Football Fun

One of the pleasures of completing my big meeting is that I get to have some leisure time. Today I indulged myself by watching some football. I didn't see this bit live, but the clip cracked me up. During the Packers-Bears game (in which the Packers were possessed by the three stooges), one of the refs dragged a player out of a scuffle (above photo from Brian Kersey). One of the commentators, I think it was Madden, likened it to the Martinez-Zimmer scuffle in 2003. The size and age disparity is certainly significant in both, but in this case, the big young guy (linebacker Barnett) doesn't seem pissed at the smaller old guy (ref Quirk). The interaction was more like a small mom dragging her hulking son away from something fun by his ear. Video here.

Update: Apparently Barnett was pissed afterward. Quirk was fined $8150 by the NFL, which Barnett's agent reported was satisfactory.

Stuffed Animal

Say you were a dog and someone gave you a plush duck. Would your first instinct be to pull the long fuzz off the top of its head? Besides riding in cars backward, I think my dog has other problems.

Dick Cavett is funny: "Don't be afraid."

I can't wait to use this:

“Hello, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.”

“Bill Jovanovich please.”

“Mr. Jovanovich isn’t in.”

(Temple throb increases.) “Where is he?”

“He’s in Europe, I’m afraid”

“Don’t be afraid. Where in Europe?”

from "An Author's Nightmare in the New York Times NYTimes.com

"It's really much better if you don't distort the record"

Earlier this year, JPL employees working with non-classified material were informed they would need to give permission for extraordinarily invasive background checks to keep their jobs. JPL employees filed suit to stop the background checks. In September, a panel of judges granted a temporary injunction against this requirement. This week, another panel heard arguments about extending the injunction. According to an article in the Whittier Daily News, the tone of the hearing was promising for the JPL employees. The judges gave positive feedback to the employee's lawyer:

The panel asked few questions of Keeny, however, and had words of praise.

"You've done a good job. I don't want to interfere, keep it up," Judge David Thompson told her part way through her argument.

And were critical of the government's arguments:

Most contentious were Stern's arguments, during which sparks flew in the normally calm courtroom.

"It's really much better if you don't distort the record," Judge Kim Wardlaw chided at one point after Stern described a questionnaire as having only multiple-choice questions.

"I have a copy of the form. It asks if there is anything else, and there are blanks," she said.

I'm also happy to learn that Caltech objects to the requirements:

Caltech lawyer Mark Holscher argued that the college should not be included in the injunction because it objected to the requirements and is not involved in the collection of employee information.

Leaving Los Angeles

I heard a terrific slip of the tongue on the radio yesterday. A local official was being interviewed about the Southern California Association of Governments' report on "how the Southland is doing on everything, including the economy, crime, traffic, housing and education." The report is described here. The unfortunate official was reading from a statement, somewhat haltingly, and discussed the type of changes the report indicates they need to make so that the region is "a place we want to leave," halting pause, "to our children."

Bad owners

JH went running with me this morning. He was telling me about the drama surrounding Congo the German Shepherd. Basically, some gardeners came to a house with six shepherds and one gardener ended up being severely attacked after taking shelter behind their female owner and grabbing her in the process. The guy ended up in the hospital and had to get 65 rabies shots, according to the press. Now, six months after the attack, the court found the dog to be dangerous and decided he should be euthanized. In the ruling, he mentioned that the attack went on for three minutes. From articles, it sounds like the female owner was trying to stop it, but couldn't, and it only stopped when the male owner came out of the house. I can't think of a good reason to have six shepherds; it's suggestive of paranoia and a preference for a big stick. Certainly, anyone whose dogs don't have rabies shots is an idiot.

"Congo, having been granted a stay of execution, is muzzled and under house arrest, as his owners await a decision on their appeal.: - NYTimes

Must be nice to be rich. Everyone else's dog is in a kennel at Animal Control in these situations.

[The day after the attack] an animal control officer took Congo and four other dogs ...to an animal shelter, where Congo stayed until he was released pending the appeal. He was sent home two weeks ago after five months in lockup.

Oh, well, that's not quite as grievous.

"A wide swath was cut today on "FOX & Friends" as we tried to save a German shepherd from death " -as in Fox network

You know you're on the wrong side if Fox agrees with you.

"The dog reacted protectively," [NJ Assemblyman Neil] Cohen said. "Dogs are not just companions. They are here to protect us. If these were criminals, not landscapers, who grabbed (Elizabeth James) the dog would get a medal." ( nj.com )

WTF? They weren't criminals. They weren't attacking her. They were hired workers who may have shown some bad judgment, but whose safety from the dogs was still the responsibility of the owners. But this is less about responsible dog ownership than it is about entitlement. These wealthy white people believe their dog is more important than a laborer, especially an immigrant laborer, and there are lots of people who agree with them.

On a lighter note, I enjoyed a satire about the Republican presidential candidates' responses to the Congo drama. Here's an excerpt:

Only Tom Tancredo expressed outright enthusiasm for the law [that would protect dogs like Congo], stating that any dog that bit an immigrant was a hero in his eyes. Tancredo not only approved of the law, but he called on the Governor of New Jersey to pardon Congo, and said that he would nominate the dog for the Medal of Freedom. “The only thing that bothers me is that his name, Congo, doesn’t sound very American,” Mr. Tancredo said. (from this blog)

This web site closed during non-business hours

Imagine my surprise when I tried to conduct some insurance business with DeltaCare to find that their website was not only undergoing maintenance, but also appeared to be reliably available only from Monday through Friday 4 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday 4 a.m. to 4 p.m. Pacific Time. Happily, they "apologize for any inconvenience," which really changes things, I can tell you.

Medical Hubris

from a New York Times article about a feud between two top heart surgeons (thanks cranky):

Dr. Cooley recalled that a lawyer had once asked him during a trial if he considered himself the best heart surgeon in the world.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Don’t you think that’s being rather immodest?” the lawyer asked.

“Perhaps,” Dr. Cooley responded. “But remember I’m under oath.”

Red Peppers Stuffed with Goat Cheese

Ingredients:

Half cup of uncooked couscous
Half cup of goat cheese
Coarse ground black pepper
Handful of shelled edamame
Three red peppers (try to pick ones with symmetrical bottoms, it makes them stand up better)
2 tablespoons of sun-dried tomato pesto

Cut off the tops of three red peppers about 1/2" down; set aside. Remove the seeds and pith from inside the peppers. Put them in a pot of gently boiling water, first tipping them to fill them with hot water, and then setting them upright. Boil for three minutes.

Cut and dice the yummy parts of the tops of the peppers away from the stem and pith.

Use tongs to take the peppers out of the boiling water and drain them. Set them upright in an oven-proof container just large enough to hold them and keep them in place.

Mix half a cup of couscous with a half cup of the water the peppers were boiled in. Add in the diced peppers. Cover and let it sit for five minutes.

Meanwhile, add 2 tablespoons of sun-dried red tomato pesto to half a cup of goat cheese. Mix well, add pepper to taste. Mix with couscous.

Fill the peppers with the couscous and goat cheese mix. Sprinkle edamame on top. Cook at 400 for 5 minutes, or maybe longer. It's nice to have them a little brown on top, but I wouldn't want the goat cheese to melt too much.

The pluses and minuses of ratings

This is from an editorial in the Stanford paper in response to the new US News and World Report ratings. They discuss pluses and minuses of evaluation schemes. The below example is the plus. The minus is Leave No Child Behind.

Building a Better Legal Profession is a national grassroots movement of law students who hope to create market pressures that will stimulate workplace reform in the nation’s largest private law firms. Although the students of Stanford Law School who spearheaded this movement are a force to be reckoned with, in the litigious environment of modern America, anyone who takes on the task of reforming “big law” is taking on Goliath. So what was the weapon of choice for this organization’s struggle to improve diversity, increase pro bono work and restore a sliver of humanity to the lives of entry-level corporate lawyers? The group created a simple system of arranging available online data about firms. They ranked the firms against one another based on factors such as diversity, and then graded each firm with a letter A through F. Copy, paste and rank. It seems like a simple formula, and it is, yet it has won Building a Better Legal Profession press and praise across the nation. Creating a grading system that ranks law firms based on something other than profits is a neat way of capitalizing on America’s passion for rankings while changing traditional paradigms of prestige.

It would be very hard to do something like this for biology labs because the small numbers of people who work in each lab would reduce the possibility of anonymity. But I like the idea.

Overheard at neuroscience conference:

I do mostly heroin.

He certainly meant that he does heroin research, but I liked the unintended implication. There are lots of addiction researchers here. My personal (very limited) experience is that cannabinoid researchers tend to have an experiential knowledge of their subject. I don't particularly expect the cocaine and opiate researchers to have experience, but I don't know.

Bicycle Parking at the San Diego Convention Center

I called the main number. A woman hears the word "parking" in my request and says, let me give you the number for our parking garage. I said, usually there are bicycle racks outside of the parking garage, is there anyone who would know about those? She says, let me ask. Later, she says nope, but I'll give you the parking number. I call parking and a really helpful woman says they don't have bicycle parking, but she thinks she's seen some around. Can I hold? You bet.

When she comes back, she says she talked with the same lady I did, and then she also called security. Security said there are bike racks (or maybe just one?) at building A on the way to the reception or administrative offices. Facing the center, it's all the way to the right. Good luck to me.

heard on sports radio

"the anecdote to their ills"

All the news that's fit to print

I was listening to WNYC streaming this morning, and heard "WNYC is supported by N Y Times dot com." After a brief spiel about its merits, notable for the absence of the phrase "New York Times," it concluded with the tagline "All the news that's fit to click."

The other beautiful campus

I'm fortunate enough to be on the most beautifully landscaped campus I know. It's so lush that I forget about the flora of other campuses I've been part of. For example, this past weekend I was at San Francisco State University, and I was awed by the huge trees. How could I have forgotten these? The center of campus has paths criss-crossing grassy areas, each with towering Monterey Cypress and Monterey Pines. I've spent a lot of time hanging out under them. Unfortunately I didn't shoot my own pictures of them; I pulled this one off flickr.

Web text formatting complaints

How to make people wish they didn't have a feedback form:

The underlined terms in your [cramped, incredibly small] text display boxes are an aesthetic nightmare. They make the text hard to read. I think I understand the idea behind them. Couldn't it be implemented in a less obtrusive manner? Perhaps putting links below the field would be a reasonable compromise between prominence and disruption.

crummy design from an unexpected source

The major Pasadena event recognizing World AIDS Day has a crummy looking website. I'm nearly embarrassed to send people there to contribute - will they think it's a fraud? "No self respecting group of gay men would be associated with this!" The tabs across the top look cheesy, the faded background image isn't identifiable, nor is it aesthetically pleasing. It's large enough to distract from the text and the logo. But what really kills me are the vertical blue bars, which look a lot like scroll bars. In fact, when I first went to scroll down the page, I was confused for a minute. While any given person might not live up to a positive stereotype about their group, you'd think a group focused on a disease that disproportionately affects gay people would have a better looking website.

Also crummy looking: AIDS Service Center (the main beneficiary of the event, and probably a main organizer)

And, in fairness, fantastic looking: GMHC

The Scientist's Unconscious Credo

One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.

Marie Curie, letter to her brother, 1894
French (Polish-born) chemist & physicist (1867 - 1934)

(Certainly not limited to scientists though)

Brr

I went on a lovely backpacking trip, but the last morning was a little cold for my tastes. Later I found out the low had been 18 degrees. I'm so tough!

"They had fun making it"

This seems to be a recent trend, books and movies that relish the fun to be had in making them. Certainly some zest is pleasing and not to be begrudged, but when the pleasure taken by the creators is greater than the pleasure it gives, one might wish the creators had focused more on their job. AR on Ocean's 13: "I won't go see something that was more fun to make than it is to see." Although she didn't explicitly begrudge Chabon the pleasure, RS similarly thought the Yiddish Policeman's Union appeared fun to write, but she found the book tedious.