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WHAT IS BEAUTY? |
According to the Speculist, beauty is a program:The program is deliberately designed to be perceived as the will of the host organism (the guy who's looking) playing out - rather than a preprogrammed directive. This deliberately stealthy program takes over most of the identity and action of the host during puberty and - at least until reproduction succeeds - and in all truth, continues without any letup until the hormones and other agents driving the program are reduced in effect by the ravages of aging. By way of example, a dog probably perceives that when it chases a stick it is "choosing to chase the stick" - yet, a human would say "well, dog's are IMPELLED to chase the stick by influence of instinct"...in just such a fashion, humans believe they CHOOSE to follow the siren song of beauty (a babelicious one) - yet, the very belief of such choice prevents them from ever knowing that they are NOT in control of their actions (and thus - lives). Fascinating stuff. I think he's right, and I find that to be oddly frightening.
thus ranteth Pericles v. 2.0 at 8:39 AM | Permalink |
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All I want for Christmas... |
From the Washington post:
4 years after the war in Iraq began, the death toll on American troops has exceeded 2,973 - the number of people killed in the 9/11 attack. Something about that feels ironic or important somehow, but I can't quite put my finger on it. This number was reached on Christmas day.
Here's to our soldiers.
thus ranteth "Stainless" Steele McKaye at 8:18 AM | Permalink |
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WATER ON MARS? |
The Global Surveyor has made an astonishing discovery: evidence of water flowing on Mars, at least twice in the past seven years.
I'm not sure why this isn't being more widely reported on...seems like a huge deal.
thus ranteth Pericles v. 2.0 at 12:44 PM | Permalink |
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HOLDING ON TO MY RIGHT TO BITCH |
So, I voted today. Rain coming down all day, so turnout seemed pretty dull here. I ended up voting a straight Libertarian/Democratic ticket this time (I would have voted for Burns, who is a Republican, but apparently since I moved to the east side, I'm no longer in his district. Hm.) -- I think, at this point, the best thing we can do for this country is to give it a divided government.
Keep hoping the Libertarians will actually win a national seat, but as always, that seems to be a faint hope.
thus ranteth Pericles v. 2.0 at 11:29 PM | Permalink |
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RAMBLE |
Ok, so I've narrowed down my list of grad schools to 8 schools that I think I'd like to go to:- Stanford - Biophysics
- Harvard - Systems Biology
- UC San Francisco - Biophyics
- MIT - Computational and Systems Biology
- UC Santa Barbara - Biomolecular Science and Engineering
- UC San Diego - Bioinformatics
- Rockefeller University - Physics and Mathematical Biology
- Arizona State University - Molecular and Cellular Biology
I know Stanford, Harvard, UCSF, and MIT are all really competitive. I'm not sure whether Rockefeller is, although I suspect it is. I should have a good shot at getting into UCSD or UCSB, and ASU is sort of my 'safe' school. This is a fat chunk of money to apply to all of these...I'm not sure if I'll end up actually submitting applications to them all. Although I guess it's small potatoes compared to the magnitude of the decision, and I'll definitely do something unpleasant if I don't get in anywhere!
Also, there's the geographic issue. Four of the schools are on the west coast (two are in San Francisco, one is near Los Angeles, and the other in San Diego), one is in Phoenix, Arizona, two are in Massachusetts, and one is in New York City. I like the west coast a lot, and Arizona is really cool in its own way. I'm not really crazy about the idea of moving to Massachusetts. NYC is kind of a mixed bag. Hmm.
thus ranteth Pericles v. 2.0 at 3:56 PM | Permalink |
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WOW! |
From Slashdot: a very involved post about how World of Warcraft ruins lives.
Hmm...suddenly I'm glad I only played for 1 month.
thus ranteth Pericles v. 2.0 at 11:03 AM | Permalink |
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MISCELLANEOUS WHINING |
Wow, so I haven't written anything on here in a LOOONG time... I guess one upside to that is that readership is probably now down to me, James, and Colin, with maybe an occasional hit from Le Gheed, so there's basically no constraints on what I can say here, because no one else is gonna read it!
Yay?
Anyway. So I'm trying to get my graduate school situation figured out, and I'm slowly piecing things together. One last-minute thing I should have thought of earlier is the possibility of applying for an NSF Graduate Fellowship -- which is actually due in 3 weeks, so I doubt I'll have the time to put together any proposal with any hope of winning. Still, might be worth a shot, if I can make the time. I did have some old research ideas lying around that I could expand into a full proposal, I guess.
I'm definitely applying to Harvard (systems biology) and Stanford (biophysics). Still trying to figure out where else. Probably UC San Diego (biophysics), UCLA (nanobiotechnology), and Arizona State University (whichever department affiliates with the applied nanobioscience stuff). I'm considering applying to MIT as kind of the ultimate long shot.
I still would like to move to the west coast, but I'm seriously thinking about the possibility of moving to New England, if I did get into Harvard. Colin seems set on moving to NYC, and Doug lives in Brooklyn, and Isabel looks like she's set on going to DC, so I'd have friends in the same general region, at least. I know a few people out west, but really only one person I'd consider myself at all close to. I guess New England would be better than the South, although I think any part of the country would be better than the South. (I ought to see if there's anywhere I could go in Hawaii!) I would even prefer to live in Alaska than in the South. Seriously. I guess I should cross this bridge when I get to it.
I found out some of the work I did a couple years back in the McEachern lab is being published! This is really cool, and should make my grad school applications look quite a bit stronger. I should be somewhat competitive for the top schools now. Woo!
Fingers crossed. Time to go clock in to work...
thus ranteth Pericles v. 2.0 at 11:49 AM | Permalink |
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I'm back. |
I am the Slag.
Have you seen this stuff lately? It's a wristwatch that grabs the caller ID from your phone. So now when your cellphone rings, you can just check your watch and then press the button on your wireless earpiece. Slick, even Captain Kirk didn't have equipment this fancy. I'm a little sad that it only comes in Sony-Erriksson compatability though, because I have notoriously bad luck with their products. I just hope Motorola puts one out soon, because I think I'm going to get my next phone from them.
Respect!
thus ranteth "Stainless" Steele McKaye at 7:26 PM | Permalink |
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street dreams are made of these |
R.I.P Steve Irwin '62-'06
I'll miss this guy...what a freak accident. If he would have been hit in the leg it would have hurt for a couple days and he would have been alright..just hit him in the f-in heart mate...damn
thus ranteth spaga at 1:42 PM | Permalink |
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THE WORST KIND OF FARCE |
I've been trying to write a post about Guantanamo for some time now, but it seems that Andrew Sullivan has described the absurd sense of horror the place gives me rather well:Every time I have tried to write something about the cancer and shame of Guantanamo, and the thought that the United States has strapped dozens of randomly captured individuals in metal restraints in order to force-feed them, I find myself so flummoxed that I give up. It has come to this? Remember: scores of these inmates have almost no evidence against them or have been detained on evidence tainted by torture, and have no way out of an insane system. Remember also: it is perfectly obvious that whatever interrogation techniques we may have used against these people, we have completely failed to get their cooperation to an almost farcical degree. And when some then commit suicide, which is one rational response to the situation, a U.S. general describes their deaths as a form of "asymmetrical warfare"? Again, it is hard to know what to say. These defenseless suicidal inmates are a threat to the U.S. military? Some things are so absurd that they can only be addressed in fiction or satire or silence. What we really need to do is shut down Guantanamo completely, and bring the inmates to the U.S., where proper oversight of the facility can take place.
thus ranteth Pericles v. 2.0 at 8:40 PM | Permalink |
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MANBEARGORE |
Went to see Al Gore's new film about global warming. First impression: much livelier than I expected. I mean, this is Al Gore we're talking about here, and a movie consisting of Al Gore's global warming slideshow didn't exactly promise to be thrilling. Maybe my expectations were just low, but I actually enjoyed the movie.
Second impression: way too much Gore, not enough science. Gore is in almost every single frame of the movie, and it gets old after a while, particularly since he is not exactly photogenic to begin with. Far too much of this movie consisted of nothing but Al Gore looking pensive, or standing with his back to the camera, or doing the 100-yard-stare. Why is so much of Gore's personal life included in this?
(Well, it's obvious why, but I think if they really wanted to make an effective movie about global warming, they should have used someone besides Al Frickin Gore.)
That being said, for the most part, Gore gets the science right, and it's some pretty serious stuff. There were a few exaggerations (I haven't heard any scientist seriously talk about a 20 foot increase in sea level any time soon), and at least one thing that struck me as just plain false (the claim that there have been no, or just about no, peer-reviewed articles contradicting global warming for the past 10 years...I know this is wrong because I've read several of these myself!), but on the whole, these errors are minor, and Gore gets the broad stroke correct.
Anyone else think Gore's positioning himself to run for president?
thus ranteth Pericles v. 2.0 at 4:20 PM | Permalink |
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