(no subject)
So, I've been keeping a blog for an anthropology class about online community that I'm taking. I have not written in this in a while - which is disappointing, because I love fishing through my old archives and learning about what I used to be like. I don't want my record of myself to drop off at age 19!
...then again, after reading some of these entries for class, maybe I do...
But whatevs. Here come the repostings from my anthro blog, stored here for posterity.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
The day before yesterday, I cut and dyed my own hair. I accidentally left one of the two colors I used in too long - and as I was rinsing the dye out, I could tell I had completely fried the ends of my hair, to the point where it was absolutely straw-like. Fortunately, I cut it after dying it, and cut it short enough that all of the destroyed and potentially malignant bits were removed. It had been 2 years since I had a professional haircut - and considering the success of this endeavor, I'm guessing I will never pay for someone to touch my hair ever again.
I'm probably going to end up surpassing the minimum participation requirements of this class - the homework is what I normally do to procrastinate, and it's a great deal easier to motivate myself to play around on blogs and wikis than it is to do my physics problem sets. Or worse, to write a Statement of Purpose for fellowships/grad school apps. Expressing myself in words. Blecch. < / sad irony >
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
I've noticed that I have a strange autopilot that kicks in whenever I sit down at a computer. I could be doing homework, and I'll decide I need to look up the formula for percent error or whatever online. The second I sit down at my computer and open Firefox, my brain will turn off, and when I go to type an address in the navigator, I will:
a) Usually type the address to check my Scripps e-mail online. This is despite the fact that I usually have the Groupwise program already open, with Notify turned on.
b) Check my Hotmail.
c) Type in the address for Livejournal or any of the webcomics that I follow.
Generally, after I have done one of those three items, I will have long forgotten why it is I got on the computer in the first place. In fact, I usually forget why I got on the second Firefox has opened. So then I proceed to do the other items on the list, and 15 minutes will pass before I remember that I had been doing homework, and I had come to the computer with a purpose in mind.
Part of this problem could probably be fixed if I started using RSS feeds, since I would not need to actually visit a site to see if it had been updated. Clearly my brain/body are well accustomed to using the Internet primarily as a source of procrastination/entertainment, rather than a tool for taking care of a task at hand.... not healthy. I should work on that.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Something really strange happened to me today. I woke up early and had to run around all morning - get to the lab and virgin flies, read a pretty long paper for a class, finish a problem set, two classes, a meeting with a professor and the final touches on an experiment - all before lunch. After that, I had to have some more meetings, then go to Harvey Mudd to be trained on a microscope that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.
When I finally got a chance to check my e-mail fairly late this afternoon, I had a bunch of facebook notifications. Absolutely bewildering - I do NOT have that many friends, at least not ones who post on my wall.
It was at that point that I realized today is my birthday. Yikes.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
My Free Implants
I checked out myfreeimplants.com . Looks like I have hit upon an amateur-porn-request-line in this "social network." There are things called "Contests," where guys offer donation prizes to the girl that sends him the best pictures of a body part/fetish genre that he specifies. It goes without saying that these are not your Grandma's self-portraits.
To infiltrate the site, I had to register - and they are in the dark age when it comes to gender. You must choose "Male" or "Female," and which one you choose automatically divides you into "benefactor" or "surgery seeking." This division limits the amount of communication - there are not a lot of avenues for girls to communicate with each other, they mostly communicate with potential benefactors.
To avoid an unethical choice, I selected "Female." I think I've figured out the sites business model as well - it seems like in some cases, they broker the surgeries. There is some advertisement (especially for surgeons). And finally, and this is the biggie - the donations a girl receives are entered into an account controlled by the site, until she reaches a target amount. If the girl does not remain active on the site, her account is deactivated, and the money that had been in her account is turned over to the company. At least, this is what I gathered from the terms and services.
So, I think I'm going to do this. Ethical quandary:
Can I lie about my sex so I can get a benefactor account and interact more with the women on the site? Can I lie about my sex on the form if I explicitly say that I am female in interviews?
I probably will construct a backup project, to prepare for the event that no one responds to me or that I get booted off the site. Either way, I'm a lot more excited about this idea - though the more I get into it, the more worried I am about how the sensational/anti-feminist aspects of the site could prejudice any study I try to make.
Posted by thelastpolarbear at 5:59 PM
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
I have been spending way too much time in the lab. All week last week, all weekend, all week this week so far. I arrive at 8 AM, I leave at 11 PM, and the only time in between that I leave is for classes , coffee, or food. Ridiculous! Homework is done during incubation periods.
This is all due to a paper that I have, that has been "accepted pending revision" to Genetics. Unfortunately, the revision involves a lot of experiments that I have to do by myself, since we can't add authors to the paper. And it's not just experiments, it's publishable, beautiful experiments - no background or pixellation of images allowed. So I'm feeling a little manic, but hopefully that will abide in the next month or so.
Posted by thelastpolarbear at 5:38 PM
Sunday, September 30, 2007
desert party....
Last night...or actually, Friday night, my friends convinced a beleaguered me to go into the desert with them for a party. After a week of <6 hours of sleep a night and tons of homework for the weekend, it was insane of me to agree. ...yeah.
After a two-hour drive towards Vegas, we had to turn off the highway and began following the vaguest of directions. There were no roads, only rocks and sand with tread marks. Considering this part of the desert was popular for dune-buggying, there were a lot of tread-marked trails in all different directions, and it wasn't clear which one we should follow. "Reset odometer when you pass the port-a-potty. Drive 2.3 miles. Look for a piece of checkered tape, and turn right after the big Joshua Tree. Drive until you hear music, then find it."
Considering we were in a friend's aunt's new Buick, with an undercarriage about 6 inches off the rocky ground, I'd say it was one of the most poorly-planned ideas ever.
The winds were raging and constant, and it was freezing. It was nothing short of bizarre to be out standing in the empty desert. When I climbed some rocks, it seemed I could see forever. My views were rocks, cliffs, sand and trees for miles, brilliant stars and a bright moon above....and then just to the left, a giant sound system and generator blasting house music, with about 10 people dancing.
All in all, I had a lot of fun with my friends... but I stayed up all night, and I am exhausted, sunburned, and have a terrible headache. And there was some damage to the Buick's windshield, thanks to a dune buggy that thought it would be funny to peel out in front of us and pepper us with rocks. Desert machismo = SUCK.
Posted by thelastpolarbear at 12:53 PM
Sunday, September 30, 2007
YOU KNEW IT WAS COMING
I'm switching my project.
Why? I tried again on myfreeimplants.com ---> for one thing, it is IMPOSSIBLE for a female account to contact other females. Everybody on MFI has a blog that they keep, and if a female tries to write on another female's blog, she is redirected back to her own. Same if she tries to send her a message. So I couldn't possibly talk to a girl.
Then I found a clause in the Terms of Services, which say that if one person is ever found to have two accounts, or to be posing as a different sex, their account will be terminated.
I'm sure that at least one person I would try to contact would rat me out to the administration - judging from the blogs I read, the girls are very into the MFI website and probably are very loyal to its maintainers.
But, never fear - I found a new project in due time! I remember having read a newspaper article a while back, about a guy I used to make mochas for when I spent a summer working in Anchorage. He had started this collective, Couchsurfing.com, which apparently had become HUGE! At the time I read about it, I created a profile on the website, but never used it and hadn't visited in a long time.
So, I went back today, and I had a ton of messages in my mailbox from people all over the world, who had read my profile and wanted to meet me for coffee (since I don't have a couch, that's all that I offered when I originally signed up). I felt terrible that my account had been inactive for so long, so I immediately e-mailed back the most recent requests and offered to treat them to coffee at the Motley and chat a while if they were up for it....and yes, I even told a couple that I was thinking of using the site for a class project, and solicited them for interviews.
The website itself is amazing, and it's gigantic. I haven't even told you the model yet! The way it works is people from all over the world create profiles, listing their interests, the languages they speak and the level they speak at, where they've traveled, etc. They also list what they are willing to offer to people traveling through -> a place to stay for a night, a week, a cup of coffee, whatever. Then there is a messaging system and a friending system for people to connect.
In addition, there are groups, discussion forums, a chat room (an active one, at that), and there are even CouchSurfer meetups! This is much more what I am interested - people using the internet to facilitate community, especially in their physical lives! I have hit GOLD, baby, GOLD!
Posted by thelastpolarbear at 9:39 PM
...then again, after reading some of these entries for class, maybe I do...
But whatevs. Here come the repostings from my anthro blog, stored here for posterity.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
The day before yesterday, I cut and dyed my own hair. I accidentally left one of the two colors I used in too long - and as I was rinsing the dye out, I could tell I had completely fried the ends of my hair, to the point where it was absolutely straw-like. Fortunately, I cut it after dying it, and cut it short enough that all of the destroyed and potentially malignant bits were removed. It had been 2 years since I had a professional haircut - and considering the success of this endeavor, I'm guessing I will never pay for someone to touch my hair ever again.
I'm probably going to end up surpassing the minimum participation requirements of this class - the homework is what I normally do to procrastinate, and it's a great deal easier to motivate myself to play around on blogs and wikis than it is to do my physics problem sets. Or worse, to write a Statement of Purpose for fellowships/grad school apps. Expressing myself in words. Blecch. < / sad irony >
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
I've noticed that I have a strange autopilot that kicks in whenever I sit down at a computer. I could be doing homework, and I'll decide I need to look up the formula for percent error or whatever online. The second I sit down at my computer and open Firefox, my brain will turn off, and when I go to type an address in the navigator, I will:
a) Usually type the address to check my Scripps e-mail online. This is despite the fact that I usually have the Groupwise program already open, with Notify turned on.
b) Check my Hotmail.
c) Type in the address for Livejournal or any of the webcomics that I follow.
Generally, after I have done one of those three items, I will have long forgotten why it is I got on the computer in the first place. In fact, I usually forget why I got on the second Firefox has opened. So then I proceed to do the other items on the list, and 15 minutes will pass before I remember that I had been doing homework, and I had come to the computer with a purpose in mind.
Part of this problem could probably be fixed if I started using RSS feeds, since I would not need to actually visit a site to see if it had been updated. Clearly my brain/body are well accustomed to using the Internet primarily as a source of procrastination/entertainment, rather than a tool for taking care of a task at hand.... not healthy. I should work on that.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Something really strange happened to me today. I woke up early and had to run around all morning - get to the lab and virgin flies, read a pretty long paper for a class, finish a problem set, two classes, a meeting with a professor and the final touches on an experiment - all before lunch. After that, I had to have some more meetings, then go to Harvey Mudd to be trained on a microscope that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.
When I finally got a chance to check my e-mail fairly late this afternoon, I had a bunch of facebook notifications. Absolutely bewildering - I do NOT have that many friends, at least not ones who post on my wall.
It was at that point that I realized today is my birthday. Yikes.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
My Free Implants
I checked out myfreeimplants.com . Looks like I have hit upon an amateur-porn-request-line in this "social network." There are things called "Contests," where guys offer donation prizes to the girl that sends him the best pictures of a body part/fetish genre that he specifies. It goes without saying that these are not your Grandma's self-portraits.
To infiltrate the site, I had to register - and they are in the dark age when it comes to gender. You must choose "Male" or "Female," and which one you choose automatically divides you into "benefactor" or "surgery seeking." This division limits the amount of communication - there are not a lot of avenues for girls to communicate with each other, they mostly communicate with potential benefactors.
To avoid an unethical choice, I selected "Female." I think I've figured out the sites business model as well - it seems like in some cases, they broker the surgeries. There is some advertisement (especially for surgeons). And finally, and this is the biggie - the donations a girl receives are entered into an account controlled by the site, until she reaches a target amount. If the girl does not remain active on the site, her account is deactivated, and the money that had been in her account is turned over to the company. At least, this is what I gathered from the terms and services.
So, I think I'm going to do this. Ethical quandary:
Can I lie about my sex so I can get a benefactor account and interact more with the women on the site? Can I lie about my sex on the form if I explicitly say that I am female in interviews?
I probably will construct a backup project, to prepare for the event that no one responds to me or that I get booted off the site. Either way, I'm a lot more excited about this idea - though the more I get into it, the more worried I am about how the sensational/anti-feminist aspects of the site could prejudice any study I try to make.
Posted by thelastpolarbear at 5:59 PM
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
I have been spending way too much time in the lab. All week last week, all weekend, all week this week so far. I arrive at 8 AM, I leave at 11 PM, and the only time in between that I leave is for classes , coffee, or food. Ridiculous! Homework is done during incubation periods.
This is all due to a paper that I have, that has been "accepted pending revision" to Genetics. Unfortunately, the revision involves a lot of experiments that I have to do by myself, since we can't add authors to the paper. And it's not just experiments, it's publishable, beautiful experiments - no background or pixellation of images allowed. So I'm feeling a little manic, but hopefully that will abide in the next month or so.
Posted by thelastpolarbear at 5:38 PM
Sunday, September 30, 2007
desert party....
Last night...or actually, Friday night, my friends convinced a beleaguered me to go into the desert with them for a party. After a week of <6 hours of sleep a night and tons of homework for the weekend, it was insane of me to agree. ...yeah.
After a two-hour drive towards Vegas, we had to turn off the highway and began following the vaguest of directions. There were no roads, only rocks and sand with tread marks. Considering this part of the desert was popular for dune-buggying, there were a lot of tread-marked trails in all different directions, and it wasn't clear which one we should follow. "Reset odometer when you pass the port-a-potty. Drive 2.3 miles. Look for a piece of checkered tape, and turn right after the big Joshua Tree. Drive until you hear music, then find it."
Considering we were in a friend's aunt's new Buick, with an undercarriage about 6 inches off the rocky ground, I'd say it was one of the most poorly-planned ideas ever.
The winds were raging and constant, and it was freezing. It was nothing short of bizarre to be out standing in the empty desert. When I climbed some rocks, it seemed I could see forever. My views were rocks, cliffs, sand and trees for miles, brilliant stars and a bright moon above....and then just to the left, a giant sound system and generator blasting house music, with about 10 people dancing.
All in all, I had a lot of fun with my friends... but I stayed up all night, and I am exhausted, sunburned, and have a terrible headache. And there was some damage to the Buick's windshield, thanks to a dune buggy that thought it would be funny to peel out in front of us and pepper us with rocks. Desert machismo = SUCK.
Posted by thelastpolarbear at 12:53 PM
Sunday, September 30, 2007
YOU KNEW IT WAS COMING
I'm switching my project.
Why? I tried again on myfreeimplants.com ---> for one thing, it is IMPOSSIBLE for a female account to contact other females. Everybody on MFI has a blog that they keep, and if a female tries to write on another female's blog, she is redirected back to her own. Same if she tries to send her a message. So I couldn't possibly talk to a girl.
Then I found a clause in the Terms of Services, which say that if one person is ever found to have two accounts, or to be posing as a different sex, their account will be terminated.
I'm sure that at least one person I would try to contact would rat me out to the administration - judging from the blogs I read, the girls are very into the MFI website and probably are very loyal to its maintainers.
But, never fear - I found a new project in due time! I remember having read a newspaper article a while back, about a guy I used to make mochas for when I spent a summer working in Anchorage. He had started this collective, Couchsurfing.com, which apparently had become HUGE! At the time I read about it, I created a profile on the website, but never used it and hadn't visited in a long time.
So, I went back today, and I had a ton of messages in my mailbox from people all over the world, who had read my profile and wanted to meet me for coffee (since I don't have a couch, that's all that I offered when I originally signed up). I felt terrible that my account had been inactive for so long, so I immediately e-mailed back the most recent requests and offered to treat them to coffee at the Motley and chat a while if they were up for it....and yes, I even told a couple that I was thinking of using the site for a class project, and solicited them for interviews.
The website itself is amazing, and it's gigantic. I haven't even told you the model yet! The way it works is people from all over the world create profiles, listing their interests, the languages they speak and the level they speak at, where they've traveled, etc. They also list what they are willing to offer to people traveling through -> a place to stay for a night, a week, a cup of coffee, whatever. Then there is a messaging system and a friending system for people to connect.
In addition, there are groups, discussion forums, a chat room (an active one, at that), and there are even CouchSurfer meetups! This is much more what I am interested - people using the internet to facilitate community, especially in their physical lives! I have hit GOLD, baby, GOLD!
Posted by thelastpolarbear at 9:39 PM