Oooh, An Experiment!

Be a dear and help out a poor academic!

Pop on over to Acephalous and be part of an experiment that will measure the speed of memes as they propogate through the blogosphere. Ooh, then picture that happening with little chiming noises. Too fun.

Then go read the book Linked: The New Science of Networks by Albert-Lazlo Barabasi, who is very clever and pretty cool and rather adorable.

Fruit Corner

You could make a million if only you would import Muller Fruit Corners yogurt into America. Somebody, please get on that!

Blue Mascara?

I'm missing my 10-year high school reunion tonight. Despite the fact that pretty much everyone I would be interested in finding out what happened to is on Friendster or otherwise Googlable, I am sorry not to be able to go.

High school was pretty fun for me. I mean, I was miserable for large chunks of it, but that was largely self-inflicted. In any case, it was not the living nightmare that was middle school and while I wasn't the prom queen or anything I had a bunch of nice friends and no one was actively mean to me.

Plus, my school didn't really do the whole prom queen type of thing anyway. In the circles I moved in, being nerdy was prerequisite to being cool (which I wasn't, but not in a terrible way) and no one wore a lot of make-up. I remember one day in like 11th grade when I wore blue mascara and seriously about three people I talked to that day saw me, leaned in close, peered at my eyes and said, incredulously, "Are you wearing blue mascara?" Dude, I know; it was weird. But overall it was a good kind of weird. Keep in mind, this was also the early 90s and the whole vampy-indie thing hadn't happened yet. It was all Nirvana and Douglas Coupland and Bill Clinton. Midriffs only casually exposed. Flannel. No one had email, if you can believe it, or cell phones. Starbucks hadn't made it to Pittsburgh and our little native coffeeshop was revolutionarily cool.* Halcyon days.

I really thought that the movie version of American High School was a complete fantasy - you know, the Breakfast Club** thing or the Heathers thing - but apparently some people did live that hell, with the suburban sprawling campus and the football and the cheerleaders and whatnot. My school was built in the early 1920s, four stories of apricot Fruit Roll-up brick, clanking radiators, dark wooden cabinets and red floor tiles. Soccer and swimming were the sports in which we excelled and although there were geeks in the band, being in the band was not inherently geeky. Ditto the musical (in which I had the lead senior year, booyaka) and Science Olympics. But then, I swam with the big-backpacks-and-sandals fish, so I have no idea what the other schools within the school got up to. The other (socioeconomic, let's not pretend otherwise) subdivisions of the school never really affected me, except for the time we had metal detectors*** which was more annoying than anything else, so there may have been whole other set of criteria going on that I had was not privy to.

I guess that's one thing I am thankful for this post-Thanksgiving day: thankful that 10 years on I can honestly say I was not scarred by my high school experience and that I have half a dozen best friends from that period of my life.

So Happy 10 Years, Allderdice Class of '96!

* I remember when Boomy introduced me to something wonderful, that I just had to try, called the "mo-ka-la-tay".

**But I did love me some Judd Nelson back in the day, and how cute is Ally Sheedy?

***And a certain big-backpacker got suspended for carrying a pocketknife in his bag, even though he knew there were going to be metal detectors, and basically his defense plea was, "But look at my big backpack!" So uncool. Everyone was really pleased that he got suspended. There's no honor in rocking your socioeconomic standing unless you're doing it to cut school or in some other way subvert the Man.

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving - not so much my favorite holiday for a number of reasons which I don't want to go into. I am in the UK this year, and right now every day is a day off work, so I get to ignore it aside from the vague background knowledge that elsewhere in the world turkey is being roasted or deep-friend, and elsewhere in the space-time continuum weird and bad shit is going down.

But I digress.

I nabbed a meme off of ABB's web site, cause I think they're fun, but what I really want you to read and comment on is the next post down. Particularly if you are a scientist of any sort. So please do me a favor and keep scrolling on down. I know you're not at work today. Aside from a few of you nerdlings who are, and obviously all the non-Americans reading this. But that's no excuse.

Okay, meme time.

1. When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was the first thing you thought? God, my boobs are huge!
2. How much cash do you have on you? about 40 quid
3. What’s a word that rhymes with “DOOR?” There are a lot of words that rhyme with door - you want me to pick just one?!
4. Favorite planet? Mars. Or Saturn. Or Xena, because you know that is the name that's going to stick, even if she's not technically a plant.
5. Who is the 4th person on your missed call list on your cell phone? Yathead, i.e. Cressida.
6. What is your favorite ring tone on your phone? They're all pretty lame.
7. What shirt are you wearing? Grey t-shirt, I think from Banana Republic, but I cut the tag off.
8. Do you “label” yourself? I am a "nerd", not a "dork" or a "geek".
9. Name the brand of the shoes you’re currently wearing? I am not wearing shoes at the moment.
10. Bright or Dark Room? Bright, unless I am sleeping, in which case dark dark dark.
11. What do you think about the person who took this survey before you? She rocks.
12. What does your watch look like? Fossil with mother-of-pearl face and brown strap, but no battery so I'm not wearing it.
13. What were you doing at midnight last night? Haha, I can't tell you that!
14. What did your last text message you received on your cell say? Something about going to the grocery store.
15. Where is your nearest 7-11? Someplace in Maine, I imagine.
16. What's a word that you say a lot? Fucking.
17. Who told you he/she loved you last? Springy!
18. Last furry thing you touched? Springy, ha ha.
19. How many drugs have you done in the last three days? Advil, Nurofen Day and Night, LemSip . . .
20. How many rolls of film do you need developed? Probably one or two.
21. Favorite age you have been so far? 15 and 20 were pretty good; also 25 and 28.
22. Your worst enemy? Karl Rove.
23. What is your current desktop picture? Picture of a ravine and waterfall and cable car my friend took in Ecuador.
24. What was the last thing you said to someone? "Bye, sweetie."
25. If you had to choose between a million bucks or to be able to fly what would it be? Dude, if I could fly I could totally make a million dollars.
26. Do you like someone? What, like them or like-them-like-them?
27. The last song you listened to? Tonight by Smashing Pumpkins
28. What time of day were you born? 2:40 p.m.
29. What’s your favorite number? n+2
30. Where did you live in 1987? The Burgh!
31. Are you jealous of anyone? Do you mean jealous or envious? Envious no, jealous yes, as in I am jealous of anyone else spending time with my husband when I can't.
32. Is anyone jealous of you? I expect so.
33. Where were you when 9/11 happened? Riding my bike to lab, then in lab.
34. What do you do when vending machines steal your money? Kick them and swear.
35. Do you consider yourself kind? Yes, except where vending machines that eat my money are concerned.
36. If you had to get a tattoo, where would it be? A small blue turtle between my shoulder blades.
37. If you could be fluent in any other language, what would it be? Spanish
38. Would you move for the person you loved? Yes.
39. Are you touchy feely? Not very.
40. What’s your life motto? If I have to be miserable, at least I should enjoy it.
41. Name three things that you have on you at all times. Lip gloss, a ponytail holder, and a book.
42. What’s your favourite town/city? I don't have favorites.
43. What was the last thing you paid for with cash? A latte and a slice of lemon cake.
44. When was the last time you wrote a letter to someone on paper and mailed it? Last year?
45. Can you change the oil on a car? The what?
46. Your first love: what is the last thing you heard about him/her? Seems to have managed to find happiness despite not being my boyfriend anymore. [Wink.]
47. How far back do you know about your ancestry? Three-four generations.
48. The last time you dressed fancy, what did you wear and why did you dress fancy? Friend's wedding. I wore a knee-length black dress that I bought in 1996 that laces up in the back and a black velvet bolero jacket my mom made out of a blazer. With thigh-high stockings (the only kind I'll wear) and new coppery high heels.
49. Does anything hurt on your body right now? Always.
50. Have you been burned by love? If it wouldn't burn, it's not worth touching.

Discuss

To all my science people out there, I would like to pose a question:

What motivates you to do science? Is yours a very practical motivation , e.g. curing a particular disease, a sort of long-reaching intellectual motivation, e.g. adding to the sum of all knowledge for known and also unknown purposes, or a theoretical/quasi-mystical kind of motivation, e.g. just to find out how Things Work because it's cool or to bolster your understanding of the universe?

Obviously these things are not mutually exclusive, but I wonder how we veiw ourselves, our own motivations. I was chatting with Springy about the "usefulness" quotients of our various fields of study, perceived and/or real.

I'm not putting it very well, but I'm interested in what people have to say about this.

The Many Meanings of Big Hair

Hello loyal readers!

Apologies for my dereliction of blog duty but I have been soaking up the cultchah of Oxford (drinking) and the sights of London (in pubs) and surrounding Olde Englishe Countryside (very old pubs).

I want to tell you about a commercial, or advert, I saw on TV, or telly, the other evening. I think it was BBC4. A pretty, slim, olive-skinned young woman with a penumbra of dark curly hair falls as she walked along the sidewalk, or pavement, in a busy metropolis and twists her ankle. No one responds in any way. Oh the alienation of urban life! She hobbles pathetically along, with no one offering the poor girl any assistance whatsoever. But indeed, it is the way in the cold, hard city.

She goes into a flat where a male person (boyfriend? flatmate? unclear) is lounging on the couch. He proceeds to ignore her low moans of agony. She hobbles to the bathroom where she picks up the Remington Hair Straightener, rather than an Ace bandage or an ice pack. She uses said Remington Hair Straightener to iron her enormous frizzy mass of curls into a smooth, sleek do reminiscent of a wet seal pelt.

Newly coiffed, our hobbling heroine limps into the living room, or parlour, where the male on the sofa leaps to his feet and gathers her into his arms, cooing with care and concern over her poor ankle. He carries her to the street, where a series of chevaliers pass her from street to taxi to hospital, where a hunky doctor takes one look at her swollen hoof and seal pelt and kicks another patient out of bed to make room for her and her tamed mane.

Ten points if you can tell me the moral of this story.

Twenty points if you can tell me why this ad is problematic; thirty if you allude to historical precendent. Thirty-five if you have a big 'fro (Af- or Jew- or other).

Minus fifty if you say, "But I like curly hair, so I don't see what the problem is, it's funny!" Minus one hundred if you say that and you are a dude, especially a dude with straight ass Anglo style hair. But seventy-five points if you can make a serious analysis of why "porn hair" is what it is and what that might mean in a larger cultural metanarrative kinda thing.

Go!

Uh...

Read the comments here (about Kirstie Alley, age 50-something, having lost like 75 lbs, daring to wear a bikini) and then ask me why eating disorders are so common.

Borat - Cambridge University

Oh, Thank The FSM

Hooray!

Hooray!!!

Hooray!!!!!

Hooray!!!!!!!

Not shock, and it's not the culture-

It's the bathroom fixtures.

My little mini culture shock when coming back to the UK, my adopted country. It's not the accents, or the architecture, or the TV shows that unnerve me. It's little insiginificant seeming things like the locks on the bathroom stall doors and the light switches.

I mean, who notices light switches? But I do, and I can't help it. And the smell of the particular cleaners and disinfectants. There must be two or three manufacturers of bathroom fixtures in the UK, maybe five in the US, and why should these things be imported or exported? So they're not. So you look down when you're washing your hands and become familiar with Armitage Shanks. You've never met Armitgae Shanks before but now he shares your intimate bathroom moments every single day.

It's like bizarro land. These tiny little things that no one even thinks to mention are consistently different. No one thinks about the light switches until there are no "normal" shaped light switches to be found.

We will not even go into the issue of plumbing, because I could go all day, and I'm not trying to diss the UK, which is in many ways a lovely and respectable country and far superior to America in things like concern for global warming and the abundance of freely roaming sheep.

But those are big things and can be ignored or appreciated as "cultural". There's no escaping the mundane strangeness of foreign bathroom fixtures.