We are the children of Gods

Yeah, 3 of 5 grades in so far

2009-12-21T02:44:18Z

Immunology Lab - 92.37% (A): Despite missing a lab report which was worth 5% of the total grade. I did really well in the class - it was probably the easiest one I had (any class in which I can get a perfect score on the final exam and still be the first person done is way too easy.)

Physical Chemistry - 88% (A-): Despite missing two of the eight homework assignments. If I had managed to do them and turn them in, I would have had an out-and-out A. This was a class that one week I would be completely lost, and the next it would all suddenly make sense. 91% on the Final exam too, I'm pleased with that.

Principles of Molecular Biology - 69.76% (B): He curves like mad. I really bombed the final in this course (60%), which isn't too surprising considering it covered a lot of almost pure nomenclature issues, and I hardly studied for it. It was a few hours after the P. Chem exam, and after that exam I was too burned out to study for this one. I'm happy with it though, because I personally got out of the course what I wanted to get out of it. Some nice bits of practical knowledge, an overarching general understanding, and screw the specifics & names - that's what I use notes & hyperlinks for in real life.

Back-to-back Biochemistry and Immunology finals tomorrow. The car's all scrapped off, I've studied for both exams enough I feel confident on them. These'll probably be the worst grades of the bunch (Bs and/or Cs), but I think I'll pass them both. It's nice to finally deal with school instead of imploding like I did at FIT and WWU. Time for some sleep.

And starting tomorrow night, I get to look forward to reading, studying and doing problems of an entire Linear Algebra (and maybe Differential Equations) textbook in the ~24 days of winter break so I can test past them next semester. Hooray (ugh.) I think it'll be enjoyable though, I've always liked math and it'll be nice to self-pace.

Calling a Senator "Ma'am"

2009-12-14T16:52:16Z

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5io4TwBiEmsq4nWsY0dEsArkiJrVgD9CJ1LJ82

It happened in June, but I first heard about it today.

"During a hearing last June, Boxer interrupted Brig. Gen. Michael Walsh of the Army Corps of Engineers in mid-sentence: "Do me a favor?" she said. "Could you say 'senator' instead of 'ma'am?' It's just a thing. I worked so hard to get that title, so I'd appreciate it. Yes, thank you.""

The word "ma'am" is a term of address for people in the military hierarchy, and more generally members of the executive branch. Does it seem wrong to anyone else that a member of the executive branch (a General) would refer to a member of the legislative branch by such a title? She's not his superior, and addressing her as his superior seems to me like an unconstitutional bending of the separation of powers. Neither the Judicial branch (who seem universally to be called "judge" or "your honor") nor the Legislative branch should be addressed as if they were a higher ranking member of the Executive branch.

Thoughts?

Odd atheists

2009-12-10T11:04:41Z

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091209/ap_on_re/us_rel_religion_today
"What we're celebrating this year is the promise of the sun returning. That's S-U-N, not S-O-N," said Bill Weir, a retired marketing executive from Plymouth.

"Then the Christians stole it," added Marie Alena Castle of Minneapolis, the 82-year-old founder of Atheists for Human Rights and an atheist activist for two decades. It's a season of celebration for the Jewish faith as well, with Hanukkah.

Still, none of the atheists interviewed for this story expressed a wish to be left out of Christmas entirely.

"Food, we like. Presents, we like. Seeing family, we like," said Val Woelfel of St. Paul, an aspiring archaeologist. Woelfel, 47, and her boyfriend, Bjorn Larsen, 32, planned to erect a tree in their living room: "Sacred trees are an ancient custom. It's pretty, it smells nice and it's pagan," Woelfel said.

I don't think I can call myself an atheist if practicing the traditions of ancient, defunct religions & cultures is considered atheistic. I really wonder how the interviewer located these people, and why some of them consider themselves atheists. I guess it's possible to be atheistic without being areligious, and vice versa, but it still seems very weird to me.

The current state of School

2009-11-25T04:26:31Z

Had some unusual experiences this semester.

1) Earlier, I occasionally felt pissed at some of the instructors and the academic situation vis-a-vis tests and test prep and the like. Now I'm ok with it. I signed up for this, knowing full well I was taking a 15 credit course load while working 35+ hours almost every week. It's ok, and the blame surely doesn't rest with the Instructors.

2) Coming to grips with the 7 in me. Yeah, it's a waste of time better spent studying, but it helps disengage from the tension, and hell, a few times I have been able to really take that energy and channel it to what I needed to do.

3) I've burned out about three times now, each one harder to bounce back from, and the last two times blurring together.

There's a very real, though still unlikely chance I'll fail a course or two.

I couldn't concentrate on studying for the last three tests. I went into the last Physical Chem test with zero studying, and having failed to complete the last two homework assignments. I think I probably did well enough for a score somewhere in the 60%'s, which added to the homework I did do and my first test will likely give me a solid B on the runup to finals week. If I blow it on the final, this is one of the courses I could fail. It's a prereq for things later on too.

Studied less than 15 minutes (and that was scattered) for the second Biochem exam. People usually do poorly on his exams, so he ends up curving well, but this is one of the highest scoring classes he's had. I guessed on about 70% of the multiple choice questions, though most of those guesses were at least educated guesses. We'll see. This is another course which is a prereq for 2 classes I'm taking next semester. If I get less than a C in it, it will necessitate some extreme revamping of my next two years of school.

But the best part of all of this is that I've hit my absolute limits and found that, this time, I'm psychologically robust enough to bend with it instead of breaking. I'm still in it, and will stay in it, no matter what. That's a pleasant attitude.

I'll need to study Linear Algebra over Winter break to test past it in the Spring or Summer. It, too, is a prereq for classes I wish to take, and isn't available schedule wise for me in the Spring or Summer terms (unless I fail Biochem, that is :P ).

C'est le vie. And I love life. :D

Thomas Midgley Jr.

2009-11-08T21:33:31Z

Inventor of Leaded Gasoline and discoverer of Chlorofluorocarbons as refrigerants, killed at the age of 55 by one of his own inventions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley,_Jr.

I like this guy

2009-10-22T00:38:45Z

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113766846&ft=1&f=1003

"If you're working on a problem you can solve in your own lifetime, you're not thinking big enough."

pulnimar @ 2009-09-29T19:49:00

2009-09-30T00:00:13Z

My Day At Work:

Finish calculating nucleotide percentages over regions of 5 plasmids, then send in an order form for the synthesis of 160 sequencing primers and 745 sequencing reactions over those 5 plasmids. Spend almost as much money as I net in take-home pay in 3 months.

Hopefully the sequencing turns out nicely, so I don't have to design more primers and spend more money.

It was enjoyable too. I also had a (mostly) enjoyable time this weekend writing an HTA (HTML Application) in VBScript that lets me input a DNA sequence and get back the nucleotide percentages. The "mostly" was due to having the script initially fail when made as a Windows Scripting Host (WSH) hosted VBScript. Turns out the "InputBox" feature of WSH only allows up to 254 characters. A person on visualbasicscript.com turned me on to HTAs and the problem was solved. Fun times after that.

I'm beginning to automate myself out of things to do at work.

Washed some dishes, autoclaved some microcentrifuge tubes, and sorted through some plasmid prep kits another lab wasn't going to use.

I'd have to say it was a good day.

Curse of the last instinct

2009-09-20T21:53:55Z

I was reading and thinking again of the financial crisis, and a presumption of mine that the majority of those involved in finance at the regulatory and institutional level are SP/SOs (with some SP/SXs and SO/SPs) in terms of instinctual variant.

I wondered again what it would do to the financial world to either have an influx of sexuals, or at least be cognizant that in the SX realm (the realm of relations between things) is a whole sphere of knowledge you aren't paying attention to or thinking about, and really need to do so. It doesn't necessitate the intervention of a sexual to right certain kinds of wrongs, it just takes the sincere recognition that here is an area you really have to focus time and energy on, cause if you don't, you'll be screwed.

Quote from Riso and Hudson on the last instinct (for those who may not know anything of the variants):
http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/articles/NArtInstVar.asp

and the third Instinct is least developed and creates "blind spots" in our personality.

Quotes from a recent Bloomberg article on the fall of Lehman Brothers:
http://bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601170&sid=aUTh4YMmI6QE

“They didn’t know who Lehman was intertwined with because they hadn’t done their homework,” said Joseph Stiglitz, a Columbia University economics professor who won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2001 for his analysis of markets with asymmetric information.

The relations between things and institutions is something sexuals are compelled by their very nature to care about.

Fratto asked what she was doing at work.

“She told me that every bank in New York City had their back offices filled with people trying to figure out their counterparty risk to Lehman,” Fratto recalled. “I was stunned. Everyone knew that Lehman had been listing for six months.”

SP/SO can generate a tendency (at it's worst) to care about the institution you yourself are involved in, and forget the web of interconnections that pervade the larger social sphere you are a part of. A neighbor gets stung by a mosquito and you just see to it that you don't get stung. That neighbor drops dead a few days later, and you suddenly remember you've been sharing food, drink and toiletries with them all along. Suddenly they realize: Maybe the virus can spread that way too.

It takes a few hundred thousand SX-lasts (and SP/SXs) to triage a situation a few hundred SX-firsts could have nipped in the bud. And the "big players" even get it wrong:

For the executives and government officials who met at the New York Fed the weekend before Lehman went bust last September, the right decisions weren’t obvious.

Their focus was on mitigating damage from about 1 million over-the-counter derivatives trades that Lehman had participated in, according to people who attended the meetings. The men and women in the room weren’t prepared when panic struck the $3.6 trillion money market industry, which provides short-term loans called commercial paper used by corporations such as General Electric Co. to pay everyday bills.

Or, they could continue to ignore the SX-firsts (really, what SX-firster could maintain enough interest in fiat exchanges to have a long term career in finance? Very few and far between ones) and just go with what they created in the first place to protect their blindspot (as well as protect against the tendency toward financial risk-taking that grips so many SP types): the Glass-Steagall Act.

A significant number of credit unions allow people to use services at branches of other credit unions which they are networked with. It doesn't take a monolith to provide the same things a megabank can. Hell, even a megabank could "self-regulate" by breaking down into a few hundred smaller entities which share limited liability (both ways) with a parent corporation, or umbrella network. That even makes good financial sense.

Quotes

2009-09-19T15:04:22Z

By G.K. Chesterton

There are two kinds of peacemakers in the modern world; and they are both, though in various ways, a nuisance. The first peacemaker is the man who goes about saying that he agrees with everybody. He confuses everybody. The second peacemaker is the man who goes about saying that everybody agrees with him. He enrages everybody. Between the two of them they produce a hundred times more disputes and distractions than we poor pugnacious people would ever have thought of in our lives.

Letter to Speedway convenience stores

2009-08-11T09:55:28Z

Over the last 2 and a half years that I've lived in Indiana, I've spent at least $1000 at various Speedways, not including gasoline purchases. During busy times of the day, people have often formed lines in front of the cashiers to ensure the quickest and easiest service for everyone. It's pretty much inevitable that jerks will act entitled and cut in that line, treating others like shit to be walked over. This most recent time (this morning, 8/10/09, around 8:10 AM at the ******* store) a person behind me in line was trying to keep the line in order, yet still some entitled assholes cut. And the clerks let them, and gave them service, treating those of us in line like shit too.

I don't blame the clerks. They have a relatively low paying job, and no one (but certain paying customers) wants to make a scene trying to ensure fairness and courtesy, especially if they haven't been informed by management that they can do so. I blame management for not ensuring that all customers are treated equal. I'm done trying to ensure fairness. If I can avoid it, I'll never stop in a Speedway again. You've lost my business.

Vegas

2009-07-28T01:54:28Z

"Woo! We won the jackpot! We'll be rich, honey, when we get back home!"

"I'm sorry sir, but what happens in Vegas...stays in Vegas."

Those were really quick

2009-07-24T02:08:21Z

I'm putting off things that shouldn't be put off.:

Your result for The Best Thing About You Test ...

Intelligence

Intelligence is your strongest virtue
Intelligence (also called intellect) is an umbrella term used to describe a property of the mind that encompasses many related abilities, such as the capacities to reason, plan, and solve problems. And you? Your brain shines. All 7 virtues are a part of you, but your intelligence runs deepest.

It is likely you're a smarty-pants. And it's likely (but not necessary) that your discipline score is high also. It takes a certain resolve to maintain all those neural thingies.

Intelligent famous people: Einstein, Shakespeare, Da Vinci.

Your raw relative scores follow. 0% is low, and 100% is perfect, nearly impossible. Note that I pitted the virtues against each other, so in some way these are relative scores. It's impossible to score high on all of them, and a low score on one is just relatively low compared to the other virtues.

        YOUR VIRTUES
        50% Compassion
        78% Intelligence
        50% Humility
        33% Honesty
        13% Discipline
        29% Courage
        25% Passion

Your result for The How Difficult Is Your Life Test ...

Extremely Easy

Your life has been 14% difficult.

Based on your family, money, political context, and personal situation -- during the important years of your development -- it appears your life was EXTREMELY EASY. What does this mean?

Well, the "difficulty" of your life is a measure of how rough you had it. Relative to the world, you had a great childhood, with a pretty stable family and financial situation. I'm not saying it was really easy, just that you weren't gnawing on a belt for calories. While it wasn't perfect, it was healthy.

I'm not sure what "success" means to you, but whatever it is, you can achieve it.

________________________________________
Only somewhat accurate. I got the "Dollar" question wrong only because I recalled thinking it originated from Holland, so guessed wrongly when that choice wasn't available. I think I only got ~~two~~ four of the other questions wrong. Yeah, that's right, apparently Afrikaans isn't the only official language of that country. Second guessed on the "Aryan", even though I was pretty sure of the correct answer. Oh well.

I'm not "untraditional" as much as I mostly don't care about anyone's cultural heritage.

Your result for The Cultural Identity Test ...

The Liberal Philosopher

41% Traditionalism, 60% Knowledge, 62% Diversity, 46% Contemporary and 60% Untraditionalism!

You Scored 62% Liberal Philosopher, Congratulations!

Diversity! Cultural awareness! Sharing! Caring!

Congratulations, you're a liberal philosopher! Perhaps a bit bleeding heart at times, and maybe a little too nice for your own good, you nevertheless bring a strong sense of individualism and unity to those around you. Liberating the minds of the traditionalists from their stodgy conformity, you seek to spread the good will of peace, understanding, and diversity.

You likely find little value in the traditions of old, and instead see them as myopic and intolerant. You are very progressive in your ideas towards race and heritage, and are probably pretty much colour blind. Which is good for you, because there's no better way to lead than by example.

You are probably more sensitive to the ideas of other cultures, sometimes even at the expense of your own! But you see this as a good thing, because after all, how can diversity prosper if we cling to our own ways more tightly than to those others? It's a big, beautiful world out there, and you just can't wait to share it with everyone.

Viruses suck

2009-07-13T12:29:36Z

The only question in my mind is whether this is a mild case of H1N1, or a (so far) 5 day long cold with varying symptoms.

I don't feel too bad, just a bit weary. It started with a sore throat last Wed, turned into something more on Thur. I seemed to have had a fever of sorts Thur night, as I woke up sweating and chilled, which are usually indications of a fever breaking. Felt like complete shit on Fri, then just more coughing and mild weariness over the last 3 and a half days or so.

What sucks is I've only been able to concentrate on Physics a bit, have gotten behind in the school work, and have a test on Wednesday and a lab today (which I'll try not to miss, but I also don't want to spread this crap around to anyone else).

Future Nobel Prize winner

2009-07-02T06:47:52Z

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090701/ap_on_he_me/us_med_michael_jackson_raising_the_dead

This guy has pioneered a way to successfully resuscitate people up to hours after their hearts have stopped beating, without brain damage.

A study of 34 people who had been in cardiac arrest for an average of 72 minutes had 27 of them survive, and 25 of those 27 survive without (noticeable?) brain damage.

This technique has been developing for at least two years now. Given how important it is, I would hope other doctors, hospitals and EMTs will start using it as soon as possible.

South Carolina's Governor

2009-06-28T17:26:34Z

SC's egocentric governor has decided to not resign, after letting his personal life interfere with his ability to do his job for an extended period of time.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090628/ap_on_re_us/us_sc_governor

"But Sanford, who hasn't spoken publicly since Friday, said he spoke with close spiritual and political associates who advised him to fight to restore the public's — and his family's — trust in him.

"Resigning would be the easiest thing to do," he said."

This jerk isn't the only person capable of performing the job of Governor of SC. And as he has obviously demonstrated his lack in this particular job, it's time to give someone else the position (such as the Lt. Governor whose job it is to be governor should this jerk demonstrate an inability in the position).

If I was a South Carolinian, I'd be seriously tempted to hold a couple of signs in protest outside of his office/mansion.
"Resign you F'er"
"Sometimes the Easiest thing to do is also the Right thing to do."

Self-centric asshole.

I've dropped my first class!

2009-05-15T23:14:10Z

I've dropped my first class! Woo hoo! It's a wonderful feeling. Historically I've never dropped, only stopped attending - letting the sense of overwhelm build and build as I did other things such as study psych on my own initiative. This is a first, I recognized the grading rubric and course format weren't easily compatible with me, and that it'd take too much to do this course as well as the other courses I'm taking this summer and work.

Finally getting the school thing down. It feels great!

Finals over

2009-05-07T01:38:06Z

Woo hoo :) I was getting a strong A, a weak A and a strong B/weak A before spring break, then spring break happened and helped to destroy my momentum.

Finished the final final this semester, and am pretty sure I passed all courses. Except for Calc-based Physics I (which I know I passed - this Physics course seems to have had a strong enough SP/SX bias I was able to score really well on the exams with minimal to no studying or reading of material) all of the courses were redundant as I already had 8+ year old credit for them, but the refreshers were necessary after that long.

11 credits (3 courses) this Summer. 15 credits and 5 courses next Fall. A total of about 6 or 7 more semesters (including Summer sessions) and I'll hopefully graduate with a B.S. degree that'll either assist me to directly start working in computational molecular and cellular biogerontology, or at least go to grad school where I can start working on it pending a Ph.D. and enough work the relevant institution'll be interested in me. Over 200 semester credits just to get a B.S. degree. XP God it'll be nice to finally start working.

pulnimar @ 2009-04-26T18:32:00

2009-04-26T22:33:39Z

"What's so funny Mr. Dumas?"

"Nothing Mr. Jackov, nothing at all."

Type 7 says people like him need to be controlled

2009-04-19T15:18:28Z

Too bad he thinks the "people like him" are the entirety of the Chinese population:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090418/ap_on_en_mo/as_china_people_jackie_chan

""I'm not sure if it's good to have freedom or not," Chan said. "I'm really confused now. If you're too free, you're like the way Hong Kong is now. It's very chaotic. Taiwan is also chaotic."

Chan added: "I'm gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we're not being controlled, we'll just do what we want.""

Cosmic Soup

2009-04-17T01:04:34Z

The experiments which can test string theory may not exist simply because too many presumptions are caught up in classical quantum physics and relativity still. Here is potential evidence in favor of String Theory, from unexpected behavior of two experiments:

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/42632/title/Strings_Link_the_Ultracold_with_the_Superhot

Next, next-generation sequencing

2009-04-10T05:03:19Z

Potentially operating at thousands of base reads per second without necessarily fragmenting the DNA into smaller sequencing regions beforehand. This is still at the experimental stage, and there are issues to be worked out, but if it does work out a few hundred or thousand "read heads" operating in parallel could bring about a Gattaca-like era in which an individuals genome or transcriptome can be read in minutes.

The technology uses electron microscopy methods to create hydrogen-bond circuits between the bases and modified microscope head and measures the electric potential across this junction to determine what bases are being read.

http://biodesign.asu.edu/news/covering-the-bases-quantum-effect-may-hold-promise-for-lowcost-dna-sequencing-chemical-sensor-applications

Oddities from Japan's pop culture

2009-04-05T02:47:26Z

Promoted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

I found the picture in the last link below after curiosity over this Bloomberg article prompted a run to Google:

"The country hopes a teenage girl wearing a mini-skirted uniform will boost its international profile and, by extension, the economy. Never mind that at 19, actress Shizuka Fujioka is no longer a schoolgirl. She will travel the world with two other young women as cultural envoys. The plan is to capitalize on Japan’s long-running craze for all things cute. "

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/polka-dots-and-miniskirts-how-japan-wants-world-to-see-it-1643978.html?action=Popup&gallery=no

A Tribute to Amanda McKittrick Ros

2009-03-29T22:44:39Z

And those wonderful authors and critics who ensured her name would live on. Quotes from the way too short wikipedia page on her:

Aldous Huxley said of her work: "It is remarkable how late in the history of every literature simplicity is invented."

Barry Pain calls her first novel, Irene Iddesleigh the "book of the century" in 1926.

Nick Page comments on the opening sentence of her second novel, Delina Delaney: "I first read this sentence nearly three years ago. Since then, I have read it once a week...".

"The Oxford literary group the Inklings, which included such luminaries as C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, held competitions to see who could read Ros' work for the longest length of time"

My turn for a pop "personality" test

2009-02-15T22:35:00Z

Strangely accurate.

Your result for The Which Chemical Element Am I Test ...
Y...Yttrium

You scored 35 Mass, 23 Electronegativity, 55 Metal, and 0 Radioactivity!

Yttrium? Yttrium??? You're messing with me, right? That's not a real element. Really? If you say so. Okay... how about: You are really a solitary creature, and you're somewhat set in your ways. You work, consciously or subconsciously, towards the betterment of society, but I guess you do this by befriending it's strangest elements. You're kind of a spaceman/woman, but in the end you're allright. You should try to be with the benign weirdos of the world because, by goodness, no one else will. Oh, it says here that you are abundant on the moon. Interpret as you will.

Oh my god - University trials

2009-02-07T23:07:39Z

And I thought my academic track was bad. Poor guy just had his entire body of work and hope for his contribution to science literally trashed:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090207/ap_on_fe_st/odd_britain_lizard_excrement;_ylt=ArYwGAgYEIK2zKmCaqJtCsEPLBIF

LONDON – A British university has apologized to a Ph.D. student for throwing away his treasured, seven-year collection of lizard dung. Daniel Bennett has told Times Higher Education magazine that he had collected the dung in the Philippines while studying the rare butaan lizard, a relative of the Komodo dragon. The material was to be studied as part of his doctoral research.

Bennett said the 77-pound bag was thrown away by cleaners at his lab at Leeds University in northern England. He says the dung represented seven years' worth of field work, and its loss "left me reeling."

The university said Friday it had apologized.

Bennett says he rejected the university's compensation offer of 500 pounds ($750) and will "see them in court."

$750 and an apology, what the hell?