La Manduca, the blog

More strange birds

2012-01-15T06:28:00.000-08:00

The eastern rivers of Virginia are apparently a gathering place for funny-headed birds. After yesterday's kingfishers, today I saw two types of mergansers. The flock of 14 red-breasted mergansers dove for long times and distances. I only saw one pair of hooded mergansers, but they are even stranger looking to me. The bright white on the side of the male's head is quite striking, and the halo of brown on the female's is also intriguing.

The red-breasted merganser:

by Hilary Chambers via Flickr

The hooded merganser:

   by Mr. T in DC via Flickr 

Slate breaks my brain

2012-01-14T14:30:00.000-08:00

I caught earworms from Slate podcasts today.

Vulture capitalist - It's catchy. Having spent so much time hearing about venture capitalists in silly valley, I am particularly entertained. And, according to the first definition I could find (Investopedia), that's the genesis of the term. I wonder if its application to "agents of creative destruction" signals the breakdown of the support of conservative poor for the financial agenda of the conservative rich (i.e. if presidential candidate Rick Perry believes that breakdown is possible and wants to exploit it by criticizing Mit Romney of being an ally of the wealthy and not the poor).

Brainsicles - A brain on a stick, someone who is unaware or indifferent to their body.

Female belted kingfisher

2012-01-14T14:16:00.000-08:00

I saw a belted kingfisher in the late afternoon today on the Chesapeake Bay. I didn't get a photo, but she was kind enough to stay in place for a while. Apparently only the females have the brown on the chest. The mohawk on the one I saw was pretty dramatic, and her head was black all over. Very cool. Photo by Len Blumin

Surprised by fowl longevity

2012-01-10T06:42:00.001-08:00

Banding studies show that many species of ducks and geese live to be twenty years old.

http://www.maine.gov/ifw/wildlife/species/waterfowl/index.htm

When yarn attacks

2012-01-03T06:16:00.001-08:00

That's aversion therapy, not advertising.

Ill-timed bad news

2012-01-01T06:26:00.001-08:00

Is 20 minutes after New Year the time you want to be telling your customers you're likely to decrease the quality of their service?

felted arm warmers

2011-12-23T15:12:00.000-08:00

This lady made these excellent arm warmers. Her color and pattern selection is a perfect match with my tastes.

Bicycle tire tube bag

2011-12-01T06:38:00.001-08:00

Vaya bags are awesome.

Future Ramen

2011-10-25T17:44:00.000-07:00

I can see Ren's Ramen in my future.

A galaxy far, far away

2011-10-13T06:42:00.001-07:00

It's been 15 years since I spent fall on the east coast; fall colors seem pretty exotic.

The iceberg of discontent

2011-10-02T13:22:00.001-07:00

I came across this clunker of a metaphor referring to American political sentiments. It inexorably reminds me of my favorite metaphor: Salman Rushdie's lyrically dissonant "station wagon of discontent."

http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/npr/141031346/activists-press-obama-to-renew-progressive-stand

I heart enthusiasts

2011-07-26T11:34:00.000-07:00

The website seatguru is a great example of the benefits to the non-enthusiast of the enthusiast-based data dump. It tells me that I'm likely to have to put my rollaboard in the hold (which is what I wanted to know) and so much more:

The CRJ is a smaller regional aircraft.

The tray tables are small, making it difficult to use laptops. Overhead storage bins cannot accommodate 18 or 22 inch roll-aboards which will require their airside check-in. The curvature of the plane limits shoulder room for all window seats, taller passengers are advised to sit at aisle seats.

Coveting a pretty handlebar bag

2011-07-16T07:52:00.000-07:00

From Po Campo Via design milk

Deviled Egg accessories

2011-06-26T07:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I made deviled eggs for some guests. I don't have a tray for holding eggs, so I just cut off some of the bottom so they laid flat. The cutting was imprecise, but worked well.

Still, I'd like to have a deviled egg tray eventually. Here are some options:

Vintage Japanese:

Fiesta egg tray:

Canonsburg Temporama egg plate:

Lovely teak:

I love the Canonsburg Temporama one, and I'd love a Franciscan Oasis one more, but I'd have to hunt for the first and the second doesn't even exist.

Telephone anachronisms

2011-06-15T06:56:00.000-07:00

It's even more jarring now than 20 years ago to have the phone banged down on the receiver (in this recent case, it was due to callousness rather than ire). It hadn't occurred to me that nearly every telephone conversation I have is ended by software, whether functioning or malfunctioning.

alpha consumer magnet

2011-06-15T06:53:00.000-07:00

Mini Steel Earpick and Ear Cleaners Keychain (4-Piece Set)
from Deal To World

Oops.

2011-04-21T19:13:00.001-07:00

Tucked my scissors into my windshield wipers yesterday (I was cutting some tape off moving boxes i had brought outside was selling)

Folded paper jewelry

2011-04-20T22:43:00.001-07:00

I went to the smithsonian craft show. One of the artists whose work i saw was Francesca Viatali

http://fruccidesign.com/

Here's a picture of one of her pieces:

you know, i have a little prepared speech

2011-04-13T07:15:00.000-07:00

so begins veronica's tirade in the movie Heathers. i'm working on a prepared response to craigslist responses like this one:

where is glenmont? is it near germantown?

to the effect of "who do you think i am, google?" in other words, why are you bothering me with questions you can answer yourself. i'd like the response not to be mean, but to basically say,

Lucky you! You are the recipient of my canned response to questions that can easily be answered by a Google search. Like most people who sell things on Craigslist, I am less likely to respond to people who ask questions I've essentially already answered. The ad includes the information you need. Please query Google, and when you find out the answer to your question, or if I have misunderstood your question, I hope to hear from you again.

alternately,

google knows.

The faucet I covet

2011-04-10T08:24:00.000-07:00

This faucet turns on and off by touch. Most of the time I use the same water temp and pressure, so I expect I wouldn't need to use the handle much. Why would I spend 10x more on a faucet than nearly anything else in my kitchen? It delights me. And if it delights me daily, I'm in.

(via centennial plumbing)

If I get one, it will live in a less glamorous context, more like this:

(via daily home reno tips)

An entertaining artifact of ownership: universal reports of absent-mindedly touching other faucets and expecting them to respond. That phenomenon reminds me of the effect of tv-time shifting (e.g. pressing pause and rewind while watching recorded or live tv mediated by a DVR): I want to apply that technology to other parts of my life as well and unconsciously expect to be able to.

i bet the texture is great

2011-03-06T09:36:00.000-08:00

The fully loaded chair from Alexander Reh (via stylecrave)

It looks like the shells are fixed in place, but it would be cool if they could freely move in a frame, like a pinscreen.

designer of things lovely

2011-03-06T09:29:00.000-08:00

sara paculdo

this is a chair that can be shipped flat.

App store purchases

2011-01-28T14:48:00.000-08:00

How can you get information about what apps you have and what you've spent on them?

Look at the files in the "Mobile Applications" folder.

Print from the Apps view in iTunes (use the Song listing option to get the most information).

Use Spentonapps (I'm sure you're very enthusiastic about giving them your email and password so they can comb through your email account.)

Look at your purchase history via iTunes 20 purchases at a time.

Do some tedious email-mining.

Naturally, I choose the most tedious method.

I searched my gmail for iTunes receipt messages and applied a label to them. I don't usually store my email locally, so I set up gmail and apple's mail client to IMAP sync only one of my gmail labels (it would take way too long to download all messages). I figured out how to do this thanks to a comment by Matt at StackExchange:

if you have a lot of email, turn on the "Advanced IMAP Controls" Labs feature, then, under "Manage Labels", turn off IMAP access for all the folders except the one you want to download.

Thanks Matt! Once I had searched for the iTunes receipt messages, I applied a label to them and downloaded only those messages.

Next, I selected all the messages and saved them as plain text in a file called "receiptPlainText.txt". Then, some nasty bash:

cat receiptPlainText.txt | grep -v "Order Total:" | grep  -B1 -A1  "Report a Problem" >purchasesOnly.txt

b=`cat purchasesOnly.txt  | grep -v "Report a Problem"| sed 's/^Free/\$0.00/'  | sed 's/, v[^,]*//' | tr -d ","`

echo $b | tr -d "*" | sed 's/ -- /\*/g' | tr "*" "\n" | grep "Seller"|  sed 's/ Seller:/HBPH/' | sed 's/ \$\([0-9\.]\{4\}\)/, \1/g' | sed 's/HBPH/,/g' | sed 's/^/\"/' | sed 's/$/\"/' | sed 's/, /\", \"/g' >appPurchases.csv

The breakdown:

grep -v "Order Total:"

remove prices that are totals

grep -B1 -A1 "Report a Problem"

identify regions of text that are individual purchases

b=`

remove newlines by saving the text as a variable

grep -v "Report a Problem"|

remove unneeded line

sed 's/^Free/\$0.00/'

make line structures comparable

sed 's/, v[^,]*//'

remove version info

tr -d ","`

remove commas

tr -d "*"

remove any asterisks in app names

sed 's/ -- /\*/g'

put a marker between records

tr "*" "\n"

replace marker with newline

grep "Seller"

remove records that aren't apps (all apps have sellers)

sed 's/ Seller:/HBPH/'

replace Seller with marker for comma insertion

sed 's/ \$$[0-9\.]\{4\}$/, \1/g'

insert comma before price; remove $

sed 's/HBPH/,/g'

replace marker with comma

sed 's/^/\"/' | sed 's/$/\"/' | sed 's/, /\", \"/g'

put quotes around each field

As a side note, people get huffy about using cat before a command that can simply take a file name as an argument (the "Useless Use of Cat" award). However, I find it useful when I'm working on commands in a modular way. If I need to move the first grep statement around, I don't need to move the file name too.

I analyzed my data, and wow, I've bought a lot of apps. I couldn't bear to leave the left axis on, sorry.

It would be nice to have the date purchased too.

Law school:predatory lending ?=science training:pyramid scheme?

2011-01-25T18:54:00.000-08:00

The New York Times profiles some unemployed, debt-encumbered lawyers and discusses how law schools report the status of their graduates in a misleading way. These reports promote the perception that going to law school is a good investment.

Catchy quote:

“Enron-type accounting standards have become the norm...Every time I look at this data, I feel dirty.” - law school professor William Henderson of Indiana University

The article reminds me of several recent articles pointing out the crummy conditions for people with science PhDs and how there too the interests of the educating institutions are at odds with those of the applicants and trainees. In the case of science, this is the result of how our academic science research and training is organized: a structure not infrequently called a pyramid scheme.

A faculty person who leads a lab is high on the pyramid, and the majority of the work is done by trainees (postdocs and graduate students) who are lower on the pyramid and mostly want to eventually lead their own lab. This structure was better suited to the expansive early days of civilian science (mid-1900s to 1970ish), because the the whole pyramid was growing, and trainees were relatively more likely to be able to move up the pyramid. When academic research expansion slowed, there were fewer new jobs created. For existing labs to continue, they needed a steady supply of trainees, but there was less demand for those people after they were trained.

What is the outcome? Between 1973 and 1996, the percent of scientists NOT working in permanent, full-time positions rose from 7% to 21%. This measurement was made among scientists who earned their PhDs 9-10 years previously, the assumption being they should no longer be in short-term training positions like a postdoctoral fellow positions.

(This statistic is based on figure 3.12 "Fraction of US life-science PhDs not holding permanent full-time jobs in science or engineering, 1973, 1985, and 1995" in Trends in the Early Careers of Life Scientists. National Research Council (US) Committee on Dimensions, Causes, and Implications of Recent Trends in the Careers of Life Scientists.

Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 1998.)

While this seems like an unsustainable system, at least PhD scientists usually don't accumulate hundreds of thousands of dollars in graduate school debt . Faint praise indeed.

Good girl dinette

2011-01-17T01:04:00.000-08:00

I ate at Good girl dinette tonight with KC and MM. Yummy Vietnamese food, simple and delicious. House-made sodas, very good spring rolls, good mushroom sandwich. Crummy but friendly service.

The market for used iPhones

2011-01-11T00:40:00.001-08:00

This beanplot shows the distribution of prices for which used 32GB 3GS iPhones were sold on eBay. A beanplot shows "a density trace, which is mirrored to form a polygon shape." Overlaid is "a one-dimensional scatter plot show[ing] all the individual measurements." When two phones were sold for the same price, the line is twice as wide, and so on.

Here's the R code that produced the plot

price_and_shipping=read.table("iphoneListingsPricesOnly.txt")
allprices= price_and_shipping
$V1+ price_and_shipping$V2
allprices=sort(allprices)
outlierCount=round(length(allprices)*.05,0)
prices=allprices[(outlierCount+1):(length(allprices)-outlierCount)]
library(beanplot)
png(filename = "priceDistribution.png")
beanplot(prices,method="stack",axes=TRUE,what=c(0,1,0,1),log="",main="Beanplot distribution of prices")
dev.off()

code formatting kludged together from output from Pretty R at inside-R.org -- i had to hack at it to get it to work on blogspot, and that made it uglier than it should be. normally they make (as per the name) pretty stuff.

Assessing prices on eBay

2011-01-10T18:11:00.000-08:00

I recently listed my old iPhone for sale on eBay. I wanted to know how much phones were going for. But I didn't just want to peruse the prices; I wanted to plot them and analyze them. Here are the steps I took. They are ugly, but they worked on my system, which is Mac OS X Leopard, Firefox 3, and the Table2Clipboard extension (which you don't really need). I'm interested to hear about better ways to do this.

Do an eBay search.

search text: iphone 3gs 32
Preferences: Completed listings
Preferences: Used
show 200 results

Copy results to a local file

create dedicated directory like /Users/exampleUser/ebaySoldPrice
copy results tables only:

select a word in the first listing
from the right click menu, choose table2clipboard/select table
scroll to end of page,
shift click in last item to extend selection to include all items,
right click and choose View selection source
it takes a while for this window to populate
Copy, paste and save text as "ebay_search_results.txt"

Clean up the results

Open a terminal window and type the following commands (you may have to fix line breaks if you copy this text)

```
cd /Users/exampleUser/ebaySoldPrice/
```

cat ebay_search_results.txt  | sed 's/~//g' | 
sed 's/<table class="li" r="/~/g' |
 tr  "~" "n" | sed 's/ shipping.*$//' |
  sed 's/([0-9]*).*class="vip">/1~/' |
  grep Sold   | sed 's/<[^$]*$/~/'  | 
sed 's/Free shipping/$0/' |  sed 's/<[^$]*$/~/' |
 sed 's/<.*$/~na/' | tr "~" "t" 
>ebay_search_results_cleaned.txt

here's how that breaks down:

```
sed s'/\~//g'
```
### remove any tildes in ad title
```
tr  "~" "\n"
```
### replace tildes with newline
```
sed 's/<table class="li" r="/~/g'
```
### replace table starts with tildes
```
sed 's/ shipping.*$//'
```
### get rid of text after shipping
```
sed 's/$[0-9]*$.*class\=\"vip\"\>/\1\~/' |
```
### keep the initial row number, deletes everything else until the title
```
grep Sold
```
### limit to items that sold
```
sed 's/\<[^$]*\$/~/'  |
```
### delete text between title and price
```
sed 's/Free shipping/\$0/'
```
### give free a numerical value
```
sed 's/\<[^$]*\$/~/'  |
```
### delete text between price and shipping price
```
sed 's/<.*$/~na/'
```
### if price doesn't have a dollar amount, delete text and give it an NA value
```
tr "~" "\t"
```
### replace tildes with tabs
```
>ebay_search_results_cleaned.txt
```
### direct the output into a file

Viet Noodle Restaurant in Atwater Village

2011-01-03T19:15:00.000-08:00

photo by seanbonner

I love the spare aesthetic of this restaurant. I ate here today. The service was abysmally slow, but friendly. I had the vegetable soup, which was delicious. MM had the Beef Pho, which he said was fine, but was annoyed that he hadn't remembered it was nothing special.

Rose bowl post-parade float viewing

2011-01-03T18:30:00.000-08:00

photos 1,3 and 4 by modmodworld

The day after the parade, I went to see the floats. It hadn't been on my LA bucket list, but it was urged, so I went. The float I liked most reminded me of the pottery design Star Glow (left), and thematically of two other patterns I like a lot: Salem Free Form Hop Scotch Pink and Jack Straw's Constellation (3rd and 4th from left). The photos are by Flickr user modmodworld who has a tremendous collection of photos of mid century dinnerware.

I’m willing to bet she’d pass on you too.

2010-12-30T10:51:00.000-08:00

While looking at the sidelinehotties website for the DVR macro blog entry, I came across this exchange of comments, which has to be the final word for nearly every guy who critiques the appearance of women in media.

Comment: Really, this is the best Mexico has? Her face is dog fence, she has fake boobs (probably more) and she is way over the hill. Pass.

Response: Ok, so she’s not the hottest, I agree. But I’m willing to bet she’d pass on you too.

Skip the TV sports filler with DVR macros

2010-12-30T10:14:00.000-08:00

WSJ

In my recent visit to see my family, my dad mentioned a WSJ analysis of US televised football showing that only 6% of the telecast is actual football plays. The details are here.

I'm waiting for macros for DVRs that you can use to see a subset of a recording. For a football game, a fan might note down the times during which the game is played, and write a macro that directs a dvr to show only those portions of the game. Another fan might have something similar, plus selected replays. And someone with an attachment to the sideline reporter of the day might post their macro to the sidelinehotties (not even kidding) website.

Once the broadcasters figure out a way to make it profitable, hopefully they would tag the different content, in which case you could use a general "show plays only" macro. As my sister noted, you'd also want to be able to pause the macro and, for example, listen to the commentators' analysis of a referee call.

Los Balcones Del Peru

2010-12-30T09:10:00.000-08:00

photo by Barbara Hansen for the LA Weekly

I went to Los Balcones Del Peru for the first time last night. Apparently it was remodeled in August; all I can say is that it's lovely. It's a large open space with simple aestetics. We sat in a corner booth, which was too big for four. We actually had trouble hearing each other, and mostly talked in twos. The restaurant itself didn't seem that loud though.

The food was wonderful. The sauces in particular were wonderfully flavored without being particularly hot. I didn't take close notes while I was there, so I've augmented my memory with the descriptions from this LA Weekly article. For appetizers, we had the tiradito (a sea bass carpaccio with a delicious sauce, reportedly made from the Peruvian yellow chile (ají amarillo)) and a quinoa salad with asparagus, a maracuya (passion fruit) vinaigrette and a poached egg. I love quinoa but find it dry; they were generous with the sauce, and it was great.

For entrees, I had the shrimp chowder. The LA Weekly article reports "Chupe de camarones (shrimp chowder) is red with panca chile and gets substance from rice, choclo (giant Peruvian corn) and a poached egg. This dish is from Arequipa in the south." I didn't see and egg, but the corn was delicious. I mostly forewent the rice. We all tasted nearly everything on the table. The seafood chowder was widely endorsed.

Michelada

2010-12-30T08:57:00.000-08:00

Photo by "Tatters:)"

Yum. Michelada is a Mexican beer cocktail. I've only had it in bars, so I can't vouch for the ingredients of the ones I had. Here's the recipe I'll try when I make this at home:

Mango Michelada
1 drink

1/2 cup mango, peeled, pitted and pureed*
2 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice
1 (12-ounce) chilled Mexican beer
1 lime
Coarse salt
Fresh mango for garnish
Hot sauce (optional)

Combine mango puree, lime juice and beer. Rub a lime wedge around the rim of a tall glass and then press the rim into coarse salt, coating the rim. Fill glass 2/3 full with ice and then add mango mixture. Add in a few drops of hot sauce if desired.

*1 mango yields approximately 1/2 cup mango puree

Serenity gate

2010-12-06T15:42:00.000-08:00

I think this makes me an official fan-girl. But I've been one at heart for a long while.

Our neighbor's dog crashed through the baby gate we were using to keep the dogs from leaving the porch. I wanted a cheap replacement, so I spent $10 on some pre-cut plywood and a couple pieces of hardwood trim to serve as a handle and keep the plywood from bowing too much. And I couldn't just let a canvas like that stay blank. I had some glossy black outdoor paint and silver spray paint on hand, so I made a stencil. Here's the gate under construction:

And here's the gate in place. There may be a sliding mechanism coming, but don't hold your breath.

iphone cases made by 3D printing

2010-12-05T16:35:00.000-08:00

I came across a few lovely iPhone case designs today on the Shapeways website. Shapeways is a company that will 3D print a design you upload to them and, optionally, sell the product.

Los Angeles Opera's 'Rigoletto'

2010-12-02T23:46:00.000-08:00

I got to be a last minute sub for some very nice tickets to Rigoletto at the LA Opera tonight. M and I had a great time. I was transported, absorbed.

Sarah Coburn was impressive as Gilda. I was floored by her control. But my favorite aspect of the production was the lighting and set design. Although it appears that the set was designed in 1997 for the production, then in San Francisco, I had never seem them before, and I loved them. The lighting was fantastic, and they had some nice effects that required precise positioning of actors, which was executed without apparent awkwardness. The simulated water-reflection effects were also nice.

photo from www.losangelesopera.com

Involuntary corporate transparency

2010-12-01T09:48:00.001-08:00

A great term for wikileaks' upcoming release of internal corporate documents.

--
Mobile

CBS: watch us, ad block no one

2010-11-19T18:57:00.000-08:00

Sometimes when I watch Hawaii Five-O by streaming it from the CBS website, I lose the show in the middle of the program. It usually happens between two commercials. I get this message:

The video you have requested is either unavailable or is being blocked by an ad blocker installed in your browser.

I went through my ad-blocker on two separate occasions to prevent it from blocking ads from the CBS domain. Apparently, it's not enough to allow ads from CBS; I have to accept ads from everyone. If I have to choose, I'll hold on to a tool that blocks the annoying, flashing, talking ads. Hawaii Five-O isn't that good. I'm not sure what would be.

I'm not the only hater.

Bing map wins (in Grand Rapids)

2010-11-19T11:25:00.001-08:00

Maps from Google (left) and Bing.

I'm in the habit of using everything google, but that will pass with maps like this.

The difference in proportion, indicated by the less elongated blocks in the Google map, is also surprising.

Moving with dogs: the preview

2010-11-18T10:56:00.000-08:00

I urge you to read this phenomenally funny story about moving with (neurotic) dogs by Allie at hyperboleandahalf. I expect I'll be torturing my own dog in a similar manner soon.

Pretty Hike

2010-11-11T11:48:00.000-08:00

I had a nice hike this morning.

Contest to create visualization of firefox usage

2010-11-11T11:35:00.000-08:00

Mozilla labs is sponsoring a contest to visualize browser usage data. They're releasing the source data November 17. Here's a lovely example (click to see full-size):

Ready to share

2010-11-11T11:03:00.000-08:00

Johanna Blakley gave a great Ted talk fashion and copyright protection. She would argue that the freedom to copy in fashion creates an environment in which this spork dress (above; screengrab from her presentation) is created (and that's a good thing). I didn't realize how limited intellectual property law is in fashion. Here is her "good enough" picture of the logic of copyright in the US.

Read to share conference info.

Genius iPad stand

2010-11-11T08:57:00.001-08:00

Dashing nerd and others say a large part of science is wrong

2010-11-08T19:05:00.000-08:00

A genetics professor of mine used to tell his class, "Half of what I'm telling you is wrong, I just don't know which half."

I've heard variations on this sentiment frequently and fully believe them. I think there are many reasons that good research can be wrong, never mind the bad research.

John Ioannidis studies the phenomenon of inaccurate scientific conclusions. He is profiled this month in a readable article in the Atlantic (in which he is called a "dashing nerd"). Here are some excerpts from a scholarly article by John Ioannidis about identifying which science is most likely to be wrong.

The following characteristics predict that the research findings are less likely to be true:

Smaller studies
Smaller effect sizes
For a given set of data, more tests and fewer positive outcomes
Greater flexibility in designs, definitions, outcomes, and analytical modes in a scientific field
Greater financial and other interests and prejudices
Hotter scientific fields (with more scientific teams involved)

The article also uses the terrific term "data dredging" to talk about the phenomenon of trying elicit results that were not identified by the initial study design or analysis. Wikipedia calls it "the inappropriate (sometimes deliberately so) use of data mining to uncover misleading relationships in data."

via Derek Lowe

Visual Candy: Chart of Taxonomy of Rap Names

2010-11-08T18:45:00.000-08:00

I love the choice of main groups: Wordplay, Physical and Metaphysical Characteristics, Crime, Titles/Honorifics, Alphanumeric, and Animal, Vegetable, Mineral. The subcategories are delightful too: audacious misspellings, similarity to cartoon character. In order to make it legible though, some connections have to be left out. For instance Brand Nubian gets to be connected to the Black and Fresh taxa, but not to Wordplay.

Dog bites and the lunar cycle

2010-11-07T00:44:00.000-07:00

If you believe the scientific literature, you'd think that people receive more dogs bites during the full moon if they are in England, but not if they are in Australia. Absent other data, I'd say the best title wins: "Barking mad? Another lunatic hypothesis bites the dust."

3D <-> 2D sewing pattern conversion software

2010-11-07T00:11:00.000-07:00

This software can take a pattern in two dimensions and virtually sew the pieces together and show you the result. I'd like to use it with bags, but right now it's clothing oriented, and the three dimensional finished piece is displayed on a custom model. Regions of strain are highlighted. You can also generate a two dimensional pattern from a three dimensional item. Here's an older article about this kind of software, and here's an even older one. Oh, and the price tag? Upwards of $10K. Anyone want to bet when it will come below $200?

Science slogans that are not pithy

2010-11-05T13:02:00.000-07:00

from reddit via bytesizebio

Insect visitor

2010-11-04T14:19:00.000-07:00

Shiny!

Furniture for my future life

2010-11-04T11:22:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot about where I will live next. The chances are extremely high that I will have less room than I do now. Here's a nicely designed piece of space-saving furniture

Ms. Dr. / DRF

2010-11-04T10:27:00.000-07:00

Shortly after I officially became Dr. Manduca, I whimsically used "Dr" as my title for an airplane reservation. I was immediately delighted by an unforeseen aspect of the choice: unlike men choices, a woman's choice of title connotes particular politics and identity (coarsely: Miss is conventional, Mrs is conventional and largely limited to heterosexuals, and Ms is feminist). I enjoy the freedoms of Dr, in spite of the implied self-importance. I've used it intermittently since.

Today I read something that dismayed me: Dr. Isis, the author of the wonderful blog "On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess" noticed that her travel itinerary referred to her as "DRF. ISIS," which a contact explained is how that particular airline refers to female doctors. If that practice spreads, it will slightly diminish the joy I find in choosing Dr. Not only does choosing Dr free me from the sticky Mrs/Ms/Miss, but I can pretend I don't even have any opinions about Mrs/Ms/Miss. DRF highlights the fact that there are Titles, and Titles for Women To Choose From. I'll choose from the whole list, thank you very much.

Your humble servant,
Magnificent Rector Manduca

Journal of Serendipitous and Unexpected Results

2010-10-29T05:03:00.000-07:00

There's a delightful piece at Byte Size Bio about an article in the excellently-named Journal of Serendipitous and Unexpected Results. The piece is called "But did you correct your results using a dead salmon?" and it uses the MRI of a dead salmon to illustrate the fallacious results possible from bad use of statistics. It also has a nice (simplified) explanation of the logic underlying multiple error correction.

Nicely done, SoCal Edison

2010-10-20T15:28:00.000-07:00

I had the surprising experience of getting a smart automated call today. I called SoCal Edison after the power was out today for about an hour. They told me it was out for some 400 people in my neighborhood. I later received an automated call, asking me to press 1 if my power had been restored. It was a short, efficient script. Brilliant: they followed up with me, and they got a sense of whether their job was done.

Wheeled carry-on backpacks

2010-10-16T13:42:00.000-07:00

After traveling to six cities and staying in nine different homes over the course of a month with my bargain bag, I've identified things I want in a travel bag.

wheels
backpack straps and hip belt
can be carried on and fits in the overhead bin (typically airlines limit carry-on luggage to 22" x 14" x 9")
can be checked. This means that I want to be able to cover the backpack shoulder and hip straps.
as big as possible
as light as possible
not hard to look at

Here are my candidates:

Rick Steves Autobahn 21" Rolling Backpack, $140, 7 lbs , 13 oz. I think it's ugly and the straps don't look very ergonomic.

Eagle Creek Switchback Max 22, $300, 9lbs, 6 oz, detachable daypack. It’s not horrible looking, reviewers like it, it has Eagle Creek’s fantastic warranty, and I like the daypack option.

Osprey Meridian 22”, $300, 8 lbs. 14 oz. Fantastic looking, technical reviewers love it. Zip-off backpack.

Not considered:
Victorinox E-motion 4.0 22" Trek Pack Plus. It's too deep (22" x 14.5" x 10.75").

So the products I like are in the $300 range. That seems like way too much to pay for something I'm not sure I'll like. Maybe I'll find that the combination of backpack straps and wheels takes up too much space to be able to fit my stuff in it. Maybe the combination will be too heavy. I'm considering buying a less expensive one to get a feel for the combination, but even a relatively inexpensive one will be a commitment. Hmm.

Fried green tomato recipes

2010-09-26T14:47:00.000-07:00

Ingredients

* 1 cup all-purpose flour
* salt
* pepper
* 1 egg
* 1/4 cup milk
* 4 cups fresh bread crumbs
* Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
* 4 large unripe tomatoes, cut into 1/2-inch thick slices, ends removed
* 1/2 cup vegetable oil

Directions

Prepare three dredging bowls. Add flour to one, and add salt and pepper until you can taste it in the flour. Then add more.

Combine milk and egg in the second bowl and mix. Put crumbs in third bowl.

If tomatoes are too wet, the flour will be too thick or fall off--if this happens, you might want to pat them dry with a lint free or paper towel.

With fingers or tongs, dredge tomato through flour, then dip in egg mixture and dredge in bread crumbs. Pat breadcrumbs onto tomatoes, adding more if needed. I left the tomatoes sitting on top of the breadcrumbs until Mass K friend was ready to fry them.

Fry them in a non-stick pan with a few tablespoons of oil over medium-high heat. You'll see the skin on the edges of the tomatoes pucker when the slices are cooked. Drain on paper towels.

I used two recipies as sources.

Maps maps maps

2010-08-21T09:37:00.000-07:00

MapMyRun (or Walk, or Bike, or whatever) is generally the best tool for tracking this kind of stuff. However, the web page layout is spectacularly bad. When you view a route, look how much of the (1920 x 1176) page is dedicated to the map:

Also in this morning's map tool criticism category: Google My Maps. I love it, but it's bad when it comes to printing. However, there is a terrific 3rd party tool at taurich.org that prints maps along with the titles and descriptions of places and, here's what's special, the titles and descriptions are keyed by icon to unique places on the map. When you print with google, you can't tell what description belongs where. Also, the taurich tool allows you to print the descriptions in columns, which helps a lot.

Extreme forecast disparity

2010-08-19T21:38:00.000-07:00

Weather.com and weatherunderground have some explaining to do.

These are the results for the same zip code. I tried the neighboring zip code same type of difference. Naturally, I hope the cooler forecast is accurate.

Silly product names: Nostrilla

2010-08-14T07:54:00.000-07:00

Popsicle Progress

2010-08-14T07:46:00.000-07:00

After several rounds of faux-creamsicles (made from plain yogurt, orange juice concentrate, and water at 2:1:1), I've ventured into bananas. This is from Martha Stewart's blueberry pop recipe, but I used strawberries instead. And next time, I won't add 3 TBS of sugar. I think it probably doesn't need any sugar at all, actually. And that's using plain yogurt, not the recommended vanilla yogurt (warning: I like tart yogurt).

Beets

2010-08-02T13:12:00.001-07:00

I'm nostalgic for these beets my roommate grew last year.

Salt, mostly a failure

2010-07-30T16:05:00.000-07:00

MM and I saw Salt Wednesday night. I expected to like Angelina Jolie a little more. I'm not usually much a fan of her acting, but I've enjoyed her in action movies in the past. She's now too fragile-looking to be plausible as an actionista. Also, she doesn't look particularly good in any of it. If I have to stretch my suspension of disbelief to include this waif being an action hero, I think it wouldn't be too much of a risk to pretend that an action hero could also be attractive.

Clockwise from top left: Angelina as Scrawny Salt; Angelina as "lost in my corporate outfit and this weapon is too heavy for me" Salt; an earlier, buffer, Angelina; what a plausible female action hero looks like (and man did I miss Jennifer Garner in this movie); the best costuming in Salt.

Popsicle recipes I'd like to try

2010-07-30T10:30:00.000-07:00

Many were found on a list at tip-nut.

Coffee-pops

Martha Stewart Banana Blueberry Swirl Popsicles

Melon popsicles with mint, honey, and yogurt

Homemade Fudgsicles

Grapefruit Lime Cilantro Popsicles

This method for swirling chunks into your popsicles, and a discussion on corn syrup

Here's a pretty result:

Cardamom Rhubarb Creamsicles (a woman after my own heart: "So, I left about 1/4 of the rhubarb sorbet in the ice cream maker & stirred in about 1/2 c of heavy cream."

Martha Stewart's Banana, Berry, and Buttermilk Ice Pops

Watermelon Slice Pops (with chocolate chips as seeds)

And finally, funny pea-ice popsicles I'm not going to make:

No "barefoot and pregnant" in German?

2010-07-26T19:39:00.000-07:00

The hipster-chick in line at the bank spoke so loud that I couldn't help but overhear. And soon, I was too repelled and fascinated not to actively listen:

[Speaking emphatically in german]...pregnant. Literally barefoot and pregnant...[More german]... I mean, come on...[Lots more german. Clearly still talking about the same person and not letting a word in edgewise]...Student loan...[More german]...White trash.

Clearly English is better suited for certain descriptions. Ironically, the phrase "barefoot and pregnant" might be ideologically descended from the German phrase "Kinder, Küche, Kirche" ("children, kitchen, church") coined in the 1800s.

Wikipedia's code-switching article seems to be the most relevant linguistic definition of this type of language-switching phenomenon.

Pen love: Uniball Vision Elite Bold

2010-07-26T17:41:00.000-07:00

I bought a pack with a range of colors when I was editing my thesis. They write a smooth, sharp, fat (0.8 mm) line smoothly and don't leak in flight. Many people really like the blue-black color. I like it, but it's the other characteristics that send me.

Rattlesnake

2010-05-08T09:57:00.000-07:00

The dog and I came across a rattlesnake near the trailhead today. The
dog exhibited curiosity not fear. Time for a snake-aversion refresher?

What are you saying?

2010-05-07T10:37:00.001-07:00

I'm somewhat mystified by this illustration titled "no drugs down the
drain." It looks more like a psa about the hazards of childhood pill
addiction.

When text mining goes wrong

2010-05-01T01:15:00.001-07:00

Does this gene cause that dreaded decapitation disease?

Ceiling of Union Station in DC

2010-04-26T11:23:00.001-07:00

I took more classical pictures on a recent trip.

unwanted period in Latex acronyms list

2010-04-25T11:01:00.000-07:00

Using glossaries package, I was getting an undesired period after the definition. I was using this code:

\usepackage[acronym, nonumberlist, toc]{glossaries}
\makeglossaries
\include{acronyms/acronyms}
\printglossaries

(where the acronyms file contains the definitions). The results:

ABA Allen Mouse Brain Atlas.
AMPA α-amino-3-hydroxyl-5-methyl-4-isoxazole-propionate.

The fix:

\usepackage[acronym, nonumberlist, toc]{glossaries}

% Define new glossary style
% desired format:
% acronym is bold, no full stop after definition
\newglossarystyle{hbacro}{%
\renewcommand*{\glossaryentryfield}[5]{%
\item[\glstarget{##1}{##2}] ##3\space ##5}
}
\glossarystyle{hbacro}

\makeglossaries
\include{acronyms/acronyms}
\printglossaries

And got

ABA Allen Mouse Brain Atlas
AMPA α-amino-3-hydroxyl-5-methyl-4-isoxazole-propionate

Cobbler v1.0

2010-03-28T21:09:00.000-07:00

Used Costo pears (the only canned thing I actively like) and this recipe. Unlike the picture, the cobbler wasn't out of focus.

The database of useful biological numbers

2010-02-11T10:07:00.000-08:00

The B10NUMB3R5 website: In its infancy, but a genius idea and a great start in spite of the excessive transliteration of numbers for letters. Wouldn't b10numbers or B1oNumbers have been sufficient?

Nice industrial design

2010-02-02T20:48:00.000-08:00

Sure, it's for slicing mouse brains, but there's no reason it can't have good aesthetics too.

Zipper rings from around the web

2010-01-12T11:22:00.001-08:00

(clockwise from top left) me, elisaetemadjewellery.co.uk, meganleone at etsy, forever21 (?!), and Doris Viñas.

I've been looking for a new way to make the ring part, but it looks like people mostly use elastic.

YouTube as evidence source for peer reviewed biology research

2010-01-04T13:25:00.000-08:00

You can't make this up:

Video Database Analyses
The global database used, www.youtube.com, is a video-sharing website consisting of tens of millions of user contributions from a wide range of people across the globe. Users commonly post animal behavior on YouTube...

fur rubbing behaviour

2009-12-17T12:14:00.000-08:00

A happy accident created by my bibliography program assigned a (non-capuchin-related) paper this title: "Resource influence on the form of fur rubbing behaviour in white-faced capuchins." In this paper, they "propose hypotheses on possible proximal causes for these differences." Sigh.

Anniversary of 1989 anti-feminist slaughter

2009-12-07T10:36:00.000-08:00

A communique from x_ine posted by Dr. Isis:

December 6th - marks the 20th "anniversary" of what is termed the "Montreal Massacre" - the day where a madman showed up at École Polytechnique, an engineering school at Université de Montréal (University of Montreal) with a rifle and killed 14 women and injured countless others.

His goal was purely sexist in nature, as he declared he hated feminists and felt that women had no place in engineering. In fact, when he entered a classroom with his gun, he separated the men and women. He "let" the men go - and his rampage began.

additional reading:
Canadian Press article
CBC News article
Montreal Gazette article

Beautiful folding bike concept

2009-11-26T12:42:00.000-08:00

By Joseph Cadek

Ode to \vref

2009-11-23T15:27:00.000-08:00

I'm using LaTeX to write my thesis, and there is this great command: vref. I have a figure called Variability_transcript_abundance. When I'm talking about it in the text, I can create a reference to it. This:

...this approach is illustrated in Figure \ref{Variability_transcript_abundance}...

becomes

...this approach is illustrated in Figure 2.2...

sometimes i want to have a page number too. i use this

...this approach is illustrated in Figure \vref{Variability_transcript_abundance} on page \pageref{Variability_transcript_abundance}...

to get

...this approach is illustrated in Figure 2.2 on page 32...

The genius of vref is this: the same code gets you different types of references, depending on the distance between where your text is and where your figure is. so

...this approach is illustrated in Figure \vref{Variability_transcript_abundance}...

gets you whichever of these:

...this approach is illustrated in Figure 2.2 on the following page...

...this approach is illustrated in Figure 2.2 on page 32...

...this approach is illustrated in Figure 2.2...

applies. when the figure is on the same page, no need to mention the page! of particular joy is that this package was last updated in 1999. such stability. ahhh, LaTeX.

Leading cause of dog injury in flight

2009-10-28T12:21:00.000-07:00

picture by Roman Fleysher

OK, these dogs are living the good life. I'm not sure if they're strapped in or not, but that's not the kind of injury I'm thinking about.

Based on the reading I've done, which has not been systematic or exhaustive, the leading cause of dog injury in flight seems to be injuries sustained by pets trying to escape their kennels, and sometimes succeeding. petflight.com emphasizes the importance of zip tying your kennel closed after TSA inspection. I hadn't thought of that, but it sounds like a great idea.

Phone-operated pet feeder

2009-10-20T23:19:00.000-07:00

I wouldn't have much use for it, but I love the design.

Sequences were mapped to opossum genome

2009-10-17T10:51:00.000-07:00

The title is an addition to my collection of favorite excerpts from scientific publications.

Caveat: this picture is much cuter here than the spitting pig-aliens I usually see.

photo credit

N. R. Saunders, M. Wakefield, J. Ek, S. A. Liddelow1, J. Truettner, B. J. Wheaton, D. Dietrich. Rna-seq analysis of gene expression following transection in immature spinal cord of monodelphis domestica. Program No. 415.5. 2009 Neuroscience Meeting Planner. Chicago, Il: Society For Neuroscience, 2009. Online.

A study of electrically exploded wires

2009-10-05T18:41:00.000-07:00

A Caltech thesis title from 1924. It produced not only that wonderful title, but this image:

Grammar check

2009-10-02T18:46:00.001-07:00

Grammar and word usage are two things that web references can't really resolve. Looking up a definition in the dictionary isn't adequate to explain correct usage. I've started using site-specific searches of sites with high-quality, copy-edited writing to check usage. For example, the spelling of the phrase "doling out" looked strange enough to make me uncertain. Spell-check liked it, but it could have been the correct spelling of a different word. I ran this google search:

site:nytimes.com doling out

And got these results:

Bureau of the Public Debt, Doling Out America's I.O.U.'s
N.E.A. Faces Tough Task of Doling Out Limited Stimulus Funds
U.S. starts doling out funds to banks

Resolved.

Nominations open: worst immunoblot ever published

2009-09-28T17:16:00.000-07:00

He's hot! He's on Fi-ah!

2009-09-16T11:17:00.000-07:00

My dog loves to be in the car. He'd rather be in the car than be at home alone. So I indulge him, but I worry about him overheating. I obsessively park in the lowest levels of underground garages and reset my digital recording thermometer so I'll know the maximum and minimum temperatures in the car while I'm gone.

A few minutes ago the dog came staggering in the open door to the porch. He came over to greet me, and when I felt his coat, it was so hot I couldn't keep my hand on it for long. Who is this sun lizard, and why does he have a long black coat? Choosing to lie in the heat as long as he can stand it is certainly different than being trapped in a car that's too warm, but maybe my dog is tougher than I am when it comes to heat. In truth, that's not hard.

Scientific advance: bang mouse on head

2009-09-10T09:18:00.000-07:00

Nature Protocols is a prestigous journal that publishes what they judge to be important advances in scientific techniques. There's an article annouced today called "Mouse closed head injury model induced by a weight-drop device." Maybe somebody made the better mousetrap, but they're underselling it with that title.

QuickLook CSV Plugin

2009-09-08T11:42:00.000-07:00

I never thought I could be a fan of a QuickLook plugin, but I am. Here's the link.

Boars, Barrows and Gilts

2009-08-23T04:55:00.000-07:00

I just came across the article, Genetic Correlation Between Boars, Barrows and Gilts for Various Carcass Traits, from the Journal of Animal Science.

"Boars, Barrows and Gilts" - it rolls off the tongue. What a lovely phrase.
Carcass traits. Ick.

Mirriam Webster defines "gilt" alternately as "superficial brilliance" and "a young female swine." Equally evocatively, it defines "barrow" as "a large mound of earth or stones over the remains of the dead: tumulus" or "a male hog castrated before sexual maturity."

JetBlue All-You-Can-Fly pass

2009-08-12T22:58:00.000-07:00

There are publicized restrictions, but I figured there must be more of a catch. But: "No blackout dates apply to Pass travel, and Pass travel is not capacity controlled" (from their terms available here).

Good-bye, Clarifi

2009-08-08T16:58:00.000-07:00

I wanted to see if I still needed the Griffin Clarifi, the iPhone case that allowed me to take good pictures of receipts with my iPhone 3G. The 3G S is said to have a shorter focal length. I included pictures with my Nikon D-70 as a reference standard.

Unique file IDs

2009-08-04T19:53:00.000-07:00

I write code to generate graphics. When I have a graphic I like, I save the image I've generated. In order to know exactly what code created that image, I like to save the code with the same name. As I gradually improve the code, the names evolve, with an addition of a descriptive word or with a version number. This all requires a kind of foresight (to know what description will be useful to my future self) and systematicness that I don't want to spend the time on. For now I've contented myself with a script that generates a unique time-based ID that I paste onto the end of the file names for the graphic and the code. The script copies the ID to my clipboard (requires OSX). Now all I need is a quicksilver trigger, and I can be more brainless than usual.

the code:

echo `date "+%Y%m%d_%H%M%S"` | pbcopy ; echo `pbpaste`

E-mail closings

2009-08-04T18:03:00.001-07:00

From a WaPo article linked at Lifehacker:

Favorite:
Love and Bacon (Spike Mendelsohn)

Occasionally fun:
Seacrest out
Off like a prom dress

Meh:
Warmly
XOXO (meh when i wouldn't XOXO in person)

Does "Cordially" ever mean anything other than "My hostility is only thinly veiled"?
(Ruth McCann, WaPo)

The terseness of these is appealing:
Navy and the Air Force: "V/R" ("Very respectfully")
Marines: "S/F" (Semper Fi)
Army Rangers: "RLTW" ("Rangers Lead the Way")

Sadly, my favorites are probably not fit for public consumption. For example, I'd love to regularly close communications with "I have the honor to remain your obedient servant" but I think it might just make things awkward. I'll be sticking with my stand-by, "Best," unless "Thanks" is relevant.

Hour by hour temperature predictions

2009-07-17T01:07:00.000-07:00

This is one of the hardest things for me to predict, and something I most like to know about the weather when I travel somewhere unfamiliar. I like pages like this.

scheduled ringer un-silencing: the killer mobile phone feature

2009-07-15T15:51:00.000-07:00

How many people have forgotten that they muted their mobile phone ringer? I can go for days before I figure it out.

The solution has been around for years in the land of windows mobile. It's a feature in the third party program called "SPB Phone Suite" which I last used several years ago. It configures different groups of ringer-related settings. You might have one with a quiet, respectable ringer that you use when you're at work and a bunch of goofy loud personalized ones you use on your own time. But my favorite feature uses the one of the default profiles, the one called "Silent." You can set a category of appointments to trigger that profile automatically. Then every time you have an appointment scheduled, your phone will automatically not ring during that time. More importantly, it will switch back to your usual profile again after your appointment.

Only minorities have identity-based opinions?

2009-07-14T12:45:00.000-07:00

There is a despicable implication in many questions Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings: only minorities are biased by their identities. Has no one mentioned that we all have identities that influence our perceptions?

-- Mobile post

The hot cash market for 3G iphone...

2009-07-12T11:15:00.001-07:00

I posted my 3G iphone on EBay yesterday. I've gotten two messages asking whether I would be willing to sell it for cash in person. I wonder what that's about.

The two messages were very similar, but from different EBay ids. They have some indistinct similarity to brief replies I've gotten when selling things and offering apartments for rent on craigslist, replies that are vague and suggest the person is replying to a great number of ads.

Are these phones going overseas? Being superficially altered and resold as 3G S? Simply being sold to people who don't want contracts?

Billed as "Retro Future"

2009-07-10T21:32:00.001-07:00

I don't even know what to make of it.

word of the day: artifactual

2009-07-09T15:41:00.000-07:00

dismissive. in biology, it means a result that is unintentionally caused by the process of asking the question (e. g. pressure on a sample when you put a coverslip on a microscope slide). a result that is not relevant to the general biological truth.

Science should be FUN

2009-06-26T11:18:00.000-07:00

like this:

Five competition polo ponies were ridden by a professional rider to perform ﬁve maximal accelerations and ﬁve maximal decelerations in an all-weather polo arena...Stride timings were derived from hoof-mounted 50 g accelerometers logged into MP3 recorders.

From the article "Pitch then Power" in the Biology Letters journal.

As an aside, I think it's interesting that they choose to compare greyhounds with polo ponies. Racing greyhounds accelerate in a linear context. Winning races does not depend on deceleration. Polo ponies, on the other hand, work in a multi-directional environment responding to other players on different paths. Mostly they're turning on a dime, negotiating melees, suddenly starting or stopping, and changing stride to adjust to changing conditions. The study seems to find equivalence between the two groups, but it would be hard to know if any differences were the result of one variable (species) or the other (competion conditions). A hard-core reductionist could instead compare race horses with greyhounds or herding dogs with polo ponies.