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Sunday, August 31, 2003 In Brief: Data Mining the Amazon. The only insight I've gained from this little preview is that people who buy political tracts just buy weird stuff in general. Desiree Dolron. Here's some photography that eerily resembles paintings. Jet Budelman. Emotional photojournalism in black and white. Male Librarian Centerfold. Funny thing is, I totally relate to his stories. I worked as a librarian once and boy, were there some crazy patrons. The Blog Herald. Fresh blog news, hot off the presses. Writing to the Moment. An entire class about blogs! I'm totally jealous. Shag. Retro-illustration. Stylistically clean and quirky. And as a Scorp myself, this is really amusing. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 3:43 PM : Version 1.8 Well, it's back to a minimalist design. I can't seem to stick to just one template. I always have this need to "reinvent myself." Am I fickle? Am I unsatisfied with myself? I don't know, maybe I'm all of that along with everything else. Actually, I had a completely different layout in mind in the beginning. It was gray and boxy and had non-intuitive navigation. I really liked it. But the picture I wanted to use with it required permission from the illustrator--permission that I never got. I have a feeling that he just chucked my correspondence in the trash and never bothered to read it, let alone respond. I envy the people who can leave their sites looking the same way forever. It's like building a brand name. People come back knowing what to expect and after a while, they start feeling chummy and consider you an old friend. They feel like they're on "your side" because they've been there since the beginning. Every time I change versions because I feel like it, I also feel like I'm alienating everyone else. Just when is she going to change the site again? It's a measure of unpredictability and most people, common sense tells me, don't like change. Anyways, just be glad I'm not feeling mischievious enough to put titillating pictures on this site so that the next time you read me at work, you might get in trouble. On another note: I've also completely rewritten the about section. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 12:05 PM : The Mystery of Consciousness John R. Searle As a compact collection of reviews masquerading as essays, The Mystery of Consciousness is Searle's answer to boiling down the various (and sometimes obfuscating) theories in modern neurobiology to succinct and clear ideas. Primarily, the author has focused on the giants in the field: Francis Crick, Gerald Edelman, Roger Penrose, Daniel Dennett, David Chalmers, and Israel Rosenfield. I've studied the theories put forth by these scientists but haven't read their books concerning the topic (except for Francis Crick's The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul) so I have very little basis to critique on except for Searle's lucid writing. His assessment of Crick, however, was much in line with mine when I read The Astonishing Hypothesis--an excellent primer on the biological basis on perception, but quite weak on the philosophy. One interesting facet about this book are the little discussions the author has with some of the originators of various theories. For instance, Searle gets into a bit of a spat with Dennett who claims that human consciousness is only a collection of memes and that we are little more than zombies mechanically doing things and saying things as the situation warrants and not because we actually mean it. On the other extreme of the spectrum is Chalmers who supports panpsychism, i.e. that consciousness is everywhere. That means that not only you and I have consciousness, but so does the dog. And the thermostat. And the rocks. And the entire Milky Way. Searle rightly calls this view absurd--if it is so, then consciousness should be in the heart as well as the brain, but we know that isn't true. As a defense, Chalmers manages to trip over his feet by denying that he ever said that. It's a good compendium of the present theories about consciousness. I only wish I had read the rest of the books first. Unconscious Mutterings
[posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:10 AM : Saturday, August 30, 2003 A Few Random Notes I really don't like other people humming or singing to themselves. Actually, I've known it to be irritating for quite some time, but I've realized that the sort of annoyance I've reserved for this is beyond that. Somewhat like a buzzing cricket inside your head that won't go away. But worse. It doesn't matter if the person is an accomplished singer with perfect pitch or sounds worse than a bleating goat. It doesn't matter if I'm concentrating on something terribly important or drifting off to lala land. I don't hum or sing to myself (I'm too quiet, remember?) but I don't mind if something like a radio is playing in the background either. The radio, at least, is satisfied to remain in the background and has an off switch. Singing to oneself is too much like overhearing a conversation that's disguised as one that I'm not supposed to hear. But it's too loud and intrusive--as if people are shouting "Here I am!" two inches away from my face, demanding attention like whining kids who haven't had their diapers changed. I do realize, however, that some people can't abide silence. There must always be something going on. To them, silence is the equivalence of sensory deprivation. It would drive them mad. But for others, this singing aloud seems like an ingrained habit for attention-seeking and crying wolf. Maybe my dislikes only shows my inflexibility and lack of tolerance. Or maybe I'm too repressed. But I have never asked anyone to stop singing even as it grated tortuously on my sensibilities. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 10:33 AM : Friday, August 29, 2003 The mailbox has vanished. It's not like I'm expecting snail mail for the next week, but it would be helpful to know where it went. My housemates and the neighbors have no idea what happened. There have been no warnings from housing. The ground where the mailbox had been planted is completely pristine. It's as if it never was there in the first place at all. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 3:17 PM : Pamela Samuel Richardson In a nutshell, a young woman manages to keep her virtue intact throughout various trials and as a result nabs a husband who is both wealthy and of relatively high social standing. Thus the subtitle, Virtue Rewarded. The novel was actually quite popular during the 18th century and people began naming their daughters after Pamela--in admiration for the character or even in hopes that their children will be as "lucky." In the second half of the novel, Pamela lists no less than 48 points in order to be a good wife, and if that wasn't good enough, Richardson once again summarized Pamela's good characteristics at the end. Pamela has also been regarded as the grandmother of all bodice-rippers, although the modern bodice-rippers often have female characters quite willing to shed their clothes. It's disconcerting, however, that in the first half of the book, Pamela's would-be husband is a boor and a rake: he hides in closets to spy on her, attempts rape, reads her private correspondences, kidnaps her, and has an extremely volatile temperament. On the contrary, after he marries her, he's always described as kind and generous. Perhaps this was the first crystallization of what women at the time (and most likely probably still) think that they can do--reform men with marriage. But this day in age, especially in western societies, the modern woman would not regard her "virtue" as her sole bargaining chip. Nor would she put up with bad behavior from a mate, let alone a potential one on the first date. Three books in one week so far! I haven't done that in a long time. But I'm not sure how long this streak will last. Before I had put up a blog, I had a relatively large section of reviews for books I had been reading, which of course, nobody visited. I've probably mentioned it before numerous times, but the current books I am reading are always listed on the bookrolling page (also can be found under "links"). [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:04 AM : Thursday, August 28, 2003 Smilla's Sense of Snow Peter Høeg The authorities say that a small boy played along the roof and then fell to his death. They close the case. But Isaiah's neighbor, Smilla Jaspersen knows they're wrong. She has a "sense of snow" and the boy's footprints doesn't look like he had been playing. They looked like he had been running away from something. Or someone. The novel is a mix between character study and action adventure. Smilla is a tough, cold heroine--bitter, cynical, and not entirely likeable. But she has fears, insecurities, and vulnerabilities: her relationship with her father, her fears of commitment, her dual cultural identity. She's tactless and violent. She's smart. And she likes nice clothes. Høeg's descriptions of the secondary characters are also just as quirky. The mysterious mechanic who is a stutterer and a dyslexic also knows how to tape phones and rig doors in case a third party is listening or breaking into an apartment. The former secretary of the Cryolite Corporation who is ultra-religious and rule-abiding decides to help Smilla on her quest. And of course, there are others, too numerous to list here. The turn in believability, however, came when a forensics expert and Smilla's father (also a doctor) helps her identify some x-rays. Their speculations bordered, well, on the science fiction. It came as no surprise, then, that the big bad villain is none other than an unscrupulous ex-microbiologist with a miserable childhood, involved in drug trafficking, and obsessed with fame and glory. The author was definitely on the roll with his depictions of psychological motivations (and his not so subtle dig of the mathematician trumping the biologist) but I found the last part, especially the plot, tacked on as if it was required to be there to become an international bestseller. The Thursday Threesome: Health, Wealth and Happiness Onesome: Health- A loved one dies unexpectedly. You're the next of kin. Do you donate whatever organs are useful, or does the idea freak you out? Should someone have planned ahead? I don't know. To be honest, if someone close to me died, the shock would be great enough that I wouldn't be thinking about anything let alone organ donations. I think I still have enough cultural hang-ups that I would hesitate to donate organs that weren't mine. Twosome: Wealth- Your beloved Great Aunt Fern dies and leaves you two million dollars (after taxes!). But there's a catch. You have to spend it all in 24 hours. Buying stocks and bonds doesn't count and there's a $500,000 limit on a new home. You may give some of the money to charity, but don't use it as a cheat to make it work out. How would you spend the money? I suppose the answer you're looking for isn't supposed to be altruistic. Well, I'll spend it on books. Maybe a computer or some other techno-gadget. And getting rid of my college expenses. Threesome: Happiness- John F. Kennedy defined happiness as "The full use of your powers along lines of excellence." What is your definition of happiness? Have you attained it? I don't think anyone can obtain absolute happiness. Relative happiness and contentedness, perhaps. I guess the key is to do what you want to do. Don't let anyone force you to do or be anything that is their idea of the perfect decision. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:34 AM : Wednesday, August 27, 2003 More Links: Old people have a sense of humour. I never thought it was a question of having or not having a sense of humor, but whether or not it was the same kind of humor. Most older people I know personally don't have the same type of humor that I do. Then again, most of my peers don't share my sense of humor. Maybe they should do a study on me to see if I lack a sense of humor. Sweet benefits for chocolate lovers. So it's supposed to be good for your heart. I've also heard that eating only egg whites are supposed to be better for your cholesterol. Simply old wives tales and anecdotal experience confirmed. Free Blank Outline Maps of the Countries and Continents. (via Shawn Allison) Okay, I'm no geography buff, but I have an idea on how to use these that have nothing to do with their original purpose. Writers who are world-building can use them! Instead of drawing your own map, you can use these blank ones for your own world--just turn the countries sideways or backwards or upside down or even splice and glue different ones together. Death of a Schoolboy. I am struck by how helpless all the adults sound in this article. I will offer some guesses (although they are probably all wrong): the mother didn't pull her son out of school when she found out that he was being bullied because she is a single mother who can't afford to send her children to a different school. The school officials did nothing because they may have feared backlash from the other childrens' parents claiming favoritism. Table of Condiments That Periodically Go Bad. I'm not sure if I already posted this, but oh well. I find it amusing. Steinways With German Accents. Steinways are too darn expensive. All I can do is stare and drool. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 2:50 PM : Tuesday, August 26, 2003 Random Linkage: 5 Times More Fla. Kids to Repeat 3rd Grade. I'm not sure how I feel about repeating a grade. When I was in grade school, I always had this irrational anxiety about being held back, that someone would tell me that I'm not good enough to advance to the next grade. The kids who skipped grades did nothing to ease my anxiety. If anything, I harbored a secret skipping-grades-envy. I guess this stemmed from the time when I was "held back" a grade (for about a week or two) when I moved to the United States--the American teachers were suspicious of Canadian teaching methods. I also once had a neighbor whose mother held her back instead of the school system due to "social maturity." Privately, I thought that was a ridiculous reason. In some ways, that girl was a lot more "socially mature" than I was. 12-year-old begins medical school. The first-year medical students moving in next door are at least a decade older than this kid, but looking at the picture, he doesn't really look that different than every other geeky Asian doctor wannabes. I have no idea what goes on inside a genius's brain or exactly what the dynamics are like in his family, but I know plenty of Asian parents who could kill to have this kind of kid. Let's just hope that these Asian parents (or any parents, really) don't read this story and start bullying their own kids to "do better." Cell transplant restores vision. I'm not as surprised as the BBC that there is a discrepancy between visual perception and the mechanics of vision. There have been plenty of studies done previously which showed that visual perception is all in the brain. People who have damage in the visual areas of their brain typically don't see like normal people even if the eyes themselves are working perfectly. My guess is that the man in this article developed different neural circuitry when his vision was damaged by compensating his other senses. Many visual cues such as depth perception are learned and not innate. CD-Recordable discs unreadable in less than two years. I'm totally paranoid now. I guess I need to make backups of my backups. Microbes in Hot Springs Test Notion of Global Travel. They say that the exception will prove the rule. I don't know--I'm witholding my judgement for the time being. Most of it sounds like speculation at the moment. The End of Evolution? Here's some more scientific speculation. Well, one thing's for sure. The human body plan is not going to go through any radical changes during my or your lifetime. Past Life Analysis. This silly generator told me that in 925 I was a writer, dramatist or organizer of rituals. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 3:23 PM : The Glass Bead Game Hermann Hesse Although some reviewers have gushed that the book had "changed their life," The Glass Bead Game is by no means a comprehensive tract on philosophy despite lengthy character monologues on the contrary. Nor is it on the surface about the subject of the title. It's a fictional biography of Joseph Knecht, the Magister Ludi or Master of the Game. However, Knecht isn't simply good at playing the Glass Bead Game which is only vaguely sketched out as a mixture of chess, history, and a musical theory exam, he is the master at playing with life. He enters the rat race as an anonymous orphan in a public school and ends at the pinnacle of his career in the highest position that exists. Hesse illustrates human nature in a way that the reader slowly realizes that he has known all along and has perhaps refused to acknowledge because it is neither pretty or ideal. Aren't we all in some sort of rat race, looking forward to what is next on the hierarchy and ignoring our urges and fears and wants? It took a very long time for me to finish this novel because every few pages I would have to put the book down just to think about what Hesse said and how relevant it was to me. I was stuck for a while after the section detailing Knecht's life in his early twenties because I was a little apprehensive at what would come next. Up until that point, Knecht's life bore an eerie similarity to mine--it was almost as if Hesse was going to write my future in the next pages. There are also a couple of other points that struck me as valid. Knecht is cloistered in an academic environment that is inward-looking, arrogant, and isolationist. The type of academia described was as stark and fanatical as religious hermits who ignore the outside world. In fact, they disdain it, not unlike real life professors stuck in their ivory towers. Another point, although relatively minor in comparison, was the suppression of Knecht's creative urge in favor of doing something more "intellectually worthwhile." Is everything becoming so focused that anything that gives a hint of pleasure is regarded as frivolous? The aspect of The Glass Bead Game that I didn't like, however, was its lack of female characters. Yes, the author died before the time of major feminist movements and yes, the female characters were not major characters, but I didn't see why he could paint such vivid characterizations of the men yet let the women languish in flat, cardboard states. All the female characters were wives and smothering mothers. They were also ambitious, selfish, and painted as distractions in the form of lust. To be spiritually and intellectually pure, the protagonist kept out of contact with them and didn't think about them--much like, I suppose, a monk in a secluded monastery. Nonetheless, I highly recommend the book, especially if you feel up to the task of wrapping your mind around something quite substantial. If you're curious, I first found out about the book on this website. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:06 AM : Monday, August 25, 2003 Amusing Which Ivy League University is right for you? Rather pointless for me to take it, but I thought this would be funny for the visitors trolling my site for links. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:22 PM : Saturday and Sunday had been perfect weather-wise (except for the mosquitos--I have horrible allergic reactions to their bites and just one has made half my arm look like a red puffy thing) but it has been getting cooler. I had left my window open and this morning, I woke up from a dream about high school French shivering under my blanket. A Link: The Hypnerotomachia Poliphilo. This website has scans of a 500-year-old book. It contains a story which is really an allegory illustrating the philosophy of alchemy. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:52 AM : Sunday, August 24, 2003 Those Stupid Rankings Again. I typically don't pay attention to the rankings since one can get any school to be at the top of the list if the criteria are tweaked just so. But this is simply funny. Beer? Greek scene? Which students did they survey? When I was an undergraduate, no one ever surveyed me (of course, this led to that particular institution being labeled as having "suicidal course work"--not that I didn't agree with it). This leads me to believe that it was done "randomly" although who knows how random it really was. As an aside, when I was in high school and I was at the point of thinking about which colleges I might apply to, I had also thought about joining a sorority once I got to college. I know, that totally doesn't sound like me since I would rather get some sleep instead of partying and drinking until all hours of the early morning, but the problem was, I had a misconception about what a sorority was. I thought they were some sort of feminist organizations with serious social agendas. But once I heard about how it really was on the Greek scene, I thanked my lucky stars I went somewhere that didn't have a Greek scene whatsoever. Unconscious Mutterings
[posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:34 AM : Saturday, August 23, 2003 The Picnic As soon as I arrived at the edge of the pond which immediately sloped down into a clearing surrounded by lush trees, I felt a stinging sensation on my arm. When I finally brushed the mosquito off, it was too late--an angry red bump was already forming on my skin. At least I was wearing jeans instead of shorts. The pond was an opaque set of ripples, refusing to mirror the bright sky above. Looking down from the edge, one could discern a few murky green wisps of underwater vegetation. Some intrepid picnickers set off on a small waterlogged raft with only a long wood pole to guide them. In the middle of the pond, the raft bobbed dangerously in the currents tipping from one side to another. The riders shouted and screamed and ultimately, someone was lobbed over the side in a loud kersplash! into the cold waters. Many pet owners brought their dogs--all of them, curiously, yellow labs. These canines ran willy-nilly across the clearing, under tables, and around people. "All these dogs look the same!" was such the lament, but if one looked closely, they were slightly different physique-wise and temperament-wise. One dog was so hyperactive, he nearly plowed into the pond with his owner in tow. And am I the only one who finds it rather puzzling yet amusing that dog owners reserve a tone of voice for their pets that sounds patronizing even though these owners would argue it's for encouragement? Why is it that some people naturally turn their voices loud and simple when it comes to animals, young children, the mentally ill, and others that appear to have no capacity for "greater" thought? But at any rate, I watched with much laughter as someone threw a tennis ball and the dog owners immediately pointed to the ball and told their dogs, "Go get the ball!", and instead of listening to them, the dogs started eating the grass. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:40 PM : Here are Shawn's answers to my questions in the Interview Game. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 3:28 PM : Read Bud's answers to the questions I asked him from the Interview Game here. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:05 AM : Friday, August 22, 2003 How to Be a Better Speaker and Writer. Raymond over at Tiger Cafe has some good advice for technical geeks who want to learn to communicate more effectively. The key to the majority of his points is that one must focus more on the people who are being communicated to rather than oneself. I mean just think about it, who on earth would want to listen to someone only concerned about himself? Company Says It Mapped Genes of Virus in One Day. "Other scientists were more skeptical, saying that sequencing a virus, which has a tiny genome, is trivial and that there are aspects of the technology that might make it difficult to do more complex organisms." Of course other organisms are more complex and may be more difficult to determine--no one's arguing that. But to say that this is trivial? It may be easy and it may be fast, but nothing is trivial. Humans related to humble mud worm. My (perhaps completely unfounded) guess is that this worm is an example of devolution. That is, its genome may be similar to all the higher organisms, but over time, it may have lost the physical characteristics inherent in other deuterostomes to better fill its niche. What I find really curious is that this worm doesn't even have a proper gut and it is the structure of the gut that is one of the essential elements that defines the class of organisms that it is supposedly placed in. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 3:55 PM : Thursday, August 21, 2003 Interview game: The Rules 1. Leave a comment, saying you want to be interviewed. 2. I will respond and ask you five questions. 3. You'll update your website with my five questions, and your five answers. 4. You'll include this explanation. 5. You'll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed. My questions were provided by Chad. I had read his interview here. 1. What is the significance of 'yellowrook', 'Gargouille' and 'Doomsayer'? As much detail as you'd like -- I've been curious about your machine and email names for a good long while. Yellowrook: I suppose I'll have to start all the way back when I was writing bad fantasy stories when I wasn't busy dealing with high school stuff. The Yellow Rook is actually directly from a short story I wrote titled "The Yellow Raven." My e-mail isn't yellowraven simply because somebody else had taken it. The Yellow Raven was the animal form (and nickname) of an empress-sorceress who plots to overthrow her hedonistic and kill-happy brother (the Ibis). She uses a young girl (who was on her path to becoming a priestess in an obscure cult until the Ibis slaughtered everybody at her temple) as a tool to accomplish her ends. I keep telling myself I need to buckle down and rewrite the thing if I want it to go anywhere. Doomsayer: When I plugged my old clunker into the network back at my undergraduate school, I realized I needed to give the computer a name that at first glance would identify it as mine. My friends were always telling me how disturbing I was, especially with all the rather dire messages I kept posting on my door, so I figured this was a rather fitting name. Gargouille: I'm actually rather fond of mythological names and I picked this one for my laptop because, well, it sounded nice. Also, I liked the story. Gargouille was a monster who kept flooding the area in France around the Seine until St. Romain tamed it and led it to be burned. I always wondered why they couldn't have just kept the Gargouille as a pet and made him the main attraction in a traveling circus. 2. To me, college seems like a vast waste of time except for a very few disciplines -- the area you're studying, molecular cell biology, would naturally (pun not intended) be one of them. What exactly are you studying within MCB and how did you get there? What event or series of events convinced you that you wanted to do that? I've always liked science. Part of it, I think, was my father's influence. He's an electrical engineer and it was fascinating to watch him tinkering around with random parts of computers and circuit boards and learning how to program in his spare time. Biology is a lot like these networks and programs but is many magnitudes more complicated. Engineering, in a way, is a problem already solved and the mechanics are known. I didn't want to waste time on already "known" problems. I want to study problems that are already in front of our faces and most likely will impact everyone's lives directly. Yes, that sounds grand-sweeping and idealistic, but I'm still young and I can still dream. Molecular cell biology is an incredibly diverse field, but the beauty of it is that one can learn the techniques in any subarea and apply it elsewhere if one decides to do something "entirely different" (like switching from plant genetics to neurobiology). I chose to specifically study in microbiology because 1) the research in this area is and will be increasingly relevant to our well-being and future medicine and 2) the mechanisms underlying pathogenesis is an interesting intellectual conundrum in itself. I also find it a bonus that my current project has also allowed me to delve into immunology as well. I suppose my reasons for getting into the field are a lot more intellectual than mercenary, but I figure I'm probably in the wrong field if I'm in it mainly for the money. 3. I was quite surprised to learn that you are not actually a citizen of the United States. Does that mean you hold Vietnamese or Chinese (the two other countries you mention most in your writing) citizenship? Don't answer if you don't want to, I'm merely curious. I have alluded to my nationality in a previous post (actually several posts, but I am too lazy to find them all now). I'm ethnically Vietnamese and Chinese and have been to both countries, but I actually hold Canadian citizenship. I hesitate to mention this too often because I cannot be considered the typical Canadian. The first few years of my life was spent in Quebec--that's why English is technically not my first language even though I'm most fluent in it. My family moved to the States when I was seven for job reasons and I have lived here ever since. This also explains my Americanized spelling habits. 4. Who are your three favorite obscure composers and why? Erik Satie, Gabriel Fauré, and Luigi Boccherini. I know, they're not entirely obscure, but I love their music. Satie and Fauré are both romantic French composers who have written heady and lyrical piano pieces. Actually, my favorite genre is impressionistic French classical (possibly because it appeals to my latent romantic streak) so it's no surprise that I picked those two. Boccherini, on the other hand, lived in the 18th century and was somewhat a contemporary of Haydn. He was also a virtuoso cellist and it's just too bad there are no recordings of him. However, he has written quite a few cello concertos and some beautiful guitar quintets. 5. If you found a bone or champagne-colored silk blouse that you had to absolutely have (I know this really doesn't sound like you, but bear with me), would you mate it with black slacks or some shade of red? Some other color? Why? Black. Black goes with everything for some reason. I don't really like red. The only red clothing I own is a red t-shirt. I'm curious about this question now. Is it just random or is the answer to this question supposed to be psychologically revealing? Or maybe it is you trying to find something to match a bone or champagne-colored (who thought up of those silly color names anyway?) shirt and is not so subtly attempting to pry advice out of me? Anyways, don't blame me if it turns out that black doesn't go with everything. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:17 PM : This entire week, I've been wishing for something insightful or at least remotely interesting to expound about, but so far, nothing has come to me. Maybe this is a good thing for the people who only come here for the links with commentary. Off to Freshman Year, a Perfect Score in Hand. I did not get a perfect score on any standardized tests (well on second thought, that may not be technically true, but that is besides the point) or get front page coverage in my hometown newspaper (that, I think, was reserved for the prom queen), but I believe having this sort of publicity is perfect for spawning neuroses that may affect his next years in college if not for the rest of his life. Sure, one should have high expectations for oneself, but having other people expecting great things of you? I still get the shudders when I think about the time I got voted for "most likely to succeed" during sixth grade. Does IM Make U Dum? Perhaps IM-speak is useful and perferred in some instances, but I don't frequent message boards or chat rooms. I don't even have instant messaging anymore due to my paranoia of spyware or viral programs hijacking those communication tools. So I guess I'm free to indulge my linguistically luddite preferences and sound like an old-fashioned dork. I do have shortcuts for taking notes, however, but in that case they're not meant to be read by anyone except me. Outer Space Weirdness. A flash game. It looks very interesting, both visually and as a puzzle. I got stumped for a little while on that guy who smoked pot. Chasm. Another great flash puzzle game. You are a purple platypus who must help restore electricity to your town so everyone could watch the game. The problem is, the electricity is generated by a fiendishly complicated network of hydraulics built on dangerous terrain. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:38 PM : The Thursday Threesome: One trick pony Onesome: One- One thing that's being bandied about a bit in the communications press is the ongoing replacement of land line phones with cell phones. Hmmm... Have you ever considered dropping your wired phone and living a wireless existence? I share a land line phone with my housemates. I don't get very many calls, though so I guess theoretically, I could ditch the phone. But based on various articles and opinions (for instance, the New York Times had reported that during the blackout, the wireless network was more overloaded than not) I would not completely go wireless. The infrastructure is simply not there to sustain maximum traffic. However, I am connected to the internet pretty much all the time. Or at least that would be theoretical too since I am not chained to the computer, but my laptop is either connected by LAN, wireless, or both. (Thus, if anyone wants to get in touch with me, e-mail is more reliable than the phone.) Unfortunately I wouldn't depend on wireless in this case either. The service is rather spotty at best, even at an institution that's armed to the teeth with wireless installations (and even if you're sitting in prime reception location), and when the LAN goes down, well, the wireless service is no better. Twosome: Trick- Okay, everyone one should know at least one magic trick. Do you have one? ...or is there one you really, really wish you knew how it worked? I know this black box trick where the magician can guess correctly what color face was picked on a multi-colored cube inside the box. Other than that, I have no use for magic tricks unless you know one that helps me get my work done faster. Threesome: Pony- Admit it: did you want a pony as a kid? Still do? Never liked them? Nah, we know better I had My Little Ponies when I was about seven or so. I would have to say that I was more fascinated by the unnatural colors the toys came in than in any real animals. I'm not sure if I ever got my picture taken on a pony or a horse. Yes, I had ridden on real ponies before, but they smelled. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 1:01 PM : Wednesday, August 20, 2003 New Pet Peeve If you are a clueless visitor wandering around a research building and you find me in a room filled with warning signs and handling reagents that might have the slightest chance of being biohazardous, do not interrupt me in the middle of my task to ask me directions to the bathroom. Popular Links: Egg. Cute flash mutations. The Gender Genie. Do you write like a woman or a man? I entered the previous post and it said female. Yesterday's post came back male. This page's posts on a whole were female. And this past month? Female. I was half-hoping I could fool the program, but oh well. I could fool it if I consciously tried, but I'm just content to get the point across. Addendum: So I looked at the actual article the generator was based on and it was originally intended for fiction. So I only put in my most recent fiction post "Queen of the Road". Ironically, the verdict came back male. I also tried it for the first couple sections of last year's Nano novel (each submitted separately) and got alternating female and male. I guess on a whole, I might not be entirely classifiable? [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 3:30 PM : Why Humans and Their Fur Parted Ways. This New York Times article speculates why, unlike the chimps and apes, we have evolved to be relatively hairless. The most "likely" theory cited is that humans have lost fur to combat parasites. I think determining when humans have lost their fur by sequencing parasite DNA is pretty ingenious. But on another note, all of this raises another question. If selection favored humans with less hair (that is, humans with less hair were considered more fit and attractive), then would people argue that leg shaving or beard shaving is not really a social pressure but something biological? [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:08 AM : Tuesday, August 19, 2003 Zombie Infection Simulation. (via Blogdex) This little program is also brought to you by the same guy who did the Food Battle Monkeys. This particular simulation, however, is a lot more interesting. I was looking at the source code and being very confused, but I was wondering if other parameters could be tweaked, such as speed at which infected and uninfected are moving, how many times an uninfected person could come in contact before becoming infected, etc. It has not escaped my notice that this could be used as a simulation for a disease spreading in the body or a disease spreading throughout a population. What I would definitely like to see is an addition of "zombie slayers" (that is, the equivalent of the body's immune system or a bunch of doctors and researchers finally finding a vaccine) and see what happens in the simulation. Would the zombies still overwhelm the normal population, would they be eradicated, or will there still be some holdouts hiding in the corner? [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:31 AM : Monday, August 18, 2003 An Experiment on Blogs Yet another graduate student (Blogademia) is doing a thesis on weblogs. This must be my fourth or fifth survey I've come across the past couple of months. Doing them is completely painless. My rationale is: if I can help out a fellow graduate student, why not? I mean, if I needed volunteers to complete my thesis, theoretically people should be as willing too. (However, considering my field, I assume more people would be less willing to be guniea pigs.) This project is not merely about statistics though. The author of this experiment is trying to determine writing styles in blogging and how it correlates with the blogger. It's interesting--since most cursory glances at a random blog already convey a whole wealth of meaning to what the blogger is about, how he or she organizes things, and even to some extent whether the blogger deals only with surface issues or is more inward-looking. Professors of writing classes always say that writers must develop their own unique style. Styles may be unique, but they still fall into general categories. I notice that I typically use three different styles of writing in this weblog. There is the formal approach which is used in essays and essay-like non-fiction. The descriptive approach comes in handy for fiction or more contemplative works. And then there is the informal style which is characterized with frequent use of pronouns and a speech-inspired pattern. More often than not, I mix the styles (of which this particular post is an example). I think it would be fascinating to find out if there is a typical blog writing style or (as I have casually observed) if blog writing is like any other non-technical writing--people write as it suits their own personality. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 8:20 PM : A Little Thing So how do people organize their bookmarks? Are they in alphabetical order or chronological order? Are some of the links separated because some are more frequently visited than others? Are they in no particular order at all? Or do some people don't even bother with bookmarking anything? (Perhaps someone should make one of those inane quizzes like "What type of bookmark organization are you?") I don't really have things bookmarked, per se. I have a homepage that only resides on my computer with many sites hyperlinked. I used to organize it so that all my frequently visited sites were grouped together. Then that list got way too big and I switched to arranging them by subject (i.e. art, games, science). And last night, well, I was feeling very geeky and decided to arrange all my links according to the Dewey Decimal System. So now all my science links are in the 500's, art links in the mid-700's, and the games in 793. And where, do you ask, did I put all the blogs? In the vast unassigned section of the 040's. It makes sense, really. Weblogs are like encyclopedias of random information and links, and they're always being compared to traditional journalism. I could have put it under 070 but somehow, that didn't seem quite right. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:34 AM : Sunday, August 17, 2003 Links with Commentary Speech Accent Archive. Wonderfully fascinating to listen to even though I couldn't fake an accent to save my life. I sort of assume my own accent is very close to a "neutral" North American accent but how am I to know? One doesn't normally go around asking people what their accent is. People Like Us. While I was growing up, I was always surrounded by people unlike me. I mean, sure, these people were supposed to be in the same economic strata as my family, but that doesn't mean anything. I wasn't white or religious. Even though I'm quite "westernized" my cultural background is certainly different. When I went to college though, I was suddenly amazed at how well I fit in. I was pretty much in nerd-heaven. However, I'm not sure how conscious the decision was to move to a place where everyone (well, except the yuppies) was like me. Perhaps it had to do more with my set of priorities. Changing Faces. It's both sad and frustrating to note that today's society is inherently shallow and youth-obsessed. I'd like to think that I don't really care that much about not being pretty or that I'm not afraid of getting old, but the reality is I hate pain and the idea of "being under the knife" even more. But what would happen when plastic surgery becomes as harmless and painless as shopping for new clothes? Will everyone rush off to the doctor's office to get the new face of the week--one day looking like a flawless leggy blonde, the next as a cheery brunette? What will happen to identity? Will anyone have an identity anymore? Is everyone so obsessed with beauty that they will risk looking like every other drone on the covers of women's magazines? Human genetics: Dual identities. I would also just like to note that at least half of the human population is phenotypically mosaic. Everyone with two X chromosomes is phenotypically mosaic because in each cell, one X chromosome is randomly inactivated due to the dosage effect. But of course, that isn't really the same as the subject of the article. But speaking of human chimeras, there are also human-rabbit chimeras. Part of me is curious as to what the embryo would be like if developed to full term, but then again it's extremely ethically dubious. Muteblog. (via BoingBoing) A blog told only with colors. Vienna Vegetable Orchestra. They play with vegetables. Extremely weird. Microbe Brew. For those amateur microbiologists who don't have access to labs and expensive equipment. Omaha zoo testing DNA of mystery apes. This would be very cool if they discovered a new species. People find new bacteria and insects all the time, but the chances of finding new large mammals are vanishingly small. Unconscious Mutterings
[posted by S. Y. Affolee on 10:10 AM : Saturday, August 16, 2003 Peculiar Type #11 - Queen of the Road Marsha wasn't your ordinary middle-aged biker chick. Oh no, she was the Queen of the Road and she didn't let you forget it either. Her younger female rivals called her a bitch. And the men called her a tigress. Her cohorts called her Queenie and they always saluted her when they greeted her--half seriously, half in jest. On an August afternoon, in the hot sun and sweltering heat, she and her gang saddled up on gleaming Harleys to head north. Chuck's BBQ Shack was hosting the annual motorcycle show, an event that she wouldn't miss for the world. The highway was a long stretch of gray and freedom. Amidst the growling motors and the wind whipping through her hair, Marsha was an element of nature with the lightness and ferociousness of fire. She loved the humming of the Harley beneath her, better (she often mused) than riding astride her younger lover Jed or binging on chocolate. At that moment, she passed a green mini-van driven by a harried soccer mom shouting at the three kids in the back. A pity, she thought, and she gunned the gas, speeding up three car-lengths. But there were few other cars on the road so she took to the center and eyed the road that thinned on the horizon to a dot as a dartboard target. The engine noise became nothing more than static and she concentrated on the feeling of the blacktop racing underneath the tires. She felt every bump, crack, and imperfection and for that time, she was not merely a queen of the road, but a goddess--flying, in control. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 8:12 AM : Friday, August 15, 2003 The morning was very misty. It was as if the world was a picture and it was being erased starting from the sky. Perhaps at any moment, I would be erased too, gone into little bits of eraser rubber, brushed off into the aether. Jspschicken. My sister finally has updated her webpage. She now has some cool pictures up (she's taking photography and art classes so of course they're a whole lot better than mine). There are also pictures of "Muffin", my cousins' cat. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 9:58 AM : Thursday, August 14, 2003 Age Control A glass window separated the summer elements from the air-conditioned interior. On the inside, terra cotta pots in different shapes housed aloe plants with long snaking arms. From the top of the window was a neon green sign in script proclaiming the name, "The Three Tomatoes." Restaurant patrons sat on the inside chatting in front of a wall of glass vials of oil, glittering like Christmas ornaments. These patrons were perhaps retired, but certainly past middle-aged. The women had stylish platinum blonde hair and wore pastel clothing, the kind found in upscale boutiques. They had a curious affectation as they held court over their own little tables. Elbows on the table, their hands hung limp from their wrists until a point was made. Then the fingers would flick upward as if saying, "Oh come on!" Their male companions either had grayish-white hair with bushy moustaches or were bald with only a thin strip of hair hovering over their ears. From the outside, the conversation could not be heard, but one could see that they were unsure of what to do--their lips rarely moved. They kept their hands off the table as the women dominated with their hand waving. On the outside, there were many teenagers milling around the street. Male and female alike were dressed in their favorite fashions--shirts and jeans worn from many, many washes. They either had smirks ("What are you lookin' at?") or gapes (mouths open, slack-jawed, as if they constantly couldn't believe their eyes). Loud obscene rap music blared from the headphones permanently stuck on their ears. This separation of age, though, is like the glass. Outwardly physical, yet transparent. Tomorrow, these teenagers will be sitting in a restaurant, talking about Issues That Matter. And it was only yesterday that these older folks were roaming outside, moody and wondering why the Whole World Was Against Them. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:48 PM : The Thursday Threesome: "Sound loves to revel in a summer night" - Edgar Allen Poe Onesome- Sound loves: What’s your favourite song? Is there a history behind it or do you just like it because it’s great? I don't have one favorite song but here are several: Bach's Six Unaccompanied Cello Suites. As I've stated before in a previous post, the more versions the better. I like all of Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words (and there are many of them). I know it sounds a bit touchy-feely, but I like Bach and Mendelssohn because I've actually played the music myself. It's a whole different world making the music rather than just listening. As for more modern stuff, I can pretty much play George Fenton's Dangerous Beauty soundtrack or John Corigliano's The Red Violin soundtrack nonstop and never get tired of it. As expected from my usual musical tastes, both of these scores are stylistically very classical. Twosome- To revel: What’s your idea of the perfect party tunes? Some jazz to keep things jumpin’? Rock to keep everyone dancing? Or a mix of everything to make everyone happy? I like jazz and rock, but I think both of those genres are more suited to "easy listening" situations like in the car or doing some rather tedious experiment in the lab. I like party tunes to be loud and rhythmic. So it has to be techno and electronica. And maybe some Venga Boys thrown in for variety. Threesome- In a summer night: It’s a mellow summer night, you’re on your own and you’re ready to load the CD player. What’s on your playlist? Remember, there's no one around to say "Ewww, gross!" *grin* The past two weeks, I've been listening to all the archives on NPR. I know, I know, it's the geeky stuff that's making me all square, but I have never been one to be trendy. The music I've been listening to is on the program Performance Today which unfortunately isn't carried by New Hampshire Public Radio. But it is on Vermont Public Radio. (Good thing I live near the border!) The Joy of Sexing. (via Metafilter) Well, I know how to tell a male fruit fly from a female fruit fly. I also know how to distinguish male worms from hermaphrodite worms. And I bet both of those are a lot more difficult than looking at chickens. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:07 AM : Wednesday, August 13, 2003 Stuff Everyone Is Talking About (Or, Bookmarked Links That I Need To Get Rid Of Before It All Becomes Completely Unmanageable) The Best and the Weirdest. This is about the Best American Science Writing annual collection. I've been scouring the local bookstore to see if they have this or older collections but so far, I have come away empty handed. Darn those mindless bestsellers that take up way too much shelf space! Blah Blah Blog. An article on politicians and blogging. Actually, I'm not that surprised. Of course they get their underpaid interns to write it. And of course their blogs aren't interesting. Politicians are typically a boring and bland bunch besides being extroverted. Not very good combinations for writing insightful and introspective entries. Colours of Numbers. Even a non-mathematician would realize that this guy is just putting colors to known numerical properties. The same guy who asked women what they liked about men today asked men what they liked about women. I had two reactions from all the comments: 1) if what they're describing are women, then I'm not a woman, and 2) this is helpful information for me as a writer trying to get into the head of a male fictional character. Eigenradio. If this is statistically optimal music and people who listen to this are statistically optimal listeners, then I'm completely off the chart. I'm being very nice when I say that I don't like it. The New Diamond Age. While I was reading this, I was imagining the hapless Wired reporter getting tailed by thugs hired by De Beers and being interrogated by government agents. Retired generals, Russian scientists, ruthless diamond cartels--it's another episode for the James Bond franchise! [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:24 PM : Cut off toes to fit your shoes. Voluntary self-mutilation for fashion. This story reminds me of a rather gruesome version of Cinderella where the step-sisters cut off part of their feet to fit the glass shoe. Of course, while the prince was riding off with the wrong girl, the birds were chirping about bloody shoes and the prince had to go back to get the right girl. And during the wedding, the birds pecked out the step-sisters' eyes as they walked down the aisle as bridesmaids. Runecaster. A do-it-yourself reading. The "interpretation is up to the individual." Which pretty much means that you can fit whatever you get into your worldview with a modicum of effort. Escape From New Hampshire. Man, I had hoped this post would have been more interesting when I clicked the link. If there was a movie by this title, I would definitely go rent it no matter how bad it was. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:19 AM : Tuesday, August 12, 2003 A recent photograph of me can be found here (scroll down, I'm the third one) for those of you too lazy to search through all my other web pages for the other photographs. It's not a very good one (Niles caught me in the middle of doing some ugly math--I thought I left that all behind in freshman calculus!), but that in itself is good. That way, you won't be disappointed if you ever met me in person. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:11 PM : Housebound Why do people stay at home? No, I'm not talking about the people with home businesses or parents taking care of their kids. I'm not talking either about people who have been forced to stay at home due to unemployment or disability. I'm talking about the people who voluntarily quit their jobs to "take care of the house." Yeah, I'm talking about housewives. More specifically, housewives who don't have kids and don't expect to have kids in the near future. I mean, what do they do? I'm totally serious. House chores can't take up that much time. Do they watch television? Do they do volunteer work? Do they go to church meetings? Do they gossip with the next door neighbor? Why do they do it? It's almost like being on a permanent vacation. I don't want to be critical, but I hear all the time about feminists bashing housewives because they don't seem to want a career and about housewives bashing career women because they don't seem as connected to the community. People have reasons for making the choices that they do. I know why I want to have a job of some sort for the rest of my adult life. But why do some women want to get married and then stay at home? [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:10 AM : Monday, August 11, 2003 The Look I have watched parents helping their kids move into college housing and I was struck by how similar all the parents looked. Worried. Tired. Somewhat resigned. And happy even though they might not want to admit it. They've released their offspring into a bigger pen, but it's somewhere else at least and now all those rampaging teenage hormones are gone until Christmas. The mothers carry around these tote-like purses under their arms, probably containing anything that might be required in an emergency--bandages, tissues, cellphone, nail clippers, a comb or two--and they're always wearing low-heeled shoes. The mothers have their hair cut short, page-boy style at the longest, and they tend to be the most vocal of the couple. They ask their offspring numerous, pointed questions until the young man or woman caves in and says, exasperated (and more than a little testy), "Yes, Mom!" The fathers have gray in their hair and their shirts neatly tucked into their pants (which of course, are cinched with a belt). Their expressions are a bit bewildered and hesitant as if they are unsure of what to say to the departing kids besides patting them on the shoulder and saying, "Is everything fine here? Good! Do well in school." It's as if it had not quite dawned on them yet that the last eighteen years of their life was only a phase. Their minds have not yet switched gears from "Junior is going to summer camp for two weeks" to "Junior's only coming back for vacation for two weeks." But all too soon, I know, these parents will get used to being on their own again, and they will be the one sounding testy when their son or daughter calls home asking them about their advice on a small matter. They will be saying, "Decide for yourself!" The fledglings are gone. And they won't be let back into the nest. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:16 AM : Sunday, August 10, 2003 The Odd Bad habits are good for you? Well, if these scientists have ever published any papers, I haven't seen them in the first tier journals. Or even the second tier journals. So I guess it's best summed up by one guy who said, "it makes sense to believe that's good for you, but we don't have any actual evidence." Are you a Web addict? Why does this make me think of a culturally-different future where being connected to the web 24/7 is going to be a normal thing and if you're one of the loners who eschew the technology you're considered a social misfit? Blogger's Block. "You're trolling for search engine traffic, aren't you?" I always get disturbing search engine traffic because I decided to be a bit creative in descriptive writing. More weird science. Well, that isn't the title of the actual BBC article, but given the above link, I'm not going to invite more disturbing searches than necessary. As for an actual comment on the article: people will research anything, especially if it's titillating. Which brings me to mind of a phrase that I hear scientists use a lot--"sexy research". I'm not exactly annoyed that people are using it to describe areas of research that's popular or really, really interesting but it does give an unexpected jolt that my mind can't process for a moment. That's because I usually don't associate the term "sexy" with "research." There might be "exciting research" or "obsessive research" or even "hot research" but I can't imagine an old guy with coke-bottle glasses getting turned on by "sexy research"--in fact, I shouldn't try imagining it all if I want to keep my appetite for dinner. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 12:52 PM : A Brief Thought What are the logistics of grocery store organization? I mean, why do they always have the fresh produce near the front of the door and the meat and dairy sections at the back? Why are the shopping aisles located in the middle of the store? Is it a space problem? Unconscious Mutterings
[posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:33 AM : Saturday, August 09, 2003 What do you like about men? (via Ectophensis) That's a loaded question if I ever heard of one. I have never really thought about this, though I'd like to think that I subscribe to the evolutionary view mentioned in this later post. However, my own personal perceptions of the matter are anything but scientific. One question I always despise people asking is: Do you like so-and-so? Where so-and-so could be anyone of either gender. And when so-and-so becomes a group of people, well, it becomes even more difficult to articulate. I find it much easier to talk about how I feel about myself or a group that I belong to rather than a group which I truly do not have an understanding of. But that said, I honestly feel quite neutral about either gender. There are bad and good things about both, and even though I'm a feminist (or rather an equalist) in my thinking everything sort of balances out. In real life, people generally don't pay much attention to me, possibly because I'm one of the least threatening people (and perhaps most bland) out there. If I do anything exciting and supposedly out-of-character, they're always surprised. In other words, I'm mostly a social non-competitor and an observer and I find things more interesting than likable. I typically consider a person as an individual first although it is hard to be oblivious to gender, or eye color, or how he or she is dressed--and I will ignore the topic of what I consider physically appealing in men since I suspect that it is biologically hard-wired and not under my control at all. I generally like people who are clever, witty, and personable. But never ask me to actually say it. But I guess that's the whole crux of the problem, isn't it? Trying to force compliments out of me makes it sound so insincere and not a bit clever, witty, or personable. The best gauge, perhaps, in ferreting out what I like about men is probably in my reading material. I like how they write things succinctly without any overt sentimentality or floweriness. I like being able to think about what they're saying without being swamped with somebody else's leftover emotions. This is not to say that female writers are bad (some are quite good), but that I just prefer their stylistic techniques. In all, I will say again that I am an equalist. I may like or dislike particular individuals, but I really can't point a finger and say this is what I like about men. Rather, I just note the differences and leave it at that. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:02 AM : Friday, August 08, 2003 It sort of worked. But that's definitely better than not working at all. I mean, after nearly twelve hours of straight lab (and feeling like a chicken with its head cut off for about half of that time), I'm totally excited to get some sort of data. And this is not data for part of somebody else's project. This is my data for my project. All mine! Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine... Okay, I think I'd better get some sleep before I plunge back into the happy abyss tomorrow. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:32 PM : Thursday, August 07, 2003 Whee! I've been around too many 96-well plates and strange (and dangerous) chemicals today. And just think, this is only the beginning of the next three to six months. Good thing I have a couple of multiple pipettors on hand! For the right price, you can own your own closet, er, studio co-op. Well, if you ignore the prices, living in such tight quarters actually sounds quite neat. If you're not claustrophobic. Unfortunately, I own too many books and papers to ever consider living in such spaces. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:05 PM : The Thursday Threesome: Two Day Sale Onesome: Two- Hey, we did 'threes' last week; let's try 'twos' this week. When you think of pairs, what comes to mind? ...and 'Bartletts' is the only wrong answer I think of shoes and pants. Especially the shoes and pants that got soaked yesterday while I was waiting for the bus. In the rain. With an umbrella that did nothing to shield my lower body from the elements. Twosome: Day- Which day of the week do you live for? Is it getting back to work on Monday (right!) or maybe Friday, so you're gone! One of the weekend days? Which day works for you? I don't really like Mondays since it's right after the weekends. I don't really like Fridays either because I have to get up extra early to go to lab meeting (and it gets extra hectic if I'm presenting). Saturdays aren't too great, or at least this Saturday isn't so great, since I'll be in the lab. And the other days? No, I have complaints on those too. So I probably don't live for a particular day of the week. A moment, maybe. Threesome: Sale- Are you one of those people who will wait until something is on sale before you buy it? ...even if it's like forever? ...or do you just haul on down to the store whenever the urge hits? Hmmm? Planner, immediate or impulse? What type of buyer are you? I usually wait until things go on sale. The question I always ask myself is: Do I really need it? For instance, I see a pretty blank journal in the bookstore. Fabulous! I love blank paper to write in. But it's ten bucks and I already have blank notebooks that are not entirely filled up yet, so I don't buy it. However, if the price of milk was somehow in flux, I would buy it whatever it costs. Food, unlike paper, is an inflexible need. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:38 AM : Wednesday, August 06, 2003 Ugh. I've been staring through a microscope for too long. I need to put my head down for a while until the world stops spinning. The police state. (via BoingBoing) I'm not so sure that one can so easily extrapolate genetics and insect behavior to the social sciences even though bees have been used as model systems in other areas of the biological sciences (such as neurology/neuroethology and the cognitive sciences). The findings are quite interesting though since the behavior appear to correlate with the bees' relatedness to each other. However, this doesn't seem so "unique" if you think about other competitive species. One example is the cowbird which lays its eggs in other birds' nests so its young can be raised by somebody else. While the host birds evolves ways to detect the parasite egg and destroy it, the cowbird is also evolving to stay under their radar. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:42 PM : On the Backs of Fortune Cookies I could care less about the lottery. Or perhaps more accurately, I don't think about lotteries and jackpots very often. My Dad likes to buy lottery tickets every so often. He'd drive up north one hour, past the state border, to one of those large trucker stations where everyone from down south congregates to get their small gambling fix. They'd bemoan the fact that they live in one of those states where it's not legal because of the efforts of religious bigwigs who think they know what's good for everyone else. Dad would say, "Maybe I'll hit the jackpot this time." He'd laugh and then daydream that with all those millions, he'd pay off the bills, his kids' college tuitions, and move out to California with Mom for retirement. I understand this view. Heck, I wouldn't turn down the jackpot if I won it. Money makes the world go round and all of that. But somehow, to me at least, it doesn't feel legitimate. No, it has nothing to do with religiousness or faith or morality or even the law. It has more to do with control. Sure, in a lottery, you control the decision of whether or not to buy the ticket. But after that, it's left up to chance. And even if you do win, there is no satisfaction that you've actually earned all that money. Maybe I subscribe too much to the idea of happiness and self-determination. I would rather have success with patenting some new technology or writing a trashy novel that the critics hate but the public love than to sit around waiting for a phone call from a stranger saying, "You've won the lotto!" I'm not so idealistic that I won't take what I could get, but I'm not going out of my way to abandon a more worthwhile (and in my eyes, nobler) pursuit. Power from blood could lead to 'human batteries'. (via Blogdex) Sounds like the beginning to The Matrix to me. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:53 AM : Tuesday, August 05, 2003 Some NPR Audio: Chef's Secret Ingredients. So I guess one of my former roommates was ahead of the curve when it came to the avant-garde culinary arts. The Writing Life. Some candid discussions about being a writer. One thing mentioned that I found very relevant was how what a writer is working on currently always feel like the most exciting work. And yes, writing is scary. That's why most of my work hasn't been read by anyone. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 3:08 PM : I Blame It on the Humidity I was having a very vivid series of dreams last night, one of which I will relate here: I'm meeting a blogger in real life because he has offered me a ride to a meeting of bloggers. He's bald, has glasses, and looks uncannily like an annoying yuppie I had the acquaintence of when I lived in California. But nonetheless, he's providing transportation. We arrive at a house where several other people have gathered in the living room. The yuppie-blogger excuses himself to go use the bathroom, but when he comes back out, the host flies into a rage and kicks him out of the house. Apparently he had not gone to the bathroom at all. Instead, he had snooped around and stole a video tape. Whether the tape was returned or not, I never found out. Old Stuff: The Labyrinth. One could spend months looking through all this stuff. There's translations of manuscripts, scans, monographs, and a whole lot more if you're into medieval studies. Mythographic Papyri. An extensive project aiming to catalog existing fragments of Greek papyri. If only they had scans too! Octavo. A collection of old books and manuscripts digitized. They've scanned in entire books of which you can flip through online. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:20 AM : Monday, August 04, 2003 Good grief. I just read a paper in a respected journal that used the word "elicit" in almost every sentence in the abstract and at least once in every paragraph in the main paper. And that's just scratching the surface. Writing classes really should be required for all scientists regardless of how much they may complain. The "meat" of the paper may lie in the graphs, tables, and experimental protocol, but it's not going to help a hypothesis any if looks like it's been formulated by a five-year-old. An interesting (and bizarre) article on PubMed. "This is the first report of an attempted suicide by transnasal insertion of a ballpoint pen intracranially." Yawning after you do shows empathy. Really? I thought yawning was a cue that your brain wasn't getting enough oxygen. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 10:02 AM : Sunday, August 03, 2003 Air People At the moment, I'm feeling quite the luftmensch, mostly drifting in and out of various thoughts while I'm enduring the hideous humidity that causes me to sweat even at the mere act of breathing. So I daydream, all the while thinking that I should commit some of my thoughts somewhere, but they're all scattered and partially incoherent. I'm also somewhat hesitant to write it all into words since putting these thoughts into something physical somehow renders impotent all their mystical properties. Sometimes I actually think about dreams, what I've dreamed, what could I have dreamed, what it could all mean. And sometimes I turn into the amateur philosopher: what was, what is, what might be. Why am I here and why am I am what I am instead of something else? And why does rationality seem so much more subjective in the real world than on paper? Other times my mind turns to complete fantasy. Possible plot lines. Possible characters. They could be either vague images with lyrical turns of word phrases attached to them, more ideas than something concrete. Or an entire story could unfold while my eyes are closed like a three-dimensional movie where I am hovering over the shoulder of a character, watching what he or she is doing. Then there are those times when I'm thinking about nothing at all and I feel as if I'm floating motionless and being hurled through space simultaneously. It feels like an eternity. But when I glance at the clock, only five minutes have passed. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:02 PM : I usually don't pay attention to lyrics (that's why I can never remember them) but here is a question posed by Savage Garden in one of their songs: Is happiness worth more than a golden diamond ring? Do they even have to ask? Unconscious Mutterings
Last night, I dreamed that I was a Klingon. I could hallucinate by just looking at pictures. And in that hallucinatory state, I met a dying old man who told me to get out before they found me. I'm still wondering who they are. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:00 AM : Saturday, August 02, 2003 "Full of sweet enchantment" I indulged in a slightly guilty pleasure this morning by acquiring a couple of classical CDs from some of my favorite composers as well as others that caught my eye. I say "slightly guilty" because the musicians who recorded the pieces are probably getting compensated very little considering how much I paid for those CDs. What I don't understand is why they cost much less compared to contemporary musical CDs like bubble-gum pop and gangsta rap. Even though there's nothing inherently better or worse about different musical genres, most people would agree that Britney Spears is a lot dumber than Bach. So why is it that one of her albums is as high as $20 while the Brandenburg Concerto is relegated to the $1 bin? If classical music enthusiasts are considered elitists and news articles keep on coming out about how classical music increases the intelligence of your kids, then why isn't my classical music collection worth a fortune? But aside from that, I could never get tired of playing a Bach concerto over and over again. I hear something new every time because the music itself is so complex. As for the Top 20 or Top 40 hits on the radio, let's just say that after a week of overplaying, any sane person would want to throw their radio out the window except for the fact that there's also NPR. I don't really remember when I started liking classical music. It just seems that I've always liked it despite having parents who played Chinese and Vietnamese contemporary popular music most of the time. Before CDs were ubiquitous, I would go through a lot of blank tapes from recording interesting pieces off public radio. Sometimes I would leave the cassette recorder on through the night when I went to sleep. But when CDs became popular, the first one I got was a classical CD of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf which actually was one of the reasons that led me to take up the oboe. As of now, I'm just glad that part of my musical tastes are within a student's budget. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 9:00 AM : Friday, August 01, 2003 It's exactly three months until that time of the year again. Today I wore my t-shirt that said "No plot? No problem!" plastered all over it and no one noticed. Oh well. Anyways, for those of you thinking about doing it again or starting this year, don't procrastinate if you're the type to obsessively plan. And no, you can't start early. That's cheating. Paper Worms Origami is fun. If you know what you're doing. It's one of those things that I never put too much effort into--I was always confused even if there were diagrams and the directions were in English instead of Japanese. I only know how to make the simple things. Like the paper airplane. And this is because somebody else showed me how to do it. Perhaps this is an indication that my brain processes three-dimensional images to actions more readily than trying to extrapolate something three-dimensional out of a two-dimensional figure. I was probably around eight or nine when an older girl showed me how to make the paper worm. Take two thin strips of paper and place them at 90 degrees of each other. Continue folding the strips in an alternate pattern until you get a long accordion type structure that is the "worm". It has a bit of spring which has wonderful applications if you're a kid. One thing I liked to do was to glue one end to the bottom of a paper box and something scary on the other end. Put the top on the box and whoever opens it next will get a jack-in-the-box surprise! Later, I discovered a way to make the strips of paper for the paper worms much easier than cutting out strips by hand. I used the leftover perforated edges of computer paper, the kind made for dot-matrix printers. Making paper worms became one of those mindless activities on a boring Sunday afternoon that rivaled popping packing carton bubbles. Of course, now that ink-jet and laser printers are commonplace, I miss that childish pastime. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 1:01 PM : |
