Month: February 2004

eniran came over for dinner and a movie tonight, and it was quite an enjoyable evening. I'd spent the best part of the afternoon cooking, a big batch of pasta sauce to replenish my stocks and I tried my hands making some chocolate fudge cookies based on a recipe that ruthebee sent a while back. Though it started as a cookie recipe, it ended up being a pan of damn good brownies. Not what I was expecting, but I'm not disappointed at all :)

We watched Lost in translation, and then ended up watching a muppet show episode where Julie Andrews sang about the lonely goatherd. Chatted a bit after that, mostly about the list of 5 women we'd have sex with without it being considered cheating.

• Alyson Hannigan
• Jeri Ryan
• Claudia Christian
• Charlize Theron
• TBD, but for now, I'd say Angelina Jolie

After that, we goofed off while playing a round of trivial pursuit. A notable quote:
her: I prefer pink.
me: I'm not touching that one…
her: No, you're not :)

All in all, a fun evening. Now, I'm off ot bed.

I'm speaking managerese!!!!

We're bidding on a governmental RFP (request for proposal), i.e. a contract, for the DOD. I was asked to do a nice little write-up for a contract I recently worked on… Dear lord, I'm ashamed of what came out of my brain. If buzzwords don't scare you, look under the cut.

One of the major hurdles currently impeding the rapid exchange and dissemination of data between research projects is the lack of a scientifically-curated, standardized biological exchange format. As the scientific community currently stands, the main repositories for scientific data – be it sequence data, genomic annotations, expression data, genetic variability data, or any number of other data types – each have their own storage and export formats. Imagine a research project that requires sequence data from one source to be cross-referenced with functional annotations from another source and finally be correlated to expression data from a third. The complexities of dealing with the lack of a common format often preclude the timely completion of research projects, as a significant amount of work must be done simply to get the data at the same place, before any meaningful question can even begin to be answered. Now imagine this process being repeated every time a new data source appears on the global scientific landscape.

The vision of [the project] was to provide a unified, integrated data model, where heterogeneous data sources would only need to be processed once at integration time and then be accessible for any correlation or query. Another cornerstone of [the project] was application integration. Another hindrance to the efficient use of bioinformatics analysis tools is the lack of common, clear and concise user interfaces. To correct this, the [the project] build a framework where various tools already established in the scientific community, as well as any custom-required tool, could be seamlessly integrated within the system and thus acquire a graphical user interface that would fulfill the aforementioned criteria. Data integration and application would act in synergy to create a scientifically-sound, technologically-efficient work environment where previously impossible questions could begin to be answered.

I feel so dirty.

Don't ask me how I got to this, cause really, I can't tell you, but this is SO wrong as to be hilarious.

Check out the possum_nation blog.

From their description: A Possum is someone who has passed the point of ugly and has no hope of return. This community is dedicated to sorting the Possums out of the crowd. This is a rating community judging on LOOKS. We don't care if you're a saint and breast feed the homeless, if you're ugly, we will tell you. Members can respond cruely- this activity is encouraged- so don't apply if you can't handle it!

A friend of mine recently asked me to recommend some reading material to her. Since this isn't the first time it happens, I figured I might as well write a little entry with my favourite reading material. Each book will have a description under the cut. Most are taken from amazon, with my comments added here and there. Enjoy, and tell me if you like them.

Offbeat comedy and zaniness

Terry Pratchett – Discworld novels
There are more than 25 books in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. The series takes place on the flat world of the Disc which is carried on the backs of four elephants standing on the great Turtle, A'tuin, as she swims through space. On the Disc mariners who attempt to sail over the horizon, in fact, sail over the edge. The Disc is home to magic and many magical creatures and beings abound, gods, dwarfs, trolls, vampires, zombies, werewolves, wizards, witches and more. Pratchett has an unmatched skill to describe an ordinary situation is a completely original and offbeat way. I believe that what makes the books so enjoyable to read are the secondary characters that pop up once in a while.

Terry Pratchett's Discworld books can be grouped into categories depending on who the primary characters are. I tend to think of the categories as the Wizards of the Unseen University, the Witches of Lancre, Death, and the City Watch. Most of the Discworld books fall into one of these categories. Click here to view a suggested reading order for the Discworld novels.

The Discworld books are jewels of humorous fantasy. The most enjoyable Discworld books involve the City Watch, Guards, Guards, Men at Arms, Feet of Clay, Jingo, The Fifth Elephant and The Night Watch. The Death series are also good for many a laugh, with Mort, Reaper Man, The Hogfather, Soul Music, and Thief of Time.

Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett – Good omens
Pratchett and Gaiman may seem an unlikely combination, but the topic (Armageddon) of this fast-paced novel is old hat to both. Pratchett's wackiness collaborates with Gaiman's morbid humor; the result is a humanist delight to be savored and reread again and again. You see, there was a bit of a mix up when the Antichrist was born, due in part to the machinations of Crowley, who did not so much fall as saunter downwards, and in part to the mysterious ways as manifested in the form of a part-time rare book dealer, an angel named Aziraphale. Like top agents everywhere, they've long had more in common with each other than the sides they represent, or the conflict they are nominally engaged in. The only person who knows how it will all end is Agnes Nutter, a witch whose prophecies all come true, if one can only manage to decipher them. The minor characters along the way (Famine makes an appearance as diet crazes, no-calorie food and anorexia epidemics) are as much fun as the story as a whole, which adds up to one of those rare books which is enormous fun to read the first time, and the second time, and the third time

I'd recommend all of Christopher Moore's books, but these two are a must:

Christopher Moore – The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove
Reading a Christopher Moore novel is a little like eating a potato chip–it's hard to stop at just one. And you don't have to look beyond the titles to understand the allure; who could pass up a book called Practical Demonkeeping or Island of the Sequined Love Nun? Each of Moore's tales skewers a particular literary genre. In Coyote Blue he nailed New Age fascination with Native American religion; in Blood-Sucking Fiends: A Love Story he put a new twist on the classic vampire tale. The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove is a companion piece to his first novel, the hilariously twisted horror story Practical Demonkeeping, and readers of that book will recognize the setting, Pine Cove, California. In addition, Moore includes plenty of his patented weird sex, occasional gross-out death, several off-kilter but nonetheless affecting love stories, and some fabulous secondary characters.

In a nutshell, the plot revolves around a gigantic prehistoric lizard whose slumber deep beneath the ocean surface is interrupted by a radioactive leak from a nearby power plant. At the same time, a woman in Pine Cove hangs herself; the local psychiatrist (who has been prescribing antidepressants to everyone in town with gay abandon) decides the suicide was her fault and yanks everyone's medication; and an elderly black blues singer named Catfish Jefferson arrives to perform at the Head of the Slug saloon. Into this already strange brew mix one schizoid former B-movie starlet, a pot-head town constable, a bereaved local artist, a biologist tracking anomalous behavior in rats, a crooked sheriff, and a pharmacist with a bizarre sexual fixation on sea mammals, and you have a recipe for the kind of madness Moore does so well

Christopher Moore – Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story
Here's something different: a vampire novel that's light, funny, and not at all hackneyed. Between scenes of punks bowling frozen turkeys on the graveyard shift in a supermarket, or snapping turtles loose in a loft and gnawing on designer shoes, this novel has comic charm to spare. But it also packs an appealingly downbeat message about the consumer culture. Jody never asked to become a vampire. But when she wakes up under an alley dumpster with a badly burned arm, an aching neck, superhuman strength, and a distinctly Nosferatuan thirst, she realizes the decision has been made for her. Making the transition from the nine-to-five grind to an eternity of nocturnal prowlings is going to take some doing, however, and that's where C. Thomas Flood fits in. A would-be Kerouac from Incontinence, lndiana, Tommy (to his fiends) is biding his time night-clerking and frozen turkey bowling in a San Francisco Safeway. But all that changes when a beautiful, undead redhead walks through the door … and proceeds to rock Tommy's life — and afterlife — in ways he never imagined possible

Hard Sci-fi

Vernor Vinge – A fire upon the deep
In this Hugo-winning 1991 SF novel, Vernor Vinge gives us a wild new cosmology, a galaxy-spanning “Net of a Million Lies,” some finely imagined aliens, and much nail-biting suspense. Faster-than-light travel remains impossible near Earth, deep in the galaxy's Slow Zone–but physical laws relax in the surrounding Beyond. Outside that again is the Transcend, full of unguessable, godlike “Powers.” When human meddling wakes an old Power, the Blight, this spreads like a wildfire mind virus that turns whole civilizations into its unthinking tools. And the half-mythical Countermeasure, if it exists, is lost with two human children on primitive Tines World.

Serious complications follow. One paranoid alien alliance blames humanity for the Blight and launches a genocidal strike. Pham Nuwen, the man who knows about Countermeasure, escapes this ruin in the spacecraft Out of Band–heading for more violence and treachery, with 500 warships soon in hot pursuit. On his destination world, the fascinating Tines are intelligent only in combination: named “individuals” are small packs of the doglike aliens. Primitive doesn't mean stupid, and opposed Tine leaders wheedle the young castaways for information about guns and radios. Low-tech war looms, with elaborately nested betrayals and schemes to seize Out of Band if it ever arrives. The tension becomes extreme… while half the Beyond debates the issues on galactic Usenet.

Vinge's climax is suitably mindboggling. This epic combines the flash and dazzle of old-style space opera with modern, polished thoughtfulness. Pham Nuwen also appears in the nifty prequel set 30,000 years earlier, A Deepness in the Sky. Both novels are highly recommended, as this is some of the most original material I've read in years.

David Weber – The Honor Harrington series
David Weber's Honor Harrington series is up to its 10th novel, narrating the conflicts between the Royal Kingdom of Manticore Alliance against the People's Republic of Haven. Central to this series is Admiral Lady Honor Harrington. The series follows her career from lowly ensign, to captain, to admiral. Though sometimes slightly repetitive in its plot, the series is nonetheless excellent. This is space opera at a scale never before seen. Weber has room to expand subplots and secondary characters and bring to the reader a feeling of depth and completeness seldom seen in science fiction novels. Character development is one of the strengths of this series, with actors growing in stature from unimportant secondary characters to major players in the “Honorverse.” Politics, love, war, cynicism, celery and plenty of exploding spaceships.

Richard Morgan – Altered carbon
In the 25th century, it's difficult to die a final death. Humans are issued a cortical stack, implanted into their bodies, into which consciousness is “digitized” and from which-unless the stack is hopelessly damaged-their consciousness can be downloaded (“resleeved”) with its memory intact, into a new body. While the Vatican is trying to make resleeving (at least of Catholics) illegal, centuries-old aristocrat Laurens Bancroft brings Takeshi Kovacs (an Envoy, a specially trained soldier used to being resleeved and trained to soak up clues from new environments) to Earth, where Kovacs is resleeved into a cop's body to investigate Bancroft's first mysterious, stack-damaging death. To solve the case, Kovacs must destroy his former Envoy enemies; outwit Bancroft's seductive, wily wife; dabble in United Nations politics; trust an AI that projects itself in the form of Jimi Hendrix; and deal with his growing physical and emotional attachment to Kristin Ortega, the police lieutenant who used to love the body he's been given. Kovacs rockets from the seediest hellholes on Earth, through virtual reality torture, into several gory firefights, and on to some exotic sexual escapades. Morgan's 25th-century Earth is convincing, while the questions he poses about how much Self is tied to body chemistry and how the rich believe themselves above the law are especially timely.

Cyberpunk

Neal Stephenson – Cryptonomicon
Cryptonomicon zooms all over the world, careening conspiratorially back and forth between two time periods–World War II and the present. Our 1940s heroes are the brilliant mathematician Lawrence Waterhouse, cryptanalyst extraordinaire, and gung ho, morphine-addicted marine Bobby Shaftoe. They're part of Detachment 2702, an Allied group trying to break Axis communication codes while simultaneously preventing the enemy from figuring out that their codes have been broken. Their job boils down to layer upon layer of deception. Dr. Alan Turing is also a member of 2702, and he explains the unit's strange workings to Waterhouse. “When we want to sink a convoy, we send out an observation plane first…. Of course, to observe is not its real duty–we already know exactly where the convoy is. Its real duty is to be observed…. Then, when we come round and sink them, the Germans will not find it suspicious.”

All of this secrecy resonates in the present-day story line, in which the grandchildren of the WWII heroes–inimitable programming geek Randy Waterhouse and the lovely and powerful Amy Shaftoe–team up to help create an offshore data haven in Southeast Asia and maybe uncover some gold once destined for Nazi coffers. To top off the paranoiac tone of the book, the mysterious Enoch Root, key member of Detachment 2702 and the Societas Eruditorum, pops up with an unbreakable encryption scheme left over from WWII to befuddle the 1990s protagonists with conspiratorial ties. If you're a geek, you have to read this book.

Neal Stephenson – Snow Crash
From the opening line of his breakthrough cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson plunges the reader into a not-too-distant future. It is a world where the Mafia controls pizza delivery, the United States exists as a patchwork of corporate-franchise city-states, and the Internet–incarnate as the Metaverse–looks something like last year's hype would lead you to believe it should. Enter Hiro Protagonist–hacker, samurai swordsman, and pizza-delivery driver. When his best friend fries his brain on a new designer drug called Snow Crash and his beautiful, brainy ex-girlfriend asks for his help, what's a guy with a name like that to do? He rushes to the rescue. A breakneck-paced 21st-century novel, Snow Crash interweaves everything from Sumerian myth to visions of a postmodern civilization on the brink of collapse. Faster than the speed of television and a whole lot more fun, Snow Crash is the portrayal of a future that is bizarre enough to be plausible. From the moment I picked up this book and read the first few pages, I was hooked and read it almost in one sitting.

Dennis Danvers – Circuits of Heaven
The shape of the future is the Bin: an ideal world re-created in a computer. With the exception of a few religious fanatics and crazies, most of the people on Earth have left their bodies behind for eternal life within the machine. Existence outside of the electric utopia has become crude and primitive. Nemo is one of the holdouts, despising the virtual world ever since his parents abandoned him so they could join it. But when he visits them on his twenty-first birthday, he meets Justine and falls in love. Nemo must decide whether to join her in the computer or try to forget that she exists. His decision becomes more complicated when a fanatic group decides to use him to infect the computer with a virus that will supposedly shut off access between the two worlds.

Fluff reading

These are books that are fun to read, even if they're not at the height of the literary world. These are like candy, and most can be read in a weekend :)

Laurell K. Hamilton – The Anita Blake series
Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series is now up to 11 books. It is set on an alternate Earth where magic works and vampires and werewolves are real. The series revolves around Blake, a tough-as-nails yet sexy zombie-raiser and vampire executioner. Throughout the series, she becomes more deeply enmeshed in cruel plots and counterplots, her tangled personal life only becomes more demanding, more wrenching, and more erotically fraught. Readers should start with the first book and read them in order of publication, as subsequent books usually start where previous ones end – even if some backfilling is included in each book.

Laurie R. King – The Beekeeper's Apprentice
Sherlock Holmes takes on a young, female apprentice in this delightful and well-wrought addition to the master detective's casework. In the early years of WW I, 15-year-old American Mary Russell encounters Holmes, retired in Sussex Downs where Conan Doyle left him raising bees. Mary, an orphan rebelling against her guardian aunt's strictures, impresses the sleuth with her intelligence and acumen. Holmes initiates her into the mysteries of detection, allowing her to participate in a few cases when she comes home from her studies at Oxford. The collaboration is ignited by the kidnapping in Wales of Jessica Simpson, daughter of an American senator. The sleuthing duo find signs of the hand of a master criminal, and after Russell rescues the child, attempts are made on their lives (and on Watson's), with evidence piling up that the master criminal is out to get Holmes and all he holds dear. King ( A Grave Talent ) has created a fitting partner for the Great Detective: a quirky, intelligent woman who can hold her own with a man renowned for his contempt for other people's thought processes. There are 6 books in the series.

The Gallery of regrettable food, savory horrors from the past:
http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/index.html

Also, Stagworld, a look at creepy men's mags from the 50s and 60s:
http://www.lileks.com/institute/stagworld/index.html

In the flu roulette, my number just came up. Urgh. I feel like shit. Feverish, achy, light-headed, I don't know why I came into work today. I spent the evening on my couch last night, huddled under a blanket, shivering away. Of course, that was followed by my ever-so-popular fever dreams. Dear lord, my imagination is WHACKED! Imagine dreaming about building the perfect flu virus out of boolean logic and metal parts. Maybe I shouldn't have watched junkyard wars before going to bed…

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Christian-singles-BDSM-personals/

Their description: kinky christian singles can post their personal ads here… ads from femdom or maledom or switch folks are welcome alike. This list is for single ADULTS with Christian background to post their personal ads and to fellowship. Stories, questions, discussion, prayer requests can also be posted.

Ok people, what are yours?

My website busted our office monthly allocated bandwidth! It's up to 7.5GB of montly transfers! Yowza! Who knew playfur would ever be that popular. The last time I checked, I was up to more than 46,000 unique site visits. Sheeeet.

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040223/BOTOX23/TPHealth/

Amusing quotes from the article:

“[…] Some of the doctors trying out the new technique are reluctant to promote Botox as a treatment for sagging breasts. “I think the best part of the procedure is the posture improvement,” said [a doctor]”

“The injections also tend to make the nipples semi-erect. Dr. Smith believes that Botox is blocking the action of neurotransmitters, or chemical messengers, which would normally retract the nipples.”

I had to take time out of my busy day to nominate this for a darwin award:

A student of Carleton University, in Ottawa, was participating in a long-distance spitting contest with some friends when he tragically lost his life. While taking a running start to gain momentum to beat his friends, he fell off an 11th story balcony.

Ameer Jinah, 20 years old, went over the balcony railing from his 11th story apartment when his running start caused him to follow his spit. The civil engineering student was celebrating his 20th birthday with a dozen friends when the incident occurred.

Ottawa police ruled the death accidental, though they cite that the students were drinking alcohol during the party.

It's tragic, but dear lord, what a stupid way to die.