New Theory of Happiness
Day after day, you calmly lump along through your lumpy life until something wonderful sneaks up behind you and bludgeons you, and you fall over and little cartoon sparrows show up by the bucketful to tweet around your head. In that moment, you can’t think of a more wonderful place to be than there, with your butt on the pavement, counting those stupid birds. And maybe you’re prepared for it, in that by-the-book kind of way, but chances are you’re not but you just run with it anyway… and maybe the birds turn into boiling potatoes and scald you, leaving giant welts as they plop down from the sky, but maybe they don’t, and they lovingly poop on you with magenta droplets that fall like kisses on your eyeballs.
And who gives a damn if you're ready for it?
--
I bought delicious fuzzy slippers that may turn out to be the best thing I’ve ever invested in. No more cold feet. Henceforth, fearless feet!
Monday, November 26, 2007
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
home sweet home
Several weeks ago a friend from high school and I went to the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum. We stumbled on a bunch of works by this one artist, Robert Valicenti, who we think is the dad of another girl from our home town. Our horse-filled nook of suburban Chicago is fond of McMansions and cookie-cutter architecture, and I've often wondered if all of surburban middle America sports the same style. I'm still not sure, and I bet there's a local flavor to this particular pile of bland. Despite the generic-ness, none of us ever went the extra step of lampooning our home town in a national museum, which is where Mr. V. stepped in to help. One of Valicenti's works involved taking pictures of McMansions and superimposing commercial signs for big-box retailers--Walmart, McDonalds, etc. My friend actually identified one as the house across the street from where she grew up. So she went home and took a picture, and here it is.
My parents' house is different, not only because it's smaller and older and actually has trees, but more importantly because it holds a special place in the hearts of frogs. After a week of torrential rains flooded northwest Illinois, a horde of nomadic amphibians hopped out of their swampy homes and invaded the driveways and lawns of John Q. Public. Eventually most of that water seeped away or evaporated, leaving them to bake into little flat frog cakes. My parents' garage, it turns out, is where many of them chose to end their days, in the holy land of parked cars and garbage bins. We'd come home in the evenings and discover five or so new frog bodies lying on the concrete floor. My mom renamed it the frog mausoleum.
My parents' house is different, not only because it's smaller and older and actually has trees, but more importantly because it holds a special place in the hearts of frogs. After a week of torrential rains flooded northwest Illinois, a horde of nomadic amphibians hopped out of their swampy homes and invaded the driveways and lawns of John Q. Public. Eventually most of that water seeped away or evaporated, leaving them to bake into little flat frog cakes. My parents' garage, it turns out, is where many of them chose to end their days, in the holy land of parked cars and garbage bins. We'd come home in the evenings and discover five or so new frog bodies lying on the concrete floor. My mom renamed it the frog mausoleum.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Lego Man
Oh, I love this. We used to walk to this beach every day when I was little.
Giant Lego man found in Dutch sea
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A giant, smiling Lego man was fished out of the sea in the Dutch resort of Zandvoort on Tuesday.
Workers at a drinks stall rescued the 2.5-metre (8-foot) tall model with a yellow head and blue torso.
"We saw something bobbing about in the sea and we decided to take it out of the water," said a stall worker. "It was a life-sized Lego toy."
A woman nearby added: "I saw the Lego toy floating towards the beach from the direction of England."
The toy was later placed in front of the drinks stall.
Giant Lego man found in Dutch sea
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A giant, smiling Lego man was fished out of the sea in the Dutch resort of Zandvoort on Tuesday.
Workers at a drinks stall rescued the 2.5-metre (8-foot) tall model with a yellow head and blue torso.
"We saw something bobbing about in the sea and we decided to take it out of the water," said a stall worker. "It was a life-sized Lego toy."
A woman nearby added: "I saw the Lego toy floating towards the beach from the direction of England."
The toy was later placed in front of the drinks stall.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Furry things and Goo
A friend posed this question: If you fell off your bike coming back from the farmer's market, would you save yourself or the peaches?
I replied, the peaches!
Correct, she said.
It's not even entirely about the deliciousness of peaches... there's something about the vulnerability of the peach that makes me want to protect them, even at my own expense, when replacing my skin cells is certainly harder than replacing a peach.
So much for logic.
Some peaches are so delicate that they bruise just by touching each other. I like thinking about peaches: I am pleased that such a thing exists.
Speaking of delicate things, later this week I inherit two monster kittens. They're malnourished, and I can't help but picture them attempting to eat me with their devil mouths and stalk me with their seedy little eyes. Careful, you terrors, I'm watching you.
I replied, the peaches!
Correct, she said.
It's not even entirely about the deliciousness of peaches... there's something about the vulnerability of the peach that makes me want to protect them, even at my own expense, when replacing my skin cells is certainly harder than replacing a peach.
So much for logic.
Some peaches are so delicate that they bruise just by touching each other. I like thinking about peaches: I am pleased that such a thing exists.
Speaking of delicate things, later this week I inherit two monster kittens. They're malnourished, and I can't help but picture them attempting to eat me with their devil mouths and stalk me with their seedy little eyes. Careful, you terrors, I'm watching you.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Bargain Hunting
Coupons scavenged from the Mandarin Oriental:
* For every $2,500 or more purchased at Aaron Basha, experience a dinner sampling for two at Asiate at Mandarin Oriental.
* Receive a $200 gift certificate with your purchase of $3,000 at Vera Wang.
* Chopart Boutique is pleased to offer a $500 gift certificate toward your next purchase of $3,000.
* With a minimum purchase of $10,000, Audemars Piguet is pleased to offer complimentary two-hour spa options at The Spa at Mandarin Oriental.
* For every $2,500 or more purchased at Aaron Basha, experience a dinner sampling for two at Asiate at Mandarin Oriental.
* Receive a $200 gift certificate with your purchase of $3,000 at Vera Wang.
* Chopart Boutique is pleased to offer a $500 gift certificate toward your next purchase of $3,000.
* With a minimum purchase of $10,000, Audemars Piguet is pleased to offer complimentary two-hour spa options at The Spa at Mandarin Oriental.
Friday, July 27, 2007
quote of the day
"Roar of a steam locomotive once shook the Earth to haul modern society. Now
the world's pulse solemnly beats with a semiconductor." -- Hynix Semiconductor
That's one way to argue that semiconductor is my hot, hot sex. I'll post another after this weekend. (there's an ongoing debate at work over one editor's heated rant about how "there's nothing more sexy than semiconductors! Nothing!")
On a side note, kudos to life for behaving thematically. I saw Hairspray last night (kind of awesome. John Travolta and Christopher Walken get my vote for couple of the year.) and afterwards we serendipitously wandered into a drag queen bar. The funny thing was we didn't even notice at first. I guess when we entered there were a lot of dudes around, and the lady giants trickled in later. We were just obliviously sitting in our couchy corner and didn't realize, until someone got up to buy drinks, that we'd been completely surrounded by gigantic skirted folk.
the world's pulse solemnly beats with a semiconductor." -- Hynix Semiconductor
That's one way to argue that semiconductor is my hot, hot sex. I'll post another after this weekend. (there's an ongoing debate at work over one editor's heated rant about how "there's nothing more sexy than semiconductors! Nothing!")
On a side note, kudos to life for behaving thematically. I saw Hairspray last night (kind of awesome. John Travolta and Christopher Walken get my vote for couple of the year.) and afterwards we serendipitously wandered into a drag queen bar. The funny thing was we didn't even notice at first. I guess when we entered there were a lot of dudes around, and the lady giants trickled in later. We were just obliviously sitting in our couchy corner and didn't realize, until someone got up to buy drinks, that we'd been completely surrounded by gigantic skirted folk.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
cutest lil reactor you ever did see
Caption: Fissures in the ground are visible in front of the Kashiwazaki nuclear power plant today.
Darn cozy-looking nuclear reactor, wouldn't you say?
The Daily Bovine, Second Edition
From a press release:
The New York State Police in Charlton are looking for the owner of a large plastic cow. The cow in question is a full size, black and white cow with horns and made out of plastic and fiberglass. It was found on July 7, 2007, 6:30 am in the Jenkins Park on Jenkins Road, Burnt Hills.
It appears to belong to a commercial establishment of some sort. Anyone missing their bovine can contact the State Police in Wilton at 583-7000.
The New York State Police in Charlton are looking for the owner of a large plastic cow. The cow in question is a full size, black and white cow with horns and made out of plastic and fiberglass. It was found on July 7, 2007, 6:30 am in the Jenkins Park on Jenkins Road, Burnt Hills.
It appears to belong to a commercial establishment of some sort. Anyone missing their bovine can contact the State Police in Wilton at 583-7000.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
The Daily Bovine
The BBC, pre-eminent popularizer of cow research, had this story yesterday on how scientists in Aberystwyth have shown that feeding cows garlic cuts their methane production by up to 50%. Apparently, says the almighty Beeb, "experts consider cows the single biggest source of methane -- a gas 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide when it comes to global warming." Also, cows and sheep are responsible for some 30% of the UK's methane emissions.
I wonder how cows rate on the Merck Manual's flatulence scale?
The BBC has a thing with cows and airy science, as in this fabulous August 2006 story on cows that moo in regional accents. I quote:
Farmer Lloyd Green, from Glastonbury, said: "I spend a lot of time with my ones and they definitely moo with a Somerset drawl.
Also, I just learned about a new European language--new to me at least. I was filling out a media advisory form, and it asked me to check off languages I wished to receive my digests in, including Monegasque.
Apparently ethnic Monaco peoples are called Monegasque, so the term refers to both the group and the language. The official language of Monaco is French. The fact that this language still exists is, let's face it, kind of a miracle. [if it still exists and isn't a figment of the internet's hyperactive imagination.]
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
curmudgeoning on synthetic journalism
I was about to email a friend/fellow science journalist about some posts he'd written that I didn’t like, then decided that was anti-social and bad. So I vent here, instead! He will never know...
Last week Craig Venter’s company/lab (the guy who raced the government to sequence the human genome) announced what it considered groundbreaking, proof-of-principle work supporting the theoretical basis of synthetic biology. They transplanted the genome of one bacterium into another bacterium (a mycoplasma, which is a special kind of bacteria that lacks cell walls) and, voila, got the transplanted genome to take hold in the new host. Basically, they were able to get the new body to express the genes of the old body and start to exhibit the features unique to the donor organism. This is pretty cool.
But the coverage that I’ve read (not exhaustive, of course) has failed to mention a few things, which I found particularly interesting from the conference call with reporters that Venter held last week (if I hadn’t been on the road and super-rushed, I would have blogged this for work, but alas I missed my chance). Notably:
* The efficiency was very low, something like 1 in 150,000 of the DNA-receiving mycoplasma started using the new genome. I find this important because otherwise it sounds like you take an organism, stick some new DNA in there and automatically the original DNA just rolls over and plays dead. So the fact that it’s kind of a chance procedure, at best, indicates how far, still, we have to go in understanding why one genome and not the other wins out. Anyway, it’s far from clear from the news coverage that this success they’re reporting happened as rarely as it did. Maybe I’m over-emphasizing this. When I heard it brought up in the q-and-a session, I was surprised. At the very least, it explains in part why it’ll be insanely expensive to get synthetic biology on its feet.
* The donor mycoplasma and the host mycoplasma were very, very closely related. So this doesn’t tell us anything about trying to switch up the genomes of arbitrarily chosen organisms, or using genomes generated in the lab, as Venter would like to do. Also, the mycoplasma is a pretty special organism, so extending the results will be hard. The absence of cell walls is important for a reason that I'm hesitant to try and explain off the top of my head.
None of these points devalue the underlying science. But I do think they're important for explaining how science works, why we should care about these findings, what its limitations are. Detail isn't always scary!
I wish science journalism was less hung up on the long-shot justifications for why people should read their stories. The part in these stories that talks about "someday we'll be able to..." should occupy all of one sentence. Then again, this entire post is not fact-checked, and so I'm contributing pretty unreliable information, too.
Last week Craig Venter’s company/lab (the guy who raced the government to sequence the human genome) announced what it considered groundbreaking, proof-of-principle work supporting the theoretical basis of synthetic biology. They transplanted the genome of one bacterium into another bacterium (a mycoplasma, which is a special kind of bacteria that lacks cell walls) and, voila, got the transplanted genome to take hold in the new host. Basically, they were able to get the new body to express the genes of the old body and start to exhibit the features unique to the donor organism. This is pretty cool.
But the coverage that I’ve read (not exhaustive, of course) has failed to mention a few things, which I found particularly interesting from the conference call with reporters that Venter held last week (if I hadn’t been on the road and super-rushed, I would have blogged this for work, but alas I missed my chance). Notably:
* The efficiency was very low, something like 1 in 150,000 of the DNA-receiving mycoplasma started using the new genome. I find this important because otherwise it sounds like you take an organism, stick some new DNA in there and automatically the original DNA just rolls over and plays dead. So the fact that it’s kind of a chance procedure, at best, indicates how far, still, we have to go in understanding why one genome and not the other wins out. Anyway, it’s far from clear from the news coverage that this success they’re reporting happened as rarely as it did. Maybe I’m over-emphasizing this. When I heard it brought up in the q-and-a session, I was surprised. At the very least, it explains in part why it’ll be insanely expensive to get synthetic biology on its feet.
* The donor mycoplasma and the host mycoplasma were very, very closely related. So this doesn’t tell us anything about trying to switch up the genomes of arbitrarily chosen organisms, or using genomes generated in the lab, as Venter would like to do. Also, the mycoplasma is a pretty special organism, so extending the results will be hard. The absence of cell walls is important for a reason that I'm hesitant to try and explain off the top of my head.
None of these points devalue the underlying science. But I do think they're important for explaining how science works, why we should care about these findings, what its limitations are. Detail isn't always scary!
I wish science journalism was less hung up on the long-shot justifications for why people should read their stories. The part in these stories that talks about "someday we'll be able to..." should occupy all of one sentence. Then again, this entire post is not fact-checked, and so I'm contributing pretty unreliable information, too.
Sunday, July 01, 2007
from the annals of transportation
Thursday night, a little after midnight, I boarded the LIRR from Jamaica, headed for Penn Station. A youngish guy walks up to me and says, "Can you help me get to Ocean City?" He has a thick accent, and he seems a little scared. "It is 100 kilometers from New York," says the guy. New York City? New York state? Is it on Long Island? He doesn't know. I promise I'll help him find information once we get to Penn Station, and we get to talking. It turns out he's Kazakh and studying math at Moscow State (a good school). He's a sophomore, and he'd come to the US to work I think... his reasoning seemed ambiguous. All he had with him was a small backpack full of notebooks and a jacket stuffed in a plastic shopping bag. As we're killing time on the train, he says, "Have you seen this film, Borat?" "Oh!" I say, "We all know it was shot in Romania, don't worry." But he did worry, and he set out to convince me he didn't actually live in a village and share a bed with a cow, or sodomize his sisters, or chase Jews around town. I assure him we Americans know better.
When we get to Penn Station, we wander around looking for the information desks but they're all closed. It's now 12:45, and still we don't know where Ocean City is. His English isn't very good and I felt like I couldn't abandon him. I translate some stuff when he doesn't understand, but mostly we spoke in English. "Is Ocean City in New Jersey?" I ask. Finally his eyes light up and he says, "No! Maryland!" My jaw drops, I cuss a little, and I stomp around the Amtrak offices looking for help. Eventually the Kazakh guy pulls out a guide book to the United States (state by state!) in Russian. We find Ocean City on a map, it's a tiny little speck on the coast, 130 miles straight south of Wilmington, Delaware. I'm amazed someone bothered to put it on a map. I stomp around some more, but no one's heard of the place. I decide that he should go to Philly and pray that there's a connecting train. I tell him this, leave my phone number and email address, and leave. It's 1:30 am by this point. He swears his undying gratitude.
I'm worried about the poor kid. I think he only had $100 with him. He was going to meet Kazakh people out there, but only had an email address for them. Isn't that weird? What was he even doing in New York? How was he so helpless? I hope the Amtrak people were nice to him.
The weird thing is, I meet people like this dude all the time. It's like I'm flypaper for profoundly clueless men. [most dramatic example was the South African man in Xi'an who hadn't eaten in days and needed to buy window parts in bulk even though he didn't speak a word of Chinese. It took two days to shake him, but we did find window parts.]
The other update of randomness was that I think I've made peace with the insane woman who lives in the apartment above me. She'd thrown a hissy fit over laundry one day and had pounded on our door, yelled at me, then gone and yanked all my clothes out of the machines and strewn them on the floor of our basement. Well, she turned up a few days ago with a massive bag of Indonesian shoes for me and my roomies. Yes, you CAN buy my forgiveness with sandals from Bali!
When we get to Penn Station, we wander around looking for the information desks but they're all closed. It's now 12:45, and still we don't know where Ocean City is. His English isn't very good and I felt like I couldn't abandon him. I translate some stuff when he doesn't understand, but mostly we spoke in English. "Is Ocean City in New Jersey?" I ask. Finally his eyes light up and he says, "No! Maryland!" My jaw drops, I cuss a little, and I stomp around the Amtrak offices looking for help. Eventually the Kazakh guy pulls out a guide book to the United States (state by state!) in Russian. We find Ocean City on a map, it's a tiny little speck on the coast, 130 miles straight south of Wilmington, Delaware. I'm amazed someone bothered to put it on a map. I stomp around some more, but no one's heard of the place. I decide that he should go to Philly and pray that there's a connecting train. I tell him this, leave my phone number and email address, and leave. It's 1:30 am by this point. He swears his undying gratitude.
I'm worried about the poor kid. I think he only had $100 with him. He was going to meet Kazakh people out there, but only had an email address for them. Isn't that weird? What was he even doing in New York? How was he so helpless? I hope the Amtrak people were nice to him.
The weird thing is, I meet people like this dude all the time. It's like I'm flypaper for profoundly clueless men. [most dramatic example was the South African man in Xi'an who hadn't eaten in days and needed to buy window parts in bulk even though he didn't speak a word of Chinese. It took two days to shake him, but we did find window parts.]
The other update of randomness was that I think I've made peace with the insane woman who lives in the apartment above me. She'd thrown a hissy fit over laundry one day and had pounded on our door, yelled at me, then gone and yanked all my clothes out of the machines and strewn them on the floor of our basement. Well, she turned up a few days ago with a massive bag of Indonesian shoes for me and my roomies. Yes, you CAN buy my forgiveness with sandals from Bali!
Monday, June 18, 2007
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
frontier psychiatry
Keep your heads up, pipeliners! This post is for you.
Back in the fall, I wrote a relatively boring story on Russia's oil and gas tussles with Shell, BP and other energetic monoliths for developing natural gas fields on Sakhalin island and other desolate places. Sakhalin lies in the contested waters between Russia and Japan and was once a penal colony. Apparently Chekhov called it "hell." I'd love to visit!
But that's not funny. The funny part (to me, I know, I'm alone on this.) is that apparently Shell's pipeline builders ALSO think it's hell. The FT published a leaked internal motivational memo with curious comma usage and some fantastic quotes, emboldened below by me. For archiving purposes, I've included the whole damn thing, straight from the FT horse-mouth.
Pipeliners All !
Many thanks to all of you for your contributions to this week’s Bi-Annual Challenge……….and what a Challenge it is going to be for all of us! From the outset, I want to assure you that despite the mutterings on the day and the challenges ahead, I have total faith in you and our collective ability to complete the task ahead of us.
However, some of the comments and body language witnessed at the Bi-annual Challenge meeting do suggest that PDP is running the risk of becoming a team that doesn’t want to fight and lacks confidence in its own ability. Surely, this is not the case? Pipeliners and Engineers, love to fight and win, traditionally. All real engineers love the sting and clash of challenge. All of you are here today on this project for one of several reasons, I suspect. Firstly, to earn a decent living for yourself and your loved ones. Secondly, you are here for your own professional self respect, because you would not want to be anywhere else. Thirdly, you are here because you are real frontier professionals and all professionals like to succeed. So why would any of you not want to rise up and overcome the remaining challenges?
When everyone of you, were kids, I am sure that you all admired the champion marble player, the fastest runner, the toughest boxer, the big league football players. Personally, I like most others love winning. I despise cowards and play to win all of the time. This is what I expect of each and everyone of you going forward this year. Nothing less. Strive to be proud and confident in yourselves, be proud of your tremendous pipeline achievements to date and lift up your level of personal and team energy to show everyone that you are a winning team capable to achieving this year’s goals. If you can crack this angle, I am very confident you can crack the job, with ease.
So Lead me, Follow me or Get out of my way; Success is how we bounce when we are on the bottom.
No one within SEIC appreciates the challenges that PDP have more than himself and I pledge my total support to assist you all in going forward . In fact today, I commissioned the establishment of a Pipeline Recovery Plan Support Team under the leadership of Stephanie Nally to assist all of you going forward. Details of the team are summarised in the enclosed email.
An email sent by David Greer, the deputy chief executive of Sakhalin Energy Investment Company, the consortium running the Sakhalin 2 project, on April 18 to managers and engineers working on the Sakhalin 2 pipeline project.
The FT also points out that the marble champion line actually came from another guy, General George Patton's speech "We Are Here to Fight."
Back in the fall, I wrote a relatively boring story on Russia's oil and gas tussles with Shell, BP and other energetic monoliths for developing natural gas fields on Sakhalin island and other desolate places. Sakhalin lies in the contested waters between Russia and Japan and was once a penal colony. Apparently Chekhov called it "hell." I'd love to visit!
But that's not funny. The funny part (to me, I know, I'm alone on this.) is that apparently Shell's pipeline builders ALSO think it's hell. The FT published a leaked internal motivational memo with curious comma usage and some fantastic quotes, emboldened below by me. For archiving purposes, I've included the whole damn thing, straight from the FT horse-mouth.
Pipeliners All !
Many thanks to all of you for your contributions to this week’s Bi-Annual Challenge……….and what a Challenge it is going to be for all of us! From the outset, I want to assure you that despite the mutterings on the day and the challenges ahead, I have total faith in you and our collective ability to complete the task ahead of us.
However, some of the comments and body language witnessed at the Bi-annual Challenge meeting do suggest that PDP is running the risk of becoming a team that doesn’t want to fight and lacks confidence in its own ability. Surely, this is not the case? Pipeliners and Engineers, love to fight and win, traditionally. All real engineers love the sting and clash of challenge. All of you are here today on this project for one of several reasons, I suspect. Firstly, to earn a decent living for yourself and your loved ones. Secondly, you are here for your own professional self respect, because you would not want to be anywhere else. Thirdly, you are here because you are real frontier professionals and all professionals like to succeed. So why would any of you not want to rise up and overcome the remaining challenges?
When everyone of you, were kids, I am sure that you all admired the champion marble player, the fastest runner, the toughest boxer, the big league football players. Personally, I like most others love winning. I despise cowards and play to win all of the time. This is what I expect of each and everyone of you going forward this year. Nothing less. Strive to be proud and confident in yourselves, be proud of your tremendous pipeline achievements to date and lift up your level of personal and team energy to show everyone that you are a winning team capable to achieving this year’s goals. If you can crack this angle, I am very confident you can crack the job, with ease.
So Lead me, Follow me or Get out of my way; Success is how we bounce when we are on the bottom.
No one within SEIC appreciates the challenges that PDP have more than himself and I pledge my total support to assist you all in going forward . In fact today, I commissioned the establishment of a Pipeline Recovery Plan Support Team under the leadership of Stephanie Nally to assist all of you going forward. Details of the team are summarised in the enclosed email.
An email sent by David Greer, the deputy chief executive of Sakhalin Energy Investment Company, the consortium running the Sakhalin 2 project, on April 18 to managers and engineers working on the Sakhalin 2 pipeline project.
The FT also points out that the marble champion line actually came from another guy, General George Patton's speech "We Are Here to Fight."
Sunday, May 20, 2007
job dissatisfaction
As most of my decision-making tends to happen, I decided, on a last-minute whim, to register for a class at Planned Parenthood on sex ed in New York City schools. The idea behind the class is to examine what kids are being taught in schools, whose education programs tend to center around abstinence platitudes like, "if you don't aim to please, don't aim to tease." I figured, whatever, not my usual scene but still somewhat intriguing.
However, by the time I got around to RSVPing, the event was fully booked. Usually I would throw down the press credential and presto change-o, all of a sudden there's plenty of room. I imagine that would happen here, too. But I challenge you, mythical reader, to come up with a relationship between electrical engineering and sex. Short of teledildonics--waaaay over-reported by those excitable folks at Wired--there is nothing, nothing I tell you!
Best answer wins a hippo.
However, by the time I got around to RSVPing, the event was fully booked. Usually I would throw down the press credential and presto change-o, all of a sudden there's plenty of room. I imagine that would happen here, too. But I challenge you, mythical reader, to come up with a relationship between electrical engineering and sex. Short of teledildonics--waaaay over-reported by those excitable folks at Wired--there is nothing, nothing I tell you!
Best answer wins a hippo.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
this is even weirder!
forget my previous post on lifting and twisting animals. This one truly speaks for itself, and it's on sale on eBay, RIGHT NOW!
U. S. PATENT FOR BOOT SPIKES BIKER OR COOL PEOPLE
"We have the pleasure of offering This U.S. Patent # D 453987 S for the Boot Spikes. Shown in photos are prototypes that were hand made and they can be put on any color or style leather, webbed fabric or mesh fabric. These Spikes could be easily mass produced with the right equipment. Boot Spikes are really hot with the younger generation and bikers and can be made any color, like sparkling rhinestones or leather. If you are looking for a product that has potential to make money, take a look at this. No payment due until you come visit us for inspection and demostration and ownership changes hands. Our client invented these and went thru the process of obtaining the patent, it can be yours..."
Just to be clear on this--I have no problem with somebody selling boot spikes biker or cool people, but the PATENT for them? And indeed, the USPTO issued a patent for a "pair of animal repelling boot harnesses" in February 2001. The asking price is $100,000.
U. S. PATENT FOR BOOT SPIKES BIKER OR COOL PEOPLE
"We have the pleasure of offering This U.S. Patent # D 453987 S for the Boot Spikes. Shown in photos are prototypes that were hand made and they can be put on any color or style leather, webbed fabric or mesh fabric. These Spikes could be easily mass produced with the right equipment. Boot Spikes are really hot with the younger generation and bikers and can be made any color, like sparkling rhinestones or leather. If you are looking for a product that has potential to make money, take a look at this. No payment due until you come visit us for inspection and demostration and ownership changes hands. Our client invented these and went thru the process of obtaining the patent, it can be yours..."
Just to be clear on this--I have no problem with somebody selling boot spikes biker or cool people, but the PATENT for them? And indeed, the USPTO issued a patent for a "pair of animal repelling boot harnesses" in February 2001. The asking price is $100,000.
Save the lesser bodily discomfort!
I came across this while perusing online patent auction sites. I'm afraid to imagine what this thing actually does:
Device for Animal Husbandry
The Dawmac Stock Handler has a revolving and lifting action that can be used for husbandry of sheep, cattle, goats, pigs and deer. It is ideal for drenching, all types of foot work, dagging, mouthing, bellying, eye clipping, stud stock work, ewe-lamb mothering etc.
It can be used by a number of power / energy sources - air pressure, gas, water, oil, etc.
This is a machine designed specifically to help farmers in lifting heavy objects and twisting. The machine saves the operator's back and other lesser bodily discomfort.
Device for Animal Husbandry
The Dawmac Stock Handler has a revolving and lifting action that can be used for husbandry of sheep, cattle, goats, pigs and deer. It is ideal for drenching, all types of foot work, dagging, mouthing, bellying, eye clipping, stud stock work, ewe-lamb mothering etc.
It can be used by a number of power / energy sources - air pressure, gas, water, oil, etc.
This is a machine designed specifically to help farmers in lifting heavy objects and twisting. The machine saves the operator's back and other lesser bodily discomfort.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Fish - Fish - Fish
What need is there for fish to sing, when I can roar and bellow?
Oh, several months have passed, and I have not one excuse for the pure neglect that seems to characterize my treatment of you, Blog. But I recently returned from a trip to the Bahamas, and I have a thought.
I was thinking about how on my trip I only saw one (living) fish, and how that was odd given the amount of water I encountered. It seemed a bit disappointing that I’d in fact seen much more interesting fish the previous week in a Chinatown bar, whose toilet had one wall that was entirely fish tank. You end up doing your business in a room that's lit by aquarium-glow while staring at brightly illuminated fish. Weird. (this is NOT to imply that the rest of that bar is anything resembling "normal." Please. DO NOT make that logical leap.) Amazingly, no one on the other side of the fish tank could see through---I'm not sure how that works. There was one fish with a really large lump on its forehead, the kind of lump that makes you think he's not long for this world. He swam more slowly than the others, and we hypothesized that Brain Fish was the only one with the powers to grasp the absurdity of tanklife, and had a very bad headache.
The Bahamanians, by contrast, were much more interested in doing devastating things to groupers and conches and dolphins (!! I suspect this was code for mahi mahi) and serving them on plates.
But this fishlessness also reminded me of my science writing class's strange discovery last year that there are no ants in Riverside Park (we counted--even the professor, the world's finest ant man, was stumped). So I thought, what is up with this lack of biodiversity? Or rather, to be more upbeat about things, what’s up with this bio university. Now obviously that’s a weird term with all its scholarly implications. But then I ran into trouble comparing ‘diverse’ and ‘universe’. Universe as we know it means the everything, the one whole thing, but shouldn’t it perhaps also mean half of diverse? Ick, I broke language. I also looked up universe and ended up with a definition telling me that the universe is the only closed system, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.
I suspect if I became more attuned to these sorts of constructions-—or through some bizarre time warp (or twisted parental joke) had to learn English as a native Latin speaker-—things would become completely incomprehensible.
Yeah, yeah, mono- would probably resolve my troubles with uni-. But that’s not nearly as enjoyable as the University of Bio.
Oh, several months have passed, and I have not one excuse for the pure neglect that seems to characterize my treatment of you, Blog. But I recently returned from a trip to the Bahamas, and I have a thought.
I was thinking about how on my trip I only saw one (living) fish, and how that was odd given the amount of water I encountered. It seemed a bit disappointing that I’d in fact seen much more interesting fish the previous week in a Chinatown bar, whose toilet had one wall that was entirely fish tank. You end up doing your business in a room that's lit by aquarium-glow while staring at brightly illuminated fish. Weird. (this is NOT to imply that the rest of that bar is anything resembling "normal." Please. DO NOT make that logical leap.) Amazingly, no one on the other side of the fish tank could see through---I'm not sure how that works. There was one fish with a really large lump on its forehead, the kind of lump that makes you think he's not long for this world. He swam more slowly than the others, and we hypothesized that Brain Fish was the only one with the powers to grasp the absurdity of tanklife, and had a very bad headache.
The Bahamanians, by contrast, were much more interested in doing devastating things to groupers and conches and dolphins (!! I suspect this was code for mahi mahi) and serving them on plates.
But this fishlessness also reminded me of my science writing class's strange discovery last year that there are no ants in Riverside Park (we counted--even the professor, the world's finest ant man, was stumped). So I thought, what is up with this lack of biodiversity? Or rather, to be more upbeat about things, what’s up with this bio university. Now obviously that’s a weird term with all its scholarly implications. But then I ran into trouble comparing ‘diverse’ and ‘universe’. Universe as we know it means the everything, the one whole thing, but shouldn’t it perhaps also mean half of diverse? Ick, I broke language. I also looked up universe and ended up with a definition telling me that the universe is the only closed system, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.
I suspect if I became more attuned to these sorts of constructions-—or through some bizarre time warp (or twisted parental joke) had to learn English as a native Latin speaker-—things would become completely incomprehensible.
Yeah, yeah, mono- would probably resolve my troubles with uni-. But that’s not nearly as enjoyable as the University of Bio.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Hi, Kirstin!
Completely, utterly randomly (or the next best thing), I ended up sitting next to this guy at dinner on Sunday who is a venture capitalist who'd wanted to invest in imeem! When he found out I went to Stanford, he started quizzing me about what the deal was with symbolic systems. He'd met Dalton, and was thoroughly confused about his educational background. He then expressed his grave disappointment that some other VC firm beat him to imeem. Itsby bitsy planet, my friend!
The backstory is that a group of about ten of us had met for Afghan food to plan a bid for a 49% stake in the state-owned Uzbek Airways (it's for sale). Given how little any of us knew about a) finance and b) Uzbekistan, the imeem VC guy was about as investment-savvy as we were going to get. Some choice nuggets from Uzbek Airway's user reviews:
- "The London to Tashkent flight was ok, however the seats on the aircraft were broken. The food was rubbish the yogurt was out of date. Service very poor and shoddy. Cabin crew, ladies were ok but the men are typical Russians. Tashkent airport is worse than Amritsar, the toilets, sorry shall i say what toilets."
- "I have flown with this airline a few times and am always intrigued by the two male flight attendents or flight crew members who laze around in business or first class for the entire journey. I only see them opening and closing the doors. What do they do?"
- "Very uncomfortable landings as it appears these former Russian pilots are not fully trained to fly the Boeing aircraft."
- "the plane was carrying a huge spare aircraft tire in the passenger cabin. The jet had it's auxillary power engine turned on, which is located under the fuselage, so when we ran from the terminal to the jet it was absolutely deafeningly loud - I mean so loud I had to stop running and cover my ears. But the plane didn't crash, so that's a positive aspect."
- "Didn't serve vegetarian food. Plane was dirty and unpleasant foul smell (urine) throughout the flight."
- "I love how the staff use their cell phones during the flight - very reassuring."
***
On a separate note:
With the beginning of Scooter Libby's trial, I have one thing to mention. Doesn't it seem odd that there's all this fuss about exposing a CIA operative whose codename was her maiden name? Come on, not exactly deep cover here! I know, I know, the deal is whether or not he lied, and exposing an operative is never good, but I fail to grasp how this was such a travesty in the first place. If you're some secret intelligence cell out there and you can't figure out who this Valerie Plame person might be, y'aren't exactly trying.
The backstory is that a group of about ten of us had met for Afghan food to plan a bid for a 49% stake in the state-owned Uzbek Airways (it's for sale). Given how little any of us knew about a) finance and b) Uzbekistan, the imeem VC guy was about as investment-savvy as we were going to get. Some choice nuggets from Uzbek Airway's user reviews:
- "The London to Tashkent flight was ok, however the seats on the aircraft were broken. The food was rubbish the yogurt was out of date. Service very poor and shoddy. Cabin crew, ladies were ok but the men are typical Russians. Tashkent airport is worse than Amritsar, the toilets, sorry shall i say what toilets."
- "I have flown with this airline a few times and am always intrigued by the two male flight attendents or flight crew members who laze around in business or first class for the entire journey. I only see them opening and closing the doors. What do they do?"
- "Very uncomfortable landings as it appears these former Russian pilots are not fully trained to fly the Boeing aircraft."
- "the plane was carrying a huge spare aircraft tire in the passenger cabin. The jet had it's auxillary power engine turned on, which is located under the fuselage, so when we ran from the terminal to the jet it was absolutely deafeningly loud - I mean so loud I had to stop running and cover my ears. But the plane didn't crash, so that's a positive aspect."
- "Didn't serve vegetarian food. Plane was dirty and unpleasant foul smell (urine) throughout the flight."
- "I love how the staff use their cell phones during the flight - very reassuring."
***
On a separate note:
With the beginning of Scooter Libby's trial, I have one thing to mention. Doesn't it seem odd that there's all this fuss about exposing a CIA operative whose codename was her maiden name? Come on, not exactly deep cover here! I know, I know, the deal is whether or not he lied, and exposing an operative is never good, but I fail to grasp how this was such a travesty in the first place. If you're some secret intelligence cell out there and you can't figure out who this Valerie Plame person might be, y'aren't exactly trying.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
we don't pop collars, we pop dollars
I'm watching The Wire and yeah, it's as good as everyone says. One drug-dealing kid explains to two like-minded guys the rules of chess. "And what about those ball-headed bitches?" "Those? Those are pawns." Rad! I bet that's a linguistic first. Two other fun quotes gleaned from the written world:
"NOAA looked at the Air Force and said, 'Huh, goose-stepping fascists.' And the Air Force looked at NOAA and said, 'Fish-kissing tree huggers.'"
Yeah!
One more: "Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore."
So I wrote this story about flying cars. A negative one, saying how they're just clunky and messy and kind of a bad idea. I picked on one particular engineering team, and for that I feel guilty. But the interesting part has been the fallout. The first response was a turbocharged tirade about how I'm totally wrong about everything, and I need to be peer-reviewed and possibly fired. That letter was written by some guy who spent his whole life designing flying cars for Ford. Awesome Ford, good investment there.
The next letter went something like this: "You're so right! Thanks for taking down those fraudy engineers. There's no science behind their fancy animations, not a prototype in sight! My flying car, however, is AMAZING! It's already almost really here! Check it out, you'll be blown away!!"
The next three were all in the same vein: Thank you for writing this story, I am a flying car designer, tell me what you think of my model. wtf?
Who knew there were all these closeted--but opinionated--flying car designers out there. I thought I'd interviewed them all.
I got nuthin else to report this week. I spent one whole day drawing some dude's right hand holding a door knob, badly, and two days writing and taping my radio thing on the native american canadian indians, or whatever you call native americans not living in "america" who carry around little cards that say they're officially "indian." The rest of the week was lost to a foggy haze of brain. current reading: still "angle of repose" by wallace stegner, and the collected works of IEEE Internet Computing.
Now I'm watching Weeds. Best show EVER.
"NOAA looked at the Air Force and said, 'Huh, goose-stepping fascists.' And the Air Force looked at NOAA and said, 'Fish-kissing tree huggers.'"
Yeah!
One more: "Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore."
So I wrote this story about flying cars. A negative one, saying how they're just clunky and messy and kind of a bad idea. I picked on one particular engineering team, and for that I feel guilty. But the interesting part has been the fallout. The first response was a turbocharged tirade about how I'm totally wrong about everything, and I need to be peer-reviewed and possibly fired. That letter was written by some guy who spent his whole life designing flying cars for Ford. Awesome Ford, good investment there.
The next letter went something like this: "You're so right! Thanks for taking down those fraudy engineers. There's no science behind their fancy animations, not a prototype in sight! My flying car, however, is AMAZING! It's already almost really here! Check it out, you'll be blown away!!"
The next three were all in the same vein: Thank you for writing this story, I am a flying car designer, tell me what you think of my model. wtf?
Who knew there were all these closeted--but opinionated--flying car designers out there. I thought I'd interviewed them all.
I got nuthin else to report this week. I spent one whole day drawing some dude's right hand holding a door knob, badly, and two days writing and taping my radio thing on the native american canadian indians, or whatever you call native americans not living in "america" who carry around little cards that say they're officially "indian." The rest of the week was lost to a foggy haze of brain. current reading: still "angle of repose" by wallace stegner, and the collected works of IEEE Internet Computing.
Now I'm watching Weeds. Best show EVER.
Monday, January 01, 2007
hey there, 2007
from a conversation this morning:
SU: say, there's a christmas tree on top of the bookcase.
HS: yeah, you put it there.
SU: who puts a christmas tree on top of a bookcase??
HS: you do.
SU: why??
HS: it seemed like a good idea? it looked lonely on the sidewalk? you were drunk.
I'd have to say the best part of New Year's Eve, despite all the weird and fun episodes of the night, was the barely sentient pizza-eating at 5am on Houston. If not for that, Monday would have been far worse... at least I was capable of walking today. [another artifact of the evening--i shouldn't post this publicly, but it's just too odd. if someone who's asked you out a million times but also thinks you're a schizophrenic lesbian tries to set you up with their (male) friend, what does that mean? is it a test or an olive branch? and if it is a test, how do you "prove" you're not a lesbian? not that I'd want to, it all seems too devious for my taste. I much prefer the peace offering theory, that it was all a bygones-be-bygones kind of thing.]
I was hoping to do a 2006 top-ten songs and albums, but it's looking less likely as January rolls along. However, Nelly Furtado, if you're reading this, please for the love of god stick with Timbaland! Nothing better could have happened to your career. I even admitted I liked "Promiscuous" and "Maneater" in front of my snobby music-clubbing friends. Our year-end meeting was a big one for revelations. Some members admitted their fondness of the Dixie Chicks, others derided them. The one guy who always plays long math-rock anthems played long math-rock anthems that everyone else hated. All agreed we liked this year's Camera Obscura album.
Also, my vote for person of the year goes to Justin Timberlake. Between "My Love" and "Dick in a Box," the man provided more legitimate entertainment than any celebrity since Garth Brooks brushed his bangs and became the lite-rockin' Chris Gaines. (Honorable mentions for '06 antics go to Britney Spears and Mel Gibson.)
Today's playlist: Josh Ritter, Emily Haines, Malajube, The Knife. Not that those make any sense together...
SU: say, there's a christmas tree on top of the bookcase.
HS: yeah, you put it there.
SU: who puts a christmas tree on top of a bookcase??
HS: you do.
SU: why??
HS: it seemed like a good idea? it looked lonely on the sidewalk? you were drunk.
I'd have to say the best part of New Year's Eve, despite all the weird and fun episodes of the night, was the barely sentient pizza-eating at 5am on Houston. If not for that, Monday would have been far worse... at least I was capable of walking today. [another artifact of the evening--i shouldn't post this publicly, but it's just too odd. if someone who's asked you out a million times but also thinks you're a schizophrenic lesbian tries to set you up with their (male) friend, what does that mean? is it a test or an olive branch? and if it is a test, how do you "prove" you're not a lesbian? not that I'd want to, it all seems too devious for my taste. I much prefer the peace offering theory, that it was all a bygones-be-bygones kind of thing.]
I was hoping to do a 2006 top-ten songs and albums, but it's looking less likely as January rolls along. However, Nelly Furtado, if you're reading this, please for the love of god stick with Timbaland! Nothing better could have happened to your career. I even admitted I liked "Promiscuous" and "Maneater" in front of my snobby music-clubbing friends. Our year-end meeting was a big one for revelations. Some members admitted their fondness of the Dixie Chicks, others derided them. The one guy who always plays long math-rock anthems played long math-rock anthems that everyone else hated. All agreed we liked this year's Camera Obscura album.
Also, my vote for person of the year goes to Justin Timberlake. Between "My Love" and "Dick in a Box," the man provided more legitimate entertainment than any celebrity since Garth Brooks brushed his bangs and became the lite-rockin' Chris Gaines. (Honorable mentions for '06 antics go to Britney Spears and Mel Gibson.)
Today's playlist: Josh Ritter, Emily Haines, Malajube, The Knife. Not that those make any sense together...
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