My first experience with henna

I use this system, StumbleUpon, to browse random webpages when I feel like looking at different things online. It's very fun and sometimes I find amazing websites. One of them was Henna for Hair. They were showing different experiences with people who used body quality art henna (the one you use to make tattoos on your skin) to dye their hair. The color of the dye from henna is always red.

Dyeing your hair with henna is different than dyeing it with the regular chemical dyes. First, it's not full of, d'uh, chemicals. Henna is a plant. The henna you use is this very plant made a fine dust. Second, henna doesn't "paint" your hair. It is somewhat of a "transparent" dye. Henna is red, and it combines with the color your hair has to create a new one. So if you have dark hair, henna won't make it red, but it will give it shiny red highlights. If your hair is blonde, it will make it orange/copper.

With that in mind, I thought about trying this. I've dyed my hair red for almost 10 years now. Right now I found a nice dye that leaves the hair the color I like, but after a couple of weeks it fades. They always do. So I thought, maybe this would give the hair back the color I love, since I'd be putting the henna over red color.

The experience was fun. What you do with the henna is, they ship you the dust, you combine it with whatever you want, following certain guidelines (check the website). You end up with a mud! and you put that mud in your hair! Luckily I had help to apply it hehe. And let it sit in my hair under a shower cap for 3 hours.

The results: I now have a VERY shiny hair, with a deep red color. I love it. Under the sun, is SUPER bright. The sad part is that I still have to do my roots with normal dyes because henna won't turn my dark brown hair red. But at least now I know what I can do to revitalize the color!

This is the result:

I have absolutely nothing  bad to say about henna. I will use it again, definitely.

Stupid puzzle!!

So I finished my 1500 pieces jigsaw puzzle, only to find at the end that it's missing a piece. MISSING A PIECE. Nothing is more frustrating than building up a nice big rather complex puzzle (lots of green and water reflections) and then find out it will never be complete because it came with one piece less. And it wasn't my fault! I didn't drop any pieces, the place where I worked on it is pretty clear and there aren't many places a piece might have fallen and hid. No, this is not my fault!!

I really hope the next one doesn't have this problem =/

Happy Birthday, Hubble!

Today is the 20th anniversary of the Hubble Telescope. In their website, they have tons of awesome pictures of the Cosmos, and several of them are available for downloading for wallpapers and other purposes. Check them out!

http://www.hubblesite.org/gallery/wallpaper/

May it stay there for 20 more years, showing us what our eyes can't see, showing us how small and unimportant we are, and yet, so unique in this inmense universe.

Rekindling your love for... maths

I didn't enjoy maths at the U. I surely didn't. But not because I hate maths. I hate TESTS haha. Seems like I just don't perform as well under pressure, I forget things, and then my test results don't show what I actually learned. I also used to study for the test and then forget. Which is not very good.

But I've always liked maths. I think they're the most perfect discipline in the world, and that makes them beautful. And you can do maths just for the sake of it, it doesn't really need to have any applications in the real world, but ultimately they always find one in the several other sciences that rely on this tool. Physics allowed me to understand math more.

With that being said, I'd like to share a link I found in one of the forums I read often. If you feeling up to the task, you can get the open math course of the MIT, is free to download and it has class, assignment and results, so you can study, practice, and compare results.

You can find it at http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Mathematics/index.htm

Conformism and the task of moving people

A bit ago I got some kind of "15 minutes of fame" in my current server in WoW, because I wrote this big wall of text about what I thought was very wrong in the guild, and I posted the link on several forums for the "public" to read. I did it moved by a need to vocalize what several members of the guild (my ex guild now) were feeling, feelings that I shared with them. That same night, I had a big talk with one of the officers, and then I felt that the purpose of the post was met, and I took it down.

The biggest problem was that these group of people never approached any officer about their concerns and troubles. I understand them because until a bit ago, I thought they just didn't care. At least one of them do. So in the light of this new discovery, I told my ex guildies to talk to him and explain the situation, now from the inside point of view, instead of my outside voice.

But it seems like they just won't do it. They either prefer to leave it as it is, and let it build up until it explodes (or implodes) by itself and everything falls apart, or they don't have the courage to stand up and say "I think this is wrong". I honestly tried to make them move, to stir them up, to give them a little push so they would get things right since I couldn't do it myself anymore. I don't see it happening. And it makes me sad. I feel like my effort just wasn't enough.

Conformism is not something I'm keen with. I agree that I probably should be more aggressive on some issues that affect my real life, but well, I choose my battles. This one was one I was willing to face, but it kind of faded away. Maybe I don't have the leadership skills to rally them up and fight, it might be possible. I wish I did.

In any case, I learned a lesson. If I want to do something like this again, I have to do it from the inside, not from the outside, where my word might be questionable.

An interesting study

One of my friends linked me this poll from Gallup:


Evolution poll

Amazing how it changes with education, with religious activities, and with age. The theory of evolution is not a theory anymore, there are enough facts that prove it. It's just called that way because it's how it has always been.

If this doesn't demonstrate that the US needs to pick up its education, I don't know what else could.

One day, in the future...

... I'll go back to the university and fulfill a dream of mine: study astronomy. I don't care if I fail, because at least I tried!!

Parenting guide

Thanks to Lyran for this one :P