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Research as Interpretive Dance November 29, 2008

Posted by John Moeller in Internet, Science.
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This is funny. I only watched the first and third, but I was pretty amused.

H/T PZ

This is a Meme That I Can Get Behind… November 29, 2008

Posted by John Moeller in Blog, Internet.
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4 comments

…the “Six Random Things” meme.

For those unfamiliar, a blog meme is a little different from an internet meme. An internet meme’s reproductive success springs naturally from its absurdity or coolness factor. A blog meme must be laboriously nurtured like some kind of informational orchid, or perhaps a pot-bellied pig. There is usually some kind of guilt mechanism to get it to reproduce (kind of like chain emails), and some set of rules that define what goes into it.

The rules:

  1. Link to the person who tagged you (done and done); Tommy didn’t really tag me, Poodles did. But I like Tommy too.
  2. Post the rules on your blog (um, yeah)
  3. Write six random arbitrary things about yourself (grr, see below)
  4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them (six? hell no, this meme gets two; okay, four)
  5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog (memes are so much work…)
  6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up. (done, through the magic of trackbacks)

Six Arbitrary Things about Me:

  1. I dislike the misuse of the word random. Normally, I make a serious attempt not to be a curmudgeon about these things. Language evolves, after all. The word is being overused to the point of dilution, however. Random means specific things, like “without purpose” or “based on chance.”

    I’m not rolling a die to come up with these personal details, and the point of this meme is to get you to know me better, and to induce more Web linkage. I.e., there is a purpose to it. Not random. Arbitrary is the word that describes this kind of list. Grr.

  2. I go through intense food phases. Every so often, I get really into a specific kind of food, like cheese or chocolate. In fact, cheese is a recurring food phase. It can literally be anything, from a specific brand of snack to cocktails. These usually last about two to three weeks.
  3. Happiness to me is not the same as contentment. I’ve had plenty of time in my life to be content, and I can’t seem to do it. I need a focus for my efforts.
  4. When playing RPG’s on the computer, I always make a female character given the choice. I just like having something nicer to look at than a burly man while I play.
  5. The more that I travel, the more that I start to realize why Easterners think that Utahns don’t know what service is.
  6. Professional life has dulled my ability to express what I mean without equivocating or couching what I mean in protective layers.

Taggees:

Obama can’t Legally be President? Really? November 28, 2008

Posted by John Moeller in Politics.
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5 comments

I think that it’s pretty sad that there are still people who question whether Barack Obama may legally be president because of his country of birth. Ed Darrell, writer of Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub, skewers this idea pretty fatally (emphasis his):

Fourth, Obama is a U.S. Senator. As a matter of standard operating procedure, the FBI does a thorough background check on every elected Member of Congress, to certify that they are eligible for top secret clearance, since every member will be seeing national secrets. Occasionally these checks produce questions, which are usually resolved by the Rules Committee of each house. There is no record of any proceeding dealing with any irregularity in the background check for Sen. Obama. This means that there is a rebuttable presumption that the FBI was satisfied with Obama’s citizenship status, as well as his patriotism and ability to keep state secrets.

Basically, it comes down to six reasons why no reasonable person should question his eligibility for the presidency (“rebuttable presumptions,” as Mr. Darrell puts it *):

  1. He has a passport,
  2. For him to have a passport, they’d have to check his Selective Service status,
  3. He’s a lawyer (read the article to find out why that fact is additional evidence),
  4. He’s a senator,
  5. He receives daily National Security briefings from the CIA as of November 4th,
  6. Obama publicly posted his birth certificate.

I might just be up in the night, but the last one seems like a pretty solid reason to trust that his country of origin is the United States. This doesn’t even include another fact that Ed Darrell has blogged about before, that being that each state’s Secretary of State is the entity responsible for challenging eligibility of candidates. We probably would have heard about such a complaint being investigated by at least one state SoS if it were serious.

* [Apparently, this is also a legal term, so it's probably not just as Mr. Darrell puts it.]

Terrorism in Mumbai November 28, 2008

Posted by John Moeller in International, Internet.
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2 comments

So, I’m sure that many of you have heard of the terrorist attack in Mumbai (that’s the city that we’re still accustomed to calling Bombay). I have as well, but when I heard about it, I was unable to discern who the attackers were from anything that I read. But then I realized something: it doesn’t matter. It was awful and criminal, and the perpetrators should be found and arrested. Their motivation simply doesn’t matter.

This is an interesting interview on the topic. It is an interview with a resident of Mumbai, Vinu Ranganathan, who decided to get out on the streets and start taking photographs. He posted all of his photos to Flickr here. That takes a lot of guts.

I think that this is something of which we’re going to see a lot more. Bloggers have already become journalists and sources of opinion in their own rights, enough so that professional journalists, pundits, and agencies often need blogs of their own to have legitimacy. It’s only one more step to amateur photojournalism, and I’m surprised that it isn’t more common.

Thanksgiving Addendum November 27, 2008

Posted by John Moeller in Personal.
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I would be remiss if I did not also thank another pair of people. Quirky’s Dad and Stepmom. This is where we spent Thanksgiving, and the food was great (we brought mashed sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce; no chunks, thank you very much). They’ve also been very supportive of Quirky through the rough time she’s having right now, and they were also very understanding when I had to leave early to get back to all the crap that I need to get done this weekend.

Happy Thanksgiving! November 27, 2008

Posted by John Moeller in Personal.
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2 comments

Yes, I celebrate this day, despite the fact that I’m a dirty atheist. In fact, there has been another ham-fisted attempt by the moral conservatives to tell us that we’re supposed to be unhappy on this day, and of course, there was quite an atheo-bloggerific reaction to it (hush, I can make up a word every now and again).

I also celebrate this day in spite of the people who denounce its ties to oppression of Native Americans. I do that because I also celebrate it in spite of the fact that the idea is to give thanks to a god. In true liberal American fashion, I’m taking it over and ascribing my own meaning to it, and I’m using it to celebrate all of the people in my life, without whom I would be much unhappier.

Today I give thanks to:

  • My parents; I am one of the luckiest people out there in this regard.
  • My spouse, Quirky (pseudonym), who makes my life entertaining.
  • My friends:
    • My sister, and Chris and Ron, who have been very generous with help on my grad school application
    • Nate, who’s been instrumental in my grad school decisions, and who provided me with a wealth of advice and links to good application info, and acted as a sink for my political ravings
    • Robert & Raelyn, and their wonderful and stubbornly independent kids
    • Dean, for helping me through some rough times; I hope I get to see you more
    • My blogging friends, Poodles and chanson (by the way, that’s a word, chanson, not C. Hanson, which is a retronym from chanson)
    • Ethan, for introducing me to the art of digital infrared photography
  • My employers, for being very flexible with my school schedule.
  • My professors, Suresh and Hal, who have put up with me and my incessant questions, and instead of moving me along, have provided a lot of support and mentoring.

I have a lot to be grateful about, and it behooves me to tell the world about it.

Life Scores Another Goal on Me November 10, 2008

Posted by John Moeller in Blog, Personal, School.
1 comment so far

Ok, so it’s been almost a week since the election; you probably want to see something other than that stupid widget. I completed a draft of my personal statement, and sent it to a couple reviewers. After that, I had precisely zero desire to write a damn thing. I’m creatively drained, though I’ve regained some strength.

Midterms/School/Finals

It turns out that I did pretty well in comparison on the Midterms; I found out the scores since my last post about them. I’m usually a harsh critic of myself, so this isn’t surprising. School is still eating up a lot of my time, but it’s enjoyable. I don’t get much of a reprieve, though, since finals and final projects are being discussed now. In fact, I should be working on homework instead of blogging, but whatever (actually, I’m working on homework while I’m blogging; it turns out that the computer does a lot of work for you with ML assignments).

Personal Statement

Like I said above, I finished a draft of my personal statement. For those unaware, a personal statement is an approximately one-page autobiography that is supposed to convince an admissions committee that you’ve got your shit together and that you’ve done something worthy of going there. Oh, and that you can write. If that sounds difficult, it is. In fact, many applicants report it as the most difficult part of the admissions process.

Life

There was a darker part of Quirky’s past that reared its head recently, so we’ve also been dealing with that. I’m obviously not going to get into that here, since it’s not my story to tell; suffice it to say that I’m trying to be supportive without being overly protective. I’ve been trying also to get some quality time in with Quirky; it’s hard with school and work, and writing the statement has made it harder.

Work

Something always has to give when you try to do too much, and unfortunately, it’s been work. I feel bad about it, but at the same time, I don’t know what would have happened if I let something else go. Fortunately, my boss is understanding, but I still feel like I could have done a little bit better.

My lapse with work has also made me realize that I will probably need to cut back my responsibilities in September of next year, assuming I’m accepted. Next semester won’t be as hard; I won’t have as much of a course load. In September, however, I’ll be trying to do more than I was trying to do this semester. I was hoping that I could get away with putting that off until September of 2010, when I start really diving into research.

A friend told me that no matter what you do, you always feel guilty about any free time that you take. It’s turning out to be true. I need another vacation. But I’d feel guilty the whole time, so there’s really no point.

Decision ‘08 Presidential Results November 4, 2008

Posted by John Moeller in News, Politics.
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For your obsessive pleasure, the MSNBC election widget:

Request for Utah Atheist and Agnostic Blogs November 2, 2008

Posted by John Moeller in Blog, Internet, atheism.
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Oh, while I’m handing out chores, find me some atheist/agnostic blogs by people who live in Utah. Not Utahns, mind you, unless their expatriate status is temporary. What I want is blogs by atheists/agnostics who know the Utah experience or are newly discovering it, and are currently living it. So PZ Meyers doesn’t count, even though he lived here for a bit (I think). Everyone knows about Pharyngula anyway.

This doesn’t even have to be limited to blogs. This can be YouTube profiles, for example. Other important Utah atheist links will get a section of their own, outside of this list (when I get the time). That includes organizations and Internet forums. Other more personally-related atheist links will get their own section as well (that includes you, chanson :-) ).

What I want is a list of atheists and agnostics who are part of the Utah culture, and are sharing their experience on the Internet. Can you help me out?

The Lull November 2, 2008

Posted by John Moeller in Personal, School.
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2 comments

Sorry, everyone, for the lull in posts. I don’t mean to be off the grid, as it were. I have a couple things to worry about aside from blogging:

  • Writing my personal statement
  • Work obligations
  • School obligations
  • Studies
  • Having a marriage
  • Obsessing over the election

If you’d like something to do, check out some of the new atheist blogs over there to the right, and let me know how they are. Or check out Poodles’ post, BLOWN TO BITS…(Religion and ways of dying) over at Poodles Place. That one was particularly good.