*swoon* *applause* actually *jumping up and down clapping with huge smile on face*
Before I hit the oh my god I did not see that coming moment, I've realized that I think, strangely, part of the appeal of Glee to me is the potential from week to week that it will suck. I know, weird huh?
Every episode, on Monday I get happy its coming, but I also get anxious. What if it sucks? Thing is, there are always many stories, or little mini-stories going on at the same time. If the main story sucks but there's some major awesomeness in the B stories, the episode is still good. But you can also easily have an episode with, like one awesome moment. And you think wow that was great. And a half an hour later, you think, actually, most of that kind of sucked. But sometimes you get wonderful episodes where it seems everything is clicking. I think tonight's was one of those.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Language
Why do we use the language we use?
I would say words, since as far as the entire language goes most of us only have one or a couple to choose from, except I mean the entire style of language we use.
Its really very interesting if you think about it. When you listen to your own words in different situations, or think about how your use of them changes over time.
In general I know I have a tendency to use rather precise language. If I know a word that has all the proper connotations I'm looking for I will use it. I wouldn't say I use flowery language though, I just end up using words that don't necessarily come up frequently in conversation. That's my baseline.
I would say words, since as far as the entire language goes most of us only have one or a couple to choose from, except I mean the entire style of language we use.
Its really very interesting if you think about it. When you listen to your own words in different situations, or think about how your use of them changes over time.
In general I know I have a tendency to use rather precise language. If I know a word that has all the proper connotations I'm looking for I will use it. I wouldn't say I use flowery language though, I just end up using words that don't necessarily come up frequently in conversation. That's my baseline.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
A first. (Tim Part 2)
So I don't like to edit. I really don't. Which is why my posts tended to be filled with words blended together or the kind of wrong word issues that don't get picked up by Safari's spellcheck. What the hell did I do before browsers checked spelling. Well, my typing deteriorated and people had to deal with the fact that you just had to try to make some sense out of what I wrote. There are lots of extra spaces too. I do actually have some concern for aesthetics, so it bothers me if there are funny looking spaces at the beginning of a line. Or a random period which does not complete any sentence.
I do therefore occasionally go back and clean things up.
This however, is the first time I've ever changed the title of a post.
I glanced over it and realized I spent the entire post ranting about what I think and didn't even mention Tim until the last little bit. So, I decided, in a rather Minchinian way, to add brackets to the title. I'm sure there will be a Part 2 and 3 and etc. I realized as I was writing that I didn't really want to write anything too specific about his work, for the absurd reason that I didn't want to give it away. As though someone might come along and read this, follow that link and go on a youtube binge like I did.
And if someone were to do that, and they had already been told why it was that every song was funny, they would be annoyed, and think, well if I hadn't already heard that funny lyric it would be much more funny. Which reminds of movie trailers. You pretty much know that the funniest parts are in the trailer. You can always tell if a comedy is going to be stupid, or, just not up your alley. If you groan or roll your eyes during the trailer, don't ever see it. My opinion. Oh, and my original point was that when you do see the movie, the funny bits aren't at all funny cause you've already seen them potentially a hundred times depending on your level of media consumption.
Anyway, I realize no one is going to discover how awesome Minchin is through me, but, still I will hesitate to go on about how amazing his songs are.... except...
Today, when I was at work, I could not get '5 Poofs and 2 pianos' out of my head. I'm supposed to be doing at least theoretically serious work. I'm trying to get some analyses going, and I keep seeing Tim in my head, singing that song. And when he lands on that line '5 poofs and 2 pianos' there is something very home about that line in that song. I know I don't make any sense.
One amazing thing is that I found this song hilarious and lovely the first time I heard it, because, well, I had no background. Seen clips of Jonathan Ross, but never the whole show. Didn't know about 4 poofs and a piano. I'd never even heard poof mean anything other than sudden disappearance, or, sadly, thanks to Jersey Shore, a strange mountain of hair shoved up on the top of your head. Anyway, Tim's facial expressions are awesome. And writing a great random song with lyrics entirely specific not just to the Ross show, but also to that particular show is quite impressive (Jamie Cullum was there to make for the big lyric finale of 'make it a trio of pianos and a big gay half dozen') I love the idea of, well, if you preachers can switch gay to straight, then you must be able to flip it the other way too right? After all, the biggest impediment to 5 poofs and 2 pianos is that Tim, isn't a poof.
The second song that keeps sticking absurdly in my head, I'm not sure if it has a name. Again he did it on a TV show, and in the lead up its explained that other people on the show had had songs written about them, but one person hadn't. Alan Brough. So Tim says he's written him a song, but all he knows about him is that he's really big and he's from New Zealand. And he says that he wrote it that afternoon horribly jet-lagged. He seems to pretty much think his song is going to suck, but he has managed to come up with something so totally bizarre. I mean, I guess if you were free associating with New Zealand you might come up with Kiwi, and if your brain was strange enough it could meander through obsolete wings and water off a flightless bird's back, but all the way to 'they joke that his pokey proboscis, must get in the way when we kiss' is pretty far. I mean, if he wrote it that afternoon he really didn't have that much time, and with only New Zealand and tall to go on. That's getting pretty creative. And it happens to be totally adorable, a little love song. I still have no idea who Alan Brough is, but now will always know the name (its in the song).
So, I'm basically wandering around at work the whole day with '5 poofs and 2 pianos, yeah, it'll be ace' or 'my 6 foot 4 kiwi' solidly wedged into my brain. Listen. They're pretty catchy.
And see, Tim Minchin squeezed out of my subconsciousness and consciousness into another post. Hence, brackets (parentheses, whichever you call them in your neck of the woods, or side of the pond, or other horrible cliche for not from where I am, but from a place I'm inclined to like, have no fear of, and think while different, it probably isn't that different from where I am.)
I do therefore occasionally go back and clean things up.
This however, is the first time I've ever changed the title of a post.
I glanced over it and realized I spent the entire post ranting about what I think and didn't even mention Tim until the last little bit. So, I decided, in a rather Minchinian way, to add brackets to the title. I'm sure there will be a Part 2 and 3 and etc. I realized as I was writing that I didn't really want to write anything too specific about his work, for the absurd reason that I didn't want to give it away. As though someone might come along and read this, follow that link and go on a youtube binge like I did.
And if someone were to do that, and they had already been told why it was that every song was funny, they would be annoyed, and think, well if I hadn't already heard that funny lyric it would be much more funny. Which reminds of movie trailers. You pretty much know that the funniest parts are in the trailer. You can always tell if a comedy is going to be stupid, or, just not up your alley. If you groan or roll your eyes during the trailer, don't ever see it. My opinion. Oh, and my original point was that when you do see the movie, the funny bits aren't at all funny cause you've already seen them potentially a hundred times depending on your level of media consumption.
Anyway, I realize no one is going to discover how awesome Minchin is through me, but, still I will hesitate to go on about how amazing his songs are.... except...
Today, when I was at work, I could not get '5 Poofs and 2 pianos' out of my head. I'm supposed to be doing at least theoretically serious work. I'm trying to get some analyses going, and I keep seeing Tim in my head, singing that song. And when he lands on that line '5 poofs and 2 pianos' there is something very home about that line in that song. I know I don't make any sense.
One amazing thing is that I found this song hilarious and lovely the first time I heard it, because, well, I had no background. Seen clips of Jonathan Ross, but never the whole show. Didn't know about 4 poofs and a piano. I'd never even heard poof mean anything other than sudden disappearance, or, sadly, thanks to Jersey Shore, a strange mountain of hair shoved up on the top of your head. Anyway, Tim's facial expressions are awesome. And writing a great random song with lyrics entirely specific not just to the Ross show, but also to that particular show is quite impressive (Jamie Cullum was there to make for the big lyric finale of 'make it a trio of pianos and a big gay half dozen') I love the idea of, well, if you preachers can switch gay to straight, then you must be able to flip it the other way too right? After all, the biggest impediment to 5 poofs and 2 pianos is that Tim, isn't a poof.
The second song that keeps sticking absurdly in my head, I'm not sure if it has a name. Again he did it on a TV show, and in the lead up its explained that other people on the show had had songs written about them, but one person hadn't. Alan Brough. So Tim says he's written him a song, but all he knows about him is that he's really big and he's from New Zealand. And he says that he wrote it that afternoon horribly jet-lagged. He seems to pretty much think his song is going to suck, but he has managed to come up with something so totally bizarre. I mean, I guess if you were free associating with New Zealand you might come up with Kiwi, and if your brain was strange enough it could meander through obsolete wings and water off a flightless bird's back, but all the way to 'they joke that his pokey proboscis, must get in the way when we kiss' is pretty far. I mean, if he wrote it that afternoon he really didn't have that much time, and with only New Zealand and tall to go on. That's getting pretty creative. And it happens to be totally adorable, a little love song. I still have no idea who Alan Brough is, but now will always know the name (its in the song).
So, I'm basically wandering around at work the whole day with '5 poofs and 2 pianos, yeah, it'll be ace' or 'my 6 foot 4 kiwi' solidly wedged into my brain. Listen. They're pretty catchy.
And see, Tim Minchin squeezed out of my subconsciousness and consciousness into another post. Hence, brackets (parentheses, whichever you call them in your neck of the woods, or side of the pond, or other horrible cliche for not from where I am, but from a place I'm inclined to like, have no fear of, and think while different, it probably isn't that different from where I am.)
My New Idol (Tim Part 1)
So not too long ago one of my friends posted a certain video on facebook of a comedian of Australian origin. I laughed, a lot. And of course, being the type of person I am, I then set about viewing practically everything that has ever come out of this person's mouth. If I like something, I binge. And this I like.
Anyone in Australia or the UK may well know who I mean just from that. Most people in the US will have no clue.
If I add that he is an atheist, a brilliant piano player, and uses both the most complex and base ends of the spectrum of the English language with equal frequency and aplomb, I'm sure everyone in Australia and the UK would know who I mean.
And some of us Americans and Canadians have figured this out. Hundreds of thousands of youtube hits can't all becoming from across the pond. And the friend who posted is Canadian.
Anyone in Australia or the UK may well know who I mean just from that. Most people in the US will have no clue.
If I add that he is an atheist, a brilliant piano player, and uses both the most complex and base ends of the spectrum of the English language with equal frequency and aplomb, I'm sure everyone in Australia and the UK would know who I mean.
And some of us Americans and Canadians have figured this out. Hundreds of thousands of youtube hits can't all becoming from across the pond. And the friend who posted is Canadian.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
An observation
So, I am now accumulating half-written posts. This is probably common, except I'm not supposed to care. There is a commonality to all these discarded posts. I got interrupted in the middle of writing them. So I'm happily writing away, whatever I think of writing, and then I get a phone call, or I misjudged the time and I have to leave, or someone shows up who I actually have to pay attention to (just kidding, I pay attention to everyone who appears in front of me unless they are trying to get me to give money. I just don't think randomly accosting people on the street is the way to do that. No matter how good your cause. Also, being rather a bleeding heart liberal if I let you get too far into your cause there comes the chance that I will cough up the money. Luckily I pretty much never have cash and would never give someone my credit card number for such purpose, so, I'm pretty safe.)
Back to my sort of primary point if I have one. As I leave a trail of half-written posts on topics that I actually liked at the time I have decided not to write a post unless I am absolutely certain that I will have time to finish it.
Why don't I just finish the ones I started? Well, I do come back to it later, sometimes not that much later. The thing is that in order to get back into the post you have to read it and see what the hell you were talking about.
When I do this, I inevitably discover something interesting.
They're all crap
I can't finish something that's crap to begin with.
I know I'm not supposed to care what anyone else thinks, but this isn't about anyone else. This is me. If I decide something is total crap I just can't finish it. If I finish something and read it and decide it looks stupid I can push 'Publish Post' anyway. Who cares. But you can't do that if you've only written half of it.
This means many topics I would like to write about will get left in the dust that gets swept out of my short-term memory. That's better than writing half a post and being unable to finish it. At least if I never write about it to start with, there's a chance it could return later on. If I write and think it sucks, well it will suck forever more.
Edit: I just read the sucky ones, and they don't look so sucky anymore. Maybe I'll end up posting them
Back to my sort of primary point if I have one. As I leave a trail of half-written posts on topics that I actually liked at the time I have decided not to write a post unless I am absolutely certain that I will have time to finish it.
Why don't I just finish the ones I started? Well, I do come back to it later, sometimes not that much later. The thing is that in order to get back into the post you have to read it and see what the hell you were talking about.
When I do this, I inevitably discover something interesting.
They're all crap
I can't finish something that's crap to begin with.
I know I'm not supposed to care what anyone else thinks, but this isn't about anyone else. This is me. If I decide something is total crap I just can't finish it. If I finish something and read it and decide it looks stupid I can push 'Publish Post' anyway. Who cares. But you can't do that if you've only written half of it.
This means many topics I would like to write about will get left in the dust that gets swept out of my short-term memory. That's better than writing half a post and being unable to finish it. At least if I never write about it to start with, there's a chance it could return later on. If I write and think it sucks, well it will suck forever more.
Edit: I just read the sucky ones, and they don't look so sucky anymore. Maybe I'll end up posting them
Monday, November 1, 2010
Patriots-Vikings - Randy still loves the Pats
That's the New England Patriots. I think I wrote something about them earlier. I am a fan. I've sort of admired them for a long time, even pre-Bellichick era, but felt that being an all-out fan would be either hero-worship (Bledsoe or Brady) or just liking the best. Now I live here, I can truly adopt them as my team. Since returning from Iceland I don't really have one. Guess what, they don't watch American football in Iceland, I didn't keep up with the game.
So I am very happy now to have a team I can genuinely root for. I always liked football for the team aspect of it. More than any other sport I know it requires teamwork. Yes, the attention goes to the quarterback, the star receiver, the back who gets 1000yds a season. But, if you watch at all its not just that every person plays an important role on the team. Every person on the offense plays an integral role in every play on offense.
There's no war between pitcher and hitter and if pitcher wins no one else on his team matters for that bit. If pitcher loses, than one, maybe two other members of his team matter as they field the ball.
There's no possibility for the individual dominance of a single player as there is in basketball. I think basketball is quite fun to watch when they play as a team. But when one guy runs up the court, yells for the ball and then shoots, thats not interesting.
Let's see.. hockey... okay, I admit I haven't watched much hockey in my life, but despite surface, equipment and size of playing space it seems similar to soccer (football) in having lines. A line plays together, and probably improves as they play together. But, that's only three people. Anyway, I'll stop going on about sports that I know nothing about. I'm generally averse to other people talking about things they know jack about so I should try to avoid hypocrisy and stop myself from committing similar crimes.
I found myself writing a rather long e-mail about today's game to someone who probably cares a little, but really not all that much. Definitely not as much as I was going to write.
So guess what?
Yup, I decided to write here instead!
So I am very happy now to have a team I can genuinely root for. I always liked football for the team aspect of it. More than any other sport I know it requires teamwork. Yes, the attention goes to the quarterback, the star receiver, the back who gets 1000yds a season. But, if you watch at all its not just that every person plays an important role on the team. Every person on the offense plays an integral role in every play on offense.
There's no war between pitcher and hitter and if pitcher wins no one else on his team matters for that bit. If pitcher loses, than one, maybe two other members of his team matter as they field the ball.
There's no possibility for the individual dominance of a single player as there is in basketball. I think basketball is quite fun to watch when they play as a team. But when one guy runs up the court, yells for the ball and then shoots, thats not interesting.
Let's see.. hockey... okay, I admit I haven't watched much hockey in my life, but despite surface, equipment and size of playing space it seems similar to soccer (football) in having lines. A line plays together, and probably improves as they play together. But, that's only three people. Anyway, I'll stop going on about sports that I know nothing about. I'm generally averse to other people talking about things they know jack about so I should try to avoid hypocrisy and stop myself from committing similar crimes.
I found myself writing a rather long e-mail about today's game to someone who probably cares a little, but really not all that much. Definitely not as much as I was going to write.
So guess what?
Yup, I decided to write here instead!
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Glee - Rocky Horror
I know,
anyone who cares about Glee has moved along to thinking abut the next episode, which spoilers and previews etc. seem to indicate will be very intriguing.
But I'm still back on Rocky Horror. And trying to figure out why I seem to have so little to say about a good episode. Its possible that I lost my sense of humor over the past week along with my ability to spell. If it weren't for Safari spellcheck this would already be a hopeless disaster.
But let's see. I wish I had stopped myself and not watched the Time Warp ahead of time. I don't know why I thought that would be okay. I am glad I resisted the idea to try to rewatch the original before the Glee version. That would have been a stupid thing to do. Then I would be whining about how different it was. Well duh.
However, it seems as you cruise around the internet on a weekly basis there are people whining about how a Glee version of something is a pathetic attempt to replicate the original. Clearly these people have utterly missed the point and I wish they would shut up or it would be possible to muzzle them to protect them from establishing their stupidity.
Anyway, any time its a theme they need a kick to get into it. The kick is always going to be silly (dentist leads to gas induced Britney hallucinations), but this time the silliness of the kick got out of the way fast. Yes it was absurd for Will to put on Rocky Horror because Emma likes it. But after that the adult story picked back up and blended in really, really well.
anyone who cares about Glee has moved along to thinking abut the next episode, which spoilers and previews etc. seem to indicate will be very intriguing.
But I'm still back on Rocky Horror. And trying to figure out why I seem to have so little to say about a good episode. Its possible that I lost my sense of humor over the past week along with my ability to spell. If it weren't for Safari spellcheck this would already be a hopeless disaster.
But let's see. I wish I had stopped myself and not watched the Time Warp ahead of time. I don't know why I thought that would be okay. I am glad I resisted the idea to try to rewatch the original before the Glee version. That would have been a stupid thing to do. Then I would be whining about how different it was. Well duh.
However, it seems as you cruise around the internet on a weekly basis there are people whining about how a Glee version of something is a pathetic attempt to replicate the original. Clearly these people have utterly missed the point and I wish they would shut up or it would be possible to muzzle them to protect them from establishing their stupidity.
Anyway, any time its a theme they need a kick to get into it. The kick is always going to be silly (dentist leads to gas induced Britney hallucinations), but this time the silliness of the kick got out of the way fast. Yes it was absurd for Will to put on Rocky Horror because Emma likes it. But after that the adult story picked back up and blended in really, really well.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Lions and Tigers and .... wait, what next? Bears? oh my!
So I saw the preview for Mac OS 10.whatever Lion. Well, I saw an ad for preview but didn't click on it. What's the point? I have kind of been buying new Macs at a rate that I think I only missed one (after entry into Mac market), and I got that from a friend. So I will buy it. I don't really need to know what's in it.
But my first thought was actually 'Lion? How do you go from Snow Leopards, which are really cool, to Lions which are kind of boring.'
Probably not the initial thought Mac OS developers were going for. That said, the cat naming thing has worked out very well for them. Nobody remembers what number comes after the 10. If you really have to know you you go to the apple icon. You know what cat you're running though.
It seems though that Apple wasn't really planning on using the cat names for the public, and this might have made for some problems long-term. Of course, in the meantime they've had years where they can bring out software updates which have something that makes them sound distinct without having to crawl all over themselves making up weird names and hoping people keep track.
The downside is, they're out of big cats. Seriously this is the last one. I mean, in the way that Snow Leopard was related to leopard, they could use Mountain Lion, but that would be cheating. Mountain Lion is the same thing as Puma and they already used that. Of course, they also used Panther. Unfortunately people seem to persist in the notion that a panther is a separate animal. It is a word with several useful purposes.
First, its the genus which all big cat species belong to. (Edit: Okay, I realize Panthera is not the genus for all the 'big cats' but it is for most of them. Looking at this the 'all' just bothered me. Making sweeping incorrect generalizations of any kind bothers me.) Second, it is then a convenient word to use for any big cat whom you can't identify. This would be due to primarily to distance and ignorance. Lions, tigers, and cheetahs, you'd have to oblivious and not care in the least to be unable to identify. I can see where leopards and jaguars could be a little tricky from a distance in a zoo, but really, they live on different continents. Mountain Lions live over such a huge range of the Americas that obviously people in South America did not get together with those in North America to decide on a common name. Not knowing what to call it at any given location, panther always works. The most common usage though, is for the black variants. Unless you get up close you can't see the spots so it looks like a totally different animal. I saw a young black leopard hanging out in a tree at a zoo, god was it a beautiful creature. So I guess its free game to call any large cat with no visible distinguishing markings a panther
But back to OS X, they're pretty much out of options. Snow Leopard was actually fine, its not a subspecies of Leopard its not that related. But now, all they have left to go to the Clouded Leopard. Which would be highly repetitive, difficult to explain, and rather anti-climcactic since they're the size of a medium-sized dog. Not particularly big cat-esque. They are very beautiful though. I can't see them moving to small cats. I mean the people who actually know what an ocelot is would probably find that amusing, the rest would be confused.
I noticed that the very first codename, before release, was Kodiak. In the context of animals rather than film, they could have meant the Kodiak bear, which opens the intriguing possibility of returning to bears. Unfortunately this becomes not at all intriguing very quickly when you consider the names of bears. They almost all end in 'bear' and the modifier is not descriptive enough to differentiate. I mean you could have Grizzly. Having established a pattern, people might know where you were going when you came up with Polar next. But after that, really, are you going to Spectacled? Mostly we just call them brown or black, depending, well, on whether they're brown or black. I mean the Glacier bear looks cool too, but same problem as Polar, even if they're not related. So what category of animal could they move to?
Or is it time for an OS XI and some totally different nomenclature.
I still wouldn't mind a Siberian Tiger even if it is a subspecies. They're just so cool.
But my first thought was actually 'Lion? How do you go from Snow Leopards, which are really cool, to Lions which are kind of boring.'
Probably not the initial thought Mac OS developers were going for. That said, the cat naming thing has worked out very well for them. Nobody remembers what number comes after the 10. If you really have to know you you go to the apple icon. You know what cat you're running though.
It seems though that Apple wasn't really planning on using the cat names for the public, and this might have made for some problems long-term. Of course, in the meantime they've had years where they can bring out software updates which have something that makes them sound distinct without having to crawl all over themselves making up weird names and hoping people keep track.
The downside is, they're out of big cats. Seriously this is the last one. I mean, in the way that Snow Leopard was related to leopard, they could use Mountain Lion, but that would be cheating. Mountain Lion is the same thing as Puma and they already used that. Of course, they also used Panther. Unfortunately people seem to persist in the notion that a panther is a separate animal. It is a word with several useful purposes.
First, its the genus which all big cat species belong to. (Edit: Okay, I realize Panthera is not the genus for all the 'big cats' but it is for most of them. Looking at this the 'all' just bothered me. Making sweeping incorrect generalizations of any kind bothers me.) Second, it is then a convenient word to use for any big cat whom you can't identify. This would be due to primarily to distance and ignorance. Lions, tigers, and cheetahs, you'd have to oblivious and not care in the least to be unable to identify. I can see where leopards and jaguars could be a little tricky from a distance in a zoo, but really, they live on different continents. Mountain Lions live over such a huge range of the Americas that obviously people in South America did not get together with those in North America to decide on a common name. Not knowing what to call it at any given location, panther always works. The most common usage though, is for the black variants. Unless you get up close you can't see the spots so it looks like a totally different animal. I saw a young black leopard hanging out in a tree at a zoo, god was it a beautiful creature. So I guess its free game to call any large cat with no visible distinguishing markings a panther
But back to OS X, they're pretty much out of options. Snow Leopard was actually fine, its not a subspecies of Leopard its not that related. But now, all they have left to go to the Clouded Leopard. Which would be highly repetitive, difficult to explain, and rather anti-climcactic since they're the size of a medium-sized dog. Not particularly big cat-esque. They are very beautiful though. I can't see them moving to small cats. I mean the people who actually know what an ocelot is would probably find that amusing, the rest would be confused.
I noticed that the very first codename, before release, was Kodiak. In the context of animals rather than film, they could have meant the Kodiak bear, which opens the intriguing possibility of returning to bears. Unfortunately this becomes not at all intriguing very quickly when you consider the names of bears. They almost all end in 'bear' and the modifier is not descriptive enough to differentiate. I mean you could have Grizzly. Having established a pattern, people might know where you were going when you came up with Polar next. But after that, really, are you going to Spectacled? Mostly we just call them brown or black, depending, well, on whether they're brown or black. I mean the Glacier bear looks cool too, but same problem as Polar, even if they're not related. So what category of animal could they move to?
Or is it time for an OS XI and some totally different nomenclature.
I still wouldn't mind a Siberian Tiger even if it is a subspecies. They're just so cool.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Eggs
I just read an article which annoyed me. Actually, take that back, I had absolutely no problem with the short little comment masquerading as an article. It was the comments. The sanctimonious comments made by people who are sure that they know all there is to know about nutrition and what one should and shouldn't eat and feel perfectly comfortable advising and judging their fellow humans on what they should be eating. And this was the least of it.
(For this post we are going to completely put aside the MD that sometimes lurks after my name and the fact that I am funded, sort of, by a school of public health)
The real fact? We don't know jack shit. The best argument I've heard is the one that works for almost everything in life. Moderation. (Almost anything because there is no such thing as a moderate amount of cocaine. Its just plain bad, sorry to any recreational crack users)
There are SO many theories about what one should and shouldn't eat. And some of them are so extreme that most people know they're ridiculous. Some of them, though, come with the stamp of medical studies. I will say right now I haven't read all of them. But, generally speaking, you ask a large number of people what they ate, you know, say, over the past 20 years how often did you eat x,y,z. And then they check a couple years later on how many had heart attacks, or what their cholesterol level is. You control for everything you can think of that might also influence your outcome, and you get a teeny tiny effect, which, since you asked 10,000 people turns out to be statistically significant. There is a difference, a big one, between statistically significant and biologically significant.
One is easy to measure p<0.05 (although many times across different disciplines the idea of correcting for multiple testing gets lost in the shuffle, and can be difficult to determine anyways because multiple researchers use the same dataset. Each time you probe that dataset its an independent test, but you don't know how many tests have been done on it, or will be done on it.
(For this post we are going to completely put aside the MD that sometimes lurks after my name and the fact that I am funded, sort of, by a school of public health)
The real fact? We don't know jack shit. The best argument I've heard is the one that works for almost everything in life. Moderation. (Almost anything because there is no such thing as a moderate amount of cocaine. Its just plain bad, sorry to any recreational crack users)
There are SO many theories about what one should and shouldn't eat. And some of them are so extreme that most people know they're ridiculous. Some of them, though, come with the stamp of medical studies. I will say right now I haven't read all of them. But, generally speaking, you ask a large number of people what they ate, you know, say, over the past 20 years how often did you eat x,y,z. And then they check a couple years later on how many had heart attacks, or what their cholesterol level is. You control for everything you can think of that might also influence your outcome, and you get a teeny tiny effect, which, since you asked 10,000 people turns out to be statistically significant. There is a difference, a big one, between statistically significant and biologically significant.
One is easy to measure p<0.05 (although many times across different disciplines the idea of correcting for multiple testing gets lost in the shuffle, and can be difficult to determine anyways because multiple researchers use the same dataset. Each time you probe that dataset its an independent test, but you don't know how many tests have been done on it, or will be done on it.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Sometimes You're not Crazy
So, I don't know about you (the metaphorical one), but I have a tendency to know very little about what is going on immediately around me. I have a good idea of what's going on in the world, like the big stuff. We're still at war, they saved the Chilean miners, the Tea Party candidates are chillingly moronic (I will resist the temptation to throw in a dig. Not because I'm kind but because there have been so many that its kind of pointless). The basics.
I know what is going on with my research. In a great level of detail. I had an interesting experience today in which I and another researcher had an entire conversation in which we were repeatedly using the same word. cluster. And we were using it to mean two completely different things. We're both doing genetics research. He's an economist/psychiatrist and I'm a neuroscientist/geneticist (neurogeneticist? is that a word yet? It seems we tack neuro on the front of everything so why not). You would think two people in the same general field of research could speak the same language, but no. He called a haplotype a vector and I seized up and couldn't hear anything he said afterwards. Indeed, a haplotype can be thought of as a vector, I just had never done so, or had any reason to do so because its much simpler to call it a haplotype. And good lord throw a computer scientist into the mix (and we do) and you can't understand half the words that leave their mouths.
So, I'm good on the micro level, above average on the macro level, and then there's in between. I suck. I never have any idea when there are events going on around me. I have a hard time remembering what day is trash day. Parades, festivals, concerts, they all fly right by me because I have no clue what's going on around me. However, today I observed two things. Admittedly I did not connect them at all, but I successfully logged them as unusual and thought to myself that something might be going on. I was right!
So, first, I noticed that there were a lot of rowing boats (like sculls) out on the Charles River this morning. While I assume Harvard and probably MIT have teams and have boathouses I had not regularly observed multiple boats out on the river in the morning, and it seemed very cold.
Then, as I was going from one hospital to the other (this is my life, not as a patient though) I noticed that there were frequent very large gatherings of people. This I do not see usually. Seeing at least 30 people standing around (still cold) multiple times, I found myself thinking: Did I miss something? The answer to which is obviously always yes, but not necessarily what I think I missed. Sometimes it turns out something I think is strange is completely normal and I just have no idea what normal is.
I don't remember where or why I saw the answer, but there is indeed the Head of the Charles Regatta happening this weekend! Apparently loads of people come and watch (extra people milling around not knowing what they're doing) and they come to watch boats, or the people rowing them. (extra boats out on water). Both abnormal data points explained in one and I actually have a clue what's going on just a few minutes from my home.
I know what is going on with my research. In a great level of detail. I had an interesting experience today in which I and another researcher had an entire conversation in which we were repeatedly using the same word. cluster. And we were using it to mean two completely different things. We're both doing genetics research. He's an economist/psychiatrist and I'm a neuroscientist/geneticist (neurogeneticist? is that a word yet? It seems we tack neuro on the front of everything so why not). You would think two people in the same general field of research could speak the same language, but no. He called a haplotype a vector and I seized up and couldn't hear anything he said afterwards. Indeed, a haplotype can be thought of as a vector, I just had never done so, or had any reason to do so because its much simpler to call it a haplotype. And good lord throw a computer scientist into the mix (and we do) and you can't understand half the words that leave their mouths.
So, I'm good on the micro level, above average on the macro level, and then there's in between. I suck. I never have any idea when there are events going on around me. I have a hard time remembering what day is trash day. Parades, festivals, concerts, they all fly right by me because I have no clue what's going on around me. However, today I observed two things. Admittedly I did not connect them at all, but I successfully logged them as unusual and thought to myself that something might be going on. I was right!
So, first, I noticed that there were a lot of rowing boats (like sculls) out on the Charles River this morning. While I assume Harvard and probably MIT have teams and have boathouses I had not regularly observed multiple boats out on the river in the morning, and it seemed very cold.
Then, as I was going from one hospital to the other (this is my life, not as a patient though) I noticed that there were frequent very large gatherings of people. This I do not see usually. Seeing at least 30 people standing around (still cold) multiple times, I found myself thinking: Did I miss something? The answer to which is obviously always yes, but not necessarily what I think I missed. Sometimes it turns out something I think is strange is completely normal and I just have no idea what normal is.
I don't remember where or why I saw the answer, but there is indeed the Head of the Charles Regatta happening this weekend! Apparently loads of people come and watch (extra people milling around not knowing what they're doing) and they come to watch boats, or the people rowing them. (extra boats out on water). Both abnormal data points explained in one and I actually have a clue what's going on just a few minutes from my home.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Too Many Things
I'm in that state I predicted would occur where there are 10 things happening in my brain that I would write about, except, I can't focus on one of them. Rather than giving up, I'm pushing through. And that means this could be the most disjointed thing I've ever written.
Where to start.
Netflix, Tim Minchin, Bear, Unix, Excessive Glee love, black clothes, ode to grey, Eeyore love, Karelia
Oops, I totally spaced out. I think those are all the things I've started to write about or have thought about. I could try to knock them off one at a time. In order? Some cross over though... Karelia and bear. Eeyore and grey. Separate but related.
I'm just gonna knock out Unix cause that one is easy (if not particularly interesting, which is another reason to hurry it along and shove it out of my brain.)
Why did I want to write about Unix? Because I turned a corner! A big one, but in a very small way.
I hate Unix. It drives me nuts that I have to do so much of my work on Unix, but I've been gradually getting used to it. I occasionally know what to put after gawk and grep. I have used vim. I think I kinda know what '{ -v -b $ are, but beyond that I get clueless fast. Its amazing how easily you can figure out how to do simple things with google.
But that's not really the point. Although its good that I kinda sorta sometimes know what I'm doing without hand-holding. My little eureka moment came when I needed to do something, and, being a Mac girl I considered doing it on my computer, but then I would have had to upload it on to the server. This doesn't sound like much but it made me go 'ugh' and then it occurred to me that I could do this simply and easily with Unix commands directly on the server, and promptly did so.
A choir of angels sang above my head and my smile was beaming. I actually thought 'That would be so much easier to just do in Unix.' And indeed it was.
A month ago, maybe 2 weeks ago, I would have said that such words would never, ever, enter my little brain. But it is stretching
Where to start.
Netflix, Tim Minchin, Bear, Unix, Excessive Glee love, black clothes, ode to grey, Eeyore love, Karelia
Oops, I totally spaced out. I think those are all the things I've started to write about or have thought about. I could try to knock them off one at a time. In order? Some cross over though... Karelia and bear. Eeyore and grey. Separate but related.
I'm just gonna knock out Unix cause that one is easy (if not particularly interesting, which is another reason to hurry it along and shove it out of my brain.)
Why did I want to write about Unix? Because I turned a corner! A big one, but in a very small way.
I hate Unix. It drives me nuts that I have to do so much of my work on Unix, but I've been gradually getting used to it. I occasionally know what to put after gawk and grep. I have used vim. I think I kinda know what '{ -v -b $ are, but beyond that I get clueless fast. Its amazing how easily you can figure out how to do simple things with google.
But that's not really the point. Although its good that I kinda sorta sometimes know what I'm doing without hand-holding. My little eureka moment came when I needed to do something, and, being a Mac girl I considered doing it on my computer, but then I would have had to upload it on to the server. This doesn't sound like much but it made me go 'ugh' and then it occurred to me that I could do this simply and easily with Unix commands directly on the server, and promptly did so.
A choir of angels sang above my head and my smile was beaming. I actually thought 'That would be so much easier to just do in Unix.' And indeed it was.
A month ago, maybe 2 weeks ago, I would have said that such words would never, ever, enter my little brain. But it is stretching
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Glee Episode 4-Duets
First of all - all kinds of happy noises which I will not attempt to reflect in typing in the interests of maintaining some dignity.
This episode was awesome! As usual on so many levels, and it will all come out in a big jumble.
Still not happy with spoilers and all the info that comes out about upcoming shows. And yet. I don't actively, aggressively hide from it any more. And so I know things. Like dear god that photo of Chris as Riff Raff is freaky. But I heard some of a clip of a song from tonight's episode but didn't much care because there was no context. Realized tonight that they release the songs on iTunes before the show airs! Why? I had to hit the back button fast so I wouldn't see the names of the songs on tonight's show. Okay, enough with the whining.
So what up with Puck? Juvi. Really? Just to make an odd number? This was one of those times where my brain went off into thoughts which took too long and hence I sort of missed what was actually going on (like the Billionaire thing in Episode 1 but on a smaller scale) So Puck is gone, he's in juvi, something about crashing car into something and an ATM and they were on to the next thing. Admittedly, I was watching on DVR, so I could have used that little rewind button but whatever. I always like Puck so he was missed.
This episode was awesome! As usual on so many levels, and it will all come out in a big jumble.
Still not happy with spoilers and all the info that comes out about upcoming shows. And yet. I don't actively, aggressively hide from it any more. And so I know things. Like dear god that photo of Chris as Riff Raff is freaky. But I heard some of a clip of a song from tonight's episode but didn't much care because there was no context. Realized tonight that they release the songs on iTunes before the show airs! Why? I had to hit the back button fast so I wouldn't see the names of the songs on tonight's show. Okay, enough with the whining.
So what up with Puck? Juvi. Really? Just to make an odd number? This was one of those times where my brain went off into thoughts which took too long and hence I sort of missed what was actually going on (like the Billionaire thing in Episode 1 but on a smaller scale) So Puck is gone, he's in juvi, something about crashing car into something and an ATM and they were on to the next thing. Admittedly, I was watching on DVR, so I could have used that little rewind button but whatever. I always like Puck so he was missed.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Preachiness
Yup, this is me being serious. After all the blog is my thoughts, and sometimes I do have a serious one.
I'm actually a tad ashamed of myself. I've been rather self-absorbed of late. So it took my obsession with Chris Colfer to jolt me from my complaisance and into thought. How? This PSA for the Trevor Project. (And by the way I've watched 'I want to Hold Your Hand at least 10 times. So beautiful.)
It had like 500k views when I saw it. Sadly, I saw a lot of horrible comments. You know, the kind of garbled, messed up English filled with all-caps comments about GOD and how homosexuality is evil. Those comments we brush off as being from idiots. And in another example of the silent majority the video has thousands of likes and a handful of dislikes.
I'm actually a tad ashamed of myself. I've been rather self-absorbed of late. So it took my obsession with Chris Colfer to jolt me from my complaisance and into thought. How? This PSA for the Trevor Project. (And by the way I've watched 'I want to Hold Your Hand at least 10 times. So beautiful.)
It had like 500k views when I saw it. Sadly, I saw a lot of horrible comments. You know, the kind of garbled, messed up English filled with all-caps comments about GOD and how homosexuality is evil. Those comments we brush off as being from idiots. And in another example of the silent majority the video has thousands of likes and a handful of dislikes.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Okay, the real reason
I decided to fess up, even though it will seriously hurt my nerd cred.
While I did indeed watch Lie to Me and Bones before Glee this week, that's not what I spent Friday watching. I was on YouTube catching up on...
Well, this requires some serious explanation in order to not have it look like I'm, well, just totally pathetic.
Way back when I was in high school I got hooked on a daytime soap. Why are daytime soaps worse than all the nighttime soaps? Well, mostly because they have no budget so their sets suck and there's a tendency towards bizarre stories, and nowadays, the writing is so god-awful atrocious you wonder how on earth these people keep their jobs. But really, I only know much about one. So I shouldn't speak for the others. And I don't know too much about the one I do know something about.
Okay, I'm getting myself all tangled up.
When I was in junior high and high school and beginning of college I would catch, when I could (which was pretty rare since I actually went to school and all that stuff) this show. And on this show there was a girl who was my age. She was very smart, known for being good, had dreams of college and a career as a doctor. Hmm.... in other words, she was me. With one big difference. That character was diagnosed with HIV and her boyfriend died of AIDS. And I watched her, in occasional glimpses go through that, and deal with her own diagnosis and learn to move on.
Until, that is, they went to some bat-shit crazy storyline that made no sense and had her running out of town after months of hell. That was, in, 1999? Right.
While I did indeed watch Lie to Me and Bones before Glee this week, that's not what I spent Friday watching. I was on YouTube catching up on...
Well, this requires some serious explanation in order to not have it look like I'm, well, just totally pathetic.
Way back when I was in high school I got hooked on a daytime soap. Why are daytime soaps worse than all the nighttime soaps? Well, mostly because they have no budget so their sets suck and there's a tendency towards bizarre stories, and nowadays, the writing is so god-awful atrocious you wonder how on earth these people keep their jobs. But really, I only know much about one. So I shouldn't speak for the others. And I don't know too much about the one I do know something about.
Okay, I'm getting myself all tangled up.
When I was in junior high and high school and beginning of college I would catch, when I could (which was pretty rare since I actually went to school and all that stuff) this show. And on this show there was a girl who was my age. She was very smart, known for being good, had dreams of college and a career as a doctor. Hmm.... in other words, she was me. With one big difference. That character was diagnosed with HIV and her boyfriend died of AIDS. And I watched her, in occasional glimpses go through that, and deal with her own diagnosis and learn to move on.
Until, that is, they went to some bat-shit crazy storyline that made no sense and had her running out of town after months of hell. That was, in, 1999? Right.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Glee Episode 3
For some reason I just watched Glee. I kinda watched my other TV shows from this week first. (Lie to Me and Bones. I seriously pray that other people see how totally awesome Lie to Me is and it doesn't get booted after this move to a higher profile spot. Meanwhile Bones doing Jersey Shore was totally hilarious. But onwards to Glee)
I think probably the reason I hesitated was that I wasn't too keen on the first 2 episodes and feared my favorite tv show would disappoint me again.
But no.
I cried. I actually cried. I can't remember when, if ever, I cried during a tv show, and its probably obvious when.
But this episode was also complicated. There was a lot going on with sometimes very short bits of dialogue explaining characters belief systems, so, I actually had to watch things again, and when I couldn't find the bits I wanted, look them up on the internet. Fun part of liking a show that's so popular, you can find out anything about it with google.
This is going to be a long one, so I'm just going to put the break here.
I think probably the reason I hesitated was that I wasn't too keen on the first 2 episodes and feared my favorite tv show would disappoint me again.
But no.
I cried. I actually cried. I can't remember when, if ever, I cried during a tv show, and its probably obvious when.
But this episode was also complicated. There was a lot going on with sometimes very short bits of dialogue explaining characters belief systems, so, I actually had to watch things again, and when I couldn't find the bits I wanted, look them up on the internet. Fun part of liking a show that's so popular, you can find out anything about it with google.
This is going to be a long one, so I'm just going to put the break here.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
I'm back!
I normally don't make severe edits, cause its kinda a stream of consciousness thing, but I totally forgot that I posted about how I was going. So, I'm back from where I went.
It was cold, it was kinda misty and rainy the whole time. I nearly got blown off a ferry during a particularly strong gust. But that's what you get for standing at the very front edge of a boat when trips are being cancelled because of the high winds/rough sea. Nonetheless, standing out there by myself with the wind strong in my face and the spray from the water made me very, very happy.
It also brought back a childhood dream of joining the Coast Guard. And now... I want to join the Coast Guard. The only problems, as I thought about it, are: I'm really not strong enough, to like, haul dying people out of the water. I think I'm kind of a weakling. But I guess some weightlifting ought to fix that. Then there was the fact that besides saving people the Coast Guard also protects borders. This would mean attempting to stop smugglers. Those people are dangerous. I'm not sure I want to be around people for whom guns are both key to self-image, and also treated like toys. (There's also the probably more significant problem that I doubt they would want me.)
I have hope that I have some good photos. I did some experimentation to see what effects would happen with extremes on aperture and shutter speed. I mean, the wind was so strong that even the fastest shutter speed I could use probably didn't avoid blurring, so we shall see what comes out. Probably a load of crap, and I suspect I got water in my lens. Not happy about that. But I'll stop whining
Go Patriots! It wasn't pretty but they beat the Dolphins on Monday. I used to like the Patriots but kinda kept my mouth shut, or underplayed it, because to me, you root for the team from the place you grew up in, or where you live. I don't really like fantasy football, because I think it kind of breaks down rooting for your home team in favor of rooting for an utterly imaginary team that lives only in your head and that of the people you know who also engage in this fantasy and have to play against you. Obviously I don't like fantasy football, but do like football. I've been watching all my life. Haven't really had a home team in a long time though. I was in Atlanta for two brief periods, and I wasn't really into the Falcons either time. Now I live in Boston I can unabashedly cheer for Brady, Bellichick, Welker,Moss, etc.
Tomorrow I will not be tired and cold and surrounded by the smell of mothballs (literally surrounding me on all sides, thank you mom). In the meantime, a friend posted a link to this lab video, and as a labrat I must share. (The idea being that I will have something, if not exactly meaningful, at least less mopey, to say tomorrow.)
That said, this is all wet lab, which I don't do anymore. Distinguishing feature between wet lab and dry lab? Wet lab people work at times with things that have moisture. Us dry labbers use our computers only.
I have however used everything featured in the video, being a former wet labber, with perhaps the exception of safety goggles which is pretty hilarious. I did use face shields, particularly for protection from UV lamps when reading gels. Unfortunately, the shield was so scratched up I couldn't see through it and had to try to peer around it to make sure everything was lined up. One time of severe UV burn of the eyes was all it took to stop that practice. Not fun. Had to pour stuff that's like jelly in my eyes several times a day for a few weeks.
I can't think of any other lab accidents though. I guess I maybe didn't spend enough time in wet lab to get the glass cuts, animal bites, chemical splashes that just tend to happen. After all, what's the worst thing that can happen to me? Electrocuted by my computer? Unlikely.
It was cold, it was kinda misty and rainy the whole time. I nearly got blown off a ferry during a particularly strong gust. But that's what you get for standing at the very front edge of a boat when trips are being cancelled because of the high winds/rough sea. Nonetheless, standing out there by myself with the wind strong in my face and the spray from the water made me very, very happy.
It also brought back a childhood dream of joining the Coast Guard. And now... I want to join the Coast Guard. The only problems, as I thought about it, are: I'm really not strong enough, to like, haul dying people out of the water. I think I'm kind of a weakling. But I guess some weightlifting ought to fix that. Then there was the fact that besides saving people the Coast Guard also protects borders. This would mean attempting to stop smugglers. Those people are dangerous. I'm not sure I want to be around people for whom guns are both key to self-image, and also treated like toys. (There's also the probably more significant problem that I doubt they would want me.)
I have hope that I have some good photos. I did some experimentation to see what effects would happen with extremes on aperture and shutter speed. I mean, the wind was so strong that even the fastest shutter speed I could use probably didn't avoid blurring, so we shall see what comes out. Probably a load of crap, and I suspect I got water in my lens. Not happy about that. But I'll stop whining
Go Patriots! It wasn't pretty but they beat the Dolphins on Monday. I used to like the Patriots but kinda kept my mouth shut, or underplayed it, because to me, you root for the team from the place you grew up in, or where you live. I don't really like fantasy football, because I think it kind of breaks down rooting for your home team in favor of rooting for an utterly imaginary team that lives only in your head and that of the people you know who also engage in this fantasy and have to play against you. Obviously I don't like fantasy football, but do like football. I've been watching all my life. Haven't really had a home team in a long time though. I was in Atlanta for two brief periods, and I wasn't really into the Falcons either time. Now I live in Boston I can unabashedly cheer for Brady, Bellichick, Welker,
Tomorrow I will not be tired and cold and surrounded by the smell of mothballs (literally surrounding me on all sides, thank you mom). In the meantime, a friend posted a link to this lab video, and as a labrat I must share. (The idea being that I will have something, if not exactly meaningful, at least less mopey, to say tomorrow.)
That said, this is all wet lab, which I don't do anymore. Distinguishing feature between wet lab and dry lab? Wet lab people work at times with things that have moisture. Us dry labbers use our computers only.
I have however used everything featured in the video, being a former wet labber, with perhaps the exception of safety goggles which is pretty hilarious. I did use face shields, particularly for protection from UV lamps when reading gels. Unfortunately, the shield was so scratched up I couldn't see through it and had to try to peer around it to make sure everything was lined up. One time of severe UV burn of the eyes was all it took to stop that practice. Not fun. Had to pour stuff that's like jelly in my eyes several times a day for a few weeks.
I can't think of any other lab accidents though. I guess I maybe didn't spend enough time in wet lab to get the glass cuts, animal bites, chemical splashes that just tend to happen. After all, what's the worst thing that can happen to me? Electrocuted by my computer? Unlikely.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Packing
So I'm going on a brief trip. I realize Cape Cod in October immediately post tropical storm related flooding doesn't seem ideal, but you take what you get. Hopefully I will have nice photos. I have my purple rainboots so I can get in the surf without getting soaking wet and cold.
Now, I was attempting to pack last night, at least most of it, and when I was done and climbed into bed I realized something interesting. I am going to Martha's Vineyard and Cape Cod, generally sort of nature, pretty, slightly outdoorsy type places. The things that I was most stressed about making sure I packed were: camera (okay, that makes sense) Macbook Air, Nook, charger for Nook, iPod and iPhone. Then I realized that charger I preferred to bring for the latter two was at work, got upset with myself, and finally decided to deal with this by sending the following e-mail to my work account. 'Pack iPod/iPhone charger dumbass.' As if I would fail without that last admonition. When I arrived this morning and checked my e-mail, it was the first e-mail and I immediately packed charger. Otherwise, who knows.
But, ummmm, I'm totally just assuming that I threw enough shirts in there. Couple pairs of pants, whatever. However, I obsessively needed to make sure that every piece of gadgetry I own was packed (and had downloaded a couple books to the Nook, just in case.... nothing, there is nothing. I can buy books and download them if there is 3G, so, there is no way I could be without the capability of downloading books unless, perhaps, I wandered off into the African desert while I was on Cape Cod.)
And I also had to make sure that all chargers were packed.
Admittedly there have been some issues there in the past... I got to Barcelona with camera in hand, having put the battery to charge in the charger the previous night. Unfortunately I left charger and battery behind, and, therefore I have no photographs from Barcelona. I've left behind laptop chargers and made emergency Apple Store trip to acquire a new one (those things are damn expensive.)
So I guess there is some reason for this level of panic. But I was shocked at the level of gadgetry I feel it is necessary to bring with me for a few days trip. Also, I am female. Do I not care at all what I look like? Or whether or not I actually have clothes to wear? I mean guys should care too, but they seem more likely to just wear the same thing three days in a row. There is no makeup or jewelry packed. I even forgot to put on my usual jewelry this morning.
Now, I was all set for expected monsoon weather this morning. It did not appear. I became annoyed. I'm pretty sure that this expected downpour is going to end up occurring right when I leave to walk home and continue through my walk to the T completely soaking me and my non-waterproof duffel bag. But dry feet I will have! If I have to wear these rainboots the whole effing day I will do so! They are purple, shiny and warm. All positives. Maybe I am a girl after all.
Now, I was attempting to pack last night, at least most of it, and when I was done and climbed into bed I realized something interesting. I am going to Martha's Vineyard and Cape Cod, generally sort of nature, pretty, slightly outdoorsy type places. The things that I was most stressed about making sure I packed were: camera (okay, that makes sense) Macbook Air, Nook, charger for Nook, iPod and iPhone. Then I realized that charger I preferred to bring for the latter two was at work, got upset with myself, and finally decided to deal with this by sending the following e-mail to my work account. 'Pack iPod/iPhone charger dumbass.' As if I would fail without that last admonition. When I arrived this morning and checked my e-mail, it was the first e-mail and I immediately packed charger. Otherwise, who knows.
But, ummmm, I'm totally just assuming that I threw enough shirts in there. Couple pairs of pants, whatever. However, I obsessively needed to make sure that every piece of gadgetry I own was packed (and had downloaded a couple books to the Nook, just in case.... nothing, there is nothing. I can buy books and download them if there is 3G, so, there is no way I could be without the capability of downloading books unless, perhaps, I wandered off into the African desert while I was on Cape Cod.)
And I also had to make sure that all chargers were packed.
Admittedly there have been some issues there in the past... I got to Barcelona with camera in hand, having put the battery to charge in the charger the previous night. Unfortunately I left charger and battery behind, and, therefore I have no photographs from Barcelona. I've left behind laptop chargers and made emergency Apple Store trip to acquire a new one (those things are damn expensive.)
So I guess there is some reason for this level of panic. But I was shocked at the level of gadgetry I feel it is necessary to bring with me for a few days trip. Also, I am female. Do I not care at all what I look like? Or whether or not I actually have clothes to wear? I mean guys should care too, but they seem more likely to just wear the same thing three days in a row. There is no makeup or jewelry packed. I even forgot to put on my usual jewelry this morning.
Now, I was all set for expected monsoon weather this morning. It did not appear. I became annoyed. I'm pretty sure that this expected downpour is going to end up occurring right when I leave to walk home and continue through my walk to the T completely soaking me and my non-waterproof duffel bag. But dry feet I will have! If I have to wear these rainboots the whole effing day I will do so! They are purple, shiny and warm. All positives. Maybe I am a girl after all.
After the Jump!
Why have I added this generally sort of annoying feature to my blog? Well, some of the posts are long, like I'd take a look to check that there were no bizarre format things and I'd have to keep scrolling and scrolling. This seemed kind of annoying.
So, I was faced with 2 annoying things, cutting off the longer posts so you have to click to read the rest of it. Or continuing to have some mammoth long posts that you might not want to deal with. I'm not sure which is better, so I'll try the break thing for a while. Only on long posts.
Okay, I have to admit, there is a third option. I could edit my self and not write freakin ridiculously long posts. However, since that ain't happenin. Let's just stick with 1 and 2 which are actually viable options. By the way, if anyone actually has an opinion on this please share. I have no idea which is more annoying for people in general.
So, I was faced with 2 annoying things, cutting off the longer posts so you have to click to read the rest of it. Or continuing to have some mammoth long posts that you might not want to deal with. I'm not sure which is better, so I'll try the break thing for a while. Only on long posts.
Okay, I have to admit, there is a third option. I could edit my self and not write freakin ridiculously long posts. However, since that ain't happenin. Let's just stick with 1 and 2 which are actually viable options. By the way, if anyone actually has an opinion on this please share. I have no idea which is more annoying for people in general.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Fuzzy Alarm Clock Logic
Anyone else notice that morning logic, particularly the logic your brain spits out in the first 5 minutes after waking up is total crap? And yet, it seems perfectly good at the time.
I am the type of person who is awoken by alarm clocks just enough to find sneaky ways to get around them. Its a fine line. If an alarm clock is loud and buzzing and generally incredibly obnoxious I will turn that thing off so fast my sleep cycle is hardly interrupted at all.
On the other hand, if the alarm clock is sort of gentle, doesn't jar me too badly, then I will blissfully hit the snooze button, and then again...again...again.. you get the point. An alarm clock without a snooze button is scary. After all, you have total and utter failure, or you get up. There is no in between. So I guess you would need to work out the percentage of times when failure occurred, consider the consequences of failure, and determine whether you have an acceptable model. I think for most people the acceptable percentage of total failure is pretty low.
Obviously when I say total failure, I don't mean the alarm clock, I'm talking failure to get out of bed and get to required duties approximately at accepted time. I think the fraction of alarm clock failures due to actual alarm clock failure is very low. There is also human error in things like plugging in, charging, setting, etc. but those do not relate to the morning, those relate to whether your brain is functional at night. Mine generally does quite well at night, and if yours doesn't, and also doesn't in the morning, well, I think you have bigger problems than your alarm clock.
There are 4 sets of circumstances which have actually worked to get me out of bed in the morning in the past, say, 10 years.
I am the type of person who is awoken by alarm clocks just enough to find sneaky ways to get around them. Its a fine line. If an alarm clock is loud and buzzing and generally incredibly obnoxious I will turn that thing off so fast my sleep cycle is hardly interrupted at all.
On the other hand, if the alarm clock is sort of gentle, doesn't jar me too badly, then I will blissfully hit the snooze button, and then again...again...again.. you get the point. An alarm clock without a snooze button is scary. After all, you have total and utter failure, or you get up. There is no in between. So I guess you would need to work out the percentage of times when failure occurred, consider the consequences of failure, and determine whether you have an acceptable model. I think for most people the acceptable percentage of total failure is pretty low.
Obviously when I say total failure, I don't mean the alarm clock, I'm talking failure to get out of bed and get to required duties approximately at accepted time. I think the fraction of alarm clock failures due to actual alarm clock failure is very low. There is also human error in things like plugging in, charging, setting, etc. but those do not relate to the morning, those relate to whether your brain is functional at night. Mine generally does quite well at night, and if yours doesn't, and also doesn't in the morning, well, I think you have bigger problems than your alarm clock.
There are 4 sets of circumstances which have actually worked to get me out of bed in the morning in the past, say, 10 years.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
I can no longer use a pencil
Yes, strange but true.
I made that proud comment back aways about how I have escaped my heaps of paper by putting absolutely everything on an electronic storage device. (Like I know its horrible, if someone got my phone and actually figured out how stupid I am they could do some serious damage)
But there are unintended consequences.
The first sign I laughed about. You see, banking is amongst the things that had moved 100% online. Starting in Iceland (and I was happy) So, when I moved to Boston, I had to regress a bit.
I gave up being a stubborn mule and got a bank account with checks, and bought the stupid checks (and of course, now I have like a hundred when I will use 1 or 2 a month and therefore will have moved and be scratching out the address on them before I actually use them all. They have puppies and kittens on them though, so all good.) First check I write, I completely mess it up. I mean, its been 5 years! I'm supposed to remember how to fill out a stupid check (yes, as an adult one should be able to write a check, but of course me=adult is still under some question).
My roommate assured me it was salvagable by crossing out and initialing, and apparently it was. At the time I only had one check so I couldn't just rip it up. That little random descriptive bit is to assure you that I'm not stupid enough that I wouldn't just move on to the next check if there was one available.
Moving on, I also do not write at work. I have several pads of paper on my desk. I have a couple of pens, rollerball pens, I never use ballpoint pens. However, the paper mostly has doodles, and unintelligible scrawls, many with lines through them. These occasionally represent my thought processes. Aside from those pads there is no paper in my office. (There is a nice whiteboard, but the only thing on it is a fake greek mathematical equation my boss wrote on it) I gently mock my colleague for her paper accumulation skills, but clearly we are meant to balance one another out. She is also a frequent and adept user of pencils.
I made that proud comment back aways about how I have escaped my heaps of paper by putting absolutely everything on an electronic storage device. (Like I know its horrible, if someone got my phone and actually figured out how stupid I am they could do some serious damage)
But there are unintended consequences.
The first sign I laughed about. You see, banking is amongst the things that had moved 100% online. Starting in Iceland (and I was happy) So, when I moved to Boston, I had to regress a bit.
I gave up being a stubborn mule and got a bank account with checks, and bought the stupid checks (and of course, now I have like a hundred when I will use 1 or 2 a month and therefore will have moved and be scratching out the address on them before I actually use them all. They have puppies and kittens on them though, so all good.) First check I write, I completely mess it up. I mean, its been 5 years! I'm supposed to remember how to fill out a stupid check (yes, as an adult one should be able to write a check, but of course me=adult is still under some question).
My roommate assured me it was salvagable by crossing out and initialing, and apparently it was. At the time I only had one check so I couldn't just rip it up. That little random descriptive bit is to assure you that I'm not stupid enough that I wouldn't just move on to the next check if there was one available.
Moving on, I also do not write at work. I have several pads of paper on my desk. I have a couple of pens, rollerball pens, I never use ballpoint pens. However, the paper mostly has doodles, and unintelligible scrawls, many with lines through them. These occasionally represent my thought processes. Aside from those pads there is no paper in my office. (There is a nice whiteboard, but the only thing on it is a fake greek mathematical equation my boss wrote on it) I gently mock my colleague for her paper accumulation skills, but clearly we are meant to balance one another out. She is also a frequent and adept user of pencils.
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