive optics system for a large telescope...wow)

welcome back to the world of sustainable design...decent housecleaning robots will probably not get here until the quantum computers do....
nothing says 'oh do please come in miss sexy witch' like a real bristle broom with a sleek red-painted handle. as for a mop, if you have the closet space, def get one of those yellow super-heavy-plastic buckets with the levered wringer...keeps yer hands from reeking of mop (sexy witches hate that)

verryy useful...esp if it works on lighter fabrics as well...although turning a curtain into a relief map of a hurricane in a microsecond is fun too

what good is a brain bag if its made of stuff that will just get soggy when full of brains?

what they really need to ban is dihydrogen monoxide!

those wipes also work wonders on those tiny little speckles you get from rolling...

the trick to painting a straight line with paint is to put down the tape, then paint it the color under the tape first, then paint the new color. any irregularities that would cause paint to be wicked under the tape (boo, capillary action!) are then sealed and this will minimize any of the new color getting under the tape.

HOWEVER, the best method (and i end up painting approx 1 apartment a month or so) is to just trust in the force, luke, and go tape free. even using the above method, or this fancy new tape, there will be some wicking no matter what, leaving you with a 'sketchy' line. using an angled brush and going freehand, with a little practice, yields a very straight line with only a slight wave to it (unless you're a robot...like me). now stand back. the hand-done line looks perfectly straight, while every imperfection of the tape line snags at the eye. plus, ditching the tape saves time (2-4 hours per room), money ($5-6 per roll x ~2 rolls per room) and keeps all that tape out of the landfills. try it!

the really awesome product for painting are these painters wipes. they're like baby wipes with a lightly abrasive (spun plastic) side. latex house paint will dry in under an hour, but takes a day or two to 'cure' or completey dry. these will clean up paint thats wet OR dry (after a day or two, tho, YMMV)...they're great for every 'oops' moment.

awesome! was saving up for the ($500) wifi adapter for my camera. now i can have wifi AND a new lens! thanks, joel! you're the bomb (and not in a 'oh crap, now the flight's gonna be delayed for hours' kind of way...;)

although, that ball by (yeccch, slave labor!) nike is just plain old boring holographic.

i used to subscribe to 'communication arts' magazine back in high school and every year (or 3 yrs, i forget) they would print a color palette of the most commonly manufactured pigments. (like anything else, the more you make, the cheaper it gets to make) it was always 3 colors at the top, then 5, then like a dozen or so, in, i guess, decending order by quantity produced. it was like 'hey, get ready to look at these colors more than you want to!' remember pea green, sunset orange, and yellow on everything plastic in the 70's? or mauve, cornflower blue, and grey in the 80's? it was kind of a side effect to the process of making pigment more than anything else...the complexity setting up a chemical process and all that. i haven't really noticed what the 'big three' colors are lately, but i bet a trip to target is all i need.

LOVE these new colors, btw, but they aren't 'irridescent' per se, but 'dichroic' ...which i more often hear referred to as 'color-shifting' at the paint stores and car shows. manufactured iridescent things (like wrapping paper) tend to maintain the position of a color (this particular SPOT is pink) whereas dichroic things maintain the angle of a color (that part of the object that is FACING you is pink) . dichroic glass is really cool...it will reflect one color while transmitting its complement...very neat stuff.

ew. i just had this flash from the near-distant future where dolls actually HAVE guts.

i read once that the moon might be responsible for ALL life on earth...the reasoning being that in order for molecules to interact in such a way that proteins form (and then simple life to arise from these) requires a certain number (a very large number) of random molecular interactions. without the moon churning the oceans, this number would be seriously reduced. of course thats if you dont believe in the possiblity of panspermia.

hcovitz, the observation you're thinking of (based on the identical apparent diameter of the moon and sun) is the proof of einstein's relativity, which is generally agreed to be the most dramatic proof in the entire history of science. relativity predicts that matter causes space to curve, generating the force we know as gravity, and that this curvature of space by massive objects (such as the sun) would be observable as a lensing effect, causing objects (such as distant stars) along a line of sight near that massive object to be visibly distorted and moved from their normal positions. when the moon eclipses the sun, it becomes possible to observe stars very close to the suns limb that would otherwise be lost in its glare, and indeed observations during the eclipse of 1919 proved this to be true and stars near the sun were found not to be in their normal spots. (as far as distortion goes, stars are so small compared their distance that their angular diameter is effectively zero, even with the largest telescopes, so they have no shape to distort (there are exceptions however, mainly a small handful of huge red giant stars relatively nearby), but numerous galaxies have been spotted with extreme distortions caused by foreground galaxies, some so extreme that these galaxies appear multiple times in the sky around the forground object...neat, huh?)

woah...not only are they trafficking in stolen goods, they're also making a nice profit doing it...this is a clear conflict of interest.

wha-what!?! they're SELLING these scissors and such? isn't that trafficking in stolen goods? wait why am i surprised? why are people standing for this?

i didn't think at&t could get any more vile. guilt by association? ew.

i cheer myself these days with visualizing their downfall in graphic detail...

#2...yeah, but those 'different ways of being' are mostly just different metabolic cycles...not all that thrilling (to me anyway). but then i'm a eukaryotophile...all those bacterias look the same to me. ;)

#3...absolutely! we're a lot more of a community than we like to think about...i liked the part in this article about how our bacterial colonies are all different though...eeewww! i read this fascinating article once about this tiny nocturnal squid that lives in the shallow coastal waters of hawaii (in 'science spectra' magazine, i believe). the juveniles had these special siphons that would suck water through these 4 sacs on its underside until it picked up a particular, bioluminescent bacteria. then it would stop siphoning, the sacs would seal and it would breed these bacteria until they got all fat and glowy. ready for the cool part? these squid can contract these light organs behind their ink sac to shutter the amount of light released. why? so that no matter what the moon's phase is, they leave no shadow when hunting. cool, right? stealth squid! (plus they're only 4cm long when fully grown and are cute as buttons)

#4...i wouldn't be so sure. ahem... stealth squid!

ok...which PART of the bicycle was he having sex with? (not that i can think of a single one that would feel good...)

it would be interesting to see this graphic weighted by things other than number of species. like 'total biomass' (all of the ants weigh more than all of the other insects and all of the other animals combined) or 'length of dna' (lilies win in this category)(species often lengthen their dna as a defense mechanism against viruses...separating the viral dna from their own genes with long strands of nonsense). i wouldn't be surprised if the graphic changed significantly. (i also wouldn't be surprised if it stayed exactly the same)

i know that robot...she's a religious nut.
what i'm interested in is that endless roll of paper. where can i get one of those?

sure, tall and pretty has its advantages, but small and goblin-like is sooo good for getting at those hard-to-reach places...oh i just can't decide...

and yeah #10...this is from an 'evolutionary psychologist' (is there even such a field?) at a school for ECONOMICS...whattaya expect

and #20 the daily mail is much more reputable than the weekly world news (which sadly just published its last issue), though it's no new york post, that's for sure...;)

heh. i'm reminded of the 'friend' who 'might have an STD' from many a health class instructional video...ie, there's no 'friend', friend. but that's probably due to your personality, as the 'name-calling free-for-all', in my case at least, started with YOU, and your snarky little 'mother theresa' comment. (BTW, we still haven't heard exactly what u were up to on the 9/11 that would cause me so much shame. i'd LOVE to know. did you put a magnet on your car? do you need a medal for that pint of blood you donated? once. seriously, fill me in.)

as for that 'vital' piece of data that this was done to root out the terrorist boogey monsters who want to 'kill us all' (an unlikely prospect considering the size of our military), i should remind you that this program was set up in JANUARY of 2001. well before anyone could argue that any terror threat justified the wholesale spying on the american people, as it had been almost 50 YEARS since the last attack on american soil.

as for the nsa doing this without at&t's help, sure, they might be able to tap a few lines on 'the last mile', but to do it on this scale they need the switchers and those are all on at&t property. more info here, and much more here.

as for at&t advertising here, i think it's HI-larious...it's obviously a google ad-word cock-up based on the fact they get mentioned here so often...as soon as they figure out the nature of these mentions, i'm sure it will stop. but yeah, guys, it is dirty money. maybe it could be cleaned up by putting it towards a good cause? a response from the site on this would be appreciated...

as for wn's comment on your grandfather's patriotism...yeah, that was a cheap shot. but i'm going to back it up, as it's obvious the old man did very little to instill a sense of what american values really mean in you.

damn seyo, you're gonna be RICH!

i'm with you pyros, and sorry if i seemed gleeful before (i was thinking more about the cool early 20th cent cars i guess) but that car of mrs marcos was a powerful thing. i stood there thinking of her, and all the shoes, and all the suffering she must have ridden blithely past in that car, and i was struck by the awesome history of the thing. these things belong in a museum (as auschwitz and its infamous ovens now are)(boy, it really IS godwin week here on the boingboing comments!), to destroy them is to deny these dark chapters of human history ever happened, and as we all know, those of us who forget our history are doomed to repeat it.

that being said, there is a definite discontinuty between the curated artifacts of our past sitting on the shelves of museums for all to learn from, and their previous owners and all who suffered for their creation. it's this discontinuity, the ebay sales of nazi parephenalia, the back-alley purchases of mummies from grave robbers, etc, that's the really distasteful part. but, the original seller of this car? probably his driver. those grave robbers? locals, trying to make a living any way they can. it's the middlemen and private collectors (though the best of THEM usually end up donating said artifacts...another way the museums end up with them) that are the gross ones here.

sigh. is there anything BUT grey areas in this world?

You have no idea and if you knew you would be ashamed of yourself.

that's certainly easy to say while running away.

just like sitting idly by as your human rights get swapped for cash by multinationals.

what exactly were u up to that would cause me so much shame?

btw, am i the only one seeing at&satan's whoring of personal data to the nsa and recent attempts at ending net neutrality as being an obvious 'trade'?

ok, i know this is probably totally unreasonable, but can i be allowed to view this success as only the first step in establishing a cloud city (a la empire strikes back) in the sky?

please?

yeah...they bill it as a museum (i forget if u have to pay to get in...its free for hotel guests tho, i'm pretty sure), but everything's for sale and nothing's cheap...especially those sweet sweet doozies.
;)

@#23 hear hear! we need some more ben franklins in this world...

and p.o., if u think pulling together with the community to help those in need makes me like mother teresa, then i'm flattered by the comparison, but its what we were all doing that day.

...except for you, i guess, cowering in fear of 'bad guys' for your own worthless, chumpy, trolling flesh.

and btw, i wear my blades wherever i damn well please and no one has been in danger of being jostled, let alone 'killed' (an unlikely prospect in any scenario)...i got mad skills and don't you forget it.
;)

if you like crazily historic cars like this (that yes, you can buy), you should stop by the parking garage at the Imperial Palace next tme you're in vegas. they have 2 floors FULL of amazing old cars (like the steampunk? check out the dusembergs (spelling?) from the 20's-30's.) when i was there they had imelda marcos' bulletproof brown mercedes sedan (the glamorous life, anyone?) and nikita krushchev's car (a lada or a volga...i forget) as well.

peter o...what you need to realize is that your liberty (guaranteed by the constitution) is far more valuable than your personal safety (not guaranteed by anyone). maybe a little reading on the revolutionary war is in order for you...if you're still allowed.

basically, what freedom boils down to (as horrid as it sounds) is the freedom to commit crime. social responsibility is the thing that's supposed to stop us from doing that. when freedoms are removed, say with millions of crazy laws and a populace that is monitored to the point of being totally unable to commit any crime whatsoever, then not only are those in power free to change the laws to whatever they want, but also the whole concept of 'social responsibilty' disintegrates...and society collapses.

i'd rather have terrorist attacks every day than domestic spying. and if you don't think i don't understand the danger to personal safety that that entails, i should inform you i spent the morning of 9/11 dodging behind the #7 building as the first tower collapsed (on rollerblades no less) and the afternoon distributing respirators to the firefighters about a block further north. only to watch said firefighters put on those masks, walk down the street, and get killed in the collapse of the #7 building. from here on out, i live to ensure those men did not die in vain.

and btw, the ONLY cure for terrorism is an ethical foreign policy.

i guess because its so high tech, i just read that as nix-on...instead of, you know, like the president...ha

awesome! one of these might go well with that...

i don't know...i think this might actually work. of course then there'll probably just be a huge rise in spork-crime.

casio. cfx-9850ga plus. don't know if they still make it, but its color. its kinda wonky color, but it works.

how effective is a small steam-roller?

it sounds like a good system, but i bet you'd be hard pressed to find a bookstore with table after table of books about angels.

all skates are bad for wet-weather use. except for rocket skates, of course.

zomg...these would be AWESOME on fire! lots of them! burning (dead) man!

actually, it seems the worst is over. sigh, and just when i was hoping it would become self-aware, build millions of sexy robots and kill you al... i mean, clean up the environment and stuff.

yeah...i'll say it again, the japanese are embracing dairy a little TOO whole-heartedly...

You've got a lot of faith in that teeny little screw!

that's what she said! ...sorry.

also...wrap it around a chair or table leg b4 u plug it in. using an extention cord? knot it first!

raggedy ann and andy have always been goth. by which i mean so bone-shakingly acid-headed that i still wake up with nightmares from a film, supposedly FOR CHILDREN, that i saw almost 30(!) years ago. what film? oh...and if u live in the los angeles...its showing (a verrry rare print) on NOV 17th...more info here. i was going to go, but after reading part of that plot synopsis, i'm not so sure...so many haunted dreams suddenly thrown into sharp relief. seriously, that camel with the wrinkled knees is enough to freak your shit for. ever.

the snarl of cables behind the telly got so bad i finally just threw in a big bag of rubber snakes. now its funny.

this reminds me of a very interesting piece i saw at the metropolitan in nyc...this guy took every episode of 'starsky and hutch' and sorted every scene. the form of the thing was a briefcase with a dvd player and a stack of dvds with titles like 'every car chase', 'every secretary', and 'every policeman'. will the whole world end up sorted like this?

That love, she said, was Dumbledore's "great tragedy."...

because, of course, gay love is nothing BUT a tragedy...
and he dies before the end, right? thought so.

how exactly is this supposed to be good for the gays?

light is soooo pedantic...what these villiagers need is heated olympic rocket skates. if life is indeed how i see it (ie more like a scooby doo cartoon), then they should be able plow their fields with them, and also to skate, skate, skate their crops to the maretplace. right?

this is something i've been wondering about for a while...why dont the networks just put their shows online with ads intact? basically their revenue comes from a) advertisers and b) dvd sales, right? putting shows (with the ads intact) on youtube (or anywhere/everywhere else) is good for:
broadcasters: viewers watching the ads=advertising revenue...greater attention=more dvd sales
viewers: can easily find whatever shows they want to watch whenever they want and only have to watch ads if they're too lazy to fast forward...basically it makes youtube into the infinite tivo
advertisers: get to show their ads around the clock/whenever the shows are watched, as well as having a (reasonably) accurate view count...the whole 'rating' process is integrated

plus broadcasters can change the ads/videos whenever they want and charge advertisers accordingly...
the current situation seems to be that broadcasters are assuming that people will refuse to watch shows with ads online...if that were true, nobody would be watching tv at all...
sure, folks could copy the show, strip the ads out, and post a commercial-free version online, but people are lazy. aren't they more likely to just watch the show on the ABC or NBC youtube channel rather than combing the web for a secret, hidden 'commercial-free' version?

and NOBODY wants to download a propietary player to watch ABC shows...who came up with that retarded notion? i don't want to buy a new tv for each channel...

it's Velma, from scooby doo. she's on a 'freak-out'

start typing model numbers into youtube...i guarantee you will not end up buying a flashcorder. they. are. crap. sure, they're fine if you don't move the camera, or don't move while you are ON camera, but the instant you do the image ripples horribly. fully unacceptable. (i was looking into these myself, earlier...the best image quality is from that waterproof sanyo one (~$450) but it is still useless...even for posting video on the web) stick with miniDV.

lots wife haz a flavor!

finally i can see if those suppositories are really working

imagining these with nixie tubes instead of led's makes my labia moisten...and i dont even HAVE labia

lord. GREEN is the color MOST LIKELY to COMPLETELY DESTROY your eyes adaptation to the darkness, being the color your eyes are most sensitive to. if you need to be able to see in the dark (say while operating a telescope, for example), while also needing to read (star charts or whatever) then you need a RED LIGHT for that.

this is the third product I've seen claiming to have night-vision-preserving GREEN light. THIS IS FALSE ADVERTISING.

why are most 'night vision' goggles green then? because they aren't trying to preserve your dark adaptation, and because, like i said, green is the easiest color for humans to see. i guess the only reason you'ld buy this product is to pretend that you had $400 night vision goggles...just without the 'stealth' feature...

i'm filing this under 'people are really f*ck*ng stupid and will buy anything' , along with the glossy computer screen and binoculars with metallic red lenses.

even as a gay, i have to admire those foxy ladies on the pirate bay...why dl anywhere else?

and jen, not funny? are you kidding? (well ok, her material is a little soft this season) but seriously, s01ep02? (and ep 5 as well)...i dont think ive ever seen anyone BE funnier. its her faces that kill me. shoes? ...shoes?

gawd! yeah...ATARI...wow.
it takes a very special breed of stupid to totally collapse a market that:
a) you have a monopoly on
b) millions of people are interested in
c) went on to become bigger than the MOVIES in less than two decades
It's like watching the English (or Darth Vader) lose the Empire...

i remember these guys from high school biology...our assignment was to bring in pond water to see what was in it. every time i would get focused on an organism (paramecium, volvox, hydra, what have you) one of these guys would march in and eat it. hungry little buggers...

I love this game...if you have trouble finding it, check ebay...I'm sure they have this Jenny on the block.

um...yeah...this is news? myspace has been using targeted ads at me since i signed up 2 years ago. more targeted? still not news...ever since amazon started doing it wasn't it obvious that everyone else would too? (even if it didnt work)

speaking of amazon, is their super-targeted ad system EVER going to figure out that i bought that tshirt (and that book, and that etc and etc and etc) already...from amazon. i find that most of the things they're tring to sell me are things they've already sold me.

aaanndd...speaking of ads...does anyone know of a really good ad blocker for safari? i just really dont want to be brainwashed anymore. the worst? nike ads here on boing boing. seriously? nike? really? have you guys HEARD of starvation wages? do you reeeally need the money that bad?

have none of you made spaghetti before? everyone knows that if you add salt to water it boils faster, so of course he's getting out more energy than he's putting in. its staggering to imagine how much power he could generate if only he would put the lid on.

when i was living in london, i read an amazing story in the paper (forget which one) about the carvings found there. scientists used lasers to scan the stones and computers to enhance the detail (the carvings have been heavily eroded by time). what did they find carvings of (all over the stones)? axe heads. hundreds of them. like notches in a bedpost. so very very creepy. on a completely unrelated subject, does anyone know if human sacrifices really help crops grow? because my houseplants aren't doing so well and my roommate is reeealy getting on my nerves....