it was against the rules

 

Aspen Grove

AR, the woofs, and I went to a place in the San Bernardino National Forest unimaginately named "Aspen Grove" for the fall color and the crisp air. It was awesome. Click for more pictures. 

A day in the life

This is my bench near the end of a busy day. Note the scorch mark on the paper behind the burner, created when i knocked the burner over. 

santa ana winds

just when you think you've paid your dues to the heat of summer, the santa ana winds arrive, blowing hot air. it doesn't cool down at night. it doesn't cool down at all. day after day, the forecasts predict the temperature will drop tomorrow.

i hate southern california.

pig races

Serenity

i went to see the movie serenity tonight, free as part of a press screening opened to bloggers to seduce them/us into talking about the movie. it worked.

the crowd was something to behold: punkish geeks, sci-fi geeks, martial arts geeks, geeks so geeked out it wasn't even good anymore. geeks prone to inane outbursts during the movie (e.g. dialog on screen: "he can broadcast to 31 worlds simultaneously", guy sitting next to us [apparently sincere]: "wow"). geeks behind us talking (before the show, thankfully) about how great the old sci-fi book-signings were, and how you used to be able to pick up mementos inexpensively.


In the ship's hold.

but the movie itself was wonderful. the design was fantastic: rain's outfit in the escape from the hospital was plausible as something one might wear in a futuristic hospital and also a flattering outfit for action. the design of the spaceship was also lovely. the pre-credit opening, probably a three minute sequence, was a master story-telling event. the dialog was well-written (mostly) and used an interesting dialect, primarily modern vernacular, but including some grammar structure evoking lower-class 19th century england. the story moved along well, the characters were well defined, and the plot was engrossing. the villan was awful and sympathetic. the movie was a tour-de-force.

go see this movie. it's worth seeing on the big screen.

they wanted me to say nice things about this movie. it's no problem saying nice things about something wonderful.

Serenity, the preview

As part of my Buffy obsession, I’ve become interested in the movie Serenity, which was directed by… well, read the synopsis:

Joss Whedon, the Oscar® - and Emmy - nominated writer/director responsible for the worldwide television phenomena of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE, ANGEL and FIREFLY, now applies his trademark compassion and wit to a small band of galactic outcasts 500 years in the future in his feature film directorial debut, Serenity. The film centers around Captain Malcolm Reynolds, a hardened veteran (on the losing side) of a galactic civil war, who now ekes out a living pulling off small crimes and transport-for-hire aboard his ship, Serenity. He leads a small, eclectic crew who are the closest thing he has left to family –squabbling, insubordinate and undyingly loyal.

I’ve registered for the advanced screening for bloggers and media, the organizers of which asked me to include the above and this link to more info. I have to get there 45 minutes early, which I’m not nuts about, but the price is right.

The pretty campus

diphenhydramine: fun, while you're still breathing

i was watching the tv show "house" tonight, about a vicodin-popping, misanthropic doctor played by hugh laurie. in this episode he has hay fever, and treats it by taking 1000 milligrams of benadryl at the beginning of the show and snorting benadryl further along in the show.

watching that, i thought the writers were idiots. didn't they know that over-the-counter benadryl is only 25 milligrams? taking 40 pills would suck, and i would imagine it's a lethal dose. it turns out that it is a lethal dose for some people, but people are willing to take a lot of pills for a high.

it appears that people regularly take more than 600 milligrams (more than 24 pills) of diphenhydramine (the active ingredient of benadryl) recreationally, with the side effects that sometimes take them to the hospital. it also appears that people are willing to take scores of pills to get high.

the scientific literature doesn't say much. if rats and humans are equally sensitive to diphenhydramine, then 50% of a group of 180 pound humans who took 41 grams (41,000 milligrams, or 820 pills) of diphenhydramine would die. if human sensitivity is more like mice, it would take 2,870 milligrams (58 pills) to have the same effect. erowid notes that "a lower dose will still kill a smaller proportion of the subjects."” there looks like there is some more definitive literature on humans here, but it requires working backward to dosage levels from blood plasma levels, which i didn't take the time to estimate.

the bottom line: i was wrong in thinking that the writers were far outside the realm of reality, but taking that much benadryl is risky.

With cocaine, fat is bad

Kate Moss let fly with a tirade of foul-mouthed abuse yesterday when confronted about her snorting fat lines of cocaine.
-from the Daily Mirror

Snorting thin lines of cocaine is ok?

Television and crumbs

There’s a new peer-reviewed scientific journal called Cough. What a world.

It’s raining here for the first time since spring. It’s lovely, with a wet metallic tang in the air.


Dominic Purcell at the Blade Trinity Premiere

I’ve been using Windows Media Center as a DVR. I watched Twins, because it has Sara Gilbert in it (she was on Roseanne; Sara’s out as a lesbian and recently had a baby with her partner). It’s not great, but I may watch it again. I’ve been watching Prison Break, which is good suspense with Dominic Purcell (above) and Stacy Keach. I’ve been watching a lot of Buffy, which I blame on my youngest sister who reintroduced me to it on summer vacation. I loved the movie, but I never got into the TV show, even when friends were crazy about it. Until now. I’ve been recording trashy action movies and loving them, e.g. Tomorrow Never Dies, Armageddon. Something I haven’t watched yet but I’m excited to see again is The Heroic Trio, a Hong Kong action movie with three superheroines played by Anita Mui, Maggie Cheung and Michelle Yeoh. I watched Bones, which looks like a keeper, about a female forensic (yawn, of course) anthropologist and her sincere but square FBI handler played by David Boneanaz, aka Angel.

Get off my beach and out of my wallet. Or not.

Photo by Jim Powers in the Inky Mirror
Dennis Kozlowski's house off the Squam Road in 2002.

Former Tyco CEO L. Dennis Kozlowsk was sentenced Monday on grand larceny, securities fraud and other charges. He got eight to 25 years in prison, and was ordered to pay a total of $167 million in restitution and fines.

This is of personal interest to me because part of his crime was impropertly taking Tyco money to buy what used to be my family’s beach on Nantucket. He has what the SEC complaint calls “a palatial estate” on the property (pictured above), which had only a decrepit one-room shack without water or electricity when we sold it. According to the complaint, he improperly used loans from Tyco to purchase the property and then improperly forgave himself the loans. Kozlowski also directed millions of dollars of charitable contributions in his own name using Tyco funds. Recipients mentioned in the complaint included the Nantucket Historical Association and my undergraduate alma mater. In the Nantucket Inquirer Mirror, Michael Sullivan, who was the director of development at Nantucket Cottage Hospital during the years Kozlowski donated millions to the facility, said “His [Kozlowski’s] personal generosity is scattered across the island and we should never forget that.” It doesn’t sound like it was exactly personal generosity.

I’m not sure if he bought the property directly when it was sold by my family, but my current homeownership is possible because of that transaction. I don’t doubt that someone else would have bought the place if he hadn’t, but it still makes me queasy. I guess I feel better that he has to pay a lot of money back, but I'll wait until that particular event has happened before I put too much stock in it.

****
cites:
http://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/complr17722.htm
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/12692648.htm
http://www.inquirermirror.com/Kozlowski091905.html
http://www.inquirermirror.com/Kozlowksi062305.html

I'm a sucker for my dog.

Hollywood forever (cemetary) movie night. I don't know who these people are.

The headless walk-man

A little piece of Katrina heartbreak

from the New Orleans Katrina Recovery Back to Work website:

Textron Employees go to this site for information http://www.systems.textron.com/ General questions – Call Human Resource in Wilmington at 1-800-313-3703. Help us locate and track our employees – Please email us, tmlstat@systems.textron.com, or call us at 978-657-1063 and let us know your status. Send your full name, badge number, how to best contact you if possible and your situation (loss of home, injuries, etc.)

Paychecks – Employees will be paid until further notice. Electronic/direct deposit checks will be made automatically. We are working out the logistics for getting live/paper checks to employees. Please let us know if you would like us to mail it to a temporary location for you. Call 1-800-313-3703.

Returning to work – At this time, no TM&L employee should attempt to travel to the facilities, until they are deemed safe.

If anyone knows the status of Ann Quick Davis, Brad Anderson, etc...

Thanks,

Cherryl Ball

Frisco, TX

Is Bush to Blame for New Orleans Flooding?

FactCheck.Org covers this question nicely. Basically, they say that money for protecting New Orleans from hurricanes has been significantly reduced by the Bush administration. The Army Corps ("which is under the President's command and has its own reputation to defend") says the hurricane was too strong, implying that it was so strong that the levy would have been breeched even if the funds hadn't been decreased.

"At a fundamental level, America's current leaders just aren't serious about some of the essential functions of government." - from Paul Krugman: A can't-do government, NYTimes

i am outraged

this morning i donated 5% of my monthly income to the red cross. whatever failings they may have, i've become convinced that they are the best recipient for immediate aid in a situation like this. on the other hand, here is something i find appalling:

'FEMA is directing Katrina donations to none other than the Rev. Pat Robertson. FEMA has released to the media and on its website a list of suggested charities to help the storm's hundreds of thousands of victims. The Red Cross is first on the list. The Rev. Pat Robertson's "Operation Blessing" is next on the list.' From Boing Boing and Bill Scannell

here's my protest, albeit not very eloquent, to EST-DONAT-A@dhs.gov

Hello -

Please remove Operation Blessing from your list of "Organizations Accepting Donations and Volunteers." As I am sure you would not list the charitable arm of Hamas, it is unacceptable to list an organization whose chairman is Pat Robertson, a fringe political figure, one who advocates the assassination of the head of a sovereign nation, among other things.

Thank you.

more new computer trivia

the first google result for "new computer" is apple's iMac G5.

when card-playing programs have tells

This is a cool note about how a user noticed something funny about an online poker game. This observation led him to be able to determine something about the "dealer's" cards. Similarly, in science, new insights more often result from a "that's strange" moment than an out-of-the-blue "aha" moment.

From Quidnet to Sconset

I took these pictures on my walk. Click the picture above for the rest of the pictures.

New tech, new events

dolface pointed me to the “blogger for word” plug-in, which i’m using for this entry. i’m also trying out the new google desktop, and google talk, so it’s a big day around here.

and i’m getting a new computer! i’m very excited about that. i should have it in early september. it’s a dell inspiron 6000, Pentium M 760 processor, 1 GB RAM (due to funding constraints, it makes more sense to spend money on the processor and pay for RAM upgrades if needed) and a 100GB 5400RPM hard drive. i’m surprised and pleased that my current laptop has made it three years. that’s due in no small part to my dad’s incomparable foresight in getting me the three year complete care coverage, and in getting a computer with enough performance that it’s still adequately fast three years later.

other upcoming events: i’m looking into doing some local sailing here. i’m making plans to go to the society for neuroscience conference in DC in november. this weekend is gradiators (link to 2004 event), which i’m participating in for the first time. the biology department annual retreat is in october in redondo beach.

The most American of activities...

...besides dissent, of course, must be the demolition derby. My first one was this past Sunday, on Nantucket. Is it ironic to have a demolition derby on Nantucket? Perhaps, but none of the contestants or fans seemed detached. I had a blast.

LA Gay Rodeo

last night i volunteered at contestant registration at the LA Gay Rodeo. i was excited about the people watching prospects, and they didn't disappoint. however, the most fun was hanging out with the three guys who were assigned to the same table as me. clearly we had a glut of volunteers, since it doesn't really take 4 people to hang out gift bags, but it was a good number for chatting. we all talked about who we thought was cute, where we were from, why we liked rodeo, stuff like that. click the above picture for a few more.

Zuma Beach, Malibu

This is part of the Southern California asthetic that I love.

The big picture

Yup, it was pretty.

The young seagulls look different here than on the East Coast. I amused myself by watching them run from the waves.

Be Cool

Notice how he has exposed warm, high blood flow areas to the open air in ways he doesn't usually. Poor baby.

Bike Rack

the beautiful country

i love reading movie reviews after i've seen a movie. i'm interested to hear what people think about a movie, what they saw in it, etc., but i hate the way reviews give away parts of the movie and predispose one to a certain perspective of the movie. last night i saw "the beautiful country" a movie made by a fin about a vietnamese-american guy set in rural and urban vietnam, on the ocean, in a malaysian refugee camp, and in the rural and urban USA. a. o. scott of the nytimes said it was melodramatic and the script was underwritten. the onion's review was closer to my angle. reading the reviews made me realize that what i love about the movie is something similar to what i love about joan dideon's "a book of common prayer" and some david hockney paintings: the unremitting sparseness and the understated emotions.

Monrovia Canyon Park

It was great to find a park that was shady and green even in the LA summer heat. It was a nice little walk, about 3/4 mile to the falls. I didn't take a picture at the waterfall because it was mobbed with people, including a very apologetic but ineffective group of women with a rabid french bulldog. Walking uphill in the crappy air was a struggle though, even though I'm able to run farther (inside, on a treadmill) than ever before. It reminds me that I shouldn't exercise outside again until October.

This morning I looked at latimes.com for local news and noticed a review of the new Missy Elliot album. I perused it. It was savage. I looked at the other three reviews in the same section by different reviewers; they were all savage too. That surprises me and suggests the LA Times has more spine than I would have expected. The reviews aren't very helpful, but I don't want to ask too much. Simply being critical is beyond my expectations.

might as well enjoy LA

i'm a sucker for americana like drive-in movies. sunday i went with a crew of people to see bewitched and madagascar. we brought lebanese food prepared by armenians, beer, soda and twinkies. we broke out the lawn chairs and tailgated. click the image for more.

how to grill a portabella mushroom

how to cook everything suggested making a basting sauce of olive oil, onion or shallot and salt and pepper and to grill the mushroom until it was brown, about 5 minutes per side. i used the high setting on a gas grill and started with the cap side on top. i lavishly basted the mushroom when i put it on the grill and when i flipped it. i didn't see the mushroom change color, but after 5 minutes on each side, it started to drip, which made a lot of noise as the fire hisses from the drips. i took it off the heat about a minute after it started hissing, and it was fabulous. it was obviously cooked, but still incredibly moist. yum. that was the first time i'd used the grill in the complex - i think it'll be happening more often.

Wonderful New York.

central park and prospect park were amazingly green and lush. i enjoyed how green brooklyn was; there are so many more trees on the street than in manhattan. i loved the urban landscape too though. i went to the museum of natural history, had lunch with my cousin, went out to dinner every night, once at one of my favorite restaurants. i saw rs run a 10k race faster than she expected, met some of her friends, went to rutgers to see a friend and his lab, went to the crumpler camera bag mothership (no link due to annoying flash interface), bought books and read a lot. i spent a lot of time on the subway and other trains, which i really enjoyed. by the end i was ready for a break, and i got one - we spent saturday afternoon mostly inside after the race. this morning i got up at 2am pacific time, and was in my car in burbank by 10am pacific time. naturally i napped on the plane and more once i got home. the only lousy thing about new york was the hot and humid weather. it was gross, but i had been warned. rs keeps her apartment comfortably cool, and plenty of other places were air conditioned too. it was a great trip.

exam exam exam

the exam went ok. following is my brain dump about the exam. i apologize for the length.

one question (on neurogenesis, the creation of new neurons in the brain) was all i could have asked for. it asked a fair amount about the topic, but was explicit about what it was looking for. there were a couple aspects of the question that i didn't really know, but overall i thought it was ok.

another question was also good. it was an interesting angle on a topic (mRNA trafficking and local protein synthesis) that i'm pretty familiar with. i know a little bit about the angle, and so it came together as i was writing it. of course i would have liked to know more in some areas there too, but i'll live. whether i'll pass or not, i'm agnostic.

there was a list of six questions, and after i picked those two above questions, things got a little harder. i started to answer a question that clearly was written in response to a topic i chose that i'm really interested in: backpropagation, the travel of the signal of the neuron in what one might consider the wrong direction. ultimately though, the question asked more about downstream mechanisms than i knew, and i just couldn't put it together. after writing about half a page, half of which was unrelated to the question, i started re-assessing the other questions.

i decided to answer the question on cytoskeletal regulation, in spite of the fact that i thought it was a poorly conceived question and the other fact that it asked me to compare the regulation of the cytoskeleton in the neuron to that in migrating cells. guess what, i don't know very much about migrating cells. happily i knew a couple of examples of cytoskeletal regulation in migratory cells. unhappily, i didn't know enough to make a complete comparison.

for the last question, since i had decided i wasn't up to answering the backpropagation question and i hadn't studied synaptogenesis (i had eliminated it as a topic in an effort to strategize for the exam), i had to answer the question on alzheimers. the question had a broad component, and i felt good about my knowledge of the mechanisms of the pathology. however, the second part of the question was about potential treatments, and that was harder. i answered it anyway. it was my weakest effort, in part because it was the last question i answered and i wasn't as coherent. i'm annoyed at my relative lack of knowledge about potential treatments (i ended up choosing gene and antibody treatment), because if i was going to spend more time studying for that topic, that's what i would have chosen. i explicitly had the thought: the professor who is most likely to be asked to write that question is always interested in applications of basic science to treatment.

i don't know when i hear about whether i passed the exam.

i feel like i should write down things i learned about taking exams like that, but i also feel brain dead. none of the questions could be argued to be outside of the topics i wrote down, but some of them were definitely more in depth than i went, or deep in a different area than i studied deeply. i'm glad i was right about some things i studied.

if i was going to do it again, i would make a little fact sheet for myself on each topic with the main points. the table i made up of studies of neurogenesis were really helpful. generally, making a list of the main points of the experiments in the papers i read was really helpful. i found that sometimes i tried to get so much detail out of a paper that i wasn't solid enough on the basics. basics basics basics!

nervous and exhausted

i'm taking my exam today. i guess i should just start it. eek.

yesterday my roommate looked in the kitchen and said, "tell me you chased garlic-stuff olives with pepto-bismol."

yeah, i'm core like that.

i love pens

highlighters can suck if you're marking a paperback book, because you're reading fast enough that you close the one page on the other and it smears, or because the pages are so thin that you see the highlighting through them. on the other hand, highlighters rock for journal articles (printed out on printer paper, which is how most people seem to read them). it takes forever to read a single page, giving the highlighter a good chance to dry before the page is turned, and the paper is thick enough to minimize the bleed-through.

have i mentioned that i went on a pen splurge before my crazy exam studying period? my favorites: the pen-style liquid accent highlighter (above) and my perennial favorite, the uni-ball gel impact RT. both of them practically bleed ink onto the page, which i love. you can see think ink sloshing around in the liquid accent highlighter, and it's only as thick as a pen so it's easier to hold. the mark that it makes is very saturated, almost as good as the big fat big fat highlighters, according to my comparison in the store. they aren't bright enough to use the yellow and be easily able to pick out the section you highlighted - i like the pink. it's got a chisel end that's pretty hard, which is nice for control. it's small enough that the most you can highlight at one time is one line. however, i did like using the thin end of a fat highlighter to mark a line - there was a nice minimalism to it. since i can't have it all, i'll have this for now!

a PhD in procrastination

apparently it was important for me to figure out the probability that the exam that i'm going to take will exclude the same topics that i've eliminated from my study plan. the odds aren't as good as they were before. it's unlikely that i'll have to answer questions on topics i've eliminated, but i won't have as many options when it comes to picking which of the exam questions i want to answer (i now pick 4 of 6; i was expecting 4 of 8). i'm trying not to feel bitter that i wasn't told how things would be in advance.

when doctors are chumps

do you think drug companies can track how often a particular doctor prescribes a given drug? they can. if you had asked me that question, i would have leaned toward the cynical and said yes, but i wouldn't know how they did it. according to this article, insurance companies sell the information about what drugs are prescribed, keyed to a number assigned each doctor by the drug enforcement administration (DEA). the federal government and the AMA sell a list of doctors which includes their DEA number. the drug companies buy this information, cross reference it, and whammo, they've got the goods.

the next part of the article is stuff i knew, about the gross tactics drug companies use (and doctors fall for) to convince physicians to prescribe more of the company's drugs. what is compelling is that the data collected by the drug companies proves that doctors are swayed by this advertising, and the denial that doctors maintain. it's like 80% of people thinking they're in the top 20% of drivers. from the article:

In one survey, 61 percent of the residents at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center reported that they themselves are unmoved by drug company gifts. But when asked if they thought their colleagues were swayed, 84 percent said yes.

i have sympathy for doctors. they're busy, and it takes time to keep up with the peer-reviewed literature. often, they want samples for their patients who struggle to afford medications. my old allergist was a great guy, and i was impressed with how he handled the drug reps. still, i think it's the fundamental arrogance of the medical profession that leads to doctors to believe they are not affected by the lobbying of the drug reps.

by the way, i renounce my previous paean to cold medicine. after 4 days of steady sudafed, i'm sick of the stuff. it makes me nervous and irritable. i'm still sick.

What's that hair for?

Isn't the lovely feathery hair in the bottom of his feet adorable?

Since I've been sick, I've been letting Mac lead our walks. He tends to want to stop and smell everything, and I'm happy to walk at a slower pace than usual. I've been a few places on campus that I haven't been before. Usually we just follow his nose, but every once in a while he looks at me to figure out where we are going. When he gets it in his head that I'm deciding, he can't be swayed. We'll stand there until I make a move in one direction or another.

the joy of (cold) drugs

my feelings about cold medicine have ranged from agnostic to antagonistic, but right now, i'm a big fan. i've got some cruddy sore throat, temperature regulation and headache-dizziness sickness. i've decided that if i can stuff myself full of medicine to at least prevent myself from getting a chest cold and making my sore throat worse, i will. here's my regimen. every 4 hours i take 2 advil or tylenol, two sudafed and use a zicam nasal swab. before bed i take two benedryl. the benedryl doesn't work as well as the sudafed, but i don't think i could sleep very well on sudafed. and of course i'm taking my everyday allergy meds: clarinex, advair, nasonex. i'd really like to find a decongestant to take at night, but it sounds like all decongestants are stimulatory.

the problem this is creating with my studying is not making me panic, although i don't know why not.

Beckman Institute

The focus is a little off here, but I still like the picture. I feel like a bit of a sucker when I photograph something that is designed to be appealing.

Recently I've spent most of my time studying for my upcoming advancement to candidacy exams, beating myself up for not studying more, and procrastinating. I went to San Francisco for kj's graduation. I was happy to get to be there, very happy to see kj, and acutely heartsick for San Francisco.

I hate LA

follow your web-nose

i'm procrastinating, so i went online. from a link on ayelet waldman's defunct blog, i went to a blog by a 20-something woman in calcutta who lived in the west but is now going to be in an arranged marriage. from there i went to an indian politico-blogger's site. eventually i tired of stories of unscrupulous debt collecting, and followed a link to sepia mutiny, which seems like a complete free-for-all, in the best sense. it discusses being gay in india, new airline routes from india to toronto, the new huffington post (no link due to the complete lack of content). it introduced me to the term ABCD's, which apparently stands for "American Born Confused Desis." It also took me to my last site of the night, yoga booty ballet. from sepia mutiny's description: a workout that combines the grace of ballet, the balance of yoga, and the thunderosity of one's booty. and where would you find such a class? los angeles, my home.

The studious pedicure

The written portion of my advancement to candidacy exam is a closed-book exam on specific topics in cell and molecular neurobiology. I have ten topics to study. I have set up meetings with people who are interested in or knowledgeable about the different topics. Today's meeting was on Alzheimer's. We met over brunch and then got pedicures. Better than golf, I'd say. By the time we got to the pedicures, I was done talking about Alzheimer's and so I read Vogue and chatted. They were showing an embarrassingly sexually explicit video in the store (salon?). The stylish looking middle-aged black women across from me were talking with each other about it. In the video, a Janet Jackson concert video, a man had been brought up from the audience, tied to a platform and then groped by Ms. Jackson. The women were feeling sorry for the guy. It was a very nice interaction.

When therapists fight

Does one throw the other one's furniture out of the office, in the way that drama-prone couples throw clothes out windows? Remember, this is the same building outside which I saw a therapist-looking woman having a very unbalanced interaction with a car that pulled too far into the intersection.

Geek pow-ah!

I took this picture surreptitiously. I cropped his head out to give him a little anonymity. Let me count the geeky ways: Birkenstocks with sandals, stripped computer, compressed air, computer on chair not cart, taking the whole deal outside.

agile puppy

the other day mac and i were at a garage sale. a man holding a rottweiler beanie baby saw mac and gave mac the toy. mac loved it; the guy proceeded to take a bunch of pictures of mac with the toy.

tonight mac and i drove to long beach for the third time. we've been going to agility classes there. bad dog is perfectly obedient and a great learner, but he doesn't yet have much drive to run the obstacles. he's more interested in finding treats that other dogs have dropped and looking at other dogs.

going to long beach has also given me a taste of LA's legendary traffic. so far it seems that getting to long beach at 6:15pm is one of those funny traffic things that is impossible. i can leave pasadena at 4:30 and get to long beach at 6pm, or i can leave pasadena at 5:15 or 5 and get there at 6:30. on my way home, it takes, wait for it, 25 minutes. that's three times as long with traffic as without. obviously this is not a viable long term proposition.

puppy hunting

i went with MK to look at 7 day old puppies at a breeder. MK heard about the breeder from a friend who has a dog from her, and has reserved a puppy from this litter. here are two of them:



click the image for more puppy cuteness. we met the dog-mom, who was a very nice dog too. it's weird being at a breeder's, even though i think she's a good breeder. the dogs aren't pets and don't get the kind of attention i think dogs want. the dogs aren't socialized to be attached to people. in any case, i saw nothing to worry about. i look forward to watching one of these little guys grow up.

ugly=fast?

this helmet was at the bike store, and AH and i couldn't resist trying it on. i was hoping to go on a supported ride from santa barbara back to LA this weekend, but i am overwhelmed with work.

Snoozin'

i convinced bad dog to snuggle with me. i dragged him into this position. what a tolerant puppy.

Biking the San Gabriel river

Los Angeles turns out to have an amazing bike path system. We rode 21 miles, all on bike paths completely separate from traffic. One could go much further. Of course, you're sucking in smog the whole way.

Hello Bratty

This "Hello Kitty" knockoff is called "Bratty Kitty." I found this at the 99 cent store, a weird and neat LA phenomenon. it really has everything - i bought a pair of pretty heavy wire cutters there.

Orange vine

i took this picture on a hike friday morning. i don't know what the orange stuff is, but i see it wrapped on these bushes. it seems to grow from the bushes themselves, which surprises me. click for a larger image.

Unbelievable: driving with no license, no insurance

This is the car that slowly backed into me in a parking lot. I was laying on the horn for a good 3 seconds before he hit me, but he didn't respond. He didn't speak english, didn't have a driver's license and didn't have insurance. License plate 3AGF461. Happily, I couldn't find a single thing wrong with my car and was spared the annoyance of calling the police on this feckless kid (not to mention the annoyance of car repairs). The situation managed to be plenty annoying as it was though.

operation "back to normal": step one

i went hiking saturday with the roommate and beastie. click the picture below for more pix, including a really cute one of bad dog. we walked up chantry flats road, which is closed to cars, for the reason you see below. it's a pretty spectacular slide.



one of the members of my advancement to candidacy exam committee was unpleasant in the exam. he's a very bright guy, and a good scientist, but he's generally perceived to be abrasive. i took a class with him, and although i always came away impressed with his lecturing and intellectual skills, i didn't feel that i benefited from the ways in which he tried to help guide us to the conclusion he was teaching. the class seemed roughly divided between people who got his way of thinking and people who didn't. i talked with someone who took the class a different year who had the same problem i did. so i think i'm going to replace him on the committee with someone who i am better able to understand. it might be a little bit difficult, politically speaking, but i'm sure it will work out. at first my adviser was opposed to my firing him, but she came around.

advancing

today, i passed one portion of my advancement to candidacy exam. i presented a proposal for my thesis work to a committee of four professors. they asked me questions, i left the room, they conferred, i went back in, they said i passed. i'm numb. the other portion is a written, general knowledge exam in june.

the neuroscience of economic behavior

As I've worked in research, my resistance to a lot of things has decreased. For example, my view of the morals of the pharmaceutical industry has become more nuanced and less negative. Similarly, taking money from DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) to learn how the intention to move a limb is encoded seems ok to me, even though that research will ultimately probably be applied to some kind of prosthetic weaponry, either connected to the user or a remotely controlled robot-weapon. In part, I am sifting through the new moral universe in which I find myself, but in part I have learned enough to see the value in things I didn't value before.

That said, I'm really nervous about the study of neuroscience of economic behavior. A major application is advertising, understanding how people make decisions. Even when one has an intellectual knowledge of how and why sex, for example, sells, it's hard to resist. As we as scientists become more knowledgeable about the most basic decisions in the brain and become more knowledgeable about how to influence motivation, it seems that it will be even harder to resist the siren call of consumerism.

Here's an example of recent work ( caltech press release, pubmed entry) that on the face of it is warm and fuzzy. in the experiments, two subjects undergoing brain imaging repeatedly play a game in which trust is rewarded. they find that subjects risk increasing amounts as the game progresses.

"Neoclassical economics starts with the assumption that rational self-interest is the motivator of all our economic behavior," says Quartz. "The further assumption is that you can only get trust if you penalize people for non-cooperation, but these results show that you can build trust through social interaction, and question the traditional model of economic man."

"The results show that you can trust people for a fair amount of time, which contradicts the assumptions of classical economics," Camerer adds.

To me it suggests that people can be manipulated easily, building up their trust and then taking them for a big hit. This is supported by the large number of people who are swindled countless ways in confidence scams.

I suspect that my concern for the potential applications of this work may result primarily from the fact that I don't find most of the data intellectually interesting. I'm willing to deal with the devil to answer questions I think are important and compelling, but not for this.

Sin City and SRL

In a busy night, I went to the movie Sin City at the Arclight, and also to a Survival Research Labs (SRL) show. I enjoyed Sin City a lot. Visually, it was stunning. Mostly filmed against a blue screen (which I think was green in this case), the movie is almost entirely black and white. There are a lot of digital effects, which mostly work, but when they don't, it's jarring. The snow scenes were staggeringly beautiful. The image above is from the graphic novel the movie is based on. The author was the co-director. The plot was overwrought, which I guess is what you get with noir. The actors were good, even the sexpots.

I saw the movie with PI at the Arclight. The Arclight is the pinnacle of movie experience. You buy tickets in advance online for no extra fee (although the tickets are at a premium: $11). Your ticket reserves a particular seat. There are people in the parking structure guiding you to open parking. When you arrive, there is a quick and easy way to obtain your tickets. In the theater, an usher shows you your seat. The seats are incredibly comfortable, with lots of leg room. You don't have to get up, or even move much, for someone to get by. We saw the movie digitally projected. I don't know if it made a difference, but the movie was luscious looking.


SRL is a pyrotechnic robotics group that likes to make interesting artistic robots and set things on fire. If you click on the picture above, you'll go to a gallery of pictures from the show. They are not great pictures.

I was alerted to the show by my daily read of boingboing. I love when I read international blogs, and they talk about stuff going on near me. I've been reading boingboing since I lived in San Francisco, but I've found it to be a good LA reference.

For the show they closed off a street in the warehouse district just east of downtown LA. People climbed up onto the top of many of the surrounding warehouses. Given the amount of drinking in the crowd, that made me nervous.

I had a good time there, although I would have enjoyed myself more if I could have seen more of the show. There were 4 or 5 rows of people in front of me, and people around me, all of whose conversations I was subjected to before the show started. After all my complaining about how mainstream LA is, I was reminded that mainstream people haven't cornered the market on insipid conversations.

The best robot in the show had a horizontal auger that spun as it moved. Unfortunately, I think the auger was not the actual wheel of the robot. The show was also really loud, which I liked (I had earplugs), and there was lots of fire, which everyone liked. I could feel the heat of flames that were 40 feet or so away.

A piece of something came flying in my direction at one point, probably a piece of wood flayed off wooden the horse by another robot. It bounced off the ground in front of the barrier, then came flying upward. I had plenty of time to duck, but it was exciting.

I've been wanting to see an SRL show for a while, but I wasn't entirely happy to be at the show. Was it because I was tired? Was it because of the company? (My own.) I think it was mostly because I was surrounded on all sides by a crowd. So here's my advice if you're going to a show: Get there early enough to climb a warehouse or annex some other comfortable viewing place. Don't drink while you're on top of the warehouse (GP excepted, well, maybe not), because you have to climb down afterward. Bring earplugs. Bring eye protection. Enjoy.

I had a weird interaction with him a guy who I'm pretty sure was breaking into cars parked on the street I had parked on. I left the show early, but it ended right as I was walking away. When I got to the street my car was on, there was a guy sitting in a car, looking around with a flashlight. He was a nervous-acting guy who looked like he could use a shower, shave, haircut and laundry, and I made certain assumptions. He told me he was keeping watch on the cars, and I asked if he wanted to sell me a bridge too. OK, I didn't do that. He kept one hand in his pocket, and I wasn't too happy about that either. By then I had committed to walking down the street, and there were other people coming from the show. As I was getting into my car, the guy asked me for money. Idiot.

Earlier in the night, a man had held a door open for me and asked me for money. I was really annoyed by that, and it reminded me of how my daily experience has changed. It didn't used to bug me.

First day of school

HC insisted on taking a picture of me in what I wore for the first meeting of the discussion section I'm leading. She thought it was hilarious, and even funnier that I didn't get what was funny.

Spontaneous sculpture

At DM's birthday breakfast, HC ordered some kind of eggs benedict. The spout on the one on the left reminded us of Aplysia, pictured below, a sea animal that is commonly used to understand connections between neurons.

PJP2

The New York Times has a great (and brief) audio-visual retrospective of John Paul II's papacy, which includes this stunning picture, among others. For most of my life, John Paul II has defined the papacy itself. The possibility of a more liberal pope and/or one from a third world country is intriguing. I haven't heard anything about the possibilities of a liberal pope. Commentators do note that the selection of JP2 was a surprise. Choosing a pope seems rare enough that it's hard to handicap.

work work work

today i came into the lab at 9:50 am to toss some stuff on the burner, metaphorically speaking, and then i went to a birthday breakfast celebration for DM, a postdoc who helps me enormously. i enjoyed it, but i felt a little off the rest of the day. i messed up a couple of things, luckily nothing that i couldn't fix. one part of what i'm doing involves leaving something overnight, and i really want to get to that step. if i don't, then i'll have to do the few steps tomorrow and not continue until sunday. i'm not completely sure i will work all weekend, but it seems like a good idea, since it's the only weekend i'll be here between now and my advancement to candidacy exam.