The Pretend Biologist

I am Bonnie Offit

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 21:29:00 +0000

I am a bit late to the party with this but I feel I should contribute as well.

Anti-vaxers hate, and I mean really hate, Paul Offit. The man is pure evil it seems. Why? Because he created a Rotavirus vaccine called RotaTeq and is a horrible meanie who must be a pharm shill. He eats babies too. I guess by extension they do not much care for his wife, Bonnie Offit because today the lovely Mr. JB Handley outed her as Sullivan from Left Brain Right Brain. Well, not really. Sullivan is not Bonnie Offit and the logic and evidence presented is pretty damn laughable. I will not get into how bad it is but Orac does a pretty good job summarizing it in his usual way.

I just thought I should do the Spartacus thing that is going around today and state that yes, I am Bonnie Offit.

First Snow

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 02:25:00 +0000

First snow
Falling
On the half-finished bridge.
--Matsuo Bashō

Go West, Young Man!

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 05:27:00 +0000

I have not been writing here very much lately but I have a few thoughts about possible posts. Hopefully I will get to them soon. But in the meanwhile I should have a few photos and adventures to write about as I am flying out to Vancouver in about 9 hours for a short vacation and to visit some friends I have not seen in far too long.

Hooray!

Racing Fools

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 06:21:00 +0000

I just found out that an friend of mine was killed Thursday night while waiting for a bus. According to this article a driver plowed through the bus stop he and his wife were waiting at killing him and seriously injuring his wife. I did not know Paul extremely well having only met him fairly recently but we saw each other regularly when out and about. We were hoping to get together for a beer tasting night in the near future, an event that sadly will not happen because of the actions of a stupid and selfish driver who thought it would be fun to race.

Fallingwater

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 20:16:00 +0000

Sadly I have not had time to write about neuropeptides and other fun things like I had hoped. The last week has been pretty busy. However I thought I would take a few minutes to share a link I came across yesterday.

New Brunswick is one of those provinces in Canada that most people do not seem to know a lot about. When I do meet someone who has been to my home province the experience they often describe was of a drive through province as they are normally on their way to Nova Scotia or Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick just happened to be in the way. But I would like to think there are a few reasons to stop and visit for a few days. It is a beautiful place. I think this gets overlooked quite often. No, there are no mountains to speak of but there is a large amount of beautiful forested and nature areas to explore. And waterfalls, apparently.

Of course I am familiar with the province's best known falls, Grand Falls, but to be honest I am not really well acquainted with any other falls in the province, so this site was a very nice find for me as well. Some of those listed here are pretty small, they seem to barely qualify as a waterfall but I was surprised by how many sizable examples there were.

Anyway here are some of the examples I really liked from this site:
Penniac Falls - I grew up so close to this one. Our house was down the road from it, just as you enter the city limits. I never really thought of it as an example of a waterfall before.
Third Vault Falls
Lower Joslin Falls
Howland Falls
Silver Falls - I have no idea how many times I have seen these. When I would walk to UNB I would often take a route that brought me past this.
Pinder Falls - As a lover of abandoned places I think this simply looks very cool. This waterfall is created by an old dam that was used for a now nonexistent mill.

These are mainly located in York county but there are many more to look at and read about from all over the province. And if you ever find yourself passing through perhaps you might want to take a little time to stop and look around.

Pulsate

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 01:43:00 +0000

I have not had much time to write anything this week but I hope to get around to it on the weekend. But I thought I would share this little diversion in the meantime. Pulsate is one of those ideas that seems so simple and obvious you have to wonder why you did not think of it. All you have to do is click on the screen. Every time you click a circle is created and begins to grow. When they meet a tone is produced and they shrink again. That is all there is to it, click, make relaxing music, and when you are tired of your creation just press space and start again.

Play with it here.

Actually, just look around the entire page. There are a lot of fun sound tools to play with.

Goodbye Modernity

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 16:56:00 +0000

Yet another post about my walks throughout the city. Whenever I walk through the experimental farm, or anywhere near it for that matter, I can see this large, modernist office block towering next to Dow's Lake. But it was only last week that I actually walked closer to the building in order to investigate it and noticed this huge building is empty (well, there was a single car in the parking lot but I saw a security guard drive away in it). It is a fairly eerie sight.

I think it also is a pretty wonderful place. It has two big things going for it. First, I really like modern architecture, I have a certain fondness for the concrete, for buildings that lack ornamentation (or perhaps I should say I like those buildings that are their own ornamentation), and for those things that others think are ugly.

Pre-cast concrete panels, sweet.

Second, the place is abandoned. Yes, I said it was an eerie sight but I do not mean that as a bad thing. Abandoned places are attractive for some reason. Maybe it is just a shame to have a nice building sit empty. But it is also nice to be alone with the building itself, without the hassle of being around all those nasty people things.

I did not have a lot of time so I just took a few photos was I walked through the grounds. However I will have to come back and investigate soon. And it will have to be soon as this building is apparently slated for demolition. Some people wish to save this building and I can understand why, though I am not sure this building itself should be maintained. But I do hope some examples of this style will remain. We have made the mistake of forgetting about the importance of historical buildings in the past but many probably have a hard time seeing these as being special. Yet, if we decide to remove all of these structures I think we shall regret it in the future in the same way people lament the destruction of other heritage buildings.

Well, I shall simply end this with a few more exterior photos. Enjoy!

In all its glory

Bad Astronomy in a Bad Universe

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 16:12:00 +0000

Ohhhhh, this looks like it will be fun.

Yay for Phil Plait. I have been reading his website since the early days and it has been great to see him succeed at doing what he loves. So I am excited about this show. But we will have to see how it is once it actually airs. I hope there will be a lot of content stuffed alongside the silly cartoons and explosions. Something distinctly lacking in most science programs these days.
[Update: The video is broken for now. According to Phil it had some problems but a new version should be up soon]

Around the world

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 23:23:00 +0000

I am curious if there is anything interesting going on here at Carleton this weekend. I just wandered out into the parking lot next to VSIM and saw it was packed with cars from all over Canada and the USA, from as far away as Alberta and Texas and many places in between. But I see nothing mentioned in the news released on the university website. I suppose this may always remain a mystery.

The Long Walk

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 03:35:00 +0000

I worked at the heart institute today and rather than taking the bus to the lab I thought I would walk. It is not a particularly long distance, perhaps 4.0 km total and fairly scenic. The route takes me through the Central Experimental Farm and around Dow's Lake, crossing over the Rideau Canal at the Hartwell locks. But it was hot and humid and turned into a rather miserable trek. I ended up taking a few photos however my heart was not into it today and there are only a few.

I have seen these buildings many times coming and going from work but have never stopped to take a look at them. It was obvious they were once an observatory but I doubted it remained one. The internet solved the mystery of what these buildings were. From 1902-1970 this was the Dominion Observatory and once housed a 15-inch refracting telescope. Neat! That is pretty large for a refracting telescope. It is no longer on the site but at least it was not destroyed when decomissioned. Now it is across town at the Canada Science and Technology Museum and this building is part of Natural Resources Canada, housing the Office of Energy Efficiency. They could have demolished these buildings and put something modern here but thankfully someone seems to see the worth in keeping an awesome older structure like this.

I had no idea there was an arboretum at the farm. This requires some more investigaton (on a somewhat more temperate day). Normally I simply follow the roads that cross the farmland but today I simply pointed myself roughly in the direction of school and started wandering and came across it. This scene made me think of a golf course. I wish I had a few clubs with me.

Well, that was it for today. Pretty boring. Hopefully the weekend will be better. A friend is coming over on Sunday and we are going to make bagels! There should be pictures to follow. Even if they do not turn out well I am sure it will be fun.

Lies, damned lies, and Chris Mooney

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 17:30:00 +0000

I am a bit rushed so this is going to be written quickly and will probably be of fairly low quality. However, I wanted to write about it before the events were too far into the past.

The downfall of the blog You're Not Helping (YNH) a few weeks ago provided some enjoyable times in the science/atheist blogging world. It was good for a laugh, pretty crazy and as I have not been able to let my fangs show lately, a bit cathartic and very satisfying. I will not get into the details but if you are interested this post has most of the information you require. The basic situation was:

The author of YNH really disliked the "New Atheists" types
Wanted to hold them to a high standard, keep us honest (was more of a jackass, edited people's comments on his blog, mischaracterized what people said and more)
The author himself was found to be very dishonest and was posting under various names on his own blog and others, what is called sockpuppeting or "the act of creating a fake online identity to praise, defend or create the illusion of support for one's self, allies or company."

This tied into Chris Mooney and his blog The Intersection because some of these sockpuppets were pretty regular commenters and supporters of him. But that was it, I suppose it was a bit embarrassing perhaps but nothing too serious.

Except now something more serious has happened. One of Chris' examples of just how mean and nasty atheists are was "Tom Johnson" who left a comment on the blog complaining that his atheist colleagues pick on religious people:

Many of my colleagues are fans of Dawkins, PZ, and their ilk and make a point AT CONSERVATION EVENTS to mock the religious to their face, shout forced laughter at them, and call them “stupid,” “ignorant” and the like – and these are events hosted by religious moderates where we’ve been ASKED to attend. They think it’s the way to be a good scientist, after all.

Chris' posts on this can be seen here and here. At the time people complained that posting it was unfair, that there was no evidence this actually happened, it was just the word of an anonymous commenter. But Chris could not understand why people were making a big deal about his elevation of that post. Well, surprise, surprise, Tom turns out to be another sockpuppet from YNH. Chris made it seem like he had done some fact checking over this and verified who the poster was but it seems while he a journalist he is willing to accept the claims of those he agrees with at face value.

But moreover, when it came to “Tom Johnson,” I emailed him after his first comment, to check on his identity. The response claimed to be a specific person–a specific Ph.D. candidate at a specific university–and provided a university website and considerable detail about this person’s scientific career, publishing record, outreach endeavors, and so on.

A good journalist would have contacted that person and made ensured it really was him. Anyone can send you a link to a website hoping you will not check.

The fact that he was taken does not bother me that much though. It is embarrassing, or should be, for him. He needs to be called out on doing it. This should be a learning situation for him, he should appologise and be honest about this but instead he seems to have decided to play coy and hope everything will be forgotten and blow over. This is what bothers me. His dishonestly and weaseling, the fact that he cannot really admit he was wrong. In his post acknowledging the accusations being made about "Tom Johnson" he appeals for people to wait for the full story.

I am looking into all this, and will get to the bottom of it.

I quite enjoyed PZ Myers response to this

I’m curious. What do you mean, “you’ll get to the bottom of it”? The story has all been laid out for you, complete with a confession.
If you mean you’re going to employ your tremendous journalistic skills to investigate further…well…well. Having seen those in action, I’m thinking…ah, screw it. Anything appropriate I could say would be censored with much strident pearl clutching.

and finally Chris posts this short message

I have now figured out what is going on here and will post more shortly.

This was at 16:03 PM yesterday. Of course there is still no update. I guess Chris has a different idea about what shortly means than I do. I did not really expect an update about this. At least not an honest one. The only news he has released was a new post announcing that he was changing his already heavy handed moderation policy to complete moderation. Now every comment will be moderated by him. Not that this changes anything for me. While I do not believe I have ever posted a comment there before yesterday every post I make has to wait for moderation and as of yet not a single one has been allowed. I have no idea why, my language was clean and I was less mean than others. As my comment from this morning did not go through I think I shall post it here. You can see just what kind of meanie I am. Maybe you can tell me why this was so unacceptable (I admit it was not written that well but I was sleepy but I do not think that is one of his main concerns when accepting comments).

Not that this is going to get through as none of my other comments have appeared (not sure why, I used no bad language, and was nicer than a lot of other people and I think it was my first time posting here), but you already have stringent moderating policies here. The solution is not to shut people up and moderate everything, just look for patterns and check suspicions. Sockpuppets are not that hard to discover, you see some similarities and you check things like the IP address.
Moderating comments is not the solution here, dealing with the problem is. Post that update about what was going on. Or better yet, actually apologise and admit you were wrong to post it, that you did not check the facts enough. Unless you have more information that proves it is real. The longer it takes the more unprofessional it looks, the more people are going to suspect you are just hoping it will disappear and people will forget and stop being a pain in the ass.

Update: The first part of Mooney's update is up and it is totally pointless. He confirms that there were indeed sock puppets and appologises for letting that happen. While sock puppets are irritating and stupid I think misses the point. No one seemed all that concerned that sock puppets were commenting there, the concern was that he said he had confirmed a story of a commenter only to later find out he did no such thing. It only relates to sockpuppets because in the exposing of one we found out this woeful tale was a lie.

Of course he still has to attempt to deflect attention away from himself by pointing out that it is possible that some nasty "New Atheists" could have been sockpuppets as well!

Since we weren’t checking (and will not go back through every single thread), it’s not at all impossible that there were other sock puppets–and this might well have occurred on either side of contentious issues.

This is obviously true, but pretty irrelevant and just serves to cast doubt on other posters making it seems as though they are just as bad. If he has some evidence that someone is a sockpuppet then he should say so otherwise not muddy the waters with it.

Well, maybe in part II he will actually address the real reason people were angry, that he was a lazy blogger who was willing to contact a poster to get more information but not willing to verify that the information given was true. Somehow I get the feeling it will be somewhat inadequate.

Coma

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 09:16:00 +0000

I came across a pretty little platformer, Coma, on Newgrounds earlier in the day and think it deserves a mention. The game itself is trivially easy. You are guided throughout the game and finding out what to do next is not a problem. So I doubt anyone will have any real issues in getting to the end, though the controls are a bit touchy and it can be a bit difficult to tell what you can jump onto and what you will fall through. What makes this game worth playing is its polished nature. The art is simply beautiful with some wonderful use of light and shadow. There are little graphical touches that did not need to be there but add an extra feeling of completeness to the look and feel. For instance, flowers and grasses blow in the breeze and as your character runs past they bend and spring back. The music is quiet and simple, it does not overpower any scene but works well together with the visuals.

Flocks of birds fly through the sky (they are black and I like crows so perhaps that not everyone will like them as much as I did when I first saw them) and monsters await you in this surreal little adventure so go take a look. It is worth a few minutes of your time.

A bit more than graffiti

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 05:20:00 +0000

I have seen a fair number of heavily tagged trains while in Europe, and it is common to see the façade of trains and buses painted by advertisers but I have never seen the interior of a train given quite this level of artistic treatment.

I found this at Xinhua's website but I have not been able to track down any more information about who is behind these undersea landscapes. Perhaps someone else's Google-fu is far superior to my own and can help with that.

Finally Up

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 17:10:00 +0000

Two months after the MeMeA workshop our paper is finally up on IEEE Xplore. I am surprised that in this day and age it takes well over a month to get a copy of the proceedings online. I need to have a look at the final copy of the paper though, I am surprised it only lists the Department of Systems and Computer Engineering considering I am in Computer Science and Jeff is in the Chemistry department. We were a little rushed for time but I thought all of our departments were included on the final copy.

July 4, 2010: Well, thankfully the paper itself does list the departments correctly. I am not sure why the website itself only lists that of the first author. Good enough, at least we got it right.

Peace, Robert; Stewart, Travis; Green, James; Smith, Jeff; Department of Systems and Computer Engineering, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada

Abstract
LC-MS/MS is an analytical technique used for protein identification and biomarker discovery. Typically, each peptide will be measured twice by the MS/MS, resulting in two or more mass-to-charge spectra for each peptide. The current study investigates various ways to combine these replicate measurements to improve the quality of the measured spectra, and in turn, the confidence and accuracy of the protein identification. Sample data was collected using a QSTAR XL hybrid quadrupole-time-of-flight mass spectrometer, given a input standard protein mixture of known composition. Spectrum alignment is used to identify replicate spectra. Various algorithms for combining these replicate measurements are investigated, and are compared to the current industry standard MASCOT algorithm. Results are judged based on protein identification rates following combination of replicate spectra. Algorithms which leverage the fact that mass-to-charge data collected above the parent ion mass are more informative for protein identification appear particularly effective, and warrants further investigation.

Goodbye Homeopathy

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 19:53:00 +0000

If only I could say that. However, a vote at the annual representative meeting of the British Medical Association has come out in favour of stopping NHS funding of homeopathic treatments and calls for them to no longer be referred to as medicine. I originally saw this on the BBC but it is evident they culled most of the story from the BMA news story here except they left out the snarkiness much to its detriment. I quite enjoyed this passage:

BMA junior doctors committee vice-chair Tom Dolphin, who first proposed banning homeopathy at the BMA annual junior doctors conference in May, said: ‘I got into trouble for saying at the juniors conference that homeopathy is witchcraft.

'I take that back and apologise to the witches I apparently offended by association.'

He also warned

‘Homeopathy isn’t witchcraft — it is nonsense on stilts. It is pernicious nonsense that feeds into a rising wave of irrationality that threatens the hard won gains of the enlightenment, and the scientific method.’

He warned that society risked ‘sinking back into a state of magical thinking, where made-up science passes for rational discourse, and wishing for something to be true counts as proof’.

I like Tom Dolphin. I like him a lot.

However the BBC did decide that a logical fallacy was fit to print:

But Derbyshire consultant urologist David Shipstone doctors used other practices that did not have a sound scientific basis.

Ahh, yes, our old friend the tu quoque fallacy. No one is defending other bad practices here, the NHS should also stop funding other quack treatments. But homeopathy does not become justifiable just because other poor treatments are used. Homeopathy is even worse than treatments without sound scientific basis though, it has been tested many times in sound scientific settings and found to be no better than placebo.

The Society of Homeopaths spokesperson seems to think one should not care that much because it is not that much money

And a spokeswoman also pointed out that the amount of public money spent on it was very low.

She said: "The cost of homeopathy on the NHS is low - just 0.001% of the £11 billion drugs budget."

It is still crap and money should not be wasted on it. Having bad science funded gives it an air of legitimacy that it does not deserve. Sure, it is only 4 million pounds but it is 4 million pounds that could do something useful, not buying water and sugar at inflated prices.

Weird Times

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 09:46:00 +0000

I have taken on a part-time job at the Carleton library. It started last week but this week is my first full one. The job is just a summer position doing work on the new library website, similar to a part-time job I had last summer, and only for 20 hours a week but I am having a hard time getting used to the schedule needed for it and to still work on research related projects. So lately I have been living on a strange schedule, sleeping at strange times, working at weird hours of the day and generally not being the same as other people.

I had a long nap Sunday afternoon, got up, cooked a small chicken, made a casserole for dinner and worked in the evening and early morning. Now I am sitting up listening to podcasts on the BBC (right now: The Age of the Genome, by Richard Dawkins. Worth listening to. The first of four episodes is now available) and I plan to work at the library tomorrow before heading home for another nap in the evening. Then I expect to be up much of the night once again. *sigh* This will have to be fixed at some point in the near future but not tonight, I have things I want to work on, to look at.

Research has been going well at least. We have finally started our collaboration with a Canadian company I will not name. The last week or so I have been attempting to get a handle on the software and code they supplied us, to get an idea of how much work will be needed but so far things are looking good. I also have been getting used to programming in Windows. That a different world when compared to programming in Linux. Using Visual Studio is a bit strange when you mainly have used emacs in the past. As is dealing with all of these dlls. At least I have figured that out and sorted out most of the problems, though I still cannot get OpenMS to compile in Windows after a week of trying on and off.

Orbital feat. The Doctor

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 03:55:00 +0000

Orbital + The Doctor = Win
Is there anything else to say?

I might as well post the one from 2004 as well. I like it better than this one and it is always worth seeing again.

It is just atoms!

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 02:45:00 +0000

Okay, I know a lot of what I write is based on something I initially saw on the BBC. I read the site often and it is normally the first place I come across any given story. Today is no different.

Apparently there is a new film by Chris Rock, Good Hair, that focuses on the hair industry but I would guess it does not discuss all of the aspects of the business the BBC decided to write about. Most people are fairly comfortable with the idea of using hair extensions and have probably heard about using hair to mop up oil spills but what about using it in our food? It turns out one of the uses of human hair is the production of L-cysteine, an amino acid used in the food production. I suppose one might be a little disturbed by this, but I think that should pass pretty quickly, it is just a chemical, right? But I should have realized that many people cannot view it that way. There were a few comments on the story that expressed disgust at the idea.

It is bad enough to encounter someone's "short & curly" in prepared food without having to entertain the thought that hair, though pulverised, could be an ingredient in processed food. If we have to resort to eating waste steps have to be taken first to curb the ever growing world population.

I have a couple of problems with this. Why should we only make use of our waste if we really, really have to? This last resort thinking seems to be really wrong headed to me. We should be planning to make the most of what we have sooner rather than later. If it is easier to extract it from hair then we should do it. There is nothing bad about it. Chemicals are made of atoms, they do not retain mystical hair-like properties that should gross you out. Sure, I know we all have an ick factor, we irrationally dislike some things. It happened in the past with organ transplants but I doubt many people would defend such an attitude now. This is something to fight against, we should be able to recognize this in ourselves and rationalize away that squicky feeling. It is time to grow up.

Two minutes' hate

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 03:39:00 +0000

You just have to love the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the news agency of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). The news is unlike any other news I have ever seen and so it is fascinating and reading it is one of my guilty pleasures. The stories they release are a wonderful mixture of trivial events (Quadruplets Join Army), bizarre inventions that are usless (Blood-Purifying Finger Ring), propaganda designed to reenforce the cult of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il (Feats of Kim Jong Il's Ideo-theoretical Activities Lauded), a lot of praise from useful idiots (Kim Jong Il's Feats Lauded, Kim Jong Il's Feats Lauded in Guinea and Finland), and a general hatred of ROK, the US and Japan. Normally I skip that last category. I find they are the most tiring, the most boring, they simply repeat the same stories. But In the last few days I noticed a couple that were of interest. Normally there are stories that talk about rallies against the foreign policy of these countries, or about the occupation of South Korea by US forces but in the last few days there have been a more general class of rally being reported. On the 23rd there was an indignation meeting and one the 24th revenge meeting. From the revenge meeting story:

The reporters and speakers at the meetings recalled that the U.S. imperialists brutally destroyed cities, villages, factories and farms and killed innocent civilians in the most barbarous way everywhere they set their foot during the war of aggression.

They also referred to the shuddering atrocities perpetrated by the U.S. imperialists in Susan-ri and Sinchon in the period of the temporary strategic retreat during the Korean war, denouncing the Yankees as a herd of wolves in human skin and the Koreans' sworn-enemy with whom they can not live under the same sky.

It is a broad kind of hatred they are promoting. Painting the enemy as being nonhuman, an other. It immediately made me think of Orwell's Two Minnutes' Hate in 1984, where the enemies of Oceanian express their hatred of the enemies of their country. Then again, this is hardly surprising. Almost everything about North Korea reminds me of 1984 to some degree.

Shake, Rattle and Roll

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 22:19:00 +0000

By this time I imagine most people who read any North American news sources knows we had an earthquake in southern Ontario/Quebec. The original reports I saw put it at 5.5-5.7 but I see that Natural Resources Canada is now indicating it was a lower magnitude quake, a 5.0. Even at this lower magnitude it was pretty cool. This is the only earthquake I remember. I was sitting at my desk in the library when I noticed a small shaking and some rattling noises but it was very similar to what happens when a large truck drives by and as there was a building being built very close to the library I thought very little of it. But within a second or two the amplitude really increased and the cubicle wall next to me started to wobble quite vigorously. Apparently books were falling off the shelves but I did not see this. It was an interesting event but it did get tiring to hear about it constantly the rest of the day. I could hear people calling friends and family for the rest of the day, and the endless jokes about "A whole lotta shakin' going on" got a little repetitive.

The Thrill Of The Countess

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 02:49:00 +0000

Normally the ads facebook presents to me do not even catch my eye but today I saw one with a rather bright right, toyish looking contraption and wondered what it was.

It turns out it is an Invitrogen ad, which surprised me considering they are a pretty specialized biotech company. Apparently they know how much I love videos of silly scientific foolishness. They are giving away a Countess Automated Cell Counter to the group that creates the most popular video saying why they should get the countess. So far there are only two entries and my vote goes to "The Thrill of the Countess" because who does not like a Thriller parody?

Fig. 8

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 21:15:00 +0000

I find there is a real beautiful aspect to technical drawings. I used to love the large plotted diagrams my father would bring home from work occasionally. They are so simple, often just black and white line drawings but that is what makes them so wonderful and so elegant. So I was happy to bump into Fig. 8 today. The game itself is very simple. You drive a little bike around trying not to crash into any obstacles. Not the most innovative idea, but the execution is perfect. The art style is simply so aesthetically pleasing and the music, well, it just feels right.

Random photos while walking to school

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 19:44:00 +0000

I decided to walk to school taking a different route than I normally do. This path takes me along the Rideau River and it is a lot more attractive than my normal route, though I am fairly certain it takes longer to get there this way. Anyway, I was up early and had lots of time to wander around taking photos so I thought I might post a couple here. They are not exactly good but it was a lovely day and should be shown off.

On the bridge at Bronson Ave, looking up towards Carleton.

Little wooden bridge that is liberally coated with graffiti.

No idea what these are but they are weird.

Random bench, I wondered where it was stolen from, but the location is nice.

This is actually a nice little park area next to the biology building. But it is ruined by the fans on top of the building that are incredibly loud. I cannot imagine actually sitting there for more than a few minutes.

O-Train crossing the river, going south.

Looking east towards Bronson Ave.

The train bridge up close.

One of the new buildings on campus, a horrible disruption to traffic and pedestrians.

Rapids from afar and up close.

I just like crows, even when they are picking at a corpse on the road. This one got scared off by a garbage truck a few seconds later and carried the meal to my side of the road.

It is out behind our building, I have no idea why it is there, I have never seen it used, but it is cool.

Home, sweet home.

Your feelings are irrelevant

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 22:20:00 +0000

My brother sent me this link to a short article at the UK Greenpeace site about a visit to Sellafield, the nuclear processing facility. What struck me was how much of the article about this tour was about the author's feelings rather than about the actual tour and what is actually there. An example of this is the paragraph and a half below

Whilst it was undoubtedly fascinating to see how Sellafield operates, it is a very eerie place indeed. There is a constant beeping noise like a heart beat inside all the nuclear areas, apparently to let you know that everything's fine, but you can't help feeling like you're stuck in the middle of some huge, and rather dangerous, living creature. And places like the Shear Cave in THORP, where fuel is chopped to bits behind heavily shielded walls, look weirdly organic, like an anomalous cross between something out of HR Giger and HP Lovecraft's more outré moments.

Despite staff telling you that everything was perfectly safe and there was no risk from radiation at all, you couldn't help thinking that it just might not be the case...

I have to say I do not really care that they are not able to feel comfortable there, or that the buildings and facilities look weird to them. None of that actually means anything when it comes to the safety of the place. In fact, considering this person most likely does not support nuclear power in any way their feelings are probably the most biased thing around. I wish they had shown more photos. I have been to labs with radiation hazards before (CERN, DESY, and TRIUMF), they have large buildings, scary interlocks, things buried under tons of concrete, tunnels and most likely have a similar look and feel to this place. None of that really says much about how dangerous it really is. I think they are just not used to such places (and they probably want to play up the fear factor).

They go on to say

On the way back home I got the train from the soul-destroyingly bleak Sellafield station (note to whoever paid £400,000 to have it upgraded and "renovated": you were seriously ripped off).

Really, how is this relevant at all? Have a look at it.

It is a station, it looks like a boring station. I would not call it and architecturally beautiful structure but if this was anywhere else I doubt they would call it "soul-destroyingly bleak". That is simply an emotional response, one they hope will influence the reader to dislike the site a little more.

The article ends with this little gem.

Back in the office the next day I read a slightly scary story about a Sellafield worker who was arrested for building a bomb in his bedroom. Having seen the stuff that goes on inside the plant first hand, it really does make you wonder.

Does it really make you wonder? It does not make me wonder very much. In fact it seems rather unrelated to the visit to this plant or the safety of the plant. Nothing about the story makes me think it is connected to the plant in any way other than his having worked there.

Visiting Stellfield could have made for a very interesting article. But instead it seems to concentrate on vague impressions about it. I am not asking them to actually agree with me on nuclear power but please realize that your feelings really have nothing to do with whether or not it should be done, they are just an emotional appeal to make others wary of it and to spread the unease.

It turns out my brother has some similar thoughts and wrote a comment on the site. With his permission I am posting it here.

facts and feelings
I realize that this article was posted quite sometime ago, but I felt I had to reply.
First off, I am a scientist (well darn close to finishing my PhD in physics) studying particle physics (I've been classified as a radiation worker, but very low levels). Seeing that I'm in physics, I've had an interest in nuclear events, accidents, and sites for some time. Last year I've visited the remnants of the Chernobyl plant while in the Ukraine.
I thought that this article could and should have been much more. The Sellafield is historically important in the development of nuclear technology, and is a very good example of how contaminated early nuclear sites are. There are many technical aspects that might be discussed here, and observed during a visit to Sellafield... but instead most statements refer to 'feelings' - '...feeling like you're stuck in the middle of some huge, and rather dangerous, living creature.' and refering to Lovecraft is hyperbole that teaches us nothing new. Large industrial sites of all stripes are often dark, ugly, and sometimes dangerous places.
Additionally you mention B30, but nothing about what actually occurred (only alluding to 'stories'). B30s story is interesting, but not a ghost story... it is a story of quick disposal without long-term thinking or oversight.
The same for the 'soul-destroyingly bleak Sellafield station' has NOTHING to do with the nuclear contamination of the site. What does this add to the story? Does it affect the site's contamination?
As for the worker with the bomb, I see no mention of nuclear materials or a nuclear bomb...
It is this sort of writing, which is more about feelings, and gut reactions than facts, that makes it difficult to take Greenpeace seriously on technical subjects.

Lab Romance, Love and Happiness

noreply@blogger.com (Travis) — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 10:34:00 +0000

Cheesy science ads to warm the heart: