All glory is fleeting...

Other kind of boxing day.

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 02:34:15 GMT

There is a lot of concern about bills being pushed through Congress too quickly with not enough time for members to read what's actually in the bill. One particular part of the massive spending bill that President Obama signed into law late Wednesday could have used a proof-reader.

It included a provision that requires passengers who carry firearms aboard Amtrak trains to be locked in boxes during their journey; passengers, not the guns.

The error was made during the enrolling process — when the final version of the bill is transferred to parchment paper.

The good news is that Amtrak has six months to implement the new policy, and by then the House and Senate will have had time to fix the mistake, so no one will be forced to travel boxed in a box car.

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 05:08:36 GMT

The step between ecstatic vision and simple frenzy is all too brief.

The light has been spotted officially at the end of the tunnel.

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 01:20:58 GMT

Two more class days, 4 finals, then blessed, blessed time off.

Avert ye eyes if ye dont care for homework.

GET DROP/ADD SLIP FOR ADV MAT LAB
*****
POST TO ASPC 311 WIKI:
Excercise.4. 5S Process

Here is your Final Project, which will be presented on the Final Exam
day: Monday Dec 21, 10:00 am.
Defend a position that you have on an ethical dilemma that faces your profession of choice.
This will be your final project, it should have elements of ethics, quality, data collection, and business.

In addition to your final project, I would like each of you to develop
a Professional Development Plan (PDP) that guides you until age 40. (MUHUHAHAHA!!!! SUCKERS!!! MINES GOING TO BE SHORT!!!!) LOLOLOL
Listed below are some of the categories that you may want to include in your plan. I have also attached some links to online resources for this.
Possible PDP categories:
Education
Networking
Accomplishments
Personal Life
Creating One's Meaning in Life
http://www.quintcareers.com/creating_personal_mission_statements.html
http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/pdp
http://rapidbi.com/created/personaldevelopmentplan.html
*****
PHYSICS HOMEWORK:
Your assignments for this week
• Dropbox by Tuesday before class, the answers to the exercises in these chapters. (Those are the X.# in the text,

with answers at the end of each chapter.)
o N5 x.1, x.2
o N6 x.1, x.2, x.3, x.4, x.5, x.6, x.7
o N7 x.1, x.2, x.3, x.4, x.5, x.6, x.7
o N8 x.1, x.2, x.3, x.4
• HW 8 will be due the last day of the semester, Dec. 15th. HW 8 N11B.6, N12B.4, N13B.3
• Your research paper is also due Dec. 15th. In extenuating circumstances, I will accept papers until the last day

of the semester, Dec. 22 (must clear with me ahead of time).
*****
PRINT QUANT LABS "iron in ore" AND "cuinbrass"
*****
PChem: Assignments for Tuesday
Plot of L vs wavelength of colors.

Fuel content per gallon of butanol and liq, hydrogen

Pastedgraphic1pdf
For this data determine the initial rate of this reaction and determine whether this data fits first order or second order kinetics. Please show plots of this. Also determine the rate constant for this reaction.

Nice grin and a giggle for the afternoon...

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 20:42:38 GMT

CALGARY, ALBERTA - Last season, when the Andrew Brunette-Mikko Koivu-Antti Miettinen line exploded out of the gate, teammates dubbed the line "two blondes and a Brunette."

With the line reunited and yet again sizzling, some Wild diehards are bellowing for the nickname to stick.

One problem, says Koivu, who pointed at Brunette hours before the Wild played the Flames on Friday.

"Gray."

Brunette is graying a tad, so much so that in Denver, Avalanche assistant equipment trainer Cliff Halstead came sprinting up to him and said with a big smile, "I thought a skunk was walking down the hall."

Brunette, who howled, might be 36 and not the fleetest of foot, but he's had no trouble keeping up with his 20-something linemates, especially the red-hot Miettinen.

Story HERE

It seems like just yesterday Andy was holding my infant son at a public appearance in Hudson... time, she flies captain!

I cried.

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 09:23:22 GMT

Honest to gawd on the verge of a weep. This is... incredible.

This video shows the winner of "Ukraine’s Got Talent", Kseniya Simonova, 24, drawing a series of pictures on an illuminated sand table showing how ordinary people were affected by the German invasion during World War II.

The images, projected onto a large screen, moved many in the audience to tears and she won the top prize of about £75,000.

She begins by creating a scene showing a couple sitting holding hands on a bench under a starry sky, but then warplanes appear and the happy scene is obliterated.

It is replaced by a woman’s face crying, but then a baby arrives and the woman smiles again. Once again war returns and Miss Simonova throws the sand into chaos from which a young woman’s face appears.

She quickly becomes an old widow, her face wrinkled and sad, before the image turns into a monument to an Unknown Soldier.

This outdoor scene becomes framed by a window as if the viewer is looking out on the monument from within a house.

In the final scene, a mother and child appear inside and a man standing outside, with his hands pressed against the glass, saying goodbye.

The Great Patriotic War, as it is called in Ukraine, resulted in one in four of the population being killed with eight to 11 million deaths out of a population of 42 million.

Kseniya Simonova says: "I find it difficult enough to create art using paper and pencils or paintbrushes, but using sand and fingers is beyond me. The art, especially when the war is used as the subject matter, even brings some audience members to tears. And there’s surely no bigger compliment."

Its just... wow.

When they're not kissing babies, they're stealin their lollipops!

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 23:24:17 GMT

"A recent Gallup poll ranks members of Congress below car salesmen in honesty and ethical standards.

Fifty-five percent of the respondents said lawmakers were low or very low in those traits. Car salespeople came in at 51 percent. Senators were at 49 percent, stockbrokers 46, and HMO managers 43. The most honest and ethical in the survey: nurses."

Ok, I get all of these... except stockbrokers. Where did I miss the train on that one?

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 02:22:58 GMT

"I've met some folks
Who say that I'm a dreamer
And I've no doubt
There's truth in what they say
But sure a body's bound to be a dreamer
When all the things he loves are far away..."

Missing friends and family far and near tonight. Stay warm.

Vampiric INSPIRATION

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 04:38:18 GMT

Danke Alex!

Romance Novel adaptation for film.....

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 01:13:26 GMT

....believe it or not, I might actually watch this.

Pride and Predator to give Jane Austen an extreme makeover.

The new film from Elton John's Rocket Pictures will have the seven-foot extraterrestrial give the characters from Pride and Prejudice something more immediate to worry about than making advantageous marriages.

Damn.

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 04:20:58 GMT

With thanks to Commander Zero:
Theres a joke that goes something like this: Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are out on a camping trip. It’s the middle of the night and Holmes wakes up Watson.

“Watson! Wake up, man!”
“Huh? What?”
“I just woke up and noticed the bright starry universe above me and do you know what I’ve deduced?”
”That we are all just minor players in a larger drama that we’ll never know the outcome of?”
“No.”
“That the universe is too big and too grand for the human mind to ever fully comprehend?”
“No, no.”
“Well then…what have you deduced from looking at the starry sky above us, Holmes?”
“Its rather obvious, Watson – someone has stolen our tent.”

Another moment of the decade in the NHL

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:47:15 GMT

From top ten players of the decade:

1. Nicklas Lidstrom
When asked for our all-decade team during the summer, we wrote the following about the Detroit Red Wings defenseman:

"When you've won so many Norris Trophies than you can play a game of Jenga with them, I'd say that warrants inclusion on this list."

LOL

Thats good squishie.

From Don Russo:

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 09:24:49 GMT

Heck of a finish here at the X tonight when the oldest player on the Wild, a guy that was drafted No. 1 in the NHL the same year the No. 1 pick on the opposing team was born, continued his fine place recently with a huge performance.

This is even funnier to me know than it normally would have been, given the fact that I am carrying a card from AARP in my wallet.

:)

Things you dont want to find yourself being called in your profession:

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 05:16:46 GMT

"as amiable as a visit from the IRS during a root canal."

Mit thanks to Puck Daddy.

Well.....

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:42:52 GMT

There going to pull it down eventually, its just a matter of time. But from the first moment I saw this part of this episode, I couldnt get the sound out of my brain. I hope it makes you smile. Assuming you get to see it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w9spNdP_X4

HA!

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 06:40:41 GMT

Joel Rosenberg, speaking of his mother and his dislike of ties:

As my mother used to say, “people born to be hanged don’t like to wear anything around their necks prematurely.”

That's some good stuff right there.

Dolphin Viagra?

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 08:21:50 GMT

APPLE VALLEY, Minn. -- One of the oldest known dolphins in captivity is going to be a proud papa at the Minnesota Zoo.
The 45-year-old Semo has been at the zoo since 1991. The zoo says he's thought to be among the oldest dolphins in human care.
The expectant mother is Allie, a 22-year-old Atlantic bottlenose dolphin.

Zoo officials say an ultrasound performed Friday confirms she's pregnant. She's expected to give birth next summer. Zoo spokeswoman Diane Fusco says the calf has a strong heartbeat. She says officials are cautiously optimistic everything will go smoothly.

Allie gave birth this spring but the calf died from complications during labor. The zoo says only 70 percent of dolphin calves survive their first 30 days.

deutscher Schmiedehammer und ein Update

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 03:28:36 GMT

I cant let this one slide. I just can't. Yes most of the crap out there is hysteria, yes media doesnt sell copy unless its got naked assesets or scandal or hyperbole, and yes it all means little in the scheme of things but this review of Political Correctness strikes a chord with moi.
*********************************************************************************
What a surprise -- that someone who shouts "Allahu Akbar" (the "God is great" jihadist battle cry) as he is shooting up a room of American soldiers might have Islamist motives. It certainly was a surprise to the mainstream media, which spent the weekend after the Fort Hood massacre playing down Nidal Hasan's religious beliefs.

"I cringe that he's a Muslim. . . . I think he's probably just a nut case," said Newsweek's Evan Thomas. Some were more adamant. Time's Joe Klein decried "odious attempts by Jewish extremists . . . to argue that the massacre perpetrated by Nidal Hasan was somehow a direct consequence of his Islamic beliefs." While none could match Klein's peculiar cherchez-le-juif motif, the popular story line was of an Army psychiatrist driven over the edge by terrible stories he had heard from soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

They suffered. He listened. He snapped.

Really? What about the doctors and nurses, the counselors and physical therapists at Walter Reed Army Medical Center who every day hear and live with the pain and the suffering of returning soldiers? How many of them then picked up a gun and shot 51 innocents?

And what about civilian psychiatrists -- not the Upper West Side therapist treating Woody Allen neurotics, but the thousands of doctors working with hospitalized psychotics -- who every day hear not just tales but cries of the most excruciating anguish, of the most unimaginable torment? How many of those doctors commit mass murder?

It's been decades since I practiced psychiatry. Perhaps I missed the epidemic.

But, of course, if the shooter is named Nidal Hasan, who National Public Radio reported had been trying to proselytize doctors and patients, then something must be found. Presto! Secondary post-traumatic stress disorder, a handy invention to allow one to ignore the obvious.

And the perfect moral finesse. Medicalizing mass murder not only exonerates. It turns the murderer into a victim, indeed a sympathetic one. After all, secondary PTSD, for those who believe in it (you won't find it in DSM-IV-TR, psychiatry's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual), is known as "compassion fatigue." The poor man -- pushed over the edge by an excess of sensitivity.

Have we totally lost our moral bearings? Nidal Hasan (allegedly) cold-bloodedly killed 13 innocent people. His business card had his name, his profession, his medical degrees and his occupational identity. U.S. Army? No. "SoA" -- Soldier of Allah. In such cases, political correctness is not just an abomination. It's a danger, clear and present.

Consider the Army's treatment of Hasan's previous behavior. NPR's Daniel Zwerdling interviewed a Hasan colleague at Walter Reed about a hair-raising grand rounds that Hasan had apparently given. Grand rounds are the most serious academic event at a teaching hospital -- attending physicians, residents and students gather for a lecture on an instructive case history or therapeutic finding.

I've been to dozens of these. In fact, I gave one myself on post-traumatic retrograde amnesia -- as you can see, these lectures are fairly technical. Not Hasan's. His was an hour-long disquisition on what he called the Koranic view of military service, jihad and war. It included an allegedly authoritative elaboration of the punishments visited upon nonbelievers -- consignment to hell, decapitation, having hot oil poured down your throat. This "really freaked a lot of doctors out," reported NPR.

Nor was this the only incident. "The psychiatrist," reported Zwerdling, "said that he was the kind of guy who the staff actually stood around in the hallway saying: Do you think he's a terrorist, or is he just weird?"

Was anything done about this potential danger? Of course not. Who wants to be accused of Islamophobia and prejudice against a colleague's religion?

One must not speak of such things. Not even now. Not even after we know that Hasan was in communication with a notorious Yemen-based jihad propagandist. As late as Tuesday, The New York Times was running a story on how returning soldiers at Fort Hood had a high level of violence.

What does such violence have to do with Hasan? He was not a returning soldier. And the soldiers who returned home and shot their wives or fellow soldiers didn't cry "Allahu Akbar" as they squeezed the trigger.

The delicacy about the religion in question -- condescending, politically correct and deadly -- is nothing new. A week after the first (1993) World Trade Center attack, the same New York Times ran the following front-page headline about the arrest of one Mohammed Salameh: "Jersey City Man Is Charged in Bombing of Trade Center."

Ah yes, those Jersey men -- so resentful of New York, so prone to violence.
***************************************************************************

The author makes an excellent point. And besides that, the lead in to make a Soprano's joke is priceless. But honestly, how long do we need to live in abject fear of offending? How long must we all walk around with hammers and guillotines ready to strike at a moments notice? I'm in a hub of political correctness six out of seven days of the week. It seems to work here because everybody needs to be on there best behavior. Then again I spend 99% of my time in the Chem area, where concentrating on moral grounds means you dont interrupt the teacher by saying "god-schmod, I wan't my monkey man!"

School is busy as hell and I don't have much time for anything, I've got two labs a week due, a presentation a week, a test every other... but this week is the UofMn Tc 2009 Nano Conference so I'll have my best mingle on. And it comes with free vino and (cheap) beer for the poster session. :)

My future keeps looking like PhD work on nanotubes, possibly doing a joint degree with the law school.

(facepalm)

I never thought I'd be saying that a few years ago.

Ladies and germs, I might have to finally buy a game for the PC.

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 01:30:47 GMT

I forayed into WoW during my summer break (all four weeks of it) and DOW 2 came out awhile ago, but the expansion coming up for it looks....

...delicious!

There will be corruption points and Space Hulks in this one. Very cool.

Bioethics.

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 02:11:33 GMT

Dr. William Osler, one of the founding figures of modern medicine, described the aspirations of biomedical research as follows:

To wrest from nature the secrets which have perplexed philosophers in all ages, to track to their sources the causes of disease, to correlate the vast stores of knowledge that they may be quickly available for the prevention and cure of disease – These are our ambitions.

oh my

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:33:57 GMT

Damn.

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:59:01 GMT

Oh....

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 03:34:11 GMT

And I'm busier than a Obsessive Compulsive Japanese Beaver. In case you needed to know.

Epic decadant decade

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 03:33:16 GMT

Yahoo sports resident blogger Puck Daddy and the crew have been workin on a "X of the decade" series, todays was The ten most significant goals.

Personally, I <3 #10

10. Andrew Brunette's(notes) overtime winner in Game 7 of the 2003 Western Conference Quarterfinals

No one gave the Minnesota Wild a chance against the two-time Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche in the first round of the 2003 Stanley Cup playoffs. It was the first playoff appearance in franchise history for the Wild, and they were expected to play the "happy to be here" part and go away quickly.

Things didn't go quite as the script planned, as Minnesota clawed back from a 3-1 series deficit and Brunette's overtime goal in Game 7 ended the series in dramatic fashion. The series winner would also be the last that was allowed by Patrick Roy who would retire in the off-season. The goal started a postseason run all the way to the Western Conference finals.

kare11.com | Twin Cities, MN | 83-year-old MN grandmother bags 8-point buck

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:48:26 GMT

kare11.com | Twin Cities, MN | 83-year-old MN grandmother bags 8-point buck

ROSE CITY, Minn. -- Perched on a deer stand in central Minnesota, Lois Rosenquist shot and killed an 8-point buck on opening day of deer hunting season.

The 83-year-old grandmother has been hunting for 66 years. She shot the deer on her family's homestead near Rose City with her 20-gauge shotgun.

The Rosenquist family has been hunting those same woods since they emigrated from Sweden over 100 years ago.

Rose City is about 21 miles northeast of Alexandria.
************************************************************

Don't mess with grandma.

The NHL: suspensions

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:14:58 GMT

The NHL's super top secret policy for handing out suspensions:

TOO FUNNY!!!