May 31, 2004
A warm welcome to Yazad Jal
One of the benefits of being myself - being open about my passions and not worrying overmuch about getting along with everyone - is that occasionally, someone I've never heard from introduces himself or herself and extends a hand in friendship, knowing who I am and what I stand for.
This happened again today, this time from somewhere I'd least expected: India, in the form of an articulate fellow named Yazad Jal, a thoroughgoing and studious anarchocapitalist, who'd taken note of me from a couple of running battles I'd been having with a few people on the Atheists community on Orkut.
After taking a quick look at Yazad's Orkut profile, and seeing immediately that he didn't seem like a flake (believe me, I've met a couple of crazies in the last year), I checked out Yazad's blog. I'm impressed: he's a very solid, intelligent, articulate and funny individual who's been writing fairly regularly for a couple of years, and has some interesting things to say about the political and economic problems of India. Visit his blog and make friends. If you're a fellow Orkuteer, introduce yourself to him and make friends there.
Imagine PBS and NPR with police powers
I remember the odious BBC television licensing fee from my days in London long ago, but had thought the fee had been repealed. Not so, reports UK-resident Australian Monica White:
For those of you who don’t live in the UK, you may be interested in the phenomenon that is the TV License – I was truly surprised by it a year ago. Essentially, if you have a TV or receiving equipment, you are obliged to pay the government £121 per year to view the BBC channels.
Don’t watch the BBC? I’m afraid that TV Licensing doesn’t believe you. EVERYONE who owns an operational set must watch the BBC. They're compelled to. There’s something in the water.
TV Licensing ‘Enquiry Officers’ also seem to get a hoot out of slapping £1000 fines onto anyone within spitting distance.
Folks, imagine this scenario in America: PBS or NPR radio direction finding vans canvassing your neighborhood, coming to your door, backed up by police powers. Think about it.
Quote of the Day
landlord, cowboy, brotherhood, yacht, cult, primitive, addict, alumni, American, elderly, illiterate, mankind, penmanship, teenager, third world, uncivilized, underprivileged, unmarried, widow or widower, masterpiece or mastery.
Just some of the words you won't find in an American textbook because an anti-bias committee has airbrushed the literature.
It's funny when a line Bob Dylan's "Blowing in the Wind" changes from "How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?" to "How many roads must an individual walk down before you can call them an adult."
May 30, 2004
Monica White launches her blog!
The lovely Monica White informs me a few minutes ago that she has a blog, Th'inkwell. I'm really happy to see it! Welcome to the blogosphere, Monica!
Michael Badnarik wins Libertarian Party nomination
Michael Lorrey reports on Orkut community Libertarians the results a few minutes ago of the presidential candidate nomination at the national convention in Atlanta, Georgia:
LP 3rd ballot256 249 423 Michael Badnarik winner
246 244 Gary Nolan
258 285 344 Aaron Russo
xxx 005 011 NOTA [None Of The Above]
015 othersAll single digit vote candidates dropped on 1st ballot.
NOTA is never dropped.
Nolan is dropped on 2nd ballot.
Shock. Badnarik was thought to be trailing in third place.
Nolan speaks to convention and endorses Badnarik.I'm happy, I like Mike, I met him in November at the LPNH convention, where he gave one of his Constitution classes.
I'm happy too: these results give me some confidence that the Libertarian Party is serious about its founding principles. Congratulations to Badnarik! I'm looking forward to seeing whom he chooses as running mate... I hope he doesn't choose Nolan in a quid pro quo for having thrown his support to Badnarik after the 2nd round of voting.
The Liberty English Camp (Lithuania)
A few days ago, my friend Glenn Cripe told me about this fascinating business venture: The Liberty English Camp (Lithuania).
Ralph Merkle's "Nanotechnology and Medicine"
Here's an interesting short article by Ralph Merkle written when he was working for Zyvex (before he moved on to Georgia Tech): "Nanotechnology and Medicine".
Quote of the Day
Is it moral to carry arms? You bet it is! When I enter your home or your business with a firearm, concealed or otherwise, I am tacitly agreeing to share with you the responsibility for defending your property and your family. When I eat in the same restaurant, I am prepared to shed my blood in your defense. There are survivors of the horror at Luby’s in Killeen, Texas, who would appreciate what I am saying here.
I will never, never need to ask some poor cop to die for me. I value my own life enough to defend it myself. I carry arms proudly, as a free American.
Do you?
May 29, 2004
Quote of the Day
What he said: Have you ever thought about what Jesus could do for you?
What I said: Not much, really. Religion isn't my thing.
What I was thinking: If your god really is omnipotent and omniscient as your people claim, then he's directly responsible for my mother's stroke and the fact that my sister has been deaf since she was about three. If the Lord, or Jesus, or one of their henchmen ever happens to appeareth before me, I just hope that I remember, among the pyrotechnic light show that should accompany any such apparition, to kick God square in the nuts as a "thank you" for services rendered. [Note: If anybody is offended by this, then remember that God in his omnipotence is entirely responsible for my having said what I've just said - this was all God's will.]
May 28, 2004
Another plug for RKBA.org
Just because I'm feeling like it: a plug for my friend Jeff Chan's Right to Keep and Bear Arms website.
Ah, the wonders of server logging
I just found this amusing thread on Sword Forum International; scroll down to see why.
Happy birthday to Tom Burroughes!
Happy birthday to Tom Burroughes! I hope it's a good day for sailing, mate.
Quote of the Day
...that's why I advocate no pants at all for men. If you're wearing a nice shirt and tie and a sports jacket, you can think of it as the Porky Pig look.
Of course your "tail" is in the wrong place...
May 27, 2004
Utilikilt: "Beer Gut Cut (+$25.00)"
Warren reminds me of the Utilikilt (I'd known about it long before my kilting Tuesday night):
This here is a kilt for tough guys. In fact all of their kilts look cool and tough.
I notice on the page for the Workman kilt: "Beer Gut Cut (+$25.00)". Heh... glad I don't need that.
A company named AmeriKilt makes something similar.
Greyhound freaking out over Chinese competition
My wife Peggy just got back from 9 days travelling between New York, Boston, Washington, and Philadelphia on a "planes, trains, & automobiles" trip with her older brother visiting from Hong Kong. She mentioned some the killer deals she'd seen for bus service - the "Chinatown to Chinatown" service - on some bus company between New York and Boston, for only $10!
Well, sitting here writing, I just now saw a little newsclip on Fox News mentioning the service, which is run by a company called Fung Wah Bus. The busses look cleaner and newer than the rolling homeless shelters run by Greyhound, and the latter's lobby organization, the American Bus Association, is freaking out, claiming the new bus company (and Chinese ones like it) must be doing something wrong, "cutting corners" and such, and snidely insinuating that the Chinese company is operating illegally, since it's running daily service rather than "charter".
I say give the Chinese companies our business. Screw Greyhound, the Amtrak of the busways!
CNN poll on renewal of the Assault Weapons Ban
Scott Beiser passes this on:
Please vote in this CNN online poll regarding the assault weapons ban. The results are showing much better now than when I got [notice of it] but we still need more votes for our side.
You must have the wrong friends
Skimming through the headers on mail in my Bayesian spam filter program "Suspect mail" folder, I see this little gem:
Subject: Impress your Friends with a Rolex
...appropriately misspelled in an attempt pass the filters into my inbox (which didn't happen). I do take a look in the folder now and then, since I do have the occasional morbid interest in some human pathologies. This header line ranks up there with the "Impress your Friends with a University Diploma" memeline.
Quote of the Day
I believe it was Dr. Johnson who said famously that "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." It is also the first refuge of an idiot. My loyalty is to the ideas on which this country was founded, not to the two-century-long string of governments that have done their best to destroy them.
May 26, 2004
Russell gets kilted
A few days ago, my Bujinkan teacher Dale Seago announced on our dojo mailing list that some kilts he owned, including one he'd recently ordered, no longer fit him due to the continued success of Atkins on his waistline. He said he'd like to give the new one away to anyone who'd claim it. I'm a pretty fit guy, but I'm naturally broader-beamed than Dale, and the size he mentioned was exactly my size, so I spoke up for it. Last night in training, I received it:
Dale, last week, on where these kilts can be purchased:
These are modeled on the traditionally-constructed, khaki canvas kilts issued to the Black Watch during World War I. And for $99, you can't beat 'em.
Dale, today, celebrating the continued kiltification of his dojo (a subcultural blend you'll not see anywhere else in the world, folks):
Y'know, there was a time when proper clothing was outlawed, from August 1747 to July 1782. For Russell and the rest, here is a translation from the Gaelic of part of a proclamation that was issued upon repeal of the prohibition:
"Listen Men. This is bringing before all the Sons of the Gael, the King and Parliament of Britain have forever abolished the act against the Highland Dress; which came down to the Clans from the beginning of the world to the year 1746. This must bring great joy to every Highland Heart. You are no longer bound down to the unmanly dress of the Lowlander. This is declaring to every Man, young and old, simple and gentle, that they may after this put on and wear the Truis, the Little Kilt, the Coat, and the Striped Hose, as also the Belted Plaid, without fear of the Law of the Realm or the spite of the enemies."
I hadn't mentioned that the sense of "F-R-E-E-D-O-M-M-M!!!" (Dale's words, channelling William Wallace) which I got after trying on the kilt - and then returning to the bathroom to correct it, having put it on backwards - was fantastic! Yep, it's a man's garment. So, I wore it for the entire training session, leaving my gi trousers in my training bag. And for some reason, I just felt more bellicose, a feeling my training partners got to enjoy. Heh.
Thanks Dale!
Quote of the Day
[A bit of context: this quote refers to an amusing incident where a religious cultist in a forum I frequent blew up when he was called out on an issue of "quantum mysticism" he couldn't support. - Russell]
I think [a particular theist twit] actually did good job of defining by example an important concept in quantum mechanics: the uncertainty principle.
He obviously has some beliefs, and we could either know the position or the energy of his beliefs, but not both.
He chose to show us the energy.
Dan McCoy
May 25, 2004
Fantastic scented candles at giveaway prices
An old friend of mine, Redvelvet (who doesn't keep in contact as well as she should!) sent me email last week announcing that she would be displaying some of her most recent products, including scented candles, at a San Francisco house cum ad hoc art gallery. So, my g/f and I headed up to the City for some good and outrageously low priced dim sum in the Sunset district, then motored over to the neighborhood where she was working.. where we spent half an hour scrounging for parking.
We found the funky house where she was working, first encountering "artists" of the type one usually finds in the Haight district, then found Christina, who'd been given a corner slot on a semi-indoor/semi-outdoor veranda. I introduced her to my g/f, and exchanged "how've ya been doin'?" gossip for a while. Turns out she had a bellydancing accident a couple of months ago - she's not explained to me yet what that means - and decided to start a cool little business while she's looking for work in the field she's re-trained for recently, digital circuit layout (her first degree is in theoretical mathematics).
I was stunned at the dozens of fantastic candles she had on display. I and everyone who stopped by to snap up candles noted that these types of candles usually cost a multiple - 2 to 4 times - what she was charging. So, I'm telling you, my friends, about this (though I get no cut of her sales at all) because I like Christina and I think these candles sell themselves... see for yourself.
Trader Joe's Reduced Carbohydrate Cinnamon Walnut Bread
I just finished off a loaf of luscious Trader Joe's Reduced Carbohydrate Cinnamon Walnut Bread (along with an equally luscious jar of their Cashew/Macadamia Spread): 6 grams total carbohydrates per slice - a fraction of the normal load - and 8 grams protein per slice!
Quote of the Day
...choose your friends more carefully, be ruthless with your time and seek out the best people you can find. As you improve yourself, you'll find that better and better people will naturally gravitate towards you. I think you'll be surprised at just how much excellence is out there.
Monica White
May 24, 2004
I couldn't hold off a day posting this one
I don't normally post more than one formal "quote of the day", but this one from Adam Michnik (I don't know who that is) coming via Chris Claypoole deserves immediate posting:
As a rule, dictatorships guarantee safe streets and terror of the doorbell. In democracy the streets may be unsafe after dark, but the most likely visitor in the early hours will be the milkman.
"We do get to take one home with us, right?"
My friend Peter Chang called a few minutes ago to let me know he was getting ready for a 100-mile bike ride/race in Tahoe in a few weeks, and mentioned along the way that he'd been asked to play the male of an Asian couple in a Jaguar television commercial. Here are pics from the recent filming; his "wife" Lily Chai is certainly a lovely woman!
Sympathy from unexpected quarters
I've archived a couple of old blog posts here which seem to be ongoing magnets for morons; one of those is "Two-Buck Chuck: Tough times mean cheap wines". Apparently, I'm not the only one to be hit with with comments from people who don't get it, as someone from another blog, who has witnessed my frustration, can attest.
Interesting meme making its rounds
I just saw the word "creationist" alternately spelled "cretinist", on a list I frequent. I find, upon Googling, that it's a widespread meme.
"Devils Hit Cyber Church"
Kevin Cole on Orkut passes along this bit of only-in-the-new-world news: "Devils Hit Cyber Church".
"Oh. My. God."
This was sent me yesterday by my good friend Tom Burroughes in London, who gave me permission to reprint here:
Hi Russell, you remember my friend Martin who came over to California back in 1995? Well, he did a crazy thing today -- he went to Lord's cricket ground in north London, and as a "dare", took his clothes off and ran across the pitch before getting booked by the police, all the while producing pandamonium in the crowd.Oh. My. God.
Tom follows up that, "I checked the cricket reports on two channels and I have not come across the incident although I notice the television channels often tend to brush such stuff [aside]." He says that Martin was hit with a small fine and given a warning by the police. Anyone hear about this incident? Monica?
Quote of the Day
The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.
Robert Frost
May 23, 2004
Quote of the Day
A man flattened by an opponent can get up again. A man flattened by conformity stays down for good.
Thomas J. Watson, Jr
May 22, 2004
Quote of the Day
I won't be in today for work because I have the potential of making history. So I think that's a little more important, and I just wouldn't be focused. So lets call this a mental health day or something.
May 21, 2004
Iron. You wanted to know about iron?
I found a pretty cool resource on iron, one of my favorite funky transition metals.
Quote of the Day
[Re: the recent "Jesus Is My Homeboy" fashion fad - Russell]:
Jesus was just one of a handful of guys wandering around ranting whatever the hell happened to pop into their coupla-crayons-short-of-a-box skulls. Nothing cool about him, unless begging is suddenly the 'new black'.
Monica White
May 20, 2004
National Socialist eugenics... in Sweden
Ah, yes, the benevolent Swedish model of democratic socialism. Here's an interesting piece, "Sweden and the Myth of Benevolent Socialism"; an excerpt from a Washington Post article of 1997 is included in the piece:
From 1934 to 1974, 62,000 Swedes were sterilized as part of a national program grounded in the science of racial biology and carried out by officials who believed they were helping to build a progressive, enlightened welfare state...In some cases, couples judged to be inferior parents were sterilized, as were their children when they became teenagers.
This was not a secret program:
Margot Wallstrom, the Swedish Minister of Health and Social Affairs, told the Post that "there was nothing secret about the sterilization program. It was carried out in the light of public debate at a time when Swedes believed they were creating a society that would be the envy of the world." The Swedish Institute for Racial Biology, founded in 1922, was the first national institute of the kind. The Swedes were also the first to sterilize the mentally ill, beginning in 1934.
The next coffee-shop socialist you meet who blathers about the benevolence of the Swedish model should check out the "World Socialist Web Site" article on the matter. These folks bill themselves as "The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI)... the leadership of the world socialist movement, the Fourth International founded by Leon Trotsky in 1938," so it might be worth checking them out for this bit of hot socialist-on-socialist criticism:
Between 1934 and 1976, when the Sterilisation Act was finally repealed, 62,000 people, 90 percent of them women, were sterilised. 15-year-old teenagers were sterilised for "crimes" such as going to dance halls. One woman was sterilised in 1960 for being in a motorcycle gang. Orphans were sterilised as a condition of their release from children's homes. Others were pinpointed on the basis of local neighbourhood gossip and personal grudges. Some were targeted because of their "low intelligence", being of mixed race, being gypsies, or for physical defects.
The article notes that "...per head of population... only Nazi Germany sterilised more people than Sweden." For those few of you who don't know this little fact, it's worth pointing out that "Nazi" is short for NSDAP, or Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei... National Socialist German Workers Party.
Lesson #1: Know all of your allergies!
This from my friend Franklin: Man Becomes Ill After Gorging on Cicadas.
That's why I say, "Hey man, nice shot."
I first heard about this on the local news today or yesterday, and through one of "small world" circuits I've gotten used to since I discovered the Internet in the late 1980's, my friend Steve Pegram forwards me the local news station's coverage of it, "Mountain Lion killed in Palo Alto neighborhood":
The media think this footage is graphic. The officer made a good shot. She used an M4 with an EoTech. Based on my limited knowledge of cat physiology (from reading hunt reports and watching OLN) it appears to be a lung shot. I surmise this from the cat's reaction based on known lung shots I've observed on hunting shows.Perhaps we should rename the 5.56 Poodle Shooter to Kitty Killer?
The video does go on to say that the shot was lung/heart/lung, which is almost as good as such a game shot can get (additionally breaking one or both scapulae to keep the cat from running would have been even better, and a brainstem shot would have rated "perfect".) The only thing that would have made this better is if the householder had dispatched the threat herself. By the way, I should mention that there have been several recent public accounts of mountain lion attacks on hikers in the nearby Stanford hills (The Farm really is farmland)... good riddance to bad cats.
Quote of the Day
To believe in gun control, you have to believe that it's wrong to make snide, sexist comments about women, unless the comments are about women who own guns.
Bill Hartwell
May 19, 2004
Another reason I love capitalism
Today I bought a crate of 4 pounds of juicy red "California Giant" strawberries grown in Watsonville, California, some of which are the size of tennis balls... for U.S. $4.50 or so. I love markets.
Lecture: "The Artificial Synapse Chip: Towards an Electronic Prosthetic Retina"
My thanks to my longtime friend (I avoid the term "old friend" for such a young woman) Kennita Watson for alerting me to this lecture at Stanford on 23 June 2004: "The Artificial Synapse Chip: Towards an Electronic Prosthetic Retina" by Harvey A. Fishman, M.D., Ph.D, Stanford University School of Medicine, the Director of Ophthalmic Tissue Engineering and Chief Ophthalmology Resident in the department of Ophthalmology.
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the most common form of severe and irreversible blindness in the U.S. Our research program consists of a highly interdisciplinary effort between physicians, engineers, and scientists to develop a neural interface that will connect the output from a digital camera to individual retinal cells in patients with AMD, thus bypassing injured cells.
I really wish I could make this lecture, but I have a bioanthropology final exam during the very time slot this lecture occurs (6:15pm for dinner at the hospital cafeteria, 7:30-8:30pm for the lecture). If you, the reader, can attend I'd love to hear your impressions of the event.
By the way, this sounds like a skillset for the type of research physician I find really interesting:
Dr. Fishman's area of expertise is translational research that uses a multidisciplinary approach to develop novel therapies for blinding diseases in the eye – in particular, Age-Related Macular Degeneration. His research bridges the gaps between tissue engineering, surface science, nanofabrication, chemistry, neuroscience and retinal transplantation biology in Ophthalmology. His background in new technologies and medical science is diverse including bioMEMS, chip-based microfluidics and confocal and time-lapse microscopy, neuroscience/nerve cell regeneration and macular diseases in Ophthalmology. He has made contributions in the fields of microfluidics, laser-induced fluorescence detection, separation science, and biosensors.
Quote of the Day
Be happy while you're living, for no matter how long you live, you're a longer time dead.
Scottish proverb (courtesy of Robert Bradbury)
May 18, 2004
Quote of the Day
I imagine respirocytes as minuscule objects consisting of roughly 18 billion atoms arranged in small balls about a thousandth of a millimeter in diameter. Each respirocyte is a tiny pressurized gas tank equipped with small pumps. Respirocytes are nanobots that move with the blood. In the body's periphery, they release oxygen and absorb carbon dioxide. In the lungs, they do the opposite, recharging themselves with oxygen. The exchange of gases is regulated by minute sensors. Though the respirocytes are modeled on red blood corpuscles, they transport oxygen two hundred times more efficiently than the natural item. A small syringe-full of respirocytes could carry as much oxygen as your entire bloodstream.
Robert A. Freitas Jr
28 July 2000
May 17, 2004
"Would you like a bag and board with that?"
If you're used to hearing the question, "Would you like a bag and board with that?" every other week or so, what habit do you have?
Micropur MP1 Purification Tablets
My friend Steve Pegram passed this on to me a few days ago with the comment "First I've heard of these. Handy, if they work as advertised." I agree.
The only disinfection system effective against viruses, bacteria, cryptosporidium, and Giardia
Fresh tasting water - no unpleasant taste
Easy to use tablets
The same proven technology that is used in municipal water supplies
Lightweight and compact - ideal for traveling, lightweight backpacking, and emergency use
Purification Method: Chlorine Dioxide TabletsOutput: 1 tablet treats 1 quart (1 liter) of water
Capacity: 30 tablets
Kronos Optimal Health Centre: "Worth every penny"
An old friend of mine, whose judgment I strongly respect, recently stated that the services he received at Kronos Optimal Health Centre were "...worth every penny!" Eventually, I plan to avail myself of those services too.
So many business cards...
I have an inch-high stack of business cards and handwritten personal notes to transcribe from this weekend's proceedings. Whoa.
Hellsing or Van Helsing? Gabriel or Abraham?
L. Neil Smith, on a mailing list this morning, mentioned he'll be watching "Van Helsing" soon at the cinema. I'm not yet seen it, and was surprised to have heard about it when the trailers hit the cinemas and TV: I was familiar with the Japanese animation series "Hellsing" (note the spelling), in which the daughter of Dr. Abraham Van Helsing (correctly giving homage to Stoker), and present head of the "Hellsing Foundation", creates an uneasy vampire hunting alliance with the semi-psychotic vampire Alucard (note the spelling, but backwards), for whom Hugh Jackman, in the movie "Van Helsing" is the (slightly effeminate) spitting image, but as the amnesiac "Gabriel Van Helsing".
All very confusing.
I'm not sure whether this is a licenced, retooled-for-American-audiences live action adaption of the Japanese original, or yet another blatant slightly altered ripoff a la "The Lion King", Disney's theft of "Kimba the White Lion" ("Jangaru taitei", or "Jungle Emperor".)
All this having been said, I'm certainly open to enjoying "Van Helsing", if it's good... regardless of provenance or inspiration.
Back now, and thank you, Alan Weiss!
Last night, I returned from 3 days of dawn-to-midnight immersion in the wonderful intensity of the 2004 Foresight Senior Associates Gathering just in time to meet a friend for 4 hours' study for our respective chemistry exams this morning. Catching up with email, I just noticed that my friend Alan Weiss has surprised me with a donation toward the upkeep of this site. So, thank you, Alan! I really appreciate the action and the sentiment behind it (which I'll keep private between us for now, but which brought a smile to my face.)
May 15, 2004
Having a wonderful time, wish you were here
I crashed late last night, and woke early this morning, and am ready to do it all again today: the Foresight SAG continues.
Quote of the Day
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
William Pitt (1759-1806)
May 14, 2004
Quote of the Day
I regret to say that we of the F.B.I. are powerless to act in cases of oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way obstructed interstate commerce.
J. Edgar Hoover
May 13, 2004
Quote of the Day
I was lead to believe that fidelity was about genital exclusivity. It took a long time to realize that infidelity is about lying and not abiding by (or re-negotiating) interpersonal contracts.
It's been a long journey. Now I know that I can never again promise exclusivity (even if I in fact have only one partner). I cannot trust myself to live up to that promise and therefore cannot expect any future partner to trust such a promise.
What I can promise is total honesty. I want a partner with whom I can share my feelings, my attractions, my crushes. Most of these never get acted out anyway.
If a woman wants genital exclusivity, all she has to do is keep me sexually exhausted. :-)
Richard Birney-Smith
May 12, 2004
There's a nasty little story behind Géricault's "The Raft of the `Medusa'"
I mentioned to Andy Chen this morning, when I saw him in front of our cancelled chemistry lecture, that I'd actually seen Géricault's The Raft of the `Medusa' on a visit to the Louvre in 1990. Hell, you can't miss it: it's gargantuan. Andy had mentioned yesterday on his blog that his biology teacher had discussed the work in class as a lead-in to a discussion of the urinary tract.
I'd read a bit of the sordid backstory of the tragedy of the Medusa, but never in depth. I just found a fascinating and tragicomic account of the wicked mess of blundering incompetence that inspired this monsterpiece of Romantic painting, an article on History House:
In 1819, when French painter Theodore Ge'ricault first exhibited his dramatic masterpiece, "Scene of Shipwreck" to Paris society, he could little imagine the reaction the painting would receive. Onlookers were fascinated and horrified, rather the way they'd react if they saw a particularly large and hairy spider. The painting is enormous. Sixteen feet high, twenty three feet, six inches wide (about 5x7 m), it depicts a group of desperate men floating on a few planks of wood, trying to get the attention of a tiny little ship on the horizon by waving their shirts around. There was a sordid, true tale behind this raft, and everyone knew what it was. It had taken place three years prior. It involved desperate men, howling stupidity, and cannibalism. And, with the painting looming over them, everyone was talking about it.
Happy Survival Day to Michael and Neil
I'm given to understand that as of today, it's been an integer number of years since the parturitions of my buddies Michael Reed and L. Neil Smith. In other words, happy birthday guys! Keep surviving!
Quote of the Day
If one were to walk into the beginning of my biology class, one might conclude that one was in the wrong place. Art history or human biology? Hard to say. Every day, he (my instructor) opens up with a slide of an artwork (nevermind the definition of art).
Today, it was a painting by Theodore Something-or-another (a Frenchie) named Medusa (or something like that). Anyway, the painting is an illustration of a raft full of survivors of the Medusa, the flagship of some French flotilla en route to their colonies in Africa. Because of typical French incompetence and blundering, their ship ran aground and some 150 crewers had to abandon ship on to a hastily built raft. After thirteen days (when they were finally rescued), only fifteen of the survivors were left, and five of those died four days later. My instructor was telling this story fairly well, then jumped back to the matter at hand - the urinary system. Wow, that was abrupt.
May 11, 2004
Quote of the Day
...when I saw Vlad in Carlsbad he patted my stomach and said big (fat) men make great fighters, then smiled and said they can't run away like everyone else so they have to be...
Clayton
Still underwater, but surfacing
Yesterday, I fielded more email than I've dealt with in years. If I haven't answered you yet, expect something today or tomorrow.
May 10, 2004
Structural molecular orbital diagrams: some tools and a method
The advice below can easily be applied to many different academic endeavors, including use in non-science classes. Here's a recipe. First, buy these pens:
- The Bic brite liner, of course. Avoid excessive markup with this. Really. Some of you may need to be told this, so here goes: what good is text that is mostly highlighted?
- The classic Bic "4-color pen": you can't survive without this!
- At least one Sharpie pen (keep one in your labcoat pocket) for marking test tubes and centrifuge vessels. I know, these have nothing to do with the method below, but a good lab geek always has one in her pocket anyway.
- A set of colored pencils. I use the erasable Sanford Col-Erase, but non-erasable Crayola colored pencils are cheaper and color adequately too.
The classic Bic 4-color pen should be in any student's pocket anyway. Annotating your own notes is so much easier when you use different colors. Here's an application to chemistry: you can draw much more easily understandable molecular orbital "balloon diagrams" (using the 90% probability surface standard or other representation of choice) if you assign colors to orbitals and stick with those colors.
The "balloon diagram method" I use:
Before placing any of these pens to paper, first visualize where on that paper you'll place your molecule's constituent atoms, bearing in mind that you'll usually be converting a flattened Lewis dot diagram to a projection of some angle of a 3-dimensional structure. I strongly recommend therefore that you do the full Lewis diagram first, taking into account resonance, where applicable.
Draw the central atoms first, e.g. the backbone carbons in most organic structures, then place the peripheral atoms next, populating with hydrogens as the very last step (since they're invariably peripheral).
Using the medium-point 4-color pen, draw circles in your color of choice for those species (almost always only hydrogen) whose atomic orbitals do not hybridize. In other words, the 1s orbital around the hydrogens.
Assuming you're not working with d-block elements - that is, you're dealing only with s-block and d-block elements but not funky transition metals - move to the central atoms and, referring to your Lewis dot diagram, ask yourself about the hybridization of the atom's atomic orbitals, e.g. sp, sp2, sp3. Draw the outlines of the orbitals using a different lobe color for each hybridization type.
Using a closely matching color for each orbital type (to match your pen color outlines), lightly shade your orbitals with a the side edge of a colored pencil. Your structural orbital diagram should be very clear by this time. If you've done this step right, you should have axial bonding overlaps between neighboring 1s (unhybridized) and sp, sp2, or sp3 orbital lobes.
At this point, again consult your Lewis dot diagram and identify any pi bonds. There's more than one way of representing the electron cloud manually. Don't try to reproduce the printed textbook "pi sandwich" style of orbital: you don't have the tools at hand. Instead, I recommend picking yet another color and schematically representing, by overlay, the pi bond by drawing a line from the tip of one unhybridized p-orbital to its atomic neighbor, making sure to indicate the signs of the wavefunction of each p-orbital lobe (hint: bonding orbitals match in signs; pick an arbitrary sign and make sure it's matched with its neighbor). Do the same for the opposing lobes. Label all pi bonds as such.
Your instructor may have a different standard for handwritten orbitals. Consult first.
Draw short, black lines across (perpendicular to) the sigma bonds, labelling sigma bonds as such. Revisit all the atoms and, again using another color, write the hybridization type near the atom. Here's an important step many students forget: indicate resonance in whatever manner your instructor will accept, again in another color, in a manner that clearly indicates electron delocalization. Label the line (what I use) as "resonance".
Hope someone finds this useful... this started as a rant on colored pens and mutated into a set of recommendations on drawing molecular structural orbital diagrams.
The Quigley-Sportsmobile 4WD Vehicle
In the last 2 days, I've seen two of these incredibly interesting van conversions on the streets near home: the Quigley-Sportsmobile 4WD Vehicle. I would much rather have one of these than a Hummer H2.
Altered Carbon, by Richard Morgan
Michael Reed strongly recommends to me in email Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan as "an absolutely knock-out sci-fi novel", so I've put it in my queue. I've not read it yet, so I'd welcome opinions.
I don't generally read science fiction nowadays, having gotten increasingly picky as time goes by (and science fact often holds more fascination for me the better educated I become). I did however take a weekend recently to relax with Ken Macleod's Dark Light and Engine City, which were a mixture of disappointment and amusement for me. I've read all his work so far, and will continue to do so, but the man seems to be afflicted recently with the problem Heinlein had during the late period of his life when he was stricken with a cerebral arterial blockage: at some point near the end of each story, he seems to simply get tired, and tries to wrap up the story abruptly.
My bedside reading the last couple of days: Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics: A Citizens Guide to the Economy, Revised and Expanded, a fantastic book I very highly recommend.
Quote of the Day
The objectives of bullies are Power, Control, Domination, Subjugation. They get a kick out of seeing you react. It doesn't matter how you react, the fact they've successful provoked a reaction is, to the bully, a sign that their attempt at control have been successful. After that, it's a question of wearing you down. The more your try to explain, negotiate, conciliate, etc the more gratification they obtain from your increasingly desperate attempts to communicate with them. Understand that it is not possible to communicate in a mature adult manner with a disordered individual who's emotionally retarded.
The Number One rule for dealing with this type of behaviour is: don't respond and don't engage. This is not as easy to do as it sounds. It's a natural response to want to defend yourself, and to put the person right. However, never argue with a serial bully; it's not a mature adult discussion, but like dealing with a child or immature teenager; whilst the serial bully may be an adult on the outside, on the inside they are like a child who's never grown up - and probably never will.
May 09, 2004
Linus Pauling Research Notebooks
This is pretty cool: scans of Linus Pauling's Research Notebooks taken from 1922 to 1994 (he lived 1901-1994).
As with many scientists, Linus Pauling utilized bound notebooks to keep track of the details of his research as it unfolded. A testament to the remarkable length and diversity of Dr. Pauling's career, the Pauling Papers holdings include forty-six research notebooks spanning the years of 1922 to 1994 and covering any number of the scientific fields in which Dr. Pauling involved himself. In this regard, the notebooks contain many of Pauling's laboratory calculations and experimental data, as well as scientific conclusions, ideas for further research and numerous autobiographical musings.
A couple of excellent chemistry textbooks
On Friday during his office hours, my chem prof was deeply surprised to find that I didn't yet own a copy of Zumdahl's "Chemistry", which is not our school's official text... so he gave me one of his, a new copy, the Instructor's Annotated Edition (5th)! He had an extra, so it became mine... a good, good man, and deeply flattering.
A couple of people in a chemistry forum I frequent had recommended Linus Pauling's "General Chemistry". I saw a copy in my local Border's - the 1989 Dover reprint of the 3rd edition (the last, 1971) - and flipped through it. I was impressed, so I took note of its ISBN. The shelf price was $20, but I found a pristine copy on Amazon Marketplace for half that price and ordered it. Can't wait to get it.
A caveat, by the way - and this is no hit on the book, given its age - if you're going to study coordination compounds of metals, you'll need to supplement your reading with Zumdahl, or another modern source. Although Pauling mentions the work of Alfred Werner in a sidebar of a couple of pages on the matter, he (quite understandably) doesn't mention crystal field theory & d-shell splitting (of course he wouldn't). Very highly recommended.
Another Post-It Note to my Peeps
Peggy is off on a trip to Napa with her brothers, my g/f is doing a marathon study weekend prepping for her upcoming cardiovascular system exam, and I'm more than caught up on my studies, so today - after I come back from the gym - I'll be catching up on weeks of backlogged email, list mail, and blog postings. Be back in about 3 hours...
Quote of the Day
Well, it didn't take long for this to happen. We've been "adopted" by a stray dog. This is Pesky.
I found him at our gate, shivering and obviously starving, a couple of days ago. At first, it was a toss-up: have him put to sleep, or try to nurse him back to health. In the end, his sweet disposition won me over. If he's this nice of a dog when he's near death, he must be a genuinely nice dog. I'm keeping a watchful eye on him, however, just in case he starts to show menace. One of the side benefits of being always armed is that I can be comfortable taking controlled risks with something like an unknown dog. In an unarmed society, there would be only one route for dogs like Pesky - some gov-goon would show up and either shoot him on the spot, or lock him up for a few days until he was gassed.
May 07, 2004
Quick note to Matthew & Monica
I just wanted to let Matthew & Monica know I'd not forgotten their long and thoughtful emails to me of 2 days ago. I will be answering them in the next 24 hours or so.
I figured I'd startle you guys by mentioning the fact of my response on my blog (of course, the substance will be private). Just being goofy.
Quote of the Day
Competitive systems can operate to check each other's excesses. Consider the codes governing the relations between U.S. corporations and their shareholders. The fifty states compete to offer standard corporation codes; companies can either use these default terms or tailor specific provisions in their corporate charters. (A company does not have to be physically headquartered in a state to claim it as the corporation's legal domicile.) Agreeable state rules, backed by well-established case law, can significantly cut the cost of doing business. The competition among states for incorporations and the taxes they bring makes legislatures responsive to new ideas and changing business conditions.
Equally important, company managers can't get away with adopting just any code that makes their lives easy. These rules govern a two-way agreement—between the business (essentially, its managers) and the shareholders. Opportunistic managers who try to use state laws to help themselves at the stockholders' expense are checked by another source of competition: the financial markets. So, for instance, when Pennsylvania passed a law designed to make hostile takeovers difficult, protecting managers but making stock less valuable, pressures from falling stock prices pushed most of the state's publicly traded companies to opt out of the law's provisions. Few other states adopted the same law, lest they lose incorporations.
The legal scholar Roberta Romano, who calls this federalist system of competing rules "the genius of American corporate law," writes: "As the Pennsylvania experience illustrates, the federal system provides a safety net against the consequences of harmful state laws. Some jurisdictions will have no or only mild takeover regulation, and this constrains how much other jurisdictions can act in this area and how much firms can take advantage of value-decreasing laws, especially when major commercial states such as Delaware and California have less onerous laws." Having many sources of competing rules, rather than a single, national standard, makes finding good rules—and eliminating or limiting bad ones—more likely.
Virginia Postrel
The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise, and Progress, p145 (from Chapter 5, "The Bonds of Life")
May 06, 2004
Quote of the Day
BTW, do you know what you say to a person that walks into a gun store where you work, asks to see a "9mm Automatic" and then, when it is handed to him/her, slide back, promptly lets the slide slam jarringly shut on an empty chamber and then ejects the magazine onto the floor?
"How are you today, officer?"
Forrest Halford
May 05, 2004
Russian Systema Seminar in San Francisco, Saturday 8 May 2004
Last night in the dojo, our teacher Dale Seago inquired as to who might be attending this coming Saturday's Systema seminar to be given by Kwan Lee at Mountain Lake Park from 10am - 3pm. I'd missed the announcement from a couple of weeks ago:
I'm not in the habit of recommending other martial arts' seminars: to date, the only exception has been for those taught by Donald Angier, Soke of Yanagi ryu.Russian Systema, however, is worth checking out. It's the closest thing I've yet seen outside "the Booj" in terms of movement, concepts, "feeling", and philosophy to what Hatsumi sensei has been trying to get across to us. To get a better sense of what I'm talking about, check out some of the discussions [here].
I'm going to be at this one myself, and I hope to see some of you there as well.
-- Dale
If I'm recovered from a hip bruise I somehow picked up in training last night, I might consider attending myself.
Quote of the Day
Fuck euphemisms. Dammit. Some would have us believe that a woman raped and strangled with her underwear is somehow morally superior to one that put two rounds into the chest of that motherfucker, saving future women from his predation.
Though I suppose the recent photos of abuse in Iraq point out again that people can be abusive, not just men.
God fucking dammit.
Rapists should meet a wall, and at least one .30 bullet. Fuck. My girlfriend was reading a study to me last night on at least one American college campus that had over 60% of the male respondents answer that they might, when "rape" was substituted with "force intercourse", or similar verbiage.
Stop rape. Go armed, and love yourself enough to know that you are fucking WORTH DEFENDING.
John Shirley
May 04, 2004
I don't like having to say "I told you so"
...especially when it involves bad things happening perilously close to me.
There's a phenomenon well known in its universality among martial artists, pilots, and laboratory investigators (and many others, though these are categories to which I can personally claim memberhip): beginners can be dangerous!
For fledgling pilots, safety comes first in collision avoidance and minimal aptitude in takeoff and landing (especially landing). Student pilots at this point truly have to be watched carefully.
For martial artists, dealing with beginners means being aware that the beginner is often not aware of how easy it is to hurt your training partner, and hence how important it is to learn how to train properly so that you don't get hurt "when it's your turn to lose" in practice. Genuinely dangerous!
Today, I had a reminder of how easily late-first-year chemistry students can be genuinely dangerous too. I'm a stickler for thorough preparation for lab investigation, which includes adequately understanding any reaction schema involved in the labwork. Today's labwork involved the generation of noticable volumes of chlorine and nitrogen dioxide gasses, the latter of which was to be generated by heating of reagents including concentrated nitric acid under a fume hood.
Well, today a couple of giggly Chinese girls (otherwise sharp but who are treating chemistry as a checklist item, a waypoint on the way to medical school) who didn't fully understand the reaction schema, were heating the nitric acid solutions at their bench! Before any of us had time to react, they'd already generated a visible cloud of white, toxic smoke. The hell of it was, they simply stood rooted where they were standing, looking embarassed. They were not embarassed that they stood a risk of death or injury, but that they'd been caught not having prepped their lab notebooks with the proper procedure! A couple of other students managed to shake them from their (not yet literal) mortification and pull them away from the danger, while my instructor and I started hitting the buttons on the emergency fume hood evacuation systems, hoping we could clear the cloud quickly and safely by drawing it across the room into the hood system (and upwards from there into the Great Dilution of the atmosphere... note that our lab building is gratifyingly free of pigeon poop for a very good reason.)
Later, I did what the instructor later noted was probably more effective and shocking coming from a fellow student rather than from him: I dressed down the girls in front of everyone else, telling them they must come into the lab prepared next time, rather than faking their way through an experiment. Funny thing was, just a few minutes before the incident I'd commented to my instructor that many of my classmates didn't seem to have any grasp of the difference between real laboratory science and ritual magic.
Oh, and several minutes later I witnessed another girl come up to the instructor asking if the open centrifuge tubes she was holding - which were continuously generating chlorine gas as a side reaction - were hazardous! Argh!
At least our labwork on Thursday of last week went without incident. You see, there was a reaction on that day which required careful control of pH in one of the test solutions containing thiocyanate ions (SCN-). We needed to maintain a particular weakly acidic environment in order to favor a certain desired product. You see, a more acidic pH would have tilted the reaction strongly to the production of HCN, hydrogen cyanide gas...
Quote of the Day
Do you really think that innovation will come to a grinding halt without the FBI confiscating computers and spying on P2P networks? Please.
This whole DMCA bs isn't about protecting intellectual property. It's about the recording, movie, and software industries believing that for the time being it's more cost effective to manipulate legislation than to cut prices enough that consumers will opt for paid distribution channels.
Here's a hint-- how many people do you know who pirate books via photocopy? That's right, not many. Why? Because most books (certain textbooks and tech manuals being the exception) are priced such that it is simply not worth the effort to stand there and photocopy them. Technologies change. Media corporations that can't/won't keep up will go out of business and good riddance.
Alex Bokov
May 03, 2004
Quote of the Day
As far as anarcho-socialists getting jobs, it's not really a problem. When's the last time you went to a record store or a $tarbuck$ and got waited on by a kid in a button down shirt and khakis?
Socialists buy health insurance all the time. They just want us to chip in.
John 8=$
