There is a new Air Guitar Champion, long live His Airness! I must say that I'm disappointed in the article because it did not mention last year's winner, The Rockness Monster. I worked with Fatima Hoang, 2005's Airness, for the last six months, and it was hard to believe that he was the Dude, at least just by looking at him. But then, check him out here, rocking the house.
Now obviously, this video is not actual training footage from an Italian team's practice, but at least it shows that the Brits have as high an opinion as we Americans on the fine art of flopping done by the Continentals. The best part is how the coach blows his whistle, all the players fall writhing on the ground, then he blows his whistle again, and they all jump back up, ready for the next drill. Nice!
I haven't even had time to read the rest of the news this morning because of the latest announcements by Tour organizers, that people on this Spanish doctor's list are now under investigation for blood doping. According to the rules established after the 1998 Festina scandal, any rider under investigation must be barred from the Tour. I can understand that, since you don't want some rider under investigation, win the race, and then the investigation finds that he has been doping. Until the doping culture is gone from cycling, guilty until proven innocent will be the rule. But because of that rule, the number 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place finishers in last years Tour will not be competing. Ivan Basso, Jan Ullrich, and Francisco Mancebo are barred. Under the strict rules of ejection due to a doping investigation, their teams cannot replace those riders. Instead of nine riders, they will only have eight. Mancebo just announced his retirement from the sport. Because of that rule, the number 5 finisher from last year, Alexandre Vinokourov, might not be able to race, even though his name is not on the list. His former team, Liberty Seguros, lost its main sponsor because of the investigation, and became Astana-Wurth. But because so many of that cobbled-together team's riders are on the investigation list, they might not even field 6 riders, which would automatically bar them from competition. Vino could not even get onto another team because the other teams with barred riders could not put him on the team under the ejection rules. Another black eye for the sport, but this is what happens when chemistry catches up to the cheaters, everyone pays, as it should be, so that we can use peer, economic, and public pressure to root them out.
Part of me still wants to apply the innocent until proven guilty rule, especially for the guys implicated, but swear they have never met this doctor: like Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso. But even Bjarne Riis, Basso's team manager knows what's at stake:
I think it's a huge blow for everybody. I'd rather be here because Ivan has won the tour. Right now it's not the case. It's a hard situation for all of us, but this is life. But you have to stand up and face it. It's easy to sit down and cry, but you have to be responsible for your own life. The only thing I want to do is be responsible for my team. I have no other choice.
He has no other choice, but to protect his team and cycling.
Okay, one more ha ha post before I call it a day: IMAO made up a list of larger threats than America, after poll came out concluding that Iran with nuclear weapons is not as dangerous.. The best one is about some idiot in Spain trying to give apes human rights. The second best is Don Rumsfeld trying on his new "strangling gloves." And finally, the third best is an operational printing press at the New York Times.
Ohmigod, I just about fell out of my seat reading this treatment on a hypothetical interview between Al Gore and the Earth. The best part is how the author puts Gore's headset on the Earth, Hawking, the Moon, and Mars. The second best part is when the Earth admits that it is functionally illiterate. The third best part is how the Earth keeps saying, "So?"
(h/t to Tim Blair)
For my daily ride, my friend Cathy joined me on my "climbing" ride out of the Rose Bowl. We did a warmup lap around the bowl, then it was up, up, up. Up Salvia Canyon (which is pretty steep, but thankfully pretty short), up Lida (which is a mile of some hard climbing), and then up Figueroa (just a little bit more) before it's starts going downhill and joins up with Chevy Chase. Here's a view of the climbing portion of Figueroa:
And then the fun part came with the downhill portion of Chevy Chase, winding through La Canada. We dipped back down into the Rose Bowl, and did a cool down lap. Not bad for just a daily workout. We needed to watch the time because it was already 90 degrees by 9:15 in the morning. It was enough to make me pant like a dog:
Okay, I'm mugging for the camera, but really, it was started to get hot. So, a 20 mile ride in the morning to beat the heat, and now I feel all healthy for the rest of the day.
I've been waiting for the pro-global warming crowd (kind of a misnomer since they are against warming, but want us to believe so much that it is happening) to come up with their response to the climate scientists that panned the movie first. The Associated Press is always so helpful. I immediately read between the lines about the scientists actual response to An Inconvenient Truth. They contacted 100 climate scientists, only 19 responded favorably, and then only 5 of those were quoted. Hmm... Only 20% of the scientists gave Al Gore's "documentary" a positive review. Of course, those are the ones that actually took the time to see the movie too. Take a look at how much the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works likes the AP's story:
The June 27, 2006 Associated Press (AP) article titled “Scientists OK Gore’s Movie for Accuracy” by Seth Borenstein raises some serious questions about AP’s bias and methodology. AP chose to ignore the scores of scientists who have harshly criticized the science presented in former Vice President Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth.” In the interest of full disclosure, the AP should release the names of the “more than 100 top climate researchers” they attempted to contact to review “An Inconvenient Truth.” AP should also name all 19 scientists who gave Gore “five stars for accuracy.” AP claims 19 scientists viewed Gore’s movie, but it only quotes five of them in its article. AP should also release the names of the so-called scientific “skeptics” they claim to have contacted.
Gee, tell us how you really feel. Well, one of those skeptical scientists does: "The man is an embarrassment to US science and its many fine practitioners, a lot of whom know (but feel unable to state publicly) that his propaganda crusade is mostly based on junk science." – Bob Carter as quoted in the Canadian Free Press, June 12, 2006. Ouch. And this guy is from Australia, not necessarily a hot bed of rabid non-environmentalist industrial types.
Well, surely the uninformed masses will flock to this film like they did to Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. Um, maybe not. There might be a mistake in this story at the end of the story, because the UPI says that the most successful documentary was Bowling for Columbine, instead of Fahrenheit 9/11, unless that's an editorial that the film was not a "documentary." Heh.
Most people know me as conservative with an independent streak. The only time it really shows that I'm conservative politically is when I don't know that much about a local political race, or the candidates, mainly because the local papers do such a horrible job reporting on local politics, I'll vote for the guy that belongs to my party. But when it comes to initiatives and bond measures, I vote no. I don't care who sponsors the measures, if you weren't smart enough, or political enough to get your congressman to introduce the bill, then paying signature collection companies to put measures on the ballot shows a distrust in our representational form of a republic. If you don't trust democracy, then I don't trust you.
Which leads me to the actions of the U.S. Senate yesterday. The flag burning amendment to the constitution was defeated by one vote. For anyone that understands the First Amendment, we should be shocked that this amendment was not defeated 100 to 0. "Congress shall make no law abridging..." This is why the conservatives had to make it an amendment. Again, if you don't trust democracy, then I don't trust you. I really am not concerned with any arguments about patriotism or respect for our country. Just because we have freedom of expression, does not mean we have freedom from expression. If you express your views, you should be prepared for the consequences when other people express their views in response. For those who are offended by people or groups who burn the flag, don't force an amendment. Instead, learn who those people are. Learn who supports those people, or who those people support. Then let everyone know who endorses whom, and then we'll see who gets voted in, who gets those favorable appropriation riders, who gets hurt economically because of boycotts or cancelled subscriptions.
But at least there was some traction yesterday for increasing the minimum wage and tying it to the pay raise the congress voted for themselves. The minimum wage, the national standard is currently at $5.15, has not been increased for nine years. Now, I know that interest rates have been kept pretty low during this time, but inflation stops for no man. Of course, there are other conservatives that want to tie this debate to the preposterous idea of a living wage, and many liberals too. I expect there to be a lively (read hysterical and full of lies) debate on both sides of the issue, but economic common sense says that the minimum wage should rise with the cost of living. If you don't want Walmart in your town, let your congressman know that you want the minimum wage increased.
Reuters reports that an 11 year study found that drinking 6 or more cups of coffee a day cut the risk of adult onset diabetes by almost a quarter. An earlier study on Fins found a correlation on drinking 10 or more cups of coffee a day. What is up with those Fins?
One earlier study in Finland, which has the highest coffee consumption in the world, found that men and women who drank 10 or more cups of coffee per day has the lowest risk of adult onset diabetes, the new report said, though in Finland decaffeinated coffee is not widely consumed.
Man, I hope Finland has a public toilet on every block in their big cities because I know that I would need to go a lot while drinking all that coffee.
The rapid mood swings is a pretty big sign that something may be wrong.
I've posted an episode that happened with my father dealing with tying shoelaces, and my brother has posted a similar episode dealing with using a key card. Our dad really isn't that old, only 62 this year, but as time goes by, it's something of which we're becoming more aware.
Both groups engaged a portion of the brain called the inferior parietal cortex, which is involved in quantity representation and reading. But native English speakers also showed activity in a language processing area of the brain, while native Chinese speakers used a brain region involved in the processing of visual information.
Of course, this study could be used to reinforce all kinds of stereotypes, but I would never do that.
Vladimir Rakov, a lightning expert at the University of Florida, chuckled when he heard about the letter. He says the mechanism outlined by the doctors sounds unrealistic. "I don’t think having a cell phone in your pocket can change the outcome of a lightning strike," Rakov told LiveScience. Better advice, Rakov said, would be: "Don't remain outdoors during a thunderstorm, whether you carry a cell phone or not."
Oh yeah, using three newspaper stories as the basis for an epidimiological warning. Yeesh! The Livescience.com article sums it up best right here: "The letter in the journal, however, is not backed by the sort of scientific rigor that goes into many published papers."
I'm new to Blogger, but I've been posting webdiary entries on social networking sites for a few months now. I'll slowly migrate those entries over here. Hopefully you'll find those thoughts as interesting as the other guys you keep tabs on. I've back posted my entries from my blog on Yahoo, which explains why there are posts before this one. So, please, tell me what you think. Comments and suggestions are always welcome.
There are some big stories out about the HST (Hubble Space Telescope) and how one of the instruments, the ACS (Advanced Camera for Surveys) has shut itself down. What chafes me about the reporting, is that the headlines are calling the ACS the "main" camera. Grr. Okay, a little background. After college, I worked for a cosmology group at UC Berkeley, and my main task was working with HST's 3 primary instruments at the time, the WFPC2 (Wide Field Planetary Camera Generation 2, pronounced wifpik two), NICMOS (Near Infrared Camera and Multi Object Spectrometer), and STIS (Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph). If you recall, it was WF/PC-1 that had to be replaced in 1993 because the HST's primary mirror is 2 degrees more spherical than parabolic in its curvature, and consequently could not focus properly. The WFPC2 has an imaging mirror that corrects for the improper curvature. The ACS was installed in 2002, and it is most decidedly not the "main" camera in the HST. It is a third generation camera, has a wider field than WFPC2, but its set of filters is mainly used for broadband imaging, i.e. it's useful for finding objects, but not for studying them, hence the "for Surveys" part. Take a look at the diagram below:
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| The WFPC2 is in the center of the primary mirror, while the ACS is located behind the mirror, off to the side. Coordinates are polar coordinates relative the solar array panels' rotation axis. The scale is in arcseconds. Please click on the link above for a full size view of the diagram. |
So, please, call the ACS the newest camera, the sexiest camera, the widest field camera, but do not call it the main camera. Even now, the UDF (ultra deep field), which will be a much longer exposure than the HDF (Hubble Deep Field), is being done with the "main" camera, the WFPC2.
Here's a funny story on the AP wires (funny, as in funny - oh no, instead of funny - ha ha, or funny - uh oh). I can't imagine ever wanting or even considering having a penile implant installed, much less one that works like like a telescoping tube. *Shudder* Here's the money shot, er... quote:
He said he could no longer hug people, ride a bike, swim or wear bathing trunks because of the pain and embarrassment. He has become a recluse and is uncomfortable being around his grandchildren.
The company that makes the implant filed for bankruptcy last year, obviously feeling the, uh... pinch from Viagra. Well, if you're going to have a ten year long erection, you may as well enjoy it with $400,000. Also, I've heard of breastworks and flying buttresses, but what would you call this? Suggestions?
If you guys take a look at my blogroll over to the left hand side, you'll see a link to Manolo's Shoe Blog. No, this does not mean the JoeSchmo he loves the fashion of the shoes. This means that the JoeSchmo he loves the syntax of the Manolo. Seriously, the Manolo he is like the second coming of the Yoda. Squished, sliced, and taped back together sentences, what is not to love in the writing of the Manolo. But the Manolo's best writing is in the critiquing of the Horrors of the Fashion of the Shoe. Ha! The JoeSchmo he laughs! Here is an excerpt of the Manolo's review of the Birkenstocks:
This shoe, it looks like it was put together by the blind medieval monks, for wear by the peasants of the mud. For some of the reason, unknown to the Manolo, this shoe it has the cachet with the bohemians and the pot-smoking hippies of the crunchiness. Indeed, you would have to be high to wear this. Like many of the worst of the shoes, it's defenders they trumpet the comfort of this "shoe". Ha! The Manolo he laughs! There are many shoes that they are perfectly comfortable without making the wearer look like the dork. Manolo says, if you insist on wearing these ugly shoes, be certain to wear the wooly socks of grey for the full effect.
That is the pure comedy of the gold.
Today, I rode with the old folks, if you consider mid-40's to early 60's old. I'm sure my friends don't, but let's just say that they're older than I am. We're supposedly training for our next event, the MoonFest Ride. Really, it's just an excuse to ride in Southern California, and take the train back to Anaheim. But the train passes by a special bar, and this bar has a special tradition. Read here for an explanation on how the tradition started in Laguna Niguel. So, anyway, Jayne and Adrian Ramos put together an informal training ride to make sure our legs, and asses, are ready for all the mooning action.
 | We started at Arcadia Park, and after a quick stop at Encanto Park to regroup, we made for San Dimas, and cold drinks at Ramco. Over to the left we see Jayne, changing directions for us. Some of the crew training for the MS 150 joined us: that's their leader on the left. On the right is Bill, who joined the dedicated few in search of a good java joint. |
 | Going towards San Dimas was the usual foothills route. I was with the fast group, 3 guys, and I thought that we would all stay together to San Dimas. But Kenny, the youngest of us, seemed to like to crank big gears, and Miles and I dropped him going through all the rollers in Glendora. Miles is in his late 50's, so he's been a strong rider from all the way back. |
| And then we made our way back to Arcadia along Longden. It was kind of tricky along Live Oak and Arrow Hwy in Irwindale, because I didn't know which way they wanted to get to Longden, so I hung back and let the fast guys go ahead. It was supposed to be 105 degrees to day, but the high clouds and strong head wind made it only 95 and much cooler. |
And then we were back before 11 AM. Not bad, just in time to beat the hottest part of the day. Only 33 miles, but those climbing rollers through Glendora make it feel longer. I'm starting to get excited about this MoonFest. Only two more weeks, July 8th. Get your ass in gear!
I just about fell out of my chair laughing at this "news" article from The Onion. But it was this paragraph that got me really rolling:
But the artifact reveals differences as well. According to Caspari, the find indicates that people from that era spoke a much earlier form of e-mail language alien to our own, employing the full spellings of most words, and lacking the versatility and advanced expression of smiley-face or frowny-face emoticons.
As a Gen-Xer still trying to figure out what those Gen-Yers are saying in their text messages, emails, and IM's, this little bit captured my feelings on the slight generation gap between the twenty-somethings and the thirty-somethings. Besides, the nerd in me can't stand misspelled words (ha! lmao and rotfl).
One of the three Galapagos tortoises brought back to England by Charles Darwin, is dead today in Beerwah, Australia, at the tender age of 176. Harriet had been a long time resident at the Australia Zoo, just outside of Brisbane, owned and operated by Steve Irwin. Yes, that Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter. He seemed pretty attached to the "grand old lady" as he called her:
"Harriet has been a huge chunk of the Irwin family's life," he said. "I have grown up with this gorgeous old girl and so have my kids. She is possibly one of the oldest living creatures on the planet and her passing today is not only a great loss for the world but a very sad day for my family. She was a grand old lady."
Here's a link to the Australia Zoo. You can navigate to Harriet's profile from the nav bar on the left: click Amazing Animals, then Reptiles in the center of the page, Tortoises and Turtles, and finally Giant Galapagos Land Tortoise. Harriet's Profile is over to the right of the page. Here's a picture of the Grand Old Lady with Steve Irwin's daughter, Bindi:
Over at Gizmag.com is an article on a new bike that has no chain, derailleur, or sprocket. I had to take a closer look. The bike has three "gears" and an internal drive, so it appears to be designed for commuting. God forbid it should ever break, because how would you fix it? Well, it looks good for those people that want to ride to work without having to worry about getting grease on their pants.
I knew it would probably happen, and the odds were in my favor, but it was still good to know that at 2:55 PM, I had fulfilled my civic duty for the year. The judge, the defense attorney, and the prosecutor got to ask a lot of questions of the randomly selected "first" 18 people. The defense and prosecution picked their challenges and six people were kicked off about an hour after lunch. They paneled six more people to pick the alternates, and in just 15 minutes, they picked two more people.
There was some slight drama with one of the jury panel members. This guy was late by about 45 minutes and we had to start the jury selection without him. We were warned yesterday, that if even one of the 65 members of the jury panel was late, we could not start the proceedings. Three people called in ahead saying they were going to be late by about 15 minutes. Two of the guys showed up when they said they would, but after another 15 minutes, the last guy did not show up. We started without him, half an hour late. When he finally came in, none of us were surprised it was this guy. He was a pain in the jury pool room. He was a lawyer who had court dates all week, yet he did not ask for a postponement before he was assigned to a panel, or rearrange his schedule (you've got about 4 weeks to figure this out from when you get your summons). So, he comes in late. He rifles through his briefcase, not even paying attention to the questions being asked of the jurors in the box, and his cell phone rings inside his briefcase and he doesn't even recognize it as his phone. Totally self-absorbed. Anyway, when we came back from lunch, we were told that we would not be rejoining us. He was fined for being in contempt of court, and he would have to restart the jury selection process over. If it weren't for this guy, we would have been done 15 minutes earlier.
I had lunch over at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Los Angeles. I still get a kick out of how modern and cool looking this structure looks. It looks like a lot of lawyers like to have their lunch in the cathedral plaza in the shade.
| Here's a view of the cafe from my shady table. |
| There's the view of the back of the cathedral. |
| There's the entrance. For something that's called "of the angels," there sure aren't a lot of angels around. |
| Here's the fountain at the front entry way. It says, "I shall give living water" in about 20 different languages. |
We get an hour and a half for lunch. Not bad for 15 dollars a day. After lunch, we futzed around with the defense attorney and the prosecutor before being dismissed. Some of the questions they asked gave us some clues on how the case was going to be presented. Here's what I was able to figure out. A Mr. Brown was robbed and assaulted with a knife at the Hollywood Way offramp off the 101, causing grave bodily injury. Either he or another witness is a homeless person who was the only witness to the crime. Two police officers will testify to their investigation and apprehension of the defendant, a Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones will likely not testify on his behalf, relying on the prosecutor's burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt that this is a case of mistaken identity. The people the attorneys dismissed right off the bat were a law professor, a guy who was held up by two guys with guns, a guy who felt his friend was shafted by a San Diego judge, a woman from Santa Clarita whose husband is a sheriff, and an actor who has a lot of friends in the LAPD. Of the alternates they dismissed: a psychologist with his own radio show who can read body language, a school nurse, a doctor, and a former corrections officer. Then we got dismissed, and had to go back down to the juror selection room. Here's how it looks during a busy docket season:
And that was my day and a half in the criminal courts system. I must say, the judge and the defense attorney really beat it into our heads about the presumption of innocence. The defense kept asking people how they would vote "right now" if they had to deliberate. The answer she was fishing for was "innocent" because the defendant is technically innocent until the prosecutor presents her case. Also, I must say that all my diversity friends would have loved to have been in this courtroom. The judge was a woman, the prosecutor was a black woman, the public defender was an asian woman, the court reporter was an old woman, the court clerk was a woman, and the bailiff was a latino dude. To appease my right-wing friends, the defendant was a black male.
Because I had jury duty today, I didn't have much time to find my usual batch of quirky stories. But over at ESPN Cars is funny article in which its whole premise to throw drool-worthy pictures of the top ten most expensive production cars on the planet, and write funny bits about them. The premise: you've just crashed your Ferrari Enzo like that swedish con man, what's your replacement? The funniest line comes from the blurb on the 2006 Lamborghini Murcielago Roadster:
Why it matters: If 12 bustin’ out and firing cylinders matters to you, if oozing sex appeal matters, if driving a car that’s got a name you can’t pronounce matters, then the Lamborghini Murcielago Roadster matters a great deal. If not, go buy a Honda.
Seriously, one of these cars, the Bugatti Veyron, has a W16 1,001 horsepower engine. Never heard of a W? That's because it's 2 V8 engines stuck together! Okay, stop hyperventilating, head between knees, whoo, much better now.
Civic duty is for suckers (aka tell it to the judge). Actually, I'm kidding. Up until the income tax was created about a hundred years ago, we Americans had only one requirement as citizens: to serve on a jury of our peers. Here in Los Angeles County, it is much harder to get out of jury duty, but that's because the system they instituted about 5 years ago makes it much easier to fulfill your civic duty. Before the new system, potential jurors had to either sit around for 10 days, hoping not to get on a case. Or, even worse, if the case they got onto was short, they had to stick around until their 10 days was up, sometimes getting onto another case. Nowadays, the system is called One Day or One Trial. If you don't get called to panel a jury, then you only have to report for that one day of waiting around. Most trials are between 5 to 7 business days, so a week as a juror is what you'll get.
I got kinda lucky today. My name was called to be on the second panel, but they called over 65 people. The court requires 12 jurors plus 2 alternates. I have only a 1 in 5 chance of getting on this jury. But, it's get's better. You see, because the judge had a prior appointment, she had to dismiss the jury panel at 12 o' clock and make us come back tomorrow. Okay, that part's not so great, but because we all got dismissed and have to show up tomorrow, we've already served our one day. If the judge did not have this prior speaking engagement, dismissed jurors would have been sent back to the potential jurors waiting room, would have to wait until 4 o' clock or possibly get called onto another panel. I have an 80 percent chance of going home tomorrow without being on this jury.
The jury selection staff have got some really good people skill training since the last time I went 4 years ago. They were all so happy that we were there, thanking us, and being very clear with what constitutes grounds for excusal. The entire staff of one courtroom came down to thank us all: the clerk, the court reporter, the bailiff, and the judge. Now, I'm pretty cynical and can see a public relations ploy from a mile away, but this judge was pretty charismatic, and put the entire jury pool into a very good mood. Too bad I won't be seeing them again, at least by the end of tomorrow. Unless...
I found this article on Wi-fi freeloading today, and immediately thought of my buddy Warren. I've seen this happen, where we've got a wi-fi laptop in the car, we need some quick info that we can only find on the web, so we troll around apartment complexes until we get a hit. If only people paid attention to the quick-start guide, which is already truncated from the full instructions, we wouldn't have these kinds of problems blamed on poor unsuspecting college students. The rest of the story gives some common sense, but very crucial, steps on securing your wi-fi network.
Continuing with the mooching theme, here's a story out of Vancouver turning the Goldilocks fairy tale on its head. This time, Baby Bear found the porridge just right. But take a look at the last paragraph of the story: "bears in the suburbs north of Vancouver have been coming out of hibernation as hungry as ever but later than usual but [sic] this spring because of a heavier than normal snowpack from the winter." I'm guessing this is one story the global warming crowd is going to ignore.
Yesterday, the 17th, was a long day of cycling for me. First, because of the heat (101 degrees by 12 PM) and second, because there were two rides. The first one was the short, but sweet climbing ride out of Griffith Park: 30 miles on the dot, rolling through Los Angeles, Burbank, Glendale, La Canada, and Montrose. Except that I rode to Griffith Park from my house, which is exactly 15 miles. So, that was a round trip for me of 60 miles. I got home at 12:30 in hot, hot, hot weather.
Round 2 was at 6:45 that evening, when my friend Karen was riding her new bike around the Rose Bowl for the first time. Her new bike is actually Mike's old bike. In fact, Karen is borrowing a lot of stuff to get into road cycling. Let's take a look at the list, shall we?
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So, what does Karen own? Uh... ah! The brown shoes you can't see in the picture. How did Karen do on her first go around the Bowl? She was a little slow, but this event yesterday was the first time that she had done any exercise for a few years. At least she's motivated to do something about it. Here I am trying to slow down as much as I can:
We had a lot of fun just doing three slow laps around the Bowl. Afterwards, we did what you're supposed to do after a ride, pig out and get sleepy! I hope Karen keeps at it and we get another victim, er... cycling buddy for our group.
I just found this entry on a college prof's blog on how not to cheat. Very informative stuff, especially this point:
8. Edit > Paste Special > Unformatted Text
This is my Number 1 piece of advice, even if it is numbered eight. When you copy things from the web into Word, ignoring #3 above, don’t just “Edit > Paste” it into your document. When I am reading a document in black, Times New Roman, 12pt, and it suddenly changes to blue, Helvetica, 10pt (yes, really), I’m going to guess that something odd may be going on. This seems to happen in about 1% of student work turned in, and periodically makes me feel like becoming a hermit.
I knew that this internet thingy was supposed to save time, but just like using a calculator in the 3rd grade, it doesn't really help the learning process if you don't understand the material.
Here's a story kicking around the blogosphere regarding sexual discrimination in a Broadway show. I swear I was not searching for stories about big boobs. I'm not sure whether Alice Alyse will win her case because the dancing industry is usually very specific about body types and casting, although there are apparently other "blessed" women in the chorus line. Unfortunately, as the Washinton Post article points out, the management has not even bothered making a statement regarding the case, as is their right.
Out at the old El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, a group of six photographers have turned one of the hangars into the world's largest pin-hole camera. Inside the hangar is the world's largest photograph. Talk about your wide-angle lens. The Legacy Project, a nonprofit organization, hopes to preserve the view of the old runways and towers before the field gets turned into a "museum district, sports complex, and thousands of homes." I have provided a link to the Legacy Project's website, but because of the AP's awesome research and fact checking, the story did not say which Legacy Project is funding the photographers, and I had to use my own research and fact checking skills. Check out the group's site, which has a lot of information on the final plans of the usage of the space, and some cool pictures to boot.
It looks like I'm not the only one who is miffed about how science is reported in the news. Here's the gist of the LiveScience.com story:
[Lisa] Schwartz and colleague Steven Woloshin analyzed U.S. newspaper, TV and radio reports on research from five major scientific meetings. Their findings:
- Only 2 of 175 stories about unpublished studies noted that the study was unpublished.
- One-third of the articles failed to mention how many participants were in a study [studies with only a few test subjects are sometimes later refuted by larger studies].
- 40 percent of the reports did not quantify the main result of the research.
- Just one out of 17 news reports on animal studies noted that results might not apply to humans.
"Unless journalists are careful to provide basic study facts and highlight limitations, the public may be misled about the meaning, importance and validity of the research," Woloshin said.
I wish the bylines of the reporters writing science articles would let us know what their degree is in, if they even have one, so the readers could put their own news filters on before they just believe everything that's written.
Now I've seen everything, and I do mean everything, at least until tomorrow. I really don't know what else to say about this product, other than it's made in Germany. Why am I not surprised about Germany?
Finds from the Grind: On my ride today, I went down to Kaldi's cafe in South Pasadena because I was really jonesing a iced chai latte. It's true, I don't just drink coffee and alcoholic beverages. Sometimes there is tea (Earl Grey, hot - for you ubergeeks out there). On certain afternoons, Mission Street down there gets closed off so a farmer's market can spring up. Here's the view from my iced chai latte:
While I was there, I was listening in on some college geeks home on vacation. They were talking about some MMPRPG (Massive Multi-Player Role Playing Game) where a "priest" uses "mind-control" on other players to throw them over a bridge under which a team mate can "pwn" them with "single shots" to the head. This is how over the hill geeky I am that I cannot recognize some computer game by identifying just one or two character types. Well, I guess I just had to let my subscription to Geek Illustrated, I mean, Computer Gaming World lapse. Ah, young geekdom. So scrawny, so pale, so many layers of clothing. That was me except for the pale and layered clothing. I was always athletic, and not geeky athletic either, no stupid hacky crap for me. And I always wore shorts, a t-shirt, and sandals. Maybe a flannel shirt for when it got chilly. See, flannel, I've got early 90's geek-cred.
Here's a link on the web I found today as I was doing my general search on the state of health in America:
Not until the 10th position is there a non-southern state. Sometimes stereotypes are just generalizations.
Here's another link that I think I may be contributing to:
Bikely - Discover and Share Your Favorite Bicycle Routes
They're still pretty new, so I think I'll be doing more sharing than discovering in Southern California.
I just saw this and I know my brother will want one. Hmm, hmm, control! Control! You must learn control! Check out the rest of ThinkGeek for gift ideas for that special geek in your life. I just found all the stuff that I want for Christmas. Ah, the sacred icon of the beloved caffeine molecule.
Later: One of the funny places I link to on the web, at least since March 2003, is Saddam's Cyber Palace. Even though "Saddam" is currently detained, he still has time to post funny stories like this one:
Two Arabs boarded a flight out of London. One took a window seat and the other sat next to him in the middle seat. Just before take-off, a U.S. Marine sat down in the aisle seat. After take-off, the Marine kicked off his shoes, wiggled his toes and was settling in when the Arab in the window seat said, "I need to get up and get a Coke."
"Don't get up," said the Marine. "I'm in the aisle seat. I'll get it for you."
As soon as he left, one of the Arabs picked up the Marine's right shoe and spat in it.
When the Marine returned with a Coke, the other Arab said, "That looks good. I'd really like one, too." Again, the Marine obligingly went to fetch it. While he was gone, the other Arab picked up the Marine's left shoe and spat in it. When the Marine returned, they all sat back and enjoyed the flight. As the plane was landing, the Marine slipped his feet into his shoes and knew immediately what had happened.
"Why does it have to be this way?" he asked. "How long must this go on? This fighting between our nations? This hatred? This animosity? This spitting in shoes and pissing in Cokes?"
Take a look around the Cyberpalace. His stuff dated around the time of the spiderhole capture is hilarious.
I've always told my friends that nothing annoys me more about newspaper articles than science reporting. They almost always get the small details wrong and the main focus of the article, whether it's some new discovery or the publishing of some new study, is almost always obscured by the editorial slant of that particular newspaper. Any biological story gets tied to the environment and, these days, global warming. Physics stories, these days, are treated a little more straight, since they don't have the cancellation of the Superconducting Super Collider to talk about anymore. Grr... don't get me started on that. But the aging hippies in the newsrooms can't seem to let go of Mother Gaia and how measly little us, whose contribution to greenhouse gases numbers in the tenths of a percent, has just got to stop, stop the madness.
This is why I love articles like this (The gods are laughing - Tom Harris), especially coming from Canada. The relevant quote is here: "[R]eal climate scientists are crying over Al Gore's new film. This is not just because the ex-vice-president commits numerous basic science mistakes. They are also concerned that many in the media and public will fail to realize that this film amounts to little more than science fiction."
And here: "[H]e then uses high-tech special effects to show how human-caused climate changes are causing more hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, floods, infectious diseases, insect plagues, glacial retreats, coral die-outs and the flooding of small island nations due to sea level rise caused by the melting of the polar caps. One is left wondering if Gore thinks nature is responsible for anything."
There are two books I recommend on the craziness of the environmental movement which are pop-fiction novels that take the activists at their word about the lengths they will go to "inform" the public and "save" the planet. The first is Michael Crichton's State of Fear and the second is Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six. If you can't stand the military hero worship of a Clancy novel, just read the Crichton book; he absolutely nails the green scare tactics.
As for me, this is my general attitude toward environmental activists who never took a science class seriously:
| Who knew that all those years of coffee and alcohol abuse would just even themselves out? Nature seems to find a balance. |
My friends, I have just found redemption for all that caffeine and alcohol abuse. Take a look at this headline from msnbc.com today:
Drinking coffee cuts alcohol's harmful effects
Here's the money quote: "A large study found that one cup of coffee per day cut the risk of alcoholic cirrhosis by 20 percent. Four cups per day reduced the risk by 80 percent."
Now, if I were horrible at math, I would conclude that 5 cups of coffee would reduce the risk of cirrhosis by 100 percent and 6 cups would reduce the risk by 120 percent. Hmm, what's the opposite of cirrhosis? Because, if you reduce the risk of developing cirrhosis, that's epidemiology speak for not getting the disease, by 100 percent, that means you never get it. But if you reduce it by 120 percent, do you get a younger liver? Cirrhosis is scarring of the organ tissue, so at 120 percent, do get even more non-scarring? Well, thankfully, I'm very good at math, so I would never come to such a simplistic conclusion (ha!).
So, if you're a heavy drinker, don't forget to wash down that aspirin in the morning with some good Java and keep it coming.
Hello All! I came back from my trip to Las Vegas on Thursday night and I have to say it was pretty relaxing. You guys may not realize it, but I've mellowed a little bit in the last ten years. If I went to Vegas before, it was up all night, hit all the clubs in Mandalay Bay, take a detour to visit with some new "lady friends" who like to sit "real close" to you, sleep all day, lather, rinse, repeat. Nowadays, I can do all that, maybe, spread out all over a week, but not in one night, every night. Eh, call it growing up, growing old, slowing down, getting bored, saving money, becoming mature, etc. I now appreciate that you can do stuff during the day in Las Vegas. I know, I know, it was a very foreign concept to me too. But, I've just recently quit my job before going back to school, I'm sitting on a ton of dough that I've saved up to go back to school, and I'm still used to waking up a 5 in the morning.
These days I get up at 6 in the morning, and I still feel like I overslept. So, what is there to do in Las Vegas during the day? Well, since it gets to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit at about 10 in the morning, you've got to get poolside pretty early, otherwise, not only will you look like a lobster without the proper protection, you'll feel like a turkey about to get served for Thanksgiving. Also, you know me, I'm a pretty outdoors kind of guy, but I'm not stupid enough to get my hour of cardio work in the Las Vegas heat. So, there's the air conditioned gym and the treadmill. No, I did not bring my bike to Las Vegas, and I can't stand sitting on those exercycles without clipping into the pedals, so back to running for an hour.
I think I've mentioned it before, but I hate running. Yes, I used to run up and down 5 miles of hills everyday while I was a student at Berkeley, but that doesn't mean I enjoyed it. Running only feels good when you stop. I hadn't run since last summer, so I knew I was going to be feeling pretty sore the next day. Running uses totally different muscle groups than cycling, so even though I'm in pretty good shape, all it means is that my lungs can take the punishment, but my feet, ankles, and hips don't like all that impact.
So, what did I do poolside? Hard to believe, but Vegas does not pack in the hotties on weekdays. So, to be distracted from the flesh of middle-aged and middle America, I brought music and books. When I'm on vacation, I can usually read a book a day. Just give me 3 uninterrupted hours and I can polish off your 400 page pop fiction novel. Non-fiction takes a little longer and I need a week to take on some metaphysical treatment on philosophy. Did my tanline even out? Noooo! Thanks to the bike, I still look like some crazy farmer with a sock tan.
So, did I take any pictures? Yes, but only of the stuff that interests me. They wouldn't let me take any pictures in this one place because... uh... it's not their policy, yeah, that's the ticket. Otherwise I took pictures of what you usually see here. There were after dinner cups of coffee at Delmonico's:
There was hanging out by a waterfall and reading (Yes, I'm very boring, go back to reading my blog):
And then there were places where I really needed a bigger flash and a big zoom lens. Well, not really, but, well, yeah there were. I didn't even have a chance to gamble, I was doing too much other stuff. Like I say, I've mellowed in the last few years, so I don't have to cram everything into a vacation if I don't have to.
Then I came back and was able to ride my bike after a week and a half. Can I say my butt missed the punishment without sounding weird? No? Okay, nevermind. Lessee here... ah! My legs were really itching for a good ride (take that weirdo police, nyah!). So, my Sunday Ride did about 35 miles, rolling around the hills of Pasadena, Sierra Madre, and Monrovia. Of course, we had to stop for some cuppa joe. Here's the view from Buster's in South Pasadena:
And now I'm back in Pasadena for at least the next 2 weeks. I rescheduled my jury duty for next week, so hopefully I don't get on a case. I'll just say all defendants are guilty as I point to the defense attorney. That should do the trick.
Just recently, my dear brother posted a funny story on our dad trying to figure out an electronic key card. His brilliant imagery (I'm not being sarcastic, it was really good!) of talking to a young child through a locked bathroom door was spot-on when explaining or showing our father some new technology. Usually, it's something that we can forgive our pre-baby boomer parents for not being generationally savvy: a new remote, switching to a browser for reading email as opposed to Outlook Express or Eudora, you know, new stuff. Well, not to be outdone by my brother ("Turn it first, turn it first!"), take a look at this new technology my dad had trouble adjusting:
Well, what was the problem? My dad had owned these shoes for at least a couple of years. He never seemed to have any trouble wearing them or walking in them. Had they just become damaged? Was something loose and my dad needed my opinion on whether it could be fixed or whether it would be cheaper just to buy new shoes? No. My dad's secret shame. The laces were uneven and he could not figure out how to loosen them to balance them out.
Yes, shocking. I still reel at the memory and this was only three days ago. And the laces weren't just a little uneven, one side was 8 inches longer than the other. After looking at him for a few seconds to make sure he was being serious, he was still looking at me with the same face he always gives me when he's been trying to plug in the printer for 3 hours. The "I'm stuck and you probably can't figure it out, but I want to ask you before I call tech support and waste 3 hours of Sanjay's time in Mumbai" look.
Of course, it's usually just turning on the switch that fixes everything, or clicking on the right button, or whatever, but I had to go through the ritual. You know the ritual. The 20 questions ritual. I asked my dad if he had ever tried loosening one side of the laces and pulling the slack through the other holes, you know, what you're supposed to do. He said he never found a way to loosen the lace and the lady at the shop never put it in right, and they never fixed it at the shoe shine place. All part of the ritual. I ask the questions that supposedly leads the other person to a point where he had never tried something before, the dawning of understanding hits, and the mistake never repeats. My dad has his own ritual. He blames everybody else, while not answering your first question, and finally admits that, no, he had never tried that before, usually five minutes later. Trying to save face, but losing even more because all he had to say was no in the first place, and then he doesn't look like some poor fool with the mayor's hat on by mistake. So, what had my father never tried to do with the laces of his deck shoes? Let me point it out to you:
Where my finger is pointing is where the laces come out near the shoe's tongue and wrap around the ankle of the shoe before coming back up to the tongue again. This way deck shoes don't fly off your feet if you get swept by a wave coming over the prow of your sail boat. Well, when's the last time you had to worry about that wearing your topsiders? But that's how they're designed. All my dad had to do was wonder, "This looks like part of the lace, what happens if I yank on that thing?" All I have to do is wonder, "Why'd he wait two years until we were in a hotel room in Las Vegas to ask me?" I've just put the lie to that commercial campaign: what happens in Vegas, gets posted on the internet, usually with pictures and downloadable video.
So, I adjusted Dad's shoelaces while he looked on, very much like a toddler looking on an adult's hands as he magically ties a necktie or laces up boots, which we all know are way harder than regular shoes. Later on, there was the double knot incident in the middle of the sidewalk, but my dad was able to figure that out on his own.
