Practicing egg injection

I was going to inoculate a bunch of chicken embryos today and then I realized that 100.5°F = 38.6°C, not 40.6°C. Shit. I've been frying this last batch of eggs. That would explain why it looked like the embryos stopped growing after a couple of days.

Anyway I decided to use the dead eggs to practice my injection technique...I threw some blue dye (xylene cyanol if you want to know) into some saline and tried to practice yolk sac and allantoic sac injection.

Turned out that the heat had destroyed most of the extra-embryonic membranes too so I couldn't really tell into which compartment the dye had gone when I cracked them open. But I got ONE nice shot:

You can tell it's dead...that embryo is about the width of my finger and they're supposed to be bigger at 10 days. Not to mention less mushy-looking. The funny part is, they didn't all die at the same stage. That means, if we selectively breed them for a few thousand generations, we can create phoenixes.

Testing "Post by email" from my HTC Dream

Ken and all his gadgety blog posts are rubbing off on me.

Also, bird feeder = kitty TV.

Old school

I was reading Jack Williamson's "Dragon's Island". It's a novel on the themes of genetic engineering, supermen, and conspiracy theories; I borrowed it because it was in WIRED magazine's list of neologisms from science fiction - in this case, "genetic engineering". I've been making an effort to read more "classic" science fiction because I think it's worth reading old books; the new ones are a product of the world we live in just as much as we are, so we already know what's in them. The public library's copy has beautiful cover art, looking rather old-fashioned even though it's a 2002 anthology - a shadowy painting of grotesque and colourful animals.

I didn't realize quite how old it was until I came across this passage, jarring in a time when the leader of the world's most powerful nation is half black:

The receptionist was a slim, shy-faced Negro girl, whose limpid eyes seemed to light with devotion when she spoke to Gellian. The operator at the switchboard behind her was a dazzling Nordic blonde, and the trim brunette busy at the teletype machines beyond was Chinese.

Yeek! I was somewhat relieved when I checked the publication date - nineteen fifty-one, a full fifteen years before Uhura showed up on the bridge of the Enterprise. Boleh dikira progresif, I guess.

The full import of the ancient date didn't hit me, however, until I came across this bit:

"What are the genes? Only protein molecules, perhaps, strung like beads to make the chromosomes. But they are the pattern of life. They duplicate themselves, when a cell divides. They are the living templates that shape each new life in the likeness of the old - except when mutation changes the pattern. Suppose we could reach and rebuild them at will!"

In case you still don't get it, this guy was writing about genetic engineering two years before Watson and Crick showed that DNA, not protein, could be the book of life.

This is why I read old books.

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Update: Just finished the novella...right at the end he also throws in the concept of oncolytic viruses (viruses that specifically destroy cancer cells). Oncolytic viruses aren't even on the market yet. I don't think electron microscopy was even invented at the time, so they had no frigging idea what a virus was either.

The point

Human life is about trying to postpone, circumvent, or mitigate death - trying to stay healthy, trying to be remembered, trying to breed. Easter is about the ABOLITION of death.

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In secondary school I read a few books by Charles Williams. He's one of CS Lewis' and JRR Tolkien's lesser-known writing buddies. I don't like his novels as much because they're heavy going and the characters are not as interesting as persons, and they are certainly open to some of the accusations of [in my opinion relatively minor considering cultural context] sexism and racism that were levelled against Lewis and Tolkien, but they're symbolically rich and good reads if you like metaphysical novels. Shadows of Ecstasy is one of the better ones and is about the point I mentioned above - trying to circumvent/postpone death. I just remembered it today and it's probably been about 10 years since I read it.

Fixed bed

I have a pretty good collection of hardware for someone who doesn't own a house yet (or possibly ever). Besides the stuff in this picture I also have a Dremel rotary tool with extra accessories (cutter, sanders, grinders, etc.) and a bike bag of cycling essentials.

I think I get this from Pa. Learning from him how to fix/build stuff was really the only way I could still feel like Daddy's girl after my stupid brother came along... Anyway we have the same style of building furniture - not much finesse, just hacking. We never had the money to buy nice workshop tools. As long as it works, stands up straight, and isn't too splintery, okaylah.

I have this crappy bed that I built from an old futon pallet and a bunch of 2x4s ("two-by-fours", i.e. pieces of wood two inches thick and four inches wide). After a year and a half of use, the pathetic thing was breaking in the middle and CREAKED so loudly when I laid down or moved that it was driving me crazy. Never mind having two people sit on it, whether for licit or illicit purposes.

Anyway I finally got around to fixing it today; built a bridge in the middle to stop the wobble. Let me tell you, making holes with a Dremel cutter bit that is NOT intended for drilling is no fun for the user or the poor Dremel. Also, driving screws by hand is exhausting. (picture of me after screwing for an hour with my friend Phillips head.)

Notice how it is, remarkably, NOT sagging in the middle. (Of course this would be more impressive if I'd taken a "before" pic). Look, it can even support a 4 kg cat now!

The funny part was, my mattress was outside leaning against the wall, and the cats tried to climb it. I'm sort of impressed that my Lina and Caitlin's Sarah managed to climb about 6 vertical feet, even considering that a mattress provides good claw-holds. I think Simon and Suzie were too fat.

The funny part is, Sarah is normally scared of Lina, so after much hissing she finally decided to cede the territory.

The process of democracy

From CJ Cherryh's Cyteen:

Whoever did this, from whatever misguided notion of right above the law, he hasn't scared me into retreat, he's made me know how important law is; and I will run for office, someday; I'll run, and I'll respect the vote in my electorate, whatever the outcome, because an honest contest is one thing, but creating chaos to undermine the people's chosen representative isn't dissent, it's sabotage of the process, the same as the bombers are trying, and I'll have no part of that either.

In case that was a bit much of a run-on sentence to follow, Cherryh is saying that sabotaging democracy by cheating the electoral process is in effect the same as terrorism.

Enough vote-buying, vote-rigging, "hantu" voters, enough party-hopping. Enough chaos.

Shadow Cabinet lineup

If Sirul and Azilah deserve the death sentence, so do the men who ordered them to carry out the murder. "Right, we're just going to go and kidnap and shoot this random Mongolian woman we've never met and who conveniently happens to be the ex-mistress of a certain top politician and his buddy..."

Anyway, I'm not too happy with the new Cabinet lineup, so here's my Shadow Cabinet:

• Prime Minister: Lee Adama
• Education: Laura Roslin
• Defence: William Adama
• Home Affairs: Romo Lampkin
• Foreign Affairs: Kara Thrace (unusual style of diplomacy; knows the way to Earth)
• Transport: Galen Tyrol (proven very good at holding ancient creaky vehicles together; can build luxury car from scratch, no need import Mercedes)
• Women, Family, and Community Development: Sharon Agathon
• Tourism: Caprica-Six (look what happened the last time she visited another place)
• Science, Technology and Innovation: Gaius Baltar


• Human Resources: Cavil (just kidding!)

Manuscript

Well...I've finally gotten a good start on the manuscript I have to write to validate the past two years of my existence. I really hate technical writing. Intro section almost finished and I learned how to use RefWorks' Write-N-Cite tool. Thank goodness for citation managers.

Like many other people, I tend to procrastinate getting started on big projects. The funny thing is, once I start, I usually dig in and can work for very long stretches with few breaks, quite passionately. This doesn't just apply for technical writing but other big projects like drawing and cutting (not that I've done much art since starting grad school). The way I write papers and presentations is usually to read a lot of background material, screw around on the Internet for several hours, start writing around midnight and finish around 3 a.m. I wonder if I'm scared to start because I'm actually scared of how intensely I get sucked into things.