Discovered Frappr today. Frappr, if you'd rather not click the link at work, is a cross between Google Maps and... uh... Yahoo! Groups. I guess. Or something like that. You can create interest groups and there's a map with pins for each member.

I alternate, not unexpectedly, between days of panic and feverish activity on my dissertation -- "due" in roughly 2 weeks now -- and days of procrastination. Today was a day of procrastination: Went to a nice but largely useless seminar on how to avoid procrastination and be more effective. Lunch with a friend from church that I'd sort of lost touch with. And back to the lab to do two experiments, neither one of which probably worked. (Yep, still doing labwork, a month before the defense.)

The seminar was led by Mary McKinney, an "academic success" coach from Chapel Hill. Apparently she charges outrageous fees ($125/hour) for a combination of organizational advice, psychological support, and timely wisdom about the perils and pitfalls of graduate school (and pre-tenure professors). I can't really see this is a recommendation, because I'd certainly be outraged to pay her $125 to hear her be exceptionally disorganized. She had two hours; every five minutes she'd mention how far behind she was and how "normally I get through at least half my talk, today it's more like a quarter! I'm so sorry!" Hard to be too mad at her, though, since what she said seemed to be useful to some people in the audience. Or perhaps she subtly defused potential anger using her psychological expertise. I'd really rather have spent at least part of the time on stuff more appropriate to the sciences; most of the funding and advisor issues she covered are non-issues for us compared to humanities. Besides, I think I picked up liberal-arts cooties again.

Anyway, a quick look around Frappr revealed no signs of anything about King College, so I created a group for alums. It'll probably stagnate and fade like the Yahoo! Group has, or else Frappr will get bought and jump the shark. (Or both.) Still, could be fun! Or at least briefly amusing, if you too seek distractions.

The term "emeritus professor" always makes me think of encountering the word in The Languages of Pao, by Jack Vance. There, "emeritus" refers to sort of a senile dementia ... so "he's gone emeritus!" means "he's about to do something dastardly and self-serving", not "yeah, he's gonna wander the halls for a while and then drift down to a retirement home in Florida". "Unusually dastardly and self-serving," I should say, because the Breakness faculty (who were the ones who could "go emeritus") were not known for altruism.

Anyway. Yeah.

... but not quite.

Moved, pretty much for good, to my new site. Not quite so convenient to read, perhaps, but a lot more convenient to put pictures on, and stuff. Although everyone who'd care probably already knows about it one way or another :P

So I signed up a while back with some likely-to-spam company -- I forgot which one, or what I signed up for -- and I gave them my name missing a letter. I had the grand plan that I'd remember which company I gave that name to so when the spam showed up I could call them and complain about violations of their privacy policy and whatnot. (Key to this plan was the first bit... hard to practice now.)

Ever since, I've gotten a charming assortment of random junk addressed to Not-Quite-Me. Some of it was slightly useful, like the free drill-bit sizer from the Handymen of America. Some of it was useless and boring, like the mortgage offers. (Clearly, I'm only living in an apartment because I need a better rate on my mortgage. Although it's not like they bothered to check... I exist only to receive their ads, after all.)

Today's offering takes the cake, though, or maybe the sippy-cup: Pampers wrote to tell me that "You're like every other toddler... wonderfully unique!" And inside: "New Larger Size coming soon!"

Now, they *do* have a product described as "Advanced Trainers", which "Helps Me Learn". I should write and ask if it's likely to help me in graduate school... They *do* say they're "helping toddlers graduate", after all. Hrm.

1. Laptop came back from the service center in only 2 weeks, brand new hard drive.

2. My old Palm turned up at a friend's house, so I can put the data I was sure I'd lost into the new one.

3. Best email of 2005 (so far):

We are pleased to confirm acceptance of your paper for publication; the file of the accepted version has been forwarded to the Production Department at Elsevier.

From a real ad:

Computer for sale. This is a great machine that works excellently! Hardly used, and only for Word processing. Selling it because I'm not using it at all.

"only for Word processing"? Is that like "only driven to church on Sundays by a little old lady"? Should I be worried if it's had a 100,000-keystroke tuneup?

And another one:

I bought a Dell Inspiron 1000 laptop a week ago for my brother and he does not need it so I am willing to sell it away.

Isn't that something one would find out *before* buying the laptop?

Well, the seminar I was going to go to (Alan Heeger, UC Santa Barbara, Nobel Prize (Chemistry) 2000, on "Risk and Discovery in Science") got bumped by a group meeting that went on too long. (Over its scheduled time, anyway. It was a good meeting.)

So instead, it's a picture of snow... for those who live where it's rare, instead of a dreary commonplace for four months of every year.

... oh... the menu is my soup?

"We can create any sort of flavor on a printed image that we set our minds to," Mr. Cantu said. "What does M. C. Escher's 'Relativity' painting taste like? That's where we go next."

"Mr. Cantu is experimenting with liquid nitrogen, helium and superconductors to make foods levitate. And while many chefs speak of buying new ovens or refrigerators, he wants to invest in a three-dimensional printer to make physical prototypes of his inventions, which he now painstakingly builds by hand. The 3-D printer could function as a cooking device, creating silicone molds for pill-sized dishes flavored, say, like watermelon, bacon and eggs or even beef Bourguignon, he said, and he could also make edible molds out of cornstarch.

He also plans to buy a class IV laser to create dishes that are "impossible through conventional means."

Liquid nitrogen ice cream is one thing, but laser-seared pictures of steak instead of the real thing? No thanks...

Monday: Misplace my Palm sometime in the afternoon. Well, I was going to replace it anyway, it was 4+ years old. And I had all the addresses and stuff backed up anyway, because I synced it with the laptop. So of course...

Friday: Work late, close up the laptop, take it home. Get it home and, well, the hard drive had failed. Wouldn't spin up or something. Still under warranty, so I take it to Bast Buy (great deals on cat goddesses)... sure they can fix it, but they have to ship it to Cleveland. Two weeks, minimum. (It's a looong way from Ann Arbor to Cleveland, apparently.) And the data on the drive are gone completely anyway. Of course, I could always just replace the drive myself... but if they ship it off for service, they can also check the memory and think about replacing the LCD (couple dozen dead pixels). Two weeks, minimum. If it takes more than 70% of the original cost to fix it, they'll replace it.... I'm sold.

Fortunately, I had *most* of the essential stuff backed up on the desktop at home. Most, not all... current addressbook was lost, might've lost some pictures, definitely lost my Endnote references. Not even sure what else I'm now missing.

And so now I'm laptopless, and Palmless. This is the least electronic I've been in years. Good reminder to back up, though, thoroughly and often.

"That's so sweet" is my nomination (if nominations are still open) for "Most Devastatingly Ambiguous Remark" of 2004. Ladies, if you say it about something a male friend* has given you, please clarify whether you meant "sweet like an awkward four-year-old carefully drawing you a blob and telling you it's a puppy", "sweet of you to open that door for me but you really didn't have to because we're in Michigan rather than NC", or "you just completely made my day in more ways than you even imagined possible".

Random thought for the new year: When life hands you remouls, make remoulade!

---

* Particularly if you have reason to suspect that particular friend of harboring romantic feelings.

Last-minute Christmas shopping this morning, with my dad along for directions and co-shopping. Went by one particular kitchen-supply store looking for _______ or ________ (details not yet available, in case my sister reads this before tomorrow morning). They didn't have quite what I was looking for on the first of those, but it was close enough. While I was looking for the second item, one of the owner's friends came in and they started chatting. (It was just us and them in the store then, so the owner doesn't seem to be exactly overwhelmed with customers.)

"Oh, did you hear So-and-so is opening a new shop, over in ______?" the friend asks the owner. "Oh, that's a nice location, I like being away from the central shopping areas," says the owner of a store near the beach. "Better parking?" "Yes, and there's fewer people coming in to browse. I just get so tired of people coming in and they don't even know what they're looking at. Honestly, if they don't know what they're looking for and how to use it I just don't want to deal with them."

I looked around, figured she wouldn't really want to do business with me and put the thing I was going to buy right back on the shelf before walking out. At least she had a nice conversation with her friend; better that than (shudder) doing business with people who don't already know all about graters.

Oh, and south Florida is NOT a good place to look for Christmas ornaments with turtles. Even sea turtles. In case anyone needs to know.

and breathe that nice warm Southern air. Except for where it was filled with frozen snow (Bristol) or with a windchill of 5 F (a bit south of Chattanooga). Dumb cold fronts.

Drove from Michigan down to Florida, stopping off to see my college roommate and his family. Good weather for the most part, or at least not much snow. I'm now convinced that the western half of Georgia (aside from Atlanta) is just about as boring as all of Ohio, at least on I-75. The eastern side of Georgia isn't much better, but it's a lot shorter.

And yes, that seems to be about all there is to say about it; perhaps I should have taken notes somehow. I remember some kind of dreadful chemistry/driving pun, but none of the details at all. Yes, it's a truly great loss to the world.

... I hate shopping at the mall... I hate shopping in the winter, when it drizzles.

And especially when I have to go to the shopping center with the very worst possible arrangement of traffic flow, along with six hundred other cars all desperate for Christmas gifts, half of which completely fail to understand the meaning of "this space reserved for sub-compact cars", and so they take up TWO small spaces instead of one big one. (We're talking about "full-sized" SUVs here, not something that's only a little bit big.)

And especially when four stores yield one item, because the other three all had stuff that was online-only but not labeled as such online.

So, how was your day? :)

CNN reports that someone has stolen my idea.

I'd try to sue, but
1. Given the time required to get a book -- even a shoddy-looking flip-book -- published, they probably had the idea first, and
2. The judge/jury would have to believe they'd actually seen my version, to believe they'd deliberately taken it.

So no legal action forthcoming... just ominous clouds of indignation. And casual plans for eventually adding more stuff... but no, not going to say what, in case those guys are looking for a sequel.

Also, Ricola elderberry cough drops taste odd. Not really medicinal, but much more herbal than berry. At least they work.

"Tired of coarse, scaly paws? Do your friends look down on you for your lackluster fur? Try new Paws-Be-Neat, for velvety-soft paws! Just three acorns for a six-use bottle."

"Men! Inc rea se y0ur t4il s1ze! All-nutural, safe, effective. Better length, twi.tchiness. click here."

"American Gold Walnut! Real 24-K gold! A beautiful symbol of love for family and friends, holidays and birthdays. Only nineteen-ninety-nine, or order 3 for forty-nine-ninety-nine!"

No, I don't know which part of my head these came from either.

Some people were wondering, so yes, I'm still alive and well. Had "winter head syndrome" much of last week, thanks to the sudden chill in the air -- aggravated perhaps by having spent the week before last in wonderful Florida weather. Snow is nice and I've learned to not mind winters up here so much, but there's no question about which feels better physically.

Kind of a dull week at work... ; drew up plans for the shop to build some stuff, and shopped around for a new workstation to replace one of the older ones. Machines start out as workstations for data processing and eventually age into machines for data collection; the one it's replacing is new enough that it'll represent at least a 5-fold advance over the one I was using to collect data before. Which means I can run both parts of the experiment on the same machine at the same time, instead of needing very-awkward-and-slow communication between them to synchronize the camera and the rest of it. (We had been using a rather ridiculous 3-stage signal sequence where LabVIEW told the camera computer to start firing, waited for the camera computer to agree that it had done so, and then waited the time the shutter was supposed to be open before asking if it was done. All by analog I/O lines in NI's hardware. It worked, eventually, but it's far too slow for next year's experiments, and very prone to failure.)

The new machine is from Adamant, and will cost about 2/3 of the same machine from Dell would've. Might even be faster; I tried to talk the boss into an AMD chip instead of a Pentium 4, but couldn't find any test results that showed the Athlon 64 faster (or at least as fast as) the P4 running Matlab. Anyone know of any? (I should have looked harder. Could be more complete, but looks like Athlon XPs beat P4s in anything except perhaps sparse matrix handling and 3D graphics, neither of which (I think) our code needs much of. Mwahahahah.)

Apparently it's the birthday of C. S. Lewis, Louisa May Alcott, and Madeleine L'Engle, all at once. At least one of them would've invited fauns and/or Talking Mice for either a cozy tea or a duel (or both sequentially) -- not sure if L'Engle would've or not.

Back to Michigan on Friday, after a nice little vacation. Didn't get to the beach; not really time and most of the roads leading there are still washed out or closed. Maybe at Christmastime, although I'm not particularly hopeful. (At least the Jensen Beach beachcam may be restored by then.) Spent a couple nice days relaxing; my sister has discovered Rollercoaster Tycoon, which she nicely let me try. Lots of fun, although building roller coasters from scratch needs work. It'd also be nice if it didn't have to be done while precious time flies by -- most scenarios have a certain deadline, and spending six game-months figuring out how to get a reasonably safe but fun coaster built doesn't seem to be a great idea.

Partook of the Four Traditional Dishes (turkey, dressing, corn pudding, and jello salad), and was very thankful indeed -- for family, for a second chance at this degree, for the friends who've been such great support, and most of all for His grace in giving me all these good things when I didn't even know to ask for them. (Oh, and the new camera, too. Pictures coming later.)

Insular Majuscule- You are spiritual and well
rounded. People look to you for advice, but
sometimes find you difficult to understand.


What Calligraphy Hand Are You?
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Congratulations! You have The Plague! The ABSOLUTE
premier disease of the Middle Ages, you
probably caught this by the bite of an infected
flea or from someone with the pneumonic form.
You are suffering from swellings called buboes,
in the lymph nodes of the neck, armpits and
groin. These are going to become very painful
as they fill up with blood and pus. Your
headache is going to get much worse, your
temperature will become unbearable and you will
soon be delirious. Vomiting and diarrhea will
accompany all of this. More bad news is that
there is a 75% mortality rate. The good news
is, if you live, jobs are going to be much more
plentiful!


Which Medieval Plague Do You Have?
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Europeans, that is. Was talking to a postdoc in the lab the other day; she's an MD from Romania, lived or visited various places around Europe, and she said her dream for most of her life has been to come and live in the US. Not so much because of the money; she said doctors make a pretty good living there, too. Not because of family; the only person she knew when she came was her boyfriend (here already), and all the rest of her family is back in Romania. She wanted to come here because it's America.

And yesterday she was thrilled at getting her very first credit card. :)