Fuckmas

Yup, its time to go ride three buses through Seattle Friday rush hour to the airport TWO DAYS BEFORE XMAS to get somewhere 10x LESS sunny than seattle. Thats my christmas for you! Maybe I'll be lucky enough to miss my plane....

Oh yeah, and to the next person who gets all giggly and excited about christmas shopping: shut the fuck up, I don't want to hear about your twisted perversions.

Have a merry christmas.

oh, p.s., check this out: http://www.planetdan.net/pics/misc/georgie.htm

holy crap... look at todays random google query (I ran this after just writing the above, and yes, it really was randomly generated)

Today's Random Google Query: spirit probably down
Strong Style Spirit ~ Serving you New Japan coverage for over four ...
Mars Exploration Rover Mission: Press Release Images: Spirit
Kinetics - HP Velotechnik Spirit

I am The Zebra Hunter

First, let me just say that I have neglected my daily entries and daily random google search, so for the time being it will be weekly, or bi-weekly.

That being said, I am being faced with one of those nasty mixed basket sort of career oportunities. I'm essentially being given an opportunity that is essentially what I have been wanting for some time, but also facing a responsibility that if somehow was mismanaged, could ruin me and any future in this field (seeing as how I do not actually have the "official" pedigree associated with the position in question). I am not much of a gambler, but I do believe the cliche that wihtout risk nothing is gained to be true. I will pray to my lucky number (13) that this path can be traversed with my sanity, and eyeballs in tact.

In a related tune: I was told once by our CEO after making a prediction that sounded a bit far fetched that "when one hears hoof-beats, think horses not zebras... unless your in africa". Its a dramatized version of occam's razor (the simplest explanation is usualy the most likely) which, has led to comments in meetings along the lines of "fishing for zebras" or "hunting for zebras". Today I have yet again been proven correct on one of my "zebra" explanations for a failed experiment (and although this time it was not as far fetched as some). I have privately self proclaimed myself "The Zebra Hunter" (although not to cooworkers, since that would sound arrogent or be seen as having--deceptively--unproductive connotations). I have philisophically explained the frequency of zebra's being spotted in our lab as having to do with the fact that when you are doing leading edge research or developing a technology that hasn't--as of yet--actually existed... you are, in a sense, in Africa.

Cheers,
-The Master Zebra Hunter

Today's Random Google Query: face presence girl
The Daily Tribune - Hibbing, MN
Dr. Miklos Nyiszli, an eyewitness from Auschwitz
Latest Reviews -- Rate Your Music

Infinite persistence with minimal patience

Today I finaly succeded in installing Fedora Core 4 linux distro on a SUN V20z Server sporting two dual-core Opterons (275's) and 8GB RAM as a bioinformatics application server. I can now officially say that I fully appreciate the reservations and frustrations people have jumping onto the Linux Bandwagon, and I can also say that I'm sticking with my opinion that it is just the cost of freedom. Although I can't comment on details, (even though this is an anonymous blog), I can say that it took a lot of finessing (or finagling, depending on your technical perspective) getting a functional smp kernel loaded on this machine. In the end the thing got up and running, and I learned a bit in the process: there is a real cost to freedom, but now that the debt is payed, it feels good to be free.

NOTE: This blog is not intended to be any sort of technical resource, so if your having white screens of "life" or kernel panics with your FC4 install on a sun V20z, you best go somewhere else, as my patience has expired on this topic.

On an unrelated topic, I walk in to this greasy spoon yesterday to get a burger and there was some cheezy little band outside playing. I didn't think much of it until I got in the front door and immediately observed several extrodinarily attractive young women who were dressed in some sort of uniform (the actual Seahawk insignia escaped my attention at that moment). So of course I was shocked when almost immediately after I sat down one of them came directly over to me with a pad of paper in her hand (was she going to ask for my phone number?!?) , and then mildly dissapointed when she awkwardly stated that it was some sort of festival fundraiser and all proceeds of the lunch--consisting of: two different typs of hoagie sandwiches, either one a far cry from the delicious stale-grease flavored double bacon cheeseburger I had come there for--were going to some blah, blah, blah. I was, at that moment, faced with one of the most dificult decisions I have had to make in a long time: Do I stay and eat some crappy hoagie with a beuatifull view of a fine sampling of the Seattle SeaGals (at this point I realized who they were, and yes, they are just as smokin hot up close), or go somewhere else to get the burger I had been craving all day. So after several seconds of stalling I politely declined and explained that I really wanted a burger... only to end up eating a burrito at Taco Del Mar ten minutes later. Go figure.

Oh... and another thing:
Chrismas is getting close. All I have to say about that is that I really like hot buttered rum.

Today's Random Google Query: pay lips bed
Sex Tips For Geeks: On Being Good In Bed
Sex Tips For Hackers: On Being Good In Bed
::bisexuel.dk - Photo Album

Fart-Storms and Pooter-Strudle

Its Friday folks, and I have had too serious of a week... so its time to let out the five year old, and get raunchy. First, I would like to point out some of the funniest web pages I have encountered that *I think* weren't originally intended to be humerous.

First place: Definition of Flatulence at wikipedia. This little gem includes good medical terminology and definitions, mini-biochemistry lesson, with some anthropological history that includes references to Jesus and the Roman Emperor "Claudius". Its funnier than @*#$%.

Second Place: Fuck The South, a nice little essay on that part of our glorious country we are embarassed to have associated with red, white, or blue.

Third place: Church of Scientology Official Site. This is a distant third, but the humor (though subtle, if not akward) can be quite infectious. Note: beware of an aftertaste resembling over-microwaved velveeta.

And as for a couple classics that just have to be mentioned here while were on a humor field trip (although obviously intended to be funny):

Rate My Poo: Do I need an intro?

Mullets Galore: Just check it out...

Rate My Lizard: Its funnier than you think!

Cheers!

Today's Random Google Query: behind friends home
Leave My Child Alone
III. Leave your home behind, lad. Housman, AE 1896. A Shropshire Lad
Barney and Friends . Parents and Educators | PBS Kids

Suolevram tub Modnar

A couple comments regarding the *almost* daily random google search:
For those rare pathetic souls who are out there asking: "why do you just pick random words from a relatively short list of common words, instead of the whole dictionary?" the answer is this: I tried initially picking words from a dictionary word list with > ~20k words, but I was surprised to find out that almost all of the top three hits gave me three URLs that contain... well... a list of words. One day I actually had to run it more than 30 times before the three random words chosen resulted in something else (which turned out to be a German-to-English dictionary--go figure). I took the liberty of assuming that having three "random" links on every post that all linked to a list of words would get old before it ever started.

As it turns out, a list of "common" words (~1000) gives much more interesting results because there is a very high probability that the three words chosen actually exist on the same page (one that isn't a list of words). So at the risk of sounding not random enough, I chose a method that reflects more the randomness of word usage rather than just random words... and this appears to be much more interesting (note: for those who are not aware, the ORDER of the words does matter in google, and I report the words used in the order they were submitted).

Enjoy today's random entry ;-)
& Have A Happy Thursday.

Today's Random Google Query: yourself better lips
SoYouWanna do your makeup?
Go Fug Yourself
alaw.org · lung disease · help yourself to better breathing

Taxation Without Representation

When I was 16 and had a job, I was irritated by the fact that I could be taxed, but couldn't vote. As I progressed through life's little lessons, I acquired the opinion that this actually made sense, because what could a 16 year old really know about politics? Besides, you don't really want a bunch of hormone-driven, idealistic and naive teens voting for your president, right?

Well, I take it back. If you prevented people from voting just because they were uneducated, bigots, or retards, then we would never have had the pleasure of having George "Dubbya" Bush in office. Come to think of it, I would hazard a guess that if all the teens who actually HAD a job--and therefore were being taxed--voted, they likely would have voted with AT LEAST a similar level of intellect and intelligence as maybe as much as a quarter of the voters in the last presidential election. I see no other way to explain how we elect a bible-thumping, retard bigot to the oval office other than having a large percentage of the voters being one themselves. Maybe letting the teens have a shot at swingin' the vote isn't such a bad idea. Besides, what better excuse to rebel against the law than taxation without representation?

anyway, thats today's rant.

Today's Random Google Query: bear wrong boy
The Wrong Way To Learn Spanish - Wikibooks
Transworld : Book Details for The Wrong Boy
An Intro to Camping by Boy the Bear

Fade to a Seattle sort of grey with Breast Cancer

Its winter in Seattle and I'm working with several people who have moved here from California in the last year. The latitude effects are showing. People get depressed and moody. That always makes things interesting in the workplace, especially when everybody is under a lot of pressure.

On an unrelated topic, I will simply point out my observation of the sorry state of popular biological science in this day and age. With big pharmaceutical and government money focused on curing "popular"--and yes I use this word intentionally--illnesses/diseases the focus of research becomes corrupted by the desire to come up with "profitable" "interesting" or "socially beneficial" results, trumping the basic science foundation needed to generate real, robust biological information (I will go out on a limb and define real/useful biological data as being that which was generated and defined in the context of true systems biology, using robust methods proven in the context of basic science); see definitions at: Institute for Systems Biology, Molecular Systems Biology, Systems-Biology portal.

Why do I call some diseases popular? Think about it. Let me use breast cancer as an example.
First let me say that I will try to keep this general, and not get into nitty-gritty statistics because that is an entirely different debate which is off-topic here (today at least).

Breast Cancer is popular. I mean that in the sense that people like to promote "awareness" and raise lots of money for a "cure" or "prevention treatments". Everybody (at least in Seattle) seems to have a pink ribbon somewhere. Now, ask any doctor what the leading cause of death for women is and you will receive the same answer: Heart Disease. There is no "walk for the cure" for heart disease (actually, there probably is one but is certainly laking in visibility) and nobody wears a [insert-color-here] ribbon for fat women who have heart attacks.

So, why do you ask is there such a hyper-awareness of breast cancer (as an example) instead of something like heart disease? Its very simple: besides age (who isn't sad when a pretty 18 year old gets a boob lopped off?), treating/preventing heart disease requires, for the most part, lifestyle adjustments. This is compared with the idea of a magic pill that just fixes the problem (unfortunately, many people seem to think this is actually what will come out of all this research), a magic pill that has to be purchased... at a price with a profit margin built in. Of course if you stop long enough, you will notice that cereal companies, health/hippy food brands and the like are starting to use heart disease in their marketing as well. But this is another grey area for another day.

My question to anybody who donates money to such a cause is this: where, in the end, do you think the money is going? And: Is it the most effective use for that money? Being in the biological science field, I have a strong opinion that money spent on BASIC BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH is more productive in the long run than dedicating money for specific purposes like breast cancer or prostate cancer.

My point is this: as we begin to understand entire biological systems in their entirety, we will inherently begin to understand the best methods of cures for things like cancer--or better: prevention of. This basic research is the foundation for all other biological research, and is not always well funded. This causes a shift in focus for lots of groups trying to raise money (via grants, or whatever) from a more basic science targeted approach, to one focused on sexier (read: "popular") areas of research that would be better off if the basic science used there is more advanced than it is right now. Its a backwards way of solving scientific problems, one that might be popular in the publics eye (and certainly profitable from a business approach), but is frustratingly ineffective from the perspective of hard science.

I will just say that I hope all of you folks donating money get your magic pill, because if you do, it will be a true miracle.

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Here's the not-so-daily (but very random) google search:
Today's Query: another turning people
NPR : Another Term, Another Turning Point
eWEEK.com - Enterprise Technology News and Reviews
Drew Curtis' FARK.com