A better fall-back position for Scrabble

The future of Scrabulous on Facebook remains uncertain. It turns out that Hasbro sold digital rights to Scrabble to EA, who have certainly shown they make an excellent computer game, although I'm not wild about their online games. And they certainly don't have the user-interaction aspects of Facebook. Still, I think EA is more in touch with the current online markets than Hasbro is, so hopefully they can work out the Scrabble-on-Facebook thing in a way that benefits everyone, as I suggested before.

The question you want, not the one you got

As always, I love Miss Manners. Here is her advice to an engaged gay man who doesn't want to deal with people's questions about the legality of his upcoming nuptials:

Just follow Miss Manners' rule of answering the question you want to deal with rather than the one that was asked. It got her through school.

Don't be the demented lost cause

To: hasbrogamespr@hasbro.com, corporate.communications@mattel.com

Subject: Removing scrabulous from Facebook


Hello -

I am concerned about your request that Facebook remove the Scrabble-like application Scrabulous from its site. I think you're entirely within your rights to make this request, but I think it's a terrible idea. You have already benefited from the situation: Scrabble has gained in popularity because of Scrabulous. With licensing and partnership, you could do much better by capitalizing on the current situation than trying to shut it down.

If you are considering hosting your own online Scrabble site, do not expect the same level of use as Scrabulous gets. People like Scrabble, but it's a notoriously long and slow game. Putting it in the context of Facebook is what makes it accessible. People don't need to convince friends to sign up for a new site. They can play asynchronously without forgetting about the game, because they're coming to the site for other reasons as well.

Remember too that Facebook is a social networking site: it's entire purpose is shared information. There are 10,000 people in various "Save Scrabulous" groups. You must act quickly to correct this mistake. I suggest you consider the existing benefits, devise new ways to capitalize on the situation, and change your position. By requesting the removal of Scrabulous from Facebook, you've positioned yourselves as the out-of-touch creaky old-guard. You now must pick between two roles: the old-fashioned but ultimately rational uncle or the demented lost cause.

Good luck,

Inquisition at JPL: Pocket protectors with the right stuff

From an editorial in the LA Times today:

As custodians of a great human adventure, the men and women of JPL deserve better from their own country than to be victimized by a shabby crowd of apprentice Torquemadas.* By resisting this bargain-basement inquisition, JPL plaintiffs have rendered us all yet another service. Who would have guessed that the folks with the pocket protectors would turn out to be the ones with the right stuff?

* Torquemada was a prominent leader of the Spanish Inquisition.

I'm not sure why this hasn't gotten more media coverage. Are there similar things going on at other organizations?

Expensive = good, according to me

"The more expensive a wine is perceived to be, the more likely a person is to enjoy it, according to a new study out of the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Caltech."

I was a participant in the survey portion of this study ("Come, drink wine for free."). Of course, I don't know what my results were, but the overall conclusion of the study is pretty depressing about human nature.

Select multiple drawing objects in Excel

This problem was giving me an enormous headache. I had a bunch of images of my results in a spreadsheet next to the quantification of each image. I wanted to reuse all the formulas and layout etc, but remove the images from my old results. I had too many images to happily Shift-Click them. I wanted a single command to select all of them. I knew they were in the drawing layer, but I couldn't get any further. Google gave me nothing. Finally, just fiddling around, I discovered that if you select one of the images, then you can select all of the rest with the Cmd-A shortcut (that's Ctrl-A for those of you on Windows). A caveat: I'm using Excel 2004 for Mac; Leopard on Macbook Pro. There were relatively few pictures that I wanted to keep, so it was easy to use the mouse to de-select those before I deleted the rest. I'm posting this in hopes that it won't take as much time for the next poor sucker who uses some obscure Excel functionality to solve this problem.

A battle won in JPL background check struggle

The New York Times reports that "The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in California, issued an opinion allowing the scientists to continue working until the question of their privacy challenge can be addressed at a full trial."

Here's a brilliant soundbite: “This is truly a vindication for these scientists and engineers,” said Dan Stormer, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. “They’ve been loyal and hard-working and committed to science and this country — and they’ve been threatened with the loss of their jobs simply because they stood up for their constitutional rights.”

The court called the background checks "an inquisition." Unfortunately, the 9th circuit is the most overturned court of appeals. Hopefully this ruling will stick.

The AP reports about Caltech involvement:

The decision appeared to reverse a ruling by Wright late Thursday dismissing Caltech as a defendant in the lawsuit. The 9th Circuit said any injunction must also apply to Caltech.

It said the case "raises serious questions as to whether the university has in fact now become a willful and joint participant in NASA's investigation program, even though it was not so initially."

Before the rain

There was dry time at the dog park. Jeff Quebral was shooting at the dog park and kindly sent me these pictures.

With enemies like this, you don't need friends

The Union of Concerned Scientists wikipedia entry has a "criticism" section. Each entry in the section features a crack-pot and essentially adds to the organization's credibility. This might be the result of some clever editing, but it's representative of the critics found on the web. Here's an example from the wikipedia "criticism" section:

Televangelist Jerry Falwell endorsed Chicago Tribune op-ed columnist Dennis Byrne's description of UCS as the "inexhaustibly liberal and self-appointed guardians of scientific purity [who] try to corrupt science for [their] own ends",^[31] and accused UCS of leading evangelicals to "[fall] for all of this global warming hocus-pocus" and "[run] down meaningless rabbit trails that get our focus off of our heavenly purpose."^[32]

I'm so glad the argument about whether global warming exists is substantially behind us, as indicated by George Bush conceding the existence of climate change and acknowledging some role of humans in it.

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.