WhatEVAH!
mikethemadbiologist | August 28, 2011First, on Saturday, around noon, I observed this on Commonwealth Avenue:
Because it's not like it's going to rain for the next 24 hours or anything.
Second, we are once again reminded how poorly the Boylston Street Apple store fits with the Boston environment:
Although they're protected against rocket propelled grenades too! (sorta).
Anyway, everything is still working for now (even the wireless, though I have emergency back up intertoobz too!).
mikethemadbiologist | August 27, 2011...I've got water, flashlights, batteries, and my list of who gets cannibalized first when civilization disintegrates. I'm not sure how you prep this for the hurricane though:
(corner of Berkeley and Marlborough, First Church in Boston)
And I hope these guys survive:
(Boston Public Garden)
mikethemadbiologist | August 16, 2011Amid all of the political doom and gloom, we need something to cheer us up. So, take a load off (so to speak) and enjoy some gravity-free cats:
mikethemadbiologist | August 8, 2011As I entered the building where I work today:
I blame Al Gore. Or something.
mikethemadbiologist | July 4, 2011By way of Lambert, I came across this awesome video of Loukanikos, a stray dog in Athens, Greece, who apparently has a history of not liking riot police (the action kicks in at about the 1:10 mark):
I guessing Louk isn't upset about the EU forcing contractionary policies on an economy with already sky-high unemployment (I could be wrong though!). Probably, it's a combination of a riot policeman at some point taking a swing at him along with demonstrators feeding him.
Which means he's as sophisticated about politics as many humans.
FREEDOM!
mikethemadbiologist | May 28, 2011One thing I like about PLoS ONE is that it has interesting, if not always groundbreaking, science. Consider this article, "Propagation of Respiratory Aerosols by the Vuvuzela" (italics mine):
Vuvuzelas, the plastic blowing horns used by sports fans, recently achieved international recognition during the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament in South Africa. We hypothesised that vuvuzelas might facilitate the generation and dissemination of respiratory aerosols. To investigate the quantity and size of aerosols emitted when the instrument is played, eight healthy volunteers were asked to blow a…
mikethemadbiologist | May 3, 2011Every so often I read on the internets about people who are really upset about circumcision. Oddly, it's compared to female genital mutilation (I'll get to that in a bit). But in San Francisco, there's actually an attempt to make banning circumcision a referendum item:
Most bans in San Francisco are enacted by the Board of Supervisors, but come November, it sounds like voters will have the opportunity to jump on the ban wagon by deciding whether to ban male circumcision.
San Francisco resident Lloyd Schofield said Thursday he is "on track" to have enough signatures to place his proposed…
mikethemadbiologist | April 3, 2011Last evening, I was walking back to my apartment, and I was stopped by a young woman on crutches who said, "I don't mean to bother you, but do you have a moment? I'm trying to get a train from Back Bay Station."
Even if I hadn't recognized her, anyone who lives in Boston knows what comes next. "I need twelve dollars to get a train ticket. Anything you can give would help. I injured my foot three days ago, and I even showed the guy at the counter my hospital papers, but I still need twelve dollars." At which point, I responded, "I live right around the corner, and I've seen you working…
mikethemadbiologist | February 20, 2011It's called living in Boston. Unbeknownst to the Mad Biologist, we read that some mental health professionals believe 'sidewalk rage' is a psychiatric disorder:
Researchers say the concept of "sidewalk rage" is real. One scientist has even developed a Pedestrian Aggressiveness Syndrome Scale to map out how people express their fury. At its most extreme, sidewalk rage can signal a psychiatric condition known as "intermittent explosive disorder," researchers say. On Facebook, there's a group called "I Secretly Want to Punch Slow Walking People in the Back of the Head" that boasts nearly 15,000…
mikethemadbiologist | February 17, 2011I wish national Democrats and their hangers-on had half the guts the Wisconsin Senate Democrats do. If you haven't heard, Wisconsin's Republican governor Scott Walker is attempting to strip public sector unions of their collective bargaining rights. This comes on top of other recent stupidities by Walker, including turning down $810 million in risk-fee construction funds for high-speed rail.
The Wisconsin Senate Democrats have decided to stop the legislation by not showing up to the vote:
...State Senate Democrats are refusing to show up at the state capitol to prevent the measure to strip…
mikethemadbiologist | February 8, 2011Lest there be any doubt that I'm not as nuts in real life as I am on the blog, here's a slide I used yesterday during a full-blown fancy-schmancy professional talk:
Just saying.
For context, read this post (IT HAZ SCIENTISMZ!!).
mikethemadbiologist | February 6, 2011At D-squared Digest, some ruminations about Egypt lead to the bestest political science theory EVAH! (italics original; boldface mine):
...so that brings me to a useful piece of advice for any readers who are aspiring dictators, one that the Communists knew, Suharto knew, but that some modern day tyrants seem to have forgotten. There is always a level of civil unrest that outstrips the capability of even the most loyal and largest regular armed forces to deal with. In all likelihood, as a medium sized emerging market, you will have a capital city with a population of about five or six million…
mikethemadbiologist | January 29, 2011I appreciate the value of optimistic weather forecasters, as opposed to the usual doom-and-gloom types, but this seems a little too far in the other direction:
Look at the bottom right: who plays golf in this weather? I don't think even Scotsmen are that crazy...
mikethemadbiologist | January 24, 2011Or not. By way of Paul Kedrosky, we come across this scintillating abstract:
UP OR DOWN? A MALE ECONOMIST'S MANIFESTO ON THE TOILET SEAT ETIQUETTE
JAY P. CHOI,â
This paper develops an economic analysis of the toilet seat etiquette. I investigate whether there is any efficiency justification for the presumption that men should leave the toilet seat down after use. I find that the "down rule" is inefficient unless there is a large asymmetry in the inconvenience costs of shifting the position of the toilet seat across genders. I show that the "selfish" or the "status quo" rule that leaves…
mikethemadbiologist | January 20, 2011By way of Thers at Whiskey Fire, we read that the evangelical movement has recognized that sometimes homeschooling doesn't quite get the job done:
Suppose you have home-schooled your advanced blastocyst in the best evangelical wingnut way, to the age of 18. And suppose you recognize that no matter how much you would like to pray otherwise, your advanced blastocyst, age 18, is an absolute lettuce.
Dumb as a box of Bibles. A cretin by Sarah Palin standards. A doorstop. A rock.
Problems! Where do you park these burdensome home-unschooled-uli? In the godless local community college? Do you…
mikethemadbiologist | January 5, 2011...and there's another important date right around then. First, the crazy:
Exley is part of a movement of Christians loosely organized by radio broadcasts and websites, independent of churches and convinced by their reading of the Bible that the end of the world will begin May 21, 2011...
"A lot of people might think, 'The end's coming, let's go party,'" said Exley, a veteran of two deployments in Iraq. "But we're commanded by God to warn people. I wish I could just be like everybody else, but it's so much better to know that when the end comes, you'll be safe."
In August, Exley left her…
mikethemadbiologist | October 17, 2010So I came across one of those text analyzing thingees, and subjected this blog to it. The site predicted that this blog is "written by a male somewhere between 36-50 years old." OK. So far, so good.
Then the writing style was described as "academic." I suppose that's right, but not too many academic papers use the word fuck too often. And then things went off the rails, as my writing style was described as...
....happy?!?
I work very, very hard to be cranky and curmudgeonly. And that stupid fucking computer calls me happy? I have a reputation to uphold.
Anyway, here's what it spat out…
mikethemadbiologist | September 4, 2010Let no one say that the Mad Biologist doesn't address the pressing issues of the day. While at the Human Microbiome Meeting, I'm staying in a hotel. Like other hotels I've stayed in for various meetings, my bed is covered with pillows. Not only were there four humongous pillows that I could use, but there were also two large 'decorative pillows' that I wouldn't ever sleep on (if nothing else, their fabric would be uncomfortable and probably leave impressions in my face). To top this off, there is a humongous cylindrical pillow that is as long as the bed is wide (it's a king size bed).…
mikethemadbiologist | August 4, 2010Over at The Urban Ethnographer, we find this superb post about riding the subway that will be familiar to anyone who does so on a regular basis. What I love is the taxonomy of riders, including the "packers":
People carry large bulky items with them. In all fairness, though, packers need to be distinguished from folks for whom the subway is their main method of transportation and who really have no other option for transporting bulky items. The term packer is therefore reserved for those people with super large backpacks they refuse to take off when they board the train. If you encounter a…
mikethemadbiologist | August 4, 2010
This is what children with poor self-control become
(from here)
Melody Dye at Child's Play has an interesting post about the famous (or infamous) cookie experiments, which involved observing children presented with a cookie and then left alone in a room. If they wait long enough, they get another cookie (and they know this). If not, then clearly they are doomed to fail in life:
Twenty years later, having spent long hours forgetting those misplaced moments, a new crop of experimental psychologists will add insult to injury, and call you, and ask pointed questions about your education, your…