Relegated to the Attic

Well, it's happened, and probably, some will say, it was inevitable. I've put away my archives for now, due to some...shall we say, 'lack of security' issues. As always, it's really no one's fault but my own. As you all know, you've all been tracked - I have a site counter attached to this blog, and it tells me whenever you log on, what search terms you used to find this place, what your operating system and browser are, your IP address, and your time zone. For the most part, I don't care how many times you come to read, and I love that anyone does. Part of my inspiration to write these entries is from my friends who do come here, and it would certainly be harder to motivate myself to write if you wonderful souls never visited.

Mostly, I used the counter, just in case someone I didn't want to find this blog, ended up coming here. One visitor found my blog by typing into the Yahoo! search engine the name of a former advisor of mine, and his research area of interest. Well, of the top 5 links, three point to his biographical sketch on his department's official website, and two of them to my blog, in which I pretty much let fly what I think of my former "mentor." In some ways, this is quite comical, but in other ways, this could be quite scary. I traced the IP addresses using ARIN and found that the persons reading my site are actually affiliated with the institution which my former "mentor" ditched us for.

Now several people have found this blog in the past several days using the exact same search terms, so I'm hoping for the best - that being several graduate students and post-docs who know this person are getting a decent chuckle out of the post. In the worst-case scenario, several of his colleagues have found it and passed it on to him. I don't feel I've done anything wrong except to tell the truth about this person, but you never know, and, with him, I think it's best to adopt a CYA policy.

So, I contacted a lawyer, and discussed with him any possible legal problems I might be facing as a result. To sum up this half-hour conversation, I think I'll be able to avoid any fines and/or jail, but I should take a number of steps, including shutting down the archives for a while. Regrettably, you can still find these archived posts using the Yahoo! search engine, but there's nothing else to be done in that regard.

And if you're a student/tech/post-doc down in Crab Cake Country, and you work for this person, God Bless. Or perhaps I'm 100% wrong and he's done a 180° turnaround and evolved into God's Gift to Graduate Students. Leave me a note to say 'hi.' If you're faculty, then never mind because your soul is probably bound for the same place as his.

And that's about it. Lawyers are expensive. Luckily I know one that takes a couple pints of beer as payment.

Later! (Back to writing...)

Edit: Archives back online. I don't think my former "mentor" has been here, and even if he has, I've got nothing to hide.

Where's Mikey?

Hi! Guest Poster Cathy, here! I don't know about the rest of you regular readers of this blog, but for me, this blog is the best method I have of keeping tabs on our beloved Mikey. Oh yeah, I also come here for the witty writing (none of which you'll get from me...sorry, I hope you didn't have your hopes up).

Having said that, I'm beginning to worry about the sparse posting from Mikey. By the looks of it, Mikey's gone missing. Has anyone seen him lately? Here are the possible explanations for Mikey's disappearance:

A) He's frantically writing his masterpiece of a thesis.
B) He has lost interest in blogging and no longer cares about entertaining his adoring readership.
C) He slipped in the shower, hit his head, and was knocked unconscious.
D) Someone call 9-1-1!

And that's all I was able to come up with. Feel free to vote for your favorite or offer other ideas for what may have happened...Unless you've actually had a Mikey-sighting. In that case, please do respond, so that we know he's safe! That's why we're really here, after all!

Research Envy

Another research project added to the ever-growing list of Projects that are WAY more interesting than Mikey's:

I remember reading a paper in Nature some months ago about a research project that detailed the perfect water-skipping stone - its shape and the ideal throwing angle. That, I thought, was so cool.

Now comes a research project that is not only cool, but also practical in the kitchen. Click here for the story about unpopped popcorn kernels.

*******

What I'm listening to now: Groove Salad, from SomaFM.

Jade Empire

So as the new Pope would say, eine Hand wascht die andere. Yesterday, our pal Mikey lent me the new RPG for the Xbox, Jade Empire. Although it is brand new and when he brought it over it was unopened, Mike knows his own limitations. Rather than have the constant temptation to begin a new hundred-hour gaming experience, he brought the game to me to hang onto until he's got a reasonable handle on his writing (he'll get it back perhaps in June).

In any event, since he is intrepidly plugging away at his dissertation, and neither playing on his Xbox nor updating his blog daily, I thought I would lend a hand and provide my review of the new game in his stead.

JADE EMPIRE FREAKING RAWKS!!!

Okay, less articulate than Mikey's normal entry, but seriously, it freakin' rawks for real.

Jade Empire is the new role playing game from Bioware, the geniuses who developed Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR to the cognoscenti) - the Star Wars prequel RPG (although I'm not writing here to review that game, rest assured it was better than both Episodes I & II combined and deep fried). This time around, they went with a fantasy story environment set in the fictional equivalent of medieval China.

Pros:
The immersive game play is exactly as cool as KOTOR, but with a more original feel and much lusher environments than George Lucas' sterile future/past setting could provide. The voice acting is on par with the previous game, but is far better than most video game voice acting one will hear. (Apparently, John Cleese lends his voice to a character - or characters - in the game, but I haven't run across him/her/it yet.)

What really makes this game the new crack is the fighting system. Bioware replaced the traditional turn-based¹ combat with a real-time fighting system. In Jade Empire I layeth the smackdown without the flow of gameplay being broken by random number generation and waiting turn. Nice. I die a lot, but I will not decrease the difficulty of the game! I will not submit!


Cons:
The problem with the real time fighting is that, unlike a game like Mortal Kombat, say, the fighting combos in the game are unsophisticated. It's kind of a button masher. It's not a real minus, given the huge improvement overall, but gives room for Bioware to make Jade Empire II even better. Oh yeah!

What really messed me up was a moment of cognitive dissonance followed by an experience I'll label as retro-disappointing.

The cognitive dissonance: I have been completely enveloped by the world of this game, and suspended disbelief entirely. It's fantasy, as I mentioned, so there are improbable fighting moves, spells, monsters and demons, and magic items/weapons all over the place. No problem. But when I got to the bamboo airplane that flies as the result of the combination of magic and fireworks I lost my ability to just accept. "That's just not realistic!" I thought. Then I remembered I'm playing a twenty-year old monk who can cast spells, slow time, and defeat giant toad demons with his fists. Maybe I should just get in the plane and forget about it. It's my problem, not the game's.

The Retro-disappointing: I got in the plane. I was then whisked away to a top-down slow scrolling shooter (like Galaga from back in the day). I was watching from far above my bamboo MIG as it shot little white pellets at the other bamboo planes flying in an aerial ballet formation, vaporizing them. Eh. It was the most beautiful top-down slow scrolling shooter I have ever seen, however. That's just not my bag, baby.

Did it kill the game? No. Was it too long? No. Why bring it up? So I don't launch into some hyperbole like, Jade Empire is the best game in the history of anything what ever was!!

I love this game. I love Mike for lending it to me. Hear me Mike? IIIIIII loooooooveeeeee yoooooooouuuuuu!

And I'm out. I've got to go mack some more on Dawn Star. Before the end of the game she will be mine. Oh yes, she will be mine.

---

¹ I am assuming that if you're reading Mikey's blog you are familiar with gaming lingo. If not, check this glossary.

Instant Authorship

An interesting news item about a group of MIT students questioning the peer review process, in this case, that of the World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (WMSCI). The students created a program that would generate phony research papers, complete with diagrams and references. They submitted two of these papers to WMSCI, and one of them was accepted for presentation.

One of the conference organizers claims that there is always a pool of papers that will be accepted without review due to time constraints, but I doubt his word in this case*. I'd believe it if the paper was accepted to put up as a poster, but the WMSCI was inviting this group of students to speak about their results - most conferences would have given this paper a serious review before inviting the publisher to give a full-blown presentation.

You can generate your very own non-sensical scientific publication (I know, redundant) here.

* I'm mistaken - the original acceptance letter, published on the MIT website, to the students clearly states that their submission was accepted as a 'non-reviewed paper.' Still, I don't think this would be an acceptable policy at any respectable scientific conference, and it appears that WMSCI is held in rather low regard in Computer Science circles.

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What I'm listening to now: Piano Sonatas Nos. 20 and 21, W.A. Mozart

Of all Mozart's works, I am most unfamiliar with his sonatas, mostly because they get the least play on classical music radio stations. Most often, they play his symphonies or one of the sections from his Requiem. However, some of his best compositions are his piano sonatas, and probably the best way to track his maturity as a composer, as opposed to his symphonies, which he cranked out like so much pop music.

An early (and brief) progress update

We all sorely complain of the shortness of time, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives are either spent in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do. We are always complaining that our days are few, and acting as though there would be no end of them.

- Seneca

*******

You know, I actually like this writing business. I'm not saying that I'm changing my mind and reconsidering academia as a career path - I still don't see myself writing research grants. But the writing process seems more intellectually stimulating to me, compared to my laboratory experience, where consistency and repetition led to me becoming kind of a mindless robot working about the lab.

But, I must admit that building momentum during the thesis writing process has been the biggest step thus far. Once I got into it, though, my rate of progress increased. I graphed it for you:

Obviously I'm far from finished, but at least I got off ground level.

I'd thought it would be fun to install a Mikey-Thesis-Writing-WebCam, but thought better of it after seeing a recent Non Sequitur:



Okay, back to work...

*******

What I'm listening to now: A Rush of Blood to the Head, Coldplay

"God Put a Smile Upon Your Face" is one of those songs I could put on an endless loop.

If it's too loud, you're too old!

Video-Game Boy is playing his techno music again. I swear his subwoofer is able to create soundwaves using my cranium. Hello??? Doctoral dissertation being written over here!

I've gained momentum working on all these thesis figures, and I've hit a snag trying to figure out this new graphing software that I have. It seems as if Video-Game Boy is celebrating this by jacking up the volume on his stereo. Jagoff. I'd wring his neck if he had one.

Last night, he tried to push the envelope by playing his stereo loud for a couple seconds at a time - my guess is he's either trying to see how far he can go before I go over there again, or perhaps it's his passive-aggressive way of flipping me the bird.

I'm going to take the high road on this. Instead of pounding on the wall that we share, or leaving a brown bag of flaming excrement in front of his door, I'm going to do something nice. I'm going to burn him a CD of Artur Rubinstein playing Chopin ballades. And the day after that I'll burn him a CD of Alicia de LaRoccha playing the works of Enrique Granados. Leave him a little note saying: "Enjoy - the ladies will LOVE this!" Not that it's worked for me. Anyway, hopefully this act of kindness will turn him into a more considerate neighbor.

Of course, I do get some satisfaction in the knowledge that he probably is getting less action than I am now (edit: I just realized that technically, this is impossible) :-( I mean, a kid that spends most of his day playing on his Playstation 2 and then taking time off from that to hang out over with his buddies at EB Games HAS to be alone, right? If not, I'm going to sink into a depression from which I'll never recover.

*******

What I'm listening to now: Extraordinary Machine, Fiona Apple

This is an album recorded by Fiona Apple, but Sony Music, which owns the rights, has declined to release the recording to the public. Someone leaked the tracks on the internet, and Bracken alerted me to their availability. It's rather eclectic and it's hard to categorize into a single genre. I have to say that it's pretty catchy, although some tracks remind me of The Beatles' Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite. A little loopy here and there - don't know if it'll make the cut onto Mikey's Pod.

Tired eyes

The race is not always to the swift, but to those who keep on running.

-Anonymous

*******

I'm tired. I've been looking at the same data for days now, and yet, I don't deserve a break because I'm far from finished. I also need a haircut, as you can see with my bangs trying to mask my eyesight - but perhaps I'll go with the shaggy look until I'm satisfied with my progress.

It's kind of ironic, now that I think about where I am: I've wanted to be sitting in front of my computer, just worrying about writing, and here I am. But it's also distracted me from other chores I should be doing, like laundry, or paying taxes, or filling in my choices for clerkship sites. The last day for requesting clerkship sites is today, and thank goodness John called to make sure I'd done that. I need to appreciate that for a while - what a great friend for calling on a weekend to make sure I met the deadline, or else I'd be stuck in the worst locations possible for each rotation. Honestly, most places are okay, I just tried to avoid the ones my friends tagged as 'AVOID AT ALL COSTS.'

Better get back to work.

*******

What I'm listening to now: Somethin' Else, Cannonball Adderley

Some great swing jazz from a legendary jazz saxophonist, includes Miles Davis on trumpet. Good stuff to work to, as it can fade into the background, but one can hear the brilliance of the musicians should you focus on listening.

Miserere mei, doctor philosophiæ

Emboldened by Mike's relinquishing the reins of his blog, I choose this opportunity to come clean regarding a matter that has been weighing heavily upon my conscience for several seconds now. Thus, as the first guest poster on Mikey's Lab Blog, I issue this limited mea culpa and pray forgiveness for my transgressions.

You see, I was complicit in the activity which is probably partially to blame to a de minimus extent for Mike missing the first of his self imposed deadlines, and accept responsibility for at least a tiny tiny portion of his dilatoriness. Maybe a paragraph's worth. (How fast can you write Mike?)

Irrespective of his speed as a writer, yesterday I entertained Mike's spiritual weakness and accompanied him to lunch when I should have dropped the hammer and declined his invitation (although, in my defense, I did not eat anything myself). Alas, however, I am a bad influence, and saw this as an opportunity to improve my own social prospects for the afternoon.

Fearing the emptiness that is my own soul, I dragged Mike on an excursion down Newbury Street looking at used CDs and action figures. I even encouraged him, based upon my favorable review, to buy the Family Style CD by Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughn (likely to further distract him from writing due to all of the air guitar he's undoubtedly been playing) knowing full well that the posthumously released In the Beginning by a solo Stevie is a far superior record. OH GOD! WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?!

I therefore offer this commination of my sins as penitence for leading my brother astray:

I acknowledge and bewail my manifold sins and wickedness, Which I, from time to time, most grievously have committed, by thought, word and deed, against thy Divine PhD Dissertation. Provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against me. To the extent that you spent your weekend pursuing your Divine Works when you could have been supplicating at the altar of the XBox instead, I beseech thee, mercifully hear my prayer, and spare all those who confess their sins unto thee (uh, that means ME, if I'm being a little too vague for your liking); that I, by thy merciful PhD, may be absolved.

Amen.

Oh wait. You don't mind that I just ratted you out for playing hookey yesterday, do you?

Let the Flogging Begin

Yep, I saw it coming. I'm going to miss the first deadline.

It's really not that big a deal, I think I can finish the sections over the weekend. This doesn't excuse me from my punishment, however. As a result, I'm giving contributor privileges to some of you to verbally flog me right here on my very own blog. So...have at it!

The Last Straw

I despise confrontation. Those of you who know me in person are probably really surprised by that. No, really - if something really annoys me, I'll usually deal with it entirely in my head, plotting a complex, intricate revenge in exquisite detail. This plan, of course, will never see the light of day.

The last several nights have been quite unbearable. My next door neighbor is playing some violent video game, and he (I'm assuming it's a 'he' - I know absolutely no women who would stay up this late on a weekday night or ever to play a video game) has been playing it until about 3 o'clock in the morning with his speakers turned up to 11. The wall that my bedroom shares with his apartment his been vibrating in perfect synchronization with his subwoofer. When this person isn't playing video games, he's playing his techno dance music even louder (the very same apartment that made it into my Axis of Quasi-Evil).

So, I've just let it go, but it's certainly messing with my sleeping patterns. Last night I didn't fall asleep until 4:30 AM and then woke up at noon. Obviously, this can't go on. Tonight I figured I'd let him play until 1 in the morning before I stomped over there. The clock passed 1, and the explosive vibrations continued. I tried to sleep through it, pretending that the noise was merely a passing storm. Then it got louder and then the opposite wall gave a little twitch. FINALLY, I got out of bed, picked up my keys (because it would be just like me to lock myself out at a time like this), and walked over. I knocked on the door. No answer - apparently he couldn't hear me. I waited for a break in the explosions before I knocked again. I heard the game pause. The door opened.

Now, for some reason, I imagined that some college frat boy was going to open up and respond to my request with that characteristic mix of arrogance and condescension. That I would get into one of those college dormitory speaker wars which sinks into more vile behavior like crank calls in the middle of the night or stuffing stink bombs under each other's apartment door. Thoughts like that were enough to prevent me from initiating any kind of complaint against my next-door neighbor. But I needed sleep, so this time, I was going to do it.

The person that opened the door was just a skinny, pale kid of indeterminate age. He could have been 15, he could have been 21 - either way, he needed some sunlight and some exercise. One of those kids you see spending their entire day socializing with the kids who have the privilege of a job at EB Games. I imagine those EB Games employees are gods to this guy.

Anyway, he looked surprised to see me. I said politely, "Hey there, I live next door to you - would you mind turning down your speakers?" Video-game Boy said, "Uh, okay." So he turned the speakers down. I can still hear him, but at least my walls aren't vibrating anymore.

And that's it. Sorry, anti-climactic, I know, and I regret not putting him in a headlock just for the sake of this blog entry, but that's life - you have to get used to disappointment.

*******

What I'm listening to now: Sweet silence. Almost.

Keep it on the QC

I'd been wanting to write about this topic for a while, but kept on hitting a wall. No matter what angle I approached it from, I kept on coming to the same conclusion - that I really had no conclusion, therefore not much to write. But then some higher power hears my frustration and answers me in the form of this Slate article. The topic is about the peer review system and whether it works in the world of science.

The advantages of the peer review system are readily apparent: it serves to judge the quality of an investigator's work and, if implemented correctly, will be constructive in improving the quality of research being performed by the scientific community. However, sometimes you look around and see people who have ascended despite the quality of their work.

**cough** matthewshaitan **cough**

I think that the peer review process does indeed hold the scientific community to a certain standard, but I also think that the system causes scientists to converge their communication styles, and therefore, their approaches to research and experimental design. It's a system that may sometimes deter innovation, which, obviously, is what research should be all about.

Also, there are ways around the quality control purpose of the peer review process. Take, for example, an investigator who we will call, hmm, I don't know, say, 'M'. 'M' is a senior faculty member at a large biomedical institution who has sat on many a grant review committee. By participating in these sessions, 'M' has learned the 'tricks' of the grant review process. One may read 'tricks' to mean things like experimental controls or new research protocols to apply to one's area of study. But....no.

'M' has a healthy disdain for experimental controls, as sometimes they nullify the results of the experiment. Darn pesky controls can be so incovenient, huh? Additionally, 'M' is loathe to adopt new technologies - establishing new protocols in the lab takes time and money, both of which can be momentum-killers. Better to exhaust existing (even archaic) technology until nobody takes it seriously anymore.

No, to 'M', the 'tricks' apply to grant-writing format, keywords, and key phrases that automatically reward the grant with a higher score when it is evaluted at these review sessions. In short, a researcher can have his/her grant stand out amongst all the others with just a few precious phrases. 'M' is able to work this and bring in several grants and thus become the big breadwinner in his/her department. Moral of the story: If you learn to work the system, you can also become a research superstar!!!

Obviously, the story of 'M' does not constitute evidence against the peer review system, but I think it does demonstrate that any system will have cracks, especially one that is supposed to evaluate such a large and diverse pool of individuals. This is where I run into the wall. How to fix it? Where do we go from here? I have no freaking idea. And that's where the article rescues me and alerts me to the fact that a commission has been studying the peer review process for almost two decades now. And they still don't have any solid answers. At least someone up there recognizes that there may be a problem.

I'd go on except I've got a deadline Friday.

So - what do you all think? Especially those of you who read but never write. Yeah, I'm looking at you.

*******

What I'm listening to now: The Final Cut, Pink Floyd

This certainly isn't the most depressing of Pink Floyd's albums. I reserve that honor for Dark Side of the Moon, which made me almost jump off our balcony back in college. The only casualty, however, would have been a trampled rosebed as we lived on the first floor. The Final Cut gets high marks for depressing imagery due to "The Gunner's Dream", which are the thoughts of a World War II paratrooper as he parachutes behind enemy lines.

Not exactly the best writing music that iTunes could have chosen for me.

Update:

What I'm really listening to now: Possessed, The Balanescu Quartet

I'd finished writing this blog and was going about doing some formatting when I accidentally deleted the whole thing. Arrrgh. Anyway, this quartet is much better writing music than Pink Floyd. It's a bunch of Kraftwerk songs transcribed for a string quartet. Good stuff. And cheerful, too - that Floyd album had me dragging.

I should note that I pilfered this 'What I'm listening to now' idea from another blog, yet another good idea from Dave. I'd copy his flickr thing, too, except my photos don't come anywhere near to his in terms of quality.

Cooking with Mikey

I love my new cookware. I'm not allowed to have a grill on my porch (a fire hazard, they say, but they won't do a thing about all the chain smokers in my building, despite the statistics demonstrating that cigarettes are the leading cause of fires in the U.S.), so my sister Cathy alerted me to this fantastic invention called a "Cast-Iron Grill Pan." This revolutionary new material known as 'cast iron' is amazingly versatile, durable, and cheap. And the grill pan model allows one to grill at home without owning a real grill, which I find too expensive and too big a chore to maintain. So, I grabbed a recipe from the 'Cooking with Cast Iron' cookbook by Mara Reid Rogers, and made this Lime-Tequila Grill Pan Chicken. Except without the tequila, as I find it to be one of the most vile liquors ever (mind you, I'm sure all I've ever had is the cheap stuff). I used some whiskey in the place of the tequila , and it worked. But what I most love about this thing are the GRILL MARKS! BRILLIANT!

This weekend, I also craved spaghetti - however, I'm trying my best to stay away from highly processed foods, and pasta is rather high-calorie. 4 ounces of spaghetti (dry) is over 400 calories, with 85 grams of carbohydrates. In contrast, 1 cup of spaghetti squash has only 42 calories, with 10 grams of carbohydrates. And cooking spaghetti squash is neat-o!

What does one eat with spaghetti squash? Why, spaghetti sauce, of course! I made a nice ragu on Sunday, too. Mmmmmmmmm....

Deadlines

"If a man should conquer in battle a thousand and a thousand more, and another should conquer himself, his would be the greater victory, because the greatest of victories is the victory over oneself."
----Buddha

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My friend Heather suggested that I post these deadlines - a public declaration of dates that hopefully will force some sort of perceived public pressure on my person so I can meet each one of them. The following three dates Barb calculated at reasonable intervals for me to meet, depending on the particular section of the dissertation that I'm working on. Having everything done by the first week of May would be nice - that would give Barb and the second reviewer plenty of time to go over the work and make any necessary corrections. I may even get in a little vacation before starting the surgery clerkship (keep your fingers crossed).

Here they are:

• April 8: "Introduction" and "Materials & Methods" sections due.
• April 20: "Results" section due.
• May 6: "Discussion" section due.

So, should I miss any one of these, any of you reading are welcome to visit and publicly flog me. Or, if you can't get here, you're more than welcome to call me up and yell silly insults into my ear. Or if you can't manage that, you could always resort to sending me a nasty little email.

Now does anyone know where I can score a steady supply of Ritalin?