Archive for November, 2007
Top Gear in Alabama
Posted by jim in My Bent Brain on November 25, 2007
I am a fan of the BBC show Top Gear. Mind you, I’m no gear-head, but these guys do some funny things and I like to hear their take on various new car models. Last night I caught an episode that I had not seen before where the three hosts come to the USA, rent cars, and drive to New Orleans. On the way, they pass through Alabama, and well, some not-so-friendly southern hospitality ensues. Video here.
Co-host James May has a few words about it in his blog.
Let’s just say that the take-home message is that in certain areas of the USA one should not attempt humor that “colors outside the lines”. I cannot imagine this reaction where I live in upstate NY (odd looks yes, maybe even a few rude remarks, but that’s about it). The best line is the closer:
“In certain parts of America now, people have begun to mate with vegetables.”
Hinckley Reservoir Revisited
Posted by jim in Habitats and Humanity, Health and Society on November 21, 2007
In early October I posted a series of pics regarding the low water level at Hinckley Reservoir in upstate NY. The combination of low rainfall and demand had reduced the lake some 35 feet below spill level. I had hoped to post some pics in Spring 2008 to contrast these to normal levels. That won’t be necessary. Over the past several weeks we have had considerable rain. Also, the major draw off of the reservoir, the NY state canal corporation, reduced their demand and planned to close the canal early. (At present, the canal is nicely topped off.) The result is that the lake is now just a few feet below spill over. Below the fold are some pics that I took just a few days ago. In the meantime we have had more rain (and some snow), so I wouldn’t be surprised if the level is even higher than shown.
Doc Bushwell’s MST 3000: Beowulf
Posted by docbushwell in Minimal Media on November 20, 2007
When the word “stinker” was bandied about in reviews, I should have known better. Yet at happy hour last Friday, my two gal-pals and I made a date to see a Sunday matinee of Robert Zemickis’ Beowulf. My friends, a biologist and a chemist, had taken medieval literature as undergrad electives so they were curious, and having recently read Seamus Heaney’s translation and as a Tolkien aficionado, I thought the flick might be fun.
Ay caramba, man. The critics were on to something.
Some Smoking Stats
Posted by jim in Health and Society on November 19, 2007
The local paper ran an article yesterday regarding smoking statistics in upstate NY. The major point of the story is seen in its headline “Region’s smoking rate is among highest in state”. The basic stats involve a region of upstate NY including 11 counties ranging from Utica, down to Cooperstown, up to Plattsburg, and much of the Adirondacks, for a total population of just about 600,000. The key item is a smoking rate of 26.6%. This is second only to the Southern Tier at 27.1%. The state-wide average is 18% and the national average is 20%. I was a bit surprised by this but it does encompass a fairly wide area so my local experience may not be close to the average. A few things did jump out at me though…
Friday Banality: Minestrone for the Masses
Posted by in Catablogic Blathering on November 16, 2007
Please allow me to assure you that with this entry, I will not be veering into regular essays on the trappings of banal domesticity. However, I think this is a damn fine minestrone. I typically make it during the cooler months of the year, so as a nod to the recent autumnal weather here in the central regions of the Gaaah-duhn State, I figured I’d toss it out here on the Refuge
Buon appetito, you bonobos!
This minestrone soup recipe produces something more akin to a stew rather than a mere soup. It has a rustic, robust yet nourishing and comforting quality to it, and for this reason, I often make this soup as a gift for parents of a new baby, and also enjoy serving it to good friends and family. Thus making this minestrone, albeit rather involved, is a labor of love.
I have included suggestions for a vegetarian version in the notes following the recipe.
Curses
Posted by jim in Fun Is Where You Find It, My Bent Brain, Self-Indulgent Wankery on November 15, 2007
There is a fun programming assignment I give to my freshman Python class. I call it curses. An example of it (written in Java, with source) can be found here. Basically, the program generates a series of denunciations, each followed by a somewhat odd curse. For example: “You noisy pile of squashed dog snot- May your TV set gyrate madly!” or “You mindless sponge of rotting spam- May your buttocks emit a loud buzzing noise!” (try it, you might find it entertaining). The purpose of the assignment is to show the students how to use random numbers to access tuples (random array indexing for you non-Python programmers).
(fun stuff and naughty bits below the fold)
Letter from Copenhagen: CSI. WTF?
Posted by in Bonobos from other troops on November 15, 2007
I am pleased to welcome a guest bonobo to the Refuge. You might recall Professor Doctor Eye as the model for this fine motivational poster:
Dr. Eye is a physicist on the faculty of a university in a certain European Union country where something smells rotten and it ain’t Havarti. Maybe it’s a cheesy Danish gone bad. His hobbies include hobnobbing with hadrons and channeling Grendel. Without further adieu, Dr. Eye rants about science in television, a favorite subject here at the Refuge.
Recently, I have developed a somewhat less than healthy habit. Yes. CSI reruns. From Horatio overdramatically removing his sunglasses in Miami, to Mac Taylors’s NY sneer, to Grissom admonishing his—well, I don’t know what they are, juniors? Proteges? To look for what isn’t there, I love ‘em. All. Every night at 20.00, on one of the many cable channels which seem to only ever show reruns of US TV shows, there they are – fellow scientists – but with guns. I won’t even get into their labs.
Good googly woogly, what I’d give to have a lab that clean and stylishly lit. But the entire illusion came crashing down in Las Vegas, and let me tell you…
I’m madder than Ed Asner at an ACLU convention! Some body had fallen (or was it pushed?) from an upper floor of a construction site*, and Grissom, discussing the fall, made the worst conceivable error (OK, I’ll admit this may only be the worse conceivable error for someone teaching first year physics, but still…). He didn’t have to mention it at all. It had nothing really to do with the case, but there he is, trying to look smart, saying the body reached its terminal velocity of…9.8m/s**2.
As the kids say today, dude, WTF? How can an error of this magnitude get broadcast on (inter)national television? Does this mean that I should question everything I have seen on CSI? Is it not commonplace to match (graphically!!) fingerprints in a matter of seconds? Do CSI folks really not get to interrogate suspects? Would they really not be allowed to blow up trucks full of explosives thus foiling terrorist attacks on nuclear power plants? Say it ain’t so.
*Yes, this may well be old news. In fact, I have no idea how old, since I don’t even know what season this show comes from. It is new news to me, though, and I’m still reeling from the shock. I’m even beginning to wonder if there really is luminol.
Intelligent design adherents: still as weasely as ever.
Posted by docbushwell in We're Doomed on November 13, 2007
Salon has jumped on the bandwagon that acknowledges the two year anniversary of the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District decision on the teaching of intelligent design as equal to the theory of evolution. In the The evolution of creationism, Gordy Slack writes that intelligent design adherents continue to find avenues to attack the teaching of evolution and, well, good science.
Gordy is a little late to the party, but nonetheless here are excerpts of his article below the fold. The full article is available va Salon Premium or whatever genuflection a casual user must perform to get temporary free access.
America’s Most Smartest Model – a new guilty pleasure
Posted by in Minimal Media on November 12, 2007
On many occasions, I have made apparent my predilection for viewing some of the worst crap televised. Ever. I land on it like a fly on fresh feces (and not just monkey feces), so this past weekend was no exception when a friend turned me on to America’s Most Smartest Model, one of the plethora of reality TV shows that litter the airwaves, or cable lines as the case may be. This one is broadcast on VH1. Apparently, it’s a hit among the science-geeks of my friend’s Boston biotech crowd.
America’s Most Smartest Model – a new guilty pleasure
Posted by docbushwell in Minimal Media on November 12, 2007
On many occasions, I have made apparent my predilection for viewing some of the worst crap televised. Ever. I land on it like a fly on fresh feces (and not just monkey feces), so this past weekend was no exception when a friend turned me on to America’s Most Smartest Model, one of the plethora of reality TV shows that litter the airwaves, or cable lines as the case may be. This one is broadcast on VH1. Apparently, it’s a hit among the science-geeks of my friend’s Boston biotech crowd.
Mouse With a Human Brain or Wicked Fast Running
Posted by docbushwell in Bio-bizarre on November 6, 2007
Are you pondering what I’m pondering?
Salary Survey Results: Electrical/Electronic Engineers
Posted by jim in Monday open discussion on November 5, 2007
Electronic Engineering Times has released their annual salary survey. Among 1600 respondents, median income including benefits for electrical and electronic engineers in North American now sits at $108,800. That’s about 4% higher than last year. Two thirds declared themselves satisfied with both their career and employer. In sub-areas, the big winners are in engineering management and marketing at $133.9k and $123.9k. Component/chip design came in at $115.k, R&D at $111.1k, and Internet services at $110k. Further down, software design came in at $106.9k and system design at $100.9k.
According to respondents, the hot areas for the future include nanotechnology, system-on-chip, and embedded processors, with about 40 to 60% claiming they find them “promising”. The lower end of the scale includes embedded memories, Bluetooth, XML open scripting language, and formal verification, with about 10 to 15% finding them promising.
In spite of what appears to be a very financially successful and personally rewarding career, it seems that fewer and fewer US high school grads are choosing this path. At our college, the numbers of students in the science, engineering, and technology paths are down from prior decades and I hear the same from colleagues at other colleges. This is true in spite of the increasing use of technology in our day-to-day lives.
Hall Wins USA Olympic Trials Men’s Marathon
Posted by jim in The Running Ape on November 3, 2007
25 year-old Ryan Hall won the Olympic Trials Marathon this morning in New York City with a trials record time of 2:09:02. This was a special multi-lap course around Central Park, not the same route as will be taken for Sunday’s NYC Marathon. Hall looked fluid and at ease the entire race, breaking away from the lead pack around 18 miles in. Dathan Ritzenhein was second in 2:11:07 and in third, Brian Sell in 2:11:40. Favorite and 2004 silver medalist Meb Keflezighi finished a few places back while heavyweights Alan Culpepper and Abdi Abdirahman both DNFed. While the top three make the 2008 Olympic Marathon Team, there is an interesting twist. Ritz has publicly stated that if he makes the Olympic team in the 10000 meter track trials, he will run the 10000 in favor of the marathon. This would open the door to fourth place finisher and alternate, Khalid Khannouchi, arguably the best marathoner of all time, to join the team. Khannouchi was the first man to run sub 2:06, and held the world marathon best twice before those records were eclipsed by Kenyan Paul Tergat and most recently Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie. It should be noted that Khalid was victorious against one of the greatest marathon fields of all time, the 2002 London Marathon, where he beat both Tergat and Geb and reset his own world record to 2:05:38 in the process.
I have no doubt that Hall could have easily eclipsed 2:09 had he wanted to, but was clearly enjoying the final mile, complete with high-fives and arm-pumps. He was not in the position of any of these folks. The Central Park course is not a fast course and some consider it to be a couple minutes slow compared to the flat record courses such as Berlin and London. With his dominant performance and easy stride, Hall appears to be an honest medal contender for the 2008 games.
DIY Neuro-Motor Experiments: When the Left Hand Knows What the Right is Doing
Posted by jim in More Art, Then Science, Pattern Juggling, Techies & Technology, What The Heck Is That Thing? on November 1, 2007
In previous installments in the DIY NME series, I’ve looked at the application of symmetrical motor patterns using the drum kit. For this entry, the approach is a little different and says something about “handedness” as well. A few months ago I rearranged my semi-symmetrical drum kit into what I call the super symmetrical kit. The original semi-sym kit offered a centered hi-hat and three toms on each side, decreasing in pitch from front-center to rear. The remaining cymbals were arranged in a more-or-less typical configuration for a right-hander (ride to the right, crashes arrayed as desired, but split evenly on left and right sides). Here is photo of the new super-sym kit (either the wide-angle wasn’t quite wide enough or the ceiling wasn’t high enough to get the whole thing):
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- Doc Bushwell is a biochemist and a medical writer who serves as a slavering minion of the dark lords of Big and Little Pharma; Jim is an engineering professor with a fondness for running shoes and drumsticks; and Kevin Beck is a self-exiled member of the clan who refuses to stay gone.
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