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Thursday, May 31
By Request
The rest of the pictures of the twins' birthday. Labels: birthdays, twins
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Wednesday, May 30
Happy Birthday!
To Jamie, mistress of music and MarioKart. Everyone wish her a good one. :) Labels: birthdays, friends
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Tuesday, May 29
Pieces of You
Although attached to the current compliment of organs in my possession, I am, according to various donor cards and conversations, as fervent an advocate of organ donation as any. Despite this, the organ that handles my ethical dilemma situations can't help but cringe at this attempt to illuminate the problems of organ shortages. Labels: social commentary
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Monday, May 28
Happy Birthday!
To Alec and Kyle, who have leveled up to the grand age of 2 today. :) Labels: alec, birthdays, kyle, twins
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Sunday, May 27
On Safari
My baby sister and her boyfriend visited over the weekend. Commentary to come later. For now, pictures must suffice. Labels: family, haley
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Saturday, May 26
Dear Lane
This is post number 1,042, as you requested. -Jay Labels: lane
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Thursday, May 24
X-Ray Specs
This is pretty slick. I wonder if there will be a freeware version to view on your home computer. Labels: science, wonder
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Monday, May 21
Eye of the Beholder
To say "I enjoy photography" would be so self-evident as to be silly; even a casual glance through my Web log brings up numerous links to my Flickr account (and its at the moment 1,200 photos). A good chunk of those are of family and friends and serve the selfish purpose of personal documentation, and another chunk serves to augment various blog posts. There is, however, a section dedicated strictly to the art of photography, and an examination shows a variety of styles and subjects, from landscapes and celestial occurrences to portraits to "street photography" to macros. I won't say I'm particularly good at any of them, but I like to dabble in the various types to see what catches my fancy. To that end, I've also experimented with the photography of the human form, which is a challenging and, when done right, intriguing medium. Because some of the photos contain mild nudity, however, I made the decision to separate them from my main account and place them in their own account; while I consider them a form of serious artistic expression I understand that not everyone will agree and I've made an effort to avoid forcing an uncomfortable situation. I'm not going to link to the account here, but I did want to let people know it exists and that I'm happy to give out the link (provided you can be mature about it and give me honest feedback). The following is a representative sample from the portfolio (and probably not work safe), so you have an idea of the contents. Labels: photography
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Friday, May 18
I Don't Like Baking
In the sun, that is. People can quit teasing me about my stunning vampire-like complexion and OCD-esque avoidance of sunlight now. It's bad for you, all around. :P I'll get my Vitamin D from my food. On a completely unrelated note (although also gleaned from the morass known formally as "the Internet"), this is fantastic. Pachelbel would have loved it. And on yet another completely unrelated (and extremely geeky) note, Harley sent me this today. I'd imagine " steampunk" isn't a term familiar to the majority of the audience, but it's one of my favorite fiction genres (a fact easily gleaned from my near-obsession with the Myst game series and Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura). Labels: amusement, cool, internet
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Anything a Spider Can
Haley is coming to visit me a week from this weekend. We're thinking of going to the climbing wall at Westroads (probably on Saturday). Anyone else want to go? I think they take reservations if you have enough people. Let me know. Labels: fun
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Thursday, May 17
These Are the Voyages
A microcosm of life, glimpsed, fleetingly, through my eyes: - Haley's graduation went off without a hitch. Everyone was civil and most were even jovial. Haley, unable to escape the salutatorian position of her class (rumor has it she tried and failed), delivered a nice speech on looking to the past and future. The valedictorian of her class also gave a nice speech, although I'm not sure one should quote Napoleon as an inspirational figure. - The reception was well-attended, albeit mostly by people I didn't know. I occupied an interesting limbo between the peers of my parents (most of whom had grown children) and the peers of my sister (who are barely on the cusp of adulthood and considered me "old"), and thus I lapsed into repeating the phrase "I'm doing well, thanks, how are you?" while standing in the corner with my camera. I understand Haley's haul was substantial, much to her delight. - I brought my GameCube on a whim. I expected to play with Haley. I ended up playing with all of my siblings and, for a short time, my father, who in my younger years was an anti-video game zealot (my siblings and I were not allowed to play arcade games or own video game consoles). The shock of such a contrast caught me off guard, while Cris suggested it perhaps means my father is looking forward to spoiling grandkids. Although not as shocking, my brother proved to be something of a videogame prodigy, assuming a position as a serious contender within a few games. I suggested he give up coyote hunting for MarioKart racing, a suggestion met with amused disdain. - I was awakened at 9 a.m. on Saturday morning by repetitive hammering, which I learned came from my father's and brother's attempt to finish installing my mom's new siding before Haley's reception. I was again awakened at 9 a.m. on Sunday morning by a repetitive sound, this time the aural side effects of a congregation of my father's and brother's friends shooting at the refrigerator south of my parents' house (a refrigerator obtained for just such a purpose). I placed a cell phone call from my borrowed bed to my parents' number, where I asked to register a noise complaint with the front desk and suggested a poor rating on hotels.com. To appease me they offered monkeybread. - I provided tech support to two computers and gave Linde one of my spare monitors, and attempted to provide support to my father's home theater woes, although I'm not sure how useful I was in that regard. The trip was brief but good. I think I gained a few pounds. Damn crescent rolls. :) Labels: family
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Wednesday, May 16
Happy Birthday!
To my esteemed and adored mother. Thank you for everything you have worked so hard to provide to your children. ;) Labels: birthdays, family
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Tuesday, May 15
The Jump to Hyperspace
NPR carried a story on hypermilers (people who modify their driving habits to improve, sometimes dramatically, their fuel economy) on a segment last week. The program hosts even interviewed a man who claims to average 90 mpg on a routine basis. The incredibly impressive results in the program are only attainable with a hybrid, of course, but the interviewee mentioned that the tips work for any vehicle (he used the example of an SUV that averages 12 mpg today getting 18 mpg next week with the right preparation). Tricks for forcing a hybrid engine to "glide" during driving aside, the most basic advice is unsurprisingly common sense: frequent maintenance to take advantage of proper tire pressures and fresh oil, avoiding rapid acceleration and breaking, planning trips with the least number of stops and starts, etc. The arrival of another pilgrimage over the weekend presented an opportunity to experiment with some of these ideas (spurred at least in part by a jump in gas prices to $3.25 the day before the departure, although to be honest my fuel economy is decent enough anyway that the experimentation was more out of curiosity, as most good experimentation is). I had an oil change and basic maintenance two days before the trip, and then I intentionally drove 60 mph (well below the 75-mph limit) the entire trip. The results: - The most obvious was an additional two hours of driving. The trip, one way, is about 380 miles, so what was normally an 11-hour round trip ended up being closer to 13. - The trip was far more "relaxed." It's difficult to describe, but there was a certain Zen quality to it, perhaps spurred by an acceptance that the goal was something other than maximizing time (and aided by a subconscious inner smugness toward the other drivers, much like listening to a snippet of drama from a group of high schoolers and then inwardly chuckling at how inconsequential their concerns are in the grand scheme). - Adding to the "relaxed" atmosphere was the fact that I didn't have to use my turn signals or stress about traffic. In fact, I didn't pass a single car and never had to leave my lane. (As a corollary, I imagine there were drivers cursing at the "slow idiot," but that had little immediate impact on me personally.) - The most important result, however, was the jump in fuel economy. The segments from Omaha to Oshkosh and from Oshkosh back as far as North Platte averaged almost 41 mpg, a nearly 25% jump over my trip-standard 32 mpg. My number from North Platte back to Omaha came to 50.1 mpg, a number I'd be inclined to find dubious if I didn't have the gas receipts (that last leg was after dark, making the air conditioner unnecessary, and I did the final 60 miles at 55 mph, which may have been responsible for the extra boost). By my rough estimations, given current gas prices, I traded two hours of driving for around $25. Many people would find that trade something less than worthwhile, but since I was in no hurry I'm happy to take the money and the reduced environmental impact. Perhaps a new tao will emerge from this, along the therapeutic lines of "Zen and the Art of Hypermiling," offering respite from road rage and aggressive driving by releaving the pressure of the destination. Labels: amusement, environment, NPR, science
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Monday, May 14
Documenting Memories
I'm back from the outlands after an eventful weekend. A longer post will follow, but because I know my mother is anxiously awaiting these, I present the photographic record and the video compilation of my baby sister's high school graduation. Congrats, Haley. :) Labels: family, haley
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Thursday, May 10
Base Code
Two hypothetical questions from a recent Discover article: 1. Suppose a train is traveling down a track toward a junction. If the train continues on its course, it will run over and kill five people. You happen to be standing by the switch. If you throw it, the train will follow a different track, where it will run over and kill one person. Do you throw the switch? 2. You are a doctor at a hospital. A nurse comes to you and says "We have five patients with severe organ failure who will die before we can receive transplant organs. A patient is sitting in the waiting room with a broken arm but no other injuries. If we kill him and take his organs, we can save the other five patients. Can we do that?" Do you say "Yes"? According to the article, despite the fact that the practical results are the same (saving five lives at the expense of one life), most people who answer these questions in surveys will say "yes" to the first one and "no" to the second with little hesitation, and most of them are unable to explain why. The article interviews Harvard psychologist Marc Hauser about the ideas he puts forth in his book Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong, which suggests that, just as Noam Chomsky suggested we have an innate, evolution-supplied intuition for language, we also have an innate, evolution-supplied intuition for morality. To support his idea, Hauser points out that in survey questions like those above, people tend to choose the same answers, instinctively, without regard to education or religious background (as he puts it, people from religious and nonreligious backgrounds answer "one hundred percent . . . so far, exactly the same . . . certain aspects of our moral intuitions seem to be immune to such experience [as religion and education level]"), and he talks about studies that show that children younger than 3 can distinguish between a social convention and a moral rule ("raise your hand before you speak" vs. "punch the child next to you"). I found the comparison to language a good analogy. As anyone who has asked my opinion on grammar rules and English classes knows, I've long held that language is intuitive rather than conscious (when we speak, we don't think "okay, I need a verb after this noun"; we just talk). I amuse people now and then when I mention I have an English degree and I get paid to be a proofreader, but I can't name all the parts of speech or cite the various grammar rules, primarily because I learned them after I'd already learned the language and I had no reason to remember them any longer than it took to pass the English tests. Hauser suggests that, similarly, we have an intuitive morality that operates on an unconscious level that influences our decision-making. Like the capacity for language, this capacity can be expressed through a cultural lens (he compares the alienness of gender-specific nouns in French to native English speakers with the alienness of honor killings to western society), but the basic codes are hardwired, the result of millions of years of natural selection that forced our ancestors to make instant decisions about complex social interactions with others. He goes on to note that our intuitive moral decision-making does not always control our actual actions; it's quite common for people to make a moral judgment about something and then ignore it. But the initial reaction seems to be unconsciously directed. Labels: science, social commentary
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Wednesday, May 9
TMI
Seen on Craig's List: "I'm a local professor here in Omaha and my interests are: turtlenecks and mud wrestling ladies." And I thought I had problems. Labels: what the hell
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Tuesday, May 8
Photogenic
Lane dislikes having her picture taken, but she photographs very well. She also plays Mario Kart very well, so we may need to find a new game . . . Labels: lane, photography
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Saturday, May 5
The Surreal World
Like a trip through the rabbit hole, shopping can be an interesting experience now and then. Tonight, for example, sandwiched in between the guy dressed all in black except for a blaze orange boonie hat and the display for what a great many men would hope is a new fashion trend was a guy sitting on the back of his car in the middle of a dark parking lot, all by himself, playing the guitar and singing a (very good) rendition of Augustana's "Boston." Labels: amusement
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Friday, May 4
Aural Amusement
New music update. Tim should be thrilled. Now that iTunes officially allows screenshots I've decided to try it this way, although I'm not entirely happy how readable it is (you can click the magnifying glass to make it better, but my notes go away).
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Tuesday, May 1
What Friends Are For
Other than helping you move bodies, of course. From the eccentric explorations that consume Cris's day comes the ridiculous and yet fantastically entertaining concept of blending random objects. My personal favorite is the dozen glow sticks, but I have to admit the neodymium magnets were very cool as well (nothing like a magnetic powder to play with). The light bulbs were interesting, too, but my fear of silicosis is too great to appreciate it on the same level as the glow sticks, and as much as Lisa likes Coke slushies I doubt she's going to let me make them with an entire unopened Coke can . . . Tim earned 5 "friend points" (redeemable for cool gifts and prizes!) by linking me to XKCD, which is just esoteric enough that those of us "in the know" can't help but chuckle while those with real social lives look on in a puzzled blend of pity and incomprehension. Escher bracelets! Recursive daydreaming! And Schrodinger's Cat references! I think Lisa was slightly disturbed when I confessed that this actually happens to me (I know it's an inanimate object, but it seems like it's being friendly!). And at the risk of offending all of my friends who happen to have MySpace pages (not my "MySpace friends," per se, as my pretentiousness disallows communication through such a coarse medium), I would like to thank the artist for putting in pictures what I've tried to put politely in words to every single person who has ever linked me to a MySpace page (embedded MIDIs sucked a decade ago; adding words to them hasn't made them any less annoying). Tim also earned 1 bonus "friend point" because I found another comic I liked through the one he sent me. Anything featuring a sarcastic, witty (yet secretly good-hearted) main character with a penchant for making jokes about her ample posterior has got to be written for me. (We just won't even go into the extra points for sword references.) The fact that I spent the last 5 hours reading this strip and secretly wondering if women like this exist in Omaha is probably a sign I need a better social life. Labels: amusement, cool, quantum mechanics
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