| Thanksgiving | 3:03 PM |
I love the holidays. Even though it's stressful to get away from work, and there's never enough time to bake all the goodies and get all the gifts and pack all the clothes in a timely manner, I still love the holidays.
Highlights from the trip:
- Jess in her 4 inch heels and frilly skirt with an apron tied around her 20 inch waist looking like she stepped right out of Stepford wives.
- Mention of Boise on the television. Josh: Boise's the capital of Idaho. Yes, it is. Jess: Idaho? Josh: Yes you are! Much laughter ensues at Jess's expense :)
- Hot cranberry guts pop out of the pan my mom's stirring and land on my finger. I say fuck. My mother looks at me in horror, the cranberries don't understand what you're saying. All the better reason to swear at them!
| Theater and Art | 11:35 PM |
We went and saw Ben Franklin: Unplugged by Josh Kornbluth. And it was great. I thought at first that I might not enjoy it, but once he got going, I loved it.
On Saturday night, we went and saw a Dance Visions performance. A gal from work was performing (and I love dance) and that was awesome, too. There's another performance on January 21st and 22nd that we will be attending featuring three of the choreographers from Saturday night's show, including Natasha Carlitz.
It's always a fascinating thing to see people out of the context you know them in. We ran into Josh Kornbluth after his show and took a photo -- and I saw him briefly, but to see and hear him out of character made him a slightly different person than the one I'd created for him. And finding out Natasha was a dancer and choreographer gave her a depth that she didn't have before in our limited work related interactions. I think everyone is fascinating in some way.
| The future | 11:54 PM |
I've been thinking a lot about the future and where things go from here. And you can't think about the future without some sort of recollection of the past because if you maintain relationships at all with anyone you've known for any length of time, every person is attached to various memories -- of other people and places you used to know, things you used to do. And there's something slightly sad in knowing that things won't ever go back -- that those events in your life are done and gone and those people won't mean the same thing to you they used to, no matter how important they still are to you, you always drift away. You always have a new life waiting. And because I'm tender hearted about the people in my life, I feel sort of sad that those relationships will change. Because my life is changing. And fast.
| RFIDs in Passports | 1:11 PM |
Good god...the State Department is planning on putting RFIDs in passports. Note to self: must get valid passport before spring...
| Dead Hensons | 1:35 AM |
Oh...lovely night! I've been working hard so I haven't had much time for myself, but I spent the night with my girlfriend and had an awesome time. Saw The Dead Hensons and giddily danced to muppet tunes at the Hemlock at Polk and Post. They were an incredibly fun live band. And we had drinks and talked. And I got a cab ride home with a sci fi fan and we talked about tv shows and now I'm home and sleepy but feeling warm and fuzzy :)
| More misc crap... | 1:03 AM |
Shaun of the Dead = Funny. They did an excellent job building up anticipation.
I had an excellent day -- had a really good lunch with a good friend -- he and I are very in sync in the way we think about things. I love talking to him because of that -- because he gets everything. He made a comment that's been stuck with me all day -- that I'm coming full circle. It's funny and sort of true. I'm jazzed about work again and got to work on something fun for me all day. I found my motivation again -- real motivation. It's different than the motivation that I started the job with, but it's working.
New search engine. It's got a lot of stuff on the page. I'm not a big fan of that. How often are you going to need to sort search results by domain? Why so many different types of ratings? I do like the related keywords though. That's pretty cool.
| Random Thoughts | 12:54 AM |
I've been thinking lately about gender differences in intelligence. Wondering about the differences in the way men and women think and analyze data. Wondering if I'm really as much of an idiot as I sometimes feel like I am, or if I'm overly sensitive. Most women don't want to be fat. I don't want to be considered fat either, but I'd a thousand times rather be fat than stupid.
The way that dynamics between people change depending on group size is interesting, too. They way I interact with friend A is slightly different when it's just me and A vs. when it's me, A, and B. And because A and B are often both male, I tend to listen a lot more than I talk. I have a tendency to defer to people who a) like to talk, b) I think are smart, and/or c) vociferous. I don't like to compete in conversation; if I have to work too hard, I won't do it. Most of the time I'd rather be listening anyway.
There was more...but I can't possibly keep my eyes open any longer........
| Misc Crap... | 1:46 AM |
Interesting article on Ghost in the Shell and the two men responsible for its creation.
| Me And My Monkey | 11:13 PM |
Oh my god...this is such a funny song. I'm not sure yet if I like Robbie Williams because I've only heard a little bit of him. Apparently he's a megastar everywhere but in the U.S. This song (lyrics) was perfect for our Vegas trip:
In walked this big, bad-ass baboon into my bedroom
with 3 monkey whores
"Hi, my name is Sunshine. These are my girls.
Lace my palm with silver baby oh yeah
and they'll rock your world"
(Though none of us ordered any monkey whores.)
| Predicting Your Fast Food Order | 10:19 PM |
I love this! A bunch of CMU guys got together and formed a company called HyperActive Technologies (their crappy flash site doesn't work in FireFox on the Mac) and they've created a product called HyperActive Bob that predicts fast food orders based on the cars driving into the lot. Bigger cars, more food and a tendency towards kids meals, chicken nuggets and french fries; smaller cars means more hamburgers. The initial trial was at a McDonald's in Chippewa, Pennsylvania, but they've got them in 7 McDonald's and a Burger King and a Taco Bell in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida now.
Advanced Interfaces, also of Pennsylvania, has a similar, but more advanced technology. It records images of people entering a restaurant and makes inferences based on gender and age. Women like salads, men like meat. You get the idea.
All this, of course, immediately makes me think about the privacy implications of all these cameras on rooftops and doorways. My guess is that they're not storing these recorded images indefinitely, just long enough to make the calculations and update cook orders. But what's to say they won't? Advanced Interfaces has a video mining service for customers to send in hours and hours of recorded video tape for analysis. So, hypothetically, you could be recorded on videotape entering your favorite retail shop or restaurant, and then that footage could get sent to AI. A human being isn't watching all that video. A human might not ever see any of that video footage, but eventually widely available imaging technology could be sophisticated enough to be able to make out who you are. In any given geographical area, someone somewhere -- human or computer, could piece together your entire daily, weekly, monthly schedule. It's a hypothetical, but certainly not a far fetched one.
A part of me finds this creepy, and a part of me is fascinated by the marketing aspect of all this information. And how easily you can predict behavior and influence it.
| Virtual Brokers | 11:50 PM |
Another interesting tidbit (no online article to link to)...a physicist and a mathematician at the University of Oxford designed a model that predicts the stock market. They equipped multitudes of intelligent agents with strategies that real life traders use to make decisions, then ran the model using historical stock market data, tweaked the agents so that predictions were more in line with the market's actual behavior, and now they're using it to predict the stock market and they claim it's accurate to the minute! And the model can be used to mimic other multi-component systems like medicine, using cells as agents, or ecosystems. A friend of mine was working on something along these lines...I wonder if he's still working on it and how he's doing :)
I always thought that seemingly chaotic systems had predictability in them, but it still seems surreal that you can predict the stock market. Wouldn't you be filthy rich?
| Name Recognition | 11:28 PM |
I was reading the new New Scientist and saw a quote from this guy I went out on a date with months and months ago. He was a graduate student at Berkeley studying genetically modified maize. And it's sort of cool to recognize someone's name in a magazine you religiously read. Because even if he's not a celebrity, he sort of becomes one at that moment. It made me think of this article I read months ago on scanning the brain to predict a person's behavior in economic games. It was a long ass Newsweek article about how, for humans, the emotional and rational parts of their brain affect their decisions, and how primates appeared to be hard wired to act according to mathematically derived formulas of economy.
The monkeys used Berry Berry juice as their currency. And looking at a "celebrity" monkey was worth paying for:
Male monkeys have a distinct dominance hierarchy, and Platt has found they will give up a considerable quantity of fruit juice for the chance just to look at a picture of a higher-ranking individual.
So it makes sense that humans do it, too -- because we do things like pay to go to movies, buy magazines and cable tv to see celebrities, pay for expensive dinners with politicians. And "celebrity" is subjective. Your celebrities might be actors or politicians or scientists or writers or musicians or tech geeks. Whatever your thing is, there's someone you consider a celebrity.
There's been a lot of research in the last few months about predicting behavior. And there's almost always a mention of what this means for marketing. Seems like in the end, we're all paying to look like or live like a celebrity. Whoever that celebrity is.
The end of that long article makes some interesting notes about the differences in the decision making process in men and women. Which I think is funny because I was just thinking about this article the other day when I was going over how long it took me to come to my final decisions -- even after I'd already made them.
| Burn Your Own Green Day CDs | 12:19 PM |
Now this is clever: blank CDs with Green Day album covers. So you can burn Green Day CDs on appropriately labeled CDs. 7.99 for 4. This is something I would totally buy into. I've got a huge stack of CDs with no labels except what I've penned in -- I burn everything I purchase on iTunes. And I miss the artwork of buying CDs in person (and the cases). I like that they're doing something especially for file-sharing fans. And they get to make a little extra money to boot.
| Secure Flight, CAPPS II's Replacement, Moving into Test Phase | 2:19 AM |
The TSA (Transportation Security Administration) has issued a legal order to "compel" airlines to provide passenger data to test Secure Flight, its new passenger screening system. Lots of quotes from the privacy officers at TSA, including one from Lisa Dean, ex-EFF'er. But the TSA hasn't been all that forthcoming with details, and what about the EU Data Protection Directive? How are they going to sort that out? The Practical Nomad has better, more in-depth blog entries about Secure Flight.
| Back From Vegas | 12:30 AM |
Las Vegas was awesome. We had a crazy, ill tempered, swearing shuttle driver takes us to San Jose airport. Ed got there at sunrise and was drunk by the time we got to the hotel in the mid-afternoon. The Hotel (part of Mandalay Bay) was nice looking, but dark. Everything was cutely named "The ___" including "the tp". And black. The beach at Mandalay Bay with the wave pool is great (except everyone leaves their towel lying around so there are towel mountains every so many feet in the sand). I went to my first strip joint in the states (but left unfortunately early -- I, unlike most of the rest of the group, sadly did not smell like strippers in the morning.) I played some Black Jack -- not a huge fan of gambling, but I broke even so I did well :) And I got caught trying to steal a fork from House of Blues by the coolest waitress ever.
Restaurants we ate at:
- Red, White, & Blue (Mandalay Bay): sucked
- Nine Fine Irishmen (NY, NY) -- didn't eat there, but the food looked awesome. And I love Irish music.
- House of Blues (Mandalay Bay) -- yummy
- Raffles Cafe (Mandalay Bay) -- ok, but wouldn't go back
- Pyramid Cafe (Luxor) -- yummy breakfast
- Fiamma (MGM Grand) -- pricey, but incredibly yummy
Ghostbar at the Palms (oh my god, the beautiful women at the Palms!!) was interesting. And played decent music (as in music I've heard before including Beastie Boys) earlier in the night -- pre 2/3am, and the view is amazing. And Club Paradise was the strip club we went to. That was nice -- I'd go back, and everyone else enjoyed it way more than I got to :)
| Headed to Vegas!! | 12:04 AM |
I haven't spent a weekend in Vegas in years. Ed's birthday...he's already on his way -- he was so excited to drive out tonight. Some of us got together and got him an iPod for his birthday and he loves that thing, loves listening to music and hitting the road. Last weekend it was L.A.; this weekend it's Vegas. And I'm not a huge fan of Vegas, but I love the idea of going and spending his birthday there because he loves Vegas. And I'll love it because of that. And because I'll be with some of my absolute favorite people :)
| Joining the Circus | 11:59 PM |
That phrase has such romantic appeal, doesn't it? A girl I knew used to live in a huge community warehouse in Oakland. At one of her parties, I got to meet a friend of hers who was going to the SF Circus Center. He was graceful and limber, and gave me an itch for the circus. Geek Love, read years ago, gave me an itch for the circus. So did Nights at the Circus beautifully give me an itch for the circus. Oh, and of course, HBO's Carnivàle makes me yearn for the circus. Now, apparently, it's fashionable to be into the circus. Trapeze for fitness is recently trendy. And apparently a good place to pick up on hot men with buff arms. I just want to fly through the air.
| Urine Sniffing Dogs | 11:39 PM |
Taking advantage of dogs' innate desire to sniff at urine, scientists and trainers in the UK teamed up to form a cancer sniffing dog team. At a 41% success rate, they did pretty well. One sample was consistently identified by the dogs as coming from a cancerous bladder though it came from a donor without bladder cancer -- a reexamination found a kidney tumor instead.
| Carnivorous Robots! | 12:52 AM |
I was just reading about EcoBot II, the fly eating robot. It's got 8 microbial fuel cells that flies get sucked into. The chitin exoskeleton gets broken down into glucose, the bacteria break up the glucose and generate electrons to power EcoBot II with electricity. On a full stomach (8 flies -- one in each fuel cell), it can go for 5 full days. But it takes 12 minutes to generate enough electricity for it to walk one 2cm step. That's 5 steps and hour, 120 steps a day, 600 steps in 5 days. It's probably not getting too far on a full stomach. But imagine if you could go for 5 days on a single meal..
The predecessor to EcoBot II was SlugBot, which hunted for slugs using its imaging systems. But its methane-based system took too long to power up. And EcoBot II draws its food to itself by reaking of sewage. Saves itself all that hunting and gathering time.
| Dreamless | 11:28 PM |
Dreamless woman feels fine. Dreams are fascinating. There is a load of research material on sleep, but not so much on dreams. How the brain functions is a fascinating subject of its own, but dreams have all sorts of nonscientific associations with them. There are prophetic, mythic, romantic notions about dreams. They're scary; they're sweet. I had two bad dreams last night. They both stemmed from what Ed says is my intense fear of rejection. Sometimes when I'm thinking really hard about someone, I dream about being rejected by that person. And they're almost like nightmares.
| Annonymous Phone Calls...For the Stalker in All of Us | 3:53 AM |
In other news...interesting company that launched a new service to anonymize phone calls by fucking with caller id, and three days later, the owner decides to try to sell it off because of threats by hackers. Star38 launch; Star38 calls it quits.
May be a great service for debt collectors, but imagine what it can do for stalkers. Want to terrorize your neighbor annonymously? Crank call that ex? Star38, baby.
| Fruit Sex? | 3:53 AM |
This is so funny...Catholics upset about fruit sex labels.
Haribo macht kinder froh
und Erwachsne ebenso
I can even sing that little jingle if you ask :)
| Stunt Monkey | 1:40 AM |
I went and saw a punk show on Sunday night -- part of the KSCU's Stop, Drop and Rock at the Gaslighter in Campbell -- cute little venue. I love shows in old theaters. Stunt Monkey were awesome. It was a little weird though -- the two bands that played before Stunt Monkey didn't excite a lively crowd -- there were piles of people standing in front of the stage -- many of them young girls in short skirts. I don't remember there being so many cutely dressed girls at the punk shows I used to go to. But they'd just stand there in front of the stage. Not moving. It looked really weird. I don't know how you can stand so close to the music and not move. I'm not graceful, and I can't dance, but music -- no matter what kind -- gets under my skin, makes me tap my feet, bob my head, wiggle my hips.
But when Stunt Monkey came on -- most of those cute little girls were gone, and the mosh pit opened up for a second to let a handful of people tear across the floor a couple of times, then throughout the rest of the show, these goofy ass motherfuckers took turns in the middle of the floor to dance with each other. Old eighties moves, poorly done, but I think almost purposefully so -- the running man, the sprinkler, some bad break dancing. All of it entertaining to no end. Other peoples' energy is so infectious.
| P Not Equal NP | 12:49 AM |
This article was on slashdot today. Uninteresting little article about NP problems and how once we build our magic NP box, our current methods of encryption will be rendered useless. I particularly liked this statement: The Internet would be vulnerable to hackers and computer viruses. As though it currently isn't vulnerable. Once we build a quantum computer or perhaps a cellular computer, it'll be our magic NP box. No one can say when that'll be, but I'm certain the day will come. The only interesting tidbit I garnered in that article is that Adleman is at USC.
What I don't understand is why Garfinkel wrote the article (and spelled Adleman's name wrong). Is this new information to him? He mentions last month's Crypto conference, but did they have anything new to say about P vs NP problems? Probably not. And if they did, he doesn't mention it.
And this makes me think how interesting it is to watch things go from rigorous scientific publications to mass media. How trendy some topics get. For a little while. Then you realize how long lived said topic is and the public loses interest again. Until the next cycle.
| Misc and Uninteresting Ramblings... | 2:02 AM |
My motorcyle is now officially registered to me and completely insured! I haven't ridden it since the first night I got it except to the garage, but only because I haven't had time. This is the first vehicle I've ever bought. I realize I'm 30 and should've probably already done this, but I still drive around the car my parents bought me when I went away to college. That 10+ year old beast is a great little car. And living in SF, it's also a car I never have to worry about -- neither the threat of cosmetic damage or potential thievery prevent me from parking it wherever I can.
I got my laptop back from Apple today -- they replaced the bad display. Common ghosting issue. It was driving me crazy not having the laptop at home. My desk is not comfortable -- that crappy 23" Sun monitor takes up too much space, and the mouse works like hell -- I'd almost say the damn thing doesn't work at all. But they were amazingly fast and since it's been such a common issue for them, it was relatively painless to get them to take it back and fix it. With XDarwin and blackbox, I almost prefer my Mac to my Linux desktop. Though the portability of the laptop is certianly more useful and contributes to my preference, too.
I also just got the Windows machine I requested to do some Blackberry development today. I just got it last week and I already love that thing. I was driving around (going to the DMV) and got lost today. All I had to do was pull over and look up directions. And email available everywhere I go. It's great. I can't wait to start writing applications for it.
And finally, silicon carbide production improved. SiC is much more energy efficient and stress tolerant than silicon.
I really should stop blogging at 2am, just as I'm falling asleep. Stuff gets so incoherent. And unedited....
| Experimenting on Primates | 1:44 AM |
I was reading this article in New Scientist (do I read anything else anymore? Those things come so fast in the mail...I'm halfway through one and the next one arrives) on research done with monkeys. And I'm an animal rights supporter. I don't think animals should be mistreated, experimented on unnecessarily, tortured, maimed, hunted for sport, etc., etc. But I'm also a huge proponent of research and testing and making new discoveries. It isn't even really a question -- given the option of testing new drugs or procedures on animal or human subjects, no one is going to say, let's test experimental drugs on humans. No one.
You should've seen this photo in the magazine. This sad, little monkey sitting in the corner. For a moment, I become really emotional about the animal imagining what it must undergo. But I completely anthropomorphize, too. Because that monkey isn't necessarily sad. I project those emotions onto him. The editor chose that photo for that layout specifically for that effect. That isn't to say that I don't think monkeys and other animals don't suffer some sort of trauma when they undergo tests and drug trials and various invasive and non-invasive procedures. I'm sure they do.
The quandry, I think, is balancing the needs of research against being as humane as possible. How do we ensure that we have enough resources to conduct all the research we need in order to progress in our scientific endeavors, and still treat animals humanely by decreasing stress, minimizing physical pain, and limiting use in trials. As a concrete example, we can talk about re-use of monkeys in research. Primates are currently in short supply. Often they are re-used in multiple experiments. From a humanitarian point of view, we want to limit the amount of suffering it undergoes by using it for one trial/one experiment, but from the same point of view, we want to limit the number of monkeys and apes being used for experiments. Where do we draw the line between those two? Do we experiment again and again with the same resource? Or bring in new resources? And at what point we bring in new resources? After one trial? Two, three? Four if they're minor, two if the experiments are particularly harrowing?
Whatever the balance, it sounds like there should be something done to change the current situation -- not only so that we can keep on conducting these trials, but also so that we can learn as much as possible out of the trials we do. There is a bad shortage of primates available and attainable for experimentation. AIDS research, for example, isn't moving as fast it could. The Indian rhesus monkey is virtually unavailable, but critical in AIDS research because these Indian origin monkeys develop AIDS from SIV as humans do from HIV.
More data should be gathered on primates while in experimentation -- history of the primate (what other trials, if any, has it been a part of? where did it come from?), gender, health, daily living arrangements (do they get exercise? have room to move around? live in a tiny cage?). These things are just as important when evaluating the data from experimentation -- these can have an impact on that data, yet it's not kept track of or published. If a monkey is stressed out from having been transported halfway around the world from a breeder to a lab, surely his immune system is suppressed, his biochemical balance is slightly altered -- these things affect one's reaction to a drug or ability to heal. It isn't trivial. How can you ignore it?
| My First Bike | 1:06 AM |
I have a bike! I've been looking for a couple of weeks now. I was going to buy a friend's 400 Bandit, but that guy turned out to be a psycho and I got myself out of that. Then I looked at a beautiful, red Ninja 250 this weekend and that girl turned out to be a lying, greedy little thing so I didn't get that one either (she posted an ad for $2100 for a 2001 Ninja -- very reasonable -- and then told me she had someone offer her $400 more for it than she'd posted in the ad. Who the hell would do that? And it had a weird dent she lied about, a gunky chain and jerked when it started -- last two things pointed out to me by Ed, my motorcycle buying consultant :)
But the one I ended up buying tonight is practically brand new. A 2001 Kawasaki green Ninja 250. Ed took a couple of pictures, but they're dark. The pictures John sent me are nicer. The seller and his wife were so incredibly nice and friendly. The transaction went so smoothly and professionally. And he's taken amazing care of the bike -- it literally looks brand new: no scratches, less than 1300 miles, broken in gently, oil changed a couple of times, everything is clean and spotless. I was a little jaded after that experience with the woman who wanted to start a bidding war this weekend, but gosh this was nice and easy.
I zipped around the parking lot at Google when we got it back. I haven't ridden a motorcycle since I took my safety course. Ed says that was four years ago, but I think it might only be three. But anyway, a little coaching and I was doing circles in the lot. Tomorrow I'll get her insured. Awww...I LOVE my new bike! :)
| Don't Forget Your RFID | 1:34 AM |
I was reading an article in the hardcopy version of New Scientist (couldn't find the article online to link to) about a new application of RFID -- a watch that you could program with important items that you couldn't leave the home or office without. You'd tag your keys, pager, cell phone, etc with small RFID stickers. The actual reader is too large to fit into a watch so you would have to install an RFID reader in the doorway of your house, or take advantage of RFID readers we already come in contact with out in the wild -- like the card reader at work that lets you in the door. The readers would ping the tags, the watch would decode that data and buzz an alarm if you tried to leave your house without your house keys or tried to leave work without your pager.
Just imagine the wonderful uses of the forgetfulness watch -- your wife could tag your wedding ring, the grocery list, your small child. Your boss could tag your laptop, the technical documents he wants you to read, the resumes you're supposed to sift through, your pager, cellphone, and blackberry. Every time you'd tried to exit a building, your watch would go off in a beeping frenzy alerting everyone to the fact that yes, you are leaving some important piece of yourself behind. No, you cannot be trusted to take responsibility for your own things; yes, you are shirking some duty or another. You'd really be better off forgetting the damn watch.
I can't wait to get an RFID reader. Imagine the fun things you'd find out about the people around you.
| Score One for P2P! | 9:19 AM |
EFF scores a win for P2P. The Ninth Circuit declares that distributors of peer-to-peer software can't be held liable for what their users do. Don't forget to read Fred's comments on the ruling.
| Senator (not) on the No Fly List | 9:15 AM |
This is great evidence of the uselessness of these no fly lists: "One of the best-known U.S. senators" is misidentified as a suspected terrorist on the no-fly list. And this is just a current example -- there are many other cases just like this.
It's been almost 3 years and we still don't know how people get on these lists and there isn't a formal, systematic way to be removed from these lists or to find out how you even got on a list. Even when a passenger goes through the effort to clear his name, he finds himself back at square one the next time he flies. EPIC's No-Fly page -- with links to documents from the TSA and complaints from passengers. EPIC filed a suit against the TSA in Dec. 2002. The ACLU filed a lawsuit in April 2004. ACLU's Why Federal Watch Lists Don't Work page. The Practical Nomad blog (Edward Hasbrouck) has a fair bit of information on this subject, too.
| Interviews | 8:31 AM |
I had a 3.5 hour interview yesterday. Including the drive out there and back I felt like that's all I did yesterday. I was really nervous about talking to the tech guy because the person who set up the interview said he'd be really tough and was a curmudgeon. Curmudgeon I don't mind, tough makes me nervous. And, of course, he's the only person's who's feedback I'm interested in. I'm not very good at selling myself. It sort of scares me to death. But it turned out he liked me and thought I had the technical chops. Woohoo!
And New Scientist emailed me and said the Senior Editor wants to meet and chat with me!! I'm sure they sent that email out to all their San Francisco subscribers, but I'm so excited about meeting and talking to that guy. Must catch up on my New Scientist reading...
Hey, Google IPO'ed yesterday! :)
| Robots in the News | 1:05 AM |
Robotic surgery: telerobotic laparoscopic operations performed on 22 people in the last six months in Canada. Looks like Dr. Anvari, who performed the world's first telerobotic assisted surgery about a year and a half ago in February 2003, continues his mission to prove the safety and feasibility of these procedures in the hopes of widespread adoption. It sounds like he's succeeding at it, too.
And Seiko Epson creates the world's lightest flying mircoboot. 12.6 grams with the battery installed -- that's less than half an ounce -- and less than 1/32 of a pound. And it takes photos! It doesn't seem to work that well yet, but it'll get there. Here's another article with a picture.
| The Evolutionary Role of Religion | 2:35 AM |
Interesting article by Dawkins. I read the article because I thought it would attempt to answer that question -- what the purpose of religion was. What evolutionary advantage does belief in a religion give us? But it doesn't really answer that question. A friend of mine pointed out that it doesn't answer the question of the title so much as makes you think about the way we ask ourselves these questions. I like how Dawkins uses computer viruses as an analogy for religion.
On another religious note: _Cheap Complex Devices_. I've been meaning to write about this book because I found it so fascinating. You probably don't want to read any more if you intend to read the book because I don't want to spoil it for you. But I was really excited about the book when I got it and read the cover. I even read the forward and part of the intro before I read the story (I always do that afterwards so I don't know too much going in). The meta story about the story is great in and of itself. But it's not what the forward makes you believe it is -- you get that much before you finish the story, but apart from the disappointment in that, it was still a fabulous read. An interesting and complex intermingling of sexual thoughts, religious thoughts, and computer thoughts -- specifically, system level functioning. What is it about the these basest of things that seem to inextricably combined? Sex and religion have been intertwined for as long as humans have been around. Sex has an obvious evolutionary role, and so does religion or it wouldn't still exist. Is technology the next evolutionary step? As base and as fundamental as sex and god? Or is the mix more cultural -- that these things are so pervasive now and so personal that writing about one leads to writing about the other? I think it's both. I've been meaning to research this topic more...will write more when I do.
| The Seduction of Prayer | 3:07 AM |
I am not a religious person. I have no faith in anything except for science and technology. I believe everything has a rational explanation. And if it doesn't, it's only because we haven't figured it out yet. Yet, the desire to pray still haunts me. It's a little ritual, something I used to do a lot. Driving down any given freeway, I'd be praying all the time. Mostly not for myself. But every time I passed a motorcyclist with no gear on, every time I passed an accident or a car pulled over on the side of the road, every time I drove in bad weather I prayed for the safety of my friends, family, and loved ones should they also happen to be on the road. I prayed during flight take offs and landings. I prayed if there was debris on the freeway so no one would get hurt. I prayed incessantly, hypnotically, habitually.
I was raised as a nondenominational, nonCatholic Christian. We went to Presbyterian churches, Baptist churches, nondenominational churches. When I lost faith in their god, I still believed in spirituality -- in reincarnation, karma, the wiccan faith or any faith similar to it with a more holistic view of the world. I prayed to something that I named a goddess, but only because I'd prayed to god for so long. I didn't actually believe there was a goddess for very long, but addressed all my prayers to her out of habit.
I don't know when I lost all faith. When I met Ed I still had some of it and that was over 4 years ago. I have none now. But lately I've been catching myself starting to say prayers like I used to. For a couple of weeks it seemed like every time I got on the road I saw a horrible, horrible, heart rending car accident. Sometimes I'd just start bawling like it was my own personal loss -- I was emotionally fragile.
There's something sweet and comfortable about faith in something that you can't explain or understand logically. Because it makes everything so much easier. If you can't figure it out, or you can't come up with a reasonable explanation for it, then it's a good way to ease your mind of it. Why is the world falling apart around you? Why did you lose your job, your car, your child? Why can't you get ahead in the world? Why do you feel like shit all the time? Why can't you find a perfect mate, a housebroken dog, your favorite punk song on iTunes? Why? Cause you're not meant to. Or maybe it's just not your time. Maybe it's a sign that you need to suffer more, and good things will come your way. People can't get past their spirits/souls/essences -- whether they're good or bad -- so you have to forgive them, accept them for what they are and move on. I can see why you'd want to believe that, hide behind it. Because what do I have when I'm knee high in shit and the world is falling apart all around me? Nothing. Just me. I'm tired of being strong. Someone get me a fucking shovel.
| Not Here | 2:44 AM |
I've been here, but just not here. I haven't been writing at all. And I haven't given up this site for those of you who've inquired :) I've been in a strange funk for a couple of weeks. But not entirely a bad funk, just a different sort of funk. Keeping to myself more. But I've been thinking lots. Having a new significant other has made me do a lot of thinking. He's made me think a bit about the past and I've been thinking about old identities, old places, old people. And I've been googling myself a bit for shits and giggles. I found this horrible, horrible picture of me some journalist used for an article from my last Defcon. I don't even remember the year anymore. It was the year I met Priest, the last year I went, the year I broke up with Shon.
I saw an ex yesterday to catch up with him. I revisited an older ex online. We talked a bit about ex'es last night when we had a guest over for drinks. I've been having scary nightmares, I've been looking at job postings, I finished reading _Cheap Complex Devices_ on the recommendation of another friend. I have this habit of not naming names because I don't want to unwittingly make someone's personal life public information. Even if he's got his own blog.
I've been thinking about privacy and intimacy and sharing, but sharing secretly, anonymously. I've been thinking about the girl I used to be and how I've changed and haven't changed. I've been thinking about the guy I'm dating I've been thinking about Bush, and my political opinions, I've been thinking about science and religion and how people you wouldn't expect to sometimes have faith. Why do I believe that rational people don't believe? Because it seems like lots of them do. But lots of them also don't. I've been thinking about moving to Amsterdam, having kids, riding a motorcycle, neonazis, genetic defects, breast implants, car engines. I've been thinking about leaving, but like where I am. I go to bed so tired and I don't know how I got that tired. I've been thinking about gaining weight and my body. I've been thinking about getting my period and going to Las Vegas. I've been thinking about a lot of things.
I was at the bookstore yesterday. Buying the _Complete Adventures of Peter Rabbit_, and the _Chronicles of Narnia_ (because I never read them and I feel like I should). The girl at the register asked me if I bought a lot of children's books there. I said no. She said, oh, then these are a gift?. No, these are for me.
| Blogging Openly | 9:41 AM |
I haven't been updating much here because I haven't had anything to say that isn't personal. When I started this blog, I never meant to write about really personal things -- there wasn't going to be any angst or oversharing of my life. This was supposed to be a space for me to have intelligent discussions with myself about interesting science and technology issues. My last online journal was nothing but intensely personal crap, this was going to be the complete opposite. But I tend to want to write about my life and need a space to do it -- it just won't be here. On the drive in to work yesterday morning, I realized, oh crap, this url is still on my resume -- I had an interview yesterday and was just wondering if there was anything horrifying on here. But I'm not very good at hiding things -- I am what I am and if a potential employer finds this site horrifying, then he probably doesn't want me to work for him. So I suppose it doesn't really matter. I started a little live journal. I will happily give you the user name if you want to look it up.
I'll still be blogging here. I'll still probably blog personal items. I'll just also be blogging elsewhere, too.
| LA Traffic | 10:31 PM |
I drove down to SoCal with my son this morning. Left at 7:30, made excellent time for the first three hours, got a ticket for going 100 mph in a 70 mph zone, then crawled along at 80 miles an hour until we hit the 405 freeway. And the last 60 miles took us two freaking hours.
The cop who pulled me over asked me why I was in such a hurry and I didn't have a good response -- I wasn't in a hurry and I didn't mean to be going that fast. What I wanted to tell him was that I wasn't used to driving a car that could go that fast and not feel like I was going that fast. Sometimes I'd just be whizzing past cars and only realize how fast I was going when I looked down at the speedometer. My own car just doesn't go that fast...and if it did, it wouldn't do it that smoothly. The cop informed me that had I been going 1 mph over that, it would've been an automatic 30 day driver's license suspension and 2500$ fine. When he gave me my ticket I wanted to ask him if he thought I could go to traffic school for it, but I just assumed I couldn't. I haven't had a moving violation in too many years for me to even remember. Which sucks because I was just starting to seriously consider buying a motorcycle again.
But I love driving sometimes. The hills were beautiful (even if brown), the sheep were shorn, the baby calves were eating grass, the windmills eternally and patiently spinning, Pyramid Lake had quite a bit of recreation activity on it (I've never seen that -- I thought for a while that it must've been off limits to the public), KROQ on the radio, the 5, 405, 101, 10, 105, 110, 710, 605, 22, 55, Redondo Beach, Seal Beach, Long Beach, Huntington Beach, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach -- years and years of memories spanning a two hour long stretch of the coast. Besides San Francisco, this is the only other place in the world I call home. And I'm always amazed at how much it feels like home as I'm driving in. Though after two hours of sitting in traffic on the 405, I sometimes wish it weren't.
| Francis Crick Passes Away | 12:00 PM |
God, 51 years ago, Watson and Crick published their paper on the molecular structure of DNA in Nature. Francis Crick, 88 years old, passed away last night in La Jolla.
| Implanting RFID | 8:24 AM |
Short little article about a pilot project in a New York hospital tagging patients with RFIDs. The RFID tag holds name, date of birth, sex and a medical record number. Doctors and staff carry around RFID readers, tablet PCs and have wifi access to the medical network. Seems like a lot of shit to be carrying around. And what about the privacy and security issues with wifi access to medical records?
The funny bit is at the end where they make mention of other RFID tagging projects including a Mexico City one where they implant people with RFIDs, just like they do with dogs and cats! And the related article about Mexicans afraid of being kidnapped getting chipped is hilarious.
| Weekend's End | 2:01 AM |
Long weekend over; looking forward to work. I saw a girlfriend of mine I haven't seen in months. She got into a new relationship about a year ago and I've only seen her a few times since then. And I've started a couple of new jobs in that time frame and I always tend to get really sucked into a new job for some months so I haven't really been available either. But it was so nice to see her and catch up -- I feel like she always understands where I am in life. And I like that -- that not having to explain everything. And I like to know there are other people who go through and think about the same shit I do.
It's been a strange month for people around me. Losing loved ones, losing freedoms, losing jobs, momentarily losing their sense of reason. And it's funny how you tend to want to group things like this together because somehow it will make more sense if we try to attribute some greater force to a set of random, mischievous events. There is not bad karma clogging up the air, there is no grand scheme of punishment, no bad juju. I am not the central point of outwardly radiating bad luck or misfortune. Things just happens. Nothing to do with me or anything else.
The weekend has been a whirlwind of movies, movies, movies. Gangs of New York -- really sucky and really long. Half way through the movie, they threw in a brothel orgy scene to try to keep your attention for the second half. Seemed to work for us. Bourne Identity, Bourne Supremacy both excellent movies. The Fast and the Furious. Could watch that over and over again. Must rent 2 Fast 2 Furious. Starsky and Hutch -- funny as hell. Ed says I'm really a 12 year old boy.
| Monkey Walks Like Humans | 1:36 PM |
Five year old black macaque in Tel Aviv walks upright like a human after suffering brain damage. I think that's funny -- unwittingly makes a funny little comment on humankind.
| Writing for Myself | 2:02 AM |
I've been reading One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It's a beautiful book. Latin American writers that I've read and enjoyed have this uncanny ability to create these dreamy, magical worlds where even the supernatural doesn't seem out of place or unrealistic.
And I got to ruminating about how sometimes we like to catalog the events in our lives like we expect them to have some significance for someone other than ourselves. One Hundred Years is a work of fiction, but it's about the lives of all the members of one family. Strong, emotional women capable of amazing feats of self deprivation. Hedonistic men with a penchant for political battles. And these short sentences don't do the characters the justice they deserve because they're all so rich and interesting in a way far greater than we imagine ourselves to be.
His writing is so imaginative and beautiful. And reading beautiful writing always makes me feel a little like I'm missing something. I was putting away all my binders this weekend for the housewarming party (pictures here), and I keep a lot of my own fiction writing in binders. But I haven't written fiction in at least a year. My online journals have been my writing outlet for a long time now. I don't know how I got out of the habit of writing things completely made up in my own head except that I started to realize I didn't have any skill or talent at it and gave up. But in doing that, I gave up a great pleasure, too.
And I wonder how much of what I write means anything to anyone. Like this blog. I read other people's blogs and I enjoy it, and sometimes they make me think. And sometimes they are just chatter sifted through with the rest of the chatter in the world -- the emails, the news, the links, the pictures. And sometimes the things I write are just chatter even to myself. What is it about making that noise that makes me feel so good?
| CAPPS II Capsized | 1:53 AM |
Wow. They've finally ceded to the public's privacy concerns and are abandoning CAPPS II. CAPPS II would've color coded all airline passengers to indicate a traveller's potential to be a terrorist. It would've created a huge database linking detailed personal information from various sources about each airline passenger. Way more information than you'd want to give away just to be able to fly an hour down south every month to visit your kid.
I love Bob Barr's quote: "You can never be absolutely certain that a proposal like this is dead. You can shoot it, stab it, cut its head off, drive a stake through its heart, burn it, scatter the ashes -- and still it might pop up somewhere else."
EFF's CAPPS II page.
| Smiling Strangers | 12:08 AM |
We had a stranger come over to our house tonight to pick up the boxes that've been sitting in the hall for over 2 months. Ed had arranged it, but was in the bathroom when the guy got there, so I was chatting with him and he was the nicest guy. Friendly and talkative -- in the five minutes I had alone with him we covered a range of topics -- our homes, our moves, the things we loved, the people we loved, friends who'd passed away, moving on and away and settling into some place new. He really brightened my day.
I was walking around the city last weekend -- still one of my favorite things to do -- and there's nothing nicer than a stranger smiling at you or saying hello. Because you don't expect it; it catches you off guard in the tendest way. And makes you feel so good.
It's also nice to have someone you don't know so well -- and even those you do -- take a personal interest in you. I don't necessarily mean in a romantic way, though that's sweet, too. But in any way it's sweet. When someone agrees to help you with your code when you ask, or comes over and wants to see your space and take the cookie you've offered, or wants to sit across from you at a large table full of people and strike up a conversation, or goes and gets Google goodies for your son because you expressed an interest, or wants to join you for a movie, a lunch, a night out, or comments on your blog. It feels good to know that other people think about you when you're not around.
Our housewarming party is this Saturday. I've never been a big party thrower. My roommates are both much more experienced, and god, it's work, but I'm so looking forward to it. Because all my favorite people will be there. And the cooking and preparation for it all is really time consuming and labor intensive, but it doesn't have to be. But I'm doing it because it's my way of telling everyone we've invited how fond I am of them. Because there's not a single person that we've invited that I don't feel that way about.
| Mind Control | 8:28 AM |
This is slightly old: Monkeys Master "Mind Control". Researchers have already developed chips that can translate signals from the brain's motor cortex and can anticipate movement and convert that intent into action. But now they're working on the parietal cortext which plans for movement.
They wired up the parietal cortex in a few monkeys and monitored signals. The monkeys had to touch a point of light on a computer screen. In a day or two, the monkeys learned that thinking about their plan to touch the monitor, without even having to actually do it, was enough to be rewarded.
"It's an exciting study. They know what the monkey is going to do before it even does it."
I'm interested because I'm completely fascinated by prosthetic limb technology. This ability implemented with the latest, greatest mechanical and materials technology could really result in lifelike prosthetic limbs. I'm eagerly awaiting that day. I'm not sure why because I'm not missing any limbs. But I don't have a fear of losing any of them either (probably because I'm so fascinated by prosthetics).
Like any new study, it'll be a while, if ever, before it becomes an applicable technology. In April of this year, Cyberkinetics started a pilot trial implanting chips in the motor cortext of quadriplegics to see if and how useful the technology will be. Results are expected to start surfacing later this year.
| Dreaming On The Patch | 8:21 PM |
Oh, god, this morning I had just gotten out of the bathroom after my morning pee and was standing in the kitchen doorway scratching my ass and staring dreamily at the cat food at my feet trying to decide whether or not to feed Bo-Kitty and I look up and realize someone's staring right at me. There's a large window by our oven that we never close the blinds on and the next door neighbors' back door looks right into the kitchen and they smoke there. It was 8 o'clock in the morning -- who would've guessed anyone would be up at 8am on a Saturday.
Before getting out of bed, I was drifting slowly out of sleep and remember rubbing my index finger across my thumb -- I dreamt that I had cactus needles in my fingers, and then fully awake was surprised there was nothing there -- I distinctly remember being awake and rubbing my finger across my thumb and feeling that needle. And it got me to thinking about how detailed dreams are sometimes and how in that hazy moment between wakefullness and sleep your conscious mind is still your dream mind -- the neurons are firing off in our brains like these made up things are real.
And they still don't really know why. Our brains are just as active in REM sleep as they are in real life. Except that there's a REM sleep region that's active that's not active when we're awake that prevents certain neurotransmitters from being triggered -- that's why most people don't get up and walk around as though they're awake no matter what they're dreaming. But our eyes and our brains go at full speed.
And since I'm a lifelong nicotine patch addict now, I've recently started wearing it again and the last few nights have been full of intensely vivid and weird dreams. Dreams involving a lot of people I know including my roommates, my sister, my good friends, co-workers. Dreams involving giant sea creatures in shallow bodies of water eating puppies, naked co-workers sprawled across toilet seats, Kevin Klein pinching my ass, me wandering around in my pjs (my boxer shorts and tank top) in a palace (which is also where Kevin Klein pinched my ass), my sister a vampire...I could go on, but out of context, they don't seem nearly as weird as they do when I wake up and remember them. Imagine all those things connected and interwoven in one night of dreaming. Now you understand why I can't manage to get myself off the patch :)
| Traveling Through Vegas and Back | 8:17 AM |
I spent the long weekend in Willow Valley, AZ (just past Laughlin/Bullhead City, near the Colorado River) with my son and his family. I couldn't find a direct flight out there so I flew into Las Vegas and drove through to Laughlin (which takes less than 2 hours). I haven't done any traveling in a long time and when you don't do something for a while, you forget how much you love it. I arrived in Vegas in the evening just after 7, and it took 2 hours to get a rental car and find my way to the highway, but once I got on that highway it felt so damn good. The moon was full (thank god, cause it was would've been dark as hell without it), and I didn't really know how to get to where I was going when I first got on the road, but I worked that all out. Being on a highway I'd never been on before, driving through the occasional small patch of lit up town -- I felt like a little girl -- so excited, so adventurous. And I remembered again how much I enjoy seeing new places for the first time on my own. Traveling with friends and loved ones is fun, too, but there's something slightly more raw about going by myself -- I process things differently without someone else around to influence my mood or my perceptions.
And I had so much fun hanging out with the family. That part of my family is something of an anomaly in my life. Everyone they know seems to think it's weird that I'm such a part of their lives (ex old lady hanging out with the new wife). And from an outsider's view, I don't quite fit in (just look at the photos :), but I have so much fun with them -- I don't get to do it very often so every time I do it's like realizing for the first time (again) how much I enjoy being with them. We had a giant brawl on Saturday night, but by Sunday afternoon were sitting on the beach again, by the river, enjoying ourselves (almost) as though nothing happened. And I love that we can do that -- talk through the worst shit and still be friends. And that my son gets to see that -- not that I want him to see that -- but I like that he sees that we work through our crap together because of him. Because if it wasn't for him, they wouldn't be a part of my life in any way.
Josh is getting so mature. We had our little sex talk. And we talked about drugs and alcohol and smoking (I've been hearing so many commercials lately about how kids whose parents talk about it are less likely to do it :). He told me about a friend of his who's fucked up beyond anything I can even imagine -- at 11 years old his father kicked him out of the house one night and he slept in the driveway of a dairy by Josh's house cause he couldn't wake anyone up at 2 in the morning. How can you do that to an 11 year old child? It breaks my heart.
But besides all that seriousness, we had fun in the water, chasing uncle Casey around on the Seadoo, playing games in the sand, throwing rocks. It was hotter than anything I've experienced for a while, but even that was novel and enjoyable.
And on the way back -- I couldn't drive through Vegas without at least stopping once and playing roulette so I spent 20 bucks in New York New York after having a nice breakfast on Monday morning. There's something about Vegas, too, that's so exciting -- leaving there on Friday night, the lights got to me. It's not so impressive during the day, but the hotels are so big, there're so many people wandering around -- you can't help but be drawn in a little. It took me over 12 hours to finally get back to my house from the time I started out in the morning. That breakfast and the really sweet old dealer at the roulette table flirting with me, was the best thing that happened all day.
| Saturday Night Jazz at Pearl's | 11:30 PM |
I don't get out much, but I had the best time last night. We all got dolled up and went to North Beach (the three of us girls and Ed). We had dinner at Figaro's. The food was mediocre, and the wait staff a little clumsy, but our waitress was a hot, blonde woman from the Czech Republic with the just the slightest (adorable) little accent.
But jazz at Pearl's was awesome. I'm not a huge jazz fan, but I love music. And Clairdee, the vocalist, was a great live performer. I couldn't take my eyes off her (she's got incredibly beautiful eyes, too), but when she'd stop singing, I was mesmerized by the saxophonist (whose name I can't remember or I'd share it with you).
North Beach is a happening little place. It's funny because every time I'm there I think the same thing. We got there late -- about 11pm, and got out of Pearl's at 1:30AM and the place was still crawling with crowds and crowds of people. There's always such an energy when there're that many people in one place -- not always a good energy in localized pockets -- there was a fight across the street in front of Vesuvio when we got out of Pearl's -- but it's almost like static electricity -- the crowds, the heightened emotional charge, the constant feedback. There's a high I get from being in crowds like that -- everyone out doing the same thing, having fun, hanging out, enjoying themselves and each other. And me there with them, doing the same thing.
| So... | 2:46 PM |
I hate blogging when I can't think of anything to say and blog just for the sake of blogging. I don't want to paraphrase news like with the last entry. That's worthless; you don't need me to do that. What I really wanted to blog about was how interesting the complications were. That you look at the superstrong superbaby and the first thing you think is yeah, myostatin blockers -- good for muscular disorders. But it's not that simple. For example, you might do more damage than good using myostatin blocking antibody treatments with young children because myostatin not only regulates muscle development, it also regulates muscle progenitor cells (the cells that form muscles). So in the case of muscular dystrophy, you could actually hinder new muscle development in children. And there aren't any extensive studies about the long term effects of such treatments, either.
If you think about it, the human genome was completed in just early 2003. That's only about a year ago. But just because we have the full sequence doesn't mean we know it all. Research on mutations in humans happens sometimes by accidental luck -- the superbaby is the first of his kind and he will be studied and monitored for the rest of his life. And he will provide new empirical data that we would not have gotten otherwise. More systematic researchers collect mutations. IVF embryos that test positive for genetic defects are discarded, and their cells collected and studied -- genetics teams are creating stem cell lines with disease causing mutations so they can study the effects of the mutations on humans -- the animal studies only go so far in explaining how these things affect people. You learn a lot by watching how things go wrong -- sometimes they help you understand how things go right.
| Supertot | 11:47 PM |
Speaking of genetic mutations, did you see the Super Baby? A German superbaby, born with a genetic mutation that increases his muscle growth. The mutation blocks production of myostatin, a protein that regulates the size of muscles in embryonic development and throughout your life. It inhibits the growth of muscles and prevents them from getting too large.
The baby is four 1/2 now and appears very healthy. DNA testing of his mother (who was a professional athlete before giving birth), showed that she had a mutation in one copy of the myostatin gene (both the baby's copies are mutated). No word on the father in any of the articles.
Obvious worry is for his heart, but he's healthy for now.
| Father's Day Without the Dad | 12:29 AM |
Ugh...my father. I bought him a Father's Day card and never mailed it (I don't have his address). So I emailed him instead. And today he emails me, "I am doing better without the stress of being captured." Jesus, god. Do you have to rub that in every single time we communicate? My mother called me tonight -- actually she called me Sunday and I never called her back. I made a weak attempt this morning, but was foiled by her lack of call waiting and rather relieved to get a busy signal. I passed out on my bed at 9pm and Ed came and woke me at 11 -- my mother never calls my house, always the cell phone (and I'm the worst cell phone user in the world -- don't know where it is half the time and the other half don't answer it). Poor little thing, she was so worried about me. My sister text messaged me the other day -- Mom and I say hi. Call us sometime. I feel awful, but I can't seem to motivate myself to get in touch with them. I miss them and love them, but christ, they make me sad and frustrate the hell out of me.
| Cyclops Babies | 1:23 AM |
I was reading an interesting article in New Scientist about genetic mutations and came across this interesting genetic defect: cyclopia. Cyclopia is one of the most common of all brain deformities, and is also always fatal. 1 in 16,000 babies are born this way. And it's exactly what you think it is: babies born with one giant eye. The one gene responsible for the condition is called sonic hedgehog (I was really curious about who named it that, but couldn't find anything -- the hedgehog family of genes comes from fruitfly genetics -- fruitfly embryos with a mutant hedgehog gene look like hedgehogs, and I think there are 3 human hedgehog genes).
Sonic hedgehog is fascinating though, because it's responsible for cleaving our brains into the two distinct regions. The brain starts off as a lump at the end of a neural tube and later forms into the two halves we know so well. The sonic hedgehog protein hangs out by the lump of brain, then seeps upwards and splits the brain in two. In the extreme case of sonic hedgehog mutation, it doesn't split. The reason there is only one eye in infants afflicted with cyclopia is because sh is also responsible for the topography of the optic field -- the optic region starts off as one band across the forebrain and the presence of the protein encourages the formation of two smaller optic fields on either side of our heads.
On the flipside, sh is also responsible for shaping facial width by setting the spacing between our ears, eyes and nostrils. Extra sonic hedgehog means extra wide faces. A disorder caused by the mutation of a gene that limits sh forms extra wide noses, noses with two tips, or even two noses in humans -- as a face gets wider and wider, features begin to replicate. Ditto (whose head is in a jar at UCSF), is a pig that was born in Iowa with two snouts, two tongues, two esophagi, and three eyes.
It's so fascinating that the lack of one protein can change a human being into something that no longer seems human. You would never look at a baby with one eye in the middle of its head and think of it as human. And yet, the only detail that separates that baby from you is the production of a single protein. If you think about it, who we are is really just the balance of our biochemistry. Look at schizophrenia, bipolar illnesses, ADD. Fucked up people can function normally on the right medication. But look, also, at the recent research on vole monogamy. Monogamy isn't necessarily an ideal with moral implications; it's our bodies' reaction to oxytocin and vasopressin. It's interesting to see how some of the publications -- including science publications -- talk about monogamy and love like the two are the same thing. Sometimes in flowery language that seems somehow inappropriate in an article published in a science journal.
But I'm not judging. I'm as much a sucker for love as anyone can get, and have never cheated on anyone or tolerated cheating. But I can be hard headed and hard hearted when I need to be about it. I guess I must be pretty good at producing and responding to oxytocin, and have perhaps slightly more testosterone than your average female adult :)
| Sex Ed | 10:21 PM |
I was just talking to my son and he said he started sex education last Friday. Sex education! What did you guys talk about? We just started with the book -- we talked about puberty. Growing hair and stuff. Next week the boys and girls are going to be separated for lessons. Has your father talked to you about sex? No. Do you want him to talk to you about it? Uhhhhh....I don't know. Do you want me to talk to you about it? Uhhhhh....I don't know. Well, why don't we talk about it the next time I come visit you.
Gosh, he's so old -- I was telling someone at work today, hey, you're twice my son's age! My co-worker was born in '81. 1981! I don't normally hang out with people who's birth years are in the '80's. But I'm sure there's plenty of them in my group.
It feels weird to be thinking about talking about sex with my son. A friend of mine emailed me and said how much he appreciated having his mother talk to him about sex when he was young. And how much easier it was to talk to her about it than his father. I thought Josh might be more comfortable having his father talk to him about it, and figured I'd let him know I was available for any questions, but my friend's email made me realize I should just talk to him -- if he's uncomfortable, he'll let me know and we'll talk about something else. But I like that the fact that my 11 year old can be mature and comfortable with adult subjects. And I like to think I had something to do with that :)
| Week at Work | 1:22 AM |
Oh...I'm awful excited about work this next week. Mostly because I'm working on a fun project, and also because I might get to see some EFF folks tomorrow. And a friend of mine is interviewing tomorrow and it looks positive. And the weather's been so damn nice. I worked all weekend and am really excited about writing a decent chunk of perl (I've never had to write much perl) -- writing a new xml rpc ars api wrapper (couldn't resist all those three letter acronyms) and then a friendly php wrapper for that, and then rewriting several applications. I haven't gotten to do much programming the last couple of weeks so this is so refreshing and much needed. It's getting closer and closer to the end of my three months and I feel more at home every day. Coworkers keep getting friendlier and nicer. And I feel like our group is doing very well. And soon will be growing, but I think we can haul in some good people for that :) And my boss is very encouraging and appreciative, and just as protective of our group as I am.
On a funny side note -- someone hit the site with the search query, "mad niggerish" off MSN.
| Proof Positive? | 11:18 AM |
French mathematician at Purdue claims to have proved the Riemann hypothesis is true.
| Chatty Hospital Staff Divulges Sensitive Info | 12:36 AM |
Forget HIPAA -- it doesn't cover casual water cooler conversations that give away private patient information to anyone within earshot. Social security numbers, medical test results, details of your case...all discussed amongst hospital staff indiscreetly and inappropriately in public, or overheard in phone conversations.
| Consumers Rate Companies' Trustworthiness | 12:16 AM |
A recent poll ranks consumers' trust in companies. eBay ranked as the most trusted US company for privacy. Google received a positive ranking, but didn't place in the top 20. Hotels and grocery stores are considered less trustworthy, while internet companies, banks, and health organizations were ranked most trustworthy (I wonder if in that order). Amazon, HP, IBM, EarthLink and Dell were all in the top 10, along with AmEx, Procter & Gamble, and the USPS.
The article mentions that consumers are becoming more and more concerned about protecting civil liberties. I think that's awesome: the more people worry, the more we're likely to take action.
| Medical Privacy | 2:44 AM |
At lunch today a couple of the guys were talking about hospital visits and how the staff log everything. Who visited when and did they bring flowers, did they hold the baby, was there any conflict or arguing? And more than one person claimed this was true. A perfunctory search on google yielded nothing to back up these personal anecdotes, but I'm going to go on the assumption that is true. Someone mentioned that a resident friend of his told him he had to write everything down because you, as a doctor, didn't ever want to be accused of not knowing something or not remembering something that might have been critical to a patient's welfare. Doctors get sued for malpractice all the time. They pay outrageous amounts of money for malpractice insurance. I can see why you'd want to take careful notes about everything you possibly could.
But it raises a really interesting privacy issue, too. Medical records should be "sacred secrets", shared only with other professionals when absolutely needed. But if doctors and nurses are actually taking such copious and detailed notes -- it's not just your medical records, it's also personal data in those files. HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), which went into effect on April 14, 2003, set national standards for maintaining the privacy of health information, but is limited to the information maintained by health care providers, health plans and health clearinghouses only if they transmit it in electronic form. And it doesn't actually prevent medical information from being shared for marketing purposes, or sharing between doctors without explicit consent, or providing information to the public and the media (unless the patient explicitly opts out), and we don't have the power to sue if these regulations are grossly violated. Doesn't seem like a whole lot of privacy, does it? <HIPAA Myths, HIPAA Basics>
I was just reading an article last night about how HIPAA could hinder information flow -- even if you've made legal provisions for someone to act in your stead if you become completely incapacitated or incompetent. If you don't make explicit HIPAA clauses in your legal documents, the distribution of your money and tangible goods, or your requested medical wishes, might not be honored because without the medical information there is no way for your wife or child or other designated stand in to prove that you are in the condition you've claused in your will.
And it made me wonder how soon after a lawsuit occurred challenging these difficulties, would someone try to alter the minimal standards of medical privacy we currently have. Privacy is such a hard thing to try to maintain. If we really care about our privacy, we have to make a conscious and concerted effort to try to safeguard it. And it's easy to give up because convenience is always the pay off for giving up some privacy. I'm just as guilty of it as anyone else.
And the threats to privacy only get worse as technology ever increasingly becomes more advanced. Cameras are everywhere. RFIDs are prevalent and soon to become much more so (big business is already touting the high returns on investment in RFID), unencrypted email, wireless networks, data mining and caching. Not to mention threats to homeland security and the rights we've lost with the PATRIOT Act. It just doesn't end.
| Oh How I Love The TV | 2:41 AM |
Reno 911 is the funniest fucking TV show on the air right now. I think they're entering their second season -- new season starts on Wednesday at 10:30PST. The cast is so hilarious. Each and every single one of them makes me laugh my ass off. And I love white trash humor.
And black humor, too. I caught a bit of the Dave Chappelle show last week and heard the funniest expression that I'll never be able to use: mad niggerish. Charlie Murphy walking into Studio 54 and seeing Rick James acting all mad niggerish slapping bitches and shit.
We went TV shopping this past weekend, and I'm thinking about spending over a thousand dollars on a TV set. I don't get to watch it a lot, but when I do, I love television -- commercials and all. And I want quality TV (and a TV I can actually see from the couch) -- a 30" high definition flat screen TV. Though hopefully I'll come to my senses and make a more reasonable first TV purchase.
It's funny how long I went without a TV and that I didn't really miss it -- especially given how much I love it. I only wish we had HBO.
| Inking Metallic Patterns; Cheaper RFID Tags | 11:19 AM |
Interesting article about an ink produced by QinetiQ and Sun Chemical that allows you to draw patterns and "grow" metal. Useful, of course, for RFID tags. It's supposed to be cheaper, faster, and more environment friendly. RFID Journal article; QinetiQ press release.
| Monster, The Not Very Lighthearted Movie | 2:14 AM |
The three of us had a nice dinner together and watched Monster (we did manage to get out of the house today and run a couple of errands: tv browsing and grocery shopping). What a sad fucking movie. I've had a rough day and it just made me think about how complex our emotions are. How one emotion bleeds into another and sometimes our motives for doing something or feeling something don't seem to make sense, but if you look carefully enough, they do.
And I've been feeling really human and vulnerable today. Sad and angry and frustrated about the way I'm feeling, and physically unwell to top it off and exacerbate it. And I know why I feel this way, not just at a quick glance, but on a deeper level, but I don't know how to fix it. All I can do is ride it out; wait for time to do its thing.
I've become a terrible communicator with friends and family -- I'm out of touch a lot. I haven't called my mother in weeks and weeks. I don't call my sister if she doesn't initiate it. Same with my son. It takes me days, sometimes weeks to respond to emails. With my friends it's just because I have so little time for myself, but I'm not talking to my family because I don't want to feel the way I did watching Monster -- heart full of sympathy and empathy and intense sadness, but such debilitating frustration, too, because nothing you can do is going to fix anything for anyone. You can't stop the course of some things. You just have to wait and watch them happen.
I can't take my mother's heartbreak. I can't take my sister's pain, my son missing me. I haven't spoken to my father in months because I can't bear the thought of what I'd say to him -- what I should say to him. I can't bear to think of him at all because I can't stand what he's doing. And I feel like I'm running away. Pushing people aside to clear my path. Why can't I deal with things? How'd I ever become so fragile? Jealousy, hurt, anger, sadness -- all a big jumble, all one emotion.
And maybe this is why I always want to go. Moving on always means leaving someone or something behind. Cleaning house means you purge yourself of emotions you once had. Learn to live without. And I don't think that's a bad thing -- if your reasons for doing it are valid. But try quantifying valid, and you'll see what I mean.
When I go, you don't get to keep that real estate in my heart; I need it cleared up for something else.
| Drunk | 1:42 AM |
Why do I do this to myself? Every time I get drunk I tell myself that I will never do this again. But I often don't know that I'm going to be sick until it's too late. It's not as gradual a process as I wish it were -- sometimes it is and then I can refrain from getting ill, but sometimes I can't tell. Like Saturday night. I had two beers, a couple of shots of jägermeister, and a few sips of Johnnie Walker. So four drinks over the course of three hours. You'd think I'd be fine, right? Got drunk and sentimental last night, don't really remember how I got into the house (luckily Marg and Ineke took care of that), sat with my head on the toilet for a while when I made it to the bathroom, then passed out in my bed with all my clothes on. I woke up the next morning -- Ineke had not only put a clip in my hair while I was hugging the toilet, but also laid out a clean towel, brought in a stool and set a glass of water on it, and put a small trashcan right by my head. So thoughtful and sweet -- and she managed to do all that while intoxicated as well!
I got up early cause I was starving and couldn't fall back asleep. I made myself my usual breakfast -- carrot sticks, grapefruit, toast, plain yogurt, and since I was so terribly hungry -- a fried egg for protein. Except the egg made me nauseous. And all I wanted was the sweet grapefruit. I went and laid on the couch afterwards because I didn't feel like I could do anything else and thought of all the things I wanted to do today -- ride my bike, run some errands, go to the gym, and thought pleasantly about how early it was in the day to be up and how much day I was going to have. I went into the living room because I thought I'd watch a movie or some tv while I recuperated, but as I way lying there I couldn't bear the thought of turning the tv on. And it was all I could do to not move and risk putting any pressure on any part of my body that might possibly make me nauseaus. I lay there for half an hour before giving up and going to bed thinking that I'd at least peruse my Latin book and get started on that and try to feel useful. Except I grabbed my German books and promptly fell asleep.
To wake up four hours later, near 2PM, feeling as shitty as I did earlier. Starving again, head woozy, tummy sensitive, and a lot less hopeful of accomplishing anything today.
Ugh. Must remember to eat lots of food with alcohol. Lots of food. I got to the party last night with an empty stomach, but no appetite so all I did was nibble on a plate. I don't think anything I ate soaked up any alcohol because it leeched me dry and saturated my bloodstream.
| Personal Development | 12:04 AM |
I was talking with a good friend about Eternal Sunshine the other day and he made an interesting comment about the movie -- how the events in our lives make us who we are and how sometimes wiping out a memory that might've been bad can actually retard your emotional/psychological growth. The Kirsten Dunst character -- she had the affair wiped from her memory, but she couldn't get past that point in her life -- there was something about that memory, that relationship, that she needed in order to move on. And when she no longer had it, she proceeded to recreate it.
I've always thought the same about the events in my life. That everything I've ever experienced has made me the person I am now. I like the person I am now. Even with the emotional complexities and the overthinking, I like me. I think I'm a good person. Not a perfect person, but a good hearted one. And I wonder if I removed some portion of it, who would I be? No slightly upleasant past. No drugs, arrests, or running away. If I hadn't lived in so many different homes, would I be less tolerant? Would I be less vulgar if I'd hung out with a different crowd in high school? Would I be less soft hearted if I didn't have a son? How can you take away one thing and not rearrange your entire past? Events trickle; they are not discrete, unrelated chunks of time. One event stimulates another and another.
There's always been something about moving on that's been attractive to me. I hate to stagnate. I hate the idea of being complacent, of settling, of getting overly comfortable. I've been wondering a lot lately if it's true that as you get older, you become less idealistic. About your career, about your life, your partner, your potential. Do you decide at some point to just accept easy and less complicated?
I've been thinking lately that I've resigned myself to work that I don't always love. I'm not that old; I feel a little ridiculous. But I have to support myself, I generally like what I do, and I'm generally good at what I do -- I've just lost most of my passion for it. And when I try to think of something else I could do instead, I can't think of another realistic line of work that I would love more than what I do now and that lets me earn enough in wages to live comfortably in San Francisco. One of the sweetest things anyone ever said to me was that he fantasized about living together and letting me sit at home and read and write all day long. Maybe I told him that was my fantasy career at some point, but that he remembered and that he wanted to give that to me was sweeter than anything else he'd ever given me.
And it's easy when you have such affection to get distracted. Attachment to a person, a place, a thing. I get torn about whether I'm being selfish, or simply self-aware, and sometimes I can't decide if I'm being one or the other when I make a decision. I just know I need to go.
| RSA Security Chief Scientist on RFID | 12:37 PM |
QA with Burt Kaliski. He makes good, rational points. He doesn't say much that's new in the RFID conversation, however he makes mention of something that I haven't heard any discussion about yet -- that deactivating the RFID tag also disables benefits of the tag. Currently privacy advocates believe that having the ability to disable the tag at will is a good thing. And while it may be a good thing now for privacy, I agree with Kaliski that there has to be another way to safeguard privacy and still be able to take advantage of the technology. If killing the tags is the only way to ensure my privacy, then my dreams of a smart fridge are never going to be realized.
| State of the Union Address | 1:57 PM |
You've probably already seen this, but I just saw it today for the first time -- I almost peed my pants watching this! Slightly Modified State of the Union speech (mov file).
| Current State of Sex Continued | 1:50 PM |
That article from last night reminded me that my son is soon to be in the 6th grade. Sixth grade -- then it's junior high school and that's just a couple of years from high school. I had a dream the other night he was a head taller than me. He's getting old and his sister and cousins are already in their teens. And I wonder if they talk about sex so openly and explicitly. Sometimes I worry that my son will have questions, but not ask. His family is communicative and open and even though we tell him all the time he can pose any questions he may have, he seems a private and reserved person.
The only sex education I got was from health class, but it didn't leave much of an impression on me. And my parents never spoke of sex, though I was constantly told I was not to masturbate because it was really evil and god would punish me (though, ironically, I was not told to not have sex). I didn't have any ideals about sex, and no real sense of what it was and wasn't, and I desperately don't want my son to feel that way. I want him to be informed. I don't want him to have sex. Ever. But that's not very realistic. I don't want to talk about sex explicitly with him (for god's sake, he's only 11!), but I don't want him to feel like we didn't talk to him about it at all. Every now and again, I'll bug his father -- "have you had the talk with him?", "you know, you should really do it soon." I think it'd embarass him if I broach the subject. Better if it comes from the dad. And easier on me.