What can we feel good about today?

Too much lately I've been focusing, in my personal life, on aspects of the world that are filled with doom and gloom. The coming snail Apocalypse, the end of my personal freedom, and the apparent buildup to a war with a country that nobody wants to fight a war against. See? Now I'm depressed again.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those people who thinks we should go back to the good ole' days. You know, the ones without good dentistry or bathtubs in the home. No, I don't want to go back to the good ole' days, those days were worse in almost every conceivable way.

But that doesn't mean everything is peachy keen. Let's see if we can find some reasons to celebrate:

- Despite the dour prognostications of 19th century physists, it turns out that not only does the universe continue to without from us complete understanding of it's inner workings, we can even make a list of 42 questions that are pretty obvious and pretty much completely misunderstood. Why is this a good thing? Well, because as our lifespans increasingly approach immortality we will need to have something to do, and these don't look to be cracked anytime soon.

- If you type in Republican National Party into Wikipedia, you get taken to a webpage entitled: Jamhoori Wattan Party. Frankly, that sounds like a hell of a party.

- Turns out that the alien from E.T. (or at least, aliens of the same species) was in Star Wars. They are called Children of the Green Planet. Frankly, the fact that a Star Wars wiki itself exists should be reason enough to cheer.

- Kobe Bryant was suspended for 1 game by the NBA. Yay!

- 122 years ago the Oxford English Dictionary finally got off the ground and published. This is a pretty cool endeavor and the amazingness of it can't possibly be overlooked. I heartily recommend you go read "The Professor and the Madman", although, to be honest, it is a little disturbing.

- We got snow today in So. Oklahoma. Why is this good news? Because although it snowed a good 2 inches, it has all already melted. Ha!

- My buddy K.K. is going to finish one of the 3 'rights of passage' that all graduate students must go through tomorrow. 1st is 'writtens' (horrible, vile and disgusting), 2nd is orals/proposal (even worse!), the 3rd is your defense. My experience is, if you made it through 1 and 2, then 3 is a piece of cake. Any good professor will stop you before 3 if you have any chance of not being successful. So basically, after tomorrow K.K. is going to be feeling quite relieved. And if you read this before then, just know that I'll be drinking to your success tonight and wishing you luck.

- Despite the best efforts of polluting bastards and commercial fishermen the world over, there are still at least 24,600 fish species in the world today (including this absolutely amazing seahorse).

- Ok, I'm done. I know this isn't much of a post, but I'm tired and I ran out of steam just 15 minutes into writing it. I hope you guys weren't expecting more. I've been writing a USGS grant that has to be done by Feb. 12th, and I just started it at the beginning of the week, so I've been writing so much my arm hurts. I'll try to be creative later.

Ok people...

...let’s see if we can put our collective brain power together and figure out how to print off this image. That shows the distance between the center of the earth and various objects in the universe on a log scale (I can't figure out what the x-axis is). I have tried three times to print this thing off, and the only thing I get is a reduced version that is totally unreadable.

Ok? Somebody figure this out and let me know how to do it. Do I need to paste it into Word? Put it as a paint document? I want a series of pages that I can tape together and put on my wall or ceiling. Let's get cracking people!

Other stuff:

- NBA thoughts, for those of you who are interested.

- I realize this is almost sports related, but judas. Does ESPN really have to put the Sports Guy articles in a smaller font?

- As I've been pointing out to everyone I see (my wife and my wife), the single most amazing webpage in the world is right here. That's right a list of weird and unusual Wikipedia articles. This is it people. The top. The mountaintop. Whatever you see from here is all there is to see. I hope you enjoy the view as much as I do.

- Someone needs to replicate this next to those protesters that show up for Notre Dame football games. I know I'm going to be looking for similar opportunities. This was even better because those asshats were actually protesting a gay pride parade.

- Adobe gives up....right? Actually I don't understand what that article is saying. Does this mean I'm still a genius for being able to create, alter, and manipulate .pdfs for 1/10th the cost using Foxit?

- Bookworm Adventures. So I actually bought this for my mom for Christmas. I helped her install it and then I left for 6 days. When I got back she had beaten the game 3 times. Apparently it isn't that long (just three 'books'), I just thought I'd let everyone know.

- The Chinese Mystery Snails. I didn't post anything on Friday or the weekend because my parents came to visit, but also because I put so damned much work into that mystery snail post. Did anyone have any thoughts on it? Was it funny? Was it stupid? Let me know if you feel strongly about it. I hope at least someone who will get all the jokes read it.

Chinese Mystery Snails

I’m frequently (never) asked “What is the mystery in Chinese mystery snails?” I usually respond with the following little story:

You take a bunch of the mystery snails and dry them out. Then you grind up the dried bodies until it makes a powder. Take this and snort it like you would cocaine (I think, I’ve never snorted coke actually). The next day when you wake up all your friends will hate you and you’ll have a terrible headache. What happened? It’s a mystery!

That story isn’t true. I made it up. I’m really not even sure it is original. I think I’ve heard a similar story about vodka.I actually know the real story, although the final pieces in this jigsaw I only recently put together. The real story involves nutrient regeneration, predator release, competitive superiority and, oh yeah, the total destruction of all life on earth.

You’re probably asking: “What the hell is a mystery snail?” The truth is that we’re not even sure. A lot of labels get tossed around when dealing with snails. One person’s Pomacea canaliculata is another person’s Pomacea gigas. Even the experts can get confused, and in this case that’s part of the problem.

The world believes that the snails now sprawled across 27 U.S. states probably fall into the species Cipangopaludina chinensis. Let’s be clear though, we can’t really rule out Viviparus malleatus, or even Cipangopaludina cathayensis. What we do know is that these snails have come to dominate all kinds of stream reaches.

And I do mean dominate. Other snails get the hint and die. Fish get nervous. Stream bottoms seem to be covered by a slowly moving black carpet.

Even as we speak the Chinese mystery snail continues to spread. Biological control won’t work on these beasts. I’ve seen a crayfish break a cheliped trying to crack the shell. Fish, raccoons, bears, dogs, none of them will eat the foul flesh of these fiendish prosobranch gastropods. Viruses and bacteria are stymied by an inherent resistance. When death takes the mystery snails in mass the decomposition process releases a smell akin to the Devil’s flatulence that drives away any animal and kills plants smaller than a decade-old maple.

For now the mystery snails are content to snoop around stream bottoms and lazily slurp up periphyton. If you pick one up it will cinch closed a hard operculum and pretend you don’t exist. The mystery is: What are these fearless hordes going to do when they eat all the periphyton? When there’s no more mats of autotrophic algae, heterotrophic bacteria, and microbial consumers embedded in a matrix of mucous covering all available substrate...then where will these rabid consumers turn for sustenance?

Over the past three years, with the help of friends in NASA, Google, the EPA, Penny Arcade and the network of graduate student superstars known only as “my good friends” I’ve managed to piece together an answer to that question.

The truth is something we all need to face. A future so terrifying that no one could have predicted it. The mystery snails are breaking free of their watery prison and seeking out new food sources on land. Detailed images (not available to the public) document how mystery snails are already beginning to coat the near-shore areas of high density streams with their spherical black bodies. I’ve visited these remote locations, where the in-stream densities are just too high for the snails to survive, forcing them to attack passing animals and graze down trees. Given their horrible taste, resistance to germs and noxious chemical fumes upon death, I can’t see how any natural feedback mechanism is likely to stop them. Why, I once saw ten thousand 1-inch snails try to take down a moose. They weren’t successful, but the moose won’t forget.

Nor will I.

There is only one metazoan that has a chance to stop the endless waves of snail-induced devastation that will soon be spreading out from every stream in America (and eventually the world): Us.

Thanks to the astounding devotion of graduate students working tirelessly on the Wisconsin-Michigan border (and the fearless leadership of certain professors), a concoction of chemical compounds has been derived that not only neutralize the horrible stench of these animals in death, but render the flesh tasty and delicious. This finding, discovered only after the sacrifice of dozens of brilliant researchers, is simple and effective. Now all we need to do is spread the word.

So when you see that black horde of slimly gastropod goodness seeping out of the streams in your neighborhood: Do you part. Grab as many as you can, throw them in a bucket of good, clean water for a day, then pop them out of their shells and follow this recipe:

1. Bring a large skillet up to high heat

2. Add two healthy (read: not healthy at all) pats of butter

3. Throw in as many mystery snail bodies as you can.

4. Stir around vigorously

5. Add some spices, vegetables, chicken, whatever you want really.

6. Serve on noodles with sauce

7. Why don’t you sprinkle some parmesan on there?

8. Enjoy!

Look at the stupid!

I realized yesterday that my post "I realized something today" had gone up. That, uh...that was wasn't complete. There was more and I don't know what happened to it. Oh well.

- Hey what a surprise: Fox News tried to make up some idiotic crap about Barack Obama. Well, CNN basically bitch-smacked Fox News, and now Obama has come in swinging. Finally, a Democrat who isn't afraid to take on Fox News directly. Can we vote for this guy yet? Is there ANY chance a Democrat can actually win?

- Oh those crazy Republicans! Turns out they hate low-income workers, they hate people who pay for health insurance, they hate Iraq, and it looks like they are even beginning to hate themselves. That's in addition to hating Latinos, gays, African-Americans, Muslims, communists, socialists, environmentalists, science, Democrats and 'big government.' And spotted owls.
But don't worry, the increasingly reviled leader of this hate fest is going to push forward with his plans to kill Iraqis and American soldiers "no matter what", despite his comically low approval ratings. Seriously, 28% of Americans think Bush is doing a good job? What approval rate would a trained monkey get? 40%? Is there any facet of government that has gotten better since Bush came to power?

- Why yes. Yes that is a military buildup of forces in the Persian Gulf that could not possibly be useful in Iraq. Oh, I guess that is a convenient location from which to fight Iran, I hadn't noticed. I wonder if there has been escalating and contradictory rhetoric directed at Iran recently? There has?

- Well well well. Turns out Microsoft decided to hire someone to 'review' some choice Wikipedia articles. And people think this is the first time a company has done this?

- Let's see, let's see. When I decided to stop eating meat several years ago I did so with the justification that it was the most environmentally responsible choice. Apparently this is a decision gaining some steam. Check out this incredibly poorly researched article that claims going veg has a bigger effect on global warming than completely abandoning your car.
Does anyone know of an article that actually has some real research behind it that investigates a similar thing? I suspect that the result is correct: Eating meat causes more pollution (of every type) and more oil consumption than driving. I also suspect it is overwhelmingly right, as in, I doubt it is even close. However, I am open to the possibility of not just being wrong, but being overwhelmingly wrong. I might be missing an order of magnitude in my brain.

- Yeah, turns out those Diebold voting machines? Not only are they comically easy to reprogram (to hack if I may use the jargon), but apparently the key used to lock the mechanism is A) the same for all machines built anywhere in the country and B) pictured on their website. Which lead to C, a guy building a key based on that picture which actually worked in a Diebold machine! Does the phrase "destroying America through incompetence" mean anything? How about "voter fraud"? Don't think it ends there, get a big bottle of vodka and just take a read through this lengthy list of frustrating company facts. (oh, and that second link takes a looong time to load)

- Finally, something on this list that isn't stupid (does anyone get the title yet?). Ok, maybe it is stupid, but it is stupid funny. I'm referring to Barats and Bereta. I realized the other night that my lone commenter hadn't been introduced. That made me realize that I've never introduced these guys to you, the non-paying audience. Frankly, I have committed some kind of crime against you by not having mentioned this earlier. Not a 'jail' crime, but definitely a 'slap-on-the-wrist' crime. You can start by laughing to the following and then follow that link above to a whole slew of additional comedic greatness.



- Oh, and about the commenting system on Blogger. As many people have pointed out, you can't comment without becoming a member, and nobody wants to be a member of the kind of organization that would let me participate. Plus, everybody's lazy. I understand and I'm going to stop crying myself to sleep at night because nobody loves me: I'm sure it's still true, but I don't have any real evidence for it now.

I realized something today.

I just realized that I always compare myself to standards that leave me looking pretty good.

Does anyone else do this?

I know...

...that putting videos on the site is sorta ugly and annoying, but I can't help it. Check out this video of subliminal advertising that took place during Iron Chef:



What the hell? I don't get it. Why do that? And why McDonalds?

Why new music?

So some people are questioning why I abandon music older than ten years old.

Music just keeps getting better.

There's nothing on this page that didn't blow my mind away as much as the first time I heard Cracker's EuroTrash Girl. I get so excited listening to this music that I am physically unable to prevent myself from getting up and dancing about the room like an idiot. Ask my wife, I'm not kidding. (quick note, I went a little nuts on the songs. Previous posts are waay down there)

Examples of great bands from the 'now':

The Zutons (If you want rock)


The Gym Class Heroes (If you want fun!)


Todd Snider (If you want the evolutionary Tom Waits)


Turin Brakes (I'm not sure what to call this except)


The Go! Team (Nerdcore? a little raw because it is live)


Jonathan Coulton (so funny it hurts...and check out 'code monkey' from his website)


Regina Spektor (an evolutionary tori amos? Her better song is "Poor Little Rich Boy")


The Drive By Truckers (These guys are just amazingly good...go listen to an album)


The Kings of Leon (Just another great 4 piece band)


The Decembrists (ok, everyone should already know these guys, but still)


If you weren't forced to get up and run around the room or yell in excitement when you listened to at least one of these videos, then I can't help you, but I've done my best!

Oh, and not everything is great...I have no idea what is going on with this video. Can we please just keep our sexual innuendo (girl in bikini) separate from our images of cuteness (babies in parachuting outfits)? The title of that video is Boogie Pimps, and it is a cover. I guess that's all I really needed to know, but for some dumb reason I clicked on the link anyway.

I’m not perfect...

...and my good friend “D” pointed that out to me. In his words:

Anywho, I just needed to question your math about your genes. Your 75%
as an approximation is actually more a maximum average than than an
approximation. The 25% in your sisters baby and the 50% in your baby
will definitely have overlap some, so I would say with half overlapping
the approximate % of your genes that will be passed out is 62.5% with a
range of 50% (you share no genes with your sister) to 100% if your
sister and you have identical DNA and you both happen to pass on the
exact opposite half.

Clearly: I am an idiot. I’ll add that if my sister has a 2^nd child, that child will add, assuming half of those genes overlap with the first baby and we share 50% of our genes, just 6.5% additional genes to the next generation’s gene pool. Clearly, we’re not getting a full 100% of my genes into the next generation without A) some luck (good or bad depending on your perspective or B) if I just continue to live forever. I’m working on option B.

Inspired by my good buddy Dustin’s infant blog (here), I’ve decided today to reveal one of my ‘guilty pleasures.’ This isn’t actually very easy for me, because I am not really guilty about much that I do intentionally. Sure, I feel guilty about things like screwing up a project or chewing loudly, but I generally don’t feel guilty about the stuff that I’m actively doing.

I won’t let that stop me though.

Imagine a stage in front of a dark, nearly lightless audience. A few lights cast a weak glow upon a heavy red curtain. Without further ado I walk to the middle of the stage and pull a thick, yellow rope that didn’t appear to be there before. The curtain slowly rises up, the contents of the stage shrouded in darkness. Suddenly the stage lights brighten to reveal:

Nothing.

Or wait.

What is that?

What is that?

What is that?

What. Is. That?

Oh.

It’s a copy of Johnny Cash’s greatest hits.

With a snicker an audience member jumps to his feet and shouts “AHA!!!”

It’s K. K. (a friend from Indiana)

“That music is more than ten years old!”

(The audience gasps. On-stage my head drops. With a sigh I nod my head.)

I have a long-standing policy whereby I do not listen to music that is more than ten years old. This is because I don’t want to become one of those guys who thinks all the best music was the music made during my childhood/teenage/college years. The truth is that great music is always being produced and focusing on Bob Dylan or the Stones or Zepplin or U2 or *gasp* Nirvana only allows you to miss out on the great new stuff that comes along. This is especially true for someone like me, who no longer spends much time listening to music at all.

This isn’t really about staying cool, although some people seem to see it that way. This is more about keeping my mind flexible. I believe (and I think if you don’t believe this you are by definition a pessimist) that people are getting better. I think the best thinkers, the best artists, the best writers, the best chefs, are all building on the work of their predecessors to create new and better...uh...creations. I think that emphasizing the past ignores those who are driving new creativity.
So listening to Johnny Cash (who is dead) is bad. Listening to Johnny Cash’s old stuff, is much worse. I could at least be listening to Johnny as he aged and created great new works under the guidance of new producers.

But no. I’ve listened to this Johnny Cash album at least a hundred times in the past two months.

So there it is! I hope you all enjoy my devious guilty pleasure.

And for those of you expecting something more: Hello! I don’t like reality TV! That’s not a hidden pleasure, I just have to leave the room.

Is this a disease or is this a symptom?

For most of the past 4 years while I trudged through graduate school, my primary hatred was with the weather in northwest Indiana. You get lake-effect snow there. And lake-effect rain. And lake-effect cloud cover. Oh, and lake effect moisture. Starting in October, and lasting until, oh, say, August, the skies over that part of the country are almost never clear.

I hated it. I hated it more when precipitation began to fall. Rain and snow became the two things most capable of triggering an emotional meltdown. And it happened, oh it happened. As I’m sure anyone can attest, there were days that I just didn’t think I could take it anymore. Days I definitely wanted to bail on graduate school and just drive to Mexico. At one point during my graduate career that very nearly happened. Being married kept me a lot more stable than I ever would have been on my own.

Now I’m living in southern Oklahoma, where the summers achieve highs of 110 degrees and the first cold day of winter didn’t really arrive until a week before Christmas. I haven’t been here for a summer yet, but I can already tell you that I love this weather even when it is cold, overcast and raining frozen icicle bits (as it is today).

Maybe weather wasn’t my problem. Maybe weather was just crystallizing the unhappiness in my life. Maybe my real problem was graduate school. I know I was angry at my advisor a lot (just one of them). I know I hated the bureaucratic side of being a student. And I know I have all kinds of problems with needless authority, one of those things graduate students are expected to endure.

Or maybe I’m just getting enough sun that I can deal with sporadic cloudiness.

------------

Other notes: I am putting a lot of posts up recently. The post about genetics a few days ago was from my journal/diary "The Last 9 Months", soon to be available in bookstores nowhere!

I've been thinking about what this blog does and you may have noticed a subtle shift in the kind of content that's going up here. These are my three goals with this blog:

1. Letting my friends and family know what I'm thinking and doing. I think it is hard to maintain a cohesive understanding with people without communication. This is one method to keep in contact.
2. Showing everybody the cool stuff I've been looking at on the web.
3. Getting feedback on 'original' content. I've decided to quit putting up snippets from short stories or poetry, but I am going to continue to play around with different kinds of essays. I like feedback on this stuff, so feel free to send me an email (or, god forbid, use the commenting feature) to let me know: "Hey, that Gmail bit was stupid and worthless" or "You couldn't write your way out of a blank page.

Anyway, don't miss the 2 posts I added late last night!

I'm not saying...

...that health care in the U.S. is bad, I'm just saying that it is better in Canada. Why?

Universal health care.

Would the word 'duh' be appropriate here?

I mean, I know I'd be better off in a universal health care system; if only because I'd be less stressed out all the time.

Welcome to Gmail!

As a fellow Gmailer it is my duty and obligation to welcome you to the
most fantastically amazing spectacular astounding astonishing email
service the world has ever had or will ever have or could even be
possible. The phrase 'perfect' is perfect to perfectly describe the
perfection that is Gmail (perfect!). I'm certain beyond the merest
micro-shred of a doubt that you will be satisfied with this service.
5 out of 5 scientists agree that Gmail is the most likely cure to
cancer and recent government documents seem to suggest that Gmail is
the number 1 weapon in the war on terror. Last night, after
delivering a child pornographer's email to the Federal authorities,
Gmail managed to save 13 children from being burnt alive in an
orphanage fire by clever use of the 'flashmob' meme. This one time,
at band camp, Gmail prevented the spread of a nasty flu by
'accidentally' changing the sheet music for the trombone section. Did
you know that Gmail has a Ph.D. in biochemistry and has used that
knowledge to develop visual cues that trigger the release of
endomorphins in the brain? Yeah.

---

I sent this to a friend of mine (K) who just signed up for the 'service'.

Because we can.

One of the realities of this incoming offspring is that he will be carrying half my genes. I know this isn’t any big news: That’s just how the process works. Yet it isn’t exactly the way I imagined my genes being passed on to the future. I imagined them be carried, by me, in person to ‘the future’ for as long as I wanted to live.

My sister is also going to have a baby. Since siblings share about 50% of their genes, that means her child will have about 25% of the same genes I have.

So the next generation is going to have 75% of a ‘me’ involved (approximately).

Frankly, this isn’t nearly as good as having 100% of me involved, and given the increasing life-span of humans, it’s hard to imagine that I won’t at least be around to see how that 75% of my genes gets around.

Let’s say, that at some distant point in the future, all of the genes that make me up come together again. You might be thinking ‘incest’, but the reality is that ‘incest’ really only refers to relatives sharing a significant # of genes, say 1/256^th. Consider:

You have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents, 16 great great, 32 great great great. You ancestors at the 20^th generation number in the millions. At the 40^th generation they number in the trillions.

Of course, if you’re like me, you can trace most of your ancestors to a small country like, say, Sweden. Well, Sweden doesn’t have trillions of people today, they sure didn’t have trillions of people 40 generations ago. That means there’s a lot of incest happening at some level. People are marrying their 14^th cousin or something. Seriously, would you even know?

Which means the possibility that my genes will all come back together again is not zero, assuming I or my sister manage to have a 2^nd child.

This is how evolution happens. Humans are all randomly mating, popping out these kids, and each kid is a mix of these different genes. Each person is 25% of their grandparents, 50% their parents, ~50% their Uncle or Aunt. Tiny little fractions of their ancestors.

Why do we keep doing this? Why do we keep mixing up our genes with another person and pushing the result into the next generation’s genepool?

Well, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s not a lot else to do.

Sunday...

...or actually Monday now...I guess.

I don't know how many of you are aware of this, so I thought I'd point it out. There's a webcomic out there called xkcd. This webcomic is mostly about nerdy topics (science, math, programming) but there is definitely an element of romance and happiness in there too.

This strip, posted late last week, is fantastic. If you don't like it, then I don't know what to tell you.

Other stuff:

- Those of you who hate the NBA rambling can rejoice, I've given in and just started a separate blog for NBA and sports ranting. I'm calling it the Voice of Reason until I can figure out a better name. I'm also 'publicizing' it, so if you decide to leave snide comments, just don't indicate who I am. As you'll notice if you visit, the whole goal of the site is to mock people who are insane. Oh, and if anyone out there wants to contribute to Voice of Reason, just let me know and I can sign you up as a writer as well.

- Sickness came back with a vengeance today. I'm blaming a cherry cobbler I made last night. Stupid cherries.

- I'm working out a 'schedule' for writing. I have a lot of things I'm working on now: A novel on ecoterrorism, a project called EGGSLAP, my thoughts about becoming a father (entitled: The Last Nine Months), and a fairy tale story for my soon to be arriving offspring. Oh, and then all the random crap that goes in this blog. I'm not sure, but I might even have to go back to working on a full-time basis some day.
I've just got to say: There isn't anything I like more than writing. I know that everyone who knows me knows that I do a really good job of not finishing writing projects, but I just have to say that I love starting them!

I guess that's it. Hope everyone has a good MLK day!

Sudden excitement on the interwebs

So I haven't been getting out much and as a result I realized that I had read the entire internet.

No, I'm kidding. I had only read all the material of interest on reddit, fark, 20 webcomics, 8 NBA blogs, CNN, MSNBC, the Weather Channel, and I was sick of playing Runescape.

Shit.

I'm sitting 20 miles outside of a 'town' that doesn't even have a movie theater. The biggest ice-storm in all of recorded history (if I'm to believe the weatherman) began last night and so the roads are unsafe. We get 1 television channel, and it is CBS. For some reason my hijacked connection to NBA.com's live broadcasts is messed up and I've read almost all the books in the whole house.

What in the hell am I supposed to do with myself?

Well, I cooked dinner. Fajitas. Used the skillet. Even prepared a steak for my wife. Apparently the steak requires a bit more finesse than my chicken breast, since she complained that it was a little tough. I've completely forgotten how to cook steak, but I had a hunch that was going to happen.

So that took me about 20 minutes.

Now what.

What's this? On my ten millionth time through reddit I came across this jewel on the fourth page: a website that has an organized list of free online education! You mean I can sit through lectures delivered by a Berkley professor about European history? Or programming? Or anatomy (vomit!)?

Yes please! (except for the anatomy)

So for an hour and a half I listened to this. That's right, a college course called "Histories of Europe and the World: 1450-Yesterday" taught by this guy. You'll note that one of this guy's books was translated into several languages (in my mind, that's a sign of a well-received book...not the only sign mind you).

And then I stumbled upon this! In fact, it deserves two exclamation points!! This is one of the more interesting lectures I've ever seen, and trust me, I've seen a lot of lectures. The topic is about how we (uh...Westerners) perceive other countries. You'll just have to watch it yourself to get the full effect but 2 realities emerge in the first 5 minutes:

1. There isn't really much of a gap in infant mortality or lifespan between 'Western' nations and 'developing' nations.

2. AIDS/HIV is pretty much destroying Africa.

If you end up liking that video, then eventually you're going to have to go to his website, www.gapminder.org and play around with what has to be one of the coolest graphical representations of data I've ever come across. I'm reminded of other neat programs that I've seen, but I can't quite remember where I saw them so if anyone does remember, let me know (I probably wasn't there by myself).

Oh, and I also found the "How Stuff Works" videos and watched them for awhile. I'm pretty sure that experience could be turned into a fantastic drinking game (take a drink every time the guy laughs at himself!).

And before NBA.com kicked me off their live game feed I got to see the Bobcats beat the 76ers.

I guess you can get some pretty good entertainment 20 miles outside of nowhere in southern Oklahoma.

Now if there were only some people around. The wife and I are starting to go a little isolation crazy out here, so if anyone wants to come and visit I can cook, give you a room, take you fishing, buy you booze...pretty much whatever.

Please?

At work again

So I finally feel well enough to come into work today. Yeah, it's a Saturday, but as my Grandpa says "The cows need feeding."

Only in my case we're talking about fathead minnows, daphnia and snails....but the principle is the same!

This has made me realize just how much I need to do to get up and running again.

As anyone who has done research can tell you, there is a certain momentum to getting things done in science. Every project requires a certain amount of lab work, a certain amount of clean glass ware or empty buckets, and all of that requires a certain willingness to do some grunt work now. Grunt work is fun and fulfilling, but when you're starting things up after being on holiday/snowed-in/sick for almost 3 weeks (!), the grunt work is enormous.

Cultures have to be re-started, glassware has to get re-arranged, new media needs to be made, chemicals are weighed out, and in general, a sense of moving forward has to be created.

I'm having a hard time, today anyway, generating any sort of momentum at all.

I'm going to envision today's effort as moving a small pebble that will soon lead to a collossal landslide.

Yeah.

An NBA post...

...deal with it.

A lot has happened in the NBA this season. Some of this is interesting, some of this is disappointing, and some of this will never be spoken of again. But since I've been quarantined in my apartment for the past three days, I've read damn near everything there is to know about the NBA.

Some reflections:

1. Chris Webber got paid 40-odd million dollars to quit playing for the 76ers. Now he wants to play for a contender. I've always thought C-Webb had a bad rap as a late game choker. Ok, sure, he called a timeout when he didn't have one in college, and yeah, he missed all those free-throws in Sacromento, and I admit, he looked really shaky against every playoff team not named the Mavericks on the offensive end.
Not really sure where I was going with this.
I just hope the Mavs don't pick him up.

2. Allen Iverson and the Nuggets. Well, call me skeptical, but I've got my sudden doubts. I remember talking to my Uncle and saying that the Nuggets made the most sense back when AI did the whole 'trade demand' thing. Now that I've seen what they are doing with that, I think the biggest problem is that George Karl is scared of AI. I can remember hearing about Karl being scared of Payton when they were both in Seattle, and I can't imagine a bigger jump in 'intimidation factor' from Payton to Iverson.

3. Speaking of Gary Payton: What is with everyone putting GP on their list of top point guards of all time? I mean, yeah, the guy was good in the mid-to-late 90s, but let's take a look at his competition during that time:
Point guards who were named to the 1st or 2nd All-NBA teams from 93 (Payton's first 'high quality' year) to '02 (last year in Seattle):

Payton: 2nd (95), 2nd (96), 2nd (97), 1st (98), 2nd (99), 1st (00), 2nd (02)
2 1st teams and 5 2nd teams...not bad.

Stockton: 1st (94&95), 2nd (96)....2 and 1
Kevin Johnson: 2nd (94)
Penny Hardaway: 1st (95&96) 2 and 0
Tim Hardaway: 1st (97), 2nd (98, 99) 1 and 2
Rod Strickland: 2nd (98)
JKidd: 1st (99, 00, 01, 02) 4 and 0

I'm leaving Allen Iverson off this list because he didn't play point the whole time.

Now the thing that I always believed is that Payton had the good fortune to play during a time when there weren't a lot of great point guards in the NBA. I mean, look at this list of guys who were being voted in as the best in the league! There's no way Payton was as good as Kidd in his prime or Penny Hardaway during the 3 years he was healthy. Payton came along at the tail end of Stockton's effectiveness as a defender, but before Jason Kidd started claiming what would become his annual spot on the team.

Some people, with whom I've had the good fortune of discussing this, have pointed out that Payton was, however, an all-time great defender (evidenced by virtue of his perennial appearance on the All-Defense team).

At which point I patiently explain that the same people vote for both awards, and therefore his stellar 'defense' is already taken into account. So, just forget about that: You don't get defense counted twice here.

What are we left with here. A guy who was consistently good. Payton was clearly the best point guard in the league in 97-98, but he just as clearly wasn't ever better than Jason Kidd, wasn't better than Stockton in his prime or Penny Hardaway in his brief career as a star.

Ok, good player. Top 50 player (maybe), but calling him one of the 10 best point guards in the history of the league is just plain silly.


4. The Mavs. I'm actually on record, in numerous formats, as predicting this is the Spurs year (a-fucking-gain). I haven't really seen anything to make me think otherwise. The Spurs continue to go through seasons with efficiency (not fire) and then turn on something else in the playoffs. Last year the Mavs beat them in the playoffs, but poor officiating (always in favor of Dirk or Timmy) made the series a complete toss-up.
This year, however, the Mavs look really good. Like, really good. I almost wonder if they are peaking right now. However, when I've seen them play, it doesn't even seem like they are playing that well. Like, the effort is there, and the scoring is there, and the defense is there, but they still don't inspire in me a lot of confidence. They've got another step to go. And if they reach it, we could be talking about one of the all-time great playoff teams ever here.

5. The MVP. Uh...it has to be Dirk right? Let's just leave it at that....there isn't anyone else even close (covering my eyes so that I can't see Kobe).

6. Ok fine, Kobe: This guy may have figured it all out. I've only seen him play a couple of times, but he's a different player. I'm scared.

7. Ok, I'm done. Might be more to come later!

Uh...hello...

...I'm supposed to be back to 100% today. Apparently the germs (devious evil things) haven't quite gotten the message, and I may even be backsliding a bit.

My rage at this turn of events does not seem to be having the desired effect.

Did anyone else realize it was Friday? I mean, where the hell has my week gone? I spent Monday and Tuesday afternoons visiting doctors. Wednesday and Thursday in various states of illness, and today I'm back to feeling exhausted and sickly.

Ok, fine then, I didn't want this week anyway!

I'm getting a little worked up here and I may have to go lie down. I had interesting thoughts about the world, but I can't remember them anymore.

Oh, and in case anyone was wondering we're about to get hammered by an ice storm here. Yeah, should be all kinds of fun.

In summation...

...you're probably not going to hear about all those stories I promised several posts ago. Why?

Well, first the internet was down here at the station, rendering my productivity moot and leaving me feeling lost and alone for several days.

Next, my wife and I found out we're expecting. My brain has been undergoing a strict re-programming process as a result.

Finally, I got so sick for the past two days that I was hallucinating strange things about my blankets. Like, where the blankets folded strange lines would appear, these lines represented some kind of interlocking network of shapes that would increase or decrease disease transmission. This was all pretty weird when I was getting up every hour for my vomit three times drill, but it became positively freaky when I took a Tylenol and suddenly realized that the blankets weren't folded at all. Yeah, yesterday was rough.

So all those great ideas and thoughts and interesting stories are already sliding out of my brain into a puddle on the ground. Those of you who didn't already hear them, well, you probably won't. That's a shame too, because there were some good stories there.

27 times in 12 hours...

That how many time I threw up between midnight and noon today. Right now, at about 7 45, is the first time today I've had the strength to sit up. I feel like I've been run over by a truck.

And yes, I'm terrified by the prospect of passing something to my wife which will impair the health of our future child.

So, I had a doctor's visit yesterday, and in the guy's professional opinion the source of my stomach problems (ulcer/acid reflux) is increased weight gain (I've put on close to 30 pounds in the past year). He recommended I lose 1-2 pounds a week for the next 5-6 months.

I lost 6 pounds last night.

And that's all I can type because I'm too exhausted to keep sitting up. Hope everyone else's life is better than mine right now.

Am I really...

...supposed to take the police in the country seriously when this happens.

Maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way. In another country this professor would have been shot in the head for jaywalking. Hell, in L.A. he would have been tasered. Apparently the Atlanta P.D. is a model of restraint.