Random Thoughts

I recently heard a news report about the murder victim at Yale University, Annie Le.  This was followed by a cacophony of calls to change our culture of violence against women and to bring pressure on the government to address this injustice. This has become a veritable mainstay of media reporting with the "violence against women" chorus occurring with unrelenting frequency.  However, this had me thinking about what the actual violent crime statistics show.  There is little doubt that spousal abuse and rape would be dominated by female victims, however, in looking at the murder…

There is a new article on LiveScience "Scary: Fake Videos Alter Perception of Reality"that reports some findings related to faked videos and the responses to them. This particular article brings up several points which should be considered beyond simply faked videos.  It actually raises the larger question about how perceptions of reality may be altered by seemingly real portrayals even in entertainment. While there is little doubt that the majority of the public are able to recognize that they are watching a movie, there is also the problem of how much influence such movies may have,…

It’s a rainy morning here in the New York City area — not at all like the bright, cloudless day of eight years ago. Of those affected, back then, by the events of the day, many were friends and co-workers of people who died. Today I want to tell a story about one of those. Tony used to work with me at the T.J. Watson Research Center. I was his manager when, one weekend in the late ’90s, I got a message from our purchasing system that he’d ordered a book about web page design. I thought that odd, considering that our research group wasn’t working on anything related to that, and I made a…

The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Superstition will drag him down. The rain will erode the deeds of his life. But that man who sets himself the task of singling out the thread of order from the tapestry will by the decision alone have taken charge of the world and it is only by such taking charge that he will effect a way to dictate the terms of his own fate. - Judge Holden, Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, p. 199 Read the feed:

Every so often here a "investigation" by one Curtis Hinkle and the "transgender and intersexed community" will be cited. What about the people who did the investigating? Those anonymous members of the "transgender and intersexed" community. What they are like. It is on their word that the veracity of their conclusions, connections and extrapolations ought to be assessed. Ms. Joelle Ruby Ryan is one such person. This is a follow up to my previous blog post on the subject of fat studies "Is it about body acceptance and self esteem or jealousy". This posting is an examination of one person who…

One of the biggest axioms of management is “what cannot be measured cannot be managed”.Unfortunately this is a truism that effects scientists as much as the rest of the world.  The latest trend in hiring committees, tenure review, promotions, etc., is to use statistics such as the H’ Index to quantify scientific productivity.  This sounds good and reasonable, but unfortunately the main source used for this is the ISI Web of Science by Thomson-Rueters.  This database is incomplete to say the least and misses many legitimate publications entirely. If the database you use to…

What is it that makes people want to live forever?  I suppose some of it might be fear of death (or at least the means by which it occurs).  Some of it might be that they just don't want to "leave the party", afraid that they'll miss something. Equally, it's intriguing how many people view the idea of immortality with horror.  After all, what's so bad about it? For the sake of argument, let's assume that we could achieve immortality and still retain the anatomy and physiology of a 30-year old (just an arbitrary number).   If we're not careful we could use eternity to…

My ancestors have used this plant for generations.  The fine qualities it has to offer us, is by far,  more than just a spice or seasoning.  but that is how I have been sharing it, for years now I surf the web, read every thing I can find with botanical pictures or descriptions,  Yet, still I can not find this plants common name in English.

Sometimes I forget that my time constraints force me to make a choice between writing on my blog and reading other people's, and so I start reading random stuff in physics blogs I am acquainted with, to then find myself listlessly drifting from a site to the next in a uninterrupted chain, often circular. It is a walk on the wild side, fortunately a typically short one. I do have a few physicist friends who blog, and I visit them regularly just to keep in touch with what is up with them; check my links column to know who they are (although I have been rather lazy with adding to that list all…

Ah, summer. Sunshine, lazy days, kids selling cocaine under the guise of lemonade on the sidewalk. Wait, what? Best excuse ever for ingesting pot: it was the mysterious sidewalk salesman working for a "church fundraiser" who sold me the magic brownies. Also the most interesting issue of CDC's MMWR ever. A few months ago, a pre-school teacher, with best intentions of supporting a local parish, bought some brownies from a sidewalk vendor who was holding a bake sale fundraiser for the church. I'll let MMWR set up the rest of the story: On the morning of April 7, 2009, a preschool teacher put…