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). :)