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Tuesday, September 30, 2003 I Didn't Realize... ...that this is the 916th post, more or less. I say more or less because I'm not quite sure this is the 916th post. I've only counted all of them once. There will be more counting, just to make sure, but I probably won't post any more numbers until I reach one thousand (which would be at the end of the year if I keep the same posting rate I've been doing the past few months). On Guard Against SARS, Inside the Laboratory and Out. It's the problem of familiarity and insensitivity. If you work at a lab for a while with infectious agents and after a couple of months nothing happens, you start thinking, "Oh, this will never happen to me," and you might start getting lax on your safety procedures if you're not disciplined. If you're that type of person, someone needs to watch over you like a hawk. Better yet, you shouldn't work in a lab filled with infectious reagents. Some people might be comfortable handling vials with their bare hands and opening them up in the general atmosphere, but if you're like me--that is, extremely paranoid--always use gloves and work in a hood where the air is not in general circulation. And if you're in doubt (no matter how small), disinfect like crazy! The Role of the Delete Key in Blog. An article on the question of whether or not weblogs should be edited. I don't see the problem especially if the blogger states that he is working for a news organization. It shouldn't be surprising then that he is being edited. Blovel: Bloggers Writing Novels. An assortment of bloggers daring to take part in National Novel Writing Month, striving to put down 50,000 or more words in the month of November, and hoping against all hope that at least some part of it, in some small way, some small, immeasurable, break out the microscope way, won't suck eggs. A futile hope, of course, but then again "blovel" is blogger + novel, with love in the middle. And that means something. Or not. I will probably also add this link to the link page on my writing site. I'll blab more about this tomorrow. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 3:06 PM : Monday, September 29, 2003 The Problem With Titles The post at Talk With Desiree ruminated about the usage of titles, particularly when and when not to use them. I personally don't think there is too much to worry about--I use titles when I don't know the person and will continue using it unless that person specifies otherwise. Sure, if that other person is 70 years old, I'm going to feel very uncomfortable using a first name--I was raised to respect the elders--but after a while, people should just let it go. There are people who argue among themselves about the pronunciation of my name, but for some reason, I care very little about it. They can pronounce it however they want (of course, it's only four letters and there are only so many ways one can mangle its pronunciation). What bothers me is the kind of title that one is supposed to use. Men have it easy. They're always Mr. I don't understand why one must differentiate the marital status of women with Miss or Mrs. Does this relegate unmarried women to a different social class than married women? Do married women have more authority because they're married? If you think about it, a Mrs. Smith would command more respect than a Miss Smith. You would automatically think that a Mrs. Smith is older and thus have more experience. Ms. somewhat solves the problem, but even though it looks more professional, it carries the baggage of being a feminist construct. Aside: Out of the three (Miss, Ms., Mrs.), I dislike Mrs. the most. It implies ownership by one's husband and loss of identity. It's like eliminating your own family in order to be adopted by another one. I guess this is a rather sore point with me--I have relatives who are disappointed that my father and uncle only have daughters. In today's patriarchal society, our last names will be lost unless we don't follow the norm. So which title do I prefer? Well, I would use Ms., no one would take me seriously if I used Miss. What I would really prefer is a gender neutral title with no marital modifications. In today's world, does it really matter whether someone is married or not, male or female? (But wait a minute, maybe if I'm lucky, I'll get a real gender neutral title in a couple of years.) [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:32 PM : Sunday, September 28, 2003 Horatio's Drive Produced by Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns Both Duncan and Burns are natives of New Hampshire (and Burns received recognition of his film work at Dartmouth just before he burst onto the national scene with his Civil War series) so it was no surprise that both showed up for the advance screening of their latest documentary. Unlike their other documentaries, though, Horatio's Drive is relatively short--just 107 minutes--but they make all those minutes count. In 1903, Horatio Nelson Jackson, a Vermont doctor, made a bet for fifty bucks that he could cross America in a car in under 90 days. This was before the Model T and reliability. The transcontinental journey was beset by numerous breakdowns and other delays. There were threats from competitors. And despite the new fangled technology, Horatio and his companion Sewell Crocker (along with an ugly bulldog named Bud he got for fifteen dollars), they often had to rely on old technology to bail them out of a problem. The narration is humorous and optimistic. It's also punctuated by poignancy as Horatio wrote back to his wife (mysteriously nicknamed "Swipes") in Burlington, Vermont about his daily setbacks and hopes. The wonderful thing about this film is how the producers want you, the audience, to feel as if you're taking this first American roadtrip alongside Horatio. I suppose this can only be adequately felt in the large theater that I viewed the film: the rumbling jumps and starts of the car engine as it putters along a rocky road, the jerking of the camera that gives the illusion that you're sitting in the car having your insides nauseatingly jiggled about. Burns mentioned in the Q and A after the showing that we often view history as in the past and immalleable, but the fact is, history is very malleable. In this case, Horatio's Drive is about taking a little known facet of American history, digging up new material that hasn't been seen beforehand by scholars, and putting a whole new spin on what it means to see a country on the edge of something revolutionary. For those of you not lucky enough to have attended the viewing, Horatio's Drive is going to be shown on public television on October 6. The discussion of the film on NPR is located here. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:38 PM : How To Do The Asian Squat. A very funny (in a Mentos commercial kind-of-way) mockumentary. Thinker Quiz. So it says I'm a linguistic, intrapersonal, and naturalist thinker. I guess I can live with that. Unconscious Mutterings
[posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:39 AM : Saturday, September 27, 2003 No Mooncake Many major universities have some sort of Asian student community that organize cultural events every so often. The community that I am most aware of, existence-wise, is the Chinese student community. Unfortunately, I mix with the other Chinese students like oil and water. The best description I've heard so far about such a community is "cliquey." And I'm about as anti-clique as you can get. Maybe I don't look Chinese enough. Or at least my style isn't Chinese. I hate to admit it, but I can tell between an Asian student born and raised in a Western country and one that was born and raised in the East. And if I can see the difference, it's not such a big leap to imagine that others can too. I guess it's the little things that add up--everything from physical appearance to clothing styles to what kind of writing utensil that's being used to take notes in class. Someone from mainland China might be right at home using a Hello Kitty pink eraser, but I'd feel like a freak. It's not that I don't appreciate my ethnic and cultural roots. It's that I feel that I've been rejected from what my predecessors have taken for granted by those who don't tolerate anyone who shows evidence of assimilation. The more I try to reconcile Western sensibilities with Eastern thinking the more they drive each other apart--at least on the social level. The way I see it, that's the entire problem with forming ethnic, cultural, and racial clubs on campus (or anywhere else). What sort of understanding is going to be fostered if you're only preaching to the choir? What's the use of these clubs when the only people in them are just like each other? Isn't this just perpetuating segregation and isolation? There must be a better way to be "multicultural." [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:22 PM : Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music. (via Metafilter) Very comprehensive guide to electronic music although I don't think the likes of Enya should have been included at all. About 140 different genres are listed. Superbad.com. Not really sure what the point is, but it's interesting, in an avant-garde kinda way. What's your DuckType? (via Shawn Allison) What's up with the question of being a sculptor or a rocket scientist? They know what I'm going to answer given my general ineptitude with visual art. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 10:48 AM : Friday, September 26, 2003 Are Some Things Too Mainstream? Anyways, one of my housemates asked me for advice on some niche blog reading. She's one of those growing number of grad students doing a thesis on weblogs. But I'm afraid I wasn't much help. I know far more about the microbes you breathe in every day then the posts people upload on the internet. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:39 PM : A Small Link Binge I never mean to post a bunch of random links every so often instead of something original, personal, and possibly opinion-provoking. I just run across things that are interesting, faddish, and not worth keeping on my hoard of bookmarks--yet I can't bear letting them go without some sort of acknowledgement. Compatibility of Weblogs and ISSN. Unlike my idea of dewey-decimalizing weblogs or categorizing them by the LC system, this one is apparently fairly popular. In fact, this article reached the front page of Blogdex at one point (maybe it's still there). But there's one problem. You have to register to get an ISSN--and that is undoubtedly a pain. Evil Animal Minion Generator. For wannabe writers in Nanowrimo who want to devise something campy for their novels, this is probably an excellent resource. Release the vampire oxen with laser eyes! Why do you blog? Some people blog about technical challenges they’ve overcome and how they did it. Some people blog about fashion DOs and DON’Ts. Either way, it seems to be an altruistic behavior. Blogging is not an altruistic behavior. A weblog is a personal soapbox where you can rant about your opinions. You're not trying to help your readers. You're trying to impose your ideas of politics, life, how you do things onto anyone hapless enough to be sucked into your little place in the web. Weblogs are ego-boosters. Searches, comments, hits, stats, readers, linking, popularity aggregators. Okay, so maybe some people will find some of the stuff helpful, but I don't like the word "altruistic". The majority of bloggers do not start their sites with altruism in mind. The Heavenly Appeal of MoonPies. Actually, I don't understand the appeal, but it reminded me of one of Shawn's posts about the subject. Scientific Team Puts Together a Rough Draft of a Dog Genome. Yeah, but I don't see why they had to sequence the dog genome before chimps and monkeys. Sure, the dog is a pet loved by many owners, but how immediately useful is it compared to a monkey genome? Dogs aren't major laboratory animals. Dogs are less related to us than chimps. But I guess my point is, why is this in the NYT? In 2000, it was a big deal that the human genome was sequenced, but nowadays, genome sequencing is somewhat routine. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 2:27 PM : Thursday, September 25, 2003 Puppets So I went to a puppet show. It wasn't your ordinary sock puppet shenanigans or those singing marionettes from The Sound of Music, but Japanese puppet theater--particularly a show put on by the Hachioki Kuruma Ningyo Puppet Theater troop. The auditorium was predictably packed; when I went to get tickets two weeks ago, most of the seats were sold out. Luckily, I got a seat just three rows away from the stage. Hachioki Kuruma Ningyo is mostly a family affair. The art of puppeteering is passed down from father to son. Outsiders taking up the trade is an extremely rare occurrence. The master puppeteer, Nishikawa Koryu, is the fifth in his line. The master shinnai musician who does the voice-overs, Tsuruga Wakasanojo, is the eleventh in his line. There are several types of puppetry in Japan; this type is the kuruma which is much less known and less well-funded (thus access only to smaller venues) because the Japanese government doesn't consider it a "high-brow" cultural achievement. Kuruma was developed four hundred years ago by the first Nishikawa Koryu. The technique was heavily borrowed from bunraku puppetry which requires three people to operate one puppet, but in kuruma, only one person is required. The innovation was the rokuro-kuruma, a small seat with roller wheels that the puppeteer sits on. This allowed a lot more accessibility for the performer as well as the audience. The puppeteer also dresses entirely in black, including his head. This convention of black equaling invisibility (so that the puppet is the main attraction) dates back to the 1600s of the Edo Period when the art form was created. I wasn't surprised that many of the adults with children escaped from the theater after the intermission. Kuruma puppetry is not children's fare. The puppets themselves are stately creations--perfectly proportioned and garnished with magnificent kimonos--nothing like the grotesquely shaped western puppets that we're used to. The stories are also more serious, contemplative, sometimes sad. The voice-overlays are traditional Japanese singing accompanied by traditional instruments. Wailing and sorrowful (but beautiful) tunes that may be alien to ears too accustomed to overprocessed bubble-gum pop. Sometimes the stories are also burlesque and violent--puppets hitting each other with sticks and attacking genitals for revenge. But despite the sometimes adult and bawdy nature of the plays, kuruma is looking for new blood to infuse its art. Training takes a long time. Would-be puppeteers would have to start when they are just children, ten or so. Perhaps that is why few people have heard of kuruma--it takes intense dedication to perfect yet is still regarded as low-brow by its own culture. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:33 PM : The Thursday Threesome: Green Eyed Monster Onesome: Green- Are you ready to go from all things green to the vibrant colors of autumn? Or for those of you down under, from winter to spring green? What do you like best about the change of seasons? Of course I'm ready. Well, as ready as one can expect. The best I like is that the weather is getting cooler. I despise hot weather. Twosome: Eyed- Have you eyed anything lately that you absolutely had to have? Or have you had your eye on something for a while now that you want to splurge on? I typically have my eyes on books but lately I've really got my reading stockpiled. Threesome: Monster- Are you a monster movie/ thriller fan? If not, what kind of movies do you like? Not really although I might watch them if it seems interesting. Most likely I would go see a sci-fi action thriller or animation. I try to avoid depressing movies. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:51 AM : Wednesday, September 24, 2003 A New Kind of Revolution in the Dorms of Dartmouth. Woohoo! Free calling for the whole campus. All I need to do is to get a headset--but I don't want to shell out $50... [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 12:42 PM : Various Parents seek to ban books. (via Dustbury) Are some parents overprotective? Too conservative? It probably totally sucks being a kid of a domineering parent. They force ideals on you, they don't want you to think for yourself, what they say goes. Sometimes I think I'm incredibly lucky to have parents who never questioned what I brought home from the library. Forbidden Fruit: Something About a Mangosteen. Ah, so that's what they're called. The first (and so far only) time I've had the pleasure of consuming one was many years ago when I was visiting Vietnam. Here's something interesting from the article which I have never heard of before: "In this balance between yin and yang, mangosteens supply the cool element to offset the heat of the other most-loved Southeast Asian fruit, the huge, spiky durian, whose foul aroma would stun a goat. Many Asians therefore like to consume the two fruits at the same time." Air Passengers' Carry-Ons: No, Not Bags, Dinner. These people are complete sissies. I'm sure a couple hours without food won't cause them to starve to death. Googling Me, Observed. Spend money to see who's trying to find you? There's got to be a more insidious way of tracking. Going to Harvard for $7.50. I always notice the custodians and the cleaning ladies. Maybe this ignorance of the "underclass" is more endemic to students and administration who feel they have more privileges? Trying to Kill AIDS Virus by Luring It Out of Hiding. Many AIDS specialists are working on ways to tease the virus out of hiding so it can be killed, and real progress has been made. A laboratory at the University of California at Los Angeles recently reported 80 percent success in mice. Even that, however, cannot stop the virus from roaring back. "Eighty percent is close," said Dr. Roger J. Pomerantz, an AIDS researcher at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. "But close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades." Death Stinks, but It's Revealing. Even if they claim there's nothing morbid about leaving corpses to rot out in the open (and all for science, too), it's still creepy. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 9:59 AM : Children of the Alley Naguib Mahfouz Children of the Alley, also published as Children of Gebalawi, is a narrative of the trials of an Egyptian family through the generations. To be honest, I thought it was depressing. The history of this family was ever repeating--if the novel were to go on, the cycle of jealousy, violence, and redemption would also go on. This pretty much mirrors the history of mankind where people forget about what happened in the past (or if they remember, it's only thought of vaguely in mythological terms) but continue fighting and waging wars against each other. Another interesting parallel is the novel to religion. For instance, in the first chapter in Children of the Alley, Gebalawi, the lord of the alley, expelling his son Adham and his wife from the luxury of his palace to the squalidness of the outside world because of their temptation of trying to glean what was in Gebalawi's will. One can immediately point out that it's the same as God expelling Adam and Eve from Eden because of their temptation with the tree of knowledge. But this isn't a repeat of the Bible or the Torah or the Koran. When the novel was first published religious leaders denounced it as blasphemous and it was banned in Egypt. It's easy to see why, especially at the conclusion where Arafa the magician claims to have killed Gebalawi with magic. Even the people of the alley claim, "if we had to choose between Gabalawi and magic, we'd choose magic." It's pretty clear that the magic that Arafa is perfecting in his workrooms is supposed to be science. Haven't people already declared that science has killed God and haven't most people turned to science rather than faith as the savior, particularly for material and physical things? Again, interesting but depressing. Children of the Alley was recommended by Media Queen. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:33 AM : Tuesday, September 23, 2003 In Defense of Cats I don't really care what people's opinions on household pets are. If they don't like dogs--fine. If they don't like cats--that's fine too. But I completely object to twisting scientific data to suit one's agenda, like this article. It makes one sound like a crooked politician. First of all, a lot of people are already infected with Toxoplasmosis (more than 60 million people in the U.S. alone, according to the CDC) and the majority of those don't show any symptoms. That's because most people have normal immune systems that can contain the disease. Toxoplasma gondii is a parasitic protozoan that can come in two different forms--the active tachyzoite with fast growth and the bradyzoite which is basically a dormant cyst. One reason why toxoplasmosis is so widely spread is the parasite's success in allowing the host's immune system to regulate its growth. Killing the host is a bad thing for the parasite so through sensing the signals from the immune system (of which the mechanism is still unknown), it switches from the tachyzoite form to the bradyzoite where it can lurk undetected. Some recent research suggest that maybe one of these regulators is a metabolism pathway that curiously is completely eliminated in Toxoplasma. Typically people get Toxoplasmosis from contamination of cat feces or eating undercooked meat. Any living thing can get infected with Toxoplasma, but it's particularly important in the cat because the cat is the only known host where the parasite reproduces sexually. Cats don't show symptoms of infection either, but in rodents, the parasite attacks the brain (if you want to be dramatic, using mind control) so that the infected mouse or rat might run into danger rather than away from it. One can easily speculate from that how the parasite gets from the rodent to the cat. The only people who have to worry about Toxoplasma are severely immunocompromised patients such as those with AIDS and pregnant women who get infected while they're carrying the child. Otherwise I wouldn't worry too much about the typical cat owner going "mad". [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:13 PM : Pictures! The photos were taken by Susie (a camera-shy but maniacal photographer) at the MCB Retreat. I'm in there somewhere. I'm holding a beer. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 8:31 AM : Monday, September 22, 2003 The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre H.P. Lovecraft Perhaps the best time of the year to read Lovecraftian tales is now, when the weather gets a bit chillier, the trees are turning colors, and the sky gets darker earlier and earlier. The best time to read them is in the middle of the night. Or maybe just before you go to bed so your dreams are filled with "Cyclopean" horrors. The best place would be in New England where all the stories take place. One can so easily imagine that not so far away, in a run-down farmhouse, lurks something strange and horrible. Or maybe it doesn't really matter where or when one reads them--because you start questioning your own sanity anyway. What was that flitting at the very edge of your vision? Did I hear someone walking behind me? I looked, and didn't see anyone. Robert Bloch who wrote the introduction to this collection recalled how some critics would call Lovecraft's writings "sick" and that anyone who read and liked his stories were also "sick". The critics are only in denial--despite the frequent, cloying prose, Lovecraft gets into that dark side of us, our fears and deviant desires. In The Picture in the House, a print in a medieval book tips a madman from only thinking about his perverse pleasures to actually acting it out. The Thing on the Doorstep is also about desire--this time an insatiable appetite for immortality. The majority of Lovecraft's characters lose their sanity, although a more cynical reader might say that if they reined in their curiosity for reading accursed books like the Necronomicon, they would have gone on living a blissfully ignorant but normal life. In fact, a reader with no sense of the fantastical at all might think that these were all sci-fi tales veiled by lurid descriptions to appeal to the superstitious masses. The most obvious is The Whisperer in the Darkness--maybe all these weird creatures from out of time and space are really like disobedient underlings in a Star Trek universe who are blatantly ignoring their version of the Prime Directive. The most famous story in the collection is The Call of Cthulhu which didn't strike me as significantly better or worse than the other stories but was indirectly responsible for introducing me to Lovecraft in the first place. A couple years ago, a friend of mine had tried (unsuccessfully) to draw me into the addictive world of role-playing, particularly the game Call of Cthulhu which was based on the Lovecraft cannon a.k.a. the Cthulhu Mythos. Rolling die and obsessing about character stats didn't interest me at all, but the stories themselves really struck a chord. I'm not much a fan for blood, gore, and ugly monsters, but the horror genre (especially perfected by Lovecraft) is an incredibly good vehicle for exploring those parts of humanity that we would rather ignore. Interested in reading some Lovecraft? The majority of his fiction is located online here. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:56 PM : Handshakes. Can you tell anything about a person with a handshake? What does a painful one mean? [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 8:02 AM : Sunday, September 21, 2003 AP300.L8 S92 2001 I've been thinking about weblog classification again. I know, it's a pointless pastime that could be resolved by just inventing an entirely new classification system, but it's also a bit of a puzzle. So previously, I had mused about the Dewey Decimal System being a way to sort out weblogs. Well, there's more than one way to shelve a book--so how would the Library of Congress Classification fit into all of this? On first glance, LC looks a lot more flexible. It's using both letters and numbers. But even if it's used by research libraries everywhere, it's not intuitive. And the rules just make one's head spin. But here's the idea: we stick all weblogs in the section labeled "AP" which is reserved for general periodicals. The numbers after it usually go from 1 to 9999 but everything before 300 is already assigned. That leaves us with 300 to 9999 for which various subtopics for weblogs can be categorized. (Assigning numbers does not seem like a trivial exercise, however. We will leave that problem for the classification junkies.) After the decimal point, we can then use the author-title version of the cuttering method. For example, if John Doe has a weblog called Tractorblog, we can assign something like AP630.D64 T73 where D64 represents the author's last name and T73 represents the title of the blog. The last part of the LC call number is in four digits. It's the year that a book is published. For a weblog, we can use the date that it was first created. So let's suppose that John created his blog in 1999. Then his entire number would read: AP630.D64 T73 1999. But for some reason, I like the LC system even less than Dewey. Or maybe we should use ISBN numbers or even barcodes. Oh, wait a minute, there are already barcode generators on the net. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 12:51 PM : Banned Books Week. A lot of the top 100 challenged books are, well, not that subversive. Which probably tells us more about the mentality of the challengers than the progressiveness of the authors themselves. I've read quite a few of those books while I was growing up and I don't think I've turned into a savage. But you've got to wonder: why the heck is a children's picture book, Where's Waldo, on the list? [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 8:31 AM : One disadvantage of sleeping like a caterpillar in a cocoon is waking up but still dreaming and you're having these hallucinations that someone is pounding on you from outside and laughing maniacally. Unconscious Mutterings
[posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:21 AM : Saturday, September 20, 2003 Baudolino Umberto Eco 12th century Constantinople is being sacked by invading Christians during the fourth Crusade when the Byzantine historian Niketas is saved from fatal danger by Baudolino, an Italian peasant but adopted son of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. In return, Niketas listens to Baudolino's tale--how he becomes adopted by the Emperor, his education in Paris, his obsession with the legendary Prester John, and his outrageous journey to the East in search of Prester John and the Holy Grail. But Baudolino is the consummate liar. What is the truth? The half-truth? And the outright lies? The problem is, as Eco illustrates quite fabulously, does anyone tell the truth? Do we tell the truth when we recount the day's events to acquaintences? Do we record the true events? (And is history accurate at all? Suppose everything we've ever learned in history is one big fat lie?) This is as true for weblogging. Sure, we may take for granted that all these personal journals and daily snippets that people place on the web are real. But maybe they're not. There's a chance that everyone I've read have hidden themselves in an illusion. Perhaps all I'm reading is just fiction. Or fact from fiction, i.e. people have told the lies so many times to themselves that they begin to think what they say is real. Or maybe I'm the Baudolino. You'll never really know for sure, will you? [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 3:55 PM : Friday, September 19, 2003 Pass It On So fellow binge writers, if you've signed up for NaNoWriMo last year and you feel foolhardy enough to do it again (as I am), you can just reactivate your account when they send an e-mail next week. This way, you can avoid the mad rush to sign up on October 1! [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:34 PM : A Bit of Irrelevance The Potion Maker. So I put in my username syaffolee. Here's what I got: "Syaffoleetium is a milky, pasty peach gel siphoned from the root of a forget-me-not." I wonder what would happen if I got mixed with someone else. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 2:33 PM : Thursday, September 18, 2003 Too Much Information? Sleep position gives personality clue. (via Belicove.com) Many people will claim that they sleep in different positions at different periods. So if one sleeps in all positions, how can it really tell your personality? And my own question, does sleeping position correlate with the sleep cycle? It's probably answered somewhere, but I'm not well versed in sleep research. Me? I fall asleep in the fetus position. I wake up in the soldier position. And I like covering up my entire body with the blanket. Including my head. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:22 PM : Uh Oh I overheard a first year grad student telling her fellow classmates, "Have you ever had second thoughts about whether or not you made the right choice to come here? I love theater, but you can't make enough money doing that." The rest of the students nervously laughed, but did not confirm her opinion. Second thoughts are normal, especially if you've committed a significant chunk of time to do something (in this case graduate school), but doing it only for money sets off alarm bells in my mind. I know the majority of people do particular things for mercenary reasons because they really don't have a choice, but most people who have the option of going to graduate school do--in fact the array of choices for people who can go to graduate school is almost like an embarrassment of riches. But all I can say is, school is going to be hell if you don't like what you're doing. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 2:12 PM : Coffee and Science Almost Ad Infinitum I enjoyed the talks, but there is something about sitting in one place for a couple hours and trying vainly to stifle the yawn reflex. At least there were large quantities of coffee nearby. I added several packets of sugar to mine. Caffeine doesn't always do the trick, you know. There were a few free hours last afternoon, so I decided to tackle climbing Killington Peak (Vermont was dubbed "Verd Mont" [French] in 1763 at the summit) which I miserably failed in doing so the previous year. Well, I failed again. This was probably due to several factors. The group I was going with picked a more difficult trail this time. A pair of professors decided on going mano a mano to see who could reach the top first which set the expedition on a suicidal pace on the outset. And I'm terribly out of shape--especially on taking on an obstacle of such magnitude without preparation. I decided to take on a more leisurely hiking trail that went elsewhere. On my return trip, I figured I could take a short cut to get back. I ended up getting lost in the woods for the rest of the afternoon. Nobody had to call search and rescue on me, but I'm probably going to get a compass first whenever I get the urge to go out wandering around out in the middle of nowhere by myself again. And then there was the dancing that went on into the wee hours of the morning. In a way, it was sort of funny and surreal at the same time. One really hasn't seen anything until they've witnessed middle-aged scientists busting out moves on the dance floor. I don't dance that often (I feel very self-conscious) but at that point, it was picking the lesser of the two evils. Either stand around on the periphery nursing a drink and watching the dancers like a dirty voyeur or semi-humiliate yourself under flashing lights. I chose the semi-humiliation--which was cushioned by the fact that all my friends and some professors were doing the same thing (ah, peer pressure!). At the end, people were just begging the band (called Lazyeye--and comprised of medical students--I would link to them except they are in the process of overhauling/moving their site) to play one more song. A lot them (particularly females) were screaming, "I love you!" I was expecting at any moment for someone to throw a pair of silk panties onto the photogenic lead singer. But alas, I don't think one can transform people with normally serious natures into party animals in one night. The Thursday Threesome: Darwin's Survival of the Fittest Onesome: Darwin's- Hmm... Ever run across someone who could be a Darwin awards candidate? Can you share your story? If not, what's your favorite story (true or not)? Hm. I will have to think about this for a little bit. Most of the people I know who've had stupid things happen to them aren't stupid at all. It was just circumstance and accident. Twosome: Survival of- What kicks you into survival mode during the week? Kids? School? Driving? Spouse (nope, better leave that one alone!) The News? What makes you yearn for your next break? I require a decent amount of sleep--so anything that takes away from sleep kicks me into "survival mode" which usually includes consuming things with high amounts of caffeine or sugar. Threesome: the Fittest- Hey, how are you doing in the fitness wars? Are you the drill sergeant leading the troops on the five mile hikes or are you the person waiting back at camp with the chips and dip ready for when they come to their senses? See above. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 12:34 PM : Wednesday, September 17, 2003 I will be away for a little bit for the annual retreat that the molecular cell biology program throws every year. That means sacrificing internet connection for fresh science. Which is totally cool with me. Later. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 3:45 AM : Tuesday, September 16, 2003 A Quandry (Or, A Spew About One of My Hobby Horses, Again) In theory, a writer shouldn't be limited to what he or she can write. But I am in a bit stumped in this case because I haven't really seen this done anywhere else. Has an Asian author ever tried to write something with a non-Asian protagonist? Yeah, yeah, yeah--one should always write about what one knows about. The immigrant experience. How it is to be an Asian American. How it is to have one's culture being taken over by western ideologies. How Asian kids are always pushed to excel and get into good universities. How they all play the piano or attend chess clubs. How they all open restaurants or become doctors. How the second generation starts rebelling against these expected stereotypes. Blah, blah, blah. Gosh darn it, it's been done almost to death. It's almost clichéd even. No. It is clichéd. That's because everyone acts the same--because it's expected and no one knows how to act any different. That's why no one questions non-Asians writing about Asians. Everyone knows how it'll go. And Asians aren't expected to write about anyone else. Does this mean that I am incapable of picturing myself in someone else's shoes? That I am unable to get into someone else's head? People like to think that they're individual--that no one else can ever understand them because they're unique. Well guess what? Most of the thoughts we have in our lives have been thought out elsewhere by someone else. Most likely by several someone elses. And these people aren't necessarily similar either. When people say that men will never understand women or that people from one country will not understand ones from another, what they're really saying is that they don't want to understand. I don't see anything wrong with writing about whoever I wanted to, but I'm afraid the more serious writers probably don't want to take that view. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:56 PM : Something Interesting: The Worst Jobs in Science. (via Blogdex) I'm a little surprised that "Postdoc" was listed as one of the worst jobs. I see it more as extended school. What I found interesting was this: "The fittest scientists are selected, while the rest flee to lesser callings (like … picking randomly here … science journalism)...People with interests in family, art or recreation are the most likely to bail. As well-rounded minds, they're also potentially the best scientists." This statement sounds self-contradictory. Besides, I know plenty of postdocs who have families, are artsy, or are sports fanatics. I always figured that these other interests were outlets and stress-relievers for those grinding 80-hour weeks. We Got Rhythm; the Mystery Is How and Why. "The music, the researchers reported, activated similar neural systems of reward and emotion as those stimulated by food, sex and addictive drugs." So that's why I always feel better when I'm listening to music. When Books Break the Bank. My collection of textbooks is probably worth a fortune. There was this one term when I was still an undergrad when I had to get over $500 worth of textbooks. I nearly keeled over and had a heart attack when the evil bookstore cashier rang me up and gave me a smarmy smirk. But what can one do? The books weren't that much cheaper online if you added the shipping cost and it was near impossible to get used ones on campus--biology majors are notorious for being selfish pack rats. And I can't really ditch my math books either--why just this afternoon I attended a computational biology seminar with math all over the place. And it's not like I'm never going to dabble in that field--in fact, it's highly likely I'll be dumped into it sooner or later. (In my not so humble opinion, the boundaries between the various disciplines of science are getting so blurred that it's sort of pointless to divide anything up any more.) Anyways, I wish more textbooks were online. I can luckily say that I wasn't completely clueless when I entered college--during the first year we had to take probability and to my luck, I found the entire text online. So I would get up really early, go to the computer lab, and print out two or three chapters at a time. A hundred bucks saved right there! More Stuff But Too Thrifty To Make A New Post: "A couple of weeks ago I asked a librarian if they had a printed list of the Dewey Decimal numbers so I could go right to the section I was interested in, and she looked at me like I was nuts, and said no as if she'd never been asked that before." (from Willa's Journal) What?! That's really dumb, on the part of the librarian. Every library I've been to has these little bookmarks with the general categories of the Dewey Decimal system printed out. People usually don't look at them, but hey, it's there. ...Find a Blog. For people who attempt to track down current weblog classification systems, here's the nearly year old article in the WSJ. Maybe I got my idea from here? I'm not sure. Dave Winer says RSS 2.0 is the Dewey Decimal system for the internet. (via Blog Free or Die!) I will say one thing: RSS is scarier than Dewey. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:20 PM : WTF I am walking behind a greasy grad student who is twirling his pointy umbrella as if there is no tomorrow. I know that he knows that I'm walking behind him. I saw him glance back. Then at an intersection, he turns as if he's going to cross the street. I walk past him. After a few paces I hear the crunching of leaves on the sidewalk. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him resuming his walk, behind me. That just totally creeps me out. But at least I know where the emergency phones are. I also have my own umbrella in my hand. And I know how to use it. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 2:44 PM : A Dream With No Obvious Meaning I'm trapped in an enormous complex with a bunch of people who may or may not be in their right minds. Some sort of crime has occurred and I'm in charge of rooting out whoever did it. I find a blabbering old clown and an abandoned baby with a mysterious letter, but no culprit. I consult a talking skull but all it does is attempt to put the fear of God into me. I try arguing with it that there is no evidence that God exists, but after a while I get mad and tell the skull that it is probably some trick rigged up by someone with a terrible sense of humor. The skull sulks and refuses to answer any more questions even though it never answered any questions in the first place. I try examining an anesthetized spider for answers, but it was waking up so I sealed it in a plastic container--it was sort of difficult since it was a really large spider and I was using one of those containers where you could put your lunch in and the legs still poked out--and left it in an empty room. Eventually the spider laid an egg and all the baby spiders hatched out, eating their mother and invading the room, and I had to call an exterminator to kill all of them. Plot Summaries. Should I be more arm-waving when I write about the books I've read or the movies I've seen? I thought I left all the high-minded analysis back with required humanities classes. I rarely read reviews before reading a book--if I read anything, it's the plot synopsis so I know what it is about. Reviews are for after finishing the book. Some are bad and some are good, but either way, I don't want to prejudice myself before starting it. A Literary Award for Stephen King. I still don't understand why the literary establishment still scoffs at genre fiction. Or maybe the New York Times delibrately quoted an uppity Yale professor to make it seem that way. There's also a rather scary picture of King posted with the article. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:14 AM : Monday, September 15, 2003 And Some Notes: Virtual Theremin. Occasionally I get these crazy ideas in my head and I can only hope that they will eventually go away. This time, I'm thinking about building my own theremin (even though I know almost zilch about electronics). I've even actually started looking for schematics online. I blame the National Geographic for getting me unnecessarily curious. Bilingual conversations. I notice "codeswitching" (Kottke's term, not mine) a lot in science with people who don't have English as a first language and especially if they are around a colleague who speaks the same first language. They use their native language with the usual words but sprinkle it with English--especially if it's a technical term. I do it a little bit, especially if there's no English equivalent, but my parents do it a lot more for a different reason--they're not quite sure what the English translation is. Font Browser. Somewhat useful, although I will have to say I can preview just as well on a word processor or a graphics program. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:01 AM : Sunday, September 14, 2003 An Elaborate Scheme Well, I might be quite obsessive with categorizing hyperlinks, but I'm actually a lot more haphazard with my reading. I used to read books one at a time, but nowadays it's more like several. I suppose it comes easily enough--I have no problem with keeping up with different plotlines and not getting them mixed up. I guess this habit arose from trying to keep up with different classes at the same time and reading different textbooks--all out of order, of course. The book I reviewed in the last post was the twenty-second I finished this year (my goal is fifty before December 31). But if you've followed the bookrolling page you'll see at once that I'm not following it--at least not strictly. It's probably because I visit the bookstore or the library and see a book I just have to get. Here's my reading schedule for the near future. The next book I'll hopefully review is Umberto Eco's Baudolino. I'm ninety percent sure this will be the next review because I got the book at the library (I swear it was sitting on the shelf, mocking and daring me to borrow it) and it's due at the end of the week. Later will be either the collection of H.P. Lovecraft tales or The Mysteries of Udolpho. After that, pretty much anything else will be up for grabs although there are some books I will read before others due to the length of time they've been sitting on my shelf (and if whoever borrowed The Art of Happiness the last couple of weeks finally returns it, that one will definitely jump to the top of the list). What's everyone else reading? I'd love to hear how other people manage their reading. Any book suggestions would be welcome too--I will guarantee you it will wreck the remainder of my own reading schedule (unless I've already read it). [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:36 PM : Servants of the Map: Stories Andrea Barrett The summary of this collection of stories is amazingly apt despite being repeated everywhere. Servants of the Map is a distillation of "science and desire"--a group of loosely linked stories of several generations of scientists and naturalists. Barrett's writing is succinct but lush and one can't help think that it reads like a journal instead of a piece of fiction. The title story (which also appeared in The Best American Short Stories 2001, which I also highly recommend) is about a young surveyor during the mid-19th century longing for home as he triangulates the Himalayas and in the process, he discovers his true love--botany. In the other stories, one chronicles a nurse's work with tuberculosis that influenced her successor. There is also a brother and sister separated during early childhood--both wondering where the other is. The sister longs for a neighbor and for meteorology while she is trapped in the intellectually stifled life of her spinster "aunts". The brother eventually becomes successful with a school for the deaf, but is haunted by his foster father who vainly tried to reconcile the existence of fossils with Biblical creation. Two other stories are of the surveyor's later descendants, two sisters--both prodigies. The younger meets an elderly structural biologist while attending a pretentious house party for famous scientists. The old scientist realizes that he longs for the past--he wants to go back. The younger sister realizes that she must get away--science no longer holds the allure to her, she can only see the pettiness and infighting and sucking up that scientists engage with each other. The older sister, a molecular biologist, has to deal with her obsession with an entomologist--an older man who already has a complex relationship with her parents. The predominant theme running through all the stories is that of longing--for something that one can't have, for something that used to be, for things that should have been. One unintentionally humorous episode was that of the molecular biologist trying to explain her research to a cellist at a dinner party. The cellist's eyes glaze over as she wonders if he even knows what a protein is. (But is music and biology so incompatible? I don't think so, there are many molecular biologists who are cellists, including myself.) But that aside, it's easy to see why this work was nominated for the 2003 Pulitzer. It's not just about scientists, but their lives and how intimately those lives intertwine with their research. Unconscious Mutterings
[posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:33 AM : Friday, September 12, 2003 Number Reduction: Weblog Call Numbers Heck, it was bound to happen sooner or later--people querying about their weblog call numbers when I'm still thinking about how to best categorize regular webpages. I'm just a microbiology grad student whose recent cataloging accomplishments have been jotting bacterial strains down in a lab notebook. My work at a small community library was years ago. However, here are my ideas about cataloging weblogs via call numbers which has not yet (as far as I can tell) been proposed in the blogosphere. The main part of the 040's is divided up like the 030's, that is, 040 is general weblogs in the form of indices like Blogdex, Daypop and Eatonweb. The rest is first divided up by region/language: 041 American blogs 042 Other English blogs 043 German blogs 044 French blogs 045 Italian blogs 046 Spanish blogs 047 Slavic blogs 048 Scandinavian blogs 049 Blogs in other languages Now what kind of blog is it? This will determine all the digits after the decimal point. For example, Metafilter is a community blog based in the United States. The members post all sorts of links in which subject matter is not restricted. Metafilter would be classified as 041.000 (or just simply 041) because it is general knowledge. If you were running an Italian weblog only posting the news in your country (no commentary) you would be at 045.075. However, if you were a political pundit you might fit in at 041.320 (320 is politics) or 041.340 (340 is law) if your blog was in English. Actually, 041.329 might be even better--the earlier 320's are devoted to political structure. Some other examples--which will all make sense if you have a copy of the Dewey Decimal System handy: A blogger writing about his travels to Russia in German (043.9157); a British weblog philosophically musing about art and culture in general (042.701); an organic chemist posting news items and commentary on recent developments in his field (041.547); a wannabe writer in Romania who has daily chronicles about trying to publish her work (047.807); a photoblog from South Africa (049.77). How would I classify this blog? Well, this is a personal blog. An autobiography of sorts, you could say. Even though I have preferences when linking to something, I would probably not give those particular subjects weight. So when classifying a personal blog, I think one must take into consideration what the blogger himself feels is emphasized. Mine is personal so I would say this is at 041.920 (or thereabouts). But if I didn't write about life as I see it but rather news relating to my area of study, it would instead be 041.576. Ultimately, it should be flexible. My blog really isn't only personal so it could actually fit in a variety of different categories. Some blogs are probably almost impossible to classify so the weblogger himself should use his own discretion when trying to put a number to his writing. I can see this appealing to people who want a sense of order in the hodgepodge that is the web. In a way, searching a blog by number is a lot more civilized than googling random terms. But the question is, do I really want to be a number? I think it's okay for uber-organizers to use this to manage links but I would not want the sidebar of my blog to read "041.920" like the bookspines in a real library. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 9:04 PM : Computer Expert? I don't really know that much about computers, but someone decided to change an order for a laptop because of my blabbings about processor speeds, memory, and wi-fi. What next, Shakespeare criticisms? Cooking advice? How to raise a kid in the twenty-first century? I think I'm scaring myself a little. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 2:36 PM : Whoa! I would like to thank Librarian.net for linking to a previous post about weblogs and the Dewey Decimal system. It gives me an odd fuzzy feeling knowing that I'm being read by librarians across the country. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 9:27 AM : A question in the back of my mind: Why do all the med students look like they could be modeling for Abercrombie and Fitch? It's not their fault they look the way they do--but I wonder--does the interview process weed out the ugly looking people? Maybe it's because the interviewers instinctively know that patients would rather have a good-looking doctor than one that looks like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. I don't know what to think. I am of two minds. My practical side says this is sensible--even if people say they don't have bias, they inherently do. If everything else were equal, people would pick the more attractive person as a mate or a friend. My sense of justice, however, is completely outraged. How is this different than any other types of prejudice? A fantastic opportunity! If I'm ever hard up for money, I can sell something that I'm not even sure exists. And from their quotation, there are apparently 7% of the population who have purer souls than mine. Hm. Luciferous Logolepsy. A fascinating compendium of obscure English words. Cromulac. And if the previous link doesn't satisfy you, use this online generator to make up your own words. Wordblog. (formerly known as "Scrabblog", via Evhead) And now that you've stuffed your head with new words, put them to use with these word puzzles presented in Scrabble format. The Prior-Art-O-Matic. Don't have any ideas? Use somebody else's old ideas! Weebl and Bob. Flash animation of two egg-like characters. Contains coarse humor. But it's hilarious, I swear! (For full effect, watch all episodes in order.) Giant Microbes. They should make one for my favorite model organism and call it "Food Poisoning". It would be a big hit at lab. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:43 AM : Thursday, September 11, 2003 Forced Mingling "So, if you need anything, just drop by." The greasy grad student in a baseball cap and overlarge coat winked. Shudder. That's the worst impression to give to potential friends if that's the first thing out of your mouth. Of course, this isn't the first time weird guys have leered at me--sometimes I wonder what it is that makes them think that I'm susceptible to their "charms". Besides, I hate forced social situations with a passion. Why talk to people when I'm not in the mood or when I have my mind on something else? I'd rather have conversations between friends or with strangers waiting in line. The best conversations are accidental. It was one of those planned graduate student get-togethers that they always have at the beginning of the year especially geared toward new students. I talked to a few other people--all of them nice--but I couldn't help feeling stifled. Weather and area of study. That's it. After an hour and a half, I sneaked off. Some people thrive in these high pressure social situations. I can't take it. I'm a classic introvert whose energy gets sapped out as I'm scrambling for conversational topics. Maybe I really should try to be more social than I am inclined, but then sometimes (like now) I just have to be me. The world controlled by extroverts is a harsh place for non-gregarious individuals. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:01 PM : While Waiting Except for books and maybe music, I don't like shopping for anything. One reason for my dislike is the fact that I have to carry everything back home. Even if I take the bus (only run on the weekdays, darn it!) I have to walk several blocks. It wouldn't be so bad if the buses ran on the weekends and after 6 PM and if I didn't have the penchant for shopping in bulk--but there it is. Out in the middle of nowhere with the threat of winter hanging over your head (I saw an ominous sign proclaiming "Prepare for winter!" outside one of the newer grocery stores even though everything is still quite green) it's quite foolhardy not to be stocked up with the necessities. "Not having a car sucks," commiserated a fellow bus passenger. He's absolutely right--with the way cities and towns are planned, everything spreading out thinly like an oil slick on water, it's impossible to get anywhere without some sort of vehicle. I could mooch off somebody else and hitch a ride with a friend but that strikes me as too dependent and freeloading. So I use what's available to me. But cutting out the bus waiting would also cut out something else that is perhaps more important than convenience. Waiting is a forced time-out from the rest of the hectic world and for a couple of moments, I can take stock of myself and watch the world go by. Necessary stuff for the soul. While I was waiting I observed some interesting people. There was an older woman dressed in trendy teeny-bopper clothes which exposed her midriff--tanned, wrinkly, fatty. A rather large young woman in a red blouse, black skirt, and blue shoes came by asking if the bus had passed by yet. She sat down on a bench and took out a wad of bills and began counting it with her brightly colored (and sharpened) nails. When she was finished, she showed pictures of her seven-year-old brother to the chain-smoking employees of the nearby store who were on break. I saw two military men. Soldiers or marines or another division, I wasn't sure. They wore white caps and navy pants with a red stripe running down the sides. Their jackets were of a darker hue with gold buttons on the front. A white belt cinched the waist and yellow chevrons (denoting their rank?) decorated the arms. They looked so out of place in the busy parking lot with harried mothers, bouncing children, smirking teenagers, and old men carting out the latest power tools. Then I remembered there was a veteran's hospital nearby--ten, twenty minutes--and some news on public radio. An unscrupulous man had conned the hospital using someone else's identity, the identity of a man who had served during the Vietnam War, a man who was already dead. Riding the bus isn't "cool", but then I would have missed overheard conversations. Another man lamented about his crumbling love life to some of his friends. His former girlfriend had taken up with a rival. "I think she's falling in love with him." Cynicism, dejection, resignation laced his voice. "But at least I get to see my two month old daughter whenever I want." [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 12:06 PM : The Thursday Threesome: Sticks and Stones Onesome: Sticks and stones- Are you an outdoorsy sort? Would you prefer to spend all your spare time hiking, biking, swimming, etc? What's your favorite outdoor activity? I'm not really an outdoorsy sort although I like wandering around outside when the weather is rather tolerable. Hiking is cool. But I'd skip all the other stuff. Twosome: May break my bones,- Have you ever broken a bone? Or needed stitches? Or been hurt badly enough you should have gone to the hospital but didn't? Luckily, no. Threesome: But words will never harm me- The pen is mightier than the sword and words do truly have the power to hurt. But sometimes we slip and just can't help but vent our anger toward that slow moving driver or the jerk who cut in front of us and took the last of what we needed. What's your favorite insult to hurl? Do you try to censor yourself when the kiddos are around? I don't get angry easily. Annoyed maybe, but not usually angry. I'm actually rather easy going and if I seem irritable sometimes, it's probably due to lack of sleep. But if something does go wrong, I'm known to utter the occasional "F---!" If kids are around, of course I curb my language, but since I'm not around children very often I don't worry about it too much. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:31 AM : Wednesday, September 10, 2003 Whee! Blogger Announcing: Free Features for Everyone. For people like me who don't require too many complicated thingeemajigs on their weblogs, this is a bonus. Gratuitous science linkage: Why the future doesn't need us. "Perhaps it is always hard to see the bigger impact while you are in the vortex of a change. Failing to understand the consequences of our inventions while we are in the rapture of discovery and innovation seems to be a common fault of scientists and technologists; we have long been driven by the overarching desire to know that is the nature of science's quest, not stopping to notice that the progress to newer and more powerful technologies can take on a life of its own." Written word helps wounds heal. "Pouring your emotions out on paper could help wounds heal quicker, researchers say." Organ music 'instils religious feelings'. "Many churches and cathedrals have organ pipes that are so long they emit infrasound which at a frequency lower than 20 Hertz is largely inaudible to the human ear. But in a controlled experiment in which infrasound was pumped into a concert hall, UK scientists found they could instil strange feelings in the audience at will." (similar to the Reuters article I posted earlier) 'Living condom' could block HIV. "Genetically-modified vaginal bacteria may be able to serve as a "living condom", secreting proteins that protect women against HIV, suggests a new report." Scientists develop 'bacterial battery'. "Because sugar is abundant in the environment, a battery using the new microbes could provide economical electricity in remote places." Merck and Partner Form Alliance to Develop Drugs Based on RNA. "The deal, with the Alnylam Holding Company of Cambridge, Mass., represents one of the first substantial steps by a large pharmaceutical company toward making drugs using the technology, known as RNA interference." [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 3:20 PM : Tuesday, September 09, 2003 Fast Music As a kid, I had realized that there will always be someone better than me in music. This wasn't just some insight that dawned on me gradually. It was something that was forced--a jackhammering reminder. I'm no Amy Tan character with parents standing threateningly nearby during practice hour--I play because I love playing. But I had absolutely no pretention that I was going anywhere with it. It was the other kids' parents--particularly the Chinese ones who lived vicariously through their offspring--that made me shake. Oh how snide would they smile when talented little Harry polished off the latest Scarlatti sonatina in record time! And it was the astounding speed that they played that was admired. My fingers stumbled when theirs glided--I don't have large hands (so I can never play Chopin properly no matter how much I wish) and my fingers aren't fine and dappered. My hands aren't pianist hands. They're blunt, worker hands. So that is my interpretation for Speed Freaks Do Bach--it's not because people are influenced by rock and roll. It's because people want to sound impressive instead of emotional. Speed will get attention. Slowness will put people to sleep. And has anyone ever had to do a musical audition? The piece one picks is ideally fast--the faster, the better. A slow piece, no matter how stylistically well-interpreted, will gain no points because it doesn't showcase talent. Romancing the Microbe. A bad analogy: "So, let's ask the obvious question: Why on earth would fermented foods like cheese be enjoying such a wave of popularity at a time when microbial anxiety is running so high? The threat of bioterrorism lingers in the back of our minds, new diseases like West Nile virus and SARS freak us out, and antibiotics that have kept us healthy for years seem to be losing their efficacy. Perhaps the thought of microbial cultivation, a sort of micro-agriculture, is comforting. Cultivating microbes confers an idea of control: It reassures us that we've lived with microbes for a long time and always found a way to manage them." Um, no. West Nile and SARS are viruses. Microbes in cheese are bacteria. That's a whole world of difference. Maybe a better analogy would be bacterial meningitis and anthrax. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:07 PM : Monday, September 08, 2003 A Little Experiment I couldn't resist. I made a quiz over at Quizilla. I might make a more interesting one later. Let's see how far this one propagates before being smothered under the rest of the internet. Maybe it won't make it past this blog at all. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:51 PM : Silliness and Such: Does Your Weblog Own You? This weblog owns 18.75% of me. Well, I suppose that's not too bad. The English-to-12-Year-Old-AOLer Translator. So I put in a random passage from a news article with perfectly good English and pressed "Translate!" Oh, the horrors! You would think that particular online writing would have enough shortcuts to condense a passage even if the result was bad, but what I put in turned out to be longer. Soundless Music Shown to Produce Weird Sensations. Somehow, I don't think people with ghost sightings would willingly give up their paranormal explanations for scientific ones. It just doesn't sound as exciting. Librarians Protest New Action Figure. I think the problem is that librarians don't have uniforms. Example: firefighters can be any type of person, but their physical characteristics are masked by a uniform and all sorts of other equipment so at some distance, they all look the same. What librarians should do is to adopt similar uniforms so a particular kind of person isn't stereotyped into the job. I recommend shiny silver jumpsuits. Listamatic. Plenty of ways to display a list (or if you prefer, a navigation system) on a webpage. Useful, if you're planning on a redesign. And speaking of redesigning... Color Scheme. Make sure everything is color-coordinated! Actually, I don't really care too much about color coordination as much as clicking on the different colors and playing around with the numbers to see the schemes change accordingly. Blogger Weblogs: Tweaks for Non-Geeks. If you have a Blogger weblog (like me) you might like to add all this interactive stuff. It's an interesting introduction which I have bookmarked just in case my traffic levels ever get to a point where I can justify having an RSS feed or if the situation becomes desperate enough that I would consider using "sycophantic" trackbacks. How Old is Your Inner Child? My result: "My inner child is ten years old! The adult world is pretty irrelevant to me. Whether I'm off on my bicycle (or pony) exploring, lost in a good book, or giggling with my best friend, I live in a world apart, one full of adventure and wonder and other stuff adults don't understand." Life in Elizabethan England: A Compendium of Common Knowledge. Fascinating read even though I have no use for this "common knowledge." [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 2:36 PM : Recently, I've been checking up on All Consuming rather frequently to see if anyone's reading anything that sounds even remotely interesting. The trends themselves, perhaps, are quite revealing of the literary tastes of the blog masses. Political sensationalism, best sellers, web/computer books, self help, sci-fi (particularly Gaiman, Gibson, and Stephenson), and Harry Potter. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised. Popular reading habits never coincided with my reading habits. The Mysterious Affair at Styles Agatha Christie Captain Hastings is invited to Styles Court, an extensive (and expensive) English estate owned by an imposing matriarch who, to the consternation of the rest of her family, remarried a man twenty years her junior. While there, Hastings discovers that his friend, the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot is also staying nearby. Everything goes on swimmingly until the matriarch suddenly dies in her bed. A world-renowned toxicologist pronounces that it is poison. The wonderful thing about an Agatha Christie mystery is that it's short yet it makes you think. Can the reader figure out the whodunit and more importantly the howdunit before the detective? And then there are the characters. Captain Hastings proves to be a charmingly enthusiastic but naive narrator and Poirot is eccentric and amusing with his funny moustache and his fits of inspiration. I'd have to admit that the first time I came across Agatha Christie's Poirot mysteries was through the movies, particularly Murder on the Orient Express. What appealed to me wasn't the nature of the mysteries or the way it was solved (Sherlock Holmes and other detectives from literature could have easily filled that role) but the central character of Poirot. I mean, what's not to like about him? On the surface, he's cheerful and harmless, but then--bam!--he hits you right between the eyes with the solution when the culprit least suspects it. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:58 AM : Sunday, September 07, 2003 The Oracle Glass Judith Merkle Riley In seventeenth century France during the reign of King Louis XIV, the sun king, a young woman becomes embroiled in the "Affiare des poisons". Geneviève Pasquier is the younger daughter of a financier, overshadowed by her older sister's beauty and her own physical deformities. Her father taught her philosophy, Latin, and other subjects that a genteel woman at the time wasn't supposed learn. But her carefree education is cut short when her father and grandmother passes away under mysterious circumstances, her uncle brutally rapes her, and the rest of her family leaves her to die. She is soon taken in by La Voisin, a witch and occultist, who has ambitions to groom her young protégé into a powerful tool for her own ascent into power and financial prosperity. Geneviève has the remarkable ability to see the future in a glass of water and from there, she is transformed into Madame de Morville: mysterious, sarcastically witty, and with the help of some heavy makeup a fortune-teller who is supposedly almost a hundred and fifty years old due to some obscure alchemical process lost in the mists of time. The scheming mistresses of King Louis' court are completely taken in by this charlatanry and Geneviève becomes a hot commodity as they seek confirmation of their plots to undermine their rivals and to curry favor with the king. But as she becomes increasingly involved in political intrigues, the Paris Chief of Police, Gabriel Nicolas de la Reynie and his henchman Desgrez closes in on a ring of poisoners who ply their deadly trade to the ones closest to the king--the leader of that ring is none other than Geneviève's mentor, La Voisin. Unlike the previous novel I had reviewed, the heroine in this one is sympathetic and likeable. Even though she makes mistakes, she uses her intelligence to get out of scrapes. With her business as a fortune-teller and her disguise as an extremely old widow, she is one of those rare women in historical times: wealthy, independent, and extremely opinionated. Despite her cold, supernatural façade, she is also a vulnerable young woman who wants revenge on her hard-hearted family and to be loved and be pretty--something that her sister's presence had always denied her. But unlike La Voisin who according to historical documents was burned at the stake and her doomed frivolous sister, Geneviève manages to barely elude the authorities, to settle scores with her family, and to find that love isn't dependent on money or ambition or beauty. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 3:39 PM : The Seville Communion Arturo Pérez-Reverte A few minutes before midnight, a hacker gets into the Pope's personal computer and leaves a message: to save Our Lady of the Tears, an old church in the middle of Seville that "kills to defend itself." Father Lorenzo Quart is sent by the Vatican to investigate. Our Lady of the Tears is in bad repair with little money available to restore it. The ambitious banker, Pencho Gavira, has plans to turn the land the church is sitting on into a resort for wealthy Arabs in an elaborate financial scheme. He has powerful backers and only a handful of people are willing to fight for the deteriorating structure--Father Ferro (a cantankerous, stubborn priest), Father Oscar (Ferro's assistant), and Gris Marsala (an American nun and architectural counterpart of Sister Wendy). As Father Quart sorts through two mysterious murders, and tracks down a hacker, he has to contend with other things as well: a trio of bumbling villains, an oily tabloid reporter, and the seductive machinations of a beautiful duchess. And amidst all the problems, Pérez-Reverte also manages to weave in a nostalgia for an old Seville that is rapidly disappearing into modern homogeneity. It's a good suspense novel only marred by the fact that I cared about none of the characters until about halfway through. The villains are like movie villains--inept or greedy. The main character, Father Quart, for some reason was even less relatable. Maybe it's because the author kept describing him as handsome and had women falling all over his feet. What's the point of having all those swooning women when he's not going to bed any of them? Quart also continually thinks of himself as a knight adhering strictly to the rules. Who the heck these days are that chivalrous and perfect? Pérez-Reverete does better with the flawed characters. The ones in this novel aren't as good as the ones in The Club Dumas but the plot certainly does help them along. Unconscious Mutterings
Links: Design your own hell. (via Come On, Get Lively) I think this would be a good way to vent your frustrations without physically hurting anybody. Emerging Alternatives: Blogworld. This article is making the rounds at a lot of blogs. Just some more self-congratulations on how weblogging trumps traditional journalism. Science cannot provide all the answers. (via 2Blowhards) These sorts of blind hand-waving of "Oh, since we can't explain such-and-such, God must have made it that way!" makes me cringe. It's almost as bad as chalk squeaking on blackboard. We might not have the means right now to explain everything in scientific terms but that doesn't mean we can just forget about it by saying that some supernatural force is in the works. How are we to make any rational conclusions if people continue to evoke God at every unknown variable? Test Your Scientific Literacy. If everyone made a perfect score on the test, there would be a whole lot less misunderstanding between the scientific community and the general public. Stealth Disco. (via Metafilter) This is just one of those things where you think, "Geez, those people have too much free time on their hands." [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:18 AM : Saturday, September 06, 2003 Everyone dresses exactly the same. Sure, there's only so many ways that you can drape fabric across the human body, but still that's plenty of variety. But instead of choosing a wardrobe that is personal, people go for conformity. It's funny that whenever I find myself in a place where the uniqueness platform is shouted from the rooftops, the most people can muster for themselves is a different colored shirt. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:31 PM : Friday, September 05, 2003 The Futile Pursuit of Happiness. "On average, bad events proved less intense and more transient than test participants predicted. Good events proved less intense and briefer as well." Ah, then are we all doomed to live in mediocrity? I was having a conversation with someone from the local writing group when she mentioned that she was a fairly active LiveJournal participant. What I found interesting was her remark that she rarely read any blogs outside of the LiveJournal community besides the ones that were owned by people she already knew offline. So this got me thinking. To what extent is the rest of the blogging community being insular? Perhaps due to sheer laziness people only go around in circles on their blogrolls that once upon a time were compiled via actual effort in searching and reading different sites. Well, I'm pretty sure my daily reads aren't all in the same "clique" and my occasional reads are definitely in entirely different realms. Every so often, I also do some random blog surfing. Most of the time, I find weblogs that are rather dull, but sometimes I find something worth checking out again. It's kind of like the online equivalent of "meeting new people." Sure, it's probably a little intimidating to read someone new and to jump into comments that are already populated by regulars but that's small change compared to a lot of other social interactions. However, I completely understand how someone would only stay in one community and rarely venture outside. It's an inertia problem. Once you've got your small group of friends, why bother trying to find new ones? Too much energy, too much time, too much hassle. But I also remember that almost two years ago, I started a weblog in absolute obscurity (as well as absolute cluelessness) and had to start accumulating a blogroll from scratch. And just because I'm only in relative obscurity now doesn't mean that I can just relax. Complacency about anything can be deadly. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:39 PM : And Some Diversion: Computer program detects author gender. It's old but I finally found the Nature article dealing with gender and writing style. It's probably not as accurate on blogs due to subject matter emphasis. Writing style will seem "female" if the blog is personal. If the subject covered is something else, say politics or culture where the use of pronouns would be inappropriate, then the writing may seem "male." But considering it was more accurate in telling non-fiction from fiction, maybe it would be better used to distinguish those categorizations. Mandarin Design Daily. A blog specializing in promoting coding tricks. Very useful for a person like me who only knows enough to be a menace on templates. Girls, Boys and Autism. I remember taking some silly online empathizing/systemizing quiz and getting back results that said that I was on the dangerous borderline of having Asperger's syndrome. Ha! Even if I organize my links according to the Dewey Decimal system I'm not that dysfunctional. Global Rich List. (via dustbury.com) A sobering thought. I'm incredibly lucky--my stipend alone puts me in the top 10%. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 2:35 PM : Thursday, September 04, 2003 Oh man, I should have never had that cup of coffee. Previous experience should have taught me that coffee is only reserved for early mornings. This time, the stimulant nearly made me jabber endlessly about a subject that very few people can sound intelligent in--politics. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:46 PM : The Thursday Threesome: Red-Yellow-Green Onesome: Red- Stop! Take a moment from your busy day and let us know what it's like now that the kids are back in school. Hey, even if you don't have kids, I'm betting the traffic pattern has changed on your commute! ...and not for the better, -eh? Hey, I'm the one who's going back to school. Actually, I've been in school (or rather lab) the entire summer so it's not like my routine is going to be drastically changed once the school year does start. I only have one more required class to take--after that, I'll be only taking classes because I want to take them. But I have a feeling I won't be, at least for the next year. Qualifiers and stuff, you know. Beginning January, I'm going to be a teaching assistant. Not sure how I feel about that yet. I walk to school, but the traffic pattern is certainly strange lately. Probably because one of the roads is being repaved. Twosome: Yellow- The leaves will be yellow and gold soon in New England! Who's your team this year? Oh, college of course! (Okay, you can go NFL if you'd like I don't have a team since I could care less about sports. Threesome: Green- Go ahead, tell us what is happening in your neck of the woods as Autumn approaches. I've heard tales of the ash trees turning golden in Pennsylvania while central California is still in triple digits. What are you seeing when you're out on your porch? Out here in New England, it is raining. And my allergies are acting up. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:53 AM : Wednesday, September 03, 2003 Some people like the lottery. Other people like to gamble. Then there are those who get that same fluttery thrill when they see a sweepsticks letter in the mail. I found a student writing contest. I tend to view my writing as more of a hobby, but I can't pass up a challenge even if it means I'm running against people who've devoted their entire academic career to writing. I mean, it can't hurt to try, right? [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:29 AM : Tuesday, September 02, 2003 The Afternoon Isn't it odd how everything becomes so sharp and focused when you're forced to wait in line? Brass plating gleams. Laughter sounds forced, nervous. And the gate, separating the bank teller and the customer clangs just a little too loudly. I stand in the middle of a long queue pondering the question of manning stations. Does management delibrately shortchange the customer by having few available cashiers at a store, or in this case, few bank tellers at the bank? Is this an effort to control the mobs of customers, to get back the more spiteful ones who always declare, "the customer is always right?" as an excuse for their bad behavior? It's the lunch hour, so I suppose I could forgive them of being short-handed. But then, during the lunch hour, everyone is free from work to do their errands. How hard is it to move schedules around and stagger the personnel? Actually, I think it is very hard. No one wants to eat lunch alone. It conjures up images of high school cafeterias and then the realization dawns that one can't ever be free of such things. Maybe its an ingrained part of human nature--the urge to be in a group. The bank teller who helps me slurs all the vowels and consonants together. Is she drunk? Is this a new dialect? Or a speech impediment? I keep all those questions in my throat because she gives me the evil-death-glare when I ask her for twenty dollars worth of quarters. She bangs the rolls of coins on the counter and I mutter a "thanks" as I stuff it in my bookbag. Maybe she hadn't had lunch yet and her blood sugar was too low. Needless to say, she probably would not have understood that I am always running out of quarters--keeping one's clothes clean tends to do that. The bookstore is nearby. I can never resist an establishment with books. It's like a happy disease--sort of like newlyweds who claim that they are in love. I rummage around the bargains and glance at the essay section meagerly stocked with classics. And then to indulge in a guilty pleasure--buying magazines. These particular magazines enshrine words, not pictures. A copy of The New Yorker and another of The Atlantic Monthly. I am also tempted to get a copy of Harper's but it is too expensive for its thinness and its content--a not so subtle sledgehammer dealing with certain subjects and their anniversaries. If only people didn't require hellish brimstone and fire to pay attention. Stuffing those literary periodicals into my bag along with the quarters, I watch students and their parents strolling down Main Street and professors in tweeds and sweaters and bad glasses shuffling down the opposite way. School hasn't started yet, but I already feel this certain atmosphere pressing inward, everywhere. It's a cultured intellectualism in which I find myself mired in up to my nose. I've been seeped in this environment a little too long. I've become bad tea. There's a bench underneath a tree. It's the bus stop. I sit. There's a woman on the other side of the bench. I've seen her before. She carries a loud neon orange bag and her face resembles a pug. And she wears headphones to block out the rest of the world. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 3:32 PM : Do the math: Girls tops on campuses. Every time I read a similar story about how girls have out-numbered guys at schools, my first reaction is of bemusement. My personal experience has been the opposite. But then I wonder, am I more the exception than the rule? Childhood mental health linked to birth date. Huh? Technically, I was younger than a lot of people in my grade when I was still in grade school, many times by even more than a year even though I never skipped any grades. And not to be arrogant, but it had been my observation that I was a lot more mentally stable than those who were older. I hope people don't start using this as an excuse to hold people back. Mindless Amusement: What color are you? I am blue. What's your Inner European? It says I'm Italian. Well, big fat chance. What Kind of Krispy Kreme Doughnut Are You? I'm original glazed. Very boring. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:20 AM : Monday, September 01, 2003 Filtering Via Pilfering It's "weblog" not "web log". You know what I don't like? The supposed "correct" pronounciation of weblog as wee-blog and not web-log. Wee-blog makes me think of mean leprachauns and spam that says, "Get smaller!" instead of "Get bigger!" Blog, on a similar note, looks better in print than coming out of someone's mouth. But at least it's not as annoying as wee-blog. Thermodynamics of Hell. "Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with a proof." The Devil's Dictionary (2.0). Not as funny as the original one by Ambrose Bierce, but amusing nonetheless. Life on Earth highly unlikely. (via Brian's Culture Blog) A parody, probably, of something similar I heard on public radio that had a scientist answering calls from worried people that the closeness of Mars would disrupt civilization as we know it. What's in a Name? Do you privately have stereotypes about particular names? The Lauras/Laurens I have known were flighty and airheaded. Jennifers had a peppy personality. And Tims were always a little kooky . And people who have my name? The only other person I met with my name was a bit of an attention-monger, a whiner, and not exactly that likeable. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 10:47 AM : Countdown Continued It's exactly two months until this starts. And one month until sign-ups begin. And people who need outlines definitely need to start planning now. As for myself, I have an idea in mind. I have drawn up a map of a city although I'm not entirely happy with it. I've done a little world-building, but not much. I have the beginnings of a plot but I haven't yet defined the main problem. In fact, I don't know what the main problem is--I probably need the next month to stir one up. I have some brief character sketches. This time around, the characters are a lot more psychologically complex. But they still don't have names. I'm a little hesitant about giving them names this soon or any time before I start writing because I'm a bit paranoid that someone else might find out and take the names to use for their characters. Last year, I found out that someone used the same names I did for their two male characters. Yes, it might have been coincidence, but I'm not taking any chances. I really hate to be so secretive about my planning since I'm sure most people don't care about it beyond a little curiousity. But what can I say? I tend to be quite possessive about my ideas before I start really writing about them. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:49 AM : |
