Re=watched a bunch of Doctor Who for the first time since I initially saw it. Freaked out a little when THIS happened.
Be Seeing You.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Statement of Purpose, Take 1.
I sent off my first application today. In case all three of you who read this blog were wondering, here's what I came up with to explain what the hell I want to study:
I am interested in studying taphonomy as an integrated process of interacting ecological systems that are driven by biological, physical, and temporal conditions. Biochemistry and ecological biology in particular inform my approach to forensic anthropology, so though my interest is focused on the breakdown and decay of the dead body I am also curious about how this process interacts with the surrounding environment. I think of the process of decomposition as the discrete microenvironment or ecosystem of the body that was produced during life losing homeostasis and reintegrating with the surrounding (macro) environment.
Traditionally, forensic investigators have focused on specific facets of the taphonomic process (e.g. entomology, toxicology, anthropology, etc.) with less emphasis on quantifying these processes as an integrated ecological system. Micro systems (chemical changes, bacterial activity, entomological life cycles) focus on the discrete body or portions thereof, while macro-environmental systems such as climate, weather, and animal scavenging transform and engage the surrounding ecosystem as well as the body itself. No one system acts in a vacuum, and the state of the remains reflects the interaction of multiple systems. I am interested in examining these system interactions and how such crossover affects the forensic record. Recent research in the field has begun to take this quantitative holistic approach, but much work remains to be done.
Though the taphonomic process is by no means confined to our species, and I strongly believe that investigators should be familiar with faunal taphonomy, I am attracted to the field of forensic taphonomy because it represents a junction between science and the American legal system. I firmly believe in the idea of the “citizen scientist:" that is, the concept that any individual, even those without formal scientific training, can, with a minimum of instruction, understand and appreciate given scientific concepts and processes and the reasonable interpretation thereof.
Though science plays an essential role in contemporary forensic investigations and legal cases, it sometimes becomes a liability in the courtroom where investigators and jurors may get bogged down in overly technical jargon and an excess of details. The validity of our criminal justice system relies on the assumption that the jury is making an informed decision. Decomposition is fascinating simply from an ecological standpoint, and understanding the taphonomic process may improve our comprehenstion of bioscience in general, but the science is of limited value to the legal community if jurors do not understand and accept the validity of the evidence. Taphonomy is an extremely complex topic, yet it can be presented in very basic terms. Many aspects of taphonomic investigation are not yet commonly presented as evidence in the courtroom, but that will likely change in the near future, and we will need to account for a gap in public appreciation and comprehension of taphonomic science. Closing this gap presents a valuable opportunity to enhance the public understanding of the basic tenets of the science and to foster legal decisions that are as well-informed as possible. My experience in theater and visual arts has shown me the power of creative presentation. I am confident that with a little directed effort, we can establish guidelines for presenting evidence that will make taphonomic science fully intelligible to any jury.
That's right, bitches! I WANT TO DO EVERYTHING EVER.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Because I Did
I decided to add hyperlinks to that previous post and found something by Steve Wozniak that talks about the early days of Silicon Valley. It's pretty great. That dude totally reminds me of Matthias the Mouse from the Redwall series.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Popol Vuh
In a few weeks I'm going to a memorial service. It's been put together by a bunch of ex-NeXTies, so I can only imagine how intensely nerdy this might be.
Speaking of nerdy, somehow I've ended up teaching a friggin' zooarchaeology unit. I only realized this yesterday, so now I have to scramble and get some sort of vaguely coherent reference material together. Like, basic stuff. Basic bone biology, basic animal taxonomy. Basic directional terminology. I grew up in a biology household, and all the work I've done on this collection so far has been with a woman who is totally down with scientific classification and identification and bone formation and all that stuff. Turns out, THIS IS NOT STANDARD.
Me:"Have you ever used a field guide?"
Student:"I've seen some before. They were really big." *implication that they were too terrifying to use*
Me (inside my brain): "Oh...this is gonna be painful."
Bone cleaning is all well and good, but you really shouldn't be doing it without knowing what you're looking at. I will FORCE the learning on them. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!
Oh? You want access to this raccoon boiling session? 1. What the hell is wrong with you, weirdo? 2. You have to LEARN STUFF first!!!
....Now if only I knew what I should be teaching. Did I mention that I've never taken a zooarchaeology class? Nor have I taken any kind of osteology class...EVER. I am so not qualified to be doing this. I forget that I have actually taken shit tonnes of biology classes and have a fair amount of hands on experience and also, unlike these students, apparently, I know how to use a book. Or even *gasp* several books AT THE SAME TIME!!!!!
Sorry. I realize that these people are really young and almost certainly haven't had the same sort of access to information as I have always had. Gonna go out on a limb (ha!) and say that they probably don't have horse bones in the back yard....or a deer skull on the TV.
The best part is that right now we're working on (half of) a brown pelican. This is the first bird I've done, so it's all new and exciting!!! (read: I haven't the faintest idea what the fuck I'm doing) Fortunately we live in the future and I have the interwebs at my disposal....though it's surprisingly difficult to find a good example of a pelican skeleton online. What I have learned that birds skeletons are all WILDLY DIFFERENT so even the reference bird skeleton pictures I have are only sort-of useful since the pelican differs in many specifics. Thank you class Aves for making this not easy. Have YOU ever Googled "brown pelican phalanges"?
Other winning moment today:
Student:"Oh! You're on Twitter?!"
Me: "Yes." *changes subject* No, you do not get my Twitter username. It's pretty fucking easy to track me down.
Did I mention that I got asked to write a letter of recommendation? I really tried to persuade her that I was not the best person to do that since, you know, I have ZERO QUALIFICATIONS. No dice. Apparently in her world I count as a legitimate "academic advisor" or some shit. We're doomed.
Be Seeing You.
Speaking of nerdy, somehow I've ended up teaching a friggin' zooarchaeology unit. I only realized this yesterday, so now I have to scramble and get some sort of vaguely coherent reference material together. Like, basic stuff. Basic bone biology, basic animal taxonomy. Basic directional terminology. I grew up in a biology household, and all the work I've done on this collection so far has been with a woman who is totally down with scientific classification and identification and bone formation and all that stuff. Turns out, THIS IS NOT STANDARD.
Me:"Have you ever used a field guide?"
Student:"I've seen some before. They were really big." *implication that they were too terrifying to use*
Me (inside my brain): "Oh...this is gonna be painful."
Bone cleaning is all well and good, but you really shouldn't be doing it without knowing what you're looking at. I will FORCE the learning on them. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!
Oh? You want access to this raccoon boiling session? 1. What the hell is wrong with you, weirdo? 2. You have to LEARN STUFF first!!!
....Now if only I knew what I should be teaching. Did I mention that I've never taken a zooarchaeology class? Nor have I taken any kind of osteology class...EVER. I am so not qualified to be doing this. I forget that I have actually taken shit tonnes of biology classes and have a fair amount of hands on experience and also, unlike these students, apparently, I know how to use a book. Or even *gasp* several books AT THE SAME TIME!!!!!
Sorry. I realize that these people are really young and almost certainly haven't had the same sort of access to information as I have always had. Gonna go out on a limb (ha!) and say that they probably don't have horse bones in the back yard....or a deer skull on the TV.
The best part is that right now we're working on (half of) a brown pelican. This is the first bird I've done, so it's all new and exciting!!! (read: I haven't the faintest idea what the fuck I'm doing) Fortunately we live in the future and I have the interwebs at my disposal....though it's surprisingly difficult to find a good example of a pelican skeleton online. What I have learned that birds skeletons are all WILDLY DIFFERENT so even the reference bird skeleton pictures I have are only sort-of useful since the pelican differs in many specifics. Thank you class Aves for making this not easy. Have YOU ever Googled "brown pelican phalanges"?
Other winning moment today:
Student:"Oh! You're on Twitter?!"
Me: "Yes." *changes subject* No, you do not get my Twitter username. It's pretty fucking easy to track me down.
Did I mention that I got asked to write a letter of recommendation? I really tried to persuade her that I was not the best person to do that since, you know, I have ZERO QUALIFICATIONS. No dice. Apparently in her world I count as a legitimate "academic advisor" or some shit. We're doomed.
Be Seeing You.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Ap-pap-pap-pap-pap-pap-pap-pap-lications
I'm having issues properly articulating my feelings about Steve Jobs dying. It feels a little like the death of a second cousin twice removed or however you wish to define that guy you met once at a family gathering and continued to hear about over the years through the grapevine.
The cousin that was a genius with a reality distortion field. Yeah, I hear that he did act like a real jerk much of the time, and that was kind-of part and parcel with the whole deal.
I hear people sneer at "Mac fanboys" and Macs a lot. All I can think, every single time, is "Do you like the internet? Do you happen to know what kind of system it was invented on? Oh, you've never heard of NeXT? GET THE FUCK OFF MY LAWN."
I grew up alongside the Mac OS. I believe it was the ][gs (but I'm not positive, forgot to ask my dad, and can't find the answer after a desultory search of the Interwebs), but one of the early systems had a recording of Steve talking about how awesome this new computer was and stuff. That's not important. What IS important is that this was the sample in a sound editing program. Basic stuff, like the ability to copy one short part of dialogue (like, oh say, the "pap" sound out of "applications") and then re-insert it a whole bunch of times so instead of a smooth speech, the word sounded more like "apapapapapapapapapap...lications." Not the most complex edit in the world, but to a young girl, it was HILARIOUS. Also then apparently I recorded something that started with me saying "Hello Mr. Computer..."
When I say I'm a child of Silicon Valley, I don't just mean location. In fact, we didn't move over the hill until I was 8. Before then we lived over on the coast in Montara, which was full of all sorts of weirdos. Jef Raskin lived a few houses down from my parents before he moved into a classy house over in Pacifica (and by "classy" I mean "not falling apart and really kind of sketchy in an endearing way like the great majority of houses in Montara"). One aspect of the early computer industry that I think a lot of people either forget or don't know is that it was a originally a bunch of completely crazy nerdy weirdos who did this stuff for fun. My dad went to the Homebrew Computer Club meetings at SLAC (though he wasn't at the one where the Steves introduced the Apple and doesn't actually remember seeing Jobs there...though I pointed out that it was a lot of super crazy brilliant weirdos in one small space and maybe he blended in). My mom went to a few of the meetings and mostly remembers that someone would pull out something like a home-made logic board with a bunch of wires and a display of lights that would flash 888888 and everyone else would get super excited and crowd around it. When my parents went to the West Coast Computer Faire (where they met the arguably psychotic Captain Crunch), they had their picture taken and then it was digitized and printed out using ASCII symbols. We're talking CUTTING EDGE SHIT here!!!
The only time I remember formally meeting Steve Jobs was at a NeXT Christmas party. My sister must have been 9 or 10 and was not at all pleased about having to wear a nice clothes. In fact, she insisted on bringing jeans with us in the car (I assume so she could change into them afterwards). Anyway, at some point during the party, Steve arrived and my parents introduced us to him. The man was wearing a full-on Canadian leisure suit: beat-up jeans and a denim jacket. As soon as we were done talking with him and he walked off, my sister turned around, went out to the car and changed into her jeans.
I don't care how iconic the silver haired guy in a black turtleneck became. Every time anyone mentions Steve Jobs, the image I get in my mind is of that dark-haired dude in the jeans and jean jacket at a company Christmas party. That, and a voice saying "apapapapapapapapapapapap...."
Be Seeing You.
The cousin that was a genius with a reality distortion field. Yeah, I hear that he did act like a real jerk much of the time, and that was kind-of part and parcel with the whole deal.
I hear people sneer at "Mac fanboys" and Macs a lot. All I can think, every single time, is "Do you like the internet? Do you happen to know what kind of system it was invented on? Oh, you've never heard of NeXT? GET THE FUCK OFF MY LAWN."
I grew up alongside the Mac OS. I believe it was the ][gs (but I'm not positive, forgot to ask my dad, and can't find the answer after a desultory search of the Interwebs), but one of the early systems had a recording of Steve talking about how awesome this new computer was and stuff. That's not important. What IS important is that this was the sample in a sound editing program. Basic stuff, like the ability to copy one short part of dialogue (like, oh say, the "pap" sound out of "applications") and then re-insert it a whole bunch of times so instead of a smooth speech, the word sounded more like "apapapapapapapapapap...lications." Not the most complex edit in the world, but to a young girl, it was HILARIOUS. Also then apparently I recorded something that started with me saying "Hello Mr. Computer..."
When I say I'm a child of Silicon Valley, I don't just mean location. In fact, we didn't move over the hill until I was 8. Before then we lived over on the coast in Montara, which was full of all sorts of weirdos. Jef Raskin lived a few houses down from my parents before he moved into a classy house over in Pacifica (and by "classy" I mean "not falling apart and really kind of sketchy in an endearing way like the great majority of houses in Montara"). One aspect of the early computer industry that I think a lot of people either forget or don't know is that it was a originally a bunch of completely crazy nerdy weirdos who did this stuff for fun. My dad went to the Homebrew Computer Club meetings at SLAC (though he wasn't at the one where the Steves introduced the Apple and doesn't actually remember seeing Jobs there...though I pointed out that it was a lot of super crazy brilliant weirdos in one small space and maybe he blended in). My mom went to a few of the meetings and mostly remembers that someone would pull out something like a home-made logic board with a bunch of wires and a display of lights that would flash 888888 and everyone else would get super excited and crowd around it. When my parents went to the West Coast Computer Faire (where they met the arguably psychotic Captain Crunch), they had their picture taken and then it was digitized and printed out using ASCII symbols. We're talking CUTTING EDGE SHIT here!!!
The only time I remember formally meeting Steve Jobs was at a NeXT Christmas party. My sister must have been 9 or 10 and was not at all pleased about having to wear a nice clothes. In fact, she insisted on bringing jeans with us in the car (I assume so she could change into them afterwards). Anyway, at some point during the party, Steve arrived and my parents introduced us to him. The man was wearing a full-on Canadian leisure suit: beat-up jeans and a denim jacket. As soon as we were done talking with him and he walked off, my sister turned around, went out to the car and changed into her jeans.
I don't care how iconic the silver haired guy in a black turtleneck became. Every time anyone mentions Steve Jobs, the image I get in my mind is of that dark-haired dude in the jeans and jean jacket at a company Christmas party. That, and a voice saying "apapapapapapapapapapapap...."
Be Seeing You.
Friday, September 23, 2011
"I happen to have some Paleo-bond at home."
Last night I was a foolish fool without eye protection and I sprayed carburetor cleaner in my eye. To be fair, I was spraying it ON something and it was splash-back that I got in my eye, so it's way less dumb than it could be, but still. It was a pretty idiotic move.
It turns out that 2+ decades of reading safety labels has paid off because I knew exactly how one is supposed to respond to that situation. How many times have you read some variation of, "run cold water over eye for 15 minutes"?. In retrospect, I should have just gotten in the shower, but I didn't think of it at the time. I tried the sink first (extremely awkward), then the hose for a long while(it's really cool to stare down the barrel of a running hose), and then my mom kindly obliged me by running saline and water over my eye for a good 10 or so minutes. The hardest part of it wasn't so much the sensation of water directly on the eyeball as managing to not drown while attempting that. When you're running water over your eyeball with a hose or from a tap, the water splashes all over your nose and mouth. It makes it hard to breathe. We obviously need to get a lab-style eyewash sink installed.
Today you can hardly tell which eye it was, so it really wasn't that bad. At the time, I did think, "Well what's the worst that could happen? I guess I could go blind in one eye. Hey, at least it's not both eyes!" Also, though this was all kinds of crazy solvents, I'm pretty sure it doesn't have anything extremely corrosive in the mix, which was good news for my sclera and friends.
Totally worth it though. I have the beginnings of my Halloween costume. Jabba is going to look repulsive.
In other news, I went into the lab for the first time since I left for Burning Man. I friggin' adore the Foothill Anthro department. School starts on Monday, so everyone there was in HOLY SHIT OMFG!!! mode which is always hilarious and amazing to witness. When I walked in, most of this writing was already on the board.
It turns out that 2+ decades of reading safety labels has paid off because I knew exactly how one is supposed to respond to that situation. How many times have you read some variation of, "run cold water over eye for 15 minutes"?. In retrospect, I should have just gotten in the shower, but I didn't think of it at the time. I tried the sink first (extremely awkward), then the hose for a long while(it's really cool to stare down the barrel of a running hose), and then my mom kindly obliged me by running saline and water over my eye for a good 10 or so minutes. The hardest part of it wasn't so much the sensation of water directly on the eyeball as managing to not drown while attempting that. When you're running water over your eyeball with a hose or from a tap, the water splashes all over your nose and mouth. It makes it hard to breathe. We obviously need to get a lab-style eyewash sink installed.
Today you can hardly tell which eye it was, so it really wasn't that bad. At the time, I did think, "Well what's the worst that could happen? I guess I could go blind in one eye. Hey, at least it's not both eyes!" Also, though this was all kinds of crazy solvents, I'm pretty sure it doesn't have anything extremely corrosive in the mix, which was good news for my sclera and friends.
Totally worth it though. I have the beginnings of my Halloween costume. Jabba is going to look repulsive.
In other news, I went into the lab for the first time since I left for Burning Man. I friggin' adore the Foothill Anthro department. School starts on Monday, so everyone there was in HOLY SHIT OMFG!!! mode which is always hilarious and amazing to witness. When I walked in, most of this writing was already on the board.
 |
| Yes, I blurred out her face because I'm paranoid about the Interwebs. |
 |
| There are one or two things we need to do. My coworkers decided that getting me into grad school was a lab goal. Two of them are looking to do PhD's, and realized they should add themselves to that list too. It's a good thing we ran out of whiteboard space, because god knows what else we would have gone into listing. Though if you're really good at reading tiny scrawl, you can see it says "dry erase"on there because it was determined that we could really use another board. |
Be Seeing You.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Oh hai guys!
"GONNA TAKE A LOT TO TAKE ME AWAY FROM YOUUUUUUU...."
Oh, sorry. That was just me singing along to some really quality music. I've compiled a list for my drive that combines the music we listened to in Ecuador and other random shit I've listened to compulsively on the way to Burning Man in the past. I'm giving someone a ride back to San Francisco, and by that point, I'm pretty sure it won't particularly faze her that I'm belting out bad dance music ballads, our site song, Baby Got Back, a song from the Goofy movie, our other site song, and dancing to some Ghanian pop music and a quality selection of others. Incidentally, I'd never seen the Aben wo aha music video before. So good. Apparently when my cousin/surrogate brother (who is not actually blood related) was in Ghana, when this came on in the market, everyone put their shit down to dance, and then when the song was over, resumed normal actions. Like that scene in the Cantina, except with Daddy Lumba and Ghana and a marketplace rather than Obi Wan, Tattoine, and the most wretched hive of scum and villainy you will....Uh...I can't remember how the line ends. Clearly it's been too long since I watched Star Wars.
OKay, I'm going to go continue on some art. This is part of what my brain looks like right now (it's important that you listen to the correct soundtrack (it's only :30 of bad acting before you hit the unfairly catchy tune):
Be Seeing You
Oh, sorry. That was just me singing along to some really quality music. I've compiled a list for my drive that combines the music we listened to in Ecuador and other random shit I've listened to compulsively on the way to Burning Man in the past. I'm giving someone a ride back to San Francisco, and by that point, I'm pretty sure it won't particularly faze her that I'm belting out bad dance music ballads, our site song, Baby Got Back, a song from the Goofy movie, our other site song, and dancing to some Ghanian pop music and a quality selection of others. Incidentally, I'd never seen the Aben wo aha music video before. So good. Apparently when my cousin/surrogate brother (who is not actually blood related) was in Ghana, when this came on in the market, everyone put their shit down to dance, and then when the song was over, resumed normal actions. Like that scene in the Cantina, except with Daddy Lumba and Ghana and a marketplace rather than Obi Wan, Tattoine, and the most wretched hive of scum and villainy you will....Uh...I can't remember how the line ends. Clearly it's been too long since I watched Star Wars.
OKay, I'm going to go continue on some art. This is part of what my brain looks like right now (it's important that you listen to the correct soundtrack (it's only :30 of bad acting before you hit the unfairly catchy tune):
 |
| Also, I learned drinking games for Roxanne and Thunderstruck. There was a lot of drinking on that trip. Well, lots for me. Mostly because there were no other intoxicants. Not that I would ever indulge in other intoxicants. Except chocolate. |
 |
| Also I had my nails done. Only after it was done, I realized that the color would not match with my dress for the wedding. Then I decided to go with it. That also means I can wear my maroon shoes and not bother getting new ones. |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)