M. Alan Thomas II

kajafoglio @ 9:29pm: Experiment #1 Torments His Sister
We're leaving early tomorrow for Windycon. In the meantime, here are my children:


The best part is that Alex keeps watching this over and over again, and it makes her laugh like a loon. Hm.

improbable_blog @ 4:02am: It’s hard: To be a bat

http://improbable.com/2009/11/12/guardian-column-182/

http://improbable.com/?p=6591

A new study helps to answer the question raised in Thomas Nagel’s 1974 philosophy essay What Is It Like to Be a Bat? A team of Chinese and British researchers focuses on an aspect of bat-ness that Nagel ignored: fellatio.

Nagel, a professor then at Princeton University, now at New York University, published his batty – batty in the truest, best sense – musings in a scholarly journal called Philosophical Review.

He explained that: “bat sonar, though clearly a form of perception, is not similar in its operation to any sense that we possess, and there is no reason to suppose that it is subjectively like anything we can experience or imagine. This appears to create difficulties for the notion of what it is like to be a bat. We must consider whether any method will permit us to extrapolate to the inner life of the bat from our own case, and if not, what alternative methods there may be for understanding the notion.”

A quarter century later, Min Tan, Gareth Jones, Guangjian Zhu, Jianping Ye, Tiyu Hong, Shanyi Zhou, Shuyi Zhang and Libiao Zhang came up with an alternate method….

So begins this week’s Improbable Research column in The Guardian.

improbable_blog @ 11:42pm: Erectile dysfunction: stimulating news

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ImprobableResearch/~3/-oaiFHF9d9A/

http://improbable.com/?p=6972

If you are male, a headline mentioning male sexual problems could be the key to getting you interested in scientific research. That’s the theory, perhaps, behind a health.com report that begins:

Study links BPA in plastics to erectile dysfunction
Bisphenol-A, a chemical found in hard, clear plastic used to make everything from baby bottles to food packaging, may increase the risk of erectile dysfunction and other sexual problems in male factory workers…

dwell, posting in lj_maintenance @ 2:00pm: Network Maintenance: Saturday, November 14, 2009 at 04:00-06:00 UTC/GMT
On Saturday the 14th at 4AM UTC/GMT we will be upgrading the operating system of our network load balancers to a newer version, one that will allow us to use both CPUs! Nifty, because multiprocessing is nice.

Since we have 2 load balancers, the plan is to upgrade 1 at a time, and there really should be very little impact to our website. Hopefully you won't notice a thing and I'll get to go back to the hotel and watch some wonderful late night infomercials.

We've got a lot of exciting projects coming up for 2010 and we're hoping that we'll be able to deliver them all to you, that you will find it useful/cool/lovely and then you will use the site even more. Behind-the-scenes work like this will give us the capacity to handle the anticipated traffic, so expect a few more maintenance windows especially in the beginning of next year as we've got some neat ideas to improve performance around here! We had the recent 30-45 minute outage yesterday due to one of our logging databases filling up disk space -- not so great design coupled with my human error in handling the initial problem -- and it looks like we're going to finally have some resources to eliminate stuff like that. I can't wait!

As usual, I will be updating status.livejournal.org before and after, just in case you are not able to reach our main website during the work.

apple_jaques @ 10:03am: The 11th day of the 11th month and the 11th hour.
Veterans Day.

It's a day that is difficult. 
It's a day that takes effort Not to be proud.
It's a day rich in history.

We remember.
Grandpas marching proud for their memories of war.
Uncles coming home to a different world.
Brothers leaving home to follow the call.

Friends never the same.
Husbands/Fiances/Boyfriends gone to fight the battle.

There's so many amazing service men and women in my life, and I am proud to have a country protected by their sacrifice.
But today is also, ironically, the anniversary of another death, my mom's father who dies on this day.  And he was a veteran of World War 2. 

girlgeniuscomic @ 9:49pm: Girl Genius Comic for Wednesday November 11, 2009


<3 Oh, dear. I was running around with my cordless drill tearing up my kitchen and banging together a reasonably sturdy makeshift counter so my Mom has something to make sandwiches on while we're gone, and completely forgot what day it is. (All right, it's a long story. Just accept that I was distracted.) So, yes, Phil and I will be at Windycon this weekend. I am really looking forward to it. Also, We now have SQUEEZY CASTLE WULFENBACH AIRSHIPS in stock!

improbable_blog @ 4:02am: Welcome, Rejecta Mathematica

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ImprobableResearch/~3/-9BIXM_URJQ/

http://improbable.com/?p=6369

A new math journal specializes — exclusively — in research papers that have been rejected by other math journals.

We are pleased to announce that the inaugural issue of Rejecta Mathematica is now available at math.rejecta.org! To recap our mission, Rejecta Mathematica is an open access, online journal that publishes only papers that have been rejected from peer-reviewed journals in the mathematical sciences. In addition, every paper appearing in Rejecta Mathematica includes an open letter from its authors discussing the paper’s original review process, disclosing any known flaws in the paper, and stating the case for the paper’s value to the community.

So announce the editors of this splendid new journal.

improbable_blog @ 5:02am: New look at severed gecko tail wag

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ImprobableResearch/~3/r3SLR9hiBZ4/

http://improbable.com/?p=6922

A video shows a severed gecko’s tail gyrating in just the way described in Martin Eiger’s limerick:

Higham and Russell expound
On autotomy. Here’s what they found:
The tail of a lizard,
When severed or scissored,
Goes flipping and flopping around.

Investigator Dany Adams alerts us to a video of the kind of severed gecko’s tail wag that’s celebrated in the recent Severed Gecko’s Tail Limerick Competition (which asked for a limerick to honor the study “Flip, Flop and Fly: Modulated Motor Control and Highly Variable Movement Patterns of Autotomized Gecko Tails,” Timothy E. Higham and Anthony P. Russell, Biology Letters, 2009).

apple_jaques @ 9:34pm: Light at the end of the tunnel.

Career wise, things might be finally falling into place.
And my days as a Barista might be numbered.............for happy reasons.

improbable_blog @ 9:18pm: Advanced security payoff: VW bus

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ImprobableResearch/~3/zu3da1cvq08/

http://improbable.com/?p=6928

The massive amounts of research and money put into U.S. border security has a new payoff:  the recovery of a cheap car that was stolen 35 years ago.

As explained in a November 5, 2009 press release from the Department of Homeland Security:

CBP in Los Angeles Seizes Volkswagen Bus Stolen in 1974
Vehicle was Found inside Container Bound for Europe

As a result of an outbound operation at the Los Angeles/Long Beach seaport, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials seized a 1965 Volkswagen Bus which was reported stolen in Spokane, Wash., more than 35 years ago. On October 19, CBP officers assigned to the Los Angeles/Long Beach seaport complex while examining a container scheduled to be exported to the Netherlands discovered the vehicle….

“This is a unique case that reflects our strategic approach in utilizing the best of intelligence, training and use of information in enforcing laws and regulations at our ports,” said Kevin Weeks, CBP director of Field Operations. The 1965 Volkswagen Bus is in pristine condition and still running.

(Thanks to investigator William J. Maloney for bringing this to our attention.)

Fun fact: For the further adventures of CPB director Kevin Weeks, see the August 28, 2009 press release called “Officers Confiscate Counterfeit Michael Jackson Belt Buckles at California Seaport“.

improbable_blog @ 4:02am: How to read articles about health

http://improbable.com/2009/11/09/how-to-read-articles-about-health/

http://improbable.com/?p=6326

Alicia White explains how to make sense (if there’s any sense there to be made) of new reports about medical breakthroughs and health advice.

If you’ve just read a health-related headline that’s caused you to spit out your morning coffee (“Coffee causes cancer” usually does the trick) it’s always best to follow the Blitz slogan: “Keep Calm and Carry On”. On reading further you’ll often find the headline has left out something important, like “Injecting five rats with really highly concentrated coffee solution caused some changes in cells that might lead to tumours eventually. (Study funded by The Association of Tea Marketing)”.

The most important rule to remember: “Don’t automatically believe the headline”. It is there to draw you into buying the paper and reading the story. Would you read an article called “Coffee pretty unlikely to cause cancer, but you never know”? Probably not.

Before spraying your newspaper with coffee in the future, you need to interrogate the article to see what it says about the research it is reporting on.

So writes Dr. Alicia White in her essay “How to read articles about health and healthcare“.

(Spotted thanks to Ben Goldacre.)

girlgeniuscomic @ 7:34pm: Girl Genius Comic for Monday November 09, 2009
( Girl Genius Comic for Monday November 09, 2009 )

<3 Phil and I will be at Windycon this weekend! Yay! Also, We now have SQUEEZY CASTLE WULFENBACH AIRSHIPS in stock! Woo, I say. And also Hoo.

improbable_blog @ 8:17pm: Improbable Research Collection #123

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ImprobableResearch/~3/JVOo3FZh6nE/

http://improbable.com/?p=6916

William Lipscomb, the 1976 Nobel laureate in chemistry, is a Kentucky colonel. He is famous for wearing string ties. Here he demonstrates how to tie a string tie. We made this video as part of the celebration for Professor Lipscomb’s upcoming 90th birthday.

This is the new episode — #123, “Professor Lipscomb demonstrates how to tie a string tie” — of the Improbable Research TV series.

To see this episode, click on the image at right, and you will be whisked to YouTube (where you can subscribe, if you like, to the Improbable Research channel).

improbable_blog @ 5:06am: Occam’s razor, applied to a bear

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ImprobableResearch/~3/FeD8iuCPPbw/

http://improbable.com/?p=6905

Our psychology editor Robin Abrahams observes forensically that “It’s not unclear. The motive is embedded right there in the final sentence”. She refers to this October 23, 2009 report in The Times:

Ice-skating bear kills circus head

A circus bear killed one person and injured another during rehearsals for an ice-skating show.

The bear, which was part of the Russian State Circus, killed Dmitri Potapov, 25, a circus director who was visiting the show in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. An animal handler who tried to stop the attack suffered bruising to the brain and lacerations to his scalp.

It is unclear why the bear, which was wearing ice skates at the time, attacked Mr Potapov.

improbable_blog @ 5:02am: Grizzly film about Ig winner now online

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ImprobableResearch/~3/QK6IFIzxC6U/

http://improbable.com/?p=6873

Project Grizzly, the splendid National Film Board of Canada documentary about Ig Nobel Prize winner Troy Hurtubise, can now be watched online in its entirety. Troy was awarded the 1998 Ig Nobel Prize in safety engineering for developing, and personally testing a suit of armor that is impervious to grizzly bears. To watch the film, click on the image.

Fun fact #1: Coming to the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony in 1998 (and again when he returned to show off his anti-grizzly-bear suit-of-armor in 1999) Troy had adventures getting his suit through American customs. But he made it. See below for a photo of the 1998 ceremony.

Fun fact #2: Troy continued working on more advanced suits of armor, which led to many further adventures, none of which killed him.

improbable_blog @ 5:02am: WEIRD people proposal

http://improbable.com/2009/11/07/weird-people-proposal/

http://improbable.com/?p=6825

The Weirdest People in the World?
Authors: Joseph Henrich, Steven J. Heine and Ara Norenzayan [all of whom are pictured here]

Behavioral scientists routinely publish broad claims about human psychology and behavior in the world’s top journals based on samples drawn entirely from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. Researchers—often implicitly—assume that either there is little variation across human populations, or that these “standard subjects” are as representative of the species as any other population. Are these assumptions justified? … we need to be less cavalier in addressing questions of human nature on the basis of data drawn from this particularly thin, and rather unusual, slice of humanity.

— so says a call for commentary on a soon-to-be-published paper.

(Thanks to investigator Mark Dionne for bringing this to our attention.)

improbable_blog @ 3:30pm: Diagnostic logic: The Beckoning of education

http://improbable.com/2009/11/06/diagnostic-logic-the-beckoning-of-education/

http://improbable.com/?p=6896

One TV network is pioneering a new educational technique developed by, and embodied in the person of an educator named Glenn Beck. Replacing the outmoded pedagogical method called “logic“, the technique is used to teach anything about anything. However, the technique is difficult to describe in words.*

In this video clip, Jon Stewart of The Daily Show applies and demonstrates the basic method applied and demonstrated by Glenn Beck:

* The Glenn Beck technique is similar to the one used years ago by science historian James Burke in his television program “Connections”, but without the need to actually connect anything.

book_bitch @ 10:09am: ...and stuff.
I've been feeling pretty good this week. I think it might be because I've forced myself back into drawing a lot, inking, coloring, getting some art stuff done. Or it might be because this is kind of the most I've "talked" with shirono in a long time. Or it might be because I wrote ninjarocka couple of long-ass e-mails.

I miss shirono and ninjarock. :(

And art. I missed art, too.

And, you know, all that stuff.

Class today, maybe a visit to the library, yoga/photoshoot/roller derby tomorrow. Busy, busy.



edit: Also shirono and ninjarock are dirty, filthy enablers when it comes to this whole move-to-New-England deal.

improbable_blog @ 5:05am: Ig winner Thorvaldsson pens memoirs

http://improbable.com/2009/11/06/ig-winner-thorvaldsson-pens-memoirs/

http://improbable.com/?p=6882

2009 Ig Nobel economics prize co-winner Armann Thorvaldsson has written a book about his experience. Called Frozen Assets, it is 576 pages long. The publisher says:

Iceland truly lived the boom and bust. Once a tiny country on the edge of Europe, in less than two decades it became a global financial powerhouse.This is the story of how one man, one bank and one country experienced and affected the course of world economic history. Armann Thorvaldsson, a former CEO at Kaupthing in the UK, tells the story…. As the boom got bigger, the Icelandic bankers worked and played hard with their international clients, including Gordon Ramsay, the Candy brothers, Mike Ashley and Robert Tchenguiz. Moving from Reykjavik to London, Monte Carlo and St Tropez, they seemed unstoppable.

Yet, when the bust came, even the most frantic attempts to save the bank were fruitless, leading to the total collapse of the Icelandic economy. Thorvaldsson’s reflections on exactly what happened and why, make compelling reading.

Thorvaldsson and the other directors, executives, and auditors of four Icelandic banks won their Ig for demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa — and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy.

improbable_blog @ 5:02am: Texan bank failure algorithm

http://improbable.com/2009/11/06/texan-bank-failure-algorithm/

http://improbable.com/?p=6773

An investigator who wishes to be unnamed writes:

At first glance, here’s a guy who applies a bank-failure algorithm to sedimentary failure in riverbanks.  Actually, his whole thesis committee should be hanged for not editing the title.

Title:  Incorporating a mechanistic bank failure algorithm into the cellular automaton evolutionary slope and river (Caesar) model, and applying it to a highly erosive reach of the Colorado River, Austin, Texas
Author:  Delbert G Humberson
Publisher:   2009.
OCLC:319708783

Fun fact: In 2006 Delbert Humberson spoke at the same conference, and just a few minutes after, Chip Groat gave his famous keynote. [Check back here next month for more about Chip Groat]

improbable_blog @ 3:17am: Interview with Dr. Knuckle-cracker

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ImprobableResearch/~3/7QLxp-J4zQk/

http://improbable.com/?p=6890

2009 Ig Nobel Medicine Prize winner Dr. Donald Unger gave an in-depth interview on KCAL-9 TV. Dr. Unger won his Ig for investigating a possible cause of arthritis of the fingers, by diligently cracking the knuckles of his left hand — but never cracking the knuckles of his right hand — every day for more than sixty (60) years:

girlgeniuscomic @ 6:40pm: Girl Genius Comic for Friday November 06, 2009
( Girl Genius Comic for Friday November 06, 2009 )

<3 The books are in. The books are being packed and shipped! --Kaja <3

improbable_blog @ 9:25pm: Hell-raising prof inspired by Ig Nobel winner

http://improbable.com/2009/11/05/hell-raising-prof-inspired-by-ig-nobel-winner/

http://improbable.com/?p=6863

A professor who contractually condemned his students to hell was inspired by an Ig Nobel Prize winner. WKRN reports:

Frustrated over cheating allegations, one professor at Middle Tennessee State University took the idea of a traditional honor code in a controversial direction. Suspecting that one of his MBA candidates had just cheated on an exam, Professor Thomas Tang had each of them sign a pledge that said if they had cheated, they’d be condemned to an eternity in Hell. The pledge went on to say if the student cheated they will “be sorry for the rest of [their] life and go to Hell.”…

Tang said he based his pledge on an academic study showing students who read the Ten Commandments before an exam were less likely to cheat.

The academic study that inspired Professor Tang was performed by Dan Ariely. Professor Ariely, a polymath, was awarded the 2008 Ig Nobel Prize in medicine for demonstrating that high-priced fake medicine is more effective than low-priced fake medicine.

News Channel 5 put Professor Tang’s contract on line, where you may draw inspiration reading it.

theljstaff, posting in news @ 1:15pm: LiveJournal Major Notes: Spam counter-attack, RSS feeds again, CSI Deadly Intent contest

The empire strikes back

In recent weeks, we've taken huge steps towards blocking spam accounts on LiveJournal. In fact, we've suspended as many as 30,000 accounts in a single day! We've implemented several pre-emptive measures to prevent the creation of spam accounts, and we've honed our detection of suspicious content. Spam bots are a crafty lot, so we'll continue to refine our tactics and keep up the good fight to keep you safe from spam attacks on LiveJournal.

RSS feeds again

If you're addicted to xkcd_rss, icanhaschzbrgr, or other syndicated feeds, we're pleased to report that we've resolved the update error that was mucking up your RSS feeds. While content was being pulled correctly, it wasn't being posted to the feeds themselves. Late last week, we finally nailed down what we hope was the root problem, so content should post properly. We thank you for your patience.

Wii have killer CSI Deadly Intent contests!

c_s_i

If you're a gamer who loves CSI, have Wii got news for you! c_s_i is sponsoring killer contests. Simply post a question to a member of the CSI crew. The winner will get a free copy of CSI: Deadly Intent for Nintendo Wii (with a retail value of $39.99) and get their question answered by a member of the CSI writing team! There's also a fantastic monthly contest. To enter, join c_s_i, play the online version of CSI: Deadly Intent, and respond to a two-part query for a chance to win a Wii! Entries will be judged on composition and originality. Sorry, but you must be a U.S. resident and over 18 years old to participate. Check out the rules here.

Enveloped in postcards

Last week, we asked you to send in postcards to help us decorate our drab concrete walls. Here's a photo of the results so far! Thank you so much and please keep them coming! You can mail them to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be giving ten random users paid account credits.

Photos of the week

If you haven't visited our new LiveJournal photo community, you're in for an amazing visual trip. LiveJournal users from around the world will take you on a scenic journey to everywhere. Post your own pictures or kick back and enjoy at lj_photophile. You can view some of this week's awesome photos after the jump. Please start tagging with geographic location, since we'd like to track all the places around the world represented in this community. Keep on commenting too!
( Read more... )

improbable_blog @ 6:42pm: Mark the date: 2010 Ig Nobel ceremony

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ImprobableResearch/~3/2PuNJr-Psqg/

http://improbable.com/?p=6860

The 2010 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony (the 20th 1st Annual!) will happen on Thursday night, September 30, and Sanders Theatre, Harvard University. Tickets will go on sale August 1.

Please mark the dates in your calender, and spread the word.