Dark Matter The Movie

"But the movie isn’t really about science.

As Mr. Chen, the director, said, “It’s about power, in a way.” That would be the nearly feudalistic power that a graduate adviser has over his student, who after 16 or more years sitting in a classroom listening and regurgitating information must now change gears and learn how to produce original research. That grueling process has been the crucible in which new scientists are made ever since Plato mentored Aristotle, and although it rarely leads to murder [adjoining article], it can often lead to disaffection, strife and lifelong feuds. "

Read the NYT article

and i can't help wondering why the university has refused to reveal the letters that Lu Gang wrote before action. maybe he should've sent it to NBC instead...

everyone is blogging about the fun we had.. haha.. i only remember one thing :)

kayaking in the middle of the ocean!!! the best is to just lie there... the sky looks incredibly large and empty when its blue fills every pixel on your retina.. imagine.. nothing but the sky is in sight, nothing but the bobbing of water is in your ear, nothing is in your mind but the tiny hope that it lasts longer... while you're gently rocked by the water up and down. i haven't felt so much at ease for years...if i owned a kayak, i would go out there in the ocean every morning and just lie there for a whole day... :p

(yah but of course good things never last and i had to be pulled back to reality by some idiot who splashed cold seawater on my face.)

i was shopping for mother's day cards yesterday.. and came across this card that says "coporate top, perfect homemaker, best mom!" and got a little scared by the enthusiasm people have over the newly emancipated female sex of the species... how is one supposed to do that?

another observation. as i was discussing this over dessert with a friend, i think witticism is highly related to the power relation in a conversation. i believe that 5 minutes into a conversation, even between strangers, the power relation is established. and from then on only the domineering party can afford to be witty all the time. probably just cos it takes a great deal of confidence to be witty. wonder if there is any, how the neural circuit for humour is like... definitely has a positive input from the "confidence center".

recently me and my friends been talking a lot about relationships and stuff.. there's one thing i've been thinking about, which is the difference between the singaporean kids and american kids in the terminology for being "in a relationship". the singaporean kids say "so and so are attached", whereas the american kids say "so and so are going out", or "so and so are dating". the latter is clearly a verb reflecting the activity of the two people, while the former is a adjective, mainly reflecting the status of the two people. difference in mindset no?

Startle response

at a popping balloon (click image to learn more). from the current issue of journal of neuroscience.

free hugs

this free hug dude so cute...

Stand up, all victims of oppression
For the tyrants fear your might
Don't cling so hard to your possessions
For you have nothing, if you have no rights
Let racist ignorance be ended
For respect makes the empires fall
Freedom is merely privilege extended
Unless enjoyed by one and all.

CHORUS:
So come brothers and sisters
For the struggle carries on
The Internationale
Unites the world in song
So comrades come rally
For this is the time and place
The international ideal
Unites the human race

Let no one build walls to divide us
Walls of hatred nor walls of stone
Come greet the dawn and stand beside us
We'll live together or we'll die alone
In our world poisoned by exploitation
Those who have taken, now they must give
And end the vanity of nations
We've one but one Earth on which to live

And so begins the final drama
In the streets and in the fields
We stand unbowed before their armour
We defy their guns and shields
When we fight, provoked by their aggression
Let us be inspired by life and love
For though they offer us concessions
Change will not come from above.

(c) Billy Bragg, circa 1990

abe visits america

honors

after going to the lab to check on my experiments, went to a friend's honor's recital. when i came back, i saw photos of another friend's BA exhibit on facebook. recital.. exhibition.. thesis.. we are all wrapping up our honors, our bits of adult life, a taste of the professions that we are going to spend the rest of our lives in. undergraduate life is so finished and on ahead we move. someone told me that in college i would be half an adult.. it's quite true. we do all the things that adults do, only in the safe boundaries of the college, and with the certainty that only a student can afford to have. we sing, we paint, we do experiments, and we know that no matter what we do, we will have our recitals in the school concert hall, our exhibit in the school gallery and our posters at the undergrad research poster session. and now we move on to become full adults, hurling ourselves into the full struggles of life, to have a real recital, a real exhibit or a real scientific conference. it won't be easy. but here we come.

photoshop not a verb

digg's adobe photoshop not a verb article... wonder why they are so not cool

i've no idea why the name jorge cham never rang a bell that he was asian. and of course the last thing to come to mind when i think about the guy who created the phd comic - a big geek with an extraordinary sense of humor- would be good looks. but seriously, i would say he's really good looking..

UCSD Virginia Tech Vigil

UCSD Virginia Tech Vigil
Originally uploaded by flyingpillow317.

Photos that a friend of mine took at the VT vigil yesterday... they are quite extraordinary.. tragic beauty..

What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.

-kundera

精辟。。。

There is no means of testing which decision is better, because
there is no basis for comparison. We live everything as it comes, without
warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the
first rehearsal for life is life itself? That is why life is always a
sketch. No, "sketch" is not quite the word, because a sketch is an outline
of something, the groundwork for a picture, whereas the sketch that is our
life is a sketch for nothing, an outline with no picture.

kundera, the unbearable lightness of being

genetics of romance?

from today's nyt

"It so happens that an unusually large number of brain-related genes are situated on the X chromosome. The sudden emergence of the X and Y chromosomes in brain function has caught the attention of evolutionary biologists. Since men have only one X chromosome, natural selection can speedily promote any advantageous mutation that arises in one of the X’s genes. So if those picky women should be looking for smartness in prospective male partners, that might explain why so many brain-related genes ended up on the X.

“It’s popular among male academics to say that females preferred smarter guys,” Dr. Arnold said. “Such genes will be quickly selected in males because new beneficial mutations will be quickly apparent.”

Several profound consequences follow from the fact that men have only one copy of the many X-related brain genes and women two. One is that many neurological diseases are more common in men because women are unlikely to suffer mutations in both copies of a gene.

Another is that men, as a group, “will have more variable brain phenotypes,” Dr. Arnold writes, because women’s second copy of every gene dampens the effects of mutations that arise in the other."

i just read on an old friend's blog that she got an offer from microsoft... it seems that it wan't even that long ago when i first heard her talk about that wish.(actually, that was probably 6 years ago or so.) so dreams DO come true... how exciting. and just the right motivation for me, especially for this week..

life feels great :)

ah..good times...

parasite makes rodents like cats

how interesting...

Google Announces New TiSP System