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Thursday, September 30, 2004 You Heard It Here First Just found out that a Dartmouth employee, while on vacation in the backwoods of New Hampshire, got infected with hantavirus. Or what looks like hantavirus. The CDC has yet to confirm the case. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:47 PM : Fits of Giggles Overheard remark between two 32-year-olds: "How come we're the same age yet I look better than you?" One has a full head of hair. The other one is balding. Looking in the local paper, I see a workshop for blogging being held at a library in the next town over. I am sorely tempted to hop on over there and see what's the Big Deal. But I'm afraid the organizer will kick me out because my age will simply reveal the fact that I am just a newbie poser. Morning Babble. One of the Blowhards ask: "Do all women love to gab first thing in the morning?" Not me. I'm pretty awake during the early morning even without my daily jolt of caffeine. But gabby women early in the morning, however, tend to make my mood nosedive. Gimme something hefty and I'll wack 'em over the head. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:10 PM : The Thursday Threesome: Against All Odds Onesome- Against: Is there anything you are vehemently opposed to? Or just something that gets you up on your soapbox? "Vehemently opposed." Those are pretty strong words. And this is too early in the morning for me to rant about anything. All that pops into mind are some political and some scientific issues. Maybe I'll write about them some day, but not right now. As for the soapbox, anything can get me up on the soapbox. Including the way you put up your hair today. Twosome- All: Is there something that you have to give all or nothing to? My work. Threesome- Odds: Are you a gambler? What would you bet on and for how much? No, I'm not a gambler. The odds are always in favor of the house. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:34 AM : Wednesday, September 29, 2004 Not Romantic I saw a guy walking about with a cake in one hand and a bouquet of roses in the other. There's just something about that clichéd scene that screams out, "I'm desperately trying to get laid!" Or maybe that guy is just trying to be nice. Nah. Gifts always have strings attached. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 3:29 PM : Tuesday, September 28, 2004 Various Blogging for Books. Certain famous blogs commenting on certain books are generating enough buzz that they convince readers to pick the books up. Real readers don't read books because of recommendations from the media. Or blogs. Or I could just be annoyed because no one ever picks up a book because of any of my recommendations. It's as if I don't have any qualifications for making recommendations or something. Banned Books Week. I should of posted this on Sunday, but I was understandably side-tracked. Fear and Laptops on the Campaign Trail. (via everybody) Political boogers, bah. They're like those activists I always see standing on the road touting signs. Lots of hot air, but in the end, completely ineffective. And is it just me, or do those old guys look like they're peering down Wonkette's cleavage rather than the laptop screen in that picture? Popcorn gets poppier. Hmm. I wonder if I can rig up the vacuum pump to the mini-autoclave in lab. Not sure if my advisor would approve of it though. Video disks ditch binary storage. A terabyte of data! The geek in me totally reels. Doorknob's Fortune Cat. Aww. That's my kind of cat. Grand Rounds. (via Pharyngula) It's a weekly summary of the best of the "medical blogosphere." Pharyngula wonders if there are more doctors and nurses than scientists since Grand Rounds is larger than Tangled Bank. Well...yeah. If you compare class size at my school, for instance, the number of medical students in one year's class is larger than two year's worth of biology graduate students. Why are we here? Readership. What's that? [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 3:32 PM : A Writer's Blather Yep, it's closing towards that time of year again. That's right: Nanowrimo. October 1 is when sign-ups start, so better do it soon before the Nanowrimo website melts down when everyone registers at the last minute. For those of you who have no idea what this is, Nanowrimo is short for National Novel Writing Month which takes place in November. Crazy people attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. I am a certifiably crazy person because this will be the fourth year I'm going to do this. Why? It's a magnificent obsession of mine. Unlike other Nano-ers, I don't have support groups. Other students think I'm insane for doing this. And I live in the boondocks with virtually no non-pretentious writing groups within a reasonable drive. So expect me to be crankier than usual. As for an idea for this year's novel, I do have one. If I had to fit it into a genre, it would be cheesy horror with overtones of Dracula. Except there will be no vampires and there will be more emphasis on the gore than the blood. Also: Obligatory plug for my other site. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:25 AM : Monday, September 27, 2004 A Movie and a Mini-Trip Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. If a large wheel of cheese were to land on your lap, this would be it. Remember all that sci-fi pulp you read as a kid and thought it was the best thing, but upon re-reading it as an adult you realize the writing wasn't so great? Sky Captain, as an homage to those pulp adventure and sci-fi stories of yesteryear, is but a pale imitation. Sure, the air-brushed and sepia-toned cinematography is unique among today's crisp and in-your-face films, but it only made me feel as if I was looking through someone else's nostalgic memories--any tension, complication, or detail was blurred into oblivion by the camera lens. Sky Captain also reminded me somewhat of The Rocketeer, which in my opinion is a far better movie. Yesterday, I decided on the spur of the moment to drive down to Concord. It was spur of the moment because I found out the previous day that Concord was hosting the 30th Annual New Hampshire Antiquarian Book Fair on Sunday. And it isn't every day that you can go to book fairs. I took the long scenic route to New Hampshire's capital. It never really registered to me until now that fall had descended on New England. During the drive, I finally had some time to think of nothing in particular and to enjoy passing corridors of green-gold-red leaves and vistas of multi-colored hills. The only thing that annoyed me was slow-poke drivers going twenty miles under the speed limit and no passing zones galore. I also noticed a great hulking building surrounded by barbwire as I neared my destination. A moment later, I realized that I had driven past the state penitentiary. This struck me as incredibly creepy. It's just a couple miles north of the historic district of Concord. As for the book fair--there were a lot of old books, postcards, and broadsides. And they were expensive. Used booksellers from all over New England (as well as someone from Canada and someone from Florida!) had set up kiosks in a large empty arena. The one time I touched a book to take a look inside, a bookseller came up to me to ask me how I was doing. Good grief. I can take the hint. Although I suspect if I looked more like the typical customer--old and affluent--rather than a student, the booksellers would have let me flip through anything I wanted without distraction. So unlike everyone else pawing through the merchandise, I spent my time looking but not touching. I love books, but many other book enthusiasts leave a lot to be desired. I saw no one of my age at the book fair. Dour old people who sneer at you because they think you're going to make off with their $4500 first edition? No wonder so many of the younger generation would rather play video games. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:34 AM : Sunday, September 26, 2004 Unconscious Mutterings
[posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:37 AM : Friday, September 24, 2004 Way Behind I saw some ridiculous things today--regarding shoes. There was one young woman wearing woolen boots out in eighty degree weather. Another young woman was wearing pointy stilettos while carrying heavy grocery bags. Maybe they think their choice in footwear is empowering, but I just think it's plain stupid. Why We Look So Bad. The author complains that academics are fashion-impaired. Well, I guess so. I can pretty much predict what profs will wear the next day. But then again, if you know me, you can predict what I will wear the next day. Students are definitely more trendy-conscious but yes, they are predictable too. Actually, from my years of keen people watching, I will say this--younger people may be more "fashionable" but they are also remarkably conformist. This is Wrong on Oh So Many Levels. Burningbird says that people shouldn't suck up to the A-listers if they want a popular weblog. Well guess what? People are going to do that anyway--especially if they value popularity over content. Sure, I worry about my (lack of) comments and (lack of) page hits like the next blogger and yeah, I can whore myself out to increase my popularity, but in the end what benefit is that to me? I say, leave the people who are worried about their popularity to their own antics. The only way they will ever get a hit from me is if I accidentally stumble onto their site. (And I am pretty much content with my status as an off-off-off-off-off-off Broadway blog.) My first time unto the breach. Adam Greenfield berates Dave Winer on pontificating about a subject that he knows nothing about. Okay, so it was probably a good idea for Greenfield to point out the errors of a guy other people might believe because of his association with a Famous University, but is this anything new? Of course not. People in the blogosphere pontificate on subjects they don't know anything about every day. Take it from me--don't believe anyone. As All-American as Egg Foo Yong. An NYT article about the history of Chinese restaurants in America. I try as much as possible to avoid Chinese restaurants because I've always felt uncomfortable eating in these kind of restaurants outside of Chinatowns and Asian countries. I often get the impression that as an Asian person, I shouldn't be in a place where they've altered the food so much to accommodate Western taste. The times that I do go, I'm usually humoring someone else. Girly Stuff. Arg. Do people really want to provoke my bra-burning and hairy feminist alter ego? Who freakin' cares about nice smelling lotions? Okay, so I admit I own some of those lotions, but that's because society has forced me to buy them. People won't come within three feet of you (even if you shower daily) unless you smell like a plum. A new metric for my self-adulation! Let's see. Based on Google, my real name is roughly 7.8 x 10-5 brooksies. Pretty dismal. Syaffolee is about 0.04677 brooksies. I'm telling ya', I'm really off-off-off-off-off-off Broadway. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:03 PM : Thursday, September 23, 2004 Four Films Fortunately for me, this was not some sort of manic relay in which I watched a whole bunch of movies all at once. These were spread out in the course of the past few days. In a nutshell--for those of you who have too little attention to spare for the rest of this post--the first film was excellent (you can bring the kiddies with you), the second film was also excellent (okay for kiddies although the older ones might appreciate and understand it better), the third film was so-so (kiddies somewhat iffy, depends on how much violence and weirdness you want them to see), and the fourth film was brilliant in a tragically funny way (definitely not for the kiddies because of adult themes). Finding Neverland. What exactly inspired J.M. Barrie to write Peter Pan? With the bomb of his latest play and his marriage on the rocks, Barrie retreats from his problems to befriend a widow and her four sons. Barrie and the boys immerse themselves in a make-believe world of pirates and fairies. Johnny Depp, who plays J.M. Barrie, is amazing as the unflappable and serious yet mischievous playwright. Comparing this role to his previous roles--say Captain Jack Sparrow in The Pirates of the Caribbean--you could swear that this was a different actor. It is interesting to ponder--exactly who in this movie are grown-up? Who's not grown-up? Who wishes to not be grown-up? Who has never been grown-up? The only real villains in this film are "grown-up" problems which prevent people from ever finding "Neverland". And who did Barrie base Peter Pan on? Although one of the kids was named Peter, Peter Pan's very character is Barrie himself. There's hardly any romance in this film, but I have to be blunt and say that emotionally, Finding Neverland is bordering on chick flick sappiness. There was hardly a dry eye in the audience when the credits finally rolled. And yes, even I was crying--and I almost never cry. Kontroll. This bizarrely beautiful and allegorical Hungarian film is destined for cult greatness if it never catches on with the wider public. Atmosphere-wise, it's sort of like Dark City with a pulsing electronica soundtrack. The setting was entirely filmed in an Eastern European subway system. First, we're introduced to a mystery: who's pushing so many people onto oncoming trains? But the focus quickly shifts to a gang of ticket inspectors--their antics, adventures, incompetence, and struggles with the uncaring subway-riding public. Being a ticket inspector is a low, demeaning job and it is no wonder when one inspector finally "goes postal" when the stress is too much for him. Much of the film is symbolic too--owls, crawl spaces, "riding", the mysterious black figure who pushes the jumpers, the girl in the bear suit. There's a lot to think about. Although some people might describe the film as "an investigation of post-Communist uncertainties", I see it as a metaphor for much of life in general. Aren't we all trying to stay one step ahead of failure ("riding"--a game that involves running on the subway track but with the train not so far behind you) and death (the black figure) yet wishing for something better (represented by above ground which we never see in the film)? Enduring Love. Based on a Booker Prize winning novel, this is the story of an erudite professor who goes out on a picnic with his sculptress girlfriend but ends up failing to rescue a man in a freak ballooning accident. Another man who is also at the scene of the accident takes the balloon as a sign that he and the professor share a bond. The professor's life (and the film) progressively goes downhill from there. Is there a point to this film? Well, yes, but it was rather heavy handed. I was actually rather bored as the professor character went on his po-mo rants about the nature of love--is it meaningless and only biological to ensure the continuation of our species and does love only have meaning because we say it does? Enduring Love is an examination of different kinds of love--from the rather mundane kind of love found between a couple to the unhealthy one-sided love of obsessed stalkers. I actually didn't know what to expect with this film. While I was waiting in line, the people from the previous screening came out of the theater with stunned zombie expressions and kept muttering, "Oh my God." One man described it as a "shocker" and warned some of his acquaintances who stood behind me to turn around and go home. Well, it wasn't that bad. There are definitely worse movies. But in some ways it was a shocker. I am never going to think about curtains in the same way again. Bad Education. In this Spanish film, the protagonist Ignacio puts down his experiences in a short story called "The Visit" where he dreams up revenge for a pedophile priest at his childhood school and remembers his love for his schoolmate Enrique. The story finds its way to Enrique who has grown up to be a famous gay director. Enrique tries to resurrect his relationship with Ignacio both on film and in real life. But who exactly is Ignacio? Is he who he really says he is? We at first see Ignacio's adult life as envisioned by the short story, but what exactly happened to him? Who is the man posing as Ignacio? Why is he doing it? Keep these questions in mind, but don't think about them too hard. Bad Education is also noirishly funny with its soccer-playing priests, out-of-place recitals of Moon River, and crack-snorting transvestites. One could place this in the category of sex-with-meaning films which Michael Blowhard seems so fond of, but I don't think it's really about the sex. It's about the future roads people take because of events in the past. I guess the best metaphor is a story that Enrique cuts out of a tabloid at the beginning of the film: On a frigid winter night, a speeding motorcyclists freezes to death. The funny thing is, two patrolmen continue to chase after him even when he's already dead. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:56 AM : The Thursday Threesome: Crockpot Marmalade Chicken Onesome: Crockpot-- Hey, Winter is just around the corner! Does that mean crockpot meals for you? ...and how about the students: When you get home for the holidays will Mom have had something simmering all day? Uh, I don't have a crockpot. Don't you know how much mold and bacteria can grow in that thing? Twosome: Marmalade-- Chunk style or creamy? Do you even do jams, jellies and peanut butters with bits and pieces in them? ...or is that something you like have stocked on the shelves? I don't have a preference. I usually just buy whatever strikes my fancy at the time. Threesome: Chicken--pot pies? Do you love 'em or hate 'em? Simple, -eh? ...and if you love 'em, where do you find good ones? ...or is that even possible Ack. No thanks. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:23 AM : Wednesday, September 22, 2004 Tangled Bank #12 This week's collection of science posts is at Lean Left. So what are you waiting for? Go and read! [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 10:47 AM : Tuesday, September 21, 2004 The Curious Life of Robert Hooke Anyone familiar with science history will recall Robert Hooke. But exactly how much do we know about him aside from the fact that he was the author of the beautifully detailed Micrographia and that Isaac Newton destroyed his portrait? Lisa Jardine fills in the gaps with the newest biography on Hooke. Hooke was born on the Isle of Wight to a curate with political proclivities. His brush with Charles I while he was a boy profoundly affected his political preferences later in life. He spent much of his time exploring the scenery of the Isle which was remarkable for its geology and fossils. A brief stint as a painter's assistant was perhaps one of the reasons why he was so good at drawing. Later, as he made his way through London, he worked with Robert Boyle (who actually mostly "supervised") on some critical air pump experiments and became the first Curator of Experiments at the Royal Society. After the Great Fire of 1666, Hooke and his friend and collaborator Christopher Wren helped rebuild London. It was here that his temper got him into trouble. Feeling that he never got due credit for the work he did he began the feuds which would lead the public to view him as a hot-headed crackpot. Like Samuel Pepys, Hooke kept a diary--entries that are both illuminating and fascinating, in a bystander-looking-at-a-car-wreck kind of way. For his health, he experimented with a variety of medicines that his friends and doctors suggested, some of which did more harm than good. Hooke's personal life was also quite tumultuous. Aside from working too much and suffering from insomnia, his relationships with everyone (with the exception of a few close friends like Christopher Wren) were a bust at best. Hooke never married, but he did have an incestuous relationship with his niece. When he died, seemingly destitute, his relatives made off with his savings. So why did Hooke fall into history's shadow? For one thing, he spread himself too thin by committing himself to many projects. He accomplished much but he never put his energies into one project long enough to yield results he could be solely credited for. Another thing was his temperamental personality. If he hadn't rubbed Newton and his other contemporaries the wrong way, his name would probably still be in the credits. And finally, what did Hooke look like? Jardine points out a long lost painting that she thinks might be Hooke. I'm not so sure--the man in the painting looks like Malcolm McDowell--based on just the biography, I pictured Hooke to be a bit more stout with more hair and perhaps a petulant look about the eyes. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:24 PM : Monday, September 20, 2004 And Some Links I'm Sure Everyone Has Already Seen Seniors Rule. (via Kottke.org) Yeah, they're pretty bad and pretty funny. When I was in high school, I didn't really want my picture taken (I still don't like being photographed) but of course, you had to for the yearbook. There was this black drape that we had to wear for the photo session and I supposed, what the heck, might as well get a few wallet sized pics for the edification of my parents. Do you know how much those things cost? Ripping off students because they're required to do a yearbook picture is an understatement. Everyone else, to my dismay, were obsessed about getting their pictures done--especially with weird backdrops. Maybe they were trying to appease their own vanity with those really horrible (and expensive) glamor shots. I found the entire exercise completely pointless. Who, exactly, is going to see those photos besides your relatives? Crazy Train or Emotional Subway Attack. (via Ectophensis) Oh wow. I would never have the guts to do this unless there was one other person willing to do it with me. And I don't know any showtunes. I guess I better go learn some. Up front. (via Monkeyfilter) It was very interesting to hear that owning a cat increases a man's pulling power, because it definitely doesn't increase a woman's. Whereas the male cat owner is apparently imbued with caring, sharing qualities, owning a cat for a single woman these days is tantamount to admitting you're a frigid, emotionally unstable sociopath who should probably be burnt at the stake as a witch. I do not own any pets. The last time I had pets was when I was eight years old and they were fish. Of course, they promptly died. What this says about me, I probably don't want to know. "Sex and the City stars stay upright because h = Q.(12+3s/8)" say scientists. (via Rebecca Blood) Physicists at the Institute of Physics have devised a formula that high-heel fans can use to work out just how high they can go. Based on your shoe size, the formula tells you the maximum height of heel you can wear without toppling over or suffering agonies. I wear running shoes approximately 99.9% of the time that I am wearing shoes. This way, I don't have to worry about stupid equations. Successful matchmaker to be awarded a PS2. (via Monkeyfilter) You know, this would have been pretty funny if it weren't also very sad. It's one thing to give away a PlayStation to someone who finds you a girlfriend, but it's another thing if you're doing it because all your other friends are hooked up. My advice: Be different and follow what you want to do. Don't let society dictate your social life. Or maybe I'm just cranky because I have to put up with people (male and female alike) whining about their lack of dates. You know what I think? People are too needy and dependent. That's part of human nature, I guess, but it's a really annoying part. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 2:51 PM : Sunday, September 19, 2004 Hero and House of Flying Daggers Along with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, these two movies belong to that genre of Chinese films that can be at least described as mythic/melodramatic/martial arts extravaganzas. Yes, these films are absolute eye candy and you can just sit back and get an overdose of color for the next two hours, but other than that--blech. Great fight scenes but not much there in terms of plot. There are always a bunch of doomed lovers in there somewhere and the characters are always blabbing about honor and sacrifice, etc. And perhaps catering to the sensibilities of male horndogs everywhere, Zhang Ziyi gets laid in all three movies. In Hero, a lone warrior called Nameless recounts the tale of how he defeated three legendary assassins, Sky, Broken Sword, and Flying Snow, to the King of Qin. Except there's one catch: is he really telling the truth? What's the real story? The film had a fairy tale feel to it--the colors bright, coordinated, and surreal. It captures quite well how many Chinese seem to view their own history--partly history and partly myth--actually mostly myth. My two favorite scenes were fight scenes: the fight between Nameless and Sky in a water drenched courtyard and the fight between Flying Snow and Broken Sword's apprentice Moon in a forest of golden leaves. The storytelling, though, left much to be desired. The film is more like a beautiful woman with an empty head and a pretty mouth parroting the same stereotypical lessons that most people know already. The plotline for House of Flying Daggers thankfully has a little more depth. During the waning of the Tang dynasty, two captains plot to root out some underground rebels who call themselves "House of Flying Daggers". Things get a bit more hairy than what starts out as a straightforward plan to sneak into the outlaws' hideout. Romance, betrayals, and jealousy get stirred into the mix. The problem with all these films is that it is so obvious when they start using the tropes of the genre. To a Western audience that has seen little to no Chinese films, these conventions may seem ridiculous. Another problem, which is actually more endemic to House of Flying Daggers than the other films, is that although there is humor, I would say that the humor was written in such a way that the Western audience would think that it was specifically tailored for the Western audience. Also you have to suspend your disbelief. The minor bad guys can be downed with one blow but the more important characters take forever to die, even with fatal wounds. If you haven't seen very many of these kind of movies, be prepared to laugh your head off at the end even when you know you really shouldn't. My favorite scene in this one? Hands down, no questions asked, it's the Echo Game. Now that was a brilliant piece of work. Brief endnote: If you do decide to see these movies, I wish you good luck on sitting through it with an understanding audience. I'm afraid most of the old people in backwoods New Hampshire just have no idea. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:19 PM : Unconscious Mutterings
[posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:40 AM : Saturday, September 18, 2004 Being Julia A tired stage actress, bored and uninspired with her life, strikes up an affair with a much younger man who's using her to climb up the social ladder. Once she finds out her younger lover's real intentions, the result is revenge and hilarity. If this comedic drama doesn't get you out of a funk, well, maybe you need something a little more obvious than word play. Annette Bening is Julia, the over-the-top actress who steals every scene. People around her can never tell whether she's acting or being real. The supporting actors were, although in some ways clichéd, refreshingly bizarre. From the lecherous old lady to Julia's inner voice which takes the form of her late mentor, these characters were always good for a hearty snickering. "The theater is reality, the outside world is fantasy," Julia's mentor continually berates her. So for Julia even the real world becomes an extension of the stage. It's inevitable to describe it as a mesh of things which might be a more accurate summary than a word for word byplay. Think of it as Sunset Boulevard but replace the angst with amusement and the older woman ends up empowered rather than letting her neediness for a younger man destroy her. And I really liked the soundtrack--especially the main theme which is rich with romantic strings and brought to mind stage acting and sumptuous eighteenth century period costumes. Anyways, I really liked it. The grand finale had me grinning even when I stepped out of the theater and into the pouring rain. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 11:52 AM : First the Audience and Some Unrelated Links The audience was comprised of old people. I mean old people as in people with a substantial amount of gray in their hair and/or balding. (And was that a toupee over there too?!) Okay, so maybe I should not have been surprised. When I went to the box office early to get tickets last week (and still had to wait two hours) the line was mostly old people. But really. I only saw one or two other people who could have been students. Everyone else was the over fifty type and even though I usually don't pay attention to other people in the theater, this was borderline weird. It made me wonder if there was something wrong with me. If I'm surrounded by old people, shouldn't I be watching a different movie? The answer to the previous question is no, but there is an interesting note about the subject matter of the movie. Because on one level, the movie was about the old (the age of most people in the audience) vs. the young (people my age) and the older characters in the movie "won"--which probably put off any potential younger viewers. Pajamagate. Lynn S. remarks that sometimes the political bloggers have all the fun, but you know, I didn't find this very amusing. People were obviously exaggerating--which is the whole point, you might say--although I found a picture of a laptop in the bathroom a bit funny. Yes, something may be out of whack with my humor-o-meter, but I have to point out that the so-called blogosphere in its self-absorption is once again behaving like trendy teenagers who have no ounce of originality. The #1 reason why people didn't reach 50,000. 7 out of 8 people fail Nanowrimo, mostly because they fail to start writing at all. Also an anecdote: if you mention you've written a novel just once, people will keep asking you about it even if you never mention writing ever again. Since I'm not an egomaniac (at least I hope not), this gets annoying real fast. How To Build A Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later. An essay by Philip K. Dick: "Science fiction writers, I am sorry to say, really do not know anything. We can't talk about science, because our knowledge of it is limited and unofficial, and usually our fiction is dreadful. A few years ago, no college or university would ever have considered inviting one of us to speak. We were mercifully confined to lurid pulp magazines, impressing no one. In those days, friends would say me, "But are you writing anything serious?" meaning "Are you writing anything other than science fiction?" We longed to be accepted. We yearned to be noticed. Then, suddenly, the academic world noticed us, we were invited to give speeches and appear on panels -- and immediately we made idiots of ourselves. The problem is simply this: What does a science fiction writer know about? On what topic is he an authority?" [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:42 AM : Friday, September 17, 2004 Movie Gluttony This is just a heads up that most of the next couple of posts will probably be about movies. Some of these movies won't be in general theaters until a couple months later so perhaps this will be of some interest to those of you who are film freaks. Added aside: What I really want to see is the sequel to Ghost in the Shell but none of the theaters in this whole entire state is playing the movie. I'd have to go to Boston. Boston! It's as if all the theaters around here are conspiring to lower the IQ of hapless theater goers with inane fare. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:29 PM : Some Other Stuff Traveling Salesman Problem. "Given a finite number of "cities" along with the cost of travel between each pair of them, find the cheapest way of visiting all the cities and returning to your starting point." Alien microbes could survive crash-landing. "Bacteria could survive crash-landing on other planets, a British team has found. The result supports to the idea that Martian organisms could have fallen to Earth in meteorites and seeded life." Okay. But all this really proves is that terrestial microbes are very hardy and that if spacecraft aren't sterilized properly, we could potentially contaminate other planets that we want to explore. Mathematics, marriage and finding somewhere to eat. Here's the problem of finding Mr. or Ms. Right boiled down to numbers. But somehow I don't think mathematicians themselves follow their own models. What kind of book marks a watershed in a woman's life? (via Modulator) Well, I wouldn't consider any books I've read really a "watershed" but in my formative years, I read stories where the hero or heroine kicked butt or where the plot was a little strange. Survey Confirms It: Women Outjuggle Men. "It may fall into the category of Things You Knew but Could Never Prove, but a new survey by the Department of Labor shows that the average working woman spends about twice as much time as the average working man on household chores and the care of children." 'Excuse Me. May I Have Your Seat?' Asking for a seat is more traumatic than giving up a seat. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:48 AM : Thursday, September 16, 2004 The Thursday Threesome: Girl Scout Cookies Onesome: Girl- Girls' (or boys') Night Out- Do you ever just feel the need to drop everything and go hang out with your pals? What do you all do when you go out? Something "wild" like partying at the bar, or something as "mild" as just hanging out at a coffee shop and discussing the latest books you've read? Or do you head over to a pal's house to watch the big game? I'm mostly a loner so the concept of a girls'/boys' night out is somewhat baffling to me. How can you just "hang out" as you say? It's nothing more than socializing. Okay, so I have attended "girls' night out" things before, but don't ask me if I understand why people have the need to do strange things and spill secrets. Twosome: Scout- Were you ever a scout as a kid? Which branch? Did you join willingly or was it something you did because everyone else was or your parents thought it would be "good for you?" No. Probably because the only thing my parents knew about girl scouts was the cookie thing. And they probably didn't want me to go door-to-door in order to convince strangers (who could be weirdos) to buy something that we never bought. And I cannot imagine myself as a girl scout. I'm just not that type. Threesome: Cookies- What's your favorite kind of cookie? What's the strangest cookie you've ever had or heard of but been too afraid to try? And do you buy Girl Scout cookies? Which ones? I don't have a favorite kind of cookie and I'm never afraid to try something new, but I will say I despise oatmeal raisin cookies. Those are the most vile things concocted on this planet. And I do not buy girl scout cookies. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:01 AM : Wednesday, September 15, 2004 Gray I don't know whether or not this is due to depression, stress, or lack of sleep but I've been feeling irritable. Oh don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the science side of the MCB retreat with all the talks from the new faculty members and the new posters by fellow grad students, but I don't know. People are people, and sometimes they can be not nice and oblivious. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 10:05 AM : Monday, September 13, 2004 Rummage I saw a lot of junk yesterday. Anyway, I found a bookstore in Norwich, finally, but it was closed when I got there. I walked around the building to search for a sign that stated its hours, but no luck. However, I did find a yard sale being held in the same town. The profits were going to be donated to a charity to help kids in third world countries so I thought--fine, I'd go take a look-see. It turned out that someone had emptied out their personal library and had spread the books over the lawn. So you can guess where I spent most of my time at that yard sale. I also went to a flea market in Quechee. Now that was a lot of junk. Old tools, dirty glassware, china, shiny trinkets, collectible postcards, records, and magazines, antique furniture, street signs, jewelry that needed a good polishing, prints, ancient toys. There was one guy who was selling off his sci-fi books and he informed me that he knew them all and would tell me about them if I asked. And then without prompting, he started a spiel about L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth and how the movie starring John Travolta was so great--you have no idea how hard I fought the urge to roll my eyes. I was half afraid he was going to foist the book on me or start preaching about scientology. There was an antique mall next to the flea market which I looked through, but I got bored pretty fast. It's one thing to search through bargains so you can bring your find to the next Antiques Roadshow but quite another to hoard shiny things like an old lady with a packrat compulsion. I have no inclination to turn into the latter. A small food shop was annexed to the antique mall; it primarily sold Vermont produced foods. They had some home made fudge in different flavors for sale. I got a pound (quarter pounds of four different flavors) to try since I didn't remember the last time I had fudge--if ever. When I got home, I cut off a bite sized piece from each flavor to taste. After the third flavor, I felt as sick as a kid who had consumed an entire tub of cotton candy. Fudge is really, really rich and I have my doubts about finishing off my purchase by the end of the year. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:33 AM : Sunday, September 12, 2004 Choo Choo Yesterday morning was foggy, but by the afternoon, the air had cleared up. Bright blue skies, warm sun, and not a breeze anywhere. My intention--after a lonely morning in the lab; I think I was the only person working on my floor--was to go bookshop hunting again. But my plans were dashed once I got to the outskirts of Norwich, Vermont (some call this the twin sister town of Hanover except without the raving academics and snotty college kids) because I immediately got myself ensnared by traffic congestion. A tumorous craft show was in progress with tents and cars and people strewn willy-nilly from Main Street and the whole mass growing ever so fast (as evidenced by the cars on the side of the road) toward city limits. I would have been interested in wandering around a craft show--I have no domestic talents although I do admire those who do--but the crowds seemed a bit too uncontrolled. How unfortunate that Norwich dealt poorly with the large influx of visitors. Eventually, I managed to get out of the jam with the fortunate appearance of an empty driveway and headed back to New Hampshire--only to enter Vermont on a different exit. What's confusing at this point is the location of two towns, White River Junction and Hartford. On a map, WRJ is right along the river across from West Lebanon, New Hampshire and Hartford is a bit further west of WRJ. Except when you actually get to WRJ, there's a sign saying it's the town of Hartford. And to make matters worse, business addresses have different towns depending on where you look. The phone book and the local paper are never consistent. White River Junction wasn't as crowded as Norwich, but there was definitely something going on as the parking was tight. A railroad festival was in progress along Railroad Row. Formally, it's called the 12th Annual Festival: Glory Days of the Railroad and sponsored by the town and the New England Transportation Institute and Museum (which I did glance through while I was there--a quaint little place converted from a train station). White tents were littered out on the field between the museum and Railroad Row selling everything from doll's clothes to toy trains. One couldn't miss the smell of food either--wholly American fare of hamburgers, hot dogs, soda, popcorn--but I skipped on those stands catering to the lunch crowd. No patience, I suppose, and I wasn't that hungry. The local historical society and train hobbyists had some booths although I felt a bit disappointed when I looked through them. Mostly pictures, words, and no models. I perked up, however, when I spotted a stand set up by a local publisher. They were selling off all their remainders (all in excellent condition) for two bucks each. After checking out the railroad festival, I walked through a car show being held in a parking lot nearby. I found it marginally interesting. The shiny colors caught my eye but other than that, I couldn't tell you anything else. I did take some pictures though--I might put them online later if they turn out well. I also shuffled my way through the rest of Main Street and glanced through some businesses. There was a tiny costume shop in a back alleyway holding a sale out on the sidewalk with bolts of brightly colored fabrics and ribbons for the sewing enthusiast to plow through. The only sewing I do is putting buttons back on shirts, but even I was impressed by the proprietress's skill with the needle--she was decked out in one of her own creations, a 19th century-style emerald green gown. And finally, what did I see at the end of the street but the used bookstore I had originally intended to find last week! Anthologie is housed in a building painted trendy bright red with shelves made of wooden crates. They did have books on a variety of subjects and genres, but their most comprehensive section was on modern first-editions of popular literature. Think Oprah Book Club material and novels that got made into movies. I spent most of my time in the store rooting around in the fifty-cent bin and managed to obtain Moby Dick, One Hundred Years of Solitude, and one of John Updike's Rabbit novels (I am currently contemplating on getting the entire series, but I am not sure yet). I'll probably go back to Anthologie not too long from now. Apparently they're closing shop at the end of the year. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:48 AM : Linkage and a Meme In a secret Paris cavern, the real underground cinema. How cool is this? I'm going to write this down in my notebook of ideas and possibly use it for my next Nanowrimo novel. Noah's Ark plan from top Moon man. This sounds both mad and sensible. I'm leaning towards mad. There's got to be a better way. Dear diary, you make me sick. "Keeping a diary is bad for your health, say UK psychologists. They found that regular diarists were more likely than non-diarists to suffer from headaches, sleeplessness, digestive problems and social awkwardness." The only "diary" I keep these days is this weblog which really isn't a diary or a journal. I don't write about the depressing day-to-day stuff. Usually. Decoding the Ancients. Making the Sumerian writing system accessible to the public! The graphic grab. "From record covers to road signs, posters to packaging, graphics and typography touch every area of our lives. Forget fine art, Rick Poynor argues: it's design that is at the core of 21st-century visual culture." Logo R.I.P. A commemoration of dead logotypes. I recommend checking out the logo graveyard. Prisoners milk redbacks for venom. *shudder* People will do anything to get high, apparently. Password generator bookmarklet. Helps you generate passwords for those pesky news pages that demand registration. I think BugMeNot is easier. The Fiction Bitch. An anonymous editor who volunteers to tear your masterpiece to shreds in the hopes of deterring bad writers from submitting to publishing houses. Uh, thanks, but no thanks. I think I'll get my criticism elsewhere. (And what one editor may think is horrible may be genius to another.) Comparison of life in Piscataway, New Jersey; Kochi, Japan; and Zhuzhou, Hunan Province, China. Some comprehensive cultural comparisons by an English teacher. The World Goes Silver. The 2Blowhards have just noticed this? I posted something on this last month. Unconscious Mutterings
[posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:41 AM : Saturday, September 11, 2004 Recent Reading In short, if you don't want to read the blabber below: a so-so book, a really bad book that deserves to be fed to the shredder, and an excellent book which you must go out and get now. Acquainted with the Night by Christopher Dewdney. There's something in it for everyone in this slim volume with a Vincent van Gogh cover. Everything has something to do with the night: mythologies, science, children's storybooks, fireworks, things that go bump in the night, nightclubs, literature, etc. It's an eclectic mix and nice for light entertaining reading, but if you're looking for something a bit more substantial, well look elsewhere. Acquainted only touches on many topics. It's as if a child with attention deficit disorder had gotten a hold of the galleys before it went to press and chopped out the background and rearranged everything else. Once Upon a Midnight by Nora Roberts, Jill Gregory, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Marianne Willman. This is part of the Once Upon series where every single title is basically Once Upon a [insert clichéd symbol here] and every volume contains short stories of a mangled fairy tale nature. This offering is well--all I can say is that most romance authors shouldn't be let within ten miles of speculative fiction. Have they even seen Peter Jackson's film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings let alone read any real fantasy? And aside from the terrible use of fantasy tropes and conventions, don't even mention the actual writing and pacing. It is painfully obvious that these people are primarily novelists who get away by flubbing around for three to four hundred pages--they have absolutely no idea what to do with the short story/novella format. A Gentle Madness by Nicholas A. Basbanes. The "madness" in question is bibliomania. Basbanes documents the origins of the word and the obsession which drives some people to neglect their work, their loved ones, and their own health. Among the anecdotes: An ex-monk who killed for books. Kingdoms engaged in rivalry to see who can build the biggest library. A grand auction for rare books that turned out to be a grand hoax. Book buyers, book collectors, book burners, book sellers, book thieves, librarians, cataloguers, archivists, scholars, preservationists. It's a wonderful compilation of the history about this disease-like hobby. The only thing I don't get is why people buy books worth millions yet don't even bother to read it. Is owning a work more important to these bibliophiles than knowing the contents? I always buy books with the intention of reading them. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:56 AM : Friday, September 10, 2004 Round and Round Maths holy grail could bring disaster for internet. Why does everyone have to run around like a chicken with its head cut off? Okay, so maybe I'm little more laid back than I lot of people think I should be but is it so bad if someone solved the Riemann hypothesis? I'm sure the mathematicians could come up with some other system for cryptography if they haven't already. Color Scheme Generator. Yet another one! I love these things. You can never have too many color generators. Kurt Vonnegut gives out the rules for creative writing. Some writing advice. Like #1: Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted. The Inevitable. (via Evhead) Every weblog/journal writer comes to a point where they write about not having anything to write about? Oh come on. If I get to that point, I'm not going to write about anything. I'd go on a hiatus and take up a pottery class. I'm not going to waste your or my time with superfluous words. Magnet-making bacteria could target tumours. "Bacteria that make tiny magnetic particles could be harnessed to create drugs that home in on a specific site in the body. The particles come ready-wrapped in their own biological membrane, so molecules such as anticancer drugs could easily be attached." Whatever.... Lynn S. contemplates playing Verdi's Requiem at full blast during the early morning to annoy the neighbors. Hey, my neighbors have recently taken to do that, except they're playing some sort of rap music instead of Verdi. I don't think they've ever heard of Verdi. Now, if I had a boombox, I'd be digging out a copy of Wagner's Götterdämmerung... Blogger Finds Blog Not Affecting World. (via Dustbury) Ah, the optimism (heh) of youths and newbies. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:00 AM : Thursday, September 09, 2004 Tangled Bank #11 Yep, this week's Tangled Bank is finally up at Archy, the first non-science/non-scientist blog to host. But that doesn't mean that there's no science--oh no--there's plenty. Just hop on over and enjoy the offerings. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:47 AM : The Thursday Threesome: Ripped from the Headlines Comment: Whoa. I never figured they would use one of my blurbs. Onesome: Ripped-- Ripped and torn asunder? Do you have a memorable "ripped clothing" moment in your life? No? How about in someone else's? Come on, you know you have something to contribute! Well, I've never had a "ripped clothing" moment. Nor have I witnessed one of someone else's. Believe me, if I had, I would have remembered. Unless...someone wiped it from my memory? Anyways, I've always been somewhat a klutz so I've had belt loops and shirt ends and pieces of sweater get caught up in things but never so much as ripped. As for a gripe--those grocery baggers need some common sense! Those bags will never hold if you put all the heavy items in one of them. Twosome: from the-- From the archives: What's changed on your website over the last year? ...a redo? ...a change of pace? ...or is it still business as usual? Some layout changes but nothing drastic. Threesome: Headlines-- Are you a Headline Nazi? I mean, do you ever look at a headline and ask yourself, "What were they thinking?" ...or, "What are they trying to say?" Then again, do you have a favorite headline that you'll always remember? Even a bad headline can be good. It caught my interest, didn't it? I admit, there are headlines that need some good editing, but there are basically two kinds: ones that work and ones that don't. Ones that work inform me. Ones that don't--well, I don't bother to remember or bother to read the article. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:44 AM : Wednesday, September 08, 2004 Upcoming Since the school year is gearing up, this is more to remind myself than to remind you (the reader), but rest assured that I'll be blogging about these one way or another whether you like it or not. *Next week I'll be going to the annual MCB retreat. It's actually more for the benefit of the new grad students who will be trying to decide which labs they want to rotate in. I'm going to enjoy free food, a free hotel stay, and plenty of coffee. *In October, there will be the annual Dartmouth Life Symposium. This year's topic is angiogenesis, but I figure I'll go attend a couple lectures anyway. It doesn't hurt to go outside of your field once and a while. Besides, there will also be free food. If you're going to be in the area and looking for some science fun, be sure to register (it's free!) so the organizers can figure out how many free lunch vouchers they can print up. It doesn't say, but this is not just for academics. The public can come too. *Every year, the Hopkins Center shows a couple films from the Telluride, an indie film festival from Colorado. This Friday I'm going to camp out at the box office in order to get tickets before they're all sold out. *Ha! I finally got tickets to a Richard Goode concert and a Midori concert. They won't be until next year but I'm betting these are going to be sold out very, very soon. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 10:51 AM : Tuesday, September 07, 2004 Silliness Stuffed nose. Some interesting discussion on a complicated Chinese character that simply means "to have a stuffy nose." Of course, if you get it tattooed on your elbow and tell everyone that it means "serenity", no one's going to stop you--although anyone knowing the language will just point and laugh. Sceintific Method Man. The Voynich manuscript is a hoax! I didn't feel too surprised--I'm keeping the wallpaper which is part of the Voynich manuscript on my desktop though. It confuses people. A Girl's Guide to Geek Guys. Wait. Babylon 5 is Star Trek? I don't think so. Admittedly, I've watched almost no television the past six years and even I know the difference between those two sci-fi series. This just goes to show that the two bubble-heads who are the authors of this piece don't know squat about geek culture in general. What the authors are really good at is stereotyping geeks. If it's one thing I know, geeks are not all alike. The only thing they have in common is their obsession with something (and doesn't even have to be Star Trek). This article is just a variation on a how-to guide to catch your man. You know what? They should submit this to Cosmopolitan or one of those other trashy women's mags. I'm sure all the other bubble-heads in the population would gobble this up. Color Palette Generator. Ooo. Pretty. Now you know where I'll be fiddling with prior to my next site redesign. The science of fiction. Philip Pullman on sci-fi. He wonders if the same mind can both do science and fiction. Yes it can! Or at least I'm trying to. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:21 PM : The Black Plague and Paleomicrobiology Yersinia pestis, a bacterium that looks like an innocuous jelly bean, was the mover and shaker of medieval European society. In the fourteenth century, a third of Europe's population was wiped out by the black plague. With the shortage of labor, the feudal system was doomed and change--political, religious, social--was inevitable. It was only the late nineteenth century that Alexandre Yersin and Shibasaburo Kitasato isolated the agent responsible for the plague and Paul-Louis Simond discovered that fleas transmitted the disease from rats to humans. Yersinia pestis is a rat pathogen; humans just happen to be incidental hosts. When a flea is infected via blood meal, the bacterium rapidly multiplies within the insect gut until it blocks the digestive tract. Because the flea cannot digest its blood meal, this forces the flea to bite its host many times--each time injecting another dose of Yersinia pestis into the host, be it a rat or a human. Once inside the warm-blooded host, the bacterium multiplies logarithmically without any lag phase. In the bubonic form, the plague can kill within 2-3 days. In the pneumonic form, which also is highly contagious, the victim will die within 24 hours. At any rate in a paper in Microbiology, Gilbert et al. wanted to check if European plague victims were indeed infected with Yersinia pestis. The researchers' plan of attack was as follows. They exhumed the remains of plague victims at archaeological sites which included places in Denmark, England, and France. Dates were determined by what the victims were buried in and carbon-14 dating. The teeth were ground up or scraped and the DNA extracted from the resulting powder. The DNA was then amplified by PCR using Yersinia pestis specific primers. Interestingly, the researchers found no evidence of Yersinia pestis in the plague victims. Maybe these people didn't die of plague. Or there could have been contamination in the experiments. Previous studies have shown that the method used for extracting Yersinia DNA from ancient teeth works. So what gives? Bad technique? Victims from the sites were preserved poorly due to environmental conditions? Victims killed from a different strain that couldn't be amplified? Victims killed from a different disease altogether? There were too many variables they didn't take into account. In retrospect, this was probably a poor paper that caught my eye, but in my opinion, you can learn just as much from a crappy paper as a superior one. It's like learning how to write by examining good vs. bad writing. Anyways, this is just the tip of the iceberg. I didn't know that even today people are still trying to confirm that the black plague actually swept through Europe. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 3:42 PM : An (Inconsequential) Observation Most iPod owners that I've seen on campus happen to be pasty, balding males. Does owning an iPod make these otherwise chronic geeks hip? Nah. Disclaimer: I do not claim to be hip. Most evidence points otherwise. However, I do not own or plan to own an iPod. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 1:50 PM : Sunday, September 05, 2004 Bookshop Hunting Prepared to brave hordes of careening pedestrians, 25 mph speed traps, and crazy drivers? Well, welcome to Woodstock, Vermont on Labor Day Weekend. I was actually trying to get to Hartford, Vermont in search of a used bookstore, but I missed the road I had to turn at. So I ended up heading west thinking--nah, too lazy to turn back. I'll just see where the road takes me. I drove past a craft fair in Quechee which I ignored due to the swelling crowd that was in danger of spilling onto the road. I also drove past the Quechee Gorge. I keep telling myself that one day I really should go and explore it, but there too were huge crowds. Maybe next week. So after a meandering drive, I ended up in Woodstock. First I stopped before the center of town because I saw a sign that said "Books". Pleasant Street Books was located in a small red barn behind another building that looked like an ancient school house. This bookshop was filled with old and used books and quite the mess. I had to step carefully least I crush a particularly valuable volume. The proprietor, a stout man in his late thirties or early forties dressed in casual t-shirt and jeans, left for a break when I entered, apparently trusting me not to take off with anything. While he was gone, I noticed a first edition Mark Twain novel worth $4500 lying out in the open. When I got out of the bookshop, I saw a woman who looked suspiciously like the secretary for the micro department coming out of the grocery store across the street. Yikes! I ducked behind my car and waited until she drove away. I wasn't expecting anyone I knew in this rather dinky place. You see, even though I readily spill all my adventures out onto something as public as a weblog, I wouldn't want to meet anyone I knew while I was out adventuring. It's not that I'm embarrassed to be seen at a bookshop--I just don't want to be forced into social niceties when I'm not in that frame of mind. I want the illusion that I'm the sole explorer--both intrepid and self-sufficient--venturing out into barbarian lands. Well, Vermont isn't exactly a barbarian land, but close enough considering I don't want to take the bus or train or plane elsewhere. At the center of Woodstock, I was disappointed. The whole place was touristy. And crowded. Most of the visitors and shoppers were nowhere near my age. They were either grandparents or elementary school kids. That, of course, didn't stop me from examining not one, but two bookshops located on the main street. The Yankee Bookshop, self-proclaimed as Vermont's oldest independent bookseller, was almost a complete bust. Or maybe I should not have been surprised considering Woodstock's touristy atmosphere. This bookshop was as neat and modern as a mall store--actually, it felt more like a museum gift shop. There were plenty of new and popular books--common stuff that a Borders or a Barnes and Noble would have stocked by the score. The only thing that saved it was its rather impressive collection of books by local authors about the New England area. The other bookstore, Shiretown Books, was very small. This one also stocked similar items as the previous shop but in even less quantities. It didn't feel like a museum shop, though, because the lighting was sort of dim. So I suppose it had a more intimate feel and the employees, from what I saw, more personable. I didn't buy anything from those stores, but that doesn't mean that I didn't buy anything today. You see, earlier, I had stumbled onto another bookshop--one that sold used books--in Enfield, New Hampshire. Bearly Used Books, although quite homely on the outside, was quite extensive with plenty of fiction and non-fiction, old and new titles alike. I even found a volume to add to my ever growing collection--The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Seventh Annual Collection. It was only last week that I managed to complete Garth Nix's Old Kingdom trilogy (the Dartmouth Bookstore--under renovations for the past couple of weeks--is having crazy sales trying to get rid of their old stuff) and I figured I needed to concentrate on another goal. (Notice I didn't say it was a new goal. I've been trying to collect all the Fantasy and Horror anthologies cheaply ever since I was an undergraduate.) [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 3:49 PM : Unconscious Mutterings
[posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:16 AM : Saturday, September 04, 2004 A Thought and Some Links I have always found the news depressing. Lately, it has been more depressing than usual. I briefly mentioned this to someone and brought up the question--are world affairs really getting so bad or has it always been this bad? Is it just because now that we can get news pretty much instantaneously from anywhere in the world that we get to hear about things which network television and major newspapers would have in the past ignored? Some not-so-depressing stuff: The Giants of Anime are Coming. Here's some info on some anime movies being released in the US as well as some history behind the directors. Thanks for all the fish. This guy is definitely clueless. I mean, if you start getting crank e-mails and comments, just ignore them. Simple as that. The blogosphere is notorious for breeding self-proclaimed pundits who yell and scream at each other and still wouldn't budge from their positions even if all the evidence against them fell on their heads. If you want everyone to e-mail you praise--well, forget it. People don't work that way. Also, notice the title of the post. Like Douglas Adams' series, I don't think we've seen the last Mr. Clueless. (And a little part of me also says--this guy is doing this to get attention. Negative attention, after all, is still attention.) Science Fiction Films: Which Are the Most Significant? John Scalzi is writing a book on the best sci-fi films of all time and he wants your input. I'd comment, except I haven't watched a whole lot of films to be qualified to say anything. Books on the other hand... Ball Lightning in Microwave Ovens. Would this be a neat trick for a physics lab? Maybe. But I'm not going to try it. Bonfire of the Humanities. (via Reflections in d minor) "What good are books?" A lot more than just reading, apparently. Eyes glowing, skin turning green...yep, I didn't like it. Pharyngula doesn't see college as the easy ticket to upward mobility. Of course it isn't. Whoever says college is easy has his head stuck on a pike. But it's easy to be philosophical about this kind of thing. In reality, it's a bit more complicated. In my observation, parents--especially parents who want their kids to become medical doctors--absolutely view college as the ticket to upward mobility. Learning and social expectations are virtually incompatible. Ever gotten cornered by an overzealous mother who blabs on and on about her children's many degrees and awards when you yourself wouldn't give a rat's ass what they did? Good luck convincing her that college isn't the ticket. Most parents don't give a crap if their kids are enriching their brain. They just want them to get a job. Miracle on Probability Street. Don't give the credit to some deity because "the Law of Large Numbers guarantees that one-in-a-million miracles happen 295 times a day in America." Your Tax Dollars at Work. I found this particular post when I was trying to figure out what sort of government IP was looking at this site. Pretty funny. There was this one time that somebody from the NIH was reading all my Nano novels from work. I wonder what they thought of my writing. Was it any good or complete and utter trash? I'll never know since no one ever comments or e-mails me about them. The M Line and the Hemline: Miniskirt Protocols. Aiiiya! Does this make me sound like an old and prudish Cantonese speaking woman who's bobbing her head in exasperation? I'm probably going to be one in about fifty years anyway so I figure there's no harm in starting early. Actually, I could care less if everyone ran around naked. The principle thing I object to is the etiquette. My thought is--clothes are supposed to be easy. I put on a t-shirt and a pair of jeans and I'm done. I don't have to worry all day if they're going to fall off or if some perv is ogling something he shouldn't be (well, maybe he is, but he can't really see it). Worrying about clothes is so petty. The Banality of Google. "How Google became the Jennifer Lopez of the Internet." Ouch. Actually, it's really funny. Don't take it too seriously. The Age of the Essay. Yep, high school essay writing was definitely the pits. If I knew about weblogs back then, it wouldn't have been so tedious. Blog appeal. (via BlogBites) Hm. Sounds like a certain middle-aged male blogger isn't getting any. At first, I was a little jealous. I wouldn't mind having a few blogroupies myself--especially if they were young and handsome--but then I realized that I had seen male groupies in action before when I saw girls being trailed by gaggles of guys and roommates being stalked by greasy grad students. Obsessed guys are creepy. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:03 AM : Friday, September 03, 2004 Bumpy Reading So I was reading science papers. Nothing new there. Except this morning I came upon a sentence that started like this: "We cogitated whether this process was of any biological consequence..." I know that when scientists are reading a technical paper they're supposed to concentrate on the results and not the writing, but...cogitated? Cogitated!? What sort of "straightforward" writing is this? Somebody's been looking up too many words in the thesaurus. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:03 AM : Strange Nightmares I'm looking from above down to a glassy blue-green ocean. Five people are tethered by their feet to a large nuclear bomb painted red. It's as large as a house. The people release their parachutes, but something seems to be wrong and they cut the tethers from their feet and drift towards the nearest beach. Then I'm on the beach. The five people have washed onto the beach but they're dissolving in front of my eyes in the blue-green surf. The bomb has hit the ocean and a violet plume spews out into the air, darkening the sky. I scramble up onto a ledge of a ruined building on the beach as the acidic tides come in when I notice a prone figure, clad head to toe in black rubber, on the damp sands. I pull him up onto the ledge but he is as stiff as a mannequin. There are sinks on the ledge and I turn all the taps on, letting the water run over this person, to dilute any acid. But the figure only hisses and I still feel the sting of acid as the tides grow bolder. Run! I scramble up the ledge and I'm running in countryside dotted with ruined buildings and decaying roads. The sky is pitch black, but somehow I can still see, as if a spotlight was shining from behind me. It starts to rain clumps of burning ash just as I duck into the darkened recesses of an overpass. Other people are huddled there, hoping that the acid rain would soon pass. On the other side, I see and hear a cheerful brass band escorting a hearse down a grassy knoll. After a while, the rain stops. I run down tunnels and stairs. I find myself in an underground room which looks like the floor of a computer expo. I'm being shown the latest Mac model with a seven CD changer and a laser-assisted plate reader. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:51 AM : Thursday, September 02, 2004 The Thursday Threesome: Three Ring Circus Onesome: Three- What do you think the T3 should be next week? Just toss three words together; we'll do the rest! *g* Dancing polar bears. The first one that came to mind was "ripped from the headlines" but that's technically four words. And I'm not sure how you could get a question from "from" and "the". Twosome: Ring- Are you a jewellery person? Is there any one item you wear every single day? Do you have any piercings? Where are they and did they hurt? The only jewellery/piercings I wear are in my ear (yes, that's right--ear not ears) but other than that, no. I don't fancy putting holes in other parts of my anatomy. Threesome: Circus- Do you like the circus? What's your favorite act? Or is your life enough of a circus for you? I've never been to the circus. I could have gone--one breezed through town about two or three weeks ago--but other things called. So I'm not sure what I would like about a circus, if I liked the circus. My life is definitely not a circus right now and I hope it stays that way. At least for a while. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:43 AM : Wednesday, September 01, 2004 Rampant Copying, Cobbling, and Calling Plageurism in blogging. Ooookay. This guy is making me really paranoid. Not paranoid as in someone is going to steal my work, but that some troll is going to come along and tell me that I haven't attributed the stuff that I've written in this blog correctly. I know I could be more rigorous in my citations--especially on my science posts--but aren't links to the relevant sites and papers enough? Do people want blogs to look like dissertations? In the Relentless Pursuit of Fashion, the Feet Pay the Price. I know lately that I've been prone to use the word "stupid" a lot, but a lot of things are stupid. Fashion in women's shoes is stupid. Why do people want to kill themselves in high heels? For the sake of catching someone's eye? Who cares about this stuff? Only shallow people. I'd rather be alive and ugly than dead and sexy. A Comparison of the Cell Phone Driver and the Drunk Driver. (via Kottke) Notice that they're comparing people talking on the cell phone and people who are legally intoxicated. I don't like people yapping away on the cell phone while attempting to rotate the steering wheel, but I'd still bet that most accidents are still caused by drunk driving. And when I mean drunk, I mean drunk. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 8:03 AM : |
