Really bad Battlestar Galactica/Indian joke

You know how you think about random things in the shower...

So you know the Tory Foster character in Battlestar Galactica, President Roslin's aide? The actress who plays her looks Indian, right?


Well, maybe she's not really Indian. She could be Cylonese.

:ba-dum-TISH:

Phallocracy

I've done so many influenza microneutralization assays by now that I can do them on semi-autopilot and my mind drifts to random topics.

Today I was thinking about a course I took in college called Women in Classical Antiquity. The class was about 15% blur cases like me who were just taking it to fulfil graduation requirements, about 75% underclassmen girls with feminist pretensions, and about 10% actual Classics majors who were almost groaning in pain at the dumb things that everybody else said.

Apparently a lot of hardcore porn during ancient times was painted on these big bowls that look sort of like punch bowls for drinking wine. I don't remember what they were called. Also, back then "symposium" didn't mean an academic conference. It meant a party where guys would get massively drunk and screw girl whores, boy whores, and each other. These were depicted quite explicitly on the wine bowls.

Obviously the lay public doesn't get to see these in museums much.

One of the books we had to read was called "The Reign of the Phallus" by Eva Keuls. That is the real title. I'm not kidding. Obviously Athens wasn't a great place to live if you were a woman - if you were rich, you got married off at puberty and spent your life as someone's little housewife. If you were poor, you were likely someone's slave. There were statues and paintings of guys with huge cocks in places that modern civilization would never put them. But, this author insisted that Athens was SO pervaded by the thrusting, turgid, masculine principle that she called it a "phallocracy".

I don't like it when people make up words for no good reason. Scientists have to make up words when they discover natural phenomena. I mean, you can't go around calling genes or species or minerals by some boring serial numbers forever. But, in the humanities people seem to just make up words arbitrarily for phenomena that some individual thinks is important. There's no consensus on whether this thing actually exists or not or is worthy of its own nomenclature. Each one of them lives on the little planet of "me".

Phallocracy just sounds plain silly. It conjures up a mental image of giant animated penises in Congress. Furthermore, it clouds communication. You shouldn't make up a word that nobody but you knows the meaning of when an alternative word or short phrase would do - for instance, in this case something like "male supremacy". I'm trying to think of a good one-word alternative, though.

I guess you could call it a dicktatorship.

---

By the way, another book we read for that class was Sarah Pomeroy's "Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves" which was much more sane and helpful if you want to know what life was like for women in ancient Greece.

More personality tests

Occasionally (months apart) I'll find myself taking a batch of personality tests. Sometimes the results are surprising. Of course Internet quizzes aren't the ultimate evaluation of one's character but I find myself doubting my self-image more than the test-writers because the results are so surprising. Here are my results from one on OkCupid:

The Tri-Variable Personality Test
The Eccentric - You scored 30Artist, 45 Philosopher, 25 Scientist!
You live in a world of vast abstraction and color. You are hardly interested in the mechanics of real life; you are preoccupied with the substance of existence (the story and narrative, the symbolism), and the form and shape which life itself takes. You mix the mystical with the rational, like St. Thomas Aquinas, you find inroads between the sublime and the tangible ... you might have a propensity to let yourself go, though, in different ways. Everyday chores and responsibilities are not high on your list of passions; neither is any kind of "daily ritual" most likely. Your ideal work involves something that combines a medium for self expression (such as writing), with the inherent rationality and inquisitiveness of your philosophical side. You are very youthful in your demeanor. You are a true representative of modern culture and society; with its shifts toward new systems of spirituality which combine ancient mysticism with classic reason. You are not preoccupied with wealth most likely. Examples of Eccentrics: Timothy Leary, Stanley Kubrick, Socrates. Quotes from "Eccentrics": "I am a little unusual, a little different and very unique."

This one is even more surprising:

The IQ Adventure Test
(the 4 scores given by this test were verbal, math, spatial, and social)
Your highest IQ is math
High math scorers excel in quantative reasoning, logic, and analysis. You did well here because you are able to quickly calculate sums and understand the relation of the part to the hole, which is particularly useful on a dating website. If you're not an OkCupid member already, you should sign up (it's free!) We could always use more smart people.

Math is also the rarest of the strengths. While most people assume math skills are inborn, and this area of intelligence causes the most frustration in the general population, it is possible to hone this part of your brain. Your skills are already strong, but even doing simple things like calculating the restaurant tip in your head and memorizing phone numbers instead of typing them into your cell will develop your natural ability further. If you're in college and not already studying something technical, you should seriously consider it. People with high aptitude in this area usually get the best jobs and make the most money.

social is your second strongest area
Those with high social intelligence excel, in short, at reading people. They are able to sense the motivations, the attitudes, and in some cases the inner thoughts of those around them. On the IQ Adventure test, we tested for body-language and lie-detection, as these are the most important specific skills. We've found, after correlating scores here with the known patterns of our user-base, those who score high on social intelligence form the most and longest-lasting inerpersonal relationships. Verbal high scorers have a slightly better response rate on messages sent, but social high scorers have by far the better success rate with real-word dates.

Social intelligence is the most practical of all the subjects we measure. Your interpersonal skills are tested hundreds of times a day, and far more can depend on even the most routine conversation that on, say, a word problem or logic puzzle. Interestingly, the savant phenomenon is almost unknown in this intelligence dimension. It appears that up-bringing and practice are the only ways to develop exceptional social ability. It cannot be inborn. This group's power of empathy andIn short, ability to sense (and sometimes manipulate) other people's desires provides a broad foundation for professional and social success. In short, having this type of intelligence enhances all of your other abilities.

---

Anybody who knows me will ROFL at the idea that I have good social skills.

"Every damn morning"

This is why I started keeping a notebook next to my bed to write down dreams.

Peter Dickinson said that the first chapter of The Weathermonger came to him in a dream. Who knows, I could write a novel.

In case you're wondering, the mouseover text on this xkcd strip is a quote from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, where Lucy sneaks into the magician's rooms to find a spell to restore the Monopods, and reads a spell "for the refreshment of the spirit" that turns into a beautiful reverie, but fades from memory as it ends. This essayist believes that the objects Lucy remembers - a cup, a sword, a tree, and a green hill - are a reference to the agony, death, and resurrection of Christ, the story that all other good stories remind us of in one way or another.

I couldn't quite remember whether it was from Lewis or Tolkien.

---

Speaking of the Chronicles of Narnia, FlowerMoonFish and I were discussing the Prince Caspian movie on the phone and she says that the reason Peter and Caspian were written as a pair of testosterone-drenched idiots was that (quoting someone else) "the art of our time can't recognize nobility".

---

Speaking of nobility, I hope that Raja Petra's right and our King doesn't let AAB and gang call a snap election to screw around with Pakatan Rakyat's chances of taking over the government. Sure they're mostly figureheads in a parliamentary democracy...and history has proved over and over again that heredity confers nothing in morality or intelligence...yet I still find myself hoping that when needed the Agong will act, with nobility.

Charles River Labs Christmas card

Charles River sent me a Christmas card...I'm kinda wondering why they bother to be politically correct in English by putting "Season's Greetings" but still have "Joyeux Noel" and "Feliz Navidad."

The funny part was the envelope: illustrating the dangers of using robots to address people.

Doing shots

"Angela and I are going for flu shots at two. Wanna come?"
"Two seems a little early to quit work, but...sure."
"No, we're going to come back afterwards."
"So we're going to be all wasted in lab?"
[blur momentarily]
"I said FLU SHOTS, not shots."

Moms have super vision

This morning I almost missed the bus to work because I'd left my bike at lab yesterday (when one rides so much that one almost forgets how to walk, one also tends to forget to get up earlier to catch the bus). I sat next to a bespectacled young woman with a blonde pixie haircut and two little boys, for whom the ride was clearly not routine.

As we went up the hospital loop, the younger one asked "What's that?"
"That's the Waisman Center," his mother told him.
"There's a lot of ambulances."
"How did you spot them? They're all behind the building."
"I have X-ray vision."

Not to be outdone, his older brother proclaimed, "I have reading vision."
"Mama, I have reading vision and X-ray vision AND laser vision!"

The mother looked at me as I began to break down giggling and sighed, "You guys are good. I only have reading vision. What do you use your laser vision for?"
"I use it for all kinds of creepy things," said the little one.
"So it's a weapon then?"
"Yep."

They went on in this vein for several more minutes. I got off at my stop and, still snickering, left the bookworm and her two little supermen, but what I really wanted to tell her was, "You don't just have reading vision. Mamas have super vision."

All we wanna do is eat your brains

I'm not a huge fan of zombie culture (like the "protest lurch" that was held in Madison last year), but this article from MSNBC was too good to pass up (click heading for link to full story)

6 Die From Brain-Eating Amoeba in Lakes

PHOENIX - It sounds like science fiction but it's true: A killer amoeba living in lakes enters the body through the nose and attacks the brain where it feeds until you die.

Even though encounters with the microscopic bug are extraordinarily rare, it's killed six boys and young men this year. The spike in cases has health officials concerned, and they are predicting more cases in the future.

And if you haven't seen the machinima music video of Jonathan Coulton's Re: Your Brains that this brings to mind, it's worth wasting a few minutes of your life on.

The fate of tattoos

I'm taking Immunology this sem with labmate Angela and boyfriend Steve (and my poor engineer is going to die of acronym bombardment, he's not used to us biologists). So far we're going over the basics...classes of immune cells, the difference between adaptive and innate immunity and whatnot.

If you're a layperson reading this and want to know a bit about immunology I recommend Lennart Nilsson's dramatically beautiful The Body Victorious - you can see some pics from it here. He's most famous for A Child Is Born, which is the one that has all those neat pictures of fetuses.

Anyway, the prof today was talking about macrophages, which are big cells that eat things (you can basically figure it out from the name if you know Greek). One slide was about tattoos, and it finally answered the question I've been wondering about, which is why don't the macrophages eat up the tattoo ink and carry it away?
(Slide copyright Gary A. Splitter)

Actually, I like Sgt. Colon's explanation better (from Terry Pratchett's Jingo, which I think should be recommended reading for all citizens of any nation with a military):

"Sarge," said Nobby, as they looked out at the wonders of the deep.
"Yes, Nobby?"
"You know they say every tiny part of your body is replaced every seven years?"
"A well-known fact," said Sergeant Colon.
"Right. So...I've got a tattoo on my arm, right? Had it done eight years ago. So...how come it's still there?"
Giant seaweeds winnowed the gloom.
"Interesting point," quavered Colon. "Er..."
"I mean, okay, new tiny bits of skin float in, but that means it ought to be all new and pink by now."
A fish with a nose like a saw swam past.
In the middle of all of his other fears, Sergeant Colon tried to think fast.
"What happens," he said, "is that all the blue skin bits are replaced by other blue skin bits. Off'f other peoople's tattoos."
"So...I've got other people's tattoos now?"
"Er...yes."
"Amazing. 'cos it still looks like mine. 's got the crossed daggers and 'WUM.'"
"Wum?"
"It was gonna be 'Mum' but I passed out and Needle Ned didn't notice I was upside down."

Hanging out with sis

My little sister FlowerMoonFish arrived in the US yesterday...Steve and I went to pick her up at O'Hare. She'll be starting college at Williams in Massachusetts this fall, and I could strangle the bloody kid 'cos I'm jealous she's going to a school that has enough money to give its internationals a free roundtrip ticket home every year.

---

At the moment we're just hanging out in my apartment with Lina. Just finished reading about the Backstroke of the West, which is a movie about why you shouldn't back-translate subtitles from one language into the original. (Some guy bought a pirated DVD of Revenge of the Sith, the kind that was videotaped by someone in the cinema. The English subs on the DVD had been back-translated from the original Chinese subs!)

(So thaaaaat's where the "DO NOT WANT!" thing came from.)

Also, FMF says of the second commenter, "I bet it's a Malaysian." Go us! _{(If any S'poreans are reading this pls don't kill me.)}

---

We were out all afternoon and I'd let the cat out when we left so she was covered in burrs as usual. FMF was petting her and thought she'd found another one:

FMF: This burr's not coming out. Wait, it's not a burr!
me: Lemme see?
[small pink thing surrounded by 1cm patch of bare skin]
me: Darling, this cat is a girl. That is a nipple.
FMF: Oh, sorry cat!

=D

Apples to Apples

A bunch of friends had a game night and we were playing Apples to Apples:

Matt: "Shocking".
me: Ooh! [slap card down]
A few minutes later...
Matt: I'd have to say "Electric eels" wins.
Julie [to me]: Four cards! Good job!
Steve: Girl, you like green cards a lot.
me: I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!

Blooper

Maybe I should have taken a screenshot and submitted this one to BBspot before reporting it. Sent the following email to the IT people at my uni today:

Hello,

I'm finding it rather entertaining that there's a messed-up paragraph tag on the page for the "HTML/CSS In a Day" class:

"<div id="ctl00_Main_description"><p>HTML/CSS In a Day combines the most essential aspects of our HTML and CSS classes, providing students with a strong overview of web design in a short amount of time. From using simple tags to mark up text with HTML code and writing rule sets with basic CSS selectors, students will become familiar with HTML and CSS, the languages of the web. By studying HTML and CSS, students can begin to design web pages that are useful, aesthetically pleasing, accessible and available to the whole world. This class condenses several hours of material into a four hour period; not all topics taught in HTML 1, HTML 2, CSS 1, or CSS 2 will be covered.
While this class teaches the most recent version of HTML (XHTML 1.0), the skills taught in the class will help students in almost every web design environment.
p>
<p>
While this class teaches the most recent version of HTML (XHTML 1.0), the skills
taught in the class will help students in almost every web design environment.</p></div>"

Have a nice day =)

It was at here^* but it's fixed now =D I'm thinking of signing up for their JavaScript class so I can make my website cooler...if I ever get around to doing anything else with it besides Blogger. I took a couple of computer science courses in undergrad and liked it enough that I was thinking of doing a minor, but couldn't fit the required maths into my schedule.

The really funny thing is that even those two courses were the only coding I've ever done in my life aside from a bit of messing with ZZT as a kid, I won the Sophomore Prize in Computer Science and people kept thinking I was a CS major after that.

*syiok sendiri*

^*Yes, I realize that's gramatically incorrect. I just like doing Manglish grammar to be cute sometimes. Also as a reaction to my childhood when people avoided the freakish kid who spoke perfect English.

XKCD on: The problem with Wikipedia

SO TRUE.

(from xkcd)

Victoria's Show-through

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Be aware that if you buy a "bra top" garment from Victoria's Secret, they do not, in fact, have bra tops. What they have is an additional layer of whatever fabric the outside of the garment is made of, which means that your titties (or men, if you're buying for a lady friend, her titties) will show through. I ordered this tank (the first thing I ever bought from VS; the girl who lived here before me was getting catalogues) because it was on sale, but I'm sure as heck not wearing it without a strapless bra underneath.

Wow...posting photos of myself trying to look hot...who am I turning into, XiaXue or Furong Jie Jie?

LOLcats

I'm generally against anthropomorphism (e.g. I like Watership Down much better than Redwall) but sometimes it's appropriate...oh gosh I just discovered lolcats today. 60+ pages of funny captions on gut-splittingly funny pictures. Like this one:
As well as some equally funny non-cat pictures:

They also have a link to the LolCat Builder site where you can upload your own image, enter captions, and the site will generate a capped image for you.

So yeah, I've been posting a lot of Lina pics, but this is what I submitted to I Can Has Cheezburger:

On the agenda

Random lists of things

Things I own or owned that are older than me:

• My mum's swimsuit (it was actually quite nice-looking)
• My dad's Bible (pocket-sized copy of the NIV)
• My friend David's mum's old bike (a Motobecane Nomade, mixte-frame road bike. The photo in the Wikipedia entry is mine, actually.)

Things I like:

• Skinny boys (must work on Steve!)
• Sharp knives (I have 14 bladed instruments in my tiny apartment at last count, ranging from a foot-long Filipino bolo to a #11 craft knife)
• Medium-sized dogs
• Cats except brachycephalic breeds (e.g. Persians, which look like they've been punched in the face)
• Rainy days
• Broccoli, green peas, Chinese/Napa cabbage, Chinese radish/daikon
• Boston Cream doughnuts
• Automatic microplate washers
• Watching animals interact without human intervention
• Lindt and Dove chocolates, and those fancy Guylian hazelnut praline seashells
• Fireworks of any type
• Lego
• Complex but gramatically well-structured sentences
• My immediate family and most of the Hwa cousins
• White mice
• Wensleydale cheese
• Char koay teow and Penang laksa
• Microwave ovens
• Evolutionary psychology
• Thick copper wire, like the kind in the solenoids of ceiling fans

Things I don't like:

• Indexed shifters on cheap bikes (because the "clicks" on the shifters don't line up properly with the gears)
• Running
• Pipettors that take weird-sized tips
• Mustard greens
• Toy breeds of dogs (especially since working at a vet clinic in college)
• UMNO politicians
• Girls/women who wear a lot of makeup and expect males to carry things for them
• Radical feminists
• Ultracentrifuges (because I'm scared the rotor will come off and fly through a brick wall)
• Cotton rats, because they bite and they're tough bastards to catch
• Oscillating fans
• Cheap chocolate with palm oil or other vegetable oils substituted for the cocoa butter
• Whiny accents, particularly Malaysian Chinese-school-educated and the US "Valley Girl"
• Powdered latex gloves
• People who are stupid because they're lazy and/or arrogant (people who are stupid because of innate skill level are fine, it's not their fault...and they often act more sensibly than the former type of stupidos)
• Chee cheong fun ("pig intestine noodles")