brain on flu

I just finished reading 'Twilight', the mega-best seller that was recently made into a movie (which I have not seen), since I heard (ahem) that the movie was good, and I figured I might as well read the book since it's always better. I hadn't counted on the fact that it would take longer to read the book than it would have taken to watch the movie, and that those would be hours of my life that I'll never get back. The plot turned out to be almost unreadably trite (girl hates boy, girl loves boy, boy saves girl from someone who wants to eat her), with characters I couldn't care about. Edward is a perfect high school god who natters on about how dangerous he is, and Bella ... smells good? Look, I'm no literary snob, I can enjoy almost anything, I loved the Harry Potter series, but Twilight was a real challenge even for my flu-dazed brain. The vampires weren't remotely scary, even the ones that were supposed to be scary, and I speak as one who is easily scared. There was no creepiness. It was like reading Sweet Valley High, except that the cool dude was technically dead. I just don't understand how this book made it to the top of the NYT bestseller list.

Anyway. Now, for a really good vampire novel, may I suggest Fevre Dream (GRR Martin), or Sunshine (Robin McKinley).

from cough syrup to turkey

This Thanksgiving, despite the best-laid plans, I caught the flu and wound up flat on the couch for about three days. My diet consisted basically of this:


so we canceled all of our plans to visit friends and relatives. However, Mike rose to the challenge and managed to cook an excellent meal:



(Yes, we did eat the pumpkin pie first.) He basted the turkey fanatically and it came out amazingly well.

Meanwhile, I mustered just enough energy to read comic books and watch DVDs. :)

Spain, again?

It seems like a long time since I've updated this blog. In fact, one might suppose that I've been in Spain this whole time, considering that now I'm posting fresh pictures from Mallorca. (Mike and I went to a small conference there - probably <100 attendees.) The hotel was beautiful, with a private beach and 3 squares a day (I should say 'rounds' given the number of calories I consumed).






The hotel sort of staggered down the cliffside, so about 10 stories up from the beach was a rooftop accessible from one flight of stairs off the road.








We explored a bit of the town (Illetes),








but came to the conclusion that there's nothing wrong with being pampered in the hotel. After all, our room had a balcony overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.














not to mention the hotel's 18-hole miniature golf course. Which we did play through completely.















We also went to Munich, but I don't have many pictures from there (it was raining), and all I remember is the beer. Oh, and the biophysicists.

Okay, time to leave work and make food for hubby wubby (his last class today ends at 9:30pm). This weekend I'm moving in with h.w. . Wish me luck!

P.S. Anyone going to be in the NYC/Philadelphia area for Thanksgiving?

Spain, now in pixel vision!

We landed in Barcelona and traveled two hours to Sant Feliu on Costa Brava the next day for the conference. Here is a typical view of Sant Feliu's 'downtown':



Sometimes I needed to be reminded of where we were. Fortunately, the name of this street is 'Mediterra'. But where are the elves?



Probably the best thing about Spain was the food, including the hot chocolate, which should have been called chocolate mousse.



Europe is SO different; wine with lunch, euros instead of dollars, A4 instead of letter. I also discovered that the A4 dimensions influenced other ratios in real life, such as pillowcases



and toilet paper



Say, those ain't no squares!

There was a lot of rain, but the two days of sunshine in Sant Feliu were terrific.


There is a limit to the amount of outdoor frolicking one can do, even on a sunny day. Here's the view from our hotel room. (Musically talented boyfriend costs extra.)


The conference organized an expedition to Girona, a large, old city in Catalonia. It was like walking around in a medieval castle (it probably WAS a medieval castle), except with cafes on every other block.







I wasn't really thinking about my dream wedding dress, but it was taunting me even in Girona:


For a highly sophisticated society, there was a surprising amount of crap to deal with.


The helpful note says: PELIGRO est es una mierda (DANGER this is a poop.)

Mike noted that the message is held up by a drinking straw.

I also visited Madrid, which was a huge city filled by a hodgepodge of classical and modern buildings. On many of these old buildings, I enjoyed the tiny architectural details that they seem to take for granted (when I commented on a lovely system of window latches, Mike's friend exclaimed, 'what, that's so old-fashioned!'). Although I don't have a picture of the latches, here is a detail from my hotel. I have no idea what its function is - maybe preventing the window shutters from hitting the wall?- but isn't it pretty?



P.S. Mike says it holds the shutter open.

Well, Spain was fun, but it's good to be back!

Text only

I'm in Madrid right now, having just read Malcolm Gladwell's book 'Outliers' (recommended by a particularly shy blogger - you know who you are!). I hope many, many people read this book. Gladwell's main point is that success depends largely on apparently irrelevant circumstances, such as what month you were born in, and that a small bit of early success gets amplified into stardom for a few lucky people. One of the most compelling cases concerns star athletes, who are culled from a young age from successively more selective little leagues. Since young children are grouped by age, those who are born just after the cutoff (e.g., Dec. 31) have a big advantage because they are bigger and stronger than their peers. They do better at the sport, get picked for intense training, get better as a result, with the result that most pro hockey players in Canada were born in the first quarter of the year.

Gladwell also talks about how cultural norms play a huge role in determining success of upper class children vs. lower class children (which we already knew), and that it's really the summertime activities that let the upper class children get ahead (judging from standardized test scores). He was less successful at convincing me that Asian kids are better at math because their ancestors had a rice paddy work ethic (seems to me that this would translate into a nonspecific advantage). A particularly chilling example of the importance of cultural norms is discussed with regard to airline accidents, where the degree of assertiveness of the crew was important (e.g. the willingness of the first officer to contradict the captain), although I would have liked to see more statistics.

Another interesting point he makes is that above a certain threshold, IQ is largely irrelevant to success, since other types of intelligence (like practical intelligence and creativity) are also important (and, based on personal experience, probably not correlated with IQ. :) )

Why am I reading my Kindle when I could be touring Madrid, visiting the Prado museum, or getting a Mediterranean suntan? Well, I did walk around a bit, saw old and new buildings, and ate some Spanish tapas, but ultimately what I really wanted to do was read. I know I should be taking better advantage of the location, but actually I can't wait to get back home to do some wedding planning oops! I mean labwork. :)

Anyway, this book made me think about lab culture, and how to encourage a culture of assertiveness and self-reliance in an atmosphere of hierarchy (such as at Harvard). I'll probably start having mini-lab meetings soon; maybe I'll try to start a tradition of recounting mistakes, so we can all benefit from each other's experiences and so people will be less intimidated by others. That'll be a good exercise in self-examination, anyway!

Whew, I just got back from dinner which lasted for 4 hours (no kidding!). First were drinks, then a leisurely meal of fried baby squid, cured pork (a Spanish specialty), sardines, angler fish (all with white wine) and sorbet with cava (the Spanish equivalent of champagne).

Markovnikov's rule

Remember the salary cap on executives of failing companies that are being bailed out by the government? Well, it looks like it's not going to bother them too much, given how much they are about to receive in contractually required bonuses. AIG execs are going to get $165 million. It's a lot like addition reactions across a C=C; the rich get richer. For a little frustration release, I'd recommend watching Jon Stewart's smackdown with CNBC's talking head from the world of financial scum, Jim Cramer.

A couple days ago I gave a talk at the University of Southern Maine. It was in the planetarium!


Not only was my slideshow projected onto a dome, but the room was illuminated by Christmas lights. Whee!

Poo!

Now I know why I'm writing these entries: it makes me feel socially connected and therefore happier, according to a recent pyschology study. Gosh, I hope someone's reading this...

Check out this fantastic paper from Creative Papers in Tasmania: it's made from kangaroo poop (giggle)!

Now for some eye candy:

Photo from Devoto wedding via The Offbeat Bride blog

Surprising edible fish

I don't know why so many of my blog entries reflect a fascination with Valentine's Day merchandise, but I just couldn't let this one go without comment.



Yes, that's a chocolate trout. With little crispies inside. I know because I've tasted it. No, I did not buy it. Yes, that is Mike's hand.

I've seen a lot of amusing valentine's gifts, but I could always imagine how some poor fellow would be desperately looking for a silly/sweet gift for his gal, and would pick up the bag of marshmallow hearts or the stuffed cow plastered with pink hearts (see previous posting of 1/28/09). But I just couldn't understand the fish, until Mike pointed out that it must be intended as a gift for guys. I guess I missed that because it was surrounded by chocolate roses and teddy bears, but in isolation I suppose it could look reasonably masculine...

The chocolate fish reminded me of one of my favorite T-shirt designs:


Photo: http://www.engrish.com/2001/11/i-hate-myself-and-i-want-to-die/


OMG, OMG, that reminds me, I found the perfect wedding dress!


Photo: from this website here, apparently originally from etsy

Hey, at least it has character! Or rather, characters.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I'm a day late with this one. Actually, we were originally supposed to go to Boskone on Valentine's day (my gift to Mike was paying for his admission; his gift to me was actually accompanying me there. It did take some pleading. :) He says he enjoyed it, so I'll take that at face value.) Instead, on pink hearts day we ended up doing various work (me) and home improvement (Mike) tasks, but we did go out for dinner to a new Thai/Vietnamese restaurant down the road on the Somerville/Cambridge line. Yes, that is a heart made out of hot sauce.

Although the food was mediocre, they did wind up the meal with some appropriate chocolate mint treats. Sorry about the bite marks. :)

Spec fic edition

In case you have been living without a TV (like me), you may have missed the hype leading to the new series Dollhouse, created by Joss Whedon and starring Eliza Dushku (Faith from Buffy!). I did hear a great interview of Joss on Fresh Air (NPR). Unlike most directors, he is genuinely interesting, and mentioned, among others things, that he had consulted informally with a feminist group while creating Dollhouse. By the way, Joss is a fan of Battlestar Galactica (also available online) whose early seasons are definitely on par with the best of Buffy. In fact, hearing the creator's commentary on Battlestar Galactica only served to remind me how much I enjoyed Joss' commentary on Buffy (the BSG commentaries are not that insightful).

The premise of Dollhouse is an illegal operation that recruits volunteers, wipes their memories and personalities, implants new ones according to customer specs, and rents out the dolls for usage. I saw the first episode, available online; although I wasn't completely sold on the show, I am definitely willing to watch more to see where they go with it.

The Fresh Air interview reminded me Joss' other recent project, Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog. Apparently the DVD version has a sing-along commentary with the directors, etc, singing their commentary! Clearly these are people who like their job; Dr. Horrible was actually made during the writer's strike. (If they stopped paying you, how hard would you work?) By the way, the actor (if he looks familiar to you) is Neil Patrick Harris, who also played Doogie Howser.


Today Mike and I went to Boskone, the New England Sci Fi Assoc's annual convention in Boston. It was really fun! The best part was seeing so many speculative fiction fans (who on average are and look like nerds) being totally un-self-conscious of wearing a warrior's cape, chain mail, or a zillion scarves, and just having fun in a supportive, positive atmosphere. We saw Geoffrey Landis, who is actually also a real scientist, read some of his poems and a short story. We were two of six people in that room! The most entertaining poem was 'Gulliver's Boots', about a pair of Exponential Boots that always takes its wearer twice as far as the previous step. We also heard some filk, browsed a lot of books and artwork (see left for a tie containing the Tardis), and sniffed a lot of spice concoctions. If you visit me, look for the print 'Cave Cooking with Chef Dragone'. Any takers for next year? :)

Mike recently introduced me to some sci fi that made me doubt my love for the genre (Dr. Who: Logopolis). However, now I must say that it was not all in vain, for I readily recognized the blue phone booth on the Tardis tie. It's true that the idea of the Logopolians is cool (they are human calculators who compute the form of the universe, which is too difficult a calculation for computers), but the production, the writing, the soundtrack, the acting... ack!

Here are two of my current favorite authors: Lois McMaster Bujold, who writes space odyssey and epic fantasy (awesome storytelling); and George RR Martin, who writes truly creepy under-your-fingernails short stories ('The Pear-shaped Man' and 'Sandkings') and apparently also writes great fantasy, although I haven't read those books yet.

Happy privacy day

Photo: NASA

Did you know that the Mars Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, are still working? Those little robots were originally intended to last for 3 months. They've been chugging away for five years now! Unfortunately, it sounds like something might be wrong with Spirit. But they've definitely Exceeded Expectations in an Outstanding way.

Come to think of it, does anyone else think that WALL-E is a cutified version of the rovers?


Photo: Pixar

Yesterday we went grocery shopping and stumbled immediately into this display:



So, would you rather compare your beloved to a cow or a pig?

I know, I know, pigs can be cute. That reminds me:



Now that's cute!

Sunlight

As many of you know, my office has no windows. It does have a sliver of glass that looks into Big Faculty's office, which (by the way) has a long wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. Up until yesterday, I had never seen natural sunlight in my office. But, it turns out that at 7 am, this is how my office looks:



Apparently, at this early hour after the sun has risen, a sliver of light does manage to hit at just the right angle to illuminate my wall. Pretty neat, right? Now I know why my plants (which can be seen in the 'window') are still alive.

Yesterday I watched the TV miniseries 'Earthsea', based on Ursula LeGuin's books. I had gotten this on VCD in Hong Kong (it's legal, although the VCD format is unpopular in the US, probably because DVDs are higher quality). It turned out to be overdubbed in Cantonese. Whoops! Fortunately, the English was carried primarily in the right channel, so listening only to the right channel made it just barely tolerable (if the English and Cantonese speakers' voices were at different pitches, I could fairly readily 'bandpass' the audio in my head). I remembered loving those books back when I read them, but I did not love this miniseries. It borrowed way too much from Lord of the Rings (the movie), including nearly literal copies of underwater scenes (swamp struggle) and musical atmosphere (remember the wooden flute music that evoked the Shire?). It was like they flipped through the book looking for scenes that resembled something from LotR, filmed them in one take, and stuck them together randomly. And the CGI was worse than a video game. Anyway, I couldn't believe how bad it was, so I Googled it and found that Ursula LeGuin had posted some entertaining criticisms of the miniseries. Sigh. I suppose my expectations were high, given how well the LoTR movies had captured the spirit of the books.

I was just listening to the Obauguration celebration on the radio; HBO and NPR music sponsored a concert. I have to say that hearing millions of people sing 'This land is your land, this land is my land' with Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen made me feel pretty good.

Finally:
Good news: temperature today in the double digits
Bad news: snow
My street this morning:

A blog falls in the forest...

Presenting my blog entry in Science origins, at last! I have no idea how anyone else finds the weblink, though.

Otherwise, things are going well; we're writing a paper, and I've started an exercise routine at home. (Well, since two days ago.) It's only for maybe 10-15 minutes a day, but it's still a lot better than what I was doing before (0 minutes). My goal is to get to the point when I can do real push-ups instead of girl push-ups.

It might take a while.

DIY haircut

I almost always feel cheated after spending $20-$40 for a haircut, because I figure I could have done myself (since my hair is straight and long), plus having to make conversation while in the chair, AND the stress of anticipating something horrible happening while you can't see anything (if you wear glasses). It's kind of the same feeling I get in a taxi. I suppose it's nice to get compliments about your hair, but those are always suspect because you figure they have an ulterior motive. (Am I too suspicious?) Besides, Mike is always good for a few compliments - although I suppose one may consider the ulterior motives there too! :)

So, this feeling + the fact that my mom used to cut my hair with no special training + some free time on Saturday night = do-it-yourself haircut! I did some Googling, compared a couple techniques, and was finally convinced by this humorous explanation. So I did it!

It turned out a little shorter than I was planning; it's hard to judge when your hair is wet and upside-down. But I'd say it's as good as the average haircut I've gotten before. The best part is that the whole thing took less time than going to a hair salon, and I can do it at my leisure at 11pm at night.

I was originally planning to put a picture of the haircut up here, but I couldn't get a good one on Photo Booth. But, it did remind me of some pictures that Connie and I took while we were bored at an airport; must have been a couple years ago. I can't remember why we were at the airport or even which airport it was, but I do remember sitting at a cafe table and amusing ourselves with the effects (there is a control for comparison).








In other news, I finally got fed up with the ridiculously small email quotas we have at work (I think it's something like 400 MB now... a virtual bonanza compared to 200 MB which they started with), which I kept requesting to be increased. They did so, grudgingly and very stingily. Let's just compare that with Gmail, which offers 7 GB free, and counting. Also, I really like the Gmail app, and am continually frustrated by the slothful pace of Outlook. The result is that I decided to take the plunge into using Gmail for work. It turns out all you have to do is make a new account in Outlook for your Gmail account, following Gmail's instructions for IMAP, and then copy/move all your mail from your previous exchange account into your new one. Simple! Except Outlook choked at first, maybe because of the quantity of email; now I'm using Outlook in safe mode (who knew there was such a thing?) and it works, although sometimes it gets stuck. I hope I'm not losing mail. Yup, my weekend is pretty much spoken for. Fun!

Paying no attention

I just had the strange experience of downloading a podcast from the Gardner museum, which posts its concert series, listening to a song for 10 minutes, and then suddenly realizing that it was in English! (Ralph Vaughan Williams.) I think I unconsciously assumed it was German and stopped processing the words at all.

Anyone interested in a sci-fi convention in Boston next month? There's going to be one at Harvard also, but that one looks like mostly gamers (that's too intimidating for me).

Okay, back to Elfquest (a gift from Mike's brother's wife), followed by an evening trip back to lab to start a probe hybridization. Yay!

Cell phone resurrection

Over the holidays Mike figured out how to transfer my cell phone photos to my computer via Bluetooth. Speaking of how nature soothes the brain, in the shot above we have the Mt. Auburn cemetery in the springtime. See, Boston weather is nice for a couple months a year, right?

A couple years ago, the US post office released a bunch of stamps commemorating the new Star Wars movies. This led to some neat ads:



which some might say were more entertaining than the actual movies. Don't get me wrong, Episodes IV-VI are still exciting and stunning to watch, but let's face it, the last three just haven't had much juice. Those of you who have known me for a while know how painful it is for me to admit that. By the way, don't miss David Brin's book 'The Postman'; the post office is definitely one of the most useful but underappreciated parts of our government.

Finally, here's a cute picture of my mom and me after graduation in 2007, standing outside my dorm at MIT. That was a nice place to live, right on the Charles river. Now I can even recall the antisocial personalities there with fondness... there was the girl who cooked fish directly on the stovetop, the girl who constantly blew a whistle to warn the rest of us to stay out of her way, the girl who made toilet paper artwork on the bathroom floor... those were the days.

Facebook wallflower

I tried logging on to Facebook a few minutes ago, thinking that I could transfer this blog there for easier access by others. But suddenly I had to decide who to include as friends. Gossipy work colleagues? Former advisors? Current students? Would I be limited to polite, PC conversation? Who am I writing this blog for, anyway? Well, I chickened out. There were just too many social decisions! does not compute!

It turns out that nature is good for the brain. I think I'll put more plants in my office. Wait, plants need sunlight... no windows in my office...

Anyway, check out these MAKE videos. Who wants to make a bicycle-powered generator?

Happy new year!

I just got back to Boston yesterday, having spent the holidays with my family in San Diego. Mike charmed everyone (as expected), and we got my mom's official approval for our engagement. :) I think the turning point was when he managed to snatch the restaurant bill from under the fortune cookies when we went out for dinner. In addition to basking in the afternoon sun, we went hiking in Rose Canyon, where we saw quite a few animals, including many hummingbirds and this hawk (Cooper's hawk?),



looked for feral parrots in Ocean Beach (the locals said to try again in the summertime), enjoyed the boardwalk at Pacific Beach (where my mom immediately outpaced Mike and me),



ate elephant clams (?) in Monterey Park, deflected (mostly) Connie and Rick's attempts to demonstrate their Krav Maga moves on us, bounced Audrey on our knees and practiced making her giggle and dance (she is training us well),



met Mike's friend who analyzed the musicality of Snowball the Dancing Cockatoo (find it on Youtube!) and ate LOTS of my mom's dumplings and pineapple cheesecake as well as Mike's salsa.

All in all, it was a really fun vacation and a nearly total break from work, and of course I returned with 30 pounds of dumplings, broccoli, gai choy, avocados, fragrant pears, longan fruit, an onion chopper, and ... brand new underwear!

Mike managed to look like he was working while we were on vacation, by being quoted in the Washington Post as a parrot expert. I made a couple attempts at productivity (started a few computer simulations, worked on a blog entry for Science about origins of life; I'll post a link if it ever makes it online), but those were really just ways to make myself feel like less of a lazybones. But now, the jelly beans are eaten and it's time to go back to work! (after the weekend, that is). :)