Chris Dwan

Author: cdwan

  • My lyrical fortune for the day

    “Life’s short and hard, like a bodybuilding elf.” (“Lift your head up high” – The Bloodhound Gang)

    We had a nice chat at journal club about the ethics of biotechnology. Like most conversations about ethics, very little was resolved. One thing that’s pretty clear is that scientists have an ever increasing obligation to share their discoveries in a format accessible and comprehensible to the general public. To that end, the Human Genome Project dedicates about 10% of its budget to outreach and education at the high school level. Interestingly, you can come to the conclusion that you have to do this from a number of directions:

    * Knowledge should be shared
    * The public pays for academic science, they should reap the benefits
    * If we don’t share accurate knowledge, hateful fear mongers like the ELF will come and smash our labs and kill us.

  • Meme

    1. Go into your LJ’s archives.
    2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to).
    3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
    4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.

    “Oh well.”

    So there.

    -C

  • Eeeevil.

    Play the Dot Game.

  • Webcast

    I’ve been captured on the web: A talk I gave on Thursday the 29th of April, Cluster computers for bioinformatics, will be available as a Realplayer stream for two weeks from half a week ago. There’s about 9 minutes of dead space at the front.

    Things I learned from listening to excerpts of my talk:
    * I don’t say “umm” as much as people I find really annoying, yet I still say it too much
    * My voice is much more nasal out in the world than it sounds in my head.

  • Good day, sunshine

    Today is shaping up okay. I think we finally have designees to pick up the projects that I’m leaving behind at my current job. This helps assuage the feeling that the last four years have been a total waste. People seem to be coming to terms with the fact that my to-do list is of finite length, and adding to it also necessitates removing from it.

    It’s also supposed to touch 80 degrees today, and the sky is the most stunning shade of blue.

    I’ve been playing with sandpaper, primer, and bondo in an effort to fix some rust spots on the Toyota. It’s sort of a fun little craft project, and I’m glad that we have a car that’s old enough to allow me to learn without feeling too bad about it.

    Back to incorporating Lotus Japonicus sequence data into my database.

  • Ironman

    Ouch.

    That said, I succeeded. Today I rode the Minnesota Ironman, and (so far) have lived to tell about it. It’s just a bike ride (not the other kind of ironman, which usually involves swimming and some other athletic activity). The “ironman” bit comes from the fact that the weather at this time of year in Minnesota is highly variable, and the stated cancellation policy is “never, never, never.” Today, we had rain in the morning and strong winds in the afternoon. A few years back, apparently, there was hail. In 1988, it snowed a metric buttload (to borrow from capital_l).

    There are three options for length of ride: 30, 62, or 100 miles. I decided to do the 62 because it’s about twice what I’ve ever ridden in a single sitting before. From time to time, I will take a weekend morning and ride from my house (in Saint Paul, by the Fairground) over to Uptown Minneapolis, around a lake or two, and back. That’s about 30. In preparation for today’s ride, I did that two weeks ago and was *not* emotionally prepared to turn around and do it again. In between, there has been little time for distance training. So why not? 62 miles. Here we go.

    Here’s the blow-by-blow:

  • Nugget!

    My very first robot became autonomous last night. I’ve been chipping away at it (ha ha) on and off for several months now, and at long last it can roll under its own power, directed by a C program compiled and flashed down to the processor. It’s still blind (no sensors), but there was still an immense satisfaction just in creating a critter that can roll around according to some C program I create. The goal of the project is (a) to be a total geek and (b) to create an autonomous robot cheap and easy enough to assemble that I will be able to make a dozen or more of them and play with flocking behavior. So far, we seem to be succeeding on both counts. The parts-cost for one machine like the one I’ve got now is just under $40.

    So, in the words of Cake, I’m “creating small contraptions that roll across my polished hardwood floor.”

  • General Relativity

    I read the news item in Science about this Gravity Probe satellite. I’ve also heard vague hand waving from amnesiadust about how “frame dragging” works. I’m not ashamed to say that I’m stumped. I’ve got the basic, broad strokes of relativity down…but every time I start to think seriously about frame dragging, my brain starts to overheat until I need to go soak my head.

    Anyone have a good explanation of this phenomenon? Care to offer a pointer?

    -C

  • Punisher

    You know, The Punisher wasn’t all that bad a movie. Admittedly, I’m not trying to wrap my brain around any of the characters, and I hope to God there isn’t a sequel attempt…but it was what I was in the mood for. The bad guys were bad. One of them was even gay (this is how you know a real bad guy, right? Excuse me…what decade is it again?) The good guy was also pretty bad. The brutality was brutal. Not Jesus-beating brutal, but “throwing through walls and hitting with toilets” brutal. There was a nipple, but it was strip club nipple. There were brief attempts at character development…but they were all quickly and mercifully aborted when more violence came knocking. All in all, a worthwhile viewing…but probably not a good first date flick.

    I’m pretty excited for this summer: Alien vs Predator, Chronicles of Riddick, Spider Man II, Dodge Ball (which looks like a nightmare waiting to happen), I robot, Resident Evil Apocalypse, … there will be lots of brain cell killing goodness to go around.

    Still no job. House not sold yet, though people have looked at it.

  • On a sligtly less dignified note…

    I got trapped in my own bathroom last night.

    Got up around 1:30 to get a drink of water. When I tried to open the door, I felt the sickening “give” of a metal tab giving up the ghost inside the doorknob mechanism. Motion of the knob was no longer related to motion of the tongue that holds the door in place. Tried forcing various slim objects in to jimmy it (no dice, fingernail clippers are curved, toothbrush handles are too wide). Tried working the peg out of the hinges (couldn’t do it with my bare hands). Tried the ‘old “lift and twist” on the door itself…but it was too well seated in the frame.

    I started *really* wishing that in addition to the kitchen and laundry room, I had a mini-tool kit (pliers, needlenose pliers, and two screwdrivers) in the bathroom. On the one hand, how many screwrivers do you need? On the other hand, when you want a pliers…you usually want it right at hand.

    Eventually, Jen woke up (overhearing my quiet, yet undignified attempts to free myself) and managed to slide a small screwdriver under the door, which I used to disassemble the doorknob.

    Gah.