Random Stuff XLIII
I’ve been teaching a graduate-level course for three weeks now, and it’s nearly wiping me out. Whenever I get a free hour or two, I spend it comatose, in a desperate attempt to pay off the compound interest on my sleep debt. I don’t know what I’d do if my boss hadn’t kindly left me her lecture notes and old assignments.
Two hour-and-a-half lectures a week. I’d never spoken to a crowd for an hour and a half straight before. Halfway through the first class I had to call a break while I ran off and drank about a half gallon of water; I was gasping. Part of the problem was that I was petrified going in; but already I’ve learned to relax, mainly because my students are a good bunch of folks.
Indeed, after only two weeks at the helm, I can tell that I’m significantly less timid than before. For instance, last week I attended a journal club in a different department. I knew exactly one person in the (packed) classroom. Our topic was the paradoxical effects of a well-known anti-oncogene, p53, on cancer and longevity. You see, in certain animals (e.g., the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans), the inhibition of p53 greatly increases risk of cancer, but also somehow extends life. At the end of the session, one of the senior grad students criticized the motivation for the experiments. What is the use of prolonging our lifespan if we’re just going to get cancer. Without thinking, I quipped, in a loud, clear voice, “Someday we may be able to cure cancer, but I’m afraid that with death, we’ll pretty much always have to focus on prevention.” Looking back, it wasn’t even that funny; but it brought the house down. Even a few months ago I couldn’t possibly have imagined speaking out like that to a couple dozen people I’d never met.
While attending a seminar last week (a different one), I invented a new word:
somnipotent adj. Having infinite capacity to put people to sleep.
I thought of another one, too, but it left me for good when someone kicked my chair accidentally and jolted me awake. I hate it when my train of thought gets interrupted like that.
Our cats have become obsessed with our master bathroom. It started out with a tap-water fetish. Anytime we turn on a faucet-whether in the bathroom, the kitchen or in the laundry room-the cats swoop in like dive-bombers and start playing with the stream of water. Oh, sometimes they'll actually drink from it, but mainly it seems they're fascinated with the undulating, shifting column of water. Perhaps they see it as a string being dangled in front of them that they can catch as many times as they want-yet it always reappears! And if that weren't amazing enough, the magical, reappearing string will slake your thirst while you're playing with it! Recently, they've taken a more businesslike attitude toward the faucet. If I leave a trickle of water for them while I'm brushing my teeth or whatever, they often station themselves on opposite sides and drink directly from the stream, tongues lapping out in perfectly choreographed alternation. Not a drop of water is wasted.
No faucet in the entire house is more prized than the one in the master bathroom. When we moved in, the door to our bathroom didn't quite latch all the way shut. We didn't particularly care-until the cats (a) acquired their faucet mania and (b) discovered they could pry the door open if they wedge their little cat noses in the corner where the swinging edge of the door meets the frame, and give a terrific shove. Inside, they quickly discover that the faucet is, in fact, not running. This gets them remarkably agitated and spiteful, especially if we have the unmitigated gall to be sleeping right there in the bedroom instead of rushing to turn on some drinking water; so they slink their way up onto the high shelf and start knocking things off. Right into the welcoming mouth of the toilet. That's when we hear, "Pa-loop! Pa-loosh!" Typically, this happens around 5:30 AM. Kathy fixed the door so that it would latch and stay closed, even against the most persistent of cat heads bumping against the base. The first time they tried to get in afterward, I almost went outside into a windy, -10 °C blizzard to find out who was blasting their subwoofers so damn loud, until I realized it was the stupid cats beating against the door, and that the bathroom was acting like an enormous bongo.
Eventually they mastered the concept of impermeable barriers; and now they forgo the door completely and come straight to us when they feel like taking a few hits from the faucet.
The slightest step toward that bathroom almost invariably precipitates a cat parade-three times around our feet, and a beeline toward the inner sanctum. The weird part is that sometimes when they finally get in there, they don't even show interest in the sink. Sometimes it's enough just to be in the bathroom. Because of this, we have officially named the master bathroom "The Happiest Place on Earth." Every day is a rapturous purr fest in the Happiest Place on Earth!
It's time to dump a few links I've been saving up. The theme is Religion and Science.
I was glad to see this statement by American Christian clergy speaking out in favor of modern science and against teaching the Biblical creation myth as science. Looking through the list of signatories, I saw plenty of Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists and Lutherans, a fair number of Catholics and a smattering of Baptists. No Unitarians-but Unitarians wouldn't even see the need to proclaim something so obvious in the first place, which is why they're my kind of folks. Alas, I searched the entire list for "Mormon" and "LDS" and found only two undersigned, one of whom listed as his clerical position "Elder and Priesthood Holder"-a title any male Mormon who has successfully completed a mission can claim.
Here's a pictorial illustration of the stark contrast between Bible "science" and legitimate science. I'd love to see some of the films from which the "Science" part of the video was compiled.
I found this survey a bit harsh, overall, but I love the result for question 12.
And finally, something a bit different. Though I customarily disapprove of frat-boy humor, the "rampaging sea star" scene in this knockoff of Planet Earth totally cracked me up.
[from various sources]
Two hour-and-a-half lectures a week. I’d never spoken to a crowd for an hour and a half straight before. Halfway through the first class I had to call a break while I ran off and drank about a half gallon of water; I was gasping. Part of the problem was that I was petrified going in; but already I’ve learned to relax, mainly because my students are a good bunch of folks.
Indeed, after only two weeks at the helm, I can tell that I’m significantly less timid than before. For instance, last week I attended a journal club in a different department. I knew exactly one person in the (packed) classroom. Our topic was the paradoxical effects of a well-known anti-oncogene, p53, on cancer and longevity. You see, in certain animals (e.g., the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans), the inhibition of p53 greatly increases risk of cancer, but also somehow extends life. At the end of the session, one of the senior grad students criticized the motivation for the experiments. What is the use of prolonging our lifespan if we’re just going to get cancer. Without thinking, I quipped, in a loud, clear voice, “Someday we may be able to cure cancer, but I’m afraid that with death, we’ll pretty much always have to focus on prevention.” Looking back, it wasn’t even that funny; but it brought the house down. Even a few months ago I couldn’t possibly have imagined speaking out like that to a couple dozen people I’d never met.
While attending a seminar last week (a different one), I invented a new word:
somnipotent adj. Having infinite capacity to put people to sleep.
I thought of another one, too, but it left me for good when someone kicked my chair accidentally and jolted me awake. I hate it when my train of thought gets interrupted like that.
Our cats have become obsessed with our master bathroom. It started out with a tap-water fetish. Anytime we turn on a faucet-whether in the bathroom, the kitchen or in the laundry room-the cats swoop in like dive-bombers and start playing with the stream of water. Oh, sometimes they'll actually drink from it, but mainly it seems they're fascinated with the undulating, shifting column of water. Perhaps they see it as a string being dangled in front of them that they can catch as many times as they want-yet it always reappears! And if that weren't amazing enough, the magical, reappearing string will slake your thirst while you're playing with it! Recently, they've taken a more businesslike attitude toward the faucet. If I leave a trickle of water for them while I'm brushing my teeth or whatever, they often station themselves on opposite sides and drink directly from the stream, tongues lapping out in perfectly choreographed alternation. Not a drop of water is wasted.
No faucet in the entire house is more prized than the one in the master bathroom. When we moved in, the door to our bathroom didn't quite latch all the way shut. We didn't particularly care-until the cats (a) acquired their faucet mania and (b) discovered they could pry the door open if they wedge their little cat noses in the corner where the swinging edge of the door meets the frame, and give a terrific shove. Inside, they quickly discover that the faucet is, in fact, not running. This gets them remarkably agitated and spiteful, especially if we have the unmitigated gall to be sleeping right there in the bedroom instead of rushing to turn on some drinking water; so they slink their way up onto the high shelf and start knocking things off. Right into the welcoming mouth of the toilet. That's when we hear, "Pa-loop! Pa-loosh!" Typically, this happens around 5:30 AM. Kathy fixed the door so that it would latch and stay closed, even against the most persistent of cat heads bumping against the base. The first time they tried to get in afterward, I almost went outside into a windy, -10 °C blizzard to find out who was blasting their subwoofers so damn loud, until I realized it was the stupid cats beating against the door, and that the bathroom was acting like an enormous bongo.
Eventually they mastered the concept of impermeable barriers; and now they forgo the door completely and come straight to us when they feel like taking a few hits from the faucet.
The slightest step toward that bathroom almost invariably precipitates a cat parade-three times around our feet, and a beeline toward the inner sanctum. The weird part is that sometimes when they finally get in there, they don't even show interest in the sink. Sometimes it's enough just to be in the bathroom. Because of this, we have officially named the master bathroom "The Happiest Place on Earth." Every day is a rapturous purr fest in the Happiest Place on Earth!
It's time to dump a few links I've been saving up. The theme is Religion and Science.
I was glad to see this statement by American Christian clergy speaking out in favor of modern science and against teaching the Biblical creation myth as science. Looking through the list of signatories, I saw plenty of Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists and Lutherans, a fair number of Catholics and a smattering of Baptists. No Unitarians-but Unitarians wouldn't even see the need to proclaim something so obvious in the first place, which is why they're my kind of folks. Alas, I searched the entire list for "Mormon" and "LDS" and found only two undersigned, one of whom listed as his clerical position "Elder and Priesthood Holder"-a title any male Mormon who has successfully completed a mission can claim.
Here's a pictorial illustration of the stark contrast between Bible "science" and legitimate science. I'd love to see some of the films from which the "Science" part of the video was compiled.
I found this survey a bit harsh, overall, but I love the result for question 12.
And finally, something a bit different. Though I customarily disapprove of frat-boy humor, the "rampaging sea star" scene in this knockoff of Planet Earth totally cracked me up.
[from various sources]